Nothing like a government that has our back when it comes to responsible guardianship of the taxes they collect from us, and well they should be, since that money is our money.

They should, in fact, be paying exceptionally close attention to how they dole out our money these days, considering all the hype we get regarding the dreaded “sequester”…

Energy Department approves lavish bonuses: $3.5 million to 10 workers alone

Ten contractors are on pace to collect $3.5 million in excessive bonuses due to a lack of oversight, investigators warn

Federal employees are facing unpaid days off and salary cuts due to the sequester, but several contract workers inside the Energy Department are still raking in the cash.

Ten individuals at the department’s operations in Oak Ridge, Tenn., are set to make an extra $3.5 million above and beyond their normal pay, according to an Energy Department inspector general investigation that exposed a lavish bonus system.

The operations in Tennessee include a national laboratory, a security site, and a former uranium enrichment facility that is being cleaned up. The contractors are involved in what is known as the East Tennessee Technology Park, where the cleanup work is going on. (An earlier version of this story incorrectly mentioned the lab as being connected to the contractors.)

The 10 people are executives at the company UCOR, which the department hired for environmental clean-up. And despite watchdog warnings that the executives’ salaries are as much as 82 percent above the market rate, Energy Department officials continue to pay out the bonuses.

The entire article is here, in The Washington Guardian.

The infamous Ninth Circuit (9th Circus) Court of Appeals, the friends of every communist and every other anti-American entity that needs some Constitution haters to legislate from the bench on their behalf are going on vacation. Yee hoo!

Two U.S. senators are criticizing a federal court system for planning to hold its annual conference at a pricey Hawaiian resort in August.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference plans to gather at a Maui hotel that costs upwards of $230 a night – for four nights. Taxpayers will foot the lodging and travel tab, which could exceed a million dollars, Sens. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) complained.

Yes, we, the taxpayer get to treat those so-called judges and their retinue to an all expenses paid wing ding in Hawaii!

Aside from the business meetings, activities available to attendees include golfing, yoga, surfing lesions, snorkeling, Zumba (a Latin-inspired dance program), and a tennis tournament.

I’m sure that all the fun stuff is of little concern to those esteemed, patriotic, God-fearing individuals who attempted to extract “one nation under God” from the pledge of allegiance; They’re only headed to the white sands, blue waters and wonderful tropical weather to closet themselves for solemn dialogue on the Letter of the Law.

Just ask them:

“While the [court’s web] site makes clear that government funds are not to be used for any recreational or sporting activities and that court related matters will be substantively considered, the programs reads more like a vacation than a business trip to discuss the means of improving the administration of justice,” Grassley, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Sessions, ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, said in a letter to Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Alex Kozinski.

The Ninth Circuit’s website says the conference is authorized by law “for the purpose of considering the business of the courts and advising means of improving the administration of justice within the circuit.”

Of course it is.

Liberals don’t care which end of the tax system they grab our money from: If they can’t steal it by overtaxing us, they’ll steal it through frivolous spending.

The entire story is here.

…from today’s Washington Times Online. I’m somewhat pressed for time this morning, I have some people to meet, but figured I’d share them.

Here we have a fine example of the term, “haste makes waste” in action, in this case mongers of political agendas in such a hurry to blow our hard earned tax money that they misinformed the public, largely through failure to do their homework and largely to get their itinerary pushed through in a hurry, in an un-thought-out, unconstitutional, just plain stupid act, part of the idiotic and ill advised TARP program.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. misled the public about the financial weakness of Bank of America and other early recipients of the government’s $700 billion Wall Street bailout, creating “unrealistic expectations” about the companies and damaging the program’s credibility, according to a report by the program’s independent watchdog.

The federal government last October loaned Bank of America and eight other “healthy” financial institutions a total of $125 billion - the initial payout from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP - in an attempt to avoid a series of major bank collapses that would push the sputtering economy into a free fall or depression.

The rationale for giving money to stable banks and not failing ones, regulators said, was that such institutions would be better able to lend money and thus unfreeze tight credit markets - a major factor in last year’s Wall Street losses.

Right. Now the American taxpayer gets to pay the price for the blatant miscalculations due to political agendas and faulty thinking of a number of general purpose assholes.

Moving right along, we have the messiah Barack Hussein, whose military expertise evidently outshines that of his generals, coming up with excuses as to why he’d rather allow U.S. servicemen and woman to die than to commit more troops where General McChrystal says they are needed. What does McChrystal know, anyway, right? He’s just a general, whereas Obama, the guy who once, for campaign reasons, said the war in Afghanistan is justified in order to compare it to Iraq (according to his excellency, unjustified) is so much more knowledgeable about warfare that, well,

One day after an attack in Afghanistan killed eight American soldiers, President Obama’s national security adviser downplayed both the importance of U.S. troop levels and the possibility of a Taliban return to power.

National security adviser James L. Jones suggested that Gen. McChrystal’s call for more troops must be tempered by diplomatic considerations as the president weighs how to deal with the 8-year-old war.

“Well, I think the end is much more complex than just about adding ‘X’ number of troops. Afghanistan is a country that’s quite large and that swallows up a lot of people,” the retired Marine general said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Right, let’s here more, Jones. What else did Obama instruct you to say, and being an ex-military man yourself, how does it feel to be a party to it?

The rest of the story can be found here.

…given the obvious intentions of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid dynasty to ignore the will of the American people in order to bring their own vision of a socialist country to fruition, whether or not the Tea Party’s culminating march on Washington, D.C. will ultimately effect anything.

I say this as someone who, in the past, has done at least some of my share of conservative activism, because in the past, we’ve had a government led by people who, at least minimally, remembered that their employers were the citizens of these here United States.

Now, however, we have the Obama Administration combined with a liberal-run, Democrat majority in the House and Senate who couldn’t give a rat’s ass what the people want.

After all, they reason, they know better than we do what’s good for us, and obviously that means that a socialist country is far better, in their estimation, than the free country to which we have been accustomed since our forefathers bled and died to earn us that freedom.

So a humongous number of Americans from all over gathered in D.C. on Saturday to convey to the Obama machine what it is that Americans want from their (our) leaders.

Sarah Bond’s outrage over massive deficit spending and debt is not a partisan matter for her. And it was enough to motivate her to travel from San Diego to Washington to let politicians know what she thinks.

“I’m here out of sheer frustration of spending from both parties, and this started with TARP,” Bond said, referring to the $700-billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, pushed by President George W. Bush and supported mostly by congressional Democrats.

Bond was part of a large crowd marching on Washington on Saturday. Adam Brandon, spokesman for Freedom Works Foundation, one of the main sponsors of the event, estimated the crowd at 150,000. But on Sunday, the group’s Web site estimated that hundreds of thousands of people turned out.

What do the politicians think of that?

Regardless of precise number, Bond told CNSNews.com that members of Congress “are just confused and panicking because they never had to deal with this many fiscal conservatives before.”

Well, shouldn’t that tell them something?

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) also thought the gathering represented a fundamental realignment of politics in America.

“Anybody that doesn’t recognize this is mainstream America is going to miss the boat. I hope my party, the Republicans, realize that this is not a right-wing group,” DeMint told CNSNews.com. “This is moms and dads and grandpas and grandmas. This is Democrats and independents. They just are alarmed at growth of government and debt and takeovers and the health care was just a tipping point.”

The problem, Mr. DeMint, is that while the Republicans have long been a problem where our fiscal spending is concerned, they are not in the majority on the Hill, and since the Democrats took over that majority, even moreso since Obama lied, hand on Bible, when he vowed to “protect and defend the Constitution” and assumed the Presidency, the Republicans have been continually beaten down by the folks on the left side of the aisle.

The real problem, here, is the Democrats, who are the ass boys & ass gals for the far left. Most of the Democrats on the Hill belong to those lefties, they are no longer their own people. They are the shit the far left scrapes off the bottoms of their shoes when they don’t need them for anything. Once honorable Democrat politicians now follow the corrupt, anti-America beat of the liberal drum, with only a handful of blue-dog exceptions.

Barack Hussein, Pelosi and Reid call the shots, their only ambition being to drag this country so far to port as quickly as they can that there’ll be no turning back. No matter what lies they tell us about their respect for the Constitution, the truth is that they hold that great document in profound contempt and want to grind it underneath the heel of socialism.

Which comes back to why I am not entirely convinced that the whole Tea Party thing is really going to do any good. If no one in the position to do anything about anything gives a damn what the people want, well…

George Skypeck, a Vietnam Army veteran from Accokeek, Md., said Americans are rising up as they did in the 1960s, only this time it is not the radicals who are speaking up. “The 60s radicals are now in office,” he said. “I didn’t like them then, and I don’t like them now.”

Good observation, George.

Some of the signs read, “Prosecute ACORN, Not the CIA,” “Stop Spending and Start Cutting,” “Obomunism,” “Not with My Money,” and “Adams-Madison-Jefferson: The Original Right Wing Extremists.”

Tom Hill of West Haven, Conn., held a sign reading, “Today’s State Controlled Media,” calling ABC News the “All Barack Channel,” CNN the “Counterfeit News Network,” NBC News “Nothing But Crap” and CBS News “Controlled By State.”

BRAVO!!!!

Now let’s hope I’m wrong, or just one of those yees of little faith, and the sheer numbers of conservatives who participated have made some kind of difference.

…not to raise taxes, why won’t they sign the pledge?

Americans for Tax Reform, a conservative taxpayer group, regularly asks Republican politicians to sign a pledge not to raise taxes. Three Republican presidential candidates have not signed the pledge, which one strategist said might hurt them during the primaries.

“I worked on Bob Dole’s campaign in 1988 and he didn’t sign and it killed his campaign in the final week,” David Johnson, a Republican strategist and president of Strategic Vision. “That’s how the first President Bush was able to turn around and win the New Hampshire primary.”

New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) have not signed the pledge.

Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and RINO McCain all have excuses for not signing, but to me, the bottom line is that if their hearts are pure on the matter of not raising taxes, they will sign the pledge.

The fact that they won’t sign on indicates that they have doubts, that they are leaving their options open rather than committing themselves to hard-copy promises that might come back to haunt them if they do agree to tax increases on their watch.

A track record is one thing, a stated intention still another, but signing an agreement with The American People, legally binding or not, is a much stronger declaration of intent than a few words spoken in a campaign speech or a debate, wherein a politician will more often than not promise whatever is necessary to get elected, the operative theory being that once they’re in office they can worry about any verbal obligations acquired on the campaign trail: Especially when the office in question is the most powerful political position on earth.

“They are kind of caught in a Catch-22,” Johnson said. “They know that this is a way to win the New Hampshire primary, but they don’t want to go on record saying they will never raise taxes and then, if they’re nominated and elected, have to go back on that pledge and have it used against them like the first President Bush did with his famous ‘no new taxes.’”

“I think it’s going to hurt these candidates in New Hampshire,” said Johnson. “New Hampshire is a very anti-tax state.”

“Voters, traditionally when the economy is bad, go for candidates who promise not to raise taxes and who promise to lower taxes,” he said, noting that by refusing to sign the pledge, the three candidates are creating a situation that could play well for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

I suppose that we shall see what we shall see….

…it’s that no matter what happens, any and every solution the Democrats will devise to any and every problem will be based upon raising taxes.

Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, is proposing a new carbon tax to reduce U.S. energy consumption. Part of the proceeds, he said would help pay for “universal health care — “upon passage,” he noted.

Dingell, here, wants not only to raise taxes, but also to create a new tax to pile on to those we already pay. A “carbon tax”.

But he’s not finished!

In addition to the carbon tax, Dingell’s plan to reduce global warming also includes higher taxes on gasoline; and a phase-out of the mortgage interest deduction on what he called “McMansions.”

If that’s not enough, he’s holding free reign on the as yet unproven concept of man-made global warming.

Yeah, yeah, we know — Dingleberry and his ilk ignore the scientists who employ actual science to refute the man-made “climate change” theories that are based totally upon politics rather than science, so…

“The earth is getting warmer and human activities are a large part of the cause,” Dingell said. “We need to act in order to prevent a serious problem.”

Dingell admits that reducing greenhouse gas emissions will be a “massive undertaking,” but he believes higher taxes and fees are “the most effective way” to solve the problem.

Dingell said he would levy an additional 50-cents-a-gallon tax on gasoline, jet fuel, kerosene, to be phased in over five years and then adjusted for inflation.

Boy, it must be nice to be able to simply pile on the taxes and restructure the Constitution at the same time. After all, the end result of this idiot’s agenda will be a socialist state to replace the present structure of the United States Government — Ding has already decided that socialized medicine is a done deal, so…

Where will the revenue go?

“First and foremost, the Earned Income Tax Credit will be expanded,” Dingell said on his website. He said the higher EIC (a tax refund for poor people who don’t pay taxes) will help lower income families compensate for the increased taxes on fuels.

Dingell said the money raised by the higher gasoline tax would go into a highway trust fund, with 40 percent going to mass transit and 60 percent going to roads. (The revenue from the tax on jet fuel would go into the airport and airway trust fund.)

Finally, Dingell said the revenue from his proposed fee on carbon emissions - the carbon tax - would go into the following accounts: Medicare and Social Security; Universal Healthcare (upon passage); State Children’s Health Insurance Program; Conservation
Renewable Energy Research and Development; Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

.

This is such a Democrat issue: Employ junk science as a basis for dumping large new tonnages of taxes on the American people while shoving our government in the direction of a political philosophy that is 180 degrees in opposition of the Law of the Land upon which our great and hitherto profoundly successful nation has been based from its founding.

To take things a step further, the politics advocated by the Democrats represent the cornerstones of those governments that have been our sworn enemies and collective anti-thesis over the last century.

Socialists. National Socialists. Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

These folks simply don’t understand even the most fundamental reasons why we broke away from England in the latter part of the 1700s, why our great Constitution says what it says or why the United States of America is boss trump in the global arena.

We are.

Even when we read about the citizens of foreign countries opposing us via demonstrations and so forth, we can understand that the reason they’re bitching is that we’re the boss — we possess the factors that make any entity existing within the boundaries of humanity boss: We are both economically and militarily superior to the rest of the world. When America makes a move, it is felt across the globe. That’s the way it is.

We don’t simply sit on our riches and/or our military might, we share both. The Democrats find fault in the latter. They found fault in our protecting the South Vietnamese from communism and they find fault in our attempts to introduce democracy to the Arab world. They would prefer to surrender.

If the Democrats are so dedicated to the options of

a) living under Sha’aria law or

b) being beheaded

that’s their lookout.

If the Democrats are so dedicated to taxing us to death

that’s a good reason to vote otherwise

If the Democrats are so willing to transform us into a socialist country

that’s a spectacular reason to do away with their party.

‘Nuff said.

Evidentally, the Centers For Disease Control, like many other federal bureaucracies, looks upon our hard earned tax money as nothing other than theirs to squander without a second thought.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides an example of a big-budget federal agency getting its priorities wrong, according to an oversight report released by a Republican senator.

Among the report’s findings — a $106 million visitor center decorated with waterfalls and Japanese gardens and a $200,000 fitness center with saunas and zero-gravity chairs.

Read on…