Blogs For Victory

I mean, you’ve got to be kidding me:

Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias is threatening to pull state business from Wells Fargo & Co. unless the bank stops trying to liquidate a company that makes suits for President Barack Obama.

Giannoulias made the ultimatum outside a Hartmarx Corp. factory in Des Plaines Thursday. Chicago-based Hartmarx is the nation’s largest maker of men’s tailored clothing.

The name “Giannoulias” struck a bell, and then I remembered he’s an Obama protege – picked out early for elective office by the fast-rising Obama and now being groomed for a Senate run to obtain Obama’s former seat. I also remembered that Giannoulias was involved in some way with Obama’s partner in Illinois corruption, Tony Rezko – the Giannoulias family bank did a lot of business with Rezko. So, what we have here is the Illinois Democrat political mafia calling for a hit on someone who isn’t willing to pay protection (in this case, in the form of keeping employed a lot of SEIU union members who’s dues go in large measure to Democrat party coffers)…”that’s a nice, little financial institution you’ve got there, Mr. Fargo. Be a shame if anything was to happen to it…”. After all, its not like Obama’s got more going for him than tailoring and teleprompters, right? Wells Fargo is placing 50% of the Obama mystique at risk…

Are Democrats getting ready to eat one of their own?

The House majority leader reluctantly agreed Tuesday that congressional hearings should investigate Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s assertion that she wasn’t informed, more than six years ago, that harsh interrogation methods were used on an al-Qaida leader.

Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., called Republican challenges to Pelosi’s assertion a diversion from the real question of whether the Bush administration tortured terrorist suspects. Nonetheless, he acknowledged the controversy should be resolved.

Hoyer, of course, wants Pelosi’s job and the best way to get it is to force Pelosi to resign…and so calling for an investigation which everyone knows will show Pelosi is a liar is a good way to secure that. Also, Democrats are worried that in 2010 all the GOP will have to do to win swing districts is hang a picture of Pelosi next to the Democrat. Remember, the most important thing to a liberal Democrat is to hold on to office…anything which risks having a Democrat lose his place at the trough is living on borrowed time.

The news story:

Counties suffering the most from job losses stand to receive the least help from President Barack Obama’s plan to spend billions of stimulus dollars on roads and bridges, an Associated Press analysis has found.

Although the intent of the money is to put people back to work, AP’s review of more than 5,500 planned transportation projects nationwide reveals that states are planning to spend the stimulus in communities where jobless rates are already lower.

One result among many: Elk County, Pa., isn’t receiving any road money despite its 13.8 percent unemployment rate. Yet the military and college community of Riley County, Kan., with its 3.4 percent unemployment, will benefit from about $56 million to build a highway, improve an intersection and restore a historic farmhouse.

Altogether, the government is set to spend 50 percent more per person in areas with the lowest unemployment than it will in communities with the highest.

The AP reviewed $18.9 billion in projects, the most complete picture available of where states plan to spend the first wave of highway money. The projects account for about half of the $38 billion set aside for states and local governments to spend on roads, bridges and infrastructure in the stimulus plan.

Because government can’t get it right – its just not possible. You see, where the money is going to get spent is where the pull is the strongest…and poor districts just don’t have a lot of pull, ya dig? Even supposing that stimulus would improve the economy (it won’t, but for the sake of argument…), the plain fact of the matter is that like all government expenditures it will give an overwhelming amount of its aid to people who don’t need it. Who in heck needs a restored historic farm house? It ain’t some single mom who just had her hours cut. You think affirmative action actually helps poor, black people? What rock have you been living under?

Its a gigantic boondoggle passed on the run by corrupt, liberal Democrats who only care about one thing – getting re-elected…and you don’t get re-elected by helping poor people. Don’t you liberals understand that, at all? The only thing helping poor people gets you is that immense feeling of love and satisfaction…heck, do it enough and you might wind up a Saint with Our Lord saying, “well done, good and faithful servant”…and just what use is that at election time? To get re-elected – under liberalism, especially – you need to grease the wheels. You need to take care of certain people. Some of your backers need “walking around money”, don’t you know? Every penny spent actually helping the poor is a penny less spent helping you get re-elected…

Figure it out, liberals – you’re being scammed. You think your side is all about goodness, sweetness and light. Its not – its a disgusting, nauseating thing scurrying around on slimy legs…

Obama is promising us multi-trillion dollar budget deficits on course to create about $8 trillion in new debt by 2017. Since we conservatives are aghast at this, it does fall to us to say what we’ll cut. So, taking the President’s budget we cut.

$20 billion for loans and grants for rural development.

$119 million for purchasing new Forest Service lands.

$6.9 billion for rural water treatment, internet connection, Forest Service facilities and home loans.

$230 million for NOAA habitat restoration.

$180 million for National Institute of Science and Technology facilities.

$50 million for the Economic Development Administration.

$2.5 billion for Action Completion and Incentive Fund.

$1.6 billion for Dept. of Energy basic science.

$3.4 billion for carbon capture.

$6 billion for cancer research.

$63 billion for the “down payment” on socialized medicine.

$1 billion for comparative effectiveness research.

$1.1 billion for the “Zero to Five” program.

$47.5 billion for the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (department closed)

$420 million for the Land and Water Conservation fund.

$1.4 billion for the Office of Detention Trustee.

$13.3 billion for Dept. of Labor (department closed)

$35 billion from Dept. of Transportation (bit less than 50% reduction).

$3 billion from EPA (removing proposed increase).

$1.1 billion for Corporation of National and Community Service.

$1.4 billion CVN-21 program.

$2.2 billion DDG-51 program.

$4 billion SSN-774 program.

$1.3 billion Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle.

$120 billion for 10%, across the board reductions in proposed increases.

So, I’ve cut $336 billion from the President’s proposals. I’m sure that in the far details we can cull enough to round it out to $500 billion in savings. Still means we have outlays of $3.09 trillion and expected revenues of $2.3 trillion – a $700 billion or so shortfall. So, just where to we scare up $700 billion on short notice?

Well, Uncle Sam owns 650 million acres of land – about 30% of the total US land area. Should be able to sell 10% of that, or 65 million acres, at $1,000 per acre (on average), there is $65 billion dollars.

There has got to be a couple hundred billion in continental shelf and other oil/natural gas leases.

It is said that the very wealthy hold about $20 trillion in wealth – land, trust funds, yachts…that sort of thing. Stuff which doesn’t get taxed because its not income. This is the wealth of Ted Kennedy, Jay Rockefeller, George Soros…you know, the fighters for the little guy in liberal politics. Well, its time for them to pony up and put their wealth where they have proposed to put our income…in to government, their great friend and benefactor of all Mankind. We’ll need about $450 billion from them – so, pay up, my wealthy friends. Its patriotic, don’t you know?

On the other hand, we can go for a round of tax cuts of various types to kick-start the economy (uh, we’re still keeping those $500 billion in spending cuts, boys and girls)…so, either Ted gives up the yacht to cover the deficit, or the American people are able to keep more of their money. Your choice, liberals.

Discuss.

Given the rise of anti-Semitism in Islam and the so-called liberal West, this is an important quote:

It is not possible for Christians to take part in anti-Semitism. We are Semites spiritually. – Pope Pius XI

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?

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.

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…

Zonation knows whats up.

The Gipper speaks to Obama’s plans:

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