Only one percent of Americans can claim to be millionaires, yet 44 percent of members of Congress are millionaires according to the Center for Responsive Politics. CRP argues that more transparency in financial disclosure requirements is needed.

The Center for Responsive Politics released a study which found that, while only one percent of all Americans are millionaires, 44 percent of congressional members can make that claim.

Here is perhaps the most interesting revelation:

According to Sphere, when the federal government bailed out several U.S. banks in 2008, “the second most commonly held stock among members of Congress was Bank of America,” the CRP study showed. Other bank stocks commonly owned by members of Congress and receiving congressionally approved funds were Citi Group, Goldman Sachs, and Wells Fargo.

Just a coincidence, I’m sure.

I just don’t like this sort of emotional politics.  It’s not quite as bad as the Democrats all but digging up Ted Kennedy out of his grave and dragging him to the House floor, but I’d rather they leave the infants at home.

With just hours remaining until an historic vote on a sweeping health-care reform measure Saturday evening, at least 32 Democrats have said they will vote against the bill as of 6:30 p.m., according to a POLITICO analysis.

Just eight more “no” votes would be enough to sink the bill if Republicans maintain, as expected, a solid front of opposition. Still, Democratic sources are signaling that they have secured the majority of the caucus and expect to pass the bill tonight.

While the reasons these Democrats have offered for opposing the $1.2 trillion bill vary, they nearly all share a common trait—they are among the most politically vulnerable incumbents in the House, and they tend to represent conservative-minded seats that John McCain won in 2008.

Do Democrats risk a Pyrrhic victory in trying to jam through government health care like this?  Do they maybe win a slim vote tonight (one that could well be meaningless if things don’t go their way in the Senate) in exchange for seeing their numbers significantly reduced in the House?  If not losing the House entirely?

That could well be the case, but as car as conservatives are concerned the point is moot.  This is a worthwhile gamble for the Democrats.  Making Americans supplicants to the government for health care is a multi-generational goal for them.  One that may well be worth some time spent out of power if they can get it passed.  Because trust me, if Republicans get back into power in 2010 there will be no getting rid of this new health care entitlement.  By then it will be too late.

Indeed, Obama is on record saying that he’s willing to lose the next election if it means passing government health care.  I think a lot of Democrats may feel that way.

Not the ones who are at-risk of actually being voted out of office, mind you, but liberals in general are no doubt willing to spend some time out of office in exchange for the creation of a government health care system we’ll never, ever be rid of.

If you miss the live broadcast you can catch a re-broadcast of the Sunday, Monday and Tuesday night shows on URLRadio.net from 11:00am - 12:00pm central time. Also, KHND AM1470 re-broadcasts the Tuesday shows on their station on Fridays from 11:00am - 12:00pm. Or you can always download past shows via the podcast.

ON THE SHOW TONIGHT: Michael Wade from Questions and Observations will be co-hosting this Saturday edition of the show.  We’ll be talking about the Ft. Hood shootings, the health care bill vote tonight and the differences between corporatism and capitalism.

Call in at 888-598-8464.

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So instead of a decision one way on Iraq - win or go home - Obama is looking to choose some limp-wristed middle ground.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is nearing a decision to send more than 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan next year, but he may not announce it until after he consults with key allies and completes a trip to Asia later this month, administration and military officials have told McClatchy.

As it now stands, the administration’s plan calls for sending three Army brigades from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky. and the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y. and a Marine brigade, for a total of as many as 23,000 additional combat and support troops. ...

The plan would fall well short of the 80,000 troops that Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, suggested as a “low-risk option” that would offer the best chance to contain the Taliban-led insurgency and stabilize Afghanistan.

It splits the difference between two other McChrystal options: a “high-risk” one that called for 20,000 additional troops and a “medium-risk” one that would add 40,000 to 45,000 troops.

Much like the war in Iraq, I’ve supported the war in Afghanistan since day #1.  I support the war in Afghanistan now more than ever.  Now that we’ve committed our troops to the ground giving up and coming home, whatever the pretenses our political leadership tries to paint that decision with, would be a disaster for our foreign policy when already our enemies are feeling emboldened with Obama at the tiller.

That being said, I would rather Obama pull out immediately and bring out troops home than do a half-assed job of trying to win the war.  Better to give up and face the consequences of that decision than to continue to put our troops in harms way in a mission our commander-in-chief is only marginally committed to winning.

Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. His mother’s funeral was held there in May that year.

The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link in August because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing terrorist organisations.

While this doesn’t necessarily portend any connection to 9/11, the fact that Hasan apparently admired this extremist scholar and had a connection to his mosque gives us further insight into his motivations for the attack at Fort Hood.

What I’m beginning to wonder is why a guy with this background would have chosen the US military for a career.  Unless he developed his more extremist views after joining the military, it seems as though the two lifestyles are about as compatible as oil and water.

The other explanation is that Hasan was under cover in some way, but given that he initially joined the military in the late 1980’s that seems unlikely.  More plausible is that he joined, became disillusioned with his service and turned to extremist Islam as an outlet for his frustrations.

That’s my speculation at this point.

It is hard to reconcile Friday’s dismal Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report with Vice President Joe Biden’s claim from the previous Friday that “the Recovery Act is operating as advertised.” The BLS related the news that almost 200,000 more jobs were lost in the past month - the 14th consecutive month with losses in the hundreds of thousands - and that the unemployment rate now stands at 10.2 percent. Despite the barrage of terrible employment figures, don’t expect the administration to back off its bold claim that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is on pace to deliver its promised year-end 1 million jobs “created or saved.”

The Obama Administration has demonstrated a knack for clever grammatical constructions, and “created or saved” might be the most artful. By using jobs saved and not just jobs created as the measuring stick, the administration is able to trumpet eye-catchingly large numbers - as attested by the Biden’s triumphal pronouncement that $160 billion of spending had already created or saved almost 650,000 jobs.

And, as Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently explained, advertising success on the jobs front is crucial: “the number one subject on the minds of the American people,” she said after a meeting with economists, is “jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs.”

Perhaps the Democrats are proud of their ability to dupe the masses with large, important-sounding but ultimately meaningless numbers.  But those of us actually concerned about the economic health of the nation are something less than impressed.

And even if we take Biden’s numbers as gospel truth, we’re talking about roughly $240,000 in taxpayer spending per job created or saved.

That’s hardly indicative of efficient government policy.

And with national unemployment at 10.2%, this is hardly the time for burdensome new regulations with questionable motivations.

Nov. 6 (Bloomberg)—The U.S. House passed legislation today opposed by DuPont Co. and other firms that would give the government the authority to force companies to replace chemicals that terrorists could use in attacks with safer alternatives.

The measure, approved 230-193, would make permanent the homeland security secretary’s power to oversee security practices at chemical plants. The legislation also proposes that Congress approve $900 million from 2011 to 2013 to fund chemical-plant security.

Congress in 2006 passed a law giving this oversight to the homeland security secretary in response to post-Sept. 11 fears that terrorists could steal dangerous chemicals or target the plants themselves. Lawmakers made the secretary’s power temporary because they couldn’t reach a compromise on permanent standards.

Chemical-industry lobbyists say that letting the secretary mandate substitutions in chemicals and manufacturing processes, as the House measure would do, could cause shortages of some products.

“A particular chemical could be singled out because it’s viewed as bad in one application” although it’s safe when used in other ways, said Marty Durbin, vice president of federal affairs for the American Chemistry Council.

The “chemical industry” sounds nasty, but keep in mind that what we’re talking about here are the companies that make the fertilizers and chemicals that allow our crops to be more substantial, and less prone to being wiped out by disease or insects.  We’re talking about the chemicals that control the spread of diseases like West Nile through insects.  We’re talking about products and services that make our lives easier and simpler.

After 9/11, we did a lot of silly things in a panic (I would say that the creation of the almost entirely redundant Department of Homeland Security was one of them) and I think these regulations are one of the silly things we did.  We all want the country to be safe from terrorism, but not at the expense of giving the government an unrestrained mandate to dictate to us the sort of products we can produce and buy.

Rep. Charlie Dent, ranking Republican member of the House Homeland Security Committe, said in opposition to this bill that “Mandating implementation would result in increased costs, higher consumer prices, and lower crop yields.”  And that nowhere in the bill is the government “required to consider the impact on the local economy and on the local workforce before imposing these unnecessary requirements.”

So ask yourselves: Why is Rep. Pomeroy voting for bills that saddle American industry, particularly the agricultural industry of his home state, with unnecessary requirements?

Because Rep. Pomeroy represents Nancy Pelosi’s interests more than North Dakota’s.

Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee today commented on the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) more detailed cost estimate of the manager’s amendment to the House health reform bill.

Senator Gregg stated, “The CBO estimate released last night finally sheds light on the smoke and mirrors game the majority has been playing with the cost of their health care reform proposal. Over the first 10 years, this legislation builds in gross new spending of $1.7 trillion – and most of the new spending doesn’t even start until 2014. Once that spending is fully phased in, the House Democratic bill rings up at more than $3 trillion over ten years.

Truth be told, I don’t think anyone truly has a handle on just how much this bill will cost.  Medicare, for instance, has exceeded every government estimate for its cost by a country mile.  There’s no reason to expect that this health care bill would remain within even the most extreme cost estimates.

Of course, the point here is to hide the costs until the bill is passed.  At which point it will be law and will never, ever go away (just like Medicare) no matter how shaky its fiscal foundations become.

Hope everyone is being safe out there.