This Creeps Me Out
From The Washington Post:
“The Obama Administration has forced the longtime head of General Motors to resign . . .”
Gird Your Loins
In what may be the opening salvo of the 2010 17th CD race, Bobby Schilling has announced his candidacy for congressman—his website is here.
Schilling is a local guy with a diverse background: union steward, insurance agent, real estate experience and a small business owner.
In my view, our last two congressmen’s lack of business experience has really hurt us and Schilling has both union and business background.
Our current congressman is from the Nancy Pelosi wing of the Democrat Party and needs to be ousted so he can have a nice career as a Big Labor lobbyist.
Anyone who has information about candidates running against Hare—Democrat, GOP, Green, Independent, Communist, etc. please send the information to me and I’ll post it.
Quote Of The Day
From Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to a group gathered outside the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico:
This was after an exchange with the Basilica’s Msgr. Monroy when Hillary asked who painted the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the cloak of St. Juan Diego. The Monsignor frostily replied: God.
OK, I admit I didn’t know about the image on the cloak either—I’m just a nice Lutheran girl, but on the other hand, even though Hillary is just a nice Methodist girl she is the freakin’ Secretary of State of the United States of America.
I really don’t get this. One thing that was always said about Hillary is how she worked harder than anyone and did her homework and was always well-prepared.
What happened?
I know she’s been doing a lot of globetrotting lately telling the world it’s OK to love us again since that evil GWB is gone, but shouldn’t someone at the State Department briefed her about the sites she was going to see on her trip to Mexico?
It’s all building up; the DVDs to the British PM that couldn’t be played in the UK, the reset button presented to the Russians that didn’t say “reset” but said “overpay”—none of these were major catastrophes but it all makes the State Department look like amateur hour—-where’s all that “smart diplomacy” the Obama administration promised?
Pearls Of Wisdom . . .
. . . from our specially selected congressman defending/explaining why he hijacked taxpayer money to bring Amtrak service to the QCs:
“It’s your money. If they want to call this pork, give me the fork and spoon. .
and
“I think the stars are lining up here. We just have to get them all to shine at the same time.”
Some comments about this:
1. One of Hare’s well-worn tropes is “It’s your money”, but he never finishes the sentence. The entire quote should read “It’s your money but I can take it from you and use it for whatever I want, whether you like it or not.”
2. I’m not gonna touch the “If they want to call it pork, give me the fork and spoon” line.
3. The stars lining up and shining at the same time quote obviously indicates that Hare slept through every science class he ever had.
4. As for the idea that we ought to be spending so much money on low-speed passenger service from here to Chicago, this seems like subsidizing the buggy whip industry. High speed rail is valuable in urban areas, but I don’t see any point in throwing money at Amtrak which has always lost tons of money, never shown a profit and never will.
Further, for those wanting to take the train to Chicago, it is important to point out that the major rail hub of Galesburg is only 45 minutes away.
Hare claims this project, estimated to cost 22.7 million, will create 550-800 well-paying jobs to the area, but where’s the proof? And wouldn’t it be nice if Hare could provide evidence that this project will at least break even rather than be a constant burden on already over burdened taxpayers?
Mmmmmm, what’s that smell? It’s either pork sizzling or another government boondoggle that makes me wonder who will ultimately benefit from this.
Quote Of The Day
From John McCain:
“Over 50 million people voted for me and Sarah Palin – mostly for Sarah Palin.”
Well yeah, who in their right mind would vote for an old, balding, grumpy RINO?
Outrageous Taxpayer Financed Bonuses Aren’t Just For AIG
Yesterday The Dispatch had a front page article with the headline IDOT Raises Questioned
Do tell.
The article states that even though our wonderful State O’ Illinois is 11+ BILLION in the hole and counting, some of our wonderful IDOT employees got raises of 11.5% ($10,000) in addition to the COLA boost.
But of course these raises are deserved. From the article:
“Most Transportation employees got raises that averaged $1,500 on Jan.1. Two weeks later, 53 IDOT employees also got increases that averaged $4,934 or 7.3%. . . But 12 employees got the additional raises for no reason…
Well yeah, except for the fact they are on the taxpayer’s dole.
Sheesh!
But here’s the kicker from the deputy director of highways who got a 11.5% payraise:
“Seasoned management and staff is important to maintain the quality of the work force.
Just like AIG and the others—the taxpayers must pay big bucks to keep talent.
But as usual, the important stuff is buried at the bottom:
“. . . the Federal Highway Administration warned IDOT its staffing was dangerously low if it’s going to keep up with the fast pace the federal government expects for nearly $1 billion coming to Illinois in economic stimulus road-building money. . . . The agency responded by pledging to hire 150 temporary workers to get the work underway.”
If you believe those taxpayer financed “temporary workers” are really temporary, I’ve got a new I-74 bridge I’d like to sell you.
So the federal government throws so much money at Illinois that we must have even MORE taxpayer funded government workers in order to handle this largess.
If I was more conspiracy minded, I’d think this was a government plot to expand their power.
The result of more government $$$$ is more government—who knew?
Rush Limbaugh For Progressives
The shrieking in progressive circles about Rush Limbaugh is hilarious considering they have plenty of their own Limbaughs, but in different media.
Some recent examples:
Exhibit A: Television critic Kevin McDonough describes a PBS Frontline story as “a look at the rapid growth and very recent explosion in federal debt arising from the fiscal policies of the Bush administration and the more recent need to bail out banks, prop up companies and buy toxic assets.”
In other words, this show will reinforce Obama’s talking point about how he “inherited” this mess. This was to air yesterday and I didn’t watch it, but I think it’s safe to predict there was no mention of how Congressional Democrats failed to exercise oversight of banking and financing during the last two years, how Barney Frank and Chris Dodd rejected attempts by the Bush Administration to reform Fan/Fred, how the housing crisis which started this meltdown was started by a Carter administration policy, etc. Oh no, Frontline doesn’t want to give you the whole story, just the story they want you to know.
Exhibit B: Al Gore is coming out with a new book called Our Choice which just recaps his Inconvenient Truths book. Who would waste time and/or money on a rehash of a previous book? The Faithful of course! Just as there are thousands of anti-Bush book published by people with an axe to grind and/or their eye on $$$ by cherry-picking facts, the progressive True Believers can’t get enough ideological reinforcement.
Exhibit C: The Sunday Dispatch had a story about “Environmental Film Fest 4″ to be held this Saturday at Augie. Among the films to be shown are:
Addicted to Plastic “which looks at the broad consequences of plastic use.” We’ve come a long way from The Graduate, eh?
Grand Canyon Adventure: River At Risk produced by RFK Jr. and narrated by Robert Redford with music by the Dave Matthews Band—an all-star lineup for The Cause.
Flow which “digs into the politics, pollution, profits and human rights of the water crisis…” Water is a “human right”? Hey, I think the Rock River is about to flood AGAIN—let’s find a way to share the wealth!
Who needs a Rush Limbaugh yammering on the radio when Progressives have political superstars like Gore and RFK Jr., celebrities like Robert Redford and a taxpayer-funded “documentary” arm like Frontline telling them what they want to hear?
The message is the massage.
You Say OAR-Ee-On, I Say Or-EYE-On
At a White House roundtable on clean energy efficiency, Barack Obama approvingly mentioned a Wisconsin company called Orion Energy Systems.
Unfortunately Obama pronounced “Orion” as OAR-ee-on rather than the correct Or-EYE-on. Obama corrected himself afterward, but the kerfuffle over his gaffe went full steam ahead.
A few comments:
1. It’s possible that Obama was remembering campaigning in this part of Illinois, where the village south of the QCs is pronounced OAR-ee-on rather than like the constellation. However, I doubt he’s ever heard of the famous farm broadcaster OAR-ee-on Samuelson.
2. After months of gaffes, stammering and stuttering, only the most ardent Obama worshippers realize he isn’t the silver-tongued orator they thought he was. Obama does well with lots of rehearsals and a script on a teleprompter, but without these props he is little better than GWB. It should be noted that even with rehearsals and teleprompter, Bush sounded about the same as without preparation.
3. Speaking of GWB, it’s important for non-Obama worshippers not fall into the stale and banal habit that the leftwingers did with their idiotic “Bushisms” since there are more serious problems with Obama. Those who focus on trivialities like mispronunciations render themselves seriously unserious.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the last week alone, Obama has suggested that some of the terrorists at Gitmo should be released in the USA (how about Obama’s Hyde Park neighborhood?), that our veterans should pay for their own war wounds and that non-bank financial companies like insurers, investment firms and hedge funds should be seized by the federal government.
Let’s not waste time on his speech idiosyncrasies and instead focus on how Obama and the Democrats are shredding our Constitution, taking away our freedoms and wrecking our nation.
Quote Of The Day
From Michael Goodwin:
Everybody makes mistakes, and I made a beaut the other day. I was wrong to call members of Congress blow-hards and buffoons and declare them worse than useless.
I was too kind.
I should have said our representatives are gangsters in pinstripes and pearls. They are petty tyrants and the more power they grab, the more at risk we are. Homeland Security should flash Code Red any time Congress is in session.
Here’s what our specially selected petty tyrant had to say after he voted for a 90% tax on AIG bonuses:
“Words cannot describe my level of anger at the misuse of taxpayer dollars by our nation’s financial institutions. This most recent outrage by AIG is just the latest example of corporate greed run amuck.”
No acknowledgment from Hare about the fact that he and his Democrat Congressional pals VOTED FOR these bonuses which were inserted in the “stimulus” on orders of the White House. Where’s the acknowledgment that he helped ram this “stimulus” through Congress, sight unseen, saying “to do nothing is to sin by silence”? Could he at least acknowledge that sometimes doing nothing, or slowing down the process is better than doing “something”?
Where’s the acknowledment and APOLOGY to the taxpayers that he voted for these bonuses he now denounces?
Does Hare feel OUR “anger” at the misuse of taxpayer dollars by the free-spending, irresponsible Democrat US Congress?
This is just another example of corrupt politicians saying “look over there—it’s Elvis and Osama bin Laden” running amok.
Sheesh—Congress ought to have THEIR salarys taxed at 90%
Question Of The Day
From Steve Kroft to Barack Obama:
