Archive for July 17th, 2008

Hoosier Access Radio presents Indiana 2nd Congressional District Candidate Luke Puckett. Luke has spent the past few days visiting Alaska and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

As always, Hoosier Access Radio is available on the go for your iPod or iPhone by searching “Hoosier Access Radio” on iTunes.

 

 Luke Puckett [27:19m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In this entire discussion about the need to drill for domestic oil in places like ANWR, a very important interest group is often overlooked.  That group is the folks who will be living and working around the drilling rigs should we do the right thing and start drilling up there on the Coastal Plain.  Luke Puckett talked to a couple residents in Point Barrow, Alaska about their thoughts on the rising gas prices and the possibility of oil drilling operations in their region.  Watch what they had to say.

Brian Sikma, Hoosier Access contributor and Communications Director for Luke Puckett’s Congressional Campaign, gives Hoosier Access Radio a brief rundown of Luke Puckett’s trip to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

 

 Brian Sikma [3:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This very same op-ed was submitted to the Indianapolis Star and met with none other than Denny Ryerson’s wastebasket. However the premier newspaper of The District, the Washington Times, picked up on the Congressman’s piece and published it. Here is the op-ed:

With the current national average for a gallon of gasoline over $4, and creeping steadily toward $5, Americans are draining their pocketbooks at the gas pump while Congress continues to engage in the age-old pastime of political finger-pointing. We are in the midst of the gravest energy crisis this nation has seen since the oil embargos of the 1970s. Americans are increasingly looking to Washington for leadership. But there has been no leadership, no solution, and not even a constructive debate.

This must end now. Republicans and Democrats must cast aside prior grievances, extreme partisanship, and the scoring of cheap political points in favor of a nonpartisan energy solution for America. It took more than 30 years to get ourselves into this position, and the pain is not going to end overnight Yet an end to the energy crisis is at our fingertips, if Republicans and Democrats are willing to risk the wrath of special interest groups and grab hold of it.

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How close are we to energy independence?  Vertically the distance is 8,000 feet, horizontally it’s a bit longer.  But neither of these distances is insurmountable.  In fact, if we’d just get government regulations out of the way and end the ban that keeps American oil locked under ground and safely away from American consumers who need it, this oil could reach us in 5 years or less.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a pristine piece of land.  The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a barren piece of land full of mosquitoes and other bothersome bugs.  Which statement is true?   Both of them are.  Opponents of expanded domestic drilling use only the first statement to jin up support for their side.  What they don’t tell you is that Area 10-02 in the Coastal Plain north region of ANWR is described by the second statement while the first statement only refers to the southern part of the Refuge.  The oil is located in the northern Coastal Plain area where mosquitoes abound.

Don’t believe me?  Check out the below video.  Luke Puckett and his trusty aide Jack Flock were trying to do a quick YouTube shot for the folks back home when they had to cut it short thanks to a swarm of mosquitoes that was trying to eat them alive.   

The House Republican Conference announced seven members were awarded for outstanding work on energy independence. Congressman Burton said upon receiving the award:

It’s always an honor to be recognized by your peers, but at the end of the day, my goal has been to push Congress toward a bipartisan energy plan for America’s future. My constituents and people across the Nation continue to suffer as they wait for action by Congress, so I will continue to reach out to Democrats and Republicans until we have a bipartisan plan to beat these high gas prices.

[H/T goes to the Congressman's Twitter feed - Let Our Congress Tweet!]

From the Courier-Journal:

WASHINGTON — Republican Mike Sodrel leads Indiana’s challengers for U.S. House seats in fundraising but still trails incumbent Democrat Baron Hill, according to the latest campaign finance reports.

Sodrel, who lost the seat to Hill in 2006, has raised $665,703, while Hill has raised nearly $1.8 million in the 9th District race.

Whether because of the political environment or because he’s not the incumbent, Sodrel is having more difficulty raising money than in the last election. At this point in 2006, he had raised $1.8 million compared with Hill’s $1.2 million.

The Hill-Sodrel race, however, is the only one in Indiana currently viewed as competitive by the Cook Political Report, although the newsletter that analyzes political contests says Hill has the advantage.

Mike Sodrel is never going to raise more money than Baron Hill unless or until he is willing to write a check.

This being said, Baron has effectively shot himself in the head by endorsing Barack Obama and enraged a goodly portion of his own party’s base.

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From the Freedom @ Work blog:

Jill Long Thompson, the Democratic nominee for governor of Indiana, is campaigning on the promise that her first action as chief executive of the state would be to impose union monopoly bargaining on Indiana state employees (and ultimately compel them to fund unions against their will, I presume). Her reasoning could even be viewed as sacrilegious by some:

“I think (collective bargaining) is a God-given right,” she said.

For the record, union monopoly bargaining is not even a constitutional right, but rather just a controversial statutory privilege granted by certain legislatures.

I must have missed that in the Ten Commandments.

Reminds me of the time that Baron Hill said that the Constitution contained a right to health care.

That was a declaration he was later forced to retract and replace with a pledge to make health care a constitutional right.

That pledge, in turn, he retracted and replaced with the idea of creating yet another commission to merely study health care. (more…)