Huh?????

See if this doesn’t make your head spin:

“How,” asks the lady from CBS, “does $335 million in STD prevention stimulate the economy?”

“I’ll tell you how,” says Speaker Pelosi. “I’m a big believer in prevention. And we have, er, there is a part of the bill on the House side that is about prevention. It’s about it being less expensive to the states to do these measures.”

Mark Steyn goes on to say (sarcastically):

Makes a lot of sense. If we have more STD prevention, it will be safer for loose women to go into bars and pick up feckless men, thus stimulating the critical beer and nuts and jukebox industries. To do this, we need trillion-dollar deficits, which our children and grandchildren will have to pay off—but, with sufficient investment in prevention measures, there won’t be any children or grandchildren, so there’s that problem solved.

This is just one small example of the total lunacy that the “stimulus package” has become.  It is not much more than a gigantic pork sandwich, stuffed with every liberal pipedream of the last 20 years!  Yes, Democrats won the election and, thus, have the votes to pass anything they want.  But don’t try to insult our collective intelligence by claiming that it will do anything to actually stimulate the economy!

Didn’t watch

One of the reasons I chose not to watch the inaugural events today was that I simply cannot stomach any more of the big media’s sycophantic treatment of Obama.   After totally discarding any semblance of objectivity during the campaign, they have now morphed into a full-fledged propaganda machine, where everything he says and does is the “newest”, the “greatest”, the “most brilliant”, the “most exciting”, etc., etc., etc.  ad nauseum….

I will let Cal Thomas put it in perspective:

The media coverage of the Inauguration gave a preview of how they might cover the Second Coming. It was total worship. No doubts were expressed; no questions about his ability to do anything — from healing the economy to bringing peace to the Middle East. The media have at last found a god in whom they can believe. They are worshipping at the altar of the church of Barack Obama. Journalists and some of their ideological cable TV allies have so much invested in Obama’s success that they will be hard-pressed to criticize him for anything and can probably be counted on to explain and justify any mistakes he makes, at least in the first two years.

I’d rather watch American Idol. At least there is some contrary opinion allowed to be expressed… and there’s an occasional laugh!

Continued demonstration of class

From The American Thinker:

January 20, 2009

Flight 1549 heroes beg off interviews during investigation

Ethel C. Fenig

Not that there was any doubt that the crew of US Airways Flight 1549 was a shining example of first class heroism and first class class but here, in a statement released by the US Airlines Pilots Association and the Association of Flight Attendants, is further proof.

WASHINGTON —  The crew of the US Airways plane that landed in New York’s Hudson River has asked the media to back off while the accident is being investigated.Flight 1549′s captain, Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, first officer and co-pilot Jeff Skiles, and flight attendants Sheila Dail, Doreen Welsh and Donna Dent said in a joint statement Monday they want the media to “respect their desire to refrain from participating in interviews until further notice” while the National Transportation Safety Board investigates the accident.

The crew said they “wish to offer their sincere thanks and appreciation for the overwhelming support, praise and well wishes they have received from the public around the world since the events of last Thursday.”

They said they are willing to do media interviews “when the time is right.”

And no, when the inevitable film or tv program of this incredible event is cast, Harrison Ford should definitely not play the pilot nor Demi Moore or Jessica Alba a flight attendant;  not one of them, or actually most of Hollywood, has the acting ability to portray such understated heroics.

Anyone else would be in jail

Timothy Geithner, the newly nominated candidate for Secretary of the Treasury, who many claim is a financial genius and the only person who can stave off financial disaster, somehow “forgot” to pay his own quarterly Social Security and Medicare taxes for at least 3 of the last 8 years. He is having difficulty coming up with an adequate explanation of this “oversight” for his Senate confirmation hearings (probably because there really isn’t a good reason):

What senators learned at the gathering was not only that Geithner had failed to pay self-employment taxes during his time at the International Monetary Fund. They learned that the IMF had repeatedly informed Geithner, as it had all its employees, of his obligation to pay that tax. They learned that Geithner signed documents saying he would pay the tax. And they learned that Geithner accepted IMF reimbursement for Social Security and Medicare taxes that he had not, in fact, paid. Geithner paid part of his obligation after a 2006 Internal Revenue Service audit, and the rest of it after he was nominated to become treasury secretary. In all, he paid $42,702 in back taxes and interest. In addition to his payment of the unpaid self-employment taxes, Geithner also had to pay $5,566 to cover other shortfalls in his tax payments, for a total of $48,268 in back taxes and interest.                               — Byron York in National Review

Now, when our soon-to-be Messiah President says “it was an honest mistake that could happen to anybody”,  I must strongly disagree.   For 20 years, I was in a position where I had to make just those kind of filings and payments.  I too had to sign a quarterly statement, under penalty of perjury, certifying that I had indeed made such payments.  I also knew darn well that if I didn’t make said payments, it would eventually catch up with me and I would end up in jail… instead of nominated for, and likely to be confirmed as, the person with the most power over the entire US economy in history.

Guess I just didn’t steal enough money to be “too big to fail!”

Couldn’t have said it better

This is making the rounds by e-mail and the formatting is from the original I received… while the attribution may be uncertain, the sentiments are those I have had for a long time!

545 PEOPLE
By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits,  WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don’t propose a federal budget.   The president does.

You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations.  The House of Representatives does.

You and I don’t write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don’t set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don’t control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices

545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress.    In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason.   They have no legal authority.  They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing.   I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash.   The politician has the power to accept or reject it.   No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault.   They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall.   No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits.    The president can only propose a budget.   He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes.  Who is the speaker of the House?   She is the leader of the majority party.

She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts — of incompetence and irresponsibility.   I can’t think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people.   When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red.

If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it’s because they want them in IRAQ .

If they do not receive

social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it’s because they want it that way .

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power.   Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like ‘the economy,’ ‘inflation,’ or ‘politics’ that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses

provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando SentinelNewspaper.

New definition of “qualified”

Well, at least he’s almost as qualified as his boss!