Conservative Rumblings

Back in February, Barack Obama screamed at length about how we “could not wait” and “must act now” to save America and stop our unemployment rate from reaching huge levels. The solution given to us by Obama, Pelosi and Reid was the insane 1400 page and $800 billion “stimulus” bill that no one ever read and no one understood, filled pet projects that had nothing to do with economic stimulus. It was the laundry list of a Democratic wants and desires of the last 40 years.

Now, around the 6 month mark of his glorious reign of terror, The Obamessiah’s long-touted and epically hyped porkulus bill is showing itself to be a clear, utter and spectacular failure.

Let’s take a look at unemployment, the number the porkulus was supposed to control.. Obama’s bill was supposed to “save or create” 2 million jobs. Instead, we’ve been losing hundreds of thousands of jobs, and those ones he promised to “save” aren’t being “saved.”

The Power Line blog has been doing a great job of graphically illustrating how badly this has been going, and I refer you to this post about the topic.

As you can see, the numbers are much worse than the White House predicted they would be with NO action.

Now, Obama went berserk in February, saying there wasn’t time for debate, there wasn’t time for questions and there wasn’t time for this “divisive exchange.” Anyone who opposed him was clinging to “worn out ideas” and the status quo (sort of like how bitter Pennslyvanians cling to their guns and religion, most likely).

We just needed to pass the bill, without reading it, or America was doomed. Now, as you can see by that handy little graphic, unemployment is WORSE than the White House predicted it would be without the porkulus. Their argument, of course, is that they “didn’t realize how bad it was going to be” and “without the porkulus it would be even-even worse!” I’m sorry, but isn’t Obama and his dream team of czars and boy-wonders like little Turbo Tax Timmy supposed to be geniuses? We are all supposed to sit back and let these wise people fix the world, aren’t we? And Joey Biden readily admits they screwed up big time on the recession? Good call.

Sure, Joe Biden. If ya’ll buy that, I have some oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you. This is what happens when you pass nearly a trillion dollars of pork barrel spending and try to pass it off as economic recovery.

This is very similar to the ram job done on Cap and Tax, and what is happening with the Deathcare Bill as well.

Now, unemployment is up everywhere. Kansas. Texas (16 year high). Michigan (hard hit). And that’s only three states out of 50.

Now, we have Cap and Tax coming (which will destroy more jobs), followed by Deathcare, which will slaughter the insurance and healthcare industry and, you guessed it, kill more jobs. We are staring at the specter of 20% unemployment and to use the Dems’ new favorite buzzword, that is “unsustainable.”

I’m not sure who these 25% are, but I’m assuming they don’t have television or the Internet, because if you’ve read or heard any news in the last four months, you’ve seen the disastrously bad results that the porkulus bill had on our economy.

Confidence in the $787-billion economic stimulus plan proposed by President Obama and passed by Congress in February continues to fall.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 25% of U.S. voters now say the stimulus plan has helped the economy. That’s a six-point drop from a month ago.

Thirty-one percent (31%) say the stimulus actually hurt the economy, little changed from a month ago.

Rasmussen, as usual.

What? You mean people are figuring out that blowing almost a trillion dollars on field mice and studying pig odor in Iowa (among other pet projects) doesn’t improve the economy? No…really??? It’s taken 5 months too long but at least people are starting to see through this garbage.

Spending money on pork is certainly not going to help the economy; nothing in the bill was designed to help the economy, honestly. That was just the excuse, the costume the bill was wearing so people would vote this “emergency, economy saving” bill through.

Purely amazing. Not only are we blowing trillions of dollars on worthless projects, now we’re spending it on worthless projects that don’t even exist. I guess Joe Biden is doing a great job overseeing this distribution of funds.

From Michelle Malkin:

The Town of Union is getting $578,661 in federal Recovery Act funding for a homeless problem that may not exist within its borders.

The money is coming from the federal Housing and Urban Development program to pay for homeless prevention and emergency shelter programs.

Union did not request the money and does not currently have homeless programs in place in the town to administer such funds, said town Supervisor John Bernardo.

“We were surprised,” Bernardo said. “We’ve never been a recipient before.”

Bernardo said he isn’t aware of any homeless issue in the largely suburban town.

This sort of makes me wonder how many other towns or cities are getting hundreds of thousands of dollars thrown at them for no reason, because this can’t be an isolated incident.

Right now, Sir Porkulus the Bloated is a wild, galloping horse. He’s headed straight over the cliff of depression and into the river of communism. We need someone with a firm hand to grab the reins and attempt to steer this monster in a direction that at least slows the decay of America instead of accelerating it.

Obama thinks he has just the man: perpetual gaffe-machine Joe Biden. Yeah, I can see the intelligence behind this already. Didn’t the Democrats hiss and scream about Cheney having too much authority under the Bush admin? But it’s OK for Biden to handle this, it seems. Typical liberal hypocrisy.

President Obama has turned to his own vice president to oversee implementation of the $787 billion economic stimulus package, part of which will be available this week for state Medicaid programs.

Obama announced his decision before the National Governors Association in Washington on Monday, saying Vice President Joe Biden will help ensure the distribution of the money is not just swift, “but also efficient and effective.”

“The fact that I’m asking my vice president to personally lead this effort shows how important it is for our country and future to get this right,” he said.

Biden, in his new role, would meet regularly with key members of the Cabinet, governors and mayor to make sure their efforts are speedy and effective. He is expected to make regular reports to the president that will be posted online at www.recovery.gov.

Just when you think Obama can’t do anything more ridiculous, that he’s met his weekly quota for stupidity, he goes and tops himself. Biden is an idiot, and a 35 year veteran of the political machine. The Chosen One just put one of the biggest red-tape bureaucrats in Washington in charge of distributing the largest amount of money ever spewed forth by our venomous Federal government in the history of the world.

Good call, Comrade. That’s “change we can believe in” right there.

There’s not much more to say about it. The conference compromise of Pelosi’s Spending Baby lopped an ‘amazing’ $20 billion off of the total, making it “only” $787 billion dollars, which Obama signed into law in Denver today.

Of course, once you add in interest, it’s well over a trillion. Taking into account inflation, that means it cost more than double the New Deal.

More than double the New Deal. May God have mercy on our children, because they’ll still be paying for this in their lifetime.

“We have begun the essential work of keeping the American dream alive in our time,” Obama said in Denver, Colo., calling the bill “the most sweeping economic recovery package in our history.”

He said the federal government will send unprecedented levels of support into infrastructure, education, research, energy, health care and state government. He pledged to enact the bill with an “unprecedented level of transparency and accountability.”

Transparency and accountability? Yeah, because those are just the buzzwords of your administration, aren’t they?

The new euphemism for Sir Porkulus. The moonbats are going nuts claiming that this “job based stimulus bill” is being opposed by the GOP who have no idea how the world works or something like that.

I’m sorry, but “jobs based stimulus bill?”

More like “pet project filled spending bill.”

Tell me how an $88 million ice breaking ship, a $1.5 million shelter for prostitutes, a dog park and money for the IDEA program makes jobs?

Oh, maybe it was the $110 million new computers for the Farm Service Agency, the $25 million for tribal alcohol abuse or the $248 million for DHS furniture that makes the jobs.

Nope, still no jobs. I guess it MUST be the $850 million for Amtrak and $75 million for smoking cessation that does the trick.

These people need to get a clue. It’s a spending bill filled with a Democrat wish list of porky projects from the last 40 years. The only people getting jobs from this bill are the janitors that have clean up all the paper being wasted on it.

EDIT: OK after a couple of comments I got on this, I have to make another point. Yes, obviously, building an ice ship takes jobs. But those are jobs that #1 were most likely already there and #2 even if they are made brand new, these garbage “shovel ready” jobs are not long term and will not sustain the economy.

Found a couple of phenomenal posts across the blogosphere that I have to share.

First, American Missive, who points out how Obama is having it both ways on the stimulus bill, saying that his “Pork-Laden Stimulus Bill Has No Pork!”

The whole post is great and is a good analysis of Obama’s little jaunt across the country campaigning for Sir Porkulus the Bloated, otherwise known as the ‘American Reinvestment Act’ or whatever it’s called.

One specific highlight:

We cannot build roads and railways forever. In the end, you have to spur private investment and build sustainable jobs.

One of the best statement I’ve seen on Obama’s “infrastructure” jobs program. It’s 100% true, of course; “shovel ready jobs” evaporate when all the ditches are dug. People keep pointing at the New Deal and how it worked, but they need to pull out a history book. The New Deal didn’t work; World War II saved our economy.

Next up, Manly’s Republic, a blog I’ve been reading for about a week now and highly recommend. The tagline is great…”Answering the Question: What Would Reagan Do?”

Snowe, Collins and Specter should have thought that one through today.

Anyway, this post brings in a great pop culture twist, likening the applause and worship Obama is receiving to the adoration heaped upon Emperor Palpatine of Star Wars as he founded the first Galactic Empire.

When the President announced that the Porkulus Bill has passed (thanks to three RINOs who are now on the politically endangered species list) the crowd cheered lustily. It reminded me of George Lucas’ unintentional irony in his positively awful Revenge of the Sith installment of the Star Wars saga - an episode he intended as a shot at the Bush presidency.

Upon hearing the roar of approval in the Galactic Senate when Chancellor Palpatine announces the formation of the First Galactic Empire, Queen Padme responds: “So this is how liberty dies…with thunderous applause.”

Thunderous applause indeed, George.

My response on Twitter was to point out that there’s another Episode 3 correlation to be had: just wait until Obama takes on “emergency powers,” just to get the country “through the crisis.”

And so it begins. The corrupt and ill-advised Porkulus Generational Theft Act of 2009 is now headed to conference, where Pelosi and Reid will add even more pork before sending it to Comrade Obama’s desk to be signed into law.

This bill is not what the country needs. Obama last night mouthed off to people like me, saying that people who are against the government intervention into a capitalist system need to decide if they want this, or absolutely nothing.

He made it sound like “government doing absolutely nothing” was some sort of devil-speak. That’s EXACTLY what should happen. Let the big banks fail. They were too big and too corrupt. Let them get gobbled up by the smaller banks who didn’t give out sub-prime loans.

In a way, it was the government’s fault the banks failed, after they forced them to start giving out loans to unqualified people starting with the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, which was amended in 1995 by President Clinton to be, well, even worse for banks.

Car companies? Go bankrupt, sell off the pork (no pun intended) and reorganize, after getting rid of those absurdly expensive and corrupt union contracts. Government intervention into companies is disgusting, unwarranted, and something more suited to Stalin than Jefferson.

The cost of this bill is not merely a trillion dollars. It’s mortgaging our future (and our children’s, and their children’s) to pay for 40 years of Democrat pet projects.

The Senate approved an $838 billion economic recovery package bill Tuesday, as Democrats held on to the few Republican supporters who helped hammer out a compromise measure last week.

The bill passed on a mostly party-line vote of 61-37. Sixty votes were needed. Three Republicans joined Democrats in passage.

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., vowed to send a finished bill to Obama’s desk “as soon as possible.”

Obama, who was in Fort Myers, Fla., promoting his economic rescue efforts, welcomed the vote as “good news. … It’s a good start.”

But the work has only just begun for congressional leaders in the House and Senate, who now must reconcile the differences between their two versions of the bill during what’s known as a conference committee.

Those negotiations, which Reid said would start Tuesday afternoon, could drive up the price tag of the bill as each chamber fights for its priorities. The House version of the bill is $819 billion. The Senate version is $838 billion.

Thanks to the Three GOP Traitors, Democrats were able to ram through a disgusting array of pork, pet projects and other similarly disgusting and non-economy stimulating items.

God help us all.

Yesterday, I spent some time watching the British House of Commons on C-SPAN. On top of being thoroughly entertaining, it was also enlightening.

I love how the system is set up, because the opposition party can directly challenge the Prime Minister, who then stands up and yells back at the opposition. It’s a great system and allows for a much more confrontational aspect that forces more accountability on the politicians.

Anyway…one part of the debate involved some discussion of the U.S. stimulus bill, which BOTH parties ripped on as “protectionism” and talked about how they wanted to make sure that the Americans knew a lot of people were against it.

I just thought it was interesting to see that our best friends in the entire world are getting upset with what Obama and his ilk are trying to ramrod through.

The Democrats are moving forward on the pork-filled, extremely dangerous Generational Theft Act of 2009, but they needed some turncoats in the Republican party to make it happen.

Unlike the respectable conservatives in the House who last week stood shoulder to shoulder and did not cast even one vote in favor of this socialism scheme, three weak-minded RINOs in the Senate have betrayed their party, betrayed America and helped pave the road for the largest and most corrupt spending bill in the history of the country.

From left to right, we have Susan Collins (R-Maine), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania). To these three senators: you have turned your backs on your constituents and have sided with the party of communism and the party of the big brother, nanny government state.

When Porkulus explodes, you are going down with it. You are no longer welcome in our party.