Tag: pork

"What good is reading the bill if it's a thousand pages and you don't  have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read  the bill?"

That explains the failure of congress to manage its affairs in any way resembling a responsible manner.  The folks who we send to Washington have created a monstrosity that is unresponsive, wasteful, oppressive, and straight up unconstitutional.  The failure to read the legislation written by the crackhead congressional staffers leaves no other possibility but high taxes, excessive regulation, and debts that will remain unpaid.. perhaps forever.

How can we solve the problems that congress has created over the decades of John Conyers tenure if the proposed solutions themselves might not be read?

The recent video showing Conyers leafing through a Playboy magazine has certainly raised a few eyebrows.  However, what would anyone expect from a member of a party which has as a core principle the demeaning of women, or any particular group or class that can be separated by sex, color, life choices, etc..  It seems the 81 year old Romeo, Conyers himself may have provided an answer.

He looks at pictures. Indeed the articles might even be read more fully if the pictures have drawn him in.

And so we focus on sunshine and rainbows.  Like, for instance, this week the big-shot politicians in Lansing will start figuring out how to spend $625 million of our grandkids money to repair those potholes that put such a serious crimp in yesterday's trip to church.  

Yeah, yeah, spending our grandkids money might not make the most economic sense but c'mon, nobody likes pot holes!  Plus, they're spending so much to make these road repairs, if push comes to shove they can actually fill each pot hole with stacks of twenty dollar bills.  So that's a win-win.

Good news... good news... Monica Conyers arch-enemy on the Detroit City Council is going to run for Mayor of Detroit this August.  Good old Kwame Kenyatta.  (Apparently rumors of the man's impending cancer-related death were greatly exaggerated by the Council President.)  

That's... something.  But even better, according to the Detroit News, he's one of more than 50 (FIFTY) some odd candidates whose names might appear on the ballot.  

And by "might appear" I mean over 50 have already grabbed the paperwork to file.  Not rumors, not speculation... 50+ are already starting the legal process.  Guess how many are going to wind up filing as Republicans.  Go ahead... guess.

Talk about a crowded field.  Somebody should work up some brackets and we could run those elections NCAA Tournament style, then instead of cutting down the nets, the ultimate winner could take the first shift re-roofing Cobo Hall with city cash since they refuse to take any money from the state.  Oh, wait, they don't have any cash to stop the leaks... shoot.

But, seriously, in happier news, big ups to the Michigan State Spartans and the University of Michigan Wolverines men's basketball teams on their selection to the NCAA tournament beginning this Thursday!  Start working on those faux-coughs and sniffles around the office today or tomorrow, gentlemen, because come 11:30AM-ish on the 19th we're in for four days of pure, unadulterated madness.

This is Michigan's first trip to the tournament in a decade and Maize and Blue fans are pretty geeked today.  They should be extra excited about their first round draw, too, matching up against a tough but beatable Clemson team.  At that point you're only a sterling game away from the Sweet 16.  

And the Spartans?  A well deserved 2.  Casa De Leeuw will undoubtedly have competing brackets this year with some picking the Green and White to win the whole thing and others playing the homer-role and picking those guys from Ann Arbor to run the table.  Silly Wolverine fans.

That said, it should give me a clear path to the family pick-em championship and THAT, my friends, is good news.

Or this one... Michigan Democrats' concept of "solutions" is counterproductive these days, when it isn't outright dangerous

OK, so that first sentence might be a bit more universally embraced, by both Republicans and Democrats, but if the Dems' latest round of "answers" to Michigan's economic woes get around the state there isn't much doubt the second will be gaining a heck of a lot of traction, and soon.

From Michigan Democrats in Congress to their representatives in the state legislature and the Governor's mansion all the way down to local county government, there are ideas being floated today that might not just kill Michigan's economy, they might wind up killing some of us while they're at it.

You know things are getting dangerous when Macomb County Democrats' scheme to increase taxes on local moms and dads by $10 million a year is the least devastating thing on the board.  A $10 million tax hike to fill a $10 million budget deficit.  In spite of the fact that Macomb County currently has $30 million in its rainy-day fund!  (Hint: Its raining cats and freaking dogs outside, boys and girls.)  The Detroit News reports:

Dennis Cusik wanted an explanation of the county's retirement plan which has, until recently, allowed workers to retire at 50 years old with 20 years of experience.

"I'd just like to ask ... how can you justify giving retirement at 50 years old?" he said. "We're in dire straits here."

Good question.  They can't.  See, these sorts of things, these decisions, they have consequences.  The News reports that since 1980, when County government had five employees for every retiree, they now have 1.2 employees for each.

That leads to some awfully funny math.  And speaking of funny math, there's no place where numbers mean less these days, especially with dollar signs supposedly in front of them, than in the halls of the overwhelmingly Democratic controlled Congress.  

(Now THAT'S what I call a segue.)

Read on...

He discusses the Democrats bailout and makes a lot of sense.