Democrat Accidentally Secures Pork for Someone Else's District

Yep, more and more proof that the Democrats are changing the way we do business in DC:

U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver likes earmarks.

His rule: If they come to his district, federal funds are well worth wrangling over, especially for infrastructure repairs and nonprofit causes.

But how does an East Coast software company qualify for a Cleaver earmark?

For two years, the Kansas City Democrat has secured earmarks totaling about $2 million with the aim of supplying a south Kansas City defense plant the latest in design software technology.

What seemed to him an easy chance to bring home some bacon, however, turned into a lesson on why earmarks are so controversial and difficult to follow.

For starters, the local plant he sought to help — the federally owned Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies Kansas City Plant — never asked for the money, plant officials said.

In fact, most of the public dollars are slated to go to Parametric Technology Corp., a for-profit software developer based 1,200 miles from Cleaver’s district.

“I’d never heard of that company in my life” until recently, said Cleaver, voicing agitation that a lobbying group may have used his appetite for earmarks to its advantage.

He didn’t know what the money was for, didn’t look in to who was asking for it – all he saw was some pork to help him purchase votes for his next re-election bid. And does anyone out there want to say this is the only example we could find?

$1,800,000,000,000.00

That is the deficit that Obama claims we’ll have this year:

The White House raised the 2009 budget deficit projection to a staggering $1.8 trillion today. For context, it took President Bush more than seven years to accumulate $1.8 trillion in debt. It also means that 45 cents of every dollar Washington spends this year will be borrowed.

President Obama continues to distance himself from this “inherited” budget deficit. But the day he was inaugurated, the 2009 deficit was forecast at $1.2 trillion — meaning $600 billion has already been added during his four-month presidency (an amount that, by itself, would exceed all 2001-07 annual budget deficits). And should the president really be allowed to distance himself from the $1.2 trillion “inherited” portion of the deficit, given that as a senator he supported nearly all policies and bailouts that created it?

The president also talks of cutting the deficit in half from this bloated level. But even after the recession ends and the troops return home, he’d still run $1 trillion deficits — compared to President Bush’s $162 billion pre-recession deficit. In other words, the structural budget deficit (which excludes the impacts of booms/recessions) would more than quintuple.

Polls suggest the public tolerates these large deficits because they erroneously believe them to be temporary.

People do understand borrowing a bit to get things set up and then pay off the debt – what the people aren’t being told (by Obama or the MSM) is that these deficits are permanent. And, I’ll bet, not even close to what we’ll actually have. Obama, of course, has his rosy scenario of 3.5% growth next year – working from the tried and true liberal theory that the more you spend the more you have. When it all comes a cropper, I’ll bet that both the FY 2009 and FY 2010 deficits exceed $2 trillion. Try to grasp the figures we’re talking about – for most of us, $1,000.00 is still a good chunk of money…if someone were to spent $1,000.00 per day, he’d blow through a trillion dollars in a quick 2,739,726 years.

Its all a bunch of fiscal smoke and mirrors and, truth be told, I don’t think Obama has the first clue about what he’s doing – he probably believes that he’s doing things which will help. After all, every college professor he ever had probably told him that FDR’s New Deal revitalized America’s economy and, indeed, that government is a magic wand for calling forth all that is best in the world. He’s screwing us over and thinks he’s doing us a favor.

Pelosi: "I'm a Complete Idiot"

Well, ok, so that isn’t a direct quote – but its close:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted Friday that she was briefed only once about the “enhanced” interrogation techniques being used on terrorism suspects and that she was assured by lawyers with the CIA and the Department of Justice that the methods were legal.

Pelosi issued a statement after CIA records released this week showed that Pelosi was briefed in September 2002 on the interrogation methods. The briefings memo appeared to contradict the speaker’s claims that she was never told that waterboarding or other enhanced interrogation methods were being used.

Iowahawk translates from the liberalese:

…After a thorough review of these notes, it appears I was unaware this meeting was with the Central Intelligence Agency. Instead I was under the impression that it was a coffee chat with Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, an important constituent group from my home district. In their description of waterboarding, fuzzy caterpillars, etc., I simply assumed they were speaking of new Castro District trends in sexual foreplay. Had I known the real truth — that they were describing the grim tools of a sadistic torture regime beyond the worst imaginings of Mengele himself — I would have vigorously objected, and would have never cheerfully told my briefers, “play safely!”…

When will you liberals call for Pelosi to resign? From cripes sake, you were after DeLay’s blood for far less than this…

America: Obama Trying to Slip You the Eggroll

Zonation knows whats up.

Subversive Phrase of the Day

The Gipper speaks to Obama’s plans:

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them. – Ronald Reagan

GM: Bankruptcy Inevitible

The news story:

For General Motors Corp., the task at hand is so difficult that experts say a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing is all but inevitable.

To remake itself outside of court, GM must persuade bondholders to swap $27 billion in debt for 10 percent of its risky stock. On top of that, the automaker must work out deals with its union, announce factory closures, cut or sell brands and force hundreds of dealers out of business – all in three weeks.

“I just don’t see how it’s possible, given all of the pieces,” said Stephen J. Lubben, a professor at Seton Hall University School of Law who specializes in bankruptcy.

And I don’t see how it is desirable – except, of course, for the Democrat party which needs the cushy, union contracts in order to keep bags of campaign money flowing in. The big question: in order to keep liberalism afloat, should the taxpayers be on the hook for GM’s problems?

Discuss

The Moderate Trap

Melissa Clouthier over at Pajamas Media has an excellent blast against the concept that the GOP must become more “moderate” if we are to win again. Of course, we are most recently treated to the Specter party-switch and some how or another the fact that a rank opportunist ran away and hid when the going got tough is supposed to tell the GOP that just as discretion is the better part of valor, so is cowardice the better part of discretion. We’re supposed to valiantly hide conservatism in a closet and hope no one notices that we stand for something. This is designed to make it easier for us to pour money and effort into re-electing moderates in Pennsylvania…which just worked out oh, so well for us, didn’t it?

Ladies and gentlemen, did you know that your humble correspondent is a moderate? Oh, I know – to our liberal friends who visit here I’m just a step away from advocating a return to feudalism, but the fact remains that I’m a moderate. Think about it – I’m opposed to the death penalty; I’m against free trade; I want amnesty for illegal immigrants. In all of these things, I am clearly out of step with the large majority of GOP voters. And yet I’m a GOPer. And I’m not asking my fellow GOPers who are in favor of the death penalty, free trade and deportation to change or mute their views or risk losing my support. Honest people can have honest disagreements and remain friends and close allies. I am absolutely confident that no GOPer will ever wish for me to be out of the party on account of my views. Why is this?

Because I believe in the core GOP values: limited government (which means low taxes and spending above all); judicial restraint; strong defense; law and order, faith and family. Now, if I were to ever be in elective office, after garnering ardent GOP support for my bid, just what sort of person would I be if I then went on to vote in favor of some Democrat spending boondoggle? How is that in accord with the core GOP ideal of limited government? Why, in the end, should a GOPer put his faith in me if I can’t even hold to something as basic as that? On the other hand, if I were a staunch vote for spending restraint, national defense and family independence, what would a GOPer have to say to me if I, in addition to this, cast a vote in favor of a path to citizenship for illegals long in country? Oh, to be sure, a lot of GOPers would disagree and say so…but there would be no call for my ouster. There’d be no reason for it – I adhered to core GOP principles.

This what we mean by the “big tent” – that you can have differences of opinion, even quite stark ones, but when push comes to shove and a basic belief is at stake, its time to come down on the side of the basic belief. As a for-instance, GOPers can argue about whether we should cut the income tax or cut spending…but no GOP can say its time to raise taxes and/or raise spending. The moderates, so-called, will have to dance to core tunes. I do. We don’t have to agree on everything all of the time, but we do have to agree on a few things when push comes to shove. We tried the moderate path in 2006 and 2008 and it got us clobbered – we tried to be a nice version of the Democrat party. No more; no, thanks. Time to be the Republican party, and win under that banner, as we’ve won so many times before.

Cheney Tells It Like It Is

Gotta love Cheney.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday continued his verbal attack against President Obama, saying that the country is more vulnerable to a potential terrorist attack since the Obama administration took power.

Mr. Cheney said that administration’s dismantling of many of the policies and protections instituted by President George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks — including the planned closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba and halting controversial prisoner interrogation techniques — have made the country more vulnerable to future attacks.

“That’s my belief,” Mr. Cheney said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “I think to the extent that those [Bush-era] policies were responsible for saving lives, that the administration is now trying to cancel those policies … means in the future we’re not going to have the same safeguards we’ve had for the last eight years.” 

Cheney also explained how waterboarding saved American lives.

The former vice president defended controversial interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, saying that it had been an effective tool in extracting useful information from suspected terrorists such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is accused of helping carry out the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks Washington and New York.

“He did not cooperate fully in terms of interrogations until after waterboarding,” Mr. Cheney said. “Once we went through that process, he produced vast quantities of invaluable information about al Qaida.” 

Of course, Obama’s White House wants everyone to believe that previously ineffective interrogation techniques that weren’t working would suddenly work.

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: And I expect 100% of your liberals to congratulate Vice President Cheney for exercising the highest form of patriotism: criticizing the President.

Obama Lacks Class

Last night was the White House Correspondents’ dinner, as you may have heard, and amongst a whole slew of jokes, Obama made one that just didn’t sit well with me. He joked that Dick Cheney couldn’t make the dinner because he was working on his memoir tentatively titled, ‘How to Shoot Friends and Interrogate People.’

First, the reference to the hunting accident. As a someone new to hunting, and therefore recently completed a hunting safety course, I find joking about a hunting accident to be poor taste. Hunting may be a generally safe sport, but hunting accidents do occur and people have been killed. There’s nothing funny about that. 

Second, the interrogation line… What gets me about this is that Obama thinks “enhanced interrogations” are torture, so, for all you pro-Al  qaeda liberals ought to shocked that Obama would find that something to make a joke about.

Now, does this really surprise me? Well, to be honest, the part of the joke about interrogation surprised me more than the hunting part because Obama has no class at all. Remember his joke about the Special Olympics? Remember how he mocked the tea parties? But really, if you are someone who really believes that enhanced interrogation is torture, do you really think that it is appropriate to joke about it?

Happy Mother's Day

In loving memory of Barbara Jane Noonan (1933 – 2003) and Dolores Margaret Wilinski (1930 – 2009)

I’m a mother and a homemaker, and it isn’t glamorous. It’s tedious, monotonous, thankless, messy, germy, and it can be really hard on your manicure. It’s also the greatest job in the whole world.

Read the whole thing. And call your mother, if she’s still with you.