Right On The Right

An Open Letter to Speaker Pelosi

On Friday August 1, 2008, at 11:23 a.m., your Democrat majority in the House of Representatives adjourned the House for five full weeks.

House Republicans believe that Congress should not go on vacation until we take action to lower gas and energy prices for struggling American families.

For the last two months we and our House Republican colleagues have used every tool at our disposal to try and get you and your Democrat majority to vote on legislation to lower gas and energy prices by expanding environmentally sound domestic production of oil and natural gas, improving energy efficiency, and encouraging the development of alternative energy technologies.

Many of the proposals we have asked you and your Democrat majority to allow us to vote on are bipartisan proposals that we believe would enjoy the support of a majority of the Members of the Congress. Yet because you and your Democrat Leadership personally oppose these proposals, you are not allowing them to come up for a vote. This past Sunday, you even told George Stephanopoulos that you will never allow this vote to occur ….

In protest of you and your Democrat majority not allowing an up or down vote on producing more American energy, we and our House Republican colleagues were prepared to take to the floor on Friday, August 1, 2008, and speak to the nation. Rather than allowing that to happen you and your Democrat majority adjourned the House, turned off the television cameras, shut off the microphones and turned out the lights. Nearly 50 House Republicans remained on the floor of the House in defiance speaking to those citizens gathered in the galleries and to the media.

Today we have again returned to the Capitol to continue speaking to the thousands of Americans from all across our country who are visiting the Capitol. We would have preferred if instead we were joined by our colleagues to have a true debate on this issue that ended in an up or down vote.

We think it is unconscionable that Congress has gone on vacation before we have addressed the high gas prices that are crippling our economy and hurting millions of families. We are asking that you reconvene the House from your five-week vacation and schedule a vote on legislation to increase American energy production. Let us be clear, we are not asking for a guaranteed outcome, just the chance to vote.

Signed by: John Boehner, Republican Leader; Roy Blunt, Republican Whip; Adam Putnam, Republican Conference Chairman; Eric Cantor, Chief Deputy Whip; and Members of the House Republican Conference

Shoebox from No Runny Eggs posted a great video about Democrats and gas prices, though his commentary on our nominee is a bit off. I'm not a big fan of using this ad for McCain, as I detest the way Democrats are trying to make this about President Bush instead of the real candidate. I don't think we should run a shadow campaign against Pelosi. House Republicans however should be touting this ad from here until November:

Via Freedom Project, here's a nice video reminder about how Democrats voted to raise your taxes by more than $3000 on average per family:

Hank Johnson (D-GA) spent quite a bit of money paying the rent for his campaign headquarters. His rent was so large, that I suggest he go after his landlord for price gouging. The problem is, he is his landlord, and he's the one charging himself a huge sum of cash. The Majority Accountability Project has done some research and chronicles the ethically-shady move:

U.S. Representative Henry “Hank” Johnson, D-GA, pays more in rent for his campaign office than any other member of Georgia’s Congressional delegation, including the Peach state’s two U.S. Senators - a distinction made more dubious by the fact Johnson’s landlord is the law firm that bears his name.

A Majority Accountability Project (majorityap.com) review of the freshman Democrat’s financial disclosure forms, filed with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), found that Johnson began paying Johnson and Johnson Law Group in Decatur, GA, $1500 a month in “rent for campaign headquarters” in April, 2007. Johnson practiced civil and criminal law at Johnson and Johnson for more than 30 years, where he was a partner with his wife, Mereda Davis Johnson.

A search of business records in the state of Georgia revealed that Johnson and Johnson Law Group was dissolved October 17, 2007, but Johnson again paid the firm a month later.

Johnson's using funds from his campaign, funds contributed by average folks, to line his own pockets. Johnson replaced Democrat Cynthia McKinney, and it's not looking like his ethics are any better. Culture of Corruption?

The Democrats are in a lose/lose/lose situation. If Michigan is seated because of some sort of re-vote or split decision, the party loses it's credibility, Hillary loses a potential coup in getting the results seated as is, Obama loses because Hillary picks up a few more delegates, and Michigan loses because they don't have a real primary. If they refuse to seat them, the party loses lots of good will in the Oven Mitt State. If Florida is seated by re-vote, it costs a bunch of money, Obama gets incredibly angry, and we have similar problems. Failure to seat both gives the GOP a beautiful line of attack come November. Ed Morrissey says the Democrats are knee-capping themselves and quotes the Wall Street Journal:

Sen. Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the presidential nomination were deeply wounded by the apparent collapse of do-over primaries in Florida and Michigan this week. The other big loser may be the Democratic Party.

With five months to go before the national convention, party leaders still hope voters will settle the nomination by leaning decisively toward one candidate or the other in the remaining 10 primaries. The party’s superdelegates, the elected officials and party leaders who aren’t bound by vote results, could then follow the popular lead. With the nomination wrapped up, the party could seat the Florida and Michigan delegates and avoid angering voters in two states that are important to a Democratic win in November.

A muddled outcome in the remaining primaries could force any decision about the nomination onto the party’s nearly 800 superdelegates or the 186-member committee charged with settling delegate disputes, and then onto the convention floor.

My first thought is that 186 people is way too many for a committee. You'd need committees to determine what the committee will do, and committees to govern the committees within the committee. In all seriousness, the Democrats will face even more internal fighting if either state is seated, and will risk alienating voters a huge chunk of population. The donkeys are in trouble.