Townhall.com The Blogspot for Political, Conservative and Republican Blogs and Bloggers

Congratulations to Hillary (and Bill) Clinton - who seem to have won the presidential election, despite the official results on Nov. 4.That's certainly a reasonable conclusion, anyway, based on the folks President-elect Obama is eyeing for his administration - folks such as former Clinton officials Eric Holder and Rahm Emanuel and Hillary Clinton herself.

Republican Leader: John A. Boehner of Ohio

Republican Whip: Eric Cantor of Virginia

Republican Conference Chairman: Mike Pence of Indiana

Republican Policy Committee Chairman: Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan

Republican Conference Vice-Chair: Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington

Republican Conference Secretary: John Carter of Texas

National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman: Pete Sessions of Texas 

"Please stop bragging about how courageous you are for weathering a storm of nasty email you invite on yourself by dancing to a liberal tune. You aren't special for getting nasty email, from the right or the left."

"I wonder if after some time away from her e-mail and newfound attentions she'd be using some of the same words she's been using lately about many of the buyers of her book ... I won't ever pretend to know her or anyone's mind. But I do know she is smarter than her column recently has suggested."

The California-based company will begin providing same-sex matches as part of a settlement with New Jersey's Civil Rights Division. Garden State resident Eric McKinley filed a complaint against the online matchmaker in 2005.

Under terms of the settlement, the company can create a new or differently named Web site for homosexual singles. The company can also post a disclaimer saying its compatibility-based matching system was developed from research of married heterosexual couples. ...

In addition, eHarmony will pay the division $50,000 to cover administrative costs. It will pay McKinley $5,000 and give him a free one-year membership to its new service.

Tom Daschle will be the next Secretary of Health and Human Services, a government agency that consumes nearly 25% of all federal expenditures

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle has been tapped by President-elect Barack Obama to become the next Secretary of Health and Human Services.

The agency oversees hundreds of government programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, and administers more taxpayer-funded grants than all federal agencies combined.

The HHS budget for fiscal year 2008 was $707.7 billion.

Daschle is not widely recognized as a health care wonk, but recently authored a book last titled "Critical: What We Can Do About the Health Care Crisis" that argues for the creation of a universal health care system and a Federal Health Board, much like the Federal Reserve.

The purpose of the board, Daschle has said in other interviews, would be to "preclude" Congress of the responsibility of becoming "mired in the minutia of details" of universal health care. Congress would simply delegate those duties to the board. This would increase the chances of a complex piece of legislation, like universal health care, getting passed by Congress.

Promotional copy for the book says:

" The U.S. is the only industrialized nation that does not guarantee necessary health care to all of its citizens, and as former senator Daschle observes, Skeptics say we can't afford to cover everyone; the truth is that we can't afford not to because U.S. economic competitiveness is being impeded by the large uninsured population and fast-rising health costs. Daschle's book delineates the weaknesses of previous attempts at national health coverage, outlines the complex economic factors and medical issues affecting coverage and sets forth plans for change. Daschle proposes creating a Federal Health Board, similar to the Federal Reserve System, whose structure, functions and enforcement capability would be largely insulated from the politics and passion of the moment, in addition to a merging of employers' plans, Medicaid and Medicare with an expanded FEHBP (Federal Employee Health Benefits Program) that would cover everyone. There is no more important issue facing our country, Daschle asserts, than reform of our health-care system, and the book's health-care horror stories bring this immediacy home."

During his time in the Senate, Daschle advocated providing prescription drugs for seniors and increased HMO regulation. He is considered to be an expert parlimentarian despite unsuccessfully leading the Democrats in demanding that legislation to create the Department of Homeland Security include liberal, labor hiring provisions in 2001. He also voted in favor or providing federal money to provide abortions for women in the military stationed overseas.

Daschle was unseated by Republican John Thune in 2004.

North Dakota's two Democratic senators, Dorgan and Conrad are likely to be influential in helping decide whether or not the so-called "Employee Free Choice Act" is passed.  North Dakota is a Right to Work state, but the two Democrats will be pressured to toe the line by the powerful special interests in the Democratic Party.


Well, with the election out of the way, I guess we can get back to the real issues we will face. Remember the deceitfully-named “Employee Free Choice Act” (aka: Card Check)?

... If you don’t, you should get acquainted with it real fast, because if you're a worker, you just might find yourself paying unwanted labor union dues if it passes (and if you're an employer, the reason to oppose this is obvious).  

While a lot has been written about it, you might not really be sure what it is.  The act passed the House in 2007, but will require 60 votes in the senate in order to overcome a Republican fililbuster.

Basically, the act states that if a union can collect signed cards from more than half of a company’s workers, the shop can be automatically unionized with no secret-ballot -- and no chance for employees to hear from their employer and learn about the pros and cons of the union before making a final decision (for example, employees might want to know about union corruption, that they would lose the right to negotiate pay raises and promotions based on merit, that they might be forced to strike, etc).

The proponents of the bill point out it doesn't not eliminate the option for a secret ballot -- and technically speaking, they are correct.  

However, the truth is that there’s almost no way that procedure will ever be used if the easier card-collection mechanism is legalized.  In essence, this act wouldn't just eliminate the secret ballot, it would actually eliminate the ballot.  ... So yes, this effectively would eliminate the secret ballot by rendering it a moot point.  Once the cards are collected, there is no need for an election -- businesses are mandated to begin negotiating only with the union representative.

Of course, there might be a potential balance here if the card-collection procedure were also available for de-unionization.  The vast majority of Union members today never voted to join a union (it came with the job).  And, of course, there is no easy way to opt out of unionization.  So if Unions would allow the same rules to apply when workers want to opt-out of unionization (collect cards from more than half of the workers saying they no longer want to be in a union), this would be a consistent and palatable argument.  

The real goal, of course, is not to be fair, but to unionize more workers.  And, of course, the unions are ignoring people who bring up that idea -- because the vast majority of currently unionized workers never voted to enter a union, and the bosses are scared that they would get voted out.

So essentially they want to be able to harass you into signing a card to unionize yourself, then make it hard for you to get out of the deal when you figure out that you’ve been gamed. Yeah…that sounds like “Employee Free Choice” to me!

The Republicans are going to have to filibuster to stop this monstrosity from passing the Senate…meaning we need to hold at least 41 votes.

One Republican, Arlen Specter (PA), has already crossed to the dark side, and the unions claim they are going to put pressure on Olympia Snowe (ME) and George Voinovich (OH). We should definitely be contacting those three to encourage them to oppose this act. 

But there are also a lot of Democrats from fairly conservative, right-to-work states whom we might be able to bring over as insurance.

The easiest will probably be Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln from Arkansas, Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan from North Dakota, Tim Johnson from South Dakota, and Ben Nelson from Nebraska.  These states are all Right to Work states, which means the state legislatures -- and the population -- would most likely oppose this act (if they are made aware of it, that is).

Some other targets may include Senators Udall (CO), Salazar (CO), Warner (VA), Webb (VA), Bayh (IN), and Bill Nelson (FL).  Virginia and Florida are both Right to Work states, by the way.

Of course, the ultimate goal of the pro-union forces are to support Democratic political causes.  While 30-40 percent of union members are Republicans, the vast majority of union money goes to Democrats.  As such, many union members are contributing financially to causes they abhor.

It’s going to be one heck of a fight trying to shoot this thing down, and we had better get on it now.   

The RLC was formed for the express purpose of electing pro-abortion Republicans and GOP candidates who may be pro-life but don't emphasize abortion as much as the rest of the party. Its web site lists Steele as a co-founder along with Whitman. Parro says the RLC sent a letter to its donors weeks before the 2008 presidential election requesting funds to put fiscally conservative, "socially tolerant" Republicans in office. Parro says the phrase is "code" for pro-abortion Republicans.

I am told that Steele resigned from the RLC in July 2008 because he was "dispirited" with the group. If that's true the RLC "socially tolerant" letter can't be tied to Steele. It was sent months after he left.

The first clues emerged early this morning when campaign manager David Plouffe asking each supporter to "Share your campaign experience and your thoughts on the best way to keep supporting our agenda for change."

It then links to a four screen questionnaire aimed at gathering valuable segmentation data about the individual, including things like how frequently they attend religious services, how they identify themselves (politically and demographically)

there's a reference in the survey to the notion of a future "Obama organization." This is obviously fairly vauge, but it suggests the campaign could be interested in setting up some sort of advocacy organization as a successor to the election effort. Of course, it could also be something less innovative like the Obama 2012 campaign or even the Democratic National Committee. In any case, it does seem to suggest that there may be plans for some sort of external effort maintained to support Obama's governing policies.

"Mr. Steele said that during the 2006 election, he and two other black Republican candidates for statewide office - former football star Lynn Swann for Pennsylvania governor and former Ohio state Treasurer Ken Blackwell for governor there - were called "lawn jockeys" for the Republican Party."