"I'm ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday," Barton said. "I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case, a $20 billion shakedown."

He complained that "the attorney general of the United States, who is legitimately conducting a criminal investigation and has every right to do so to protect the interests of the American people, [is] participating in what amounts to a $20 billion slush fund that's unprecedented in our nation's history, that's got no legal standing, and which sets, I think, a terrible precedent for the future."

"I apologize," Barton told Hayward. "I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong is subject to some sort of political pressure that is -- again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown. So I apologize."

"I'm speaking now totally for myself," he noted. "I'm not speaking for the Republican Party." House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) later said he disagreed with Barton's characterization, and GOP leaders put out a statement calling his comments "wrong."

So the crooks in congress are still very much on the payroll of the big Wall Street finanical firms. The financial regulation bill in front of them wanted to create a system where the financial firms actually had to have indepentant rating agencies rating thier financial instruments.

Of course the big financial firms didn't like that. They want the status quo to prevail and that is they pay the rating agencies to rate their financial instruments. That's was a large part of what caused the financial meltdown. They payoff the rating agencies, they payoff congress to keep it that way and the consumer gets screwed as always. Nice going again Congress, you always show who you are really looking out for.

Steny Hoyer is taking part in the Democrate's favorite pastime, Bush-bashing. Steny Hoyer needs to understand that if he is going to blame the Bush administration for regulation of the oil industry then I need to ask why the Obama administration did not fix the problems during the 15 months they were in the Whitehouse. Remember Mr. Hoyer who was in the Whitehouse when the disaster happened. Stop blaming Bush and just fix the problem.

Rick Scott is a Repubican running for Governor of Florida. Who is he? He was the CEO of Columbia/HCA hospital chain and presided over the biggest fraud against the US taxpayer of any health related business. He defrauded hundreds of millions from the US (us taxpayers) for 10 years. That's right he did it for 10 before being caught. His company was found guilty of the 10 year fraud scheme by the government and of course paid a small fine.

Now he wants to be governor of Florida and in 2 months has spent 15 million of his own money in ads. He should fit right in with the rest of the crooks that run Florida.

I have been thinking a lot this past year about a Value-added Tax. A 150 other countries in the world have one so its not some radical system of taxation. We need to do something to right this ship of our federal debt.

The thing about changing our tax system to a one that apparently would work is if we still have the same bozos in congress it won't matter what we do. I am convinced and have been for some time that whether a congressman is a Democrat or Republican he has no, zero interset in what is good for the Amercian citizen, they only care about what is good for them.

It doesn't matter what tax system we have as long as the people in charge care more about themselves than the citizens they are suppose to represent.

I would like to see an amendment to the Consitution for a balanced budget. Congress would never go there so the other alternative is to have 3/4's of the states to pass a balanced budget amendment.

While Tea Partiers seem more interested in Obama's birth certificate than actually doing anything substancial they have in one sense shown something. And that is we despertly need a third party in this country. We could call it the sanity party and start with a platform of a balance budget.

Lets hope that this terrible oil spill brings the need to have alternative energy sources into a sharp focus and we as a nation finally do something about it. To that end Next Era Energy has a 25 megawatt solar photovoltaic electric plant in DeSoto County, Florida the largest in the Country and a 75 megawatt solar thermal with natural gas backup in Martin County, Florida. They also have a 735.5 megawatt wind farm in Horse Hollow, Texas. Its a start but we need to do this all over the country.

At last a President that pays more than lip service to education. His Education Secretary Arne Duncan gets very high marks all the way around for the job he is doing. Under the Obama administration it seems like they get it or at least most of it. So far 23 states have passed reform laws and all but 2 have laws up to be passed on education reform. The main imputus for action being the 4.5 billion dollars the Federal gov. has allocated to help education. But instead of just handing out money there are guidelines that have to be met. Hence the reform laws being passed.

This action by the Obama is getting bipartisan support too. After his support of Frances Gallo in Rhode Island for firing an entire school's teachers it got everyones attention. Educational standards are being raised and common sense solutions are taking place. Good things are happening that even the Republicans admit too.

I just saw on the national news that a couple of good ole boys have a great solution for getting the oil off the beach and the water. The put crushed dry ice on it and it freezes it in 90 seconds and then you can grab it easily and put in a trash can. They have plant that they say they can producre massive amounts of the stuff as soon as they get the not. They are meeting with BP today so maybe something there will happen soon. Anything that can be done should be.

They also say they are in contact with a company that has a similar product that get make the oil much easier to get out of the marsh lands. Their product isn't good for the marsh lands as it freezes the plants too.

I say let'em at it.

http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/jun/03/votevetsorg/v...

"We had to many people that were working to save the world, who sort of lost track of the fact that our primary purpose in life is to create value for share holders"