If you believed that the so-called stimulus was going to target areas that needed an infusion of money to boost their economy, you were wrong. An analysis by BigGovernment.com shows that almost double the stimulus money was sent to Democrat districts over Republican districts on average. Now, this can mean one of two things… Either the local economies of Republican districts are doing much be better economically than their Democrat counterparts, or that stimulus dollars are more about stimulating the Democratic Party than the economy.

My lord, listening to the left screaming about violent threats against Democrat members of Congress or Barack Obama really gets under my skin.

First, let me state that no threats of violence against anyone is condoned here. What I have a problem with is how the left acts like the alleged behaviors being reported on incessantly are somehow unique to conservative activists.

Zowblog has an extensive collection of  pictures of liberals advocating violence against and the death of President George W. Bush. These pictures show a level of extremism that is unimaginable…  How likely is it the same people who made signs calling for Bush to be shot are outraged today at reports of alleged violent threats at pro-Obamacare Democrats?

Also, let’s not forget that House GOP Whip Eric Cantor’s office was actually shot at Wednesday night. Not exactly getting the same degree of media attention is it? The fake story of racial slurs being shouted at the health care rally on Sunday is still getting more play.

Why don’t we all unite in a bipartisan call for civility in public debate?  You know, I’ve been physically attacked because of my politics, I get the seriousness of it all. But the left can’t label anti-Bush protesters calling for his violent death for eight years  “patriots” and then sing a different tune about alleged threats being made against some Democrats by a select few people.

If you needed another reason to hate Obamacare, Castro’s endorsement ought to do it for you.

It perhaps was not the endorsement President Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress were looking for.

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on Thursday declared passage of American health care reform “a miracle” and a major victory for Obama’s presidency, but couldn’t help chide the United States for taking so long to enact what communist Cuba achieved decades ago.

“We consider health reform to have been an important battle and a success of his (Obama’s) government,” Castro wrote in an essay published in state media, adding that it would strengthen the president’s hand against lobbyists and “mercenaries.”

So, Castro and Obama have similar beliefs on what makes good health care… How many of you liberals would voluntarily go to Cuba for health care?

I thought so.

Who can describe what it is like to see power-hungry Democrat deliberately ignore the will of the people while declaring their passing of government-run health care as being on behalf of the American people. Poll after poll showed Americans did not support Obamacare, and it took back room deals, arm twisting, and threats to narrowly pass legislation that empowers the government in ways that place George Orwell’s 1984 closer to the non-fiction section.

But make no mistake, this isn’t over yet. November is closer than you think. We will win back Congress, we’ll kick Obama out of the White House — a place he never belonged in the first place — and prevent this country from going down the mudslide towards socialism.

Americans will continue to rise up and stand against the tyranny of corrupt politicians only interested in empowering themselves. The Tea Party Movement will continue even louder.

Obama’s election put our Republic on life-support. Last night, congressional Democrats pulled the plug.  We have a small window of opportunity to fix this before our health care system becomes broken beyond repair. Whatever your problems with the past failings of the Republican were, you have to forgive because the Republican Party is our best device to end this socialist nightmare.

If you don’t get that, then you are otly part of the problem, and not the solution.

Our mission is clearly defined in one word: Repeal.

We will do it.

UPDATE: Ditto what Karol says.

If you thought Obama was all for transparency, you know by now that Obama and transparency don’t mix. If you are still holding out the belief that Obama has ushered in a new era of unprecendented transparency, a new AP analysis should put that to rest.

Federal agencies haven’t lived up to President Barack Obama’s promise of a more open government, increasing their use of legal exemptions to keep records secret during his first year in office.

An Associated Press review of Freedom of Information Act reports filed by 17 major agencies found that the use of nearly every one of the law’s nine exemptions to withhold information from the public rose in fiscal year 2009, which ended last October.

Among the most frequently used exemptions: one that lets the government hide records that detail its internal decision-making. Obama specifically directed agencies to stop using that exemption so frequently, but that directive appears to have been widely ignored.

Major agencies cited that exemption at least 70,779 times during the 2009 budget year, up from 47,395 times during President George W. Bush’s final full budget year, according to annual FOIA reports filed by federal agencies. Obama was president for nine months in the 2009 period.

Departments used the exemption more even though Obama’s Justice Department told agencies to that disclosing such records was “fully consistent with the purpose of the FOIA,” a law intended to keep government accountable to the public.

It seems to me, and anyone else paying attention, that Obama has not lived up to his end of the bargain. Be it about transparency,  or bipartisanship.  He campaigned on lies. Plain and simple. And for someone who attacked anything and everything about George W. Bush, Obama is only doing a good job making people realize how much better things were when we had a real leader in the White House.

HAT TIP: Riehl World View.

I can’t help being totally amused by the Democrats whining about alleged abuses of the filibuster by Republicans which has Harry Reid promising filibuster reform next year.

Leaders in the Senate indicated yesterday they will begin discussions within weeks about how to change filibuster rules — which have allowed Republicans in the Senate to block legislation that does not receive 60 votes.

Liberal activists and bloggers hailed the news, after clamoring for Democrats to take action against GOP tactics, which has kept Democrats from advancing key items on their agenda like health care reform.

In a discussion with liberal media outlets Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said that the Senate would look at new filibuster rules at the start of the next Congress, the Huffington Post reports.

What’s truly ironic is that the filibuster, a delay tactic for legislation, was abused by Democrats in the Bush years to block qualified nominees from the courts and other appointed positions.  The same liberal activists and bloggers who are drooling at the idea of killing the filibuster now were hailing the Democrats filibusters under Bush.

This just goes to show you that Democrats only believe in rules when those rules work for them. After the 2000 election they wanted to kill the Electoral College. In 2004, they wanted to challenge the results of Ohio, even though no finagling of the results would have created a national popular vote win for Kerry.  In Massachusetts, the Democrat controlled legislature changed the law on vacancies to prevent Republican governor Mitt Romney from having the power to appoint  a replacement for John Kerry had he won the presidential election, and Massachusetts Democrats changed the rule back so Democrat governor Deval Patrick could immediately appoint Paul Kirk, rather than hold a special election when Democrats hoped to ram through health care.

Back to this filibuster nonsense… Let’s consider what it actually happening… Republicans today are trying to prevent Democrats from ramming through unpopular legislation, Democrats prevented a sitting president from fufilling his constitutional obligation to fill vacancies on the courts… yet Republicans are the ones accused of abusing the filibuster? Is Harry Reid joking?

When a majority of the people oppose legislation, one would think that members of Congress would listen to the people. Well, Democrats are turning a blind eye to the will of the people and have been trying to shove there health care takeover through Congress with little debate. Their actions essential prove why the filibuster is an important part of the Senate’s rules.

Granted, I agree that in recent years that the filibuster has been abused, but that’s a result of the growing partisan divide in government, and a failure of the Senate to police itself with regards to its rules. Republicans let Democrats abuse the filibuster when they blocked George W. Bush’s nominees, and their lack of action to stop that abuse has paved the way for a “standard” 60 vote threshold on legislation. Something must be done about that, for sure. But, if Democrats think Republicans are abusing the filibuster, then clearly they do not understand what its purpose is, because they pioneered modern day abuse of the filibuster.

I was thinking the other about the problem this country faces with rabid partisanship. In my opinion, the way things are now is not how the Founding Fathers envisioned things to be.

Federalist Paper #10 warned of the problems of “factions” or political parties would have in our system of representative democracy. While it was believed our government could tame them, clearly it has not.

I’ve been wondering what could be done to usher in an era of bipartisanship — genuine bipartisanship — and thought maybe one way would be to go back to the original way the President and Vice-President were elected prior to the 12th Amendment. The Founders originally had electors vote for President, and the runner up would be Vice-President. It seems to me, that the 12th Amendment is responsible for the established two-party system, and for exacerbating partisanship over the years.

So, tell me your thoughts… Should the 12th Amendment be repealed? Would it make things better for the country?

You know the news is going to be bad when the White House is preemptively making excuses for the numbers.

White House economic adviser Larry Summers said on Monday winter blizzards were likely to distort U.S. February jobless figures, which are due to be released on Friday.

“The blizzards that affected much of the country during the last month are likely to distort the statistics. So it’s going to be very important … to look past whatever the next figures are to gauge the underlying trends,” Summers said in an interview with CNBC, according to a transcript.

Construction activity was hit particularly hard by the storms, but many restaurants and stores also had to close, putting the brakes on hiring plans and temporarily throwing some employees out of work.

My guess? We’re back to 10.0% or more unemployment.

I recently came across a graph being put out by Barack Obama’s Organizing for America, which tries to graphically demostrate the success of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and suggest the under the Bush Administration job losses increased, while under Obama job losses decreased:

Look convincing?  Maybe to people who want to believe what it claims to say, but let’s really look at what’s going on.

These are job loss numbers… No matter how you slice it, these are negative numbers. The graph has some accompanying text that references the same CBO report that I recently proved was a flawed analysis.

Now, one thing to consider is that the cyclical nature of the economy means that  in a recession job losses will start off larger and slow down. The stimulus wouldn’t change that. and clearly, based the graph, the rate of decrease in the job losses hasn’t come any quicker that the rate of increase. Of course, if a double-dip recession occurs, as is feared, Obama’s minions will have a hard time using charts to paint the blame on Bush.

So, with job losses naturally declining, what numbers are more telling to look at? Well, let’s look at a chart of the unemployment rate for the same period of time in the graph above

The above chart, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, shows an increasing unemployment at the same time the Obama graph shows a decreasing rate of job losses. Of course, the unemployment was supposed to stay below 8 percent and not hit double digits because of the stimulus… but Obama’s graph doesn’t say anything about that.

Another aspect of the Obama chart worth addressing is the misleading nature of the labeling. In other words, by simply saying pre-2009 in Bush and and post-2009 is Obama does not tell the story accurately in any way, shape or form. The facts are that Democrats have controlled Congress since January 2007. When they control legislation and the budget process, to ignore that when talking about the economy is foolish.

So, I thought it be interesting to look at the unemployment numbers from 2005 to 2010, to see the trend and compare it to when power changed in Congress…

Interesting, isn’t it?  The economy appears to be quite stable and with low unemployment before the Democrats took over.  In fact, after the Democrats had power, unemployment slowly started trending upward, only to get worse in 2008. Democrats, once in power, made Republican spending look restrained, and one of their first big pushes was for an increase in the federal minimum wage, which, contrary to their claims, sent unemployment in the wrong direction, and in particular sent the unemployment rate of working age teenagers skyrocketing

So, Obama-bots ought not to read too much into the graph put out by Organizing for America… the millions of people who have lost their jobs under Obama probably aren’t comforted by meaningless statistics that offer no proof of success for legislation that he promised would keep them working.

UPDATE: This is another tellling graph. And be sure to keep this in mind.

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: Fannie Mae seeks $15.3 billion more in bail out funds.