So, congress essentially gave itself a pass, a “Who, me?” moment, allowing for additional spending, additional debt, without all of the discussions and public awareness that accompanied the previous debt ceiling increase.

How convenient for them.

There are no fiscal conservatives in congress anymore, there just aren’t.

In it’s defense, the White House states that the emails show only that they are interested in the loan and wanted more information from the OMB.

It will be interesting to see if the White House manages to distance itself from this particular fiasco.

This is exactly, precisely, specifically why it is not a good idea to rush money through congress like Bush did near the end of his second term and Obama/Reid/Pelosi did through the first two years of Obama’s first term.

How much more scandal will be uncovered? One shudders to think of the waste, fraud and overall system abuse that will be revealed from the trillions of dollars Obama has spent.

While it is true that there is some modicum of return, in the sense that a new bridge is a new bridge, the fundamental truth of the matter is that funding for the creation of the bridge goes away much too soon to cause significant long term income streams.

Additionally, the net effect of creating temporary jobs while taxing the alleged ‘wealthy’ to pay for the pork barrel projects causes a net loss of jobs: job creators have less money to work with, and as such create fewer long term career-oriented positions.

It is just my opinion, of course, but a job that is ‘created’ via temporary funds paid for by taxes levied on job creators is NOT a real job.

John McCain, obviously frustrated with the conservatives unrelenting insistance that the debt ceiling not be raised and that spending be reeled in, took to the floor to refer to his party colleagues as hobbits:

Mr. McCain, perhaps you have lost your sense of vitality, your can-do attitude, but that is no reason to insult others who still have the political will to reach for the stars. Shame on you first, for attempting to insult them, and second for using a really poor analogy. Seriously, that was 1 out of 5 stars.

And, just as a passing note, if you might recall, hobbits, in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, kicked some pretty serious hiney. Mr. McCain, since we are on the topic of analogies, I also wanted to mention to you that you remind me of Popeye sans spinach. I hope someday you find a can of spinach and reinvigorate yourself.

Personally, although the short term results would be detrimental to our economy, I hope our rating gets reduced to AA. That may be the only way to take money out of the hands of congress – by making it too expensive for them to continue spending unabated.

I do hope that Obama sends flowers to all of the Republicans he has been insulting lately, because he sure owes them a thank you. By allowing him to shove the debt ceiling discussion out past 2012, he now has a much improved chance of getting re-elected.

I just don’t understand how idiots keep getting re-elected to congress. How does that happen? We, as a nation, need to stop settling for less, because we deserve so much more from our leadership than what we have been getting.

More later, right now, I’m going to go get some breakfast while I can still afford to buy cereal.

It’s a good read, check it out.

In spite of the fact that his constituents are solidly against the bill, in spite of the fact that doctors oppose the bill, in spite of the fact that the United States of America has no money to FUND the bill, Mr. Ellsworth decided it was more important to engender approval from his Democrat leadership and vote against the wishes of his constituents.

One can only hope that he manages to somehow solve the Obama initiated depression before 2011 arrives, because Mr. Ellsworth will undoubtably be looking for a new job.

I wonder if, on sunday, Mr. Ellsworth will be humming, “Take This Job And Shove It” as he casts his vote to spend our country into oblivion.

Yet, for the last year, he has voted the liberal party line all the way down the ticket, and most of us independants have been wondering where the old Evan had gone to.

So, when he announced that he would not run for office again, it gave me pause to reflect upon what this might mean.

Given that 2010 looks to be a pretty tough year for Democrats, it is possible that he simply decided he did not want to risk losing with all the other Democrats. Yet, he has always had a base of support here, people who look upon him fondly. I would be willing to bet there are more ‘Evan’s per capita in Indiana than in any other state, and in fact, that’s the name of my youngest child.

I think it goes deeper than a simple election, though, and I doubt it will be anything that he will ever talk about openly. I believe that Mr. Bayh has deep misgivings about the direction that the current Democrat leadership is taking this country, and I would be willing to bet that, had he the opportunity to do it all over, he would have voted against the stimulus bill in January, 2009. Maybe I’m wrong, but I remember the old Mr. Bayh, the one that would not accept an Indiana budget that was not balanced.

So, Mr. Bayh, I’m going to give you a pass, for now. I had planned on taking you to task for your votes last year, I had even decided to vote against you when the opportunity presented itself down the road.

But, I’m going to wait and see how you finish out your term, now, and hope that the old Mr. Bayh re-emerges. I’ve said it before, and now i will clarify myself; I wouldn’t mind seeing the old Mr. Bayh run for the highest office in the land. He sure would have gotten the Republicans involved, and there is no doubt he would kept the liberal fanatics in check.