Her plan to revitalize the economy is a series of comprehensive “key steps” that Congress should take to get the country back on track, she said.

Lawmakers need to support immediate tax reforms that would end loopholes that encourage companies to move manufacturing jobs out of the country, she said.

Another top priority is boosting the federal commitment to research and development, an effort that she said has had a big impact in eastern North Dakota through the Red River Valley Research Corridor.

The corrdior was a key initiative of her former boss, former Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan.

“The result has meant hundreds of jobs for North Dakota families,” she said. “Unfortunately, today the U.S. has fallen to 17th in the world in the level of federal research and development funding. This simply will not work if we want to stay competitive globally.”

Other parts of the plan include developing a comprehensive national energy policy that supports investment in new technologies and ensuring the nation has a strong and skilled workforce by advancing science and technology innovation in schools and universities.

“Tax reforms” to “end loopholes” is the new double-speak for raising taxes.

“Investment” on the other hand is the new double-speak for more spending.

So, in short, Pam Gulleson thinks we can push America into economic recovery by raising taxes and then doing more “stimulus” spending. Because that strategy has worked out so well for President Obama so far. We’re running an annual budget deficit that is over $1 trillion, the debt ceiling may have to be raised by more than $1 trillion twice this year alone, Social Security is in deficit and adding to the national debt, and Pam Gulleson wants to fix the economy with more taxes and more spending.

And how, pray tell, will Gulleson’s “investments” in the economy be better than all the “investments” in the economy done by the people we already have in office? Is this new and improved taxing and spending?

If Gulleson’s big sell on the economy is the Red River Valley Research Corridor, a crony capitalist venture that has been little more than a landing pad for Senator Byron Dorgan’s pork barrel spending, I don’t think she’s going to win over many voters.

My Democrat friends keep telling me how savvy Gulleson is on policy, and how smart a candidate she’ll be, but she sounds like just another politician who wants to belly up to the federal trough to me.

President Obama “reinforced” his stance on the controversial contraception mandate while speaking at the Democrats’ annual retreat at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. today, Senate Democrats said.

The retreat was closed to media.

Following President Obama’s speech at the retreat, a small group of Senate Democrats, mostly women, left the retreat early in order to hold a news conference on Capitol Hill to counter the Republicans’ news conference today at which they called for the mandate to be overturned.

Meanwhile, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand thinks that it’s intrusive when employers decide not to cover birth control or abortion treatments in their health insurance policies:

“The power to decide whether or not to use contraception lies with a woman – not her boss,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. “What is more intrusive than trying to allow an employer to make medical decisions for someone who works for them?”

Just so we’ve got this logic straight, if employers aren’t forced to pay for this coverage for their employees, then they’re violating the right of these employees to choose.

And the right of the employers to choose? Not important, apparently.

I wonder how much the Komen/Planned Parenthood debacle had to do with galvanizing the President’s position. Obama is facing a tough election year, and the last thing he need is a broadside on his left flank from the pro-abortion activists.

From Newsbusters:

Closing out an interview with Sen. John Hoeven (R) of North Dakota on today’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, substitute host Chris Matthews thanked the former governor and said he “loved visiting your state this summer” and that he loves Mt. Rushmore, having “sat there for two hours and just looked up at it” during his trip to South Dakota over the summer.

Hoeven corrected Matthews, saying he was from North Dakota. Matthews retorted that he “liked South Dakota better anyway.”

South Dakota may have Mt. Rushmore, but North Dakota has the world’s largest Holstein cow. So there.

Captain James A. Taylor

Citation:

Capt. Taylor, Armor, was serving as executive officer of Troop B, 1st Squadron. His troop was engaged in an attack on a fortified position west of Que Son when it came under intense enemy recoilless rifle, mortar, and automatic weapons fire from an enemy strong point located immediately to its front. One armored cavalry assault vehicle was hit immediately by recoilless rifle fire and all 5 crewmembers were wounded. Aware that the stricken vehicle was in grave danger of exploding, Capt. Taylor rushed forward and personally extracted the wounded to safety despite the hail of enemy fire and exploding ammunition. Within minutes a second armored cavalry assault vehicle was hit by multiple recoilless rifle rounds. Despite the continuing intense enemy fire, Capt. Taylor moved forward on foot to rescue the wounded men from the burning vehicle and personally removed all the crewmen to the safety of a nearby dike. Moments later the vehicle exploded. As he was returning to his vehicle, a bursting mortar round painfully wounded Capt. Taylor, yet he valiantly returned to his vehicle to relocate the medical evacuation landing zone to an area closer to the front lines. As he was moving his vehicle, it came under machinegun fire from an enemy position not 50 yards away. Capt. Taylor engaged the position with his machinegun, killing the 3-man crew. Upon arrival at the new evacuation site, still another vehicle was struck. Once again Capt. Taylor rushed forward and pulled the wounded from the vehicle, loaded them aboard his vehicle, and returned them safely to the evacuation site. His actions of unsurpassed valor were a source of inspiration to his entire troop, contributed significantly to the success of the overall assault on the enemy position, and were directly responsible for saving the lives of a number of his fellow soldiers. His actions were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military profession and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.

Capt. Taylor: We humbly salute you and thank you for your service.

Hat tip Home of Heroes

There are fewer than a hundred living MoH recipients today. Their names and their stories should not be forgotten. My mission is to honor one of those heroes here each week, and salute them for their courage and sacrifice. In the words of John Fitzgerald Kennedy:

Cross posted at Proof Positive

This is from a transcript of questioning between White House mouthpiece Jay Carney and ABC’s Jake Tapper:

TAPPER: President Obama is going to be introducing his outline for a budget. Fed Chair Bernanke has said the lack of a budget having been passed by the Senate has had an adverse affect on growth because it’s created uncertainty. Harry Reid has said that he doesn’t think there’s a need to introduce a budget this year. Who do you — who does the president think is right, Harry Reid or Ben Bernanke?

CARNEY: Well, I think the president, as you noted, will be presenting his budget. That budget, it’s important to remember – and you all covered it — has spending caps set based on the Budget Control Act that was signed into law by this president last August. That spending — those spending — that spending — those spending levels represent significant cuts agreed to by Democrats and Republicans and by this president.

And his budget will reflect the need for that — will reflect those cuts, but also reflect the priorities that he thinks are very important, and, I think, the priorities that — to wrap in part of your question here — that Senator Reid believes are important as well, as do many members of the Senate and the House.

TAPPER: So therefore, the Senate should pass a budget as well.

CARNEY: I don’t have a –

TAPPER: I’m asking.

CARNEY: Well, I don’t have an opinion to express on how the Senate does its business with regards to this issue. The fact is because of the negotiations over the debt ceiling that resulted in the Budget Control Act, we have an unusual situation here in that the top lines for the budget going forward have already been set and agreed to by Republicans and Democrats alike.

TAPPER: So the — I’m not actually asking your opinion, but the White House’s opinion, because it’s the White House’s –
CARNEY: Well, I mean, I don’t have a –

TAPPER: The White House has no opinion about whether or not the Senate should pass a budget? The president’s going to introduce one. The Fed chair says not having one is bad for growth. But the White House has no opinion about whether –

CARNEY: I have no opinion — the White House has no opinion on Chairman Bernanke’s assessment of how the Senate ought to do its business.

So the President is submitting a budget to Congress, but doesn’t care whether or not Congress passes it?

Meanwhile, for all the Democrats like Senator Kent Conrad saying that Congress did pass a budget in the Budget Control Act, or Rep. Steny Hoyer who says we don’t need a budget a all, the truth is that federal law says we do need to pass a budget.

What’s more, what meets the legal definition of a budget is laid out in the law, and the Budget Control Act doesn’t pass muster.

But now that Sioux petition circulators have successfully put the nickname issue on the June ballot, thus reinstating the state’s law requiring that UND use the logo/nickname, the university is going back to using the Nickname.

And according to the Grand Forks Herald, they’re back to using it as well:

So much for an independent “fourth estate.”

If you ask me, the North Dakota media spends far too much time following the lead of the higher education bureaucrats in the state.

Doug Mataconis calls this “paternalism,” and while there’s certainly an element of that in this legislation, I’m not so sure I’m against the legislation.

Florida’s poor can use food stamps to buy staples like milk, vegetables, fruits and meat. But they can also use them to buy sweets like cakes, cookies and Jell-O and snack foods like chips, something a state senator wants stopped.

Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Valrico, also wants to limit other welfare funds, known as Temporary Assistance For Needy Families, from being used at ATMs in casinos and strip clubs and anywhere out of state. The bill comes after reports that the debit cards welfare recipients now receive were used in those places, as well as locations in Las Vegas and the Virgin Islands in a small percentage of cases, but the state does not track what items were purchased.

The bill recently passed a committee. A companion bill in the state House companion is being considered by a subcommittee.

The bill would also require the state to launch a culturally sensitive campaign to educate people about the benefits of a nutritious diet. Supporters say it would help recipients follow healthy eating habits and prevent taxpayer funds from being used to purchase luxury foods like bakery cakes when they can whip up a cheaper box mix.

“Most individuals using public assistance dollars are using the funds to get by and to provide for their families. However, we should do what we can to prevent dollars intended to help Florida’s poorest families from being spent in the wrong places,” Storms said in a statement.
But critics say the government shouldn’t dictate what people eat.

“What I choose to ingest even though I may be on food stamps, that’s at my discretion. I don’t need government telling me what I can and cannot purchase,” said Rep. Gwyndolen Clarke-Reed, a Pompano Beach Democrat who voted in committee against the bill (SB 1658). She said the bill is demeaning and invasive and she worries the education campaign would imply to “minorities and low-income folks that they’re not intelligent enough to make selections on the foods they want.”

There is some question as to whether or not the federal government would allow this to happen. Food stamps, while administered by the states, are a federal program. According to the article, this move by Florida would need to be approved by the USDA and tested through a pilot program first.

I’m also not exactly enthused with the legislation starting up new government programs to educate the public about healthy eating. That sort of thing is most certainly paternalism. But as for limiting the types of food that can be bought with food stamps?

I’m not necessarily against it, even born as it is of nanny statistism. Food stamps are supposed to act as a safety net program. The idea is to keep people from starving, not to keep them Doritos and Mountain Dew. I don’t think that people who are dependent on the taxpayers to feed them necessarily have a right to complain about what they’re fed.

If you want to eat whatever you want, pay for it yourself. If you’re going to rely on the taxpayers for sustenance, take what you get.

I’d be for reducing food stamps benefits to a bag of rice complete with instructions on how to boil it.

Bismarck, N.D. – The North Dakota Republican Party today called on U.S. Senate candidate Heidi Heitkamp to break her silence over the Obama Administration’s decision to force religious-affiliated charities, schools, and hospitals to cover controversial contraceptives in their health insurance plans.

“This latest mandate stemming from the Obama healthcare law is a troubling overreach into the private healthcare decisions of North Dakotans,” said Matt Becker, spokesman for the NDGOP. “Heidi Heitkamp said in 2010 that if North Dakotans ‘get the message’ on Obamacare, they would support it. Is this what she had in mind? This outrageous disregard for individual religious beliefs in favor of a mandate on religious institutions crosses a dangerous line against personal freedom. No one in North Dakota should be forced to choose between violating their religious beliefs and facing government penalties.”

You’d think that Heitkamp, who was an outspoken supporter of Obamacare and is now campaigning for an office from which she’ll probably be voting on Obamacare (and other related health care policies), would want to answer this question for voters. You’d think that members of the media in North Dakota would want Heitkamp to answer.

You’d be wrong, I guess.

But it’s not just Obamacare. The state’s media all reported on the press release Heitkamp’s campaign sent out about her fundraising, but this week the FEC published the actual numbers from her campaign. Not only were those numbers about $50,000 less than what was reported in the media, there were some other interesting revelations as well.

Like the fact that Heitkamp, despite claiming that she won’t work for special interests, has a special campaign fund set up that seems to exist solely as a landing pad for trial lawyer money. Like the fact that she took a contribution from disgraced, hooker-loving former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.

And, perhaps most importantly, the fact that Heitkamp has already taken tens of thousands of dollars from employees of the law firm to which she as Attorney General gave North Dakota’s business in the tobacco class action lawsuits. Business that was ultimately worth millions upon millions of dollars in fees.

So in one FEC report we have evidence of Heitkamp being a hypocrite about special interests, we have an embarrassing contribution from a disgraced national political figure and more evidence of Heitkamps overly-cozy relationship with the tobacco trial lawyers.

But the media already reported on Heitkamp’s press release about her fundraising, so I guess none of the rest of this stuff matters.

Fullerton, at the behest of North Dakota’s higher education officials, spreads all sorts of innuendo to the media about how the conference is “concerned” about the “distraction” of the logo, etc., etc. But it’s all just smoke and mirrors. If you read between the lines, it’s pretty clear that the Big Sky won’t be removing UND.

According to Fullerton himself, only a unanimous vote of the conference’s 12 other member schools can kick UND out:

“Our concern, as before, is not that they are the Fighting Sioux,” Fullerton said, “but rather whether they can be an effective Division I program and a benefit to our conference.”

UND’s membership status is still probationary, he said. “But even a full-fledged member can be removed from the league at any time by a vote of the presidents.” Such a vote, he said, would have to be unanimous.

So how do the presidents of the other Big Sky schools feel about the nickname? Again, according to Fullerton, there’s no unanimity:

“There’s a range of concern among the presidents of our institutions,” he said. “Some presidents are very concerned about this issue, and some are not very concerned. But nobody in the presidents’ group wants to act precipitously.”

The only way UND can be removed from the Big Sky is if a group of Big Sky presidents, some of whom don’t care about the issue, vote unanimously to remove the school. The odds of that happening? North Dakota’s higher education bureaucrats and their buddy Doug Fullerton would like you to believe it’s very good.

In reality? Not very good at all.

If Big Sky is truly only concerned that UND has a healthy Division I athletics program (and that’s a valid enough concern), then they ought not be concerned at all. As has been repeated ad nauseum, the only NCAA sanctions UND faces over the nickname, per the Associated Press, are “banning the university from hosting post-season tournaments and its athletes from wearing uniforms with the logo or nickname in postseason play.”

Those are sanctions the university could certainly live with.

The higher education folks are making the NCAA sanctions into a problem because they want those sanctions to be a problem. Because they would rather get rid of the nickname.

Apparently the show is being pitched by Lucky Dog Filmworks, a company based in Georgia. Outside of that, nobody really seems to know what’s going on with the show.

It looks like it could be interesting stuff, though reality shows tend to be one extreme or another. Either it’s something like Jersey Shore, which pretty much makes you detest humanity, or it’s something compelling and illuminating like Deadliest Catch.

There aren’t many reality shows that fall in between.

If this is a good faith effort to accurately portray life in the oil boom, I’m all for it. If the intent is Jersey Shore with roughnecks and Scandinavian accents, count me out.