Why I Hate Pork (and why you should too).

In the new version of the much-discussed stimulus package, found HERE, are several earmarks that make me go, “Buh?” Here are the highlights:

$50 million for “Watershed Rehabilitation”
$2.8 billion for loans to spur rural broadband (just build some Starbucks.)
$650 million for Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Program (who has an analog set anymore?)
$30 million for necessary expenses of the “Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership” (Yes, because I’m sure that’ll benefit me.)
$140 million for “climate data modeling” (do you think they’ll fix what the U.N. screwed up?)
$50 million for repairs to NASA facilities from storm damage
$18.5 billion for “Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy” research in the Department of Energy. That money includes:
$2 billion for development of advanced batteries
$1 billion for expenses necessary for advanced battery manufacturing
$1 billion for the Advanced Battery Loan Guarantee Program (someone’s obsessed with batteries)
$1.5 billion for “National Center for Research Resources”

$500 million for “Buildlings and Facilties” at the National Institutes of Health in suburban Washington, D.C. (suspiciously vague)

$2 billion for “Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology”
$300 million for Indian Reservation roads (aren’t they sovereign countries?)
$500 million in Native American Housing Block Grants (Huh?)
$4.1 billion to help communities deal with foreclosed homes (too little, too late)
$1.5 billion in homeless prevention activities (activities? like “building new homes” activities?)

Hey you! Troubled by hypocrisy in government lately?

Do Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s tax indiscretions, lies, and affrontery have you singing the economic blues?

According to Mr. Geithner, he initially failed to pay payroll taxes on income he received from the International Monetary Fund in 2001, and then repeated the error in the three subsequent years, despite the help of an accountant. [snip]

… adding that he should have read the statement more carefully. Millions of Americans have said the same thing about the tax code during an IRS audit, earning less forgiveness.

Is Charlie Rangel’s ethics probe against himself making you feel a little less hopeful about the 111th Congress?

The embattled Harlem lawmaker said yesterday that he made his third complaint to the House Ethics Committee against himself in as many months - this time to look at his beachfront dream home in the Dominican Republic.

Rangel purchased the villa at the Punta Cana Yacht Club with a no-interest loan 20 years ago and has failed to report rental income on the property, which rents for $1,100 a night during the peak season.

If, perchance, you feel a double-standard forming between yourself and the government officials supposed to represent you, look no further than former Texas judge John Carter (R-TX) and his new bill submitted for consideration to Congress.

Titled, “The Rangel Rule,” this bill grants federal and IRS leniency to American citizens who have been accused of committing the same tax crimes Geithner and Rangel committed, requiring that any sentences issued should be lesser than or equal to Geithner’s and Rangel’s in their respective ethics inquiries.

All U.S. taxpayers would enjoy the same immunity from IRS penalties and interest as House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Obama Administration Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, if a bill introduced today by Congressman John Carter (R-TX) becomes law.

Carter, a former longtime Texas judge, today introduced the Rangel Rule Act of 2009, HR 735, which would prohibit the Internal Revenue Service from charging penalties and interest on back taxes against U.S. citizens. Under the proposed law, any taxpayer who wrote “Rangel Rule” on their return when paying back taxes would be immune from penalties and interest.

In other words — cheating on your taxes will not only carry no penalty, but may get you nominated for Treasury Secretary some day.

Yes You Can, fellow citizens, Yes You Can.

“We’re finally proud to be Americans.”

Welcome to the party. Glad you’re here.

I normally don’t comment on the goings-on in my social networking world, but on this I must: when Barack Obama was sworn in as President of the United States, sentences began popping up all over Facebook that said things like “So-and-so is finally proud to be American.”

Wrong. While it is perfectly okay to say that electing the first black President of a country that spent the first half of its existence besieged by racism and slavery makes one proud of America, it is a pathetic worldview indeed which convinces one that yesterday was the first day he or she was proud to be an American.

Just for the record, though I will debate you, it is forever your right to say that you are, in fact, not proud to be an American. Those people aren’t who I’m speaking to in this instance.

Those who say they are “finally” proud to be Americans are cultural windsocks ignorant of any larger issues beyond the issue of race. Or hope and change, whatever that may mean in the coming months.

America as a country has done some pretty despicable things, to its own people and to other countries. Over the two and a half centuries we have enjoyed sovereignty, we have acted boorishly in defense of our own interests at the expense of other countries’ economies, peoples, and ecosystems. Therefore, it is foolish and foolhardy, and ultimately insensitive and cruel, to glibly pronounce that the election of one man who does not have the power to right all these bloody wrongs has made you “proud to be an American.”

If you were not proud before, there is no way that Barack Obama can ever possibly wipe out all the evils, and wipe clean all the death and destruction visited upon human beings by America. To believe otherwise is to strip these tragedies of their relevance and importance, and to strip those who still grieve of their right to do so. 

Then again, if the only thing that was keeping you from loving the red, white and blue was a man by the name of George W. Bush, if your visceral hatred for his person was so intense that you could not appreciate one acre of this fruited plain otherwise; here is a website for you.

On the other hand, if you are someone who genuinely loves America, and not just Barack Obama, and not just because of Barack Obama, you’re probably wondering the same thing I am: How can one man, one politician, one person, possibly eclipse the genius of our Declaration of Independence, and our Constitution and present version of the Bill of Rights? How can one man serve to inspire the same amount as the successful, free government system of the United States has inspired the rest of the world?

Do you think the millions of immigrants to our shores would have come not because of our system, but because of our leaders, for one man? Do you think your siblings, parents, grandparents, and more would have fought and died to defend Barack Obama, or to defend liberty? Then why are you proud to be an American now, instead of every time you think about the stand-up people which have produced an election that has righted a historic wrong for all the world to see? There is much wrong with America, but I can think of no other country so obsessed with bettering itself and righting its wrongs and fixing its failures and extending a helping hand to countries in need than these United States. That spirit of liberty and goodness and progress in the face of comfort and complacency (and how much more comfortable would it have been to elect another old white man, or John Edwards, or Hillary Clinton) is why I love America. Her ideals and Constitutional codicils have conducted human nature in the best way that has yet been observed in history. She has wisdom, she has ingenuity, she has liberty, and most of all, she has an exceptionally well-designed system and well-equipped defenders to keep us all safely in the pursuit of happiness. America’s not perfect, but her people, ensconced in a system designed just for this purpose, have much that has yet to be done, and even more to be proud of.

The greatness of this country extends far beyond the reach of any one person, even Barack Obama.

So, I’m glad that some of you liberals are finally proud to be Americans. Welcome to the party; hope you learn a thing or two while you’re here.

Althouse: “I think those of us who voted for McCain are going to be a lot happier with Obama than the people who voted for him.”

Ann Althouse is not the only moderate conservative singing a happier tune these days, because it appears as though the party most rankled by the incoming Administration is the Democratic party.

Stephen Hayes at the conservative paper Weekly Standard details a presser given by Republican House minority leader John Boehner on the 825 billion dollar proposed stimulus package presented by House Democrats (highlights include: federally subsidized water slides and a NASA initiative to combat global warming).

According to Hayes, Boehner’s an Obama fan:

[According to Boehner,] with their proposal, House Democrats are apparently failing to support Barack Obama’s efforts to change Washington.

It’s an interesting strategic play. Obama has certainly given many indications over the course of this transition that he would like to govern as a centrist. And congressional Democrats, a very liberal bunch, have expressed their concerns, often publicly. So Boehner, leader of a very conservative group of House Republicans, declares that Obama is promising change he can believe in.

“The president-elect really does want to change the way Washington works,” Boehner explained to the small gathering of reporters.

While congressional Democrats are calling for the “same-old, same-old,” he said, the new president offers hope for a new tone in Washington. “We’re going to work with him to try to prove that Washington can work differently, because in this time of economic anxiety the American people expect us to work together.”

While Hayes does temper his enthusiasm with several sobering quotes from Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (along the lines of, “Obama should be a Republican if he wants support from Republicans” — how refreshing) he does an excellent job of pointing out the following:

It is quite a moment. While Republicans are embracing Obama, Democrats are expressing skepticism. Harry Reid says he doesn’t “work for Obama.” David Obey called Obama a “crown prince.” Barbara Boxer insisted they weren’t “potted plants.” Barney Frank wants him to challenge Republicans–actually, Frank called it fighting the “savage beast.” Bill Nelson called Obama’s comments on the economy “mumbo jumbo.”

For the majority of the previous Democratic presidents’ time in the White House, the uberliberal wing of the Democratic party was swept under the rug once the election was over. Historically, it’s likely that Obama will do much the same thing.

Is it possible that hope and change has come — to the Republican party?