Getting Inside The “Pigulus” Bill…

Dress it up as "stimulus" if you like but pork is pork by any name.

This analysis is from FreeRepublic.com

Stimulus Bill Is Tax-payer Funded Pork

Because President Barack Obama has called for a plan that will “immediately jumpstart the economy,” on Wednesday the House passed an $819 billion dollar stimulus bill, which, with interest, over the next ten years will exceed $1.1 trillion. The administration has claimed that the bill will produce 3 to 4 million jobs, which translates into $275,000 per job. In contrast, the average American worker makes $27,000 a year and pays $2,400 in federal income taxes. Someone is going to have to pay this bill. It will be a legacy we hand to our children and grandchildren.

Needless to say, the package which is well over 1,000 pages, has not been very closely read by very many, including the reporters who gloss this over with praise and talk about what it will do for their listeners.

Payoffs

To the “Green” Lobby

$600 Million To Buy New Cars For Government Workers (Page 89) These cars would be “green” friendly cars – however very few gas pumps have the right gas to run these cars. The Federal government already spends $3.5 billion a year.

$10M for bike and walking trails (Page 65)

$200M for plug-in car stations (Page 31)

$400 million for NASA scientists to conduct climate change research (Page 22)

$800 million to clean up Superfund sites (Page 122)

$600 million for grants for diesel emission reduction (Page 119)

$650 million for “alternative energy technologies, energy efficiency enhancements and deferred maintenance at Federal facilities” (Page 119)

$1.5 billion for construction of “Green Schools” (Page 176)

To the Unions

$1 billion to the controversial Community Oriented Policing Services Cops Hiring Program

“$150 billion in new federal spending, a vast two-year investment that would more than double the Department of Education’s current budget. The proposed emergency expenditures on nearly every realm of education, including school renovation, special education, Head Start and grants to needy college students” Sam Dillon, “Stimulus Plan Would Provide Flood of Aid to Education,” New York Times . January 27, 2009.

NOTE: Private and religious schools are excluded.

To the Abortion Industry

Representative Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) inserted in the original bill billions of dollars for family planning groups, including the abortion giant, Planned Parenthood. Pressure and public exposure from Congressional Republicans forced the Democrats to remove such funding from this bill. However the bill still provides billions in reforming the health care system and working towards nationalized health care – with little to no debate.

$2.7B in NIH grants which would be targeted to among other things embryonic stem cell experimentation. (Page 56)

Other Special Interests

$3 Billion for Prevention & Wellness Programs, Including $335 million for STD Education and Prevention — Recent government expenditures in this area include a transgender beauty pageant in San Francisco that advertised available HIV testing and an event called “Got Love? – Flirt/Date/Score” that taught participants how “to flirt with greater finesse.”

$83 billion for the earned income credit for people who don’t pay income tax.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123310466514522309.html

$246 million for Hollywood http://www.nationaljournal.com/congressdaily/cda_20090127_9337.php

$50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts (Page 122)

$75 million for smoking cessation (Page 148) . This contradicts the latest version of SCHIP that is funded largely by new taxes on cigarettes.

$4.19 billion open to ACORN. The Pelosi-Reid bill makes groups like ACORN eligible for a $4.19 billion pot of money for “neighborhood stabilization activities.”

MISCELLANEOUS PORK

Some of the biggest winners in the package are federal agencies:

$54 billion will go to federal programs that the Office of Management and Budget or the Government Accountability Office have already criticized as “ineffective” or unable to pass basic financial audits.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123310466514522309.html

$462 Million for Equipment, Construction, and Renovation of Facilities at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) (Page 137)

$150 Million for Repairs to Smithsonian Institution Facilities (Page 128)

$44 million to the Agricultural Research Service (Page 135)

$227 million for oversight of the pork barrel spending in the stimulus (Page 11)

$1 Billion for The Follow-Up To The 2010 Census (Page 49)

Discretion is given to governors and Mayors for how to spend a large chunk of the money. The U.S.

Conference of Mayors recently sent Congress a $96.6 billion wish list of “shovel-ready” projects which now could be funded by the stimulus. These projects include: “$1 million for annual sewer rehabilitation in Casper, WY; $6.1 million for corporate hangars, parking lots, and a business apron at the Fayetteville, AR airport; 28 projects with the term “stadium” in them; and 117 projects mentioning landscaping and/or beautification efforts. The taxpayers should be most teed off at the 20 golf courses included in the list.”

http://www.ntu.org/main/press.php?PressID=1083&org_name=NTU

B.S. Report–This is a sample of what we’re in for.  The Senate passed their version and so they will now work together to consolidate a bill.

How Safe Are We? 67 Computers Missing From Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Lab…But That Global Warming Stuff Really Has Some People Worried…

That's our profession--but our enemies profession is the destruction of the U.S.

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory in New Mexico is missing 67 computers, including 13 that were lost or stolen in the past year.   Officials say no classified information has been lost.  (B.S.–You mean, the same officials that were supposed to be looking after the computers; somehow I don’t feel any safer.)

The watchdog group Project on Government Oversight on Wednesday released a memo dated Feb. 3 from the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration outlining the loss of the computers.

Kevin Roark, a spokesman for Los Alamos, on Wednesday confirmed the computers were missing and said the lab was initiating a monthlong inventory to account for every computer. He said the computers were a cybersecurity issue because they may contain personal information like names and addresses, but they did not contain any classified information.  (B.S.–No, they never do.)

Thirteen of the missing computers were lost or stolen in the past 12 months, including three computers that were taken from a scientist’s home in Santa Fe, N.M., on Jan. 16, and a BlackBerry belonging to another employee was lost “in a sensitive foreign country,” according to the memo and an e-mail from a senior lab manager.  (B.S.–By “sensitive” foreign country, I assume that means a terrorist nation that hates our guts and would love to see us destroyed.)

The e-mail was also released by the watchdog group.

The theft of the three computers in January triggered the inventory and a review of the lab’s policies regarding home use of government computers, Roark said.  (B.S.–Looks like that review really paid dividends!)

Only one of the three computers stolen from the employee’s home was authorized for home use, which raised concerns “as to whether we were fully complying with our own policies for off-site computer usage,” he said.  (B.S.–In English that means: Employees were coming and going with their laptops and nobody cared.)

Roark said computers with classified information are “kept completely separate from unclassified computing.”

“None of these systems constitute a breach of a classified system,” he said.  (B.S.–There’s no way that any of the individual(s) responsible for the missing 67 computers would ever be able to get their hands on any of the computers containing “classified” data.)

The e-mail from Los Alamos senior manager Stephen Blair to lab co-workers said the missing computers and Blackberry were “garnering a great deal of attention with senior management as well as (nuclear security administration) representatives.”  (B.S.–And garnering even more attention from the person who stole them.)

The security administration memo said the “magnitude of exposure and risk to the laboratory is at best unclear as little data on these losses has been collected or pursued given their treatment as property management issues.”  (B.S.–In English, that means: we have no idea what we’re doing or how this effects our security.)

The lab, located in Los Alamos, N.M., employs about 10,000 people. (B.S.–Many of whom, obviously, are incompetent.)

B.S. Report–This is absolutely outrageous! These are the people entrusted with keeping our Nuclear Weapons and Defense Systems safe from our enemies!  They’re just like any other government agency…completely incompetent.

In fact, we at the B.S. Report have obtained this secret video of the guy in charge of our highly classified technological database…I can’t believe they were able to smuggle those computers out from under this guy’s careful scrutiny.

“Granny Robber” Gets 3 Years

HAMILTON, Ohio (AP) — A retired bank teller who became known as the “Granny Robber” for a series of bank robberies in southwest Ohio has been sentenced to three years in prison.

Sixty-eight-year-old Barbara Joly (JAH’-lee) of Middletown was sentenced Wednesday in Butler County Common Pleas Court. She pleaded guilty in December and could have been sentenced to up to five years in prison.

Joly also has pleaded guilty to three counts of bank robbery in neighboring Warren County. She faces a sentence of up to 15 years in prison on those counts when she goes before a judge Feb. 20.

Joly’s lawyer has said the robberies were an attempt to continue supporting a grown son who had fallen on hard times.

B.S. Report–Using our super-secret sources, we uncovered video of the “Granny Robber” preparing for her bank heists.

Wait, I got a plan, why don’t we just, you know, raise taxes?

"To save money, I have decided to close down half of Calleyfornia"

First We Will Close Our Parks and then Our After-School Programs

BIG SUR, Calif. — As Sacramento squabbles over the state’s $42 billion deficit, Californians are getting a bitter taste of what’s to come after the steep budget cuts that are inevitable when legislators and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger finally hammer out a deal.

Some world-famous parks like Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park may not open this year. After-school programs in low-income areas are being scuttled, putting high-risk teens on the street just as police forces are being cut. Schools are closing classrooms, and some highway projects have ground to a halt. The state may not be able to monitor some sex offenders as required under law.

A budget deal may restore some of the missing funds. But everyone knows that not all monies will flow again after a deal, and Californians increasingly fear they are seeing a hint of their future.

“Before it gets better, it’s going to get a lot worse,” said Joseph Valentine, director of Contra Costa County’s Department of Employment and Human Services. The department, which administers social services such as food stamps, has cut 12%, or $25 million, of its budget. It has managers answering reception-desk phones, and Mr. Valentine expects another round of cuts.  (Read more.)

B.S. Report–“Before it gets better, it’s going to get a lot worse,” said Joseph Valentine, director of Contra Costa County’s Department of Employment and Human Services.  This guy obviously went to the Obama training school for economic optimism.

Perhaps we should reduce taxes and offer incentives for corporate investment before we turn California into a business graveyard.  Productive people are leaving the state in droves because California believes in stigmatizing success and punishing successful people.

When you turn your economy into a welfare state it’s not so easy to find enough productive individuals to foot the bill, is it?  And all the while increasing state spending.  I don’t think it’s a very successful economic model to follow.

Yep, lets continue to rape the productive, give to the poor and spend a bunch of money we don’t have.  That’s California’s plan–and it’s the national plan that President Obama is adopting.  I’m sure it will work out just fine in his case because the “annointed one” can do no wrong.

Firebug: 19-year-old charged with setting Aussie fires

Amanda Gessner--Arsonist

A 19-year-old Upper Darby woman who was observed on a store surveillance camera singing, “The fire company is going to be mad at me,” was arrested and charged with setting seven fires in the township early yesterday.

Amanda Gessner of the 300 block of Childs Avenue was charged with arson, causing or risking catastrophe, criminal mischief, and related charges.

Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said he did not believe Gessner was involved in any of the nearly two dozen arsons that have plagued the Coatesville area.

Gessner was seen at previous fire scenes taking pictures with her cell phone, Upper Darby Deputy Fire Chief John Hicks said. A few weeks ago, she gave firefighters a “hard time” at the Garrettford Station on Edmonds Avenue, Hicks said.

“She enjoyed seeing fire engines, enjoyed seeing fires, and enjoyed taking pictures of fires,” Hicks said.

In investigating yesterday’s blazes, Gessner’s “name came up very early,” Chitwood said. He said she was known to hang out at a Wawa store at Burmont and Garrett Roads. Police went there and, on video, observed her buying coffee and cigarettes and singing the song.

Gessner fits “the profile of what a pyromaniac would be,” Chitwood said, adding that she set all the fires with a cigarette lighter.  (Read more.)

B.S. Report–Sometimes people just don’t look…well, right.  You can almost see the unhappiness and anger on this young lady’s face.  Here’s hoping it gets a lot more unhappy as she spends most of her life (I hope) in prison.  She could have ruined thousands of lives and destroyed untold millions in property.  She deserves the worst.  Although she was charged with arson, she was also charged with “criminal mischief” which just doesn’t seem serious enough.  Yes, I know she wasn’t involved in the main fires causing all the damage but clearly she has serious problems.

I’m Not So Sure This Guy Is A Loving Husband

Detective Says Woman Dies After Months On The Floor

MEDICAL LAKE, Wash. (AP) — A 73-year-old woman was found dead on her bedroom floor after she apparently spent weeks unable to get up while her 82-year-old husband fed and cleaned her but did not summon help, authorities said.

No honey, I'm perfectly fine, just let me lie down here for 3 months.

John Klein was arrested for investigation of second-degree manslaughter after he called 911 on Monday to report that his wife, Pia, had no pulse.

“I don’t consider it to be my fault,” Klein told a judge at a hearing Tuesday. “She did not want help.”

Bond was set at $200,000. It was not immediately known if Klein was represented by a lawyer.

Klein said his wife of 52 years fell around Thanksgiving, Spokane County sheriff’s Detective Jim Dresback wrote in an affidavit.

The woman had ulcers on her hip and leg consistent with having lain on her side “for an extended period of time,” the affidavit said.

According to the affidavit, Klein said he came in from working outside and found his wife lying next to the bed. He said she cried out in pain but told him to leave her alone when he tried to help her up.

He said he left her lying on her side, bringing food and water, cleaning her and giving her medication, and thought she would eventually get up on her own.

When Klein was asked whether she had asked him to summon help, “he looked down for about five or six seconds, then said, ‘No,'” the detective wrote.

The type of medication he gave his wife was not specified; he did tell authorities she had no significant medical problems.

It was unclear what injury Pia Klein may have suffered in her fall. An early morning call Wednesday to the sheriff’s office was not immediately returned.

Klein told Dresback the couple have a daughter in North Carolina and they talk on the phone every couple of weeks. Asked if the daughter spoke to her mother after the fall, Klein said his wife had told him to tell the daughter she was sick.

B.S. Report–This gives new meaning to the phrase:  “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”  I think this husband wasn’t terribly grief-stricken about his wife’s predicament.

He didn’t summon help because she asked him not to.  At what point do you ignore her orders and get your wife off the floor.  I would think an hour or two maximum on the floor and then it’s time to call the doctor.   Not three months!

“When did she fall?” asked the Detective.  “Some time around Thanksgiving,” said her loving husband.  Did he at least set up a T.V. for her to watch?  No.  OK, lock him up.

Yuck!! Person Hit By Car, Dragged 17 Miles On NYC Highways…Emerges Unhurt!…What are you, nuts? Of course he was killed…

NEW YORK (AP) — Police say a person was hit by a car, then was caught under a van and dragged nearly 17 miles through New York City before the driver realized it.

The badly damaged body has not been identified. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly says investigators are tracing the route searching for body parts.

No body parts in here...Hey Joe, take a look at this!

The driver of the first vehicle notified police after hitting the person around 6 a.m. Wednesday.

In the meantime, the van went over the victim. It’s not clear if the person was alive at that point. An autopsy was planned for Thursday.

The van drove on three New York City highways from Queens to Brooklyn before the driver stopped to check the vehicle. But he didn’t see the body until a pedestrian pointed it out.

Police say no criminality is suspected.

B.S. Report–I can only hope the poor guy (I guess it was a guy) was dead on impact.  I would hate to think that he finally died on mile seventeen.

Car Wash Owner Abuses Employees ; Faces 176 Charges

Owner abuses Employees, faces charges.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles prosecutors are accusing carwash owners of dirty employee practices.

The city attorney’s office filed 176 charges Monday against Benny and Nissan Pirian, their manager Manuel Reyes and their businesses.

City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo claims workers were treated almost like “indentured servants” at four washes in Hollywood, Northridge and the Los Feliz area.

They allegedly worked without overtime pay, rest or lunch breaks, drank water from a washing machine, received no proper medical treatment for cuts and burns, and were harassed if they tried to unionize.

The Pirians face nearly 86 years each in jail if convicted.

Reyes, who is accused of using a machete and a baton to threaten workers and unionizers, faces 2 1/2 years in jail if convicted.

A call to an attorney for the owners wasn’t immediately returned.

B.S. Report–There is no excuse for treating these guys like cattle but, as Paul Harvey would say, we need to learn “the rest of the story.”  What would keep these guys from leaving this lousy job where they were underpaid, cheated and abused?

The article is strangely cryptic about the details so I’m going to offer up a guess.  My guess is the magic word:  “illegal,” as in illegal immigrants.  Again this is no excuse for this scumbag owner abusing his employees but, lets face it, there are quite a few car washes and quite a few low-level positions if they wanted to leave.

What was holding these workers at such a poor job?  (I don’t mean that washing cars is a poor job–I mean working for this guy is a poor job.)  Was it the fact that the owner threatened to turn them in?  Or were they simply afraid to seek other employment without the proper paperwork?

Again, I may be completely wrong but why in the world would an employee put up with an employer like that, I mean, drinking out of a washing machine?  Come on.  These guys must have been afraid to leave.

Another Offshore Oil Drilling Ban…OK, So Where Are We Supposed To Get Our Energy From?

Activists Philippe Cousteau and Ted Danson Urge Ban

(AP)–Environmental advocates urged Congress on Wednesday to reinstate the broad moratorium on offshore oil drilling, but a key congressman said on that issue, “The ship may have already sailed.”

Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said the political reality is that the broad moratorium across 85 percent of the country’s Outer Continental Shelf lifted by Congress last fall is unlikely to be reimposed.

But Rahall, who opened the first of three hearings on offshore drilling, said Congress may need to establish protective buffer areas and place certain regions _ including some waters off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts _ off limits.

“If we are going to start drilling in new areas offshore we’re going to have to be aware of what the trade-offs are … that it can be done safely,” said Rahall. He argued that the “vast majority” of Outer Continental Shelf oil resources are already in federal waters available for leasing.

Philippe Cousteau--clearly cares more about animals than people.

The hearing came a day after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar ordered a review of offshore oil and gas development, scrapping a sweeping blueprint for expanded offshore drilling proposed in the Bush administration’s final days.

While not ruling out expansion of some offshore drilling, Salazar promised to pursue a new direction in energy development, with greater emphasis on using coastal waters to generate energy from wind, the sun and waves.

At a House hearing, Philippe Cousteau, grandson of legendary ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, urged Congress to reinstate the offshore drilling bans that until last fall had been in effect for 25 years in Atlantic and Pacific coastal waters.

“It’s absolutely critical for the health of the oceans,” said Cousteau, a board member of the advocacy group Ocean Conservancy. “Oil spills still occur.”

Actor Ted Danson, founder of the American Oceans Campaign and leader of the advocacy group Oceana, said offshore drilling is “flirting with disaster” because of potential oil spills not only at drilling rigs, but in transporting the oil produced.  (Read more.)

B.S. Report–There is no safe way to have oil drilling and there is no safe way to have nuclear power.  Obviously that’s the case since no matter how many times activists say they are for it, that is, if it is done safely, they manage to stop its implementation every time.  What they are really saying is that no matter what efforts are made, they are against drilling or nuclear power under any circumstances.

Australians Blame Wild Fires On Same Green Laws We Have In California

Laws Saying You Can’t Clear Brush From Your Property To Blame

ANGRY residents last night accused local authorities of contributing to the bushfire toll by failing to let residents chop down trees and clear up bushland that posed a fire risk.

During question time at a packed community meeting in Arthurs Creek on Melbourne’s northern fringe, Warwick Spooner — whose mother Marilyn and brother Damien perished along with their home in the Strathewen blaze — criticised the Nillumbik council for the limitations it placed on residents wanting the council’s help or permission to clean up around their properties in preparation for the bushfire season. “We’ve lost two people in my family because you dickheads won’t cut trees down,” he said.

“We wanted trees cut down on the side of the road … and you can’t even cut the grass for God’s sake.” Later, the meeting was cut short when Mr Spooner’s father, Dennis, collapsed in his chair and an ambulance had to be called. Despite losing his wife and son and everything he owned, a friend later said he had not stopped or slept since the weekend.  (Read more.)

B.S. Report–I know you probably don’t need any more proof that environmentalists are not interested in human welfare.  Environmentalism is good, unfortunately many environmentalists are not.  It should at least concern them that millions of animals have been killed, in part, because of legislation like this.