Free Republic

An agitated moose ran down and stomped a well-known Bush pilot from Willow, but he was saved when his wife grabbed a shovel from their pickup truck and whacked the big animal until it backed off.

Jobs: The president says that extending unemployment benefits and the payroll tax cut will create more jobs than an oil pipeline from Canada. There are at least 20,000 members of the 99% who would disagree. You can see why the economy is in trouble. Vice President Joe Biden, the stimulus sheriff, says he turned first to MF Global's Jon Corzine for economic advice and President Obama thinks 20,000 people getting extended unemployment benefits does more for the economy than 20,000 people getting paychecks to build the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada. In the president's view, extending the payroll tax cuts...

President Obama used to be fond of "shovel-ready projects." He's also demanding that Congress pass his jobs bill immediately because 9% unemployment is a crisis, and, by the way, he's for making the U.S. less reliant on energy from tyrants. So how about putting 20,000 Americans to work on a North American energy project that's as shovel-ready as they come? Sorry, Mr. Obama is voting present. The $7 billion project is TransCanada's Keystone XL, a 1,700-mile underground pipeline that would deliver 830,000 barrels of heavy crude oil a day from Alberta to refineries in Oklahoma and Texas. TransCanada filed an...

Obama: "We Have Lost Our Ambition, Our Imagination" "We have lost our ambition, our imagination, and our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate Bridge," President Obama said at a fundraiser in San Francisco on Tuesday.

We hear a lot these days about the need for “shovel ready jobs” and the lack of them, as well as the “do-nothing Congress”. For those who want answers, not excuses, let’s visit some of the places where job preventers work.

(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama, in a speech to supporters in Dallas, Texas, today attacked House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), challenging the conservative lawmaker to come to Texas and tell the president what he did not like about the $447-billion American Jobs Act. “Yesterday, the Republican Majority Leader in Congress, Eric Cantor, said that right now, he won’t even let the jobs bill have a vote in the House of Representatives,” Obama said in prepared remarks released by the White House. “I'd like Mr. Cantor to come down here to Dallas and explain what in this jobs bill he...

Rather than just getting a Hallmark greeting card on a birthday or any old generic calendar holiday, the company is aiming to bring some encouragement to the masses of unemployed right when they need it most. The greeting card giant created a line of sympathy cards that targets people who recently lost their jobs. With the national unemployment rate staying steady at nine per cent, the company thought there was an untapped audience. 'People in times of need with always need to connect,' said Hallmark's creative director Derek McCracken to National Public Radio's All Things Considered. 'When the consumers have...

Investigators said they are still searching for the source of the manure.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Drawing a bright line with congressional Republicans, President Barack Obama is proposing $1.5 trillion in new tax revenue as part of his long-term deficit reduction plan, according to senior administration officials. The president on Monday will announce a proposal that includes repeal of Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest taxpayers, nearly $250 billion in reductions in Medicare spending, $330 billion in cuts in other mandatory benefit programs, and savings of $1 trillion from the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, the officials said. The plan includes no changes in Social Security and does not include an...

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans unexpectedly pledged an immediate review of President Barack Obama's jobs proposals on Friday as he launched a public campaign for urgent passage of his day-old $447 billion program of tax cuts and new spending. "The time for gridlock and games is over," the president declared. "Nothing radical in this bill," Obama told a large crowd at the University of Richmond on the afternoon after his dramatic speech to Congress. "Everything in it will put more people back to work and more money back in the pockets of those who are working. Everything in it will...

Team Obama Trips on its Shoelaces Before Fall Campaign Kickoff “It's been a long time since Congress was focused on what the American people need them to be focused on. I know that you're frustrated by that. I am, too.” -- President Obama in an email to political supporters asking them to watch his speech on the economy next week. Maybe House Speaker John Boehner did President Obama a favor by rebuffing his request to give an economic speech to a joint session of Congress at the same time as a long-scheduled Republican presidential debate. The most notable prior occasion...

A solar energy company that intends to file bankruptcy received $535 million in backing from the federal government and has a cozy history with Democrats and the Obama administration, campaign finance records show. Shareholders and executives of Solyndra, a green energy company producing solar panels, fundraised for and donated to the Obama administration to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Tulsa billionaire George Kaiser, a key Obama backer who raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for the president’s election campaign, is one of Solyndra’s primary investors. Kaiser himself donated $53,500 to Obama’s 2008 election campaign, split between the DSCC...

Shovel ready, it turns out, doesn't always mean shovel ready. In the first year of the Obama administration, the federal government awarded Austin a $1.9 million stimulus grant for a project the city called "shovel ready": a 3.2-mile concrete bicycle trail along the northern portion of Walnut Creek in North Austin. More than two years later, there is only a clear-cut, 20-foot-wide swath, along with some partially buried metal rods and concrete along the creek. Work has stopped and will not resume anytime soon. The city, after fearing it would lose the federal money, is starting over. Oversight of the...

There was a time when our nation was capable of large, visionary construction projects.Huntington Lake, Calif. — Our politicians love soaring platitudes followed by little, if any, action. The more Americans are promised shovel-ready stimulus projects, new sources of power, and other fantasies, the more we accept that bureaucracy, regulations, lawsuits, and impact statements will prevent much from ever being done. The president himself, after demanding nearly a trillion dollars in borrowed money for his budget, confessed that his “shovel-ready” projects had proved not so shovel-ready after all. Much of the vast sum of borrowed money instead went to subsidize...

Scandal: The ATF's gun-running disaster was funded in the stimulus bill. Think about all the criminal and drug cartel jobs saved or created. And our attorney general once bragged to a Mexican audience about implementing it. This could be, no pun intended, the proverbial smoking gun in a growing administration scandal that deserves as much mainstream media attention as Iran-Contra or Watergate. Right there in the stimulus bill that no one in Congress bothered to read is $10 million for Project Gunrunner (aka Operation Fast and Furious), which resulted in the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and increased...

Geithner’s explanation of the administration's small-business tax plan came in an exchange with first-term Rep. Renee Ellmers (R.-N.C.). Ellmers, a nurse, decided to run for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010 after she became active in the grass-roots opposition to President Barack Obama’s proposed health-care reform plan in 2009. “Overwhelmingly, the businesses back home and across the country continue to tell us that regulation, lack of access to capital, taxation, fear of taxation, and just the overwhelming uncertainties that our businesses face is keeping them from hiring,” Ellmers told Geithner. “They just simply cannot.” She then challenged Geithner on...

<p>President Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness met today in Durham, NC at Cree Inc., a company that manufactures energy-efficient LED lighting.</p>

----------------------------------------------------See more posts and art at The Looking Spoon (www.thelookingspoon.com)

It took 410 days to build the Empire State Building, four years to erect the Golden Gate Bridge. The Pentagon took a year and a half, the Alaska Highway just nine months. These days it takes longer to build an overpass. For instance, planning for Boston’s “Big Dig” officially began in the early 1980s with a budget of $2.6 billion, but ground wasn’t broken until 1991 and the last ramp wasn’t opened until 2006. The final estimated cost: $22 billion. According to the Boston Globe, it won’t be paid off until 2038. Meanwhile, the “race” to rebuild the World Trade...

On May 9, 1939, these words scolding the failure of FDR’s New Deal echoed the room of the House Ways and Means Committee: We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. … And an enormous debt to boot!...

In the 2nd year of the reign of His Obamaness as POTUS of the 57 States, the time of the bi-quadrennial joust between the Elephant and Donkey Clans loomed on the horizon. The Donkey Clan was sorely afraid that the lumbering pachyderms would best them in the joust, for it seemed the Donkeys had lost much favor with the People of the Realm. And so it was that His Obamaness, Lady Obamaness, and Joe the Court Jester traveled throughout the towns and villages of the Realm delivering accusations against the Elephant Clan. His Obamaness said that the Merchant & Peddler...

Back in early 2009, President-elect Barack Obama was asked on Meet the Press how quickly he could create jobs. Oh, very fast, he said. He’d already consulted with a gaggle of governors, and “all of them have projects that are shovel-ready.” When Obama revealed the members of his energy team, he explained that they were part of his effort to get started on “shovel-ready projects all across the country.” When he unveiled his education secretary, he assured everyone that he was going to get started “helping states and local governments with shovel-ready projects.” In interviews, job summits, and press conferences,...

Back in early 2009, President-elect Barack Obama was asked on “Meet the Press” how quickly he could create jobs. Oh, very fast, he said. He’d already consulted with a gaggle of governors, and “all of them have projects that are shovel-ready.” When Obama revealed the members of his energy team, he explained that they were part of his effort to get started on “shovel-ready projects all across the country.” When he unveiled his education secretary, he assured everyone that he was going to get started “helping states and local governments with shovel-ready projects.” In interviews, job summits and press conferences,...

DAVID BROOKS, NYT: Yes. Well, I shouldn’t have confessed this. He said this to me off the record about a year ago. But it hasn’t… JIM LEHRER: Off the record? So, then you can’t talk about it. DAVID BROOKS: Yes, because Peter Baker is a better than I am, because I couldn’t get him to go on the record with that thing. JIM LEHRER: He said this to you a year ago? DAVID BROOKS: It was obvious. I mean, you are trying to build a stimulus package. And when they were trying to build it, believe me, they would have...

Election '10: The future debated the past in Nevada on Thursday night, with the Tea Party's Sharron Angle demonstrating why the Democrats will no longer be the majority and Harry Reid will no longer be their leader. It was no easy task for Sen. Harry Reid to stand up there and try to explain why he deserved re-election as senator from a state with 14% unemployment and a foreclosure rate five times the national average. If the policies of an administration whose legislation he quarterbacked through the Senate were working, it is certainly not evident in Nevada. This time around,...

Liberals sit down with the New York Times the way Catholics enter the confessional: To make a clean breast of their sins and to ask for absolution. Except that the Gray Lady offers no promise of confidentiality. President Obama has given an interview to the Times Magazine that will appear in full next Sunday. Already, however, his quoted remarks are causing a political earthquake. He confesses that he did not realize there was “no such thing as a shovel-ready project” when he asked the country to borrow $787 billion — mostly from the Chinese — in a vain attempt to...

President Obama shocked America with his admission in NY Times that he realized too late: “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects”. It has the effect of the John McCain’s ‘I never said I am a maverick’ remark. There is no such thing as ‘shovel ready projects’, because the US bureaucracy is so over bloated and obese – it is dysfunctional. Plus America is already out of the Dark Ages and industrial scale construction work is done with much more sophisticated tools. Nobody really wants to go back to windmills and shovels. It is the age of ‘tweeters’, so...

To commemorate this historic moment in time, when the President finally fessed up and admitted to making a mistake [although he says he only made a 'tactical' mistake], I decided to post the following Youtube video. [Scroll down for the video] Enjoy!: But first a little background material: President Obama recently sat down for an hour-long interview with the New York Times’ White House correspondent, Peter Baker. "During our hour together," writes Baker, "Obama told me he had no regrets about the broad direction of his presidency. But he did identify what he called 'tactical lessons'." Among the lessons gleaned...

So they really are going to surrender and tear down sections of Detroit By Kevin “Coach” Collins Last June this site reported the Obama Administration was in discussions with Mayor Dave Bing of Detroit to tear down large sections of his City. In a clear admission fifty years of Democrat rule had ruined the once great city, surrendering large sections of Detroit to the wrecking ball is actually being planned. Liberal Democrats have spoken the unspeakable: "Forget about trying, lets tear it down." Ripping down sections of Detroit will reap some very clear benefits for Obama and his Party. It...

Once-presidential phrase casualty of word war DETROIT – The phrase "shovel ready," incessantly invoked by the Obama administration this year as a way to sell its $787 billion federal stimulus bill, died Thursday. The official cause of death was overuse, according to Lake Superior State University, which announced the phrase's demise in its annual List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness, released Thursday. "Shovel ready" dug its own grave by forcing its way into speeches and out of the mouths of the president and too many other politicians in past months....

When the Obama administration put together it stimulus package all the talk was about building roads, fixing bridges, building schools … you know, the kind of jobs that people envision when they think of jobs that the government should encourage while improving our infrastructure. That’s why we heard incessant references to “shovel ready jobs.” It brought to mind images of people actually working, wielding shovels, running construction equipment, widening roads to fix traffic congestion, replacing dilapidated schools. In other words, building things. So how’s that working out in your neighborhood, city, country or state? In Oregon, those "shovel ready jobs"...

Oklahoma is getting about $12 million to fight homelessness in the state. Funds will be used for the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program, which targets those who are newly or nearly homeless and are having trouble coming up with this month's rent, are behind on their utilities, or need help with a car payment. OKLAHOMA CITY -- A common criticism of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been that too much of the money is going to support or expand social programs. No wonder, then, that some people roll their eyes over the fact that $1.5 billion in...

Forty-four days before he assumed the office, Barack Obama went on Meet the Press and spoke of shovel ready projects that were supposedly awaiting a job stimulus plan: "When I met with the governors, all of them have projects that are shovel ready, that are going to require us to get the money out the door, but they've already lined up the projects and they can make them work. And now, we're going to have to prioritize it and do it not in the old traditional politics first wave. What we need to do is examine what are the projects...

Well this one really took the cake today. Obama says healthcare reform will help the economy by helping small businesses to start up easier. Totally ignoring the additional COSTS that ALL businesses will incur if Obamacare passes. Totally ignoring the additional costs every employee will have to pay in increased taxes, penalties, and the poorer care they will receive if they go into the government plan. The only few places that will benefit will be big government bureacrats, morticians, and grave diggers. Everyone else is screwed. Here's the bill. For the whole series of Zero dollar bills, go here: "Flickr...

Economically beleaguered Michigan faces a possible government shutdown - shuttering highway rest areas, state parks, construction projects and the state lottery - if lawmakers fail to reach a budget deal in the next few days. The state with the nation's highest unemployment rate has a nearly $3 billion shortfall. Federal recovery act money will fill more than half the gap, but the spending cuts or tax increases needed to fill the rest have caused bitter infighting at the state Capitol. Michigan is one of just two states whose budget year starts Oct. 1. The other, Alabama, already has a spending...

The president’s chief economic adviser warned Friday that the nation’s unemployment rate could stay “unacceptably high” for years to come — a situation that would seriously complicate Barack Obama’s ability to convince Americans that he’s beating back the recession. “The level of unemployment is unacceptably high,” National Economic Council Director Larry Summers said Friday. “And will, by all forecasts, remain unacceptably high for a number of years.” Summers’ comments came in a briefing with reporters ahead of Obama’s speech in New York City on Monday, marking the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, an event widely regarded as...

Hundreds of thousands of Bay Area commuters remain in limbo today as crews scramble to complete an emergency repair to the workhorse Bay Bridge. The 73-year-old bridge, crossed by more than 260,000 cars and trucks a day, was shut down for a larger, unrelated seismic upgrade project. Now, crews are working to fix a cracked steel link, called an eyebar, that helps hold up the east span. Inspectors discovered the problem Saturday afternoon, setting in motion a dash to fix a problem that - by itself - would have forced officials to shut down the bridge. "There's a lot of...

New unemployment data show why it will take years for the labor market to recover from one of its fastest and deepest declines since World War II, even if an economic recovery is around the corner. The Department of Labor report released Friday showed job cuts in August were lower than they've been in recent months. But a deeper look at the data shows why it will take millions of new jobs to dig American workers out of this recession's deep pit. Unemployment for teenagers stands at nearly 26 percent. More than 758,000 workers are so discouraged they quit looking...

Republicans this week pronounced Barack Obama’s six-month-old $787bn (€553bn, £477bn) stimulus a failure. But Earl Devaney, the former secret service agent who heads Mr Obama’s stimulus monitoring board, says critics do not yet have the tools to judge accurately. Mr Devaney, who meets weekly with Joe Biden, the vice-president, to monitor the outflow of stimulus money, is scrambling to set up the most complex government website in history by the October 10 deadline imposed by Congress. He predicts that the site, which will enable journalists and citizens to monitor every dollar that comes out of Washington and match it with...

Health Care: There might not be a "death panel," as Sarah Palin described it, but federal bureaucrats will be making end-of-life decisions. That's why state-run medicine is a leading cause of death in Britain and Canada.A post on the former Alaska governor's Facebook page has caused a stir by discussing openly what many privately fear and something we have written about. End-of-life counseling and efforts to measure cost-effectiveness of treatment will combine in a perfect storm to ration care in a way that lets the government decide who lives and who dies. "The America I know and love is not...

On FR there was a magnificent graphic of freshly-dug open graves..."ObamaCare....a shovel-ready project"--I've looked for it and can't find it. I invite the creator to provide us with a poster-ready project to download and print for our March on Washington. Maybe access to a jpg that is high-res?

Palin Vs. Kerry (And MoveOn.org) By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, July 15, 2009 4:20 PM The political death of Sarah Palin has been greatly exaggerated. In a devastating op-ed in the Washington Post, Alaska's governor exposes the cap-and-tax fraud that has nothing to do with earth's temperature and everything to do with government control of the economy. She also exposes the stealth socialism ambitions of the Democratic left and once again points out the availability of abundant "shovel-ready" resources under America's soil, off America's shores and even in America's rocks. Judging from the reaction from Sen. Kerry and...

Politics: John Kerry, replying to an op-ed Sarah Palin wrote on cap-and-trade, suggests the Alaska governor "check the view from her front porch." What she sees from there, senator, is energy wealth going to waste.The political death of Sarah Palin has been greatly exaggerated. In a devastating op-ed in the Washington Post, Alaska's governor exposes the cap-and-tax fraud that has nothing to do with earth's temperature and everything to do with government control of the economy. She also exposes the stealth socialism ambitions of the Democratic left and once again points out the availability of abundant "shovel-ready" resources under America's...

Money for 'shovel ready' projects have strings attached WZZM 13 ONLINE 5/28/2009 6:32:48 AM GRAND RAPIDS (WZZM) - Shovels are hitting the ground across Michigan as hundreds of road projects get underway that will be paid for with federal stimulus dollars. But the money comes attached to some strings that some people call unnecessary. Michigan is getting about $873 million in stimulus money to pay for the road projects. A spokesperson for Governor Jennifer Granholm says it will create or sustain about 25 ,000 but there is a small catch. "Part of the requirement is they (the federal government) want...

WASHINGTON – Think you can do better than your federal boss? President Barack Obama wants to know how. Obama on Saturday announced a plan for federal workers to propose ways to improve their agencies' and departments' budgets. The president said employees' ideas would be key as his Cabinet officials cut millions from the federal budget and trim the deficit.

Here's a timely story. Polihale State Park on the Island of Kauai, Hawaii, has been closed since December when flooding damaged a small bridge at the entrance to the park (for Wikipedia link on Polihale State Park see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polihale_State_Park). It would have taken $4 million and 2 years for the State to repair the bridge. But the State of Hawaii, like other states, is out of money. So when the bridge could be repaired and the park re-opened was anybody's guess. A bunch of the vendors and residents whose livelihoods depend on the tourist trade from the park got...