Purpose for running for Congress

-Add support in Congress for the War on Terror from somebody who served in Iraq

-Support the Republican Party in its effort to regain control of Congress in 2008

-Ensure that the concerns of Long Beach are heard in Congress from a Long Beach native

-Make the tax cuts permanent

-Promote business at all levels in Long Beach, Carson, Compton and throughout the district.

 Tuesday August 21, 2007 Special Runoff Election

...state Rep. Martin Walsh is howling mad about dogs running wild inside moving cars and is considering filing legislation requiring drivers to buckle up their canines. “When I drive down the road and I see a dog running around the car, particularly on the lap and front seat, that’s crazy,” said the Dorchester Democrat.

Doug Obey on the Issues...

ENCOURAGING JOB GROWTH

"Private Sector Jobs are what the Commonwealth and this Country are built on."

Making sure that every citizen in the Commonwealth that wants a job has a job is one of  Government's most important responsibilities. We have one of the most highly educated workforces graduating from our world renowned colleges and universities every year.  We should not be losing jobs to other states!  It is imperative that we do everything we can to encourage new businesses to come to Massachusetts by showing them that our state is the most profitable place for their business. 

This will bring jobs back to the Bay State.

REPRESENTING YOU THE TAXPAYER

“People should be able to keep more of their paychecks.”

Doug Obey is a strong supporter of allowing people to keep more of their hard-earned paychecks and using tax cuts to stimulate our state’s economy.  He has already signed Citizens for Limited Taxation “No New Taxes” pledge and Doug is in favor of rolling back the income tax to 5% as promised.

The people of the Commonwealth are saddled with too many taxes.  And it is this tax burden that is causing our state to lose population.  Our elected representatives must stop ignoring the will of the people who elected them.

As a small business owner and financial planner, Doug Obey understands that new growth will help individual investors prepare better for their retirement, children’s education, or future needs.  Most importantly, growth in the economy will create new jobs and spur opportunity for thousands of Massachusetts residents.

Doug Obey supports tax cuts to stimulate the economy and ease the burden on the taxpayers.

IMPROVING EDUCATION

“Providing our children with a quality education is one of the most important challenges the Commonwealth faces.”

As a father of three children, Doug Obey wants greater accountability for failing schools and an emphasis on core subjects like math, reading, and history.  As the next State Representative, Doug will work to recruit and retain the best qualified teachers and require teachers to be proficient in the subjects they teach.

Doug supports re-directing money from the bureaucracy to the classroom.  He wants to give local schools flexibility in deciding how to allocate their resources and he wants to end the practice of unfunded mandates being placed on our schools.  Furthermore, Doug supports rewarding exceptional teachers with merit pay.

Make Tuition State Tax Deductible

As our next State Representative, Doug Obey will support legislation establishing the deductibility of any and all tuition paid by Massachusetts residents.
The costs for attending private school and/or college are astronomical with no end in sight. In order to be competitive in the ever-evolving workplace, a good education is a necessity. Doug believes the State can help offset the high costs of education that young people and their parents incur by making tuition state income tax deductible. Doug will work for initiatives that will encourage college attendance along with helping to make it more affordable.

“You should not have to mortgage away your future to pay for tuition.”

STOP ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

“We are a nation of immigrants who have made this country great but who did it by earning their citizenship legally.  We are a nation of law.”

Doug Obey believes that Massachusetts needs a stringent plan to deal with the pressing issue of illegal immigration.  He sees the issue of illegal immigration as one that threatens the state’s economy by overburdening the state’s social service budget and one of homeland security.

As our next State Representative Doug Obey will fight for the following initiatives:

• Require businesses that do work for the state to verify a workers’ immigration status.
• Create stronger penalties for those caught making fake IDs.
• Require the courts to verify the citizenship of any individual appearing in a state court.
• Prohibit legal state residents from being bumped off public housing lists by illegals.
• Require identification in order to receive state and local services.
• Stiff punitive penalties for knowingly hiring illegal workers.
• Prohibit illegal aliens from obtaining driver licenses.
• Withhold funding to cities that participate in the sanctuary policy for illegal immigrants.  The practice of sanctuary cities for illegal immigrants has allowed violent criminals to enter the country and commit crimes within the United States.

PUT THE GOVERNMENT ON A SPENDING DIET

“We don’t have a revenue problem.  Our state has a spending problem.”

As our next State Representative, Doug Obey is the only candidate committed to being a fiscal watch dog.  As a financial planner, he is the only candidate with the experience to bring about positive change and fiscal stability.

Here are the Obey reform ideas on spending:

• End all earmarking – Earmarking within budget items encourages pork barrel spending by allowing members to circumvent budgetary procedures.  Most of the funded projects are district specific and used as a campaign tool for re-election. 
• Establish a Sunset Committee—This committee will scrutinize state programs to determine if they are necessary and where they can be cut.  This committee will investigate duplication of services and to make sure programs are still necessary.  It will allow for greater accountability in tax dollars.  On Beacon Hill, we have dozens of committees devoted to spending our tax dollars.  We need at least one committee looking for ways to cut spending.  This committee will call for strategic cuts instead of across the board general cuts
• Two Year Budget--Advantages to having a biennial budget include:
• The lengthy budget process and accompanying administrative work is done only every two years instead of every year.
• The process forces the legislature to become more proficient at long range planning.
• State agencies have more time to administer state programs, rather than spending time trying to defend programs.
• It discourages inflated budgets in elections years.
• Obviously, the political nature of budgeting is reduced.
• Recycling of Durable Medical Equipment—New Jersey and now Pennsylvania have implemented a program that recycles medical equipment to Medicaid/Medicare recipients.  Most equipment is used for an average of a week and then either sold on ebay or thrown away.  The state of New Jersey saved over $20 million and created a list of assets.  We should follow their example.

AFFORDABLE AND ACCESSIBLE HEALTHCARE

“It is time to make health care about health care rather than lawsuits and insurance costs.”

Doug Obey understands the importance of accessible, quality health care.  He strongly believes that medical decisions belong in the hands of doctors and their patients.  Tort reform is the first step for decreasing health care costs.  There are just too many people trying to get rich through abusing our legal system.  Doug is for capping the non-economic damages and legal fees in malpractice cases. 

Doug Obey supports lower cost health insurance options so small business and their workers can get insurance.

An incredible breakthrough for Conservatives in the North

Click here to see our map showing the impact of Conservative wins in the North

Click here to see our map of the 89 councils in England where Labour have no councillors

The 2007 local government elections have seen the Conservatives make an incredible breakthrough in the North. We now control 20 councils in the North, and more councils in the North than Labour.

We have now made net gains of over 130 seats in the North. If people were to have voted in Bury and Bolton in a General Election as they did yesterday, we would have won the three Parliamentary seats needed to win a General Election (Bolton NE, Bury N and Bolton W - Ruth Kelly's seat). We'd also have won Barrow - John Hutton, the Pension Secretary's seat. Not only this, but we would have taken seats way beyond our expectations, such as Sunderland Central and Wallasey, as well as Birmingham Selly Oak, Blackpool South and Birmingham Northfield.

Councils we've gained:

• East Riding of Yorkshire for the first time ever, making 18 gains and taking the Lib Dem and Labour leaders' seats.
• South Ribble for the first time since 1995, gaining 24 seats.
• Chester for the first time since 1986, gaining 7 seats.
• Blackpool, gaining 13 seats – 12 from Labour, 1 from the Lib Dems. We last controlled Blackpool in 1987.

Across the North, we have also made gains in 33 other councils: Allerdale, Alnwick, Barrow-in-Furness, Blackburn with Darwen, Bolton, Burnley, Bury, Castle Morpeth, Chester-le-Street, Chorley, Copeland, Crewe and Nantwich, Darlington, Eden, Ellesmere Port and Neston, Fylde, Hambleton, Lancaster, Macclesfield, Oldham, Pendle, Preston, Rotherham, Richmondshire, Salford, Stockton on Tees, Sunderland, Teesdale, Vale Royal, West Lancashire, Wigan, Wyre and York.

• Nationally, we are predicted to gain over 40 per cent of the vote.
• We have now gained over 800 seats and now control 23 more councils.
• We control 205 councils in England overall– more than three times Labour (46) and the Libs Dems (27) combined.
• Labour have been wiped off the map – in 80 councils (and rising) they have no councillors at all.
• The Lib Dems are heading for their worst loss of councillors for a decade.

Responding to news that the Conservatives have now gained over 800 seats, giving us the largest number of councillors since 1978, Francis Maude, Conservative Chairman said:

"Now that most of the results are in, it's clear that we've made a massive breakthrough. We now control over 200 councils across England – three times as many councils as Labour and the Lib Dems combined. What's more, we've made a great breakthrough in the North of England with more councils than Labour in the North West and Yorkshire.

"We're now the only party that represents the whole of England. This is a great base on which we can build victory at the next election, taking our message of change, hope and optimism to more communities across the country."

Rt Hon Francis Maude MP

04/05/2007

H.R. 1592,

Sec. 249. Hate crime acts

`(a) In General-

`(1) OFFENSES INVOLVING ACTUAL OR PERCEIVED RACE, COLOR, RELIGION, OR NATIONAL ORIGIN- Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, willfully causes bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, or an explosive or incendiary device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin of any person--

`(A) shall be imprisoned not more than 10 years, fined in accordance with this title, or both; and

`(B) shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life, fined in accordance with this title, or both, if--

`(i) death results from the offense; or

`(ii) the offense includes kidnaping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill.
BUT,
flying jetliners into buildings is not mentioned, murdering 32 of your classmates is not mentioned,
THEN,

SEC. 9. SEVERABILITY.

If any provision of this Act, an amendment made by this Act, or the application of such provision or amendment to any person or circumstance is held to be unconstitutional, the remainder of this Act, the amendments made by this Act, and the application of the provisions of such to any person or circumstance shall not be affected thereby.
But,
we don't REALLY mean it.
---- YEAS    237 ---


Abercrombie Ackerman Allen Altmire Andrews Arcuri Baca Baird Baldwin Barrow Bean Becerra Berkley Berman Biggert Bishop (GA) Bishop (NY) Blumenauer Bono Boswell Boucher Boyd (FL) Boyda (KS) Brady (PA) Braley (IA) Brown, Corrine Butterfield Capps Capuano Cardoza Carnahan Carson Castle Castor Chandler Clarke Clay Cleaver Clyburn Cohen Conyers Cooper Costa Costello Courtney Crowley Cuellar Cummings Davis (AL) Davis (CA) Davis (IL) DeFazio DeGette Delahunt DeLauro Dent Diaz-Balart, L. Diaz-Balart, M. Dicks Dingell Doggett Doyle Edwards Ellison Emanuel English (PA) Eshoo Etheridge Farr Ferguson Filner Frank (MA) Frelinghuysen Gerlach Giffords Gilchrest Gillibrand Gonzalez Green, Al

Green, Gene Grijalva Gutierrez Hall (NY) Hare Harman Hastings (FL) Herseth Sandlin Higgins Hill Hinchey Hinojosa Hirono Hodes Holden Holt Honda Hooley Hoyer Inslee Israel Jackson (IL) Jackson-Lee (TX) Jefferson Johnson (GA) Jones (OH) Kagen Kanjorski Kaptur Kennedy Kildee Kilpatrick Kind Kirk Klein (FL) Kucinich Kuhl (NY) LaHood Langevin Lantos Larsen (WA) Larson (CT) Lee Levin Lewis (GA) Lipinski LoBiondo Loebsack Lofgren, Zoe Lowey Lynch Mahoney (FL) Maloney (NY) Markey Marshall Matheson Matsui McCarthy (NY) McCollum (MN) McCrery McDermott McGovern McNerney McNulty Meehan Meek (FL) Meeks (NY) Michaud Miller (NC) Miller, George Mitchell Mollohan Moore (KS) Moore (WI) Moran (VA) Murphy (CT) Murphy, Patrick Murtha Nadler

Napolitano Neal (MA) Oberstar Obey Olver Pallone Pascrell Pastor Payne Pelosi Perlmutter Platts Pomeroy Porter Price (NC) Pryce (OH) Rahall Rangel Reichert Reyes Rodriguez Ros-Lehtinen Rothman Roybal-Allard Ruppersberger Rush Ryan (OH) Salazar Sánchez, Linda T. Sanchez, Loretta Sarbanes Saxton Schakowsky Schiff Schwartz Scott (GA) Scott (VA) Serrano Sestak Shays Shea-Porter Sherman Sires Skelton Slaughter Smith (WA) Snyder Solis Space Spratt Stark Stupak Sutton Tauscher Thompson (CA) Thompson (MS) Tierney Towns Udall (CO) Udall (NM) Van Hollen Velázquez Visclosky Walden (OR) Walsh (NY) Walz (MN) Wasserman Schultz Waters Watson Watt Waxman Weiner Welch (VT) Wexler Wilson (OH) Woolsey Wu Wynn Yarmuth

Al-Qaeda is reaching out from its base in Pakistan to turn militant Islamist groups in the Middle East and Africa into franchises charged with intensifying attacks on western targets, according to European officials and terrorism specialists.

The development could see radical groups use al-Qaeda expertise to switch their attention from local targets to western interests in their countries and abroad. “For al-Qaeda, this is a force multiplier,” said a British official who follows terrorism.

43 Democrats Vote Against Limiting Spending
and Giving Money Back to the Taxpayers of Texas

Austin - Today, the Republican Party of Texas released official documentation which shows forty-three of the most liberal Democrats in the Texas House Representatives voted against passing the “calendar rule” which is passed every legislative session prior to the budget being debated on the house floor. This rule disallows any new spending initiatives outside the proposed budget as passed out of the House Appropriations committee without cutting a program somewhere else.

“Yet again 'Do Nothing' Jim Dunnam and his shrinking band of liberal pranksters have attempted to hijack the legislative process for their liberal agenda.  Conservatives prevailed and Jim Dunnam failed and that is a victory for all Texas taxpayers,” said Hans Klingler, Spokesman for the Texas GOP.

By a overwhelming majority, the Texas House of Representatives passed the calendar rule on the house budget bill, House Bill 1.  Sometimes called the “dollar in/dollar out” rule this bill precludes new spending without cutting the budget somewhere to pay for it.  It has been passed by every legislature over the last twenty-two years.

“We must control spending and make cutting taxes our number one priority.  This rule makes it harder for liberals like 'Do Nothing' Jim Dunnam to come up with more spending ideas instead of giving money back to the taxpayers of this state,” Klingler went on to say.

House Bill 1 will now make its way to the floor of the Texas House in the coming days where it will be debated for final passage.

More Lunacy From the Left.

Global Warming Scam
Here’s a fantastic article by Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD

I’m including a few excerpts to give you a feel for how it reads, but I highly recommend that you read the entire article on LewRockwell.com

16 Mar 07 - "An estimated one billion people watched former Vice President Al Gore receive an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth.

"There is another theory of global warming and cooling that Gore does not address. The Solar/Cosmic Ray Theory posits that cosmic rays, not humans, cause climate change. The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change (2007) by Henrik Svensmark and Nigel Calder is the first book to be published on this subject.

"The Solar/Cosmic Ray Theory says that cosmic rays make clouds. The sun’s magnetic field ... shields us from many of the cosmic rays that exploding stars shoot our way. Sunspots, dark spots made by pools of intense magnetism ... deflect more cosmic rays away from Earth. During the 20^th century the sun’s magnetic shield more than doubled, and the sun had a lot of sunspots. Fewer cosmic rays reached Earth to make clouds, and global temperatures rose. When the sun’s magnetic activity wanes and sunspots disappear, more cosmic rays hit the Earth’s atmosphere to make clouds; and the globe cools.

"The Modern Warming is not confined to this planet. Mars, Jupiter, Pluto, and Triton (Neptune’s largest moon) in the solar system are also warming.

"Gore’s "documentary," as the Christian Science Monitor notes, is really a docuganda, propaganda disguised as documentary. It manipulates the audience, with alarming images and a skewed presentation of facts, into believing that humans cause global warming and that "polluting" the atmosphere with carbon dioxide will have catastrophic consequences.

"A basic rule of investigative journalism and criminal investigation is "Follow the Money," or as Cicero put it, "Cui bono?" ("To whose benefit?," literally, "[being] good to whom?").

"Al Gore profits handsomely from his climate crisis activities. ... He will not disclose his speaking fees, but he reportedly received $250,000 for a speech that he gave in Saudi Arabia recently, and his average speaking fee for his global warming lectures is said to be $50,000 to $100,000. Gore is also a founding partner and Chairman of Generation Investment Management (GIM), a firm that "manage[s] the assets of institutional investors…… as well as those of select high net worth individuals." [Emphasis added.] GIM invests in companies poised to cash in on CO2-caused global warming solutions, such as government subsidized solar and wind alternative-energy ventures and projects that reduce energy consumption around the globe.

"The day after he won his Academy Award The Tennessean reported that Gore’s electrical and natural gas bills for his home in Nashville in 2006 were $27,360. ... more than 20 times than that consumed by the average American household. A spokesperson for Gore pointed out that he buys "carbon offsets" to pay for his large "carbon footprint." Gore invests these offset funds in GIM, the company he chairs; and his apocalyptic climate forecasts (reinforced by those currently being made by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) scare citizens and government leaders around the world and persuade them to invest in alternative energy programs, raising the value of GIM’s privately held shares.

"Can an individual who stands to make millions from the CO2 global warming paradigm be trusted to present an unbiased review of this subject and view with an open mind alternative theories of climate change?

"The global warming scare enables government to intervene and extend its control over people’s lives. The House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, looking for ways to keep Social Security and Medicare afloat and balance the budget, are investigating proposals for a carbon tax, under the pretext of cutting down on Greenhouse emissions.

"Gore ... says nothing about what sacrifices people will have to make in order to reduce CO2 emissions. He does say, however, that combating CO2-induced global warming will take a commitment similar to what the country had to make to win World War II. At some point in this climate war the government will ration CO2 and issue "carbon credits" – CO2 ration cards. In World War II Americans had to have the appropriate ration card to purchase gasoline, tires, coffee, sugar, meat, and shoes; a certificate to purchase a stove; and an authorization for vacation travel. At the height of the War on CO2 global governance, which only a socialist state can provide, will be required to rein in CO2 emissions, with international inspectors at one’s doorstep prosecuting and confiscating property of people and industries that make "greedy [CO2-producing] choices," like using an air-conditioner and driving a SUV.

"Government leaders, environmental activists, and "select high net worth individuals" (including, of course, Hollywood celebrities) will not be inconvenienced by the strictures on CO2 emissions government imposes.

"One hopes that science will prevail. It is the only way people can prevent the climate alarmists, backed by the media and the state, from carrying out their plan to "save the planet." If not stopped, they will eventually establish global governance; dismantle modern technology; cripple industry; impose carbon rationing with radical reductions in the average American’s standard of living and quality of life; and inflict untold misery, suffering, and death for hundreds of millions of people around the world."

Copyright © 2007 LewRockwell.com

Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet's recent climate changes have a natural—and not a human- induced—cause, according to one scientist's controversial theory.

Earth is currently experiencing rapid warming, which the vast majority of climate scientists says is due to humans pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

In 2005 data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide "ice caps" near Mars's south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row.

Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun.

"The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars," he said.

Solar Cycles

Abdussamatov believes that changes in the sun's heat output can account for almost all the climate changes we see on both planets.

Mars and Earth, for instance, have experienced periodic ice ages throughout their histories.

"Man-made greenhouse warming has made a small contribution to the warming seen on Earth in recent years, but it cannot compete with the increase in solar irradiance," Abdussamatov said.

By studying fluctuations in the warmth of the sun, Abdussamatov believes he can see a pattern that fits with the ups and downs in climate we see on Earth and Mars.

Planets' Wobbles

The conventional theory is that climate changes on Mars can be explained primarily by small alterations in the planet's orbit and tilt, not by changes in the sun.

"Wobbles in the orbit of Mars are the main cause of its climate change in the current era," Oxford's Wilson explained.

All planets experience a few wobbles as they make their journey around the sun. Earth's wobbles are known as Milankovitch cycles and occur on time scales of between 20,000 and 100,000 years.

These fluctuations change the tilt of Earth's axis and its distance from the sun and are thought to be responsible for the waxing and waning of ice ages on Earth.

Mars and Earth wobble in different ways, and most scientists think it is pure coincidence that both planets are between ice ages right now.

"Mars has no [large] moon, which makes its wobbles much larger, and hence the swings in climate are greater too," Wilson said.

No Greenhouse

Perhaps the biggest stumbling block in Abdussamatov's theory is his dismissal of the greenhouse effect, in which atmospheric gases such as carbon dioxide help keep heat trapped near the planet's surface.

He claims that carbon dioxide has only a small influence on Earth's climate and virtually no influence on Mars.

But "without the greenhouse effect there would be very little, if any, life on Earth, since our planet would pretty much be a big ball of ice," said Evan, of the University of Wisconsin.

Most scientists now fear that the massive amount of carbon dioxide humans are pumping into the air will lead to a catastrophic rise in Earth's temperatures, dramatically raising sea levels as glaciers melt and leading to extreme weather worldwide.

Abdussamatov remains contrarian, however, suggesting that the sun holds something quite different in store.

"The solar irradiance began to drop in the 1990s, and a minimum will be reached by approximately 2040," Abdussamatov said. "It will cause a steep cooling of the climate on Earth in 15 to 20 years."

((Mars is probably warming due to lack of adequate CAFE standards on Martian automobiles.))

Exxon-Mobil  plans to hand operations of a multibillion-dollar oil project to the Venezuelan state before a May 1 deadline imposed by President Hugo Chavez.

Chavez this week signed a decree for the government to take a majority stake in four crude projects in the Orinoco basin by May 1 as part of a nationalization drive toward Cuba-inspired socialism.

"Exxon is preparing to hand over operations by May 1, in line with Chavez's instruction that after May 1 Exxon is not the operator of Cerro Negro," said an industry source.

Venezuela provides about 11% of US oil imports.

Hugo Chavez, an ally of Fidel Castro, ordered the government to accelerate the confiscation of the Orinoco projects during a broad nationalization push.