Free Republic

Two weeks ago, on a near party line vote, a huge Democratic majority in the House agreed to spend $50 million to buy the former cotton plantation on the island of St. Croix.

It has been more than four decades since the Congress of the United States has been able to summon the will to pass a major piece of social legislation. Not since 1965, when Medicare and the Voting Rights Act both overcame decades of opposition to become law, has Congress proved itself up to the task. Significant healthcare reform is all but dead for this session, and the chances of substantively addressing the regulatory breakdown that allowed Wall Street's irresponsible speculation to precipitate the worst global financial crisis since the Depression seem to recede with each passing day... --snip-- The legislative...

Senator Richard Shelby has placed a rare “blanket hold” on all nominations from Barack Obama, according to reports from both The Hill and Talking Points Memo. Until he lifts the hold, none of these nominations can proceed to a floor vote for confirmation. While some may initially believe this to be a good strategy for fighting what have appeared to be selections of hard-Left appointments, a spokesman for Shelby makes clear that the Senator is most interested in protecting pork

Thanks to a stimulus windfall, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has new funds to support an eclectic array of projects and organizations, from the American Samoa Council on Arts, Culture and Humanities to puppeteers across the country. Last year Congress allocated $50 million of the $787 billion stimulus bill — designed to stave off a second Great Depression — to the National Endowment for the Arts. Congressional Republicans opposed, charging that the funds would essentially increase the NEA’s budget of $145 million by 34 percent. The NEA divided its stimulus money in two: $19.8 million was given to...

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Argentina's president recommended pork as an alternative to Viagra Wednesday, saying she spent a satisfying weekend with her husband after eating barbecued pork. "I've just been told something I didn't know; that eating pork improves your sex life ... I'd say it's a lot nicer to eat a bit of grilled pork than take Viagra," President Cristina Fernandez said to leaders of the pig farming industry. She said she recently ate pork and "things went very well that weekend, so it could well be true."

TALLAHASSEE | Amtrak threatened to derail recently approved legislation to allow for the proposed Orlando commuter train SunRail unless the state gave it a similar liability provision. State transportation officials, who said they were blindsided by the request, disputed whether the nation's passenger rail service could upend the SunRail deal, which was finally approved by lawmakers in a December special session after a two-year push. Amtrak said that it was terminating a 2008 agreement with the Florida Department of Transportation about the Central Florida rail service within 30 days because the indemnity language of the bill violated the deal. "FDOT...

Politicians are well-known for wasting our money so they can live very comfortably. While many of us are outraged over such lavish waste, libs tend to forgive the behavior (unless a Republican does it). However, using the taxpayer’s dime to reap such rewards is one thing … taking money from our troops so you can pound shots with your buddies is another thing altogether.

WASHINGTON — The win on Tuesday by a Republican in the Massachusetts U.S. Senate race could be expensive for Louisiana — $300 million to be exact. That’s how much Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu secured in the U.S. Senate version of the Democratic health-care bill for the state’s health insurance program for the poor. The money was to be used to help fill a gap the state faces because of a federal funding formula that penalizes Louisiana because “per capita income” rose during the infusion of insurance and federal government money to help rebuild after hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Landrieu...

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different result- Albert Einstein. Just about a year ago when the new president and his progressive democratic congress were debating the "Porkulus" bill we were all told that it would include "shovel ready" construction projects that will serve to get people up and working. Here's a little fun fact. the AP analysis showed: Local unemployment rates rose and fell regardless of how much stimulus money Washington poured out for transportation, raising questions about Obama's argument that more road money would address an "urgent need to accelerate job growth."...

Journalists talk about congressional earmarks in terms of lobbyists' shenanigans, or legislators helping themselves and their pals. But pause for a moment and consider that there are 97 pages listing nearly 1,000 congressional earmarks in the 543-page report by the House-Senate conferees on the $626 billion defense appropriations bill signed by President Obama this month. They cover every category from procurement to operations and maintenance to research and development, with the last group alone spanning more than 77 of those pages. Who is to say what kind of impact these separate transfers of what may be $5 billion will have...

The Democrats are right. Sleazy bribes and pork pay offs didn't start with their health-care-takeover bill. They've been doling out taxpayer-funded goodies for votes all year. Harry Reid's latest Cash for Cloture deals are the culmination of Washington's 2009 shopping spree at our expense. Go back to January and February. The multitrillion-dollar stimulus bill was the mother of all legislative Christmas trees. The ruling party used the downturn to redistribute wealth from struggling Americans to favored congressional districts, phantom districts and special interests from golf-cart makers to fly-by-night beauty salons.

Fiscal hawks in Congress say President Barack Obama hasn't followed through on a pledge to lower federal spending on local projects. Earmarks are expected to total nearly $12 billion in fiscal 2010, according to fiscal watchdog groups. While that number is less than the $15 billion total in 2009, lawmakers from both parties said Obama hasn’t kept up the kind of pressure he showed during his first weeks in office or that he promised as a candidate. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) said Obama made earmark reform "a very big part of [his] campaign" but still signed this month two massive...

Senator Christopher Dodd, facing an uphill battle for his senate seat next year, received a little Christmas present from Harry Reid in the health care reform "manager's amendment:" a $100 million plum for a hospital. The AP reports that the $100 million will be used for "a health care facility that provides research, inpatient tertiary care, or outpatient clinical services." It must be affiliated with an academic health center at a public research university in the United States "that contains a State's sole public academic medical and dental school." Would it surprise you to learn that Connecticut has only one...

A $626 billion Pentagon budget narrowly advanced in the Senate Friday morning but not before Washington’s political battles seemed to eclipse the real wars of Iraq and Afghanistan overseas. The whole Senate scene, played out in a post midnight session on a freezing night, dramatized how poisonous the atmosphere has become in the health care fight.

Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La) rejected the notion that determining the Constitutionality of pending legislation was part of her job. The Senator’s shucking of this responsibility came in response to a questioner asking her where in the US Constitution is there the authority for congress to force people to buy health insurance. “My job is to get all I can for my constituents,” Landrieu argued. “Unlike most of my peers, I got $300 million in added benefits for my constituents in exchange for my vote in favor of the health care bill. I’m not going to let myself be bothered by...

Health Care Shocker: Special Democratic Voting Counties Would Get Protected Medicare Benefits http://www.breitbart.tv/healthcare-shocker-special-democratic-voting-counties-would-get-protected-medicare-benefits/

Last year's budget deficit of 10 percent of the economy ($1.4 trillion) shattered the post-war record. Far from just a temporary result of the recession, current estimates show the budget deficit rising to nearly $2 trillion by 2019.[2] At that point, the debt would be nearly 100 percent of the economy.

Mark Tijssen, a major in the Canadian military, stands in front of a meat smoker containing the remains of a pig that could cost him thousands of dollars in fines. Tijssen's family home was raided by members of the Intelligence and Investigations Section of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ottawa Police last month while he was preparing a pizza dinner for children on a Friday night. Mark Tijssen's family has been slaughtering their own animals and handing that skill from father to son for at least three generations. But changes to Ontario's Food Safety Act has landed him and...

The cost of a new jobs bill Democrats hope to move early next year runs to nearly $300 billion when major proposals under serious consideration are added up. Lawmakers are calling for extending aid to the unemployed, infrastructure spending, a hiring tax credit and increased small business loans. A number of the jobs proposals backed by Democrats make up a $230 billion package proposed by Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com, who made a presentation to Senate Democrats Wednesday. The provisions supported by Zandi along with new spending on infrastructure, a favored approach of top House Democrats, would cost between $291...

Scientists in the Netherlands have created pig in a test tube. Debate has already started on whether it will save the world, or just throw vegetarians into a quandary. In the meantime, the researchers may be in line for a celebratory feast: They could be the new front-runners for a million-dollar prize offered by a major animal rights group. The research team, funded by a major sausage maker and the Dutch government, used cells from a live pig to grow pork muscle tissue in a Petri dish. After extracting cells called myoblasts from the muscle of a live pig, the...

The Congressional Budget Office late Monday said it estimates that the federal stimulus package sustained between 600,000 and 1.6 million jobs in the third quarter, and raised gross domestic product by 1.2 to 3.2 percentage points higher than it would have been without the program.

The Democrats are at it again.With unemployment passing 10% the President's party is looking at fixing a problem the only way they know how, throw some money at it. Yes we are talking Porkulus II. The Democrats are working on a growing list of relief efforts, leaving for later how to pay for them, or whether even to bother. If you are looking at tax cuts to be part of the package, I wouldn't hold my breath. Here's an Idea maybe they have Charlie Rangel pay the taxes he forgot about and we can use that for a tax rebate....

Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh make deeply offensive comments on a near daily basis on their respective radio programs. Mostly, I don't feel the need to draw attention to them. But yesterday both men crossed into completely unacceptable territory. Followers of the health care debate will know that Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu is high on the list of moderate Democrats who may ultimately vote against the bill. On Saturday, she was the second last Senator to lend her vote to a motion to open debate on the bill. Part of her motivation to consent came form a concession she successfully...

All it took for Senator Mary Landrieu to vote to open debate on the Democrats' leviathan health care reform measure was a hundred million. Or was it $300 million, as Landrieu claims? That's $100 million in aid to Louisiana for disaster relief plus another $200 million for Medicaid or whatever else she could weasel. And whatever she's saying about being undecided on final passage, don't buy it. The only way she'll cart off the dough is if the bill passes. But while the senator is preening like a peacock about the fat she plans to ladle from the federal pork...

November 19, 2009 Politics as Usual? A Glenn Beck case study Today's Show Segment Video-6:15

Now that Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn) has indicated he may vote against the President’s health care legislation his Democratic colleagues in the Senate are contemplating how to persuade him to come back into line with the Democratic Party’s position on the issue. Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) warned Lieberman that “bad things may happen to him if he can’t fully support the Democratic Party’s agenda. If he’s raising supposed ‘matters of conscience’ or placing his notion of duty to his constituents or the good of the nation ahead of loyalty to the Democratic Party, he should have to pay a price....

As of 11-6-09 The signed stimulus contracts for non-government business is at $32,511,586,374.70 (Billion). One third of this amount is for pharmaceuticals preparation manufacturers $11,285,033,973.18 (Billion) Base and All Options Value From the TAS Recovery chart on the site link.

Ron Paul vindicated once again, globalists loose their lunch. Rock on Dr Paul! Bring it

Interactive map and links to earmark spending by state.

The hits just keep on coming, while you wait in line, Gitmo detainees will have their vaccines delivered,...these are the fools running our country...(Story here)

TUSCALOOSA | The Tuscaloosa City Council Finance Committee voted to move ahead with an $8.5 million bond issue rather than waiting a year as Mayor Walt Maddox recommended. The committee's vote is a recommendation to the full City Council, but a straw ballot of council members, who were all present at the committee meeting, indicated that a majority favors the bond issue. On a 20-year repayment schedule, the bond issue would cost the city about $650,000 a year in debt service. The council had asked Maddox for a recommended list of projects. The estimated total and the annual debt service...

The government's economic stimulus spending has already had its biggest impact and probably won't contribute to significant growth next year, a top White House adviser said Thursday. Christina Romer, the chair of President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, said the initial jolt of the $787 billion stimulus expanded the economy in the second and third quarters of this year. But she said the remaining spending will simply keep the economy from slipping. "By mid-2010," she said, "fiscal stimulus will likely be contributing little to further growth." That assessment underscored the fragility of an economic recovery marked by stubbornly high...

Below are some suggestions for lawmakers and judges to bring about a more just country: Intolerance-Justice should be based on each case and circumstance involving current law and precedent. The idiotic case of six-year-old Zachary Christie is akin to the type of lack of foresight that has parents throughout the land scratching their heads. Zachary had NO CLUE he was committing a crime with a nonflexible sentence of 45 days in a reform school. His crime? As a proud new Cub Scout, he brought a multifaceted eating and tool utensil to his school to show his little friends. Conclusion? When...

7 promises that then candidate Obama has already broken. We hope that all the people of the ObamaNation are happy with their president.

The House and Senate Armed Services Committees have taken a small but significant step to eliminate – well, almost – one of the most outrageous congressional behaviors in defense legislation. For years, these committees have raided the Pentagon’s critical Operation and Maintenance accounts to offset the cost of earmarks (pork) they add to their bills. A major part of the O&M budget pays for training, weapons maintenance, food, fuel, spare parts, and all the other things troops need when they go to war. Even though O&M spending is the budgetary embodiment of “Support Our Troops,” and even though research on these raids...

The Congressional Pig Book is Citizens Against Government Waste's annual compilation of the pork-barrel projects in the federal budget. The 2009 Pig Book identified 10,160 projects at a cost of $19.6 billion in the 12 Appropriations Acts for fiscal 2009...Search all 10,160 projects by keyword, member, state, party or appropriations bill.

What? Not only has the Democrat president dragged his feet for weeks on end deciding whether to send reinforcements to support the 17,000 men and women of the arms forces that he chose to send to Afghanistan. His hand picked General, General McChrysal has called for 10,000 to 40,000 troops, not to win the war but just to maintain status quo which is a travesty. Now unbelievably Democrats are stealing troop funds meant for guns and ammo. How in the world is this happening and is this how Democrats govern? Apparently so! $2.6 billion dollars is what Democrats have so...

WASHINGTON – Gov. Rick Perry has hammered Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison time and again as a Washington-style big spender. He decries the $2.6 billion that she slipped "secretly" into the last two annual budgets. But he doesn't know the half of it. By Hutchison's own accounting, she has steered $8.7 billion to Texas in the last five years. And as Congress finalizes the 2010 budget, the haul will probably exceed $10 billion – a staggering sum that has never been tallied before. It ranks her among the most successful earmarkers in congressional history. How that plays in the GOP gubernatorial...

A follow-up to my post last weekend about what a disgraceful, denialist crank this guy is. Let me go in chronological order, as there’s so much here that’s either dumb or dishonest that I’ll overlook something if I don’t. 1. Who are the mysterious “neocons” who forced poor Barack Obama to disclose the secret Qom site, which Paul would have you believe he didn’t want to do even though he’s been preparing to do it for months? Or have I misunderstood and he’s actually suggesting that Obama’s been duped and that there’s no secret Qom site at all, even though...

Times are tough out in the country and the world, but on Capitol Hill, lawmakers are poised to give their own budgets significant increases.While the unemployment rate continues to rise and President Obama made a big deal of giving most federal workers only a 2 percent raise this year, lawmakers play by a different set of rules.In the House of Representatives, Congressmen’s “representational allowances and expenses” are set to get an 8.4 percent kick up over last year. The full Congressional budget – part of the Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill that will get a final Senate vote at 4:30 –...

WASHINGTON — The Nevada Cancer Institute, in Las Vegas, may not have a national reputation as a clinic or a research facility. But it does have the ear of its state’s senior senator, Harry Reid, the Democratic leader. And that is why the four-year-old institute could reap a big gain in federal reimbursements as part of the health care overhaul. Thanks to Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Cancer Institute could benefit from the health bill. After months of noisy public debates over big policy ideas like universal coverage and a public insurance option, the health care legislation is getting down...

John Murtha who has turned congressional earmarks into an art-form has directed two-hundred million of your tax dollars to the John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport. The Airport has so many pictures of the Congressman you would think that it was a monument to the pork-meister. Even that wouldn't be so bad if the airport was actually used, but Murtha Airport gets a total of THREE commercial flights a day, from Johnstown to Washington DC. This tribute to John Murtha is literally the airport to nowhere. Last week Senate Republican introduced,and the Democrats voted voted down an amendment by Senator DeMint...

September 17, 2009 Roll call number 284 (Amendment number S.Amdt.2410) in the Senate Question On the Amendment (DeMint Amdt. No. 2410 ) Amendment purpose To limit the use of funds for the John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport.

In the next 16 days, Congress will spend more than $3 trillion in taxpayer money. To cover these programs, some Americans will be working up to three hours of each day. Vast amounts of that money will be spent in the form of earmarks, specially designated pet projects that members of Congress use to bring federal funds back to their home states. Since 44 congressmen make no earmarks at all, that means the rest are doing more than their share. For example, in the House, just 4 percent of members took home 32 percent of all the bacon -- and...

A California solar company will get a huge boost from the government today. Vice President Joe Biden is expected to announce more than half a billion dollars in federal loan guarantees.

One night last August, John Murtha, the U.S. Representative from PennsylvaniaÂ’s Twelfth Congressional District, paid a visit to the LBK Game Ranch, a private hunting camp in the hills above his home city of Johnstown. About 60 people had gathered in the ranchÂ’s lodge--a luxury five-bedroom log cabin decorated with deer antlers and flat-screen televisions--to raise money for his 2008 campaign. There were two odd things about the event. One was that the host was a former drug dealer. Bill Kuchera, a stocky man with a balding pate and a bristle-brush mustache, had run a bar near Johnstown in the...

Initial Round of Cash Assistance for Wind, Solar Projects in Eight States Will Create Jobs, Increase DevelopmentWASHINGTON– Marking a major milestone in the effort to spur private sector investments in clean energy and create new jobs for America's workers, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced $502 million in the first round of awards from an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act) program that provides cash assistance to energy production companies in place of earned tax credits. The new funding creates additional upfront capital, enabling companies to create jobs and begin construction that may have...

Sunning lazily this week on the rocky shores of Martha's Vineyard, President Obama is in a terrible pickle. He has flushed billions of taxpayers' hard-earned dollars down the toilet "stimulating" the economy, acquiring insolvent car companies, and buying up clunkers that are immediately rendered inoperable by the feds -- an apparent government specialty. Launched from obscurity on the stiff winds of antiwar fervor, Obama now owns an intractable war in Afghanistan that will require years of enormous financial commitment, unshakable patience and unbending determination -- all things that were once in such long supply for the Iraq war. And now...

Syracuse, NY - An economic stimulus grant for sex research at Syracuse University has won the attention of Republican critics in Washington. The National Institutes of Health has awarded a $219,000 stimulus grant for psychology professor Michael Carey to study the "hookups" of 500 freshmen women. The project description says there appears to be an increase in hookups, defined as sexual encounters between adolescent partners who have no expectation of romantic commitment. But there is little scientific investigation of it. The research will measure the prevalence of hookups in the first year of college and explore the mental and physical...