Good Morning,

We have been talking about the Fast & Furious scandal – for months. We have listened to the testimony; listened to the dodging and blame game; listened to the ‘you can’t have those papers b/c they are confidential, etc. So, can anyone out there figure out why some Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform committee have a problem with holding AG Holder in contempt of Congress? I cannot even believe I am reporting this but Rep. Issa may NOT have the numbers to hold Holder in contempt for violating congressional subpoena!

With only 15 committee Republicans publicly supporting the resolution — and no Democrats — Issa falls short of the 21 votes he needs to pass it out of the 40-member panel to the House floor.
Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) plans to hold off making a decision on whether he will support the measure until Issa puts forward a final version of the resolution and formally introduces it, his office told The Hill. Rep. Frank Guinta’s (R-N.H.) office said the lawmaker declined to comment on whether he supports Issa’s measure.
Reps. Todd Platts (R-Pa.), Mike Turner (R-Ohio), Connie Mack (R-Fla.), Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.) and Dennis Ross (R-Fla.) have not responded to repeated requests for comment over the past two weeks.
The Hill reports How members plan to vote on Holder issue
Yes
• Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) — chairman
• Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.)
• Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.)
• Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.)
• Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)
• Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah)
• Rep. James Lankford (R-Okla.)
• Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-N.Y.)
• Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.)
• Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho)
• Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.)
• Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.)
• Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.)
• Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas)
• Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.)
Not committed
• Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) — plans to hold off making his decision until a final draft is put forward
• Rep. Frank Guinta (R-N.H.) — no comment
Did not respond
• Rep. Todd Platts (R-Pa.)
• Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio)
• Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.)
• Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.)
• Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.)
• Rep. Dennis Ross (R-Fla.)
I have only 1 question for these cowardly Republicans – do we WANT to know the truth or not?

Well, today it begins. The Obama administration wants the Senate to act on the LOST treaty, which has been around since 1982. Senator Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, will be holding a series of hearings, beginning today. Heritage informs us that according to its advocates, we need LOST for a variety of reasons. One of them concerns the oil and gas resources located in the outer limits of our continental shelf. The treaty’s proponents say we can obtain legal title to it only by signing on to the treaty.
“If the United States does not ratify this treaty, our ability to claim the vast extended continental shelf off Alaska will be seriously impeded,” saidSen. Richard G. Lugar, Indiana Republican.
Without LOST, we are told, we will not be able to develop the hydrocarbon resources beneath the extended continental shelf in areas such as the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Ocean.
Sounds pretty dire and, at a time of fluctuating prices for gasoline and other forms of energy, alarming. Fortunately, it’s not true.
Under international law and long-standing U.S. policy, we already have access to these areas. Presidents dating back to Harry Truman have issued proclamations – and Congress has passed laws – establishing America’s maritime laws and boundaries. And no one has challenged them.
Perhaps LOST’s proponents would like this to change. They tend to be fans of superfluous international agreements and frequently back policies that would tie the hands of the U.S. and prevent us from acting in our own interests. But the fact remains that their claim about LOST being necessary to obtain legal title to the oil and gas under the extended continental shelf is pure fiction.
A big part of the reason this matters is that a lot of money is at stake. It is hard to say exactly how much hydrocarbon deposits there are beneath the extended continental shelf, but according to the ECS Task Force, “Given the size of the U.S. continental shelf, the resources we find there may be worth many billions, if not trillions, of dollars.”
Forgoing such a treasure is not the only way that the United States could lose out financially under LOST. Environmental activists are high on the treaty, too. That is because they anticipate suing the U.S., if it joins LOST, to force America to adopt the radical climate-change agenda they have been unsuccessful at imposing. So far, at least.
Climate-change alarmists have tried again and again in recent years to secure an international agreement. In Denmark, Mexico and South Africa, they have tried to come up with a legally binding climate-change pact. Considering what an economic wrecking ball such an agreement would represent to the U.S. and its allies, we can be glad they failed. But now they think they have found a solution: LOST.
Groups such as Greenpeace would love a chance to make the U.S. pay in international court. And that is just what we would do under the U.S. Convention on the Law of the Sea – pay.
“In addition to needlessly exposing itself to baseless environmental lawsuits,” writes The Heritage Foundation’s Steve Groves, an expert on LOST, “the United States would be required to transfer billions of dollars in oil and gas royalties … to the International Seabed Authority for redistribution to the developing world.”
What does this mean? In short, it means that the United Nations will have an independent source of income, courtesy of the United States.
So who has Sen. Kerry invited to testify at his hearings? Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. All of them are proponents of the treaty. So do not expect to hear a word about any of its many drawbacks.
LOST amounts too little more than an expensive power grab by America’s detractors worldwide. President Reagan was right to reject it 30 years ago. The U.S. Senate should do the same thing today. Can anyone say Houston we have a BIG problem with this administration?

Illegal aliens can claim more than $4 billion a year in child tax credit for dependents, many of whom don’t even live in the United States. Reid objected to a unanimous consent request to call up and pass legislation that would close this loophole which the Treasury Department’s independent Inspector General for Tax Administration has asked Congress to do in the absence of administrative action.

In even more aggravating news CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) has been demanding that law enforcement agencies turn over counterterrorism training materials and related records. CAIR wants to review and ‘improve’ training materials provided to the County Sheriff’s Office personnel, equipping them better to engage in more effective policing. Yes, CAIR, the unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism financing trial in American history; the group identified by our Justice Department as connected to the terrorist organization Hamas; a front organization for the Muslim Brotherhood; and the group who has had several former officials arrested, indicted, convicted or deported on charges ranging from visa fraud to terrorism conspiracy wants to review, vet and ‘improve’ our counterterrorism training materials our country sheriff’s offices use.
Brigitte Gabriel has something to say about this:

On a side note: CAIR released a “community tool kit” back in March designed to counter “anti-Sharia” bills introduced in more than 20 states. CAIR had said it’s “Securing Religious Liberty” tool kit includes “lessons learned from opposing anti-Muslim legislative efforts in Oklahoma, Tennessee and Michigan, an explanation of the legal impact of the discriminatory bills and a discussion of what Sharia is and what it is not.” Think we should allow them access to our counter terrorism material?? I DON’T!

Obama’s NLRB has approved a union to organize in just the shoe department within a department store. This will create chaos in companies where some workers are union and some are not. The obvious goal of the union is to eventually organize all the employees. They can’t get a majority to vote for unionization so this gimmick allows the camel’s nose under the tent.

Half-truths and partisan dissembling are regular features in American politics, and neither side is blameless in the endless spin cycle. To paraphrase the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, everyone is entitled to their own opinion — not their own facts. Townhall reports that Democrats seem to be working harder than usual to invent and misconstrue facts for political advantage. Let’s run through today’s distortions and flat-out lies:
(1) An Obama spokesman claimed on CNN that the campaign did not reach out to (fleeting) Democratic apostate Cory Booker to, ahem, “encourage” him to walk back his problematic comments on Sunday’s Meet the Press. Except…Booker himself has said the opposite, and NBC’s Chuck Todd reported that “multiple conversations” took place:

2) The Democratic National Committee tweeted this whopper today:

RT @TheDemocrats: Under President Obama, government spending is at the lowest level in nearly 60 years. http://j.mp/MDK69n

Excuse me? First of all, the tendentious piece they link to argues that the rate of spending increase under Obama is the slowest its been since the 1950s, which is a separate claim from the laughable assertion Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s shop tweeted out. The column fails to take into account that Obama has made permanent, and is building off of, “emergency” spending levels that he himself has supported — both as a Senator (TARP) and as president (the stimulus). Thus any measure of his “slow” rate of growth is highly misleading, due to the historically-inflated baseline from which he started. So in context, it’s a bogus statistic, but at least it’s rooted in some degree of reality. What the Democrats spun this into is the howler that “government spending is at the lowest level” in many decades under this administration. Forget the fact that Obama has presided over four straight trillion-dollar-plus annual deficits. Forget that he’s added more to the national debt than the first 41 presidents (and change) combined. Forget that his reckless budgets propose to pour trillions more into America’s red sea. Just look at this chart, and try to reconcile it with the statement advanced by the Democrat Party this afternoon:
523c
Verdict: Flagrant, pants-on-fire lie. Say what you will about DWS, she certainly sets the tone over at the DNC.

(3) President Obama’s SuperPAC — which still has not returned its $1 million donation from serial misogynist and Mormon-baiter Bill Maher — is up with a new ad slamming Mitt Romney’s wicked doings at Bain Capital:

The company this woman worked for, Ampad, went under in January 2000 — almost a year after Mitt Romney left Bain Capital to save the Winter Olympics. Yes, Romney was there when the initial investment occurred, but he was far less involved in the firm’s management of Ampad than someone else who curiously escaped scrutiny in the ad (via ABC News):

Here’s what the Obama Web video doesn’t mention: A top Obama donor and fundraiser had a much more direct tie to the controversy and actually served on the board of directors at Richardson, Texas-based Ampad, which makes office paper products. Jonathan Lavine is a long-time Bain Capital executive and co-owner of the Boston Celtics. He is also one of President Obama’s most prolific fundraisers. He has already raised more than $200,000 for the Obama campaign this election, according to Federal Election Commission records. Lavine started working for Bain in 1993. He was one of three Bain executives who served on the board of directors of Ampad for several years, a post he held until 1999. Here’s a news release announcing his departure from the company in April 1999. Lavine’s placement on the board of Ampad suggests he had a more direct role than Romney in the series of events surrounding the layoffs, labor disputes and eventual bankruptcy of the Marion, Ind., factory featured in the Obama campaign video.

Well, well, well. What tangled webs they weave. In this case, the Obama backers’ sin is one of omission — harping on Bain’s relatively few instances of failure, while refusing to acknowledge their own ally’s outsized role in this highlighted incident. Overall, Bain Capital’s record was exemplary. Don’t ask me, or Cory Booker, or Steve Rattner, or Harold Ford Jr…ask Democrat Senator Mark Warner:

Boy, this Bain stuff is really unraveling, huh? No matter. They’ve got to keep plucking this chicken; The One has pronounced it a central issue of the campaign. Verdict: Intentionally incomplete dishonesty.

And, to round out the insanity – NYS Senator Liz Krueger posted late yesterday ‘more video from basic training for the war on women’. This mantra is OLD, but it continues to be pushed. We can’t fall for any of it. This, I’m sorry here – but lunatic woman, says that rape and a broken condom are an equal issue! HUH? On what planet??? This is the same rep that has a huge problem with fingerprinting food stamp applicants. SHE MUST GO! Here is how the following meeting was announced: There is a war against women raging across the country. Presidential candidates are speaking out in opposition to basic contraception. Anti-woman legislators around the country are trying to put more and more barriers between women and their reproductive rights. Wisconsin’s governor just pushed through a repeal of his state’s Equal Pay Enforcement Act. Even here in New York, we are having difficulty pushing a pro-woman agenda forward. Join us for an evening of basic training to learn what you can do to stop the War Against Women. Speakers include:
Senator Liz Krueger: New York State Senator, 26th Senate District
Jessica Valenti: Author and Founder, Feministing.com
Joe Rollins: Associate Professor and Executive Officer, The Graduate Center of CUNY and Queens College
Jamia Wilson: Vice-President of Programs, Women’s Media Center
Amy Richards: Author and Feminist Activst, Soapboxinc.com

Today’s beyond the headline http://wp.me/P2qIo2-P We can’t actually afford or deliver anything we’re promising you – but we’re promising it to you anyway!
That should be the headline of politics and politicians on both sides! Be sure to watch the video at the end for it DOES offer some true HOPE!

Ahh, some good news: Congratulations go out to Assemblyman Steve Katz who won the Republican Convention’s endorsement for the 94th district – 12,685 to 550. Kim Izzarelli won too!
Keep Thinking; Keep Sharing; Enjoy your day,

Lisa