Read it and weep, liberals:

Recent research at Harvard Business School began with the premise that as a state’s congressional delegation grew in stature and power in Washington, D.C., local businesses would benefit from the increased federal spending sure to come their way.

It turned out quite the opposite. In fact, professors Lauren Cohen, Joshua Coval, and Christopher Malloy discovered to their surprise that companies experienced lower sales and retrenched by cutting payroll, R&D, and other expenses. Indeed, in the years that followed a congressman’s ascendancy to the chairmanship of a powerful committee, the average firm in his state cut back capital expenditures by roughly 15 percent, according to their working paper…

Easy to figure out – once a politician gains in stature, the corporate interests who raised him to power become complacent. They start to live off their connections in government rather than off of hard work and innovation. Why bother working hard when for a pittance (in comparison) you can just bribe a politician for sweat heart government contracts or tax breaks?

The larger government gets, the worse it gets for everyone for the simple reason that government can be swayed – it can be bribed. After a while, you get the situation we currently have – where Big Government and Big Corporation bribe each other for mutual benefit. The only people suffering in this are, well, the people. We don’t have the free market we need for growth nor do we have a government we can rely on to help us.

Only by breaking down the power of government will we be able to restore a sense of rationality and honesty in both American government and business. The liberal dream of a wise elite using government to ensure the good life for all has proven a nightmare – and it is time we woke up from it.

This noted at NRO’s The Corner:

Let’s see. The United States is broke. Our government has no choice but to cover the costs of our troops fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq and to pay out disaster relief before Memorial Day recess. So what do the President and the speaker of the House focus on? Cutting a deal to ram through $18 billion in energy pork while nobody’s looking.

Never mind that the $18 billion is for unnecessary federal energy loan guarantees ($9 billion for nuclear power and $9 billion for renewables) or that the latest analysis suggests that more than a quarter of the applicants for these loans are likely to default on them. Nor does it seem to matter that just last month at House hearings, both the chairman and the ranking member voiced skepticism about making these loans until they had much more information.

Last week, Republican senator Thad Cochran urged Senators to resist amendments to the War Supplemental Bill that are unrelated to the military or disaster relief. After hearing about this and other deals, Republican senator Tom Coburn was blunter: “The emergency designation of this bill,” he argued, “is a farce designed to evade the budget rules that require Congress to pay for new spending.” You’d like to think that the House Appropriations Committee would block this one when it comes up for a vote later this week…

But, of course, when push came to shove, Democrats decided to lavish (borrowed) taxpayer dollars on favored constituencies. As we head towards complete financial meltdown, we can count on our Democrats to pour a bit more gasoline on the bonfire of America. The moochers got their money; Democrats will get their political donations; the people got the shaft.

There is a nauseating stench of corruption emanating from Washington, DC. It grows worse and worse and I can only figure that the Democrats figure they’ve got a mortal lock on the Congress – that there is no way we can possibly defeat them in November.

Well, fellow Americans, let us work to disappoint them – and when we’ve got back in to power, let us not forget what they have done. This isn’t about revenge – there is no revenge in politics. There are, however, consequences…and the consequences of selling America down the river should be quite stern.

Once again, I really, really like this guy:

Teachers – the best of them – are worth their weight in gold…but the fact of the matter is that New Jersey is bankrupt and there simply isn’t enough money for everything. Christie only has control over the State budget – he doesn’t have control over just how a school board spends the money.

The teacher in the video should be applying herself to the school board – why is money not taken out of Administration and placed in the classroom? That is the unasked question – and the question the educrats don’t want asked.

Fun, fun, fun:

…the real civil war this year is going on in the Democratic Party — and it is going largely unreported.

One reason is that it is not a clear-cut battle between two easily identifiable forces, like Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and Grant’s Army of the Potomac. Rather, it resembles the guerrilla conflicts of the Civil War in Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma, with local self-starters scurrying about in all directions…

Barone goes on to note the knock down, drag out fights which are killing the Democrats in Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Utah, New York and Illinois. All around the country, Democrats are getting at each others throats – some resolutely standing on the left, others desperate to disassociate themselves from it. Caught in the middle are rank-and-file Democrat voters who simply don’t know what to do – forbidden to even think of having a grass-roots effort like the TEA Party, Democrat faithful simply must wait until their masters hash it out. And if they don’t hash it out?

Its going to be an interesting political year – and very fun for a Republican.

He had the governorship of Washington State brazenly stolen from him by the Democrats in 2004 – that was then, this now. Now is time to remove a barnacle from the United States Senate:

Getting justice is very difficult under the Obama Administration – but people keep on trying:

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Obama Justice Department to obtain documents related to the agency’s decision to dismiss the claims against several members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense who were accused of engaging in voter intimidation during the 2008 presidential campaign (U.S. v. New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense)…

Obama’s Justice department has been stonewalling this for about a year now – they simply do not want to move against the New Black Panther Party. Why not? We can only surmise that either the members of the group know of illegal activities on the part of Obama’s team or that the Obama team wants to keep a corps of thugs around to use in future elections.

This is Obama’s America, boys and girls. The change we can believe in – Gestapo tactics and government corruption to cover it up.

Now President Obama is just getting irritating:

Despite reports that President Obama was going to kick back and relax at his Chicago home this weekend, the White House said Tuesday that he will travel to Louisiana Friday to inspect the growing oil spill.

The Chicago Sun-Times’ Lynn Sweet reported the president was planning to spend the weekend with friends and leave work in Washington.

But a senior administration official said Tuesday the president will head to the Louisiana Gulf Coast to review firsthand the efforts to counter a disastrous oil spill. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the trip has not yet been announced.

Nice of him to take a day out of his busy schedule more than a month after the crisis started. I guess he is a busy man – had to host the President of Mexico and kowtow to Mexico being upset that their cash cow in the United States is in danger.

This President of ours just doesn’t seem to care about real, flesh and blood human beings who are in trouble. He cares so much about Humanity that he hasn’t time to deal with individual humans who are having a hard time. I guess this is in keeping with his leftist worldview – you know, the collective is all, the individual is nothing.

We can’t get him and his party out of power fast enough.

As I’ve said, just when you think they can’t go any lower, they manage to find the basement in the sewer:

Author Joe McGinniss has taken up residence in a house next to Palin’s lakeside home in Wasilla.

McGinniss previously wrote a critical expose on Palin and her natural gas pipeline plan for the Conde Nast publication Portfolio last year, and is planning a book about the former Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential candidate. It’s tentatively titled, “Sarah Palin’s Year of Living Dangerously” and could be on the shelves in the fall of 2011.

“Yes, that Joe McGinniss. Here he is about 15 feet away on the neighbor’s rented deck overlooking my children’s play area and my kitchen window,” Palin posted on Facebook late Monday, hours after returning from a trip to the Lower 48 and learning of McGinniss’ presence.

“We’re sure to have a doozey to look forward to with this treasure he’s penning. Wonder what kind of material he’ll gather while overlooking Piper’s bedroom, my little garden, and the family’s swimming hole?” she wrote.

Honestly, what does this guy hope to learn? Is he one of those guys trying to prove that Sarah isn’t the mother of Trig? Does he hope to get some shots of the family in their underwear?

Liberals, this obsessive hatred you have for Sarah Palin simply has got to stop. I realize that she’s better looking than any liberal woman, smarter than any two dozen of you put together and has done more real good than any liberal politician could ever hope to do…but just because she’s vastly better than you are, its no reason to hate her.

It might, perhaps, he better if you’d get off your knees and actually try to rise to Palin’s level – once you are no longer looking in the mud and are, instead, trying to look in her eyes, you might see something quite interesting.

Meanwhile, you guys are really starting to creep us all out. Stop it.

I don’t think this scandal will go away:

There are two possibilities here. One is that Sestak was embellishing or outright fibbing, and the White House doesn’t want to hang him out to dry… The other is that there was some kind of offer, which might be illegal but is — in any case — the epitome of Washington insiderness and backroom deals, which the voters have come to loathe.

His opponent, Pat Toomey, echoes the New York Times (yeah, it’s a weird election year all right), putting out a statement that is restrained in tone but asks for a full accounting: “My response is simply this: Congressman Sestak should tell the public everything he knows about the job he was offered, and who offered it. To do otherwise will only continue to raise questions and continue to be a needless distraction in this campaign.”

It is a measure of how frustrated the press has become with the perpetual stonewalling and outright contempt this president has shown the media that the Times and other outlets are now aligned with a conservative Republican in demanding that one of the most liberal Democrats on the ballot come clean.

I doubt that Sestak was lying – anything is possible, but to make something like that up out of whole cloth not at all likely. He was offered something – or at least was given to understand he was offered something (it is doubtful that it was ever as straightforward as “if you get out, we’ll give you this; there would be a wink/wink, nudge/nudge aspect to this). It is also very much in keeping with the Democrats MO – they do these sorts of deals on a regular basis (you might recall the way they booted Bob Toricelli off the NJ Senate ballot – illegally – when the Powers That Be became concerned he would commit Mortal Democrat Sin…ie, lose the race).

So, who said what to whom? This is what must be answered – and the longer Sestak and the Administration stonewall, the worse it will be. Of course, it is much worse for Sestak – he already had an uphill climb to try and win the race ,now its a lot harder. For the Administration, not such a big deal. One more Democrat Senator, more or less, doesn’t matter and if Sestak loses, then the whole scandal dies for lack of interest.

Bad for Democrats, fun for Republicans – I wonder how long they’ll keep the stone wall up?

Some of the latest news:

North Korea accused South Korea’s navy Tuesday of trespassing in its waters and threatened military action, further raising tensions sparked by the sinking of one of Seoul’s warships in March.

The South has announced a series of reprisals including a trade ban after a multinational investigation concluded last week that a North Korean submarine had torpedoed the Cheonan on March 26…

Why on earth would North Korea torpedo a South Korean ship? I know – the rulers of NK are a bit lunatic, but where is the upside on this action? What were they hoping to accomplish?

I was initially thinking that this was a move to just shake us down for some more bribes – given the sort of President we’ve got, it was a good bet that provocation would be rewarded. But now things are taking a decidedly ugly turn. There is a real threat of a shooting war – not big; not like its sure to happen in a week…but its definitely there.

I begin to wonder – who benefits from a blow up on the Korean peninsula? Not the Koreans, to be sure. Neither do we. Japan sure as heck has to be nervous as all get out. Who?

China is about to have one heck of an economic downturn – they have to pay the piper for all the free money they shoved in to their economy in a bid to get past the recession. There are bubbles stacked upon bubbles in the Chinese economy and they all must come down – could it be that China is stirring the hornet’s nest?

A major crisis in Korea allows people to blame that for a severe down turn in the Asian economy – rather than blaming the Chinese government for their asinine economic policies. A blow up in Korea allows the Chinese government to excuse itself to the Chinese people for their coming economic problems – not our fault, those dratted Koreans did it! A war in Korea will distract the world completely from what is going on in China while China endures the down turn, represses its own people and puts its fiscal house back in order. And its not like it’d be hard for China to get hold of a North Korean torpedo and use it to hit a South Korean ship…heck, China might even be the source for NK’s torpedoes.

This is all just a theory of course – but if someone has a better one, I’m all ears.