The first year of Democrat congressional leadership in 15 years has ended not with a bang but a thud. Reid and Pelosi spent the entire year trying to show their extreme left support groups that they could turn Pelosi logic into federal law. It was a miserable failure. In the end, they had to try to cram a year's worth of legislation down the throats of the American citizens in just a week's time. That also failed. The best they could do was to come up with a "no energy" bill and a temporary Omnibus bill to keep federal paychecks coming.

Why was their mission such a failure? Pelosi's "Pay-go" system was fraudulently sold to the American people as a system whereby the Congress would spend only the money they take in from taxes and cut back on special interest pork barrel project spending. So when every bill the House passed contained not less, but more pork, and instead of cutting spending they raised it and added tax increases to pay for it, President Bush vetoed every one. Pelosi and Reid were no more honest with themselves than they were with the American people.

On Monday, appearing by phone on the Las Vegas KXMT Morning Source radio show with Alan Stock, Harry Reid was asked why he and the other 40 Democrat Senators who signed the Rush Limbaugh smear letter, didn't match the $2.1 million the letter sold for on e-Bay, as Rush had done and had challenged them to do.

Reid's response was: "It was very clear to me that when you have someone who goes in our uniform and fights in Iran -- We just talked about Iran -- fights in Iraq, comes home, and then suddenly says that they're against the war or however they work into it. (big pause) Yeah. They... I... Don't call them phony soldiers. I thought that was wrong, and I think that the American people think it's wrong to call [them] phony soldiers. He tried to doctor up the tape later and say he didn't say it, but of course you could hear his voice saying that, and we -- we quoted basically what -- not basically. We quoted what he said. But, you know, as with -- not everything, but -- some things, there is a silver lining. Rush Limbaugh, which has a large audience, ummm, was able to raise some money. Now, if he's again calls one of our troops who fights in...Iraq or Afghanistan [that] has come home and is against the war a phony soldier, I will do it again. And I think that it is -- we did the right thing. I have no regret whatsoever."

Harry Reid never did answer the questions but instead tried to reinforce his original lie that the two people Rush referred to as "phony soldiers," liberal bloggers Scott Thomas Beauchamp and Jesse MacBeth, were actually combat veterans. When Rush exposed these two as frauds and called them "phony soldiers" the Clinton/Soros website MediaMatters.org got involved and printed the lie about Rush that "Dingy Harry" picked up on and repeated on the Senate floor. We all know what happened after that with the letter." In repeating his lies again last Monday and supporting the lies that these two "phony soldiers" published on the internet, Reid is trying to show that he will not be outdone by the Clintons when it comes to lying.

Is it any wonder that Harry Reid has such a weak voice? Every time he opens his mouth he rams his foot further down his throat. It's a wonder he can talk at all. Reid would be wise never to talk about Rush Limbaugh ever again. He has neither the wit, the facts, nor the intellect to go up against Rush. Rush will take him down every time he tries.

Tuesday on the Senate Floor, Reid was pushing for an amendment sponsored by Barney Frank and a handful of leading Democrats, including Obama and Clinton, to give away millions of tax payer dollars to subsidize winter heating bills for low income households. This is exactly the kind of thing that Davy Crockett warned us about. Reid should be reminded "It's not your money to give." And where would that money come from under Pelosi's phony Pay-go plan?

Has anyone thought to ask how can Barack Obama and Mrs. Clinton vote for a bill that they've never seen because they've been out on the campaign trail? I guess that it should come as no surprise that most members of Congress haven't read the thing either. I'm not sure which bill, the energy bill or the omnibus spending package passed this week, contained the heating hand out amendment but it's pretty obvious that very few in Congress had read either of them. There simply wasn't time for that.

So why did they pass it with the support of 90 republicans in the house? Because they wanted to go home for Christmas and couldn't leave without at least temporarily funding the government and claiming that they accomplished something in this session of Congress, even if Bush vetoes them. These are the issues Reid and Pelosi should have been addressing throughout the year instead of spending all of their time investigating the Bush Administration and Guantánamo, trying to raise taxes, and pull our soldiers out of Iraq in the middle of a war.

With surge in Iraq beginning to show results and the violence on the decline, Pelosi and House Democrats decided to try another tactic in October to cause chaos in Iraq. They pushed through a nonbinding resolution accusing Turkey of genocide, under the Ottoman Empire 100 years ago, at a time when the Bush Administration was trying to keep Turkey's dispute with the Kurds peaceful. This time Democrats were successful and as a result of the insult from the American Congress, Turkey has now launched 3 bombing raids into Kurdish Iraq over the past week.

This was exactly what Pelosi was hoping for, to raise the violence and death toll in Iraq to a level more to Democrats' liking. Bush had asked Pelosi to reconsider introducing the resolution and explained why. Pelosi knew exactly what she was doing when she allowed the resolution to be introduced. This is just one example of the agenda Pelosi has been wasting time and taxpayers' money on. Is this supposed to be in the best interests of America?

The new energy bill Congress passed this week requires automobile efficiency standards of 35 MPG by 2020. That's a 40% mileage increase over current standards. Well, there goes the American V8 engine and with it the American auto makers. The government can mandate all the regulations and restrictions they want on car makers but no one but eco-libs are going to want to buy the cars. Pelosi doesn't have a problem with that, all of her friends and supporters are eco-libs.

The energy bill also calls for a 600% increase in ethanol but no provisions for drilling in ANWR, off shore, Colorado, or anywhere else to increase domestic oil supplies, and no new refineries. Farms all across the country are turning to growing corn for ethanol for higher profits and government subsidies. There goes our food, food prices, and the Mexicans are going to have to give up their tortillas which will probably cause them to declare war on the U.S. for burning their corn. That wouldn't be hard to do since the Mexican invasion has already taken place with the blessings of Congress.

Can we now assume there will be no more limos and SUVs for Congress? Shouldn't we expect that all who voted for this energy bill will now show up at the Capitol building each day in a Prius? Private jet flights to be replaced with passenger airline flights? And since President Bush has said he was eager to sign this abomination, should we expect from now on that his motorcades will have him in a pope mobile followed by his security detail in a few solar powered hybrids and on Mopeds? There is nothing like leading by example.

It is the job of American industry to produce the products that Americans want and to assure that the supply meets the growing demand. Our government doesn't see it that way. They would prefer to restrict production and tell the American people just to use less because Al Gore is telling us that the sky is filling up with global warming soot. None of these people ever acknowledge that we tackled that problem 30 years ago with vehicle and industrial emission standards. I can't speak for the rest of the country, but the skies over Los Angeles are no longer filled with smog and at least half of the country doesn't believe in the global warming hoax. In fact, the latest scientific report says it isn't happening at all, let alone man causing it.

The Democrats' energy bill would also ban the 100 watt incandescent light bulb by 2012. This is being trumpeted as some big savings in electrical usage, but is it really? To begin with, 61% of all electricity is used by industrial and commercial customers, according to the Dept. of Energy. These buildings, for the most part, are lighted with florescent and HID arc lamps. They don't use 100 watt light bulbs. In our homes, most ceiling light fixtures have a maximum lamp rating of 60 watts. Although some residents install 100 watt bulbs in those fixtures, they soon learn better when they have to call an electrician to repair the burned wiring caused by the excess heat. The fact is that there are really very few lighting fixtures using, or rated for the use of, 100 watt light bulbs. Banning these bulbs will have very little effect in reducing overall electrical consumption. The 75 watt bulb will still be available for those who don't want to use CFLs.

So why didn't Congress ban all incandescent light bulbs in favor of the CFLs (Compact Florescent Lamp)? Light bulbs are cheap and easy to produce and account for a large portion of the income of lamp producers like G.E. and Sylvania. These companies have huge lobbies in Washington to keep law makers from banning their products. G.E.'s Washington lobby budget alone is larger than the lobbying budgets of the big 3 automakers combined.

As with most everything else in this latest energy bill, it is intended to appease the liberal environmentalists and hoodwink the public into thinking that Congress is really doing something useful. Don't be fooled by these devious distractions from the real issue. If Congress wanted to do something useful for the country's energy problems, they would increase nuclear power plants and encourage increased domestic oil drilling to meet the demands of the country. They chose instead to take neither of these two critical steps toward energy independence. The energy bill contains absolutely nothing that would increase domestic energy and reduce foreign oil dependence. It's simply a handout to Gore environmentalists and alternative energy experimenters.

Don't misunderstand, I'm all for developing alternative energy sources but the fact remains, "environmentally friendly" energy sources are not very efficient. While they may be fine for providing power to a home or farm, they can hardly be depended upon to provide power for the country. For that we need real power plants that use high power fuel such as oil, coal, or nuclear.

Did I mention that nuclear is the most efficient and environmentally friendly power source we have? We could be using it to meet all of our electrical needs if it weren't for the fact that Democrats are still suffering from "The China Syndrome." And instead of spending all of that money to turn our food into fuel, that same money could be invested in research to turn coal into motor fuel and extract the oil shale from the Colorado mountains to power our cars.

Along with increased domestic oil production, we could end our dependence on foreign oil in 10 years. The new energy bill addresses none of this but places all it's hopes on future eco friendly technology that won't produce any results for at least 20 years and even then the benefits will be marginal. In less time than that, Saudi Arabia will be trying to impose Sharia Law in America and we will be doing nothing to stop them, just as we are doing now, because of our dependence on their oil.

Our energy problems can be easily solved with the right legislation from Congress. It is those simple and practical solutions that Democrats have been blocking for the past 30 years out of fear and indebtedness to their left wing, special interest, environmental groups. We cannot afford to let these liberal lunatics run our country.

So what about hydrogen powered cars? Great, I love the idea. But it takes a lot of energy to produce the Hydrogen to power them so there is really no energy savings to the country. Hydrogen fuel cells are also a great idea. They can be used to power a car if you don't mind driving an electric car. That technology is being developed now but is still quite expensive. It will be some time before it will become competitive with today's automobile prices. Other inventors are developing cars that convert water directly into hydrogen and oxygen for combustion. A very practical solution to powering cars in a gasoline free world, but will the oil companies ever allow it to become a reality?

We can depend on Congressional Democrats to oppose every measure to actually represent the people and allow this country to provide what its people need and want. They have so clearly shown this over the last year in Congress. Rather than allow American industry to keep up with the growing demands, Reid and Pelosi want to put the American people on an energy diet. If the government doesn't provide it, they don't want it. And they don't want you to have it either. "Just get used to paying more for less." That is the new Democrat motto.