http://lifenews.com/nat6531.html

The abortion funding comes despite language in the bill that some pro-abortion Democrats and Obama himself claimed would prevent abortion funding and despite a controversial executive order Obama signed supposedly stopping abortion funding.

It is one (bad)  thing to say we believe abortion is okay and we will fund it, and then to fund it. It is quite another to pretend to not want to fund it and then to do so.  He and those working for him are lying scum. Too harsh? I’m tired of the lies.  People that voted for this lot ought to be embarrassed.

This fraulein seems to know the score:

Merkel Tells Obama Spending Cuts to Boost Economy, Not Put Brake on Growth

She may not know that he doesn’t care about the economy, just about Obama.

Obama sure likes to threaten business. Anybody wonder why the economy isn’t thriving, and why business isn’t investing?

It is popular to say that the President is temporary and that the US can survive a bad one.  But what about a REALLY bad one?

Today is primary day in Utah. I just voted for:

Senate: Mike Lee –  This was a “plug my nose” vote. Lee says the right things, but he is too young (making this a possible “Senator for Life” opportunity), a lawyer, and has been in political activities most of his adult life.  Alas, Tim Bridgewater strikes me as a man willing to compromise principal to get ahead. He supported No Child Left Behind and his company specialized in wasting government money.  If this is the best Utah can offer, well, it says more about Utah than maybe should be said.  Anyway, vote for Lee, he sucks less than Bridgewater.

Sheriff: Cory Pulsipher -  Here we have the opposite of the Senate race. Two fine candidates that have served with honor and distinction. Friends I like and trust support both of them. In the end I picked Pulsipher because friends of mine who are current and retired Deputies picked him.

School board… no vote. I foolishly didn’t study for these positions. I had no idea about any of them, so I didn’t cast a vote.

Get yours today:

http://www.printfection.com/hughhewitt/T-Shirts/_s_345125

Current Amazon Rank…. 712,665

My brother sent this from his phone at a Barnes & Noble.  Pair it with this one on Jimmy Carter for the perfect gift of Presidential incompetence.

“When the French president is seen as tougher than the American president, you have to know that something is awry.”

Mort Zuckerman

Where was Mort 1.5 years ago when Obama being a fraud and complete loser was obvious to all but government dependents, union zealots and elitists like Mort?

H/T/ Instapundit

Jones Act waivers are in the news because of the Gulf oil spill.  I would like to contribute to that discussion by sharing my experiences coordinating the Jones Act waivers for President Bush in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.  In 2005 I served as the Deputy at the White House National Economic Council.

Read it and this will make more sense.

At the heart of the issue with Obama’s administration is that he, and those he has placed in power, fundamentally don’t care about Americans. Obama cares about himself. And his staff and appointees care about precise causes or economic interests, and they just can’t seem to do anything well that isn’t in their area of focus. They are activists with agendas not managers with competence.

What incentive would an eco-kook who hates oil drilling have to stop this mess?  And what skills would they bring to the table?  Yet that is the sort of person the Administration put in charge of monitoring oil drilling.   BP made a boo-boo, but in doing so they are  highlighting just how foolish our government is.

I didn’t write this. It is in today’s Spectrum

St. George

Mandela better than our president

I recently watched a movie called "Invictus" starring Morgan Freeman as President Nelson Mandela. I also watched the opening of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

I watched the editorials on the life President Nelson Mandela and immediately saw the difference this president was compared to our President Obama. President Mandela loves his country, went to prison for 27 years for his country. He is compassionate, honest and his first thoughts have always been for the betterment of his country and his people. What a difference.

Obama loves himself. He is not compassionate or honest. He blames everyone else for things he can’t resolve. He instructs his Democratic cronies to write bills he doesn’t even read and forces them through Congress against the will of the people. Nelson Mandela received a Noble Peace Prize, which he deserved because he changed his country and removed apartheid for the Republic of South Africa forever. Obama receive the same prize for political reasons only. What a waste.

Al Andreas
St George

Al misses that Mandela’s ANC was also a terrorist organization that committed many atrocities. But to Mandela’s credit, once he got power, he handled it quite well.

Unlike Barry.

Tyler Cowen suggests 5 arguments you won’t hear often when discussing the question of further fiscal stimulus.  I was struck by #4:

4. Rather than just arguing about the most likely scenario, we should apply the same worst case scenario thinking that is recommended for climate change.

He implies that that wasn’t the argument Obama used. I recall it differently. I recall Obama saying words to the effect of debt is bad, but a depression is worse – let’s spend trillions!

And of course, he was pitching a worst case that would appeal to regular folk, but the real worst case he was hoping to avoid was economic collapse happening in his potential 8 years in office.  He wanted to kick the can down the road a decade at least.

I favor fiscal stimulus but in a smart way.  I favor moves that reward, in the long term, investment and smart risk taking.  Lower taxes. Less government spending. Less regulations.  The government might take in less money, but the economy would grow rapidly. And isn’t that the goal?  Oh… it isn’t?

The fundamental problem the economy has is that those largely in control of it view it as something to plunder not nurture.

Obama doubled spending on biking and walking “initiatives” – to $1.2 billion dollars.

The new policy is an extension of the Obama administration’s livability initiative, which regards the creation of alternatives to driving – buses, streetcars and trains, as well as biking and walking – as central to solving the nation’s transportation woes.

Rare is the situation where you can bike or walk ACROSS STATE LINES.  Cut it with the stupid spending FEDERAL government!

I walk or bike many (most) days when I’m healthy.  I like it and that is all the “initiative” needed to get me to do it.  The Federal government has no business printing or borrowing money for such a poor investment.

Comparisons do not apply

Some say the gulf oil spill is “Obama’s Katrina”.

I fail to see the comparison. With Katrina, Bush tried to help incompetent local authorities for 3 or 4 days before finally deciding they were worthless. He then moved the federal bureaucracies in amazing ways to help the region. Eliminating all suffering was impossible, and the media stuck him with the suffering that was largely caused by nature and Democratic local incompetence.  But at every step of the way, both in 9/11 and with Katrina I got the impression Bush was trying to help people and that his actions weren’t driven by personal political need.

With this oil spill, Obama flips that on its head. He has taken weeks to start to act. And the action only came when he sensed political risk. He has been incompetent and the full shine of bureaucratic negligence and inefficiency can be seen. The media does ding him, but mainly for not ripping on BP more. And even now he focuses on extracting money (new BP government slush fund) and political opportunity (lets pass Cap and Trade) from the disaster – not ending it.

I didn’t care for President Bush very much. He spent too much. And he expanded government too much. But I never doubted, ever, that he was President to all of us. And I was impressed with his 9/11 and Katrina responses.

Obama… well, he is pretty much the opposite. I don’t think he’s got America’s back – other than to put a knife in it.

So I can answer the question some folks associate with President Bush… “Miss me yet?”.  Yes, I do.

Obama was informed that the BP oil leak would be bad and virtually unstoppable very early in the incident.  But he turned down Dutch help that could have been clearing hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil a day from the affected area. We are just now, almost 2 months later, getting up to partially the level the Dutch could have had in days.

Why?  Well, they have bogus ‘legal’ reasons, but hey, that didn’t stop them from accepting millions in dubious campaign donations.

I suspect, instead, he didn’t want to raise attention to the leak, or look “weak” by accepting help.  Maybe he wanted it to be bad, so he could have a reason to cut oil drilling, or use it as an issue against Republicans.

I cannot point to a single large decision Obama has made that doesn’t benefit him alone, or a narrow constituency that he is financially bound too.

He isn’t President for all of us.  I can’t wait for his one term to end. I just hope we can undo his damage.

The WSJ details the activities of the Saint Consulting Group today. They specialize in anti-Walmart grass level activities. Who funds them?  WalMart competitors. Who loses? You do.

Supermarkets that have funded campaigns to stop Wal-Mart are concerned about having to match the retailing giant’s low prices lest they lose market share. Although they have managed to stop some projects, they haven’t put much of a dent in Wal-Mart’s growth in the U.S., where it has more than 2,700 supercenters—large stores that sell groceries and general merchandise. Last year, 51% of Wal-Mart’s $258 billion in U.S. revenue came from grocery sales.

They have a right to hire lobbyists.  The real problem is that government has too much power.

A Harvard study shows what we all knew… pork barrel projects are bad for the economy.  But what is really new about this study is that it shows that pork is actually bad for the economy of the recipient districts:

In fact, the study found that in the years following a congressman acquiring a powerful committee assignment, the average company in his state cut back capital expenditures by 15 percent. In one prominent example, Alabama went from receiving $6 million less in annual earmark spending than other states to $90 million above the state average after Republican Sen. Richard Shelby assumed the chairmanship of the Senate Intelligence Committee in 1997. Shelby earmarked $15 million for low-cost fabricated housing, but the study found that one of Alabama’s largest suppliers of this housing, Homes Inc., correspondingly reduced capital expenditures by 79.5 percent and downsized its work force by 30 percent.

Politically driven investment usually stinks when measured in actual returns not calculated by the politicians.

Pork is just a means of spending billions so that politicians can get donations in the millions.