Thanks to ECM.
Republican women on fiscal issues
This one is a little more optimistic. (Michele Bachmann)
And here’s another one. (Marsha Blackburn)
And one more. (Cathy McMorris Rogers)
A closer look at Obama’s 1-billion dollar “stimulus” earmark
From the Heritage Foundation. (H/T ECM)
Excerpt:
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) likes to say that Congressional earmarking has become the gateway drug to federal overspending. Is there any better evidence of this theory then President Barack Obama’s $1 billion earmark for a special project in Illinois that was slipped into his failed $862 billion stimulus? According to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, the Obama Administration awarded $1 billion on August 5th for a Carbon Capture and Storage Network in Illinois:
Today’s announcement will help ensure the US remains competitive in a carbon constrained economy, creating jobs while reducing greenhouse gas pollution. This investment in the world’s first, commercial-scale, oxy-combustion power plant will help to open up the over $300 billion market for coal unit repowering and position the country as a leader in an important part of the global clean energy economy
This project was an earmark in the stimulus according to a Washington Post story dated March 6, 2009:
Deep inside the economic stimulus package is a $1 billion prize that, in five short words, shows the benefits of being in power in Washington. The funding, for “fossil energy research and development,” is likely to go to a power plant in a small Illinois town, a project whose longtime backers include a group of powerful lawmakers from the state, among them President Obama.
Stimulus seems to be a way of rewarding the people who voted for you with money from the people who didn’t vote for you. At least, that’s the way it is for Obama, apparently.
How well is Democrat appeasement working to contain Russia?
Not well, according to the Heritage Foundation.
Excerpt:
On Wednesday, Gen. Alexander Zelin, the commander of the Russian Air Force, announced that Moscow had deployed a state-of-the-art S-300 (SA-20 Favorit) long- range air defense system in Abkhazia, a region of the Republic of Georgia that Russia has occupied since the August 2008 war.
Since then, Russia recognized breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent republics. According to Zelin, the task of the air defense systems is “to prevent violation of Abkhaz and South Ossetian airspace and to destroy any aircraft intruding into their airspace no matter what their purpose might be”.
However, there is much more than the defense of Abkhazia to the Russian deployment. Taken together with the S-300 base in Armenia, it extends the strategic air space over South Caucasus and over parts of the Black Sea, furthering Russian control.
What does it mean?
Most importantly from the perspective of the United States, Russian actions are aimed at denying the United Space airspace and over-flight options. The surveillance aspect is no less important—depending on the actual deployment of the air defenses: associated radars will be able to picture or “paint” much of western Georgia and the adjoining Black Sea coastline. The ultimate objective for Moscow is to become an uncontested hegemon in the South Caucasus. And of course this has potential implications in case of an Iranian contingency.
The Russians are committed to deployments in the Caucasus that lead to the strategic denial of U.S. power projection in that region. This bears on the U.S.’s future ability to resupply Afghanistan; to use power to disarm a nuclear Iran; to ensure energy supply from the Caspian; and to help pro-Western friends and allies. These are hardly great accomplishments for the Obama “reset” policy”.
So what else is in the news?
Well, the Taliban are seizing control of nothern Afghanistan, and Russia is assisting Iran with nuclear weapons development.
And that is why the deployment of these advanced SAMs is devastating to our foreign policy objectives. We’ve become a paper tiger by cutting defense systems, like the F-22, so that we can pay for turtle tunnels to nowhere with “stimulus” money. The first job of the federal government is to protect its citizens, not to study how to reduce drinking among Chinese prostitutes.
WINTERY KNIGHT 