When does the United States of America start cutting off foreign aid?

An economic adviser to India’s Prime Minister is urging the Indian government to diversify its $264.6 billion foreign-exchange reserves and hold fewer dollars.

“The major part of Indian reserves is in dollars — that is something that’s a problem for us,” said Suresh Tendulkar, chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, questioning U.S. dollar dominance.

India is preparing to join leaders from the Group of Eight industrialized nations — the U.S., Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Russia — at a summit in Italy next week which is due to tackle the global economy. China and Brazil will also send representatives to the summit.

China and Russia have already stepped up calls to rethink how global currency reserves are composed and managed. Yet these heavy polluting emerging markets along with India, are not constrained by the recently passed Cap-and-Trade legislation which imposes severe restrictions and heavy penalties on U.S. industry — while not requiring them to reduce their carbon emissions.

“There should be a system to maintain the stability of the major reserve currencies,” the former Chinese Vice Premier said in Beijing yesterday, highlighting China’s concerns about a global financial system dominated by the dollar, Bloomberg News reports.

The late Paul Weyrich noted on Townhall last November that former President George W. Bush’s Fiscal Year 2009 Foreign Operations Budget for the Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other foreign affairs agencies totals $26.1 billion. The requested amount was an 8.9% increase over the total Fiscal Year 2008 amount, including emergency funding. In addition, the United States contributes well over $3 billion to the United Nations, an organization which in turn welcomes our enemies to speak against us.

Many of the nations topping the list are also top oil producing nations. Of the top 13 suppliers of oil, only one among them, Canada, can be counted as a friend.

Not all in Democrat Party have sold out to abortion lobby

Nineteen pro-life House Democrats have signed a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) expressing their opposition to any health care reform that includes abortion funding.

“We cannot support any health-care reform proposal unless it explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan. Plans to mandate coverage for abortions, either directly or indirectly (are) unacceptable.

We want to ensure that the Health Benefits Advisory Committee cannot recommend abortion services be included under covered benefits or as part of benefits package. Without an explicit exclusion, abortion could be included in a government subsidized health care plan under general health care,” they wrote.

The letter was signed by Reps. Dan Boren (D-Okla.), Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), Tim Holden (D-Pa.), Travis Childers (D-Miss.), Lincoln Davis (D-Tenn.), Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), Solomon Ortiz (D-TX), Mike Mclntyre (D-N.C.),Jerry Costello (D-Ill.), Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), James Oberstar (D-Minn.), Bobby Bright (D-Ala.), Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio), Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), Charlie Melancon (D-La.),  John Murtha (D-Pa.), Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.), and Kathleen Dahlkemper (D-Pa.).

Taxpayer dollars are already going toward programs that fund abortion. Planned Parenthood alone consumes about $349 million a year in federal and state tax subsidies, CNS News reports.

Democrats hard at work ensuring Third World status for U.S.

The House of Representatives is poised to vote today on one of the most sweeping environmental bills in U.S. history — an expansive measure that aims to cut industry’s reliance on the carbon-emitting fuels liberals blame for the questionable science of global warming.

The Wall Street Journal runs an excellent piece citing the growing number of skeptics, including more than 700 scientists, who are expressing concern over the reliability of the United Nations-based climate change hysteria. “Far from shrinking, the number is swelling,” the WSJ writes.

The collapse of the “consensus” has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth’s temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. And, many previously inclined members of the world’s scientific community have altered their views.

None of this dissuades Democrats, who have been working to ensure there are at least 218 votes in the 435-seat House to pass the legislation that is a high priority for President Obama, Reuters reports.

Like the “stimulus” program was sold as an economic boost to create jobs — which turned out to mainly be in the government sector — we are now being told by Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett, “It’s a job creator. It’s going to help save millions of dollars, billions of dollars, for our economy…”

But not all Democrats are taking the bait. U.S. Rep. Artur Davis, a Democrat who is considering running for governor of Alabama, says he will vote against the measure.

“The bill has been improved, but this is the wrong time,” he said, noting the hard economic times and the lack of commitment from heavy-polluting countries like China and India to significantly reduce their emissions.

Republicans are overwhelmingly opposed to the package, warning it would hit recession-weary consumers in their pocketbooks with higher prices for energy and other necessary consumer goods.

UPDATE:

The historic 219-212 vote which imposes the nation’s first mandatory reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases linked to the questionable science of global warming, divided Democrats much more sharply than the vote on President Obama’s stimulus plan.

There were some heroes. 44 Democrats broke with their party’s ’yes bloc,’ voting against the climate change legislation. But the eight Republicans who broke from their party leadership to support it — although the vast majority of all Republicans from their states opposed the bill — are deserving of scorn.

 The final vote total is here.

Syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin lists the eight turncoat Republicans and calls out the two Republicans who weren’t available to vote: Arizona’s own Jeff Flake, whose daughter was in a beauty contest — although the pageant finals were not scheduled until the weekend — and John Sullivan of Okalahoma, who is undergoing alcohol rehab. Dem. Rep. Patrick Kennedy was pulled out of rehab to cast his vote.

Happy birthday to us

Seeing Red AZ was inaugurated on June 23, 2007. Today begins our third year. It has been our mission to provide a conservative vantage point to the Arizona blogosphere, with news, commentary and analysis.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our loyal readers who have made us a leading voice on the political scene.

Our initial post highlighted Why I am a Republican, written by AZ GOP Chairman Randy Pullen. That is no longer archived, but Part 2 can be read here.

Censuring the census

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann  reads it right.

The census is constitutionally ordered every ten years, as a head count of Americans for the express purpose of enumeration for congressional representation. (Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3)

Yet the census has been overreaching for so many years that dutiful compliance is the norm. Questions regarding racial makeup and languages spoken by those in households, information related to employment, education, disabilities and family caregivers, vehicles driven, whether respondents receive government benefits or the number of flush toilets and types of kitchen appliances per household unit are irrelevant to the issue of congressional representation.

Rep. Bachmann, a Republican who represents the 6^th Congressional District in Minnesota, expressed concern about the involvement of the disreputable ACORN activists in the data collection process, according to a Washington Times report. There is an audio clip of Bachmann being interviewed by “America’s Morning News,” included in the Washington Times link. We invite you to listen.

We applaud her for boldly stating the facts.

Obama ready to announce surrender to illegal labor profiteers by gutting E-Verify

The news out of Congress today is that the Obama administration intends to scrap the 2008 executive order making the reliable E-Verify mandatory for government contractors and subcontractors, replacing it with a weaker version.

NumbersUSA reports that under the new executive order, government contractors and subcontractors will no longer be obliged to verify all employees working on the government contract. Instead, they will only have to verify those employees who are hired specifically for the contract and are hired after the company receives the government contract. This change will allow illegal aliens to easily acquire government-funded jobs

This is especially important to Arizona due to the high percentage of illegal laborers, and soaring unemployment numbers. Allowing illegals to remain and be employed in deference to big business negatively impacts American citizens, many of whom are suffering the loss of their jobs and homes.

Department of Homeland INsecurity Secretary Janet Napolitano needs to hear from you regarding this utter disregard for unemployed Americans. She cut her teeth on this type of deception here in Arizona and is making it an art form in Washington.

Please read Roy Beck’s excellent column regarding this governmental disaster. He writes:  Under an Executive Order issued by Pres. Bush last year, all federal contractors would have to verify their workforce through E-Verify.  Janet Napolitano has delayed the execution of that order several times, claiming she was still studying it. Now, it appears she was studying how to amputate it.

One big result of the new executive order will be to ensure that taxpayer-funded jobs under the Economic Stimulus Act can continue to go to illegal foreign workers.

Democrat Senate bolting on Obama

Taking a major swipe at President Barack Obama, the U.S. Senate voted by an decisive 90 – 6 vote, mirroring last week’s House action, to block the transfer of Guantanamo detainees while denying the administration the $80 million it sought to close the Cuba-based prison.

The action leaves no dispute that Obama faces a tough fight with his own Democrat controlled Congress to move the 240 detainees.

Although the White House struggled to downplay the setback, several Democrats criticized the administration for putting their party in this quandary.  Facing constituents during the upcoming round of elections, they know they will meet strenuous opposition to having terrorists housed in their states.

In recent weeks, Republicans have called for keeping Guantanamo open, warning that terrorists who can’t be convicted might be set free in the United States.

“The American people don’t want these men walking the streets of America’s neighborhoods,” Sen. John Thune (SD) said. The American people don’t want these detainees held at a military base or federal prison in their backyard, either.”

The vote came as FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress that he is concerned Guantanamo detainees could support terrorism if sent to the United States.

But Obama’s new Pentagon policy chief, Michele Flournoy said it’s unrealistic to think that no detainees will come to the United States, and that the government can’t ask allies to take detainees while refusing to take on the same burden.

Obama is scheduled to give a major address Thursday detailing his plans for Guantanamo, but it’s already clear that Congressional support for bringing detainees to U.S. soil, even if the inmates would be held in maximum-security prisons, is wearing thin, according to a FOX news report.

The individual senate votes can be seen here.

All over the place on the Second Amendment

In a headlined article titled, McCain champions gun rights, the daily covers Sen. John McCain’s speech to the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) 138th annual meeting in Phoenix yesterday.  He is described as the man who ”once proposed cracking down on gun-show sales.” 

Now taking a different angle, he declared to the thousands of NRA attendees that he will oppose any “separate agenda” to rein in gun owners’ rights as part of an effort to stop illegal gun-running to violent Mexican drug cartels.

While agreeing with his statement: “The claim made by administration officials that 90 percent of the arms seized from the Mexican drug cartels came from the United States is not true,” we also have keen recollections of his not-so-long-ago position on curtailing gun sales at gun shows.  McCain often referred to this as a “loophole” that required immediate remedy.

The professional equivocator often aligned with his close Senate colleague, Democrat-turned-Independent, Joe Lieberman, to restrict Second Amendment rights. 

Ironically, the Second Amendment restrictive Brady Campaign took after the NRA’s endorsement of John McCain during last year’s presidential race by pointing out the organization’s “years of acerbic attacks on his gun policy positions” which they list here.

Of course, McCain doesn’t need to be front and center on the “loophole” issue any longer. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Reps. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) and Mike Castle (R-DE) have introduced legislation, (endorsed by President Obama and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder), to do the deed.

The House version H.R. 2324  was introduced May 7, 2009. Senate bill S. 843 was introduced April 21, 2009.

Like a Pelosi in the headlights

Say hello to House Speaker Steny Hoyer?

 

“My statement is clear — let me read it again, let me read it again.”

“Hate Crimes” bill is a disaster

Janet Porter, who heads the Faith2Action.org Christian ministry calls the bill (HB1913) that has already passed the U.S. House the “Pedophile Protection Act.”

It is now in the Senate, courtesy of Democrat Sens. Ted Kennedy and Patrick Leahy. This bill (S 909) could be voted on as early as today.

The bill would protect all 547 deviancies or “paraphilias” listed by the American Psychiatric Association.

WorldNetDaily carries this important report. We urge you to read it and follow the advice to call your senators  to attempt to derail this dangerous legislation.

Arizona Dist. 2 Congressman Trent Franks correctly said passage of this bill will “end equality in the United States.”  Read Rep. Franks statement on this insidious legislation.