Obama Vows to Cut Pork, Later

Headline says it all.

I guess this campaign promise has gone the way or his promise to take matching federal funds during the Presidential campaign.

Change, indeed.

NY Post Forced to Grovel to the Libs

Okay, so the Post has been forced to apologize for making fun of a political figure with a cartoon. Of, of course, even that is not enough for some people, who want the cartoonist fired for exercising his freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

It's amazing how all of a sudden, it's not okay to use a cartoon to make fun of a sitting President. Yet, for 8 years, it was "the more offensive, the better," when it came to making fun of the President. Even black members of the Bush administration were not immune.

From this article:

• Google 'George Bush monkey' and the first of the 978,000 links is: 'George W Bush or Chimpanzee?', 'George Bush and Monkey Lookalikes', 'The Bush Monkey', videos of 'George Monkey Bush' and 'The Monkey Song with Bush' and 'The George Bush Monkey T-shirt.' But, hey, Bush is white and a Republican. Besides, his supporters didn't complain.

At least the Irish seem to understand American politics. I wish I could say the same for our "media."

Some interesting links

CBO: Obama stimulus harmful over long haul


Fannie and Freddie mess? Blame the Democrats


Japan’s Big-Works Stimulus Is Lesson

The "Stimulus" Package

Now that we are knee deep in the "stimulus package" that contains billions in social and environmental programs I think it's important to remember what Rahm Emanuel said a few weeks after the election:

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. What I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before. This is an opportunity. What used to be long-term problems -- be they in the health care area, energy area, education area, fiscal area, tax area, regulatory reform area -- things that we had postponed for too long that were long-term are now immediate and must be dealt with. And this crisis provides the opportunity for us, as I would say, the opportunity to do things that you could not do before."
I guess he is taking advantage of the opportunity.

Also, what ever happened to this: "What we need to do is examine: What are the projects where we're going to get the most bang for the buck? How are we going to make sure taxpayers are protected?"
"You know, the days of just pork coming out of Congress as a strategy, those days are over." - Barak Obama

Funny Business in Minnesota

The WSJ examines how Al Franken managed to win the Senate seat in MN (pending some appeals by Coleman).

Under Minnesota law, election officials are required to make a duplicate ballot if the original is damaged during Election Night counting. Officials are supposed to mark these as "duplicate" and segregate the original ballots. But it appears some officials may have failed to mark ballots as duplicates, which are now being counted in addition to the originals. This helps explain why more than 25 precincts now have more ballots than voters who signed in to vote. By some estimates this double counting has yielded Mr. Franken an additional 80 to 100 votes.

This disenfranchises Minnesotans whose vote counted only once. And one Canvassing Board member, State Supreme Court Justice G. Barry Anderson, has acknowledged that "very likely there was a double counting." Yet the board insists that it lacks the authority to question local officials and it is merely adding the inflated numbers to the totals.

(emphasis mine)

Ain't that nice - 25 precincts with more ballots than voters and the state board won't do anything about it.

Pelosi Moves to Silence Minority By Erasing Long-Standing House Rules

So is this what they meant by "the most ethical congress ever":

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to re-write House rules today to ensure that the Republican minority is unable to have any influence on legislation. Pelosi’s proposals are so draconian, and will so polarize the Capitol, that any thought President-elect Obama has of bipartisan cooperation will be rendered impossible before he even takes office.

Harold Ambler: Mr. Gore: Apology Accepted

Global Warming skepticism on the Huffington Post?

Mr. Gore has stated, regarding climate change, that "the science is in." Well, he is absolutely right about that, except for one tiny thing. It is the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of humankind.

Read the whole thing.

What high taxes can do to a state

The WSJ warns the rest of the country not to be like New Jersey.

Think of it as our gift to the nation. Other states offer promising experiments in areas such as Medicaid, taxes, education and regulatory reform. In contrast, the People's Republic of New Jersey offers America something truly unique: the perfect bad example.

As harmful as this has been for our own prosperity, our example could be invaluable for President-elect Obama. That's especially true given that his team appears to be considering some of the same things that have long been popular in Trenton. For years, the solons in our state capital have operated on the assumption that you can have high taxes everywhere -- on income, on property, on business -- without suffering any consequences.

Well, Gov. Jon Corzine is now dealing with those consequences, and his budgets show it. Earlier this year, he pushed through a budget that was one of the few in New Jersey history to be less than the one that preceded it. With revenues now running $1.2 billion short of what was expected, the next budget will undoubtedly be tougher still.

Raising taxes on the rich plays well in the polls, but when they start on the tax raising binge, they end of affecting everyone.

Cut taxes, don't raise spending

Jeffrey Miron points out the problems with fighting the recession by increasing spending:

The goal will be to end or moderate the recession. According to the textbooks, government spending raises the demand for goods and services. Tax cuts also spur demand by putting more income in the hands of consumers or more after-tax profits in the hands of businesses.

Is a fiscal stimulus good policy? The answer is no if the stimulus consists of increased spending. The stimulus may be good policy, though, if it consists of lower taxes.

Read the whole thing.