Jane Chastain : Politically Direct

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What’s that smell coming from D.C.?

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If you are going to clean out a refrigerator, you start with the part that smells.  In Washington, it’s pork, not in the frig, but on Capitol Hill.  This pork, otherwise known as an “earmark,” is a project that is slipped into a bill by a lawmaker that circumvents the merit-based or competitive process and serves a narrow or special interest.

An infamous one that shows up almost every year is “wood utilization research.”  We’re spending $4,841,000 on new ways to use wood (trees) this year.  Has anyone heard of paper bags?  I’ll give it to you for free and you can save taxpayers $4.8 million.  That’s a perfectly good use for wood.  However, many cities now are trying to ban paper bags in order to save trees!  The irony of it all!

These projects add up.  Citizens Against Government Waste has documented 109,952 of them worth $307.8 billion since 1991.     Read the rest of this entry »

Written by Jane Chastain

November 18th, 2010 at 12:00 am

We the Ignorant

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Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us
against these evils [of monarchial government]. Thomas Jefferson

It’s time someone had the guts to say it and my friend Tom Tancredo did just that at the Tea Party Convention in Nashville.   The problems in this country will never be solved by registering more voters.  Our problems will be solved by registering more informed voters.

By that I’m not suggesting, nor was he, that voting should be limited to those who hold Ph.D.’s or any degree of higher education.  However, voters should be able to demonstrate some understanding and appreciation of our system of government and how it was designed to work before they can register to vote.   At the very least, we should require new registrants to pass a  basic civics test, the kind given to immigrants seeking to become naturalized U.S. citizens. Read the rest of this entry »

Written by Jane Chastain

February 25th, 2010 at 12:00 am

Posted in Political Activism

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Senate Surgeon takes Scalpel to Stimulus

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Just when you thought it was impossible to stop the Obama Administration and Congress from going on an uncontrolled spending spree with our tax dollars, a lowly junior senator with no political aspirations has stepped up to defend us.

While Republicans have offered an alternate to the so-called economic stimulus bill that has zero chance of being enacted, and the infamous gang of 14 moderates (some say 20) is meeting to come up with a pork-lite compromise, Tom Coburn, the only practicing doctor in the United States Senate, is doing what he does best, taking a scalpel to the massive bill in an effort to carve it down to size.

You might say that Dr. Coburn is preforming a spendingectomy. Read the rest of this entry »

Written by Jane Chastain

February 5th, 2009 at 12:00 am

Obama Panders to Whiney Women

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Real women take responsibility for their actions: Whiney women blame others.
Real women don’t ask for special favors: Whiney women break in line.
Real women make informed choices: Whiney women make excuses.

Are you a “real woman” or a “whiney woman”? Before you answer that question, take this short presidential quiz: Read the rest of this entry »

Written by Jane Chastain

September 25th, 2008 at 12:00 am

The President’s Dogs Won’t Hunt

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Political strategists have been burning the midnight oil to come up with ideas to shore up the president’s conservative base and win over fiscal conservatives in both parties who are troubled by the huge growth in federal spending under his watch.

This is the plan: Read the rest of this entry »

Written by Jane Chastain

November 17th, 2005 at 12:00 am