For Liberty - Ron Paul 2012

Shovel ready was not as shovel ready as we expected

House panel rejects EPA's greenhouse gas rules

With mostly GOP support, a U.S. House panel voted to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions, a central tenet of President Obama's climate agenda.

By a vote of 34-19, the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed a bill Tuesday that would strip the EPA of its authority under the Clean Air Act to limit the emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from power plants, oil refineries and other sources. All Republicans voted in favor, along with three Democrats: Reps. John Barrow of Georgia, Jim Matheson of Utah and Mike Ross of Arkansas.

GOP leaders said they'd seek approval from the full House before the Easter recess, and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is adding his version of the measure to an unrelated small-business bill before the Senate.

"Make no mistake – if we allow the EPA to move forward unchecked, its actions will only drive gasoline and other energy prices higher," panel chairman Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., said. He says EPA rules would raise gas prices by boosting costs for refineries that would be passed on to consumers.

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Read full article by Wendy Koch at USA Today here:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2011/03/house-panel-epa-greenhouse-gas/1

New Hampshire passes anti-UN and anti-NAFTA bills

One resolution urges Congress to withdraw the U.S. from the North American Free Trade Agreement. The other urges Congress to withdraw the U.S. from the United Nations "so that the United States may retain its sovereignty and control over its own funds and military."

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Both were sponsored by Rep. Norman Tregenza, a Silver Lake Republican and first-term representative who belongs to the John Birch Society.

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The NAFTA bill passed the House, 172-124.

The UN bill passed the House, 189-107.

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"Industry is leaving America because of a variety of reasons, of which NAFTA is a key reason," Tregenza said. He said NAFTA increased regulations on businesses, forcing companies to move manufacturing jobs overseas to remain competitive.

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Tregenza said withdrawing from the U.N. is an issue of sovereignty and money. The United States pays a large portion of U.N. costs to help other nations, and U.S. taxpayers pay diplomats' salaries.

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Read complete article by Shira Schoenberg in the Concord Monitor at:

http://www.concordmonitor.com/article/246608/john-birch-society-claims-legislation?page=0,0

Bailout Coming for the Postal Service?

The U.S. Postal Service is in financial trouble. Undermined by advances in electronic communication, weighed down by excessive labor costs and operationally straight-jacketed by Congress, the government’s mail monopoly is running on fumes and faces large unfunded liabilities. Socialism apparently has its limits.

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While the Europeans continue to shift away from government-run postal monopolies toward market liberalization, policymakers in the United States still have their heads stuck in the 20th century. That means looking for an easy way out, which in Washington usually means a bailout.

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Self-interested parties – including the postal unions, mailers, and postal management – have coalesced around the notion that the U.S. Treasury owes the USPS somewhere around $50-$75 billion. (Of course, “U.S. Treasury” is just another word for “taxpayers.”) Policymakers with responsibility for overseeing the USPS have introduced legislation that would require the Treasury to credit it with the money.

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Full article at:

http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/bailout-coming-postal-service

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Today, the House of Representatives voted 228-192 in favor of stripping federal funding from National Public Radio (NPR). The vote on the bill, which was introduced by Representative Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), took place after an hour of heated debate.

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The legislation bars any of NPR’s affiliate radio stations across the country from receiving federal funds. It was introduced by Lamborn as a stand-alone bill after he tried unsuccessfully to strip funding from NPR last year.

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“I want NPR to stand for National Private Radio,” observed Lamborn. “They can and should stand on their own two feet.”

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The CPB received $420 million in federal funding last year, and with the nation facing a $1.6 trillion budget deficit this year, Republicans turned their attention to NPR, which has been the subject of controversy in recent months.

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Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) has introduced in the Senate similar legislation to today's House bill to defund NPR. However, it seems unlikely that the Senate would consider the measure, particularly because President Obama has long defended federal funding for NPR.

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Full article at:

http://thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/congress/6735-house-votes-to-defund-npr

Gaza residents celebrate terror attack in the West Bank

A Palestinian man offers sweets to Hamas policemen in the streets of the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah to celebrate the terrorist attack which killed five Israelis in the town of Itamar

Israel hunted for the perpetrators of a grisly murder of a family of five in a remote West Bank settlement Saturday.

The knife attack, which killed two young children, a baby and their parents as they slept, was the deadliest in years.

In Gaza, a Hamas official applauded the attack and local residents celebrated the killing of the settlers.

Read more at:
http://www.newser.com/article/d9ltsibo0/israel-hunts-suspected-palestinian-militants-after-5-members-of-settler-family-killed-in-sleep.html

Horror in Samaria: A terrorist infiltrated the West Bank settlement of Itamar, southeast of Nablus, early Saturday and stabbed five family members to death.

The terrorist who carried out the massacre cut the fence surrounding Itamar and entered the home of the victims through the window, an initial probe of the murder showed.

Read more at:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/03/israel-muslim-murders-family-of-five-including-children-aged-11-3-and-a-baby-girl.html

Media reports said a baby girl of three months, two children aged three and 11, and their parents Ehud and Ruth Vogel were all stabbed to death in the Friday night attack in Itamar near the Palestinian town of Nablus.

The radio said the killer or killers had managed to get past an electric fence surrounding the settlement, which was targeted in a 2002 attack by Palestinian assailants when a woman and three children were killed.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Brigades, the armed wing of the hardline Islamic Jihad, condoned the attack as an act of resistance against Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.

Read more at:
http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-world/israeli-settler-family-slain-in-their-beds-20110313-1bsmx.html

Rafah residents hand out candy following murder of parents, three children in West Bank settlement of Itamar.

Gaza residents from the southern city of Rafah hit the streets Saturday to celebrate the terror attack in the West Bank settlement of Itamar where five family members were murdered in their sleep, including three children.

Residents handed out candy and sweets, one resident saying the joy "is a natural response to the harm settlers inflict on the Palestinian residents in the West Bank."

Read more at:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4041106,00.html