Oh look, cute little puppies! Meehan gets my vote

Now we know what our congressman, Pat Meehan, stands for: puppies. Cute little roly-poly, squirmy, furry, adorable little puppies.
News broke Monday that Meehan, R-7, and neighboring Republican Congressman James Gerlach, of Chester County, are cosponsoring federal legislation to regulate puppy mills nationwide.
Never mind that puppy mills are a state regulatory problem, one that has already been tackled here in Pennsylvania by former Gov. Ed  Rendell and former State Rep. Bryan Lentz, both Democrats. 
Never mind that regulating puppy mills goes against the Republican mantra of less regulation and smaller government.
Pat Meehan knows a crowd-pleaser when he sees one and, by gosh, puppies are definitely it.  No one can possibly criticize him for defending cute little puppies and their mothers, can they?  No, of course not.
He might even be sticking his neck out a little here because, as we all know from Fox News, any regulation whatsoever is a job killer.  How many jobs do you think he's going to kill by backing this puppy mill regulation thing? Probably not a lot.  Maybe a kennel mucker here or there.
Still, I wonder if we can hear from Meehan on some other important federal stuff, like creating jobs, protecting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, bringing the costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to a close, taxing the wealthy and corporations, preserving the environment and supporting education.
I looked up Meehan’s voting record and I am proud to report that he has sponsored a bill!
That's right. One bill, according to govtrack.us, but it's an important one: H.R. 2764: WMD Intelligence and Information Sharing Act of 2011.  
This bill would amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 "to establish weapons of mass destruction intelligence and information sharing functions of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis of the Department of Homeland Security and to require dissemination of information analyzed by the department to entities with responsibilities relating to homeland security, and for other purposes."
Far be it from me to tell a member of the House Homeland Security Committee how to perform his duties, but honestly, I would have thought that the various agencies of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security would already be sharing information about weapons of mass destruction with each other and other government and private entities concerned with protecting our country. 
I would not expect that it would require an act of Congress to accomplish this.
Let's look at the rest of his voting record so far.  According to votesmart.org, Meehan has voted pretty much down the party line. 
For abortion restrictions, check; against funding Planned Parenthood, check; against the Endangered Species Act, check, and for every one of those Teapublican and Republican debt limit and deficit-cutting bills that helped put our economy so deep in the toilet (How much did your retirement savings lose?).
And, in case you were wondering, yes, he did vote for saving the incandescent light bulb from oppressive government regulation.
While he did vote against federal funding for National Public Radio (that Commie propaganda machine), he voted to allow federal funding of NASCAR sponsorships.  Gotta know where your priorities  are.
And, hmm, what’s this?  Her voted for reducing Navy and Air Force appropriations but voted against reducing Navy and Air Force aircraft procurement. 
Can you say, Osprey jobs, boys and girls?  One man’s pork is another man’s bacon (as in bring home the…). 
He also voted for school vouchers for Washington, D.C., but for repealing funding for school-based health center construction. We can’t have places for school nurses to give out condoms and birth control information, can we? 
Speaking of health care, Meehan has voted for every last, pathetic attempt to repeal the health care reform act.  He has also voted to repeal every federal program designed to help foreclosure victims, against extending the FAA funding extension act (see my last blog) and every other bill that would have encouraged or allowed collective bargaining.
But he voted for every bill to extend the provisions of the Patriot Act.
In essence, he voted for every bill that he knew would make him look good to conservative voters but that he knew would never make it through the Senate or past President Obama’s veto.  Party over country every time.
So, aside from the Navy and Air Force aircraft procurement bill, where, I ask you, Mr. Meehan, are the jobs bills? 
Can you forget about the cute little puppies for awhile and work on that? Can you work on something your constituents, other than Boeing employees, really, really need? Can you?
We love cute little puppies but we love being able to put food on the table more.
Next week I'll tell you what our U.S. senators have been up to.