Republicans will eliminate the House committee created by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to highlight the threat of climate change, Representative James Sensenbrenner, the top Republican on the panel, said today.

In one of her first acts as speaker in 2007, Pelosi, a California Democrat, created the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming to draw attention to climate-change science and showcase how a cap on carbon dioxide needn’t be a threat to economic growth.

Republicans, who won control of the House in the Nov. 2 election, have opposed legislative efforts to regulate carbon emissions as a tax on energy. When the panel convened today, Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican, said that the hearing “will be the last of the select committee.”

Sensenbrenner had advocated extending the panel as a forum to scrutinize Obama administration actions. In an opinion column on Nov. 8 in the Washington newspaper Roll Call, he wrote that the committee was “more qualified than any other” to challenge Obama environmental initiatives that he said may threaten the economy. He acknowledged that other Republicans thought the panel should be eliminated to save money.

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Members of a key Obama panel created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – better known as the stimulus bill – have scheduled a “partially closed-door” meeting on November 22, to consider ways to prevent “fraud, waste, and abuse of Recovery Act funds.”

According to the notice, the general public will have an opportunity to attend the open portion of the meeting, artfully tucked in to the closed portion..

The group is a sub-committee of the larger Recovery Accountability and Transparency board, fittingly referred to as the RAT board. The stimulus bill set up the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel, or RIAP, to make recommendations to identify and prevent waste of the bill’s $814 billion in stimulus spending.

You read that right. $814 BILLION.

The Federal Register, the daily journal of the U.S. government, reports the meeting will be held at the luxurious Ritz-Carlton Hotel right here in the Valley of the Sun, where the average high November temperature is a balmy 75, compared to that gray and drizzly chill in the 20 to the 40 degree daily range in Washington, D.C.

Who says Obama & Co. are lacking a sense of humor?

Hat Tip: Seeing Red AZ

Pelosi Suggests Probe of Funding Sources Behind Opposition to Mosque Near Ground Zero

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is suggesting a coordinated effort is behind the opposition to a proposed mosque and community center near Ground Zero, saying the whole dispute has been “ginned up” for political purposes and she supports a probe into those opponents.

Commenting publicly for the first time on the Park 51 project, Pelosi said the issue was posing a distraction and that some organized force is behind it.

“There is no question that there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some,” she said in remarks posted Tuesday in a video on the San Francisco Chronicle website. “And I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque (is) being funded.”

On Wednesday, Pelosi’s office clarified that the speaker is not calling for a “congressional inquiry,” though she still supports looking into the funding of the mosque’s opponents as well as its patrons.

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The best war journalist of our time has been kicked out of Afghanistan and the media could not care less.

Let the administration boot Helen Thomas out of her seat in the front of a White House press conference and there would be outrage. Remove Jonathan Karl from the Capitol and media would revolt. Kick Andrea Kremer off Sunday Night Football and there would be pandemonium.

And yet nobody in the media seems to have much of a problem with Michael Yon being removed from the front lines by Obama/General McChrystal. Yon has openly stated the problems in Afghanistan right now and how we could lose this war, unless changes are made. He has been critical of the current rules of engagement that have put our troops in danger and could actually make this war like the Vietnam that the leftist media claimed it was early and often when Bush was president (it’s strange you don’t hear those comparisons from them anymore).

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Michael Yon’s web site.

The City of Los Angeles – you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. Slowly, ever since the departure of Mayor Richard Riordan in 2001, the parade of inept mayors and spineless city councils have dragged the city into a morass.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has always been an empty suit, a smirking, glad-handing fool of epic proportions with a history of questionable ethics. Besides successfully lobbying President Clinton to commute the sentence of a convicted cocaine trafficker, Villaraigosa pulled a John Edwards by allegedly fooling around while his spouse was undergoing cancer treatment. Add to this the L.A Times report that the Los Angeles Ethics Commission accused him of 31 violations of campaign finance and disclosure laws during his 2003 City Council campaign. Toss in the report that Villaraigosa was a member of MECha, a Hispanic separatist organization, while at UCLA, and attended an unaccredited law school in Los Angeles that allegedly promoted illegal alien causes (He failed the bar exam four times).

This is the Mayor of Los Angeles, and Angelenos have gotten what they deserve. They re-elected a man who has shown absolutely no leadership in times of crisis. His inability to use the bully pulpit has contributed to the dismal record of the Los Angeles Unified School District. LAUSD is falling apart, unable to manage its budget, unable to fire teachers due to outrageous union rules, and increasing class sizes. This is not surprising. A report by the LA Weekly, an alternative newspaper usually known for supporting left-wing causes, did some strong investigative work into Villaraigosa’s schedule. During one period, the Mayor spent only 11% of his time working on city business. He has refused to direct LAPD to repeal Special Order 40 – which does not permit officers from asking about someone’s immigration status.

Read the rest.

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A couple of weeks ago, California Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez was on Dylan Ratigan’s program with Arizona State Sen. Frank Antenori.

Congresswoman Sanchez said “my father is from Nogales….I shouldn’t have to fear to go there and make sure that I am carrying my Congressional ID card, 14 affadavits from friends who know me in California and can attest to the fact that I am a United States citizen?…you have a law that [Ratigan] states that you can stop someone because you believe that they belong in this country…”

Well, aside from the (everyone say it) mischaracterization of the law, you also have her stating that she doesn’t want to fear travelling to Arizona. Maybe she should be afraid to travel in California, look at Sect 834b of their state penal code that looks suspiciously like SB 1070:

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Mexican President Felipe Calderon asked for it when he attacked Arizona’s new immigration law as a “violation of human rights.”

Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl (R) and others responded to Calderon’s attacks by pointing out the hypocrisy. Anyone who has compared Mexico’s laws on immigration with ours would dismiss ours as simply weak-kneed.

The Washington Times and other publications reported over the weekend that entering Mexico illegally is a felony carrying a two-year prison sentence. If one can survive a term in a Mexican prison, expulsion is next. If caught trying to re-enter, one can get yet another 10 years, and anyone caught with an expired visa can get six years.

Whether these penalties have prevented a flood of illegal immigrants from the north or whether they just seem to be working because no one really wants to break in to Mexico is a question for another day.

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We noticed it last week when the Phoenix New Times ran a shocking piece titled Jew Roundup. The far-left publication was engaging in its habitual assault on state Sen. Russell Pearce and other Republicans, and used this outrageous and despicable leap to make what they thought was a point.

It fell flat. Conservatives and what the Left would derogatorily characterize as the “Religious Right“saw no humor in the blatant anti-Semitic characterizations and overtly Naziesque depictions.

But their indignation is, unfortunately, a one-way street.

The local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was uncharacteristically silent. And the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix (JNGP) ran this limp editorial in which they shockingly called Michael Lacey’s vicious piece, “clearly satirical” and warmly referred to Lacey and his tabloid as “known for being provocative, often to great effect.”

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