Hypocrites and Moral Legislation as it Relates to the 2012 Election part 1

The upcoming 2012 election, especially the Presidential election will attempt to ask you, what is important to you.  The candidates will attempt to tell you that the most important things in the country are moral legislation.  At most Republican debates, they will talk about things such as abortion laws, gay marriage, and try to establish themselves as hard-working Americans who were never given anything and only succeeded because they outworked the other people. 

The moral legislation is what I want to focus on, here.  Each of the Republican presidential candidates (it may be the same with Democrat candidates but Barack Obama does not have to deal with the debates) talk about how part of the reason America is failing is because we are lacking a certain moral quality.  Ron Paul is the only one who tries to steer away from moral legislation, this is mainly due to paying some type of tribute to his Libertarian ideals.

This does not bode well for Newt Gingrich.  Gingrich was fined $300,000 and admitted that he had "engaged in conduct that did not reflect creditability on the House of Representatives."  He was the first member of the house to be sanctioned in such a way.  He has claimed that the ethics investigation was a partisan effort and did not reflect the ethics violations but reflected the politics of the Democratic party.  It should be noted that the House of Representatives passed the ethics bill 395 to 28 had 196 Republicans voting for it and 26 Republicans voting against it.  He did pay off the fine.  Gingrich's personal life has also been the subject of some scrutiny with his divorce(s).  However, Gingrich has put himself on the defensive about what others might see our moral shortcomings.  He has done this by essentially claiming that his outcome would have been different if the Democratic party would not have singled him out because they were attempting to get him in trouble in general.  Politifact investigated this and has found that he is not telling the truth.  I will only add to politifact's investigation that if the ethics committee was really interested in bringing Gingrich down, they may have eventually brought down the "death penalty" and forced him into resignation.  I would like to re-iterate one point that politifact brought up and that is that Gingrich accepted what could be considered a plea bargain deal, where he admitted one count of wrongdoing and paid the fine. 

Part two will be up at a later date.

2nd Nebraska Congressional District part 2

This will be a look at some of the votes Lee Terry has cast since the last time he was elected in November of 2010. 
We're not going through all of them in this one post. But we'll cover the vast majority of them over the next series of posts.

We'll go in alphabetical order of the different categories from the database we're using to get these votes.  We're not supposed to mention where we're getting them for some reason. But if you're curious just google congressional voting records.

Abortion Issues
1. House Amendment 95- Prohibits federal funds from being made available to Planned Parenthood, or to any of its state and local affiliates.
Lee Terry voted to prohibit federal funds.
This Amendment was adopted February 18, 2011.
In case you were curious, here's some information about Planned Parenthood.

2. Listed as HR 3 on our database- Prohibiting Taxpayer Funding of Abortion-prohibits the use of federal funds from being used for the providing of abortions, except in the following cases: rape, incest, or the life of the woman is at risk.
Lee Terry voted to prohibit federal funds.
This bill was passed on May 4, 2011.
In case you were curious, about 10 Democrats voted to prohibit federal funds.

3. HR 358- Amends Federal Health Care Law to Prohibit Abortion Coverage- prohibits federal funds from paying for any part of a health care plan that would include abortions. Prohibits any federal, state, or local entity from subjecting any health care entity to discrimination on the basis that they will not perform abortions, undergo training for the performance of abortions, or provide referrals for the performance of abortions.
Lee Terry voted to amend the Federal Health Care Law.
This bill was passed on October 13, 2011.
In case you were curious, since Terry's first election there has been only been about 20 times that voting on abortion issues have come up. That's a little over 1 per year.

Agriculture Issues
1. HR 3082- Continuing Appropriations- Amends the Appropriations Act of 2011 to extend the expiration date. Prohibits pay adjustments for all federal non-military employees from beginning of 2011 to end of 2012.  Extends deadline by which service members, veterans, and their benificiaries may apply for Retroactive Stop Loss Special Pay. Extends various programs relating to transportation and highways.
Lee Terry voted against continuing appropriations.
Passed through the house on December 21, 2010.
In case you were curious, this falls under Agricultural Issues for reasons we can't comprehend. Probably why we're not in Congress.

2. HR 2751 FDA Food Safety Modernization Act- Allows the secretary to stop companies from distributing food that would cause seriously adverse health consequences or death, if the companies refuse to do so. Requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to identify high-risk facilities and allocate resources to to inspect those facilities. Increases the inspection of these companies. Requires that the food be tested by independent food testing laboratories to test this food. If there is a recall, there must be a press release describing the food and the illness.  This is a quick summary. It was an important bill for food safety, if you're curious, I'm sure you can find a more detailed summary of this bill online.
Lee Terry voted to pass this act.
It was passed in the house on December 21, 2010.

3. HR 2112- Appropriations for Agriculture, Rural Development, and the Food and Drug Administration- prohibits funding to nutritional programs under the Richard B. Russell National Lunch Act and the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 that do the following: requires crediting of tomato paste or puree based on volume, establishes a whole grain requirement without defining whole grain, initiates a sodium reduction target beyond the target specified in Nutrition Standards in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs. It prohibits the use of funding the projects seeking to use the power of eminent domain.  The Secretary of the Treasury may obligate more than $100 million for a single natural disaster event for emergency relief projects for the following damages caused in 2011: Hurricane Irene, The Missouri River basin flooding, and excludes events involving closed hydrological basins.
Lee Terry voted against the appropriations.
It was passed on November 3, 2011.
In case you were curious, I'm not sure what the first two parts of this bill really means. Although, we find it humorous that one has to define what whole grain is.  Is it possible that people were saying things were whole grain that really weren't?  I'm also using Wikipedia as my source for defining eminent domain (in your face, teachers and professors who say Wikipedia is not a reliable source*).  Here you go.

* Wikipedia is probably not the most reliable source. We, at Hypocrisy Now, understand this.  Also, we think it's humorous that Wikipedia is now a .org website, some of the time. It's possible that's it completely .org.

We'll continue with more of the issues later.

Nebraska 2nd Congressional District part 1

I am currently living in the 2nd Congressional District in Nebraska.  The incumbent for the House of Representatives is Congressman Lee Terry.  He was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1998.  While he was running in the primary to become the Republican choice for Congress in the 2nd District, he signed the U.S. Term Limits Pledge.  He pledged to serve no more than three terms in the United States of House of Representatives.  This means that he pledged to no longer run after the completion of his 2002 term.

My professor for Introduction to American National Government at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, Richard Fellman was the first one to alert me to this bit of information.  In 2008, Lee Terry spoke to my class about the Bailout bill.  It's important to note that Barack Obama was not the president when the first bailout was voted on and was not the one who started the talks about having the bailout (I thought it might be important to note that).  Professor Fellman asked Jim Esch, who ran against Terry in 2006 and 2008, if Esch was going to call Terry out on this former pledge he had signed.  Esch stated that he would not.

There will be a series of posts about what Hypocrisy Now thinks about this particular Congressional Race.  I'm sure you can imagine where we stand on this issue. I just thought it should be introduced here.  Perhaps, we'll actually finish all of our series of posts.

A question

Perhaps someone can enlighten me but I have a very simple argument that leads to a question.

1. We had a balanced budget in the United States under President Bill Clinton because of increased taxes.
2. We currently have a huge debt in the United States and we want to have a balanced budget.
3. Therefore, we need to increase taxes.

Why are we not going to increase taxes on the wealthy?

At some point Republicans will have to answer the question of what is more important to them trying to protect so-called job creators or trying to balance the budget.  They cannot have it the same way.

Clarification to the last post

We're not calling for an end to all farm subsidies but it stands to reason that there should be an incentive for farmers so that they can grow a more diverse set of materials.

An issue

I will provide you with a series of posts to explain what issues we stand for, so you know if you want to continue reading. 

Re-thinking the way we eat.
Our government needs to end the ridiculous subsidies on corn that we have, currently. Or at the very least we need to lessen the subsidies.  Or we should incentevize farmers and others in agriculture to grow a better variety of crops instead of looking at farms like they are machines or factories.

The subsidies on corn allow for an excess of farmers growing corn.  We have to get rid of this corn somehow.  So what do we do?  We feed corn to all types of animals even to those who can't digest it (I'm looking at you cows).

We're not the first ones to suggest that we need to re-think the way we eat.  It's been covered by many different writers Michael Pollan, Jonathan Safran Foer, and David Foster Wallace to name a few.  It's been covered in movies such as Food, Inc. and Super Size Me. 

In Eating Animals, Jonathan Safran Foer lays out the argument broadly for vegetarianism but criticizes the process of factory farms before moving to arguments of vegetarianism.  Briefly, I'll talk about his arguments, why we support him, and some solutions that we would support as well.

The strongest part of Foer's arguments is found in his chapter entitled Words/Meanings.  They start on page 43 if you happen to have your copy of the book in front of you. 

I'll quote extensively from the chapter because as much as I would like to think I am, I am nowhere near the writer Foer is. 

CFE's or common farming exemptions "make legal any method of raising farmed animals so long as it is commonly practiced within the industry."  Farmers or the corporations behind the farmer have the right to define cruelty so long as the rest of the industry follows.  Foer interviews two lawyers who are experts on common farming exemptions who state that "...Ohio exempts farmed animals from requirements for wholesome exercise and a change of air...Vermont exempts farmed animals from the section in its anticruelty statute that deems it illegal to tie, tether, and restrain an animal in a manner that is inhumane or detrimental to its welfare."

"A University of Chicago study found that our food coices contribute at least as much as our transportation choices to global waming.  More recent and authoritative studies by the United Nations and the Pew Commission show conclusively that globally, farmed animals contribute more to climate change than transport.  According the UN, the livestock sector is responsible for 18% of greenhouse emissions, around 40% more than the entire transport sector...Animal agriculture is responsible for 37% of anthropogenic methane, which offers twenty-three times the global warming potential of CO2, as well as 65 % of antropogenic nitrous oxide which provides a staggering 296 times the global warming potential of CO2. "

In summary,  "the environmental effects of the meat industry this way: raising animals for food (whether on factory or traditional farms) 'is one of the top two or three most significant contributors to themost serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global...Animal agriculutre should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution and loss of biodiversity."

To continue on, when a food is defined as free range what it means is that the animal has access to the outdoors.  Foer's example is to "imagine a shed containing thirty thousand chickens, with a small door at one end that opens to a five-by-five dirt patch-- and the door is closed all but occasionally."

Fresh poultry according the USDA "has never had an internal temperature below 26 degrees or above 40 degrees Fahrenheit." 

Organic means that the animals must "be raised on organic feed (that is, crops raised without most synthetic pesticides and fertilizers), be traced through their life cycle, not be fed anti-biotics or growth hormones, and have access to the outdoors."  Foer goes one step further by stating that "you can call your turkey organic and torture it daily."

What are the solutions?

1. We want to limit government subsidies on corn or otherwise incentivize farmers to grow more diverse crops.  While this may hurt some farmers in the short run, the research we have done seems to indicate that incentivizing a more diverse farm would helm them long term.  Due to free trade agreements and high government subsidies, agriculture in some countries simply can't compete with America's agriculture.  Some of these people who can't compete immigrate to the United States because they can't hold jobs.  Some of these people do come here illegally.

2.  Give the USDA some extended power that includes being able to investigate the claims of farmers and companies to check out the qualifications for organic, free range, fresh, etc.  We should have some way of knowing that our food is going to be a little bit safer than they currently are.

3.  Along with #1, we want there to be a rule in place that cows need to eat grass, at least, for one week.  There are tests out there that show that if the cow was agiven a grass diet for at least a week that they would get rid of most of the bacteria that causes E. Coli.

4.  Senate hearing on the state of United States agriculture.  Please bring the atrocities of what is happening to our food to the light of day.  There's a reason why you can't investigate what is happening on these farms and at the meatpacking plants.  The companies don't want you to know because then you wouldn't eat their food.  What we're asking for is transparency.

5. End common farming exemptions and try to bring about the end of CAFO's otherwise known as factory farms. 

Michele Bachmann

Oh, Michele Bachmann. Why must you say these things? 

Note: Strange spelling, one "l" in Michele and two "n"'s in Bachmann.  It almost trapped me.