Collins, Murkowski Most Likely Republicans to Back Obama

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Photo Credit: Chris Maddaloni/CQ Roll Call File PhotoSens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska held their reputations as leading GOP moderates in 2013.

In CQ Roll Call’s annual look at voting records, the two Republican women led the field of those most likely to vote with President Barack Obama on votes on which the administration clearly took a position, either through a formal Statement of Administration Policy or other expression of policy view.

Collins backed the Obama view on such votes 75.9 percent of the time, with Murkowski following at 72.3 percent. They were the only Republican senators above 70 percent. That’s in line with the argument that Murkowski’s voting record might prove beneficial to the 2014 re-election case of her Democratic counterpart Mark Begich.

Collins’ votes could serve her well in her own re-election bid as a New England Republican this year.

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State Dept.: Not Building Keystone Pipeline Could Increase Greenhouse Gas Emissions (+video)

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Photo Credit: U.S. State DepartmentNot building the 875-mile Keystone XL Pipeline could result in the release of up to 42 percent more greenhouse gases than would be released by building it, according to the State Department.

Not building the pipeline “is unlikely to significantly impact the rate of extraction in the [Canadian] oil sands or the continued demand for heavy crude oil at refineries in the United States,” the department noted in a long-awaited environmental report released January 31st.

But the “No Build” option is likely to result in an increased number of oil spills, six more deaths annually, and up to 42 percent higher greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the State Department concluded.

The proposed 36-inch pipeline would transport 830,000 barrels of crude oil each day from western Canada through the Bakken oil fields of Montana and South Dakota before connecting to an existing pipeline in Nebraska on its way to Gulf Coast refineries.

The project will create an estimated 42,100 jobs and add $3.4 billion to the U.S. economy.

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‘Planned Parenthood is Proud to Provide Abortion’ Says Group’s President

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Photo Credit: LifeSiteNewsIt’s an American tradition to take pride in your work. But some are questioning the propriety of Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, who says the group is “proud to provide abortion” to American women.

“Planned Parenthood is proud to provide abortion services for women who make the deeply personal decision to end a pregnancy,” Richards said on Monday. “We are proud to fight for a woman’s right to make that decision without interference from politicians, and we are proud to provide birth control that prevents that need for abortion in the first place.”

“Cutting through the propaganda, what Ms. Richards actually says here is that she and her organization are proud to take part in the murder of millions of innocent human beings, and in pushing dangerous drugs with fatal side effects on women,” Adam Cassandra, communications manager at Human Life International, told LifeSiteNews.com.

“She’s proud to be a part of killing both children and mothers across America,” he added, such as Tonya Reaves, a 24-year-old woman who died of a botched abortion in a Chicago Planned Parenthood in July 2012.

Richards was reacting to a Guttmacher Institute report saying that U.S. abortion had fallen to their lowest level since Roe v. Wade in 2011.

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Boehner Told Democrats of Conservative Congressman: ‘What An A–hole!’

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Photo Credit: APHouse Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), the most powerful Republican in Congress, called his GOP colleague Rep. Steve King of Iowa an “a–hole” while speaking with two Democratic members on the House floor, according to Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas).

Castro described what happened in a story he wrote for the February issue of Texas Monthly magazine.

Back in July 2013, Rep. King, a conservative popular with the Tea Party, commented on illegal immigrants in an interview with Newsmax, saying that not all young illegals are valedictorians but that many smuggle drugs into America.

“[T]hey weren’t all brought in by their parents,” he said. “For every one who’s a valedictorian, there’s another hundred out there that they weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.”

King was criticized for that remark by many Democrats, and Speaker Boehner said, “I want to be clear, there’s no place in this debate for hateful or ignorant comments from elected officials. Earlier this week, Representative Steve King made comments that were, I think, deeply offensive and wrong. What he said does not reflect the values of the American people or the Republican Party. We all need to do our work in a constructive, open, and respectful way. As I’ve said many times, we can disagree without being disagreeable.”

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Dinesh D’Souza: Today’s US Government Would Terrify Founders (+video)

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Photo Credit: cliff1066™Dinesh D’Souza — who made a documentary critical of President Barack Obama and has since been indicted for arranging excessive campaign contributions — says he is just one of many being penalized for criticizing Obama, and says the Founding Fathers would be terrified of what’s happening.

“There seems to have been a pattern of various groups critical of the president all getting inquiries and being subjected to a standard of scrutiny and review that had not been typical,” D’Souza told “The Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV.

“The federal government has a great deal of power, and now, with the NSA surveillance, with the government, in a sense, having access to your apps and your emails . . . the Founders would’ve been a little terrified about what this kind of power does to people,” D’Souza said Tuesday.

“Once you give the government this kind of power, what’s going to happen? How is that power going to be used?”

D’Souza, a conservative commentator and best-selling author who made the 2012 documentary “2016: Obama’s America,” was indicted by a federal grand jury last month on a charge of arranging excessive campaign contributions to an unnamed candidate for the U.S. Senate.

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Flint Hills Says North Pole Refinery Will Close

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Photo Credit: EricaJoy/flickrFlint Hills Resources announced Tuesday that it will close its North Pole refinery, shuttering a major employer in the Fairbanks area and eliminating a local source of gasoline, jet fuel, heating fuel and other petroleum products.

The closure will mean the loss of 81 jobs.

Mike Brose, vice president of Flint Hills Resources Alaska LLC, said the refinery will close because of a difficult refining market and uncertainties over future soil and groundwater cleanup costs that began under the refinery’s former owners, Williams Alaska Petroleum Inc.

“This has been a difficult decision made after a long, thorough and deliberative process,” Brose said in an announcement. “Our company has spent an enormous amount of money and resources addressing soil and groundwater contamination that was caused when Williams owned the refinery and the state of Alaska owned the land underneath it. So far, neither Williams nor the state of Alaska have accepted any responsibility for the cleanup.”

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the closure is a major blow to the state, “particularly the economies of Fairbanks and North Pole as the refinery paid some of the highest wages in the region.”

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The Liberal Newcomers: Limit Immigration Or Watch Conservative Efforts Become Irrelevant

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Photo Credit: National Review People come to America because it is a remarkable oasis of freedom, prosperity, and opportunity. Conservatives recognize that the principal reason for our unique abundance is our constitutional restraint on the power of government. As Thomas Jefferson said, “In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

Maintaining this system requires the public to support limited government. In a new report, Eagle Forum details how immigration is fundamentally changing the electorate to one that is much more supportive of big government.

By itself, the annual flow of 1.1 million legal immigrants under the current system will create more than 5 million new potential voters by 2024 and more than 8 million by 2028. Congressional Budget Office projections indicate that under the Senate Gang of Eight’s S.744 bill, the total additional potential voters would rise to nearly 10 million by 2024 and 18 million by 2028. The influx of these new voters would reduce or eliminate Republicans’ ability to offer an alternative to big government, to increased government spending, to higher taxes, and to favorite liberal policies such as Obamacare and gun control.

There is nothing controversial about the report’s conclusion that both Hispanics and Asians, who account for about three-fourth of today’s immigrants, generally agree with the Democrats’ big-government agenda. It is for this reason that they vote two-to-one for Democrats.

The 2008 National Annenberg Election Survey found that 62 percent of immigrants prefer a single, government-run health-care system. The 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study found that 69 percent of immigrants support Obamacare. Pew also found that 53 percent of Hispanics have a negative view of capitalism, the highest of any group surveyed. This is even higher than the 47 percent among self-identified supporters of Occupy Wall Street.

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Debt Up $6.666 Trillion Under Obama

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Photo Credit: APThe debt of the U.S. government has increased $6.666 trillion since President Barack Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, according to the latest numbers released by the Treasury Department.

When President Obama was first inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009, the debt of the U.S. government was $10,626,877,048,913.08, according to the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Public Debt. As of Jan. 31, 2014, the latest day reported, the debt was $17,293,019,654,983.61—an increase of $6,666,142,606,070.53 since Obama’s first inauguration.

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Administrators Reverse Ban on American Celebration at High School

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Photo Credit: SHERIFF JUSTIN SMITHThe sun was just beginning to rise over the Rocky Mountains, but Sheriff Justin Smith was already awake. He was standing outside Fort Collins High School – shivering in the frigid cold.

It was 12 degrees. Snow was falling. But Mr. Smith, wearing his dress blues, stood resolute, waving an American flag.

The sheriff of Larimer County, Colorado had come to school Tuesday to send a message to those responsible for educating the county’s children. The sheriff was not in a good mood.

He was standing in the winter snow to protest the school’s decision to ban a celebration of American patriotism.

The student council had wanted to designate a day during Spirit Week to celebrate the red, white & blue. The young people called it “’Merica Monday.” But the school turned down their request.

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Kansas to Maine: Snowstorm to Impact More Than 100 Million

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Photo Credit: AccuWeather A major winter storm with heavy snow, ice and a wintry mix will reach from the central Plains to the Midwest and Northeast spanning Tuesday night and Wednesday.

It will hit barely after some people had time to dig out from two prior storms in the Midwest and the Monday storm in the Northeast.

By the time the storm has ended it will have directly affected more than two dozen states and at least 100 million people with snow and/or ice. Travel delays and disruptions to daily activities are likely. The storm will hit especially swiftly and hard over part of the central Appalachians to New England.

More than 1,700 flights were canceled and another 4,100 flights were delayed as a result of the winter storm.

The storm has the potential to drop 13 inches or more of snow on portions of Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. In part of the Northeast, the bulk of the snow will fall in six hours or less.

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