Wow, There's a Congress that's Worse than Ours!

Public Rage Catching Up With Brazil’s Congress

Paulo Whitaker/Reuters

A protester faced off against the police before a soccer match in Fortaleza, Brazil, on Thursday.

By SIMON ROMERO

RIO DE JANEIRO — One politician was elected to Brazil’s Congress while under investigation for murder after having an adversary killed with a chain saw. Another is wanted by Interpol after being found guilty of diverting more than $10 million from a public road project to offshore bank accounts.

And Brazil’s highest court, the Supreme Federal Tribunal, convicted another congressman of having poor female constituents, who could not afford more children, surgically sterilized in exchange for their votes.

Across the nation, protesters keep taking to the streets by the thousands, venting their anger at a broad range of politicians and problems, including high taxes and deplorable public services. But a special ire has been reserved for Congress and its penchant for sheltering dozens of generously paid legislators who have been charged — and sometimes even convicted — of crimes like money laundering, bribery, drug trafficking, kidnapping and murder.

“Congress is without a doubt the most despised institution in Brazil,” said Maurício Santoro, a political scientist. “A good deal of this hatred is related to the fact that Congress has a tradition of preventing its own members convicted of crimes from ever going to jail.” 

The other day we suggested that the people of Brazil had it right by taking to the streets to show their utter contempt for their congress. Granted. some of the actions cited above are a bit more egregious then the idiocy that our representatives are engaged in (although the chain saw does have some appeal). However, the fact of the matter is that unless and until we send a clear message to Congress that they have got to put and end to this mindless partisan bickering and get something constructive done, they will continue the mindless partisan bickering. We have the power, it's just a matter of deciding to use it.

Alien Pork

Immigration Bill Riddled with Pork

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by Wynton Hall 27 Jun 2013, 10:16 AM PDT 121 post a comment

Lobbyists for resorts, au pair agencies, and the seafood industry successfully slipped special-interest perks into the Senate immigration bill, reports USA Today. And Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) successfully fought to include in the bill a $1.5 billion taxpayer-funded set aside for youth jobs programs.

The revelations are just the latest in what is shaping up to be a pork-laden immigration bill, says Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX).

“You're left with a bill that's chockfull of de facto earmarks, pork-barrel spending and special interest sweeteners, a bill that increase the on-budget deficit, but fails to guarantee a border that's secure and offers only promises, which historically Congress has been very, very, very, very bad about keeping,” said Cornyn on Wednesday.

USA Today says the resort and au pair agency language will be a boon to these businesses:

The changes to the bill follow aggressive lobbying by resorts, au pair agencies and other industries that rely on the J-1 cultural-exchange visa program, which allows foreigners to enter the USA through 14 categories, ranging from interns to visiting scholars. The largest number, nearly 92,000 last year, entered as part of the summer-work travel category, federal records show. An additional 18,000 worked as camp counselors and nearly 14,000 as au pairs.
Businesses that hire these visa holders save money because they don't have to pay unemployment taxes, Medicare or Social Security. Participants must also have their own health insurance, another cost savings.

Cornyn also blasted what he calls the “Alaska seafood special”—language slipped into the bill by Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Mark Begich (D-AK) that will allow seafood processors to hire young foreign workers through a summer work travel program.

Cornyn is not alone in decrying the immigration bill’s taxpayer-funded crony giveaways to favored industries. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said the bill is so riddled with corporate concessions that it “reads like a Christmas wish list for Haliburton.”

Breitbart News reporter Matthew Boyle also reported on the bill’s inclusion of a crony capitalism casino kickback to Las Vegas casinos. Sens. Harry Reid (D-NV) and Dean Heller (R-NV) successfully inserted the language.

The Senate is expected to vote on the immigration bill as early as Thursday.

If it hasn't been obvious for many years, it has become increasingly more obvious, that the rules of Congress need to be changed to prevent amendments being added to a bill that essentially have nothing to do with the bill. For decades it has been a classic tactic to add some pet spending program to military appropriations bills, because if someone from the other party voted against the crap laden bill, they could be categorized as anti-military. You see where this is going. The original intent of the bill will get lost, and then we'll have non stop name calling about how the other guys torpedoed this badly needed legislation.

Maybe we should follow the lead of the people rioting in Brazil. They at least are letting their government know how they feel..

High Tech High Jinx

Bill to Expand U.S. Database to Verify Hires

Nathan Weber for The New York Times

David Borris, center, says businesses could be hurt by an employment eligibility check system.

By JULIA PRESTON and ASHLEY PARKER

WASHINGTON — The sweeping immigration measure advancing rapidly in the Senate goes far beyond much-debated border security measures and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants with a crucial requirement that could affect every American who takes a new job in the future.

The provision, a linchpin of the legislation, would require all employers in the country within five years to use a federal electronic system to verify the legal eligibility to work of every new hire, including American citizens. 

Okay,  the I-9 form that was created by the 1986 Immigration Reform Act was designed to make it mandatory for all employers to verify via documentation that all new hires were legally able to work in the United States. New workers had to present a birth certificate, social security card, passport or some other form of legal ID to prove that they were valid to work in the States. Naturally, as is often the case with overblown congressional legislation, there was no enforcement mechanism to ensure that employers were complying with the I-9 requirements. The rest, shall we say, is history.

Now the Feds want to go high tech and use an electronic database to capture this information.  Without some means of forcing employers to enter this required information, we'll be back to square one again. One way to do it perhaps, is to cross reference employers payroll tax returns against the data entered in this database. The employee listings should match. The employers should be forced to sign a statement that says that they are not paying anyone who isn't in the database. If they are paying illegals aliens off the books in cash, then they should be subjected to serious fines.

The IRS can enforce this when they are not busy taking the fifth amendment about all of the other things that they should not be doing.

Much Ado About Nothing

Listening to liberal activist and civil rights groups reactions to the Supreme Court decision on the Voting rights Act, you would think that life as we know it had come to an end. Actually, life as we used to know it did come to something of an end. The Supremes didn't overturn the entire VRA, All they said was that it's not 1965, it's 2013 and so the tests in Section 4 of the act, originally written in 1965, have to be updated to reflect today. The tests have to reflect that things are no longer the same. Chief Justice Roberts basically said that we should give ourselves a little credit. The VRA has worked in curing many of the unfair practices that it was enacted for. Congress has to go back and modernize the tests proscribed in Section 4. Honestly, what is the big deal about that? There is more than ample data available as regards to racial composition and voter registration in congressional districts.

The VRA has never had any problems being reauthorized (in its original form) by Congress.The mere fact that Congress may actually have to do some work to update Section 4 is not the end of the world. On ther other hand, with this Congress.....

Keystone Cops

From Fox News

Further, Obama weighed in for the first time in months on the contentious issue of the proposed Canada-to-Texas Keystone pipeline. As the State Department reviews the stalled project, Obama said it should only be approved if it doesn't significantly boost emissions.

"Our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution," he said. "The net effects of the pipeline's impact on our climate will be absolutely critical to determining whether this project is allowed to go forward."

President Obama revealed his latest end run around the do-nothing Congress. Frankly, while I may not agree with him, I can understand his frustration. This one had to do with "climate change" (formerly known as "global worming") and new regulations for the operations of coal fired power plants. The president also touched on the Keystone Pipeline (see above). I'm trying to figure how a pipeline impacts climate since nothing comes out of the pipeline and goes into the atmosphere. How can a pipeline in and of itself "significantly boost emissions"?

Frankly, I think what is being emitted here is a lot of hot air from environmental groups (particularly the Sierra Club), who will apparently stop at nothing to derail the Keystone project. Never mind the positive economic impact the pipeline would have in terms of job creation, the environmentalists have continued to take the my way or the highway position. No, they want more Solyndras and inefficient wind farms.

Corzine on the Hot Seat...Finally

Ben Mitchell, USA TODAY 10:22 a.m. EDT June 25, 2013

(Photo: Andrew Burton, Getty Images)

Federal regulators are set to file charges against former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine possibly later this week for his role in the collapse of MF Global.
Citing law enforcement sources close to the case, The New York Times reported Tuesday that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which had regulatory oversight of the mammoth money management firm, is ready to approve civil charges over misuse of client funds.
Corzine, the former chairman and CEO of MF Global, has denied any wrongdoing.
                                        USA Today


Well it's about time. Even though it's a civil suit rather than a criminal suit, it should be interesting to see how Corzine tries to explain how $1 billion of customer funds disappeared on his watch and he somehow was not in any way responsible. I truly hope that the Feds don't do what they usually do, that is, extract a fine while allowing the accused to neither admit or deny guilt. They need to set an example so that the rest of the Wall Street crew maybe thinks twice before they engage in questionable practices or run an operation with slip-shod controls.

Sequestration Doesn't Impact D.C.

Just got back from visiting family down in the D.C. area, and it's pretty easy to see why the unemployment rate there is only 5.3%. Whether you're in Virgina or Maryland, there is nothing but construction of new buildings and infrastructure. The horizon is filled with wall to wall construction cranes.Despite all the jabber about sequestration, the behemoth on the Potomac grows, and grows and grows. Driving around town, you just get so angry seeing what is happening and knowing whose pocket it is coming out of with virtually no end in sight. Ir's out of control folks, and only we can stop it.

James "Clap Trap" Clapper

Well it seems that national security honcho James Clapper, decided to tell a congressional committee under oath "the least untruthful answer." I wonder if he did that "wittingly." What is truly bizzare about this is that Sen. Wyden of Oregon who posed the question, let Clapper know a day before his testimony that the question was going to be asked. One would think that Clapper could have come up with a better answer, or could have advised Wyden that he was going to hide behind "That's a matter of national security that I'm not at liberty to talk about." In an open hearing, that would have been understandable. But no, Mr. Clapper decided to lie. For this he should be fired so that he can live on his big fat government pension that he so richly deserves.

Constitutional Scholar?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

One would presume that a sitting president who allegedly was a constitutional law professor would have a passing familiarity with the fourth amendment to the constitution. While there is no doubt that the world was changed forever after 9/11, and our government does have to use more aggressive tactics to deal with the bad guys, there do need to be some limits. Can we really trust that the government will be absolutely pristine in the way that it handles all of this highly sensitive and personal information? What impact will this have on the way people use Google, Facebook, Twitter etc.?

Go back and listen to the now utterly vacuous and some might say hypocritical campaign rhetoric that President Obama  delivered about curbing the civil rights abuses of the Bush administration. Listen to the palaver about transparency. What Obama has knowingly approved is so far removed from what he promised to do it's a wonder he can keep a straight face. He now says he wants to have a debate on this subject, sure now that he's been outed. amazing when you think about it; this is the very stuff that presidents would rail at Soviet and Chinese leaders about and now it's right in our own backyard.

My guess is that there will be very little debate of any substance. We don't want to give our methods away to the bad guys, so everyone in the government will clam up for security reasons. This will just fade from the headline and go on and on. That is, unless we discover that it has been used in inappropriate ways. Very sad, indeed.

Isn't it interesting how the Mainstream Media refers to Benghazi,  the IRS and the press wiretapping as "controversies" rather than scandals. I wonder if we removed Obama and Holder and substituted Bush and Ashcroft whether they would still be whistling the same tune. Good lord, what a pack of tedious frauds!