No, Mr. Culberson, We Want ALL of the Spying to Stop

From The Blaze:

While the most talked-about news out of the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday was the defeat of the so-called Amash amendment that would have defunded the NSA’s massive data collection program, another amendment related to NSA spying was quietly passed overwhelmingly by lawmakers.

The amendment that passed is reportedly intended to “ensure none of the funds may be used by the NSA to target a U.S. person or acquire and store the content of a U.S. person’s communications, including phone calls and e-mails.” 

Culberson told TheBlaze in a phone interview why he supported the Pompeo amendment over the more sweeping amendment authored by Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.).
He argued the amendment properly requires that no funds can be used by the NSA to collect or store the content of American citizens’ communications data. This includes phone calls and emails. The amendment; however, does not seem to restrict the NSA’s ability to continue collecting and storing massive amounts metadata. 

The Amash amendment would have prevented the NSA from using any funds to collect any data on persons that are not under investigation.

Then, this:

The Pompeo amendment may not fully address privacy advocates’ concerns about NSA spying, but those like Culberson feel it’s a step in the right direction.

Damn it, man.  I don't want a step in the right direction! I want to get to the destination! If you have a roach problem in your house, squashing one of the bugs is a step in the right direction.  But it doesn't solve the problem!

Solve the problem already!!! Quit playing games with our rights, our privacy and our civil liberties!!!!

Here - Just Eat This Pile of Crap Now and I PROMISE You'll Get Steak Next Year...

from the Washington Examiner:

A House vote on the 2012 budget resolution is slated for Friday, but the GOP must first push through the 2011 spending bill despite growing opposition from some Republican lawmakers who say it cuts far too little.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who was largely deemed the victor in last week's budget standoff between Republicans and Democrats, must sell this plan to the most fiscally conservative in his party. He made the case Monday in a USA Today opinion piece that it is time for the House to pass the 2011 budget and move onto the 2012 spending plan, which he said advances the Republican cost-cutting effort "from saving billions of dollars to saving trillions of dollars."

Same old crap, different congress.

Making Them Deal With It

From WOAI.com:

This should get their attention.

A measure filed by State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham) would allow any law enforcement agency that has custody of an illegal immigrant to take the illegal to 'the office of a U.S. Senator or Representative' and leave them there.

1200 WOAI news reports the measure also allows county sheriff's deputies or city police officers to 'request an agent or employee of the United States Senator or United States Representative to sign a document acknowledging the release or discharge of the illegal immigrant at the senator's or representative's office.

I got a chance to hear about the proposal firsthand a few weeks ago when the Washington County Leadership group that I'm in met with Representative Kolkhorst in Austin. At the time, she said that she was still working on the legislation, but I knew that when she filed it it that I'd be mentioning it here. What I didn't expect was to see it on the Drudge Report.

I love the idea behind it. It's not intended toward our local Congressman, Michael McCaul, who is staunchly anti-illegal immigration. Instead, it's aimed at those Congressmen (and women) from other parts of the state - and I'm looking at you Gene Green and Shelia Jackson Lee- who have their heads in the sand about the drain on resources illegal immigration is.

By requiring illegal aliens to b dropped off at a Representative or Senator's office, it forces them to deal with the issue directly instead of insisting that it's a state issue. In other words, it literally brings the issue home.

Brilliant. Lois Kolkhorst for governor, anyone?

Completely Out of Touch With Reality

I laughed really, really hard when I ran across this video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi one week ago today:



And now reports re that she is not only planning on running for House Minority Leader, but that she actually believes that the ginormous beat-down the Democrats got last week had nothing to do with her. In an interview with Diane Sawyer, she said she had no regrets and that hers was a job well done.

Of course she has no regrets. She and Harry Reid and Barack Obama managed to brazenly push through more far-left wing agenda items in two years than the Democrats had had the stones to try in the previous forty combined. She knows damn well that in Washington it's really, really tough to turn back the clock and to get rid of legislation and bureaucracy.

But what I can't get over is just how deluded she is. Watch the video above. Holy crap.

I really hope that she does get elected House Minority leader. The Republicans need a whipping boy (sorry- whipping old lady just sounded weird) in order to keep public sentiment on their side as they try to dismantle what the Democrats have done. Her approval rating before the election (nationwide, mind you - they loooooove her in San Fran) stood at 8%. If Congress were a wrestling match, deep foreboding music would play every time she entered a room and she'd be looking for a chair to smack her opponent with when the ref wasn't looking. She's a villain, pure and simple. And right now, that's exactly what the Republicans need.

Dipshits of the Day: Gizmodo

It's the day before the big election and all the nutjobs are coming out of the woodwork screaming "the sky is falling, the sky is falling" and that if you vote Republican (or worse *gasp* conservative) that the whole world is going to explode in a fiery ball of pollution and dead baby seal carcasses. And it seems that tech site Gizmodo is no exception. Here are some excerpts from this craptastic hit piece on anything that isn't straight up the Democrats' asses, including this on NASA:

Surprise! NASA's having money problems. Republican gains in the midterm elections will likely make matters worse for the agency. After a review called it underfunded and overambitious, Obama opted to end to the Constellation program last February. In its place, the administration said it wanted to reallocate that money for new technologies and private spaceflight. The problem? Congress balked. In late September, it passed another act actually requesting funds for projects initiated under Constellation, but also granting less than half of the administration's request for private spaceflight. Now, with Congress in recess and still unable to get a revised budget, NASA is locked into its current funding level. In essence, that means the agency has to keep spending on programs that it's going to have to kill anyway, and can't start new ones. It's thought that if Democrats retain control of the Senate and House, they'll probably pass an appropriations bill to allocate additional money for NASA. And if the Republicans prevail? Well, negotiations will likely be deferred until January, when the party would take over the appropriations subcommittee.

I love that the commenters are refuting, logically, the crap that the article spews forth. Silly commenters - you can't fight hysterical bullshit with reason!

Net Neutrality is hardly neutral. This kind of title is just what George Owell was talking about in 1984. When you come upon a bill or project with such a specific name, and find it is the opposite of that name, how can you be for it? Net Neutrality is about forming a club of companies that get what they want and the government sanctions that. Vote Republican so that the free market will remain the internets rule of law.

Obama killed all of NASA’s manned space flight. The congress has an overwhelming amount of Democrats in the majority. Constitutionally the President DOES NOT spend the money nor allocate its spending. It is congress and congress alone that spends the money. Any change of Obamas proposals has been done by DEMOCRATS in congress.

Global warming due to human activity is a hoax. Everyone is starting to understand this. It was not helpful that the core temperature data that has been used in all such research has been uncovered to have been intently corrupted by the folks who have the most to gain from this hoax. The folks who did this have in fact left their posts at the University of East Anglia when their emails about this were reveled.

Lowering the tax to a proposed 5% would bring massive amounts of jobs and money to the USA. As it stands now that money and all the jobs it would bring are held overseas because the tax rate for it is the highest in the industrialized world. Putting off this transfer just makes good sense, why not wait to see if our government will change its ways and prefer jobs and some tax money rather then significantly more money then any other country.

Just as in Holland, if prop 19 should pass, and it does not look likely, the folks of California will repeal it within ten years. It might pass, but it will have the effect of strengthening our war on illegal drugs. Will it be worth a few years of pot smoking to get much harsher laws in a few years? If it should happen, enjoy it while it lasts and don’t complain that it was directly responsible for a crack down you cant even imagine.

Who is not for the miracles of our bio science industry from coming up with solutions to any disease or human malady? But what are the facts? You don’t need stem cells from dead babies to pursue this line of research, umbilical cord cells and other cells are an equivalent solution to cells from dead babies. Why are there no great breakthroughs in this research overseas where there are no restrictions? Its simple, this line of medical research is filled with mystery, it is unknown whether anything will come of it. There has been lots of talk, and I am hopeful, but, there is no there there yet. If it were proved that the cells from dead babies could actually be the key to solving just one major medical problem I think we would all choose some nebulous middle ground to help this on its way. We are not there yet and no country outside the USA has any such restrictions, so, where is the miracle?

Regarding that picture, I guess Republicans are bad in your view. Is this picture a way of starting a level headed discussions? Is there nothing wrong with this photo in your view, when connected to a discussion on political issues?

Three of the elected officials in the photo have been out of office for years and one is dead. So you had to reach back that far to find a photo you thought was a reasonable representation of Republicans in power? Senator Frist was one of the most middle of the stream Republicans in office in his time, Stevens was in love with Demarcates because they would fund anything he wanted as long has he just voted with them enough.

...and this short, yet awesome response:

1. NASA Budget: Democrats were the ones who defunded NASA, not Republicans. Because of them we don't have any plans within the next 2 decades of landing on the moon. Privatized? A corporation can't reach the moon without being accused of harming the environment and poluting the air. There's very little for a corporation to gain from attempting moon colonization. It just isn't easy, this isn't a Bond movie where an individual with enough wealth could accomplish military-like precision of reaching the moon.

2. *sigh* Really? How many times do I have to explain that not ALL stem cell research is embryonic and there's a good reason people oppose government funding of it. I've proven here: [gawker.com] that embryonic stem cell research is very far behind adult stem cell research, so why fund it when it shows very little promise to the medical community?

But I have to paraphrase another commenter: "when did I get lost and end up on MSNBC?"

Talk about the need for net neutrality. I come to Gizmodo to read tech news, not get Democrat propaganda.

Bias? What Bias?

Here's coverage from two stories about a bill that recently passed Congress that Obama is planning to veto - check that - he's going to chickenshit veto ... er... pocket veto.

First, from the Washington Post:

President Obama stepped into a growing political furor over the nation's troubled foreclosure system Thursday by vetoing a little-known bill that critics say would have made it easier to evict homeowners who missed their payments.

Critics first. Always critics first. But what does the bill actually purport to to? What does the author of the bill say its intent was?

The decision to block the measure, which Congress passed without debate, came as members of the president's own party have urged the administration and federal regulators to more actively address the crisis over flawed foreclosures.

But Democrats were trying to figure out Thursday how they allowed a bill to pass that critics say would introduce more fraud into the system, a Pelosi staff member said. It was sponsored by Rep. Robert B. Aderholt (R-Ala.), the first measure he sponsored that passed.

Even he was surprised that it passed, his spokesman said.

"There is absolutely no connection whatsoever between [the bill] and the recent foreclosure documentation problems," Aderholt said in a statement.

The vetoed bill, which is two pages, would have required local courts to accept notarizations, including those made electronically, from across state lines. Its sponsors said it was intended to promote interstate commerce. Lawmakers saw no problems when the House approved it in April by a voice vote, which leaves no record of votes. The Senate passed the bill unanimously last week.

That's it? That's all the author of the bill had to say? Meanwhile, there's another citation from "critics," this time from a Nancy Pelosi staffer? Jesus, help me. My head...

Let's look in the New York Post:

President Barack Obama will veto a bill that could have helped banks continue to kick mortgage holders from their homes even if notaries public were thousands of miles away from the executives signing off on foreclosure documents -- and clearly unable to see if those legal documents were fake.

The bill had proceeded stealthily through Congress, being passed by the House in April and by the Senate, without debate, on Sept. 27.

Nice language; "kick mortgage holders from their homes" and "the bill stealthily proceeded through Congress."

I'm not sure which is worse - that Congress is making a habit of passing bills - and apparently bills even just two pages long - without reading them and then act surprised when they pass unanimously or that the coverage of even such a mundane issue as this is full of bias?

So who's the biggest ass-clowns: Congress or newspaper writers? The Answer is yes.

But then there's this, from the Chicago Sun-Times, of all places:

The White House announced Thursday that President Obama is sending a newly passed bill back to Congress for revisions because of concerns that it would make ongoing foreclosure-document problems worse. The bill would have loosened requirements for providing a notary's seal on foreclosure documents.

Mounting evidence has surfaced that mortgage lenders have been evicting homeowners using flawed court papers. State and federal officials have been ramping up pressure on the mortgage industry over concerns about potential legal violations.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama wants Congress to fix the bill because the current version has "unintended consequences on consumer protections." The bill would loosen the process for providing a notary's seal to documents and allow them to be done electronically.

Obama will not sign a bill that would allow foreclosure and other documents to be accepted among multiple states. Consumer advocates and state officials had argued the legislation would make it difficult for homeowners to challenge foreclosure documents prepared in other states.

Ah, like a breath of fresh air a perfectly concise, well written and bullshit-free story parts through the crowd. This is journalism. It's informative. It's concise and it actually informs you what the bill actually does, and in the first paragraph, no less. So congratulations to Sandra Guy at the Sun-Times. You pass where all the rest of your seething propagandist colleagues FAIL.

Open Letter to Senator Chuck Schumer

Senator Schumer,

Following your Open Letter to Apple regarding the iPhone 4 reception issue, I have only one thing to say in reply.

Bravo.

I applaud you, sir (if I may call you that), for being a headline-grabbing media whore and firing off a knee-jerk reaction to an issue that isn't even apparently a widespread issue at all. I further laud you for requesting that Apple do something that it's already been doing with every iPhone sold in the past three years- offering free software updates to add new features and fix issues. Way to make it look as if the inevitable OS 4.0.1 software patch was your idea. That was a stroke of genius!

I thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to worry about something that really doesn't affect Congress at all. It sure was pretty damn nice of you to take it upon yourself to use your office and position to shed some additional light on this matter - oh, wait.... there's nothing actually new in your letter, is there? - and to try to push your weight around to once again force a private corporation to do what the government says is best.

And thanks for looking out for the millions of us who have bought the iPhone 4 under false pretenses. It's quite obvious that we're all deeply distraught at having purchased such a broken, crappy product that promised one thing and ended up delivering something completely different than what we were promised. Kinda like TARP, bailouts and Obamacare, I guess. But then, I'm sure you're working really hard on an open letter to the president and Congress at this very moment. Most important matters first, of course.

And finally, we all appreciate you jumping the gun on this by a day and assuming that Apple isn't going to do the right thing and address the issue in its press conference tomorrow. I mean, if Steve Jobs takes the stage tomorrow and just stands there and gives everyone the ol' middle finger and says "tough luck, suckers," then you might have a case. But be a pal, will you, and wait until the press conference tomorrow like everyone else and, you know, actually see what the man has to say before firing off a half-cocked open letter.

I hope that all this hand-wringing over the iPhone 4 hasn't taken too much time out of your oversight of the affairs of the country, such as defending our sovereignty and our borders. If it has, just take that time out of the time needed to read the next bill that crosses your desk for a vote. What's that? You don't actually read them, anyway? Oh, I see. Well, just tack that time onto your next recess then. I know you take those. Frequently.

Thanks again for all your hard work and service to humanity in tackling this issue. I'm sure none of use would be alive today without you.

Sincerely,

Destructo

Tax the Tan 'til There Ain't No Tan No More

From the Washington Post:

One of the less-publicized measures in the new health-care law, the tax imposes a 10 percent surcharge on the use of ultraviolet indoor tanning beds.

Supporters -- including the Obama administration, congressional Democrats and dermatologists -- have argued that the tax will raise an estimated $2.7 billion toward the cost of expanding health coverage to the uninsured, while discouraging a practice that increases the risk of skin cancer by as much as threefold in frequent users, according to scientific research.

Explain this to me, please: if you raise the cost (tax) of something, it reduces demand, right? And according to the article, one of the justifications for the new "tan-tax" is to discourage the practice. So if people stop tanning, how, exactly, is that supposed to raise $2.7 billion to fund Obamacare?

These clowns never cease to amaze me. I'm not an economist, but even I can see the gaping holes in this plan. When the money fails to come in, they're going to have to "find funding elsewhere," meaning either raising more taxes or, more probably, placing a fee on something like internet usage (something that almost everyone uses and, honestly, would be really, really hard to live without). It's inescapable.

Actually, that's not entirely true. There's one way out: vote out the Democrats in November. All of them.

Destructo's Financial Regulation System

From the NY Times:

Nearly two years after the American financial
system teetered on the verge of collapse, congressional
negotiators reached agreement early Friday morning to
reconcile competing versions of the biggest overhaul of
financial regulations since the Great Depression.

Don't spend more than you make.

Problem solved.

The Numbers are Ugly

From Rasmmussen:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 25% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-three percent (43%) Strongly Disapprove...

Sixty-three percent (63%) of voters nationwide favor repeal of the health care law. That’s the highest level of support for repeal yet measured.

Just 27% are even somewhat confident that Congress knows what it’s doing when addressing that nation’s economic challenges. That figure includes only 6% who are Very Confident that Congress knows what it’s doing.

Most Americans have “come to believe that the political system is broken, that most politicians are corrupt, and that neither major political party has the answers,” observes Scott Rasmussen. Forty-one percent (41%) of voters say that a group of people randomly selected from the phone book would do a better job than the current Congress. In his new book, Scott adds, “Some of us are ready to give up and some of us are ready to scream a little louder. But all of us believe we can do better.”

The Pi Beta Phi sorority girls from Oho University could do a better job, despite the fact that they act act with the same reckless abandon that Congress has been.

The Congress We Need

From an op-ed in the New York Times on Rand Paul:

The Tea Party phenomenon has provided a bolt of energy for the Republican Party. But the case of Mr. Paul also shows the risks that have emerged as new figures move to the forefront of conservative politics, as candidates with little experience and sometimes unorthodox policy positions face the kind of scrutiny and pressure that could trip up even the most experienced politicians.

So what we're saying, then, is that we don't want our elected representatives to be real? We actually prefer wooden, stone-faced liars who only seek consensus rather than actual solutions? Or worse yet, who only seek to say the "right things" in order to get elected again and to look good, the best interests of the country be damned?

I don't know much about Rand Paul, but I would argue that we need more people in Congress like him - on both sides - who know what they believe in (and more importantly why) and base their decisions on that rather than political expediency. Things might not get done as quickly in Congress, but the end results would certainly be more meaningful and well thought-out. And the debate would be fascinating.

There's truth in the saying: "it takes all kinds."

What is this, Russia?

From Sports Illustrated:

The Obama administration is considering several steps that would review the legality of the controversial Bowl Championship Series...

Several lawmakers and many critics want the BCS to switch to a playoff system, rather than the ratings system it uses to determine the teams that play in the championship game.

"The administration shares your belief that the current lack of a college football national championship playoff with respect to the highest division of college football ... raises important questions affecting millions of fans, colleges and universities, players and other interested parties," Weich wrote.

Weich made note of the fact that President Barack Obama, before he was sworn in, had stated his preference for a playoff system. In 2008, Obama said he was going to "to throw my weight around a little bit" to nudge college football toward a playoff system, a point that Hatch stressed when he urged Obama last fall to ask the department to investigate the BCS.

Now this is ridiculous. The government wants to dictate how college football championships are determined????

I have no words. Part of me would love to see them try to do it. What better way to piss off millions of people, literally across America than to screw around with football. But I stand on principle: Congress and Obama - get your damn hands out of our lives and quit prying into things that are none of your damn business.

Livid. Eyes red. Blood streaming from my ears... Can't. see. straight...

Congress: Sticks and Stones Are Okay, But Words Will Hurt Big Babies

From Poltico:

House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY) has released a helpful, updated primer for members regarding their conduct on the floor and in committees.

Under section 370 of the House Rules and Manual it has been held that a Member could:

• refer to the government as “something hated, something oppressive.”
• refer to the President as “using legislative or judicial pork.”
• refer to a Presidential message as a “disgrace to the country.”
• refer to unnamed officials as “our half-baked nitwits handling foreign affairs.”

Likewise, it has been held that a member could not:

• call the President a “liar.”
• call the President a “hypocrite.”
• describe the President’s veto of a bill as “cowardly.”
• charge that the President has been “intellectually dishonest.”
• refer to the President as “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.”
• refer to alleged “sexual misconduct on the President’s part.”

This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Sometimes people - and presidents - do act cowardly and are hypocrites, and sometimes they do lie. And yes - even Republican presidents.

I guess its important to be somewhat civil to the people as they flush our nation down the toilet. Wouldn't want to offend the sensibilities of any potential dictators, now would we?

Bend Over, Please...

From the Washington Post:

"Democrats Say Angry Protesters Won't Derail Health-Care Town Halls"

Translation: "We're not going to let the will of the people stand in the way of ramming this through."

What is this... Russia?

From the Wall Street Journal today: "White House Set to Appoint a Pay Czar"

Is it just me or have the czars been coming fast and furious under this administration?

The Pay Czar
The Cyber Czar
The Border Czar
The Car Czar
The Green Czar
The Health Czar
The Climate Czar
The Energy Czar
The AIDS czar
The Urban Czar
The Great Lakes Cleanup Czar
The IT Czar
The Faith-Based Czar
The Stimulus Accountability Czar
The Non-Proliferation Czar
The TARP Czar
The Terrorism Czar
The Guantanamo Closure Czar
The Regulatory Czar
... and so on

Seriously. The list above isn't a joke.

Is is me, or are there already actual departments in the government to handle most of these things, such as the Federal Reserve Board, the EPA and the Department of Homeland Security? And where there aren't, are they things that the Federal government even really needs to have its hands in? The Great Lakes Cleanup Czar? The Faith Based Czar? What a joke!

What's also telling is that even many Democrats have a problem with the czar system because the czars have so much power and are not confirmed by nor are accountable to the Congress, which is designed to be the policy and law-making body in the United States.

What all the czars tell me is that:
1. President Obama is a busy-body who has no problem putting his hands all over other people's pies - even if the pies happen to be members of his own family in Congress. Or worse - he's a sly manipulator who is incrementally and systematically destroying our entire system of government from the inside.
2. He wants power concentrated at the executive branch so as not to have to mess with all those pesky checks and balances such as Congress or governmental agencies and so he doesn't have to be as accountable to them
3. There's a constitutional crisis coming as Congress finds itself having less and less actual authority over policy matters that are instead imposed by just a few people.

The very reason we have an executive, a legislative and a judicial branch of government is so that power is not concentrated in the hands of too few. What should be on the minds of the public and the congress is this: such a system is dangerous. It can tip to easily to authoritarian rule. We're on the verge of losing our representative republic by placing such enormous power in the hands of so few.

The fast track

From CNN: "Dems could use controversial 'fast track' for Obama legislation"

What the hell were the stimulus bills that was passed so quickly that Congress didn't even have a chance to read it? The slow track??? God help us if they do the same thing with Socialized Health Care and punitive and knee-jerk Global Warming initiatives.

Is it just me or do the Democrats and the Obama administration seem like a bunch of frat boys in a room full of drunk sorority girls? (We, the American citizen are the sorority girls in this analogy).

Economic stimulus that works

Dear Mr. President
Patriotic retirement:
There's about 40 million people over 50 in the work force -pay them $1 million
apiece severance with the following stipulations:

1) They leave their jobs. Forty million job openings - Unemployment fixed.
2) They buy NEW American cars. Forty million cars ordered - Auto Industry fixed.
3) They either buy a house/pay off their mortgage - Housing Crisis fixed.
Can't get any easier than that!

I still don't like the idea of the government handing out cash, but if they're going to do it, they might as well give it to the people who will really make the economy start moving again: the consumer. After this, if a company fails, it's because they deserve to by true capitalistic principles.

(Thanks to Aunt Peggy for forwarding this to me)

Time to Teabag the Congress

Our current state of the nation as viewed by Thomas Paine:



Brilliant, although a tea bag won't get past the White House or Congress mail screening. Send a photo of a tea bag instead.

Another post about a different kind of pork.

Now this is simply ridiculous. Here we are on the verge of a depression and the collapse of the stock market. People are losing their jobs, people are losing their homes because they can't pay their mortgages (a rant for another time, I fear...), and there's talk of raising taxes. The country is hemorrhaging money like crazy and we're all going to be expected to do more with less in our personal lives and at work.

And there's the effing Congress. This article was taken from glennbeck.com regarding the "stimulus" package:

To pork, or not to pork

February 25, 2009 - 12:00 ET

1,000-plus-page spending bill includes hundreds of pages of earmarks - pet spending projects inserted by lawmakers, ranging from:

$185,000 for coral reef research and preservation in Maui County, Hawaii

$55,000 in meteorological equipment for Pierce College in Woodland Hills, Calif.

$9.9 million for science enhancement at historically black colleges in South Carolina.

In addition to the basic operations of government, the new budget includes 775 pages of earmarks, funding programs that include local museums, colleges and infrastructure projects.

Among the earmarked projects in the bill are $764,000 for the Lake George Watershed Protection Initiative in New York, requested by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, New York
Democrat;

$9.9 million for South Carolina's historically black colleges and universities, requested by House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn, South Carolina Democrat;

$1.1 million requested by Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander and Sen. Bob Corker, both of Tennessee, for water treatment plant improvements in Tennessee's Unicoi County, as well as $300,000 for a sewer extension project in another county.

Examples of Earmarks in the Omnibus

$713,625 Woody Biomass at SUNY-ESF. Walsh and Schumer sponsors

$951,500 Sustainable Las Vegas. Berkeley and Reid sponsors.

$24,000 A+ for Abstinence. Specter is sponsor.

$300,000 Montana World Trade Center. Rehberg sponsor.

$950,000 Myrtle Beach International Trade and Convention Center. Graham sponsor.

$200,000 Oil Region Alliance. Peterson sponsor.

$190,000 Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, WY for digitizing and editing the Cody collection. Barbara Cubin is the sponsor

$143,000 Las Vegas Natural History Museum, Las Vegas, NV, to expand natural history education programs. Sponsored by Harry Reid

$238,000 for the Polynesian Voyaging Society, Honolulu, HI, for educational programs. Sen. Daniel Inouye is the sponsor.

$381,000 for Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York, NY for music education programs. Jerrold Nadler is the sponsor.

Rep. Jerry Lewis of California, the top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, would spend $3.8 million on a Needles, Calif., highway.

Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, the top Republican on Senate Appropriations, backs earmarks including a $950,000 nature education center in Moss Point, Miss. He defends earmarks.

I was just talking to my friend, Matt, and he was telling me that he heard someone from the Middle East say that the difference between Republicans and Democrats is the difference between Coke and Pepsi. Unfortunately, with a few exceptions, that seems to be true. 99.9% of them are all greedy, self-serving assholes who are willing to betray our country in one of its darkest hours.