WASHINGTON - Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and the Congressional Western Caucus have joined in opposition to legislation introduced by Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.) that seeks to provide the federal government with jurisdictional authority over all water across the entire United States.Walden says the legislation, titled "America's Commitment to Clean Water Act," seeks to expand the federal government's control of U.S. water under the Clean Water Act by removing the existing requirement that regulated waterways be "navigable," Walden's office said in a news release that under the proposed legislation, all inland waters, on both public and private lands, would be controlled and regulated by the federal government. http://www.ktvz.com/Global/story.asp?S=12439033&nav=menu578_2
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A bill introduced this month in Congress would put the federal and state governments in the business of tracking how fat, or skinny, American children are. [At what point will they be knocking on our doors, checking our pantries, and fining us for our overweight children? When will enough be enough?]
States receiving federal grants provided for in the bill would be required to annually track the Body Mass Index of all children ages 2 through 18. The grant-receiving states would be required to mandate that all health care providers in the state determine the Body Mass Index of all their patients in the 2-to-18 age bracket and then report that information to the state government. The state government, in turn, would be required to report the information to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for analysis.
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Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan said the high court should be focused on ferreting out improper governmental motives when deciding First Amendment cases, arguing that the government’s reasons for restricting free speech were what mattered most and not necessarily the effect of those restrictions on speech.
Kagan constructed a complex framework that can be used by the Court to determine whether or not Congress has restricted First Amendment freedoms with improper intent. http://cnsnews.com/news/article/65720
She has lamented that, "In our own times, a coherent socialist movement is nowhere to be found in the United States.
"Yet if the history of Local New York shows anything, it is that American radicals cannot afford to become their own worst enemies. In unity lies their only hope." http://www.aim.org/aim-column/anatomy-of-an-activist/
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From CNN: House Republicans launched a new effort Wednesday designed to show their party is responding to voter backlash about excessive government spending. Dubbed "You Cut," the initiative invites the public to vote online, or text on their cell phone, which government programs they want to put on the chopping block. The House GOP will list five federal programs each week on a new website and ask people to vote for which one they think deserves to be cut. Republican leaders pledged that they will fight for a full vote each week on the House floor
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CNN: New York - Unemployed? Owe more on your mortgage than your home is worth? Your state might one day pay your mortgage. Giving people free money to cover their home loans is just one of the radical ways that four states -- Florida, Michigan, California and Arizona -- plan to use $1.4 billion the Obama administration is sending their way to help the unemployed and underwater avoid foreclosure. (Snip) But other housing experts warn that paying off loans creates a moral hazard and could actually dissuade people from looking for work.
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The Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday released a new estimate attributing $115 billion in additional spending to the new national health care law, driving the full cost over the first decade to over $1 trillion. But the CBO cautioned that it didn't have enough information to project all of the additional costs. But the CBO cautioned that it didn't have enough information to project all of the additional costs. However, the way in which the law was drafted left the actual amount to be appropriated up in the air, merely writing "such sums as may be necessary," which prevented the CBO from performing a full cost analysis. [Garbage in - garbage out. And could it be illegal [or at least short of Obama's professed "transparency"] for Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, who had this information one week prior to the vote, to have withheld this information from Congress because she didn't want to "affect the process"?] spectator.org/blog/2010/05/11/cbo-adds-115-billion-to-obamac
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Federal Deficit More than 4x Larger in just one year: Reuters reports: The United States posted an $82.69 billion deficit in April, nearly four times the $20.91 billion shortfall registered in April 2009 and the largest on record for that month, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.
It was more than twice the $40-billion deficit that Wall Street economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast and was striking since April marks the filing deadline for individual income taxes that are the main source of government revenue.
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The Washington Times reports: Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who has been critical of Arizona's new immigration law, said Thursday he hasn't yet read the law and is going by what he's read in newspapers or seen on television. [For me, this again questions this administration's "fit to lead" deficits.]
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