In Ansonia, Conn., $2.3 million in federal stimulus funds is being used for insect research, specifically the “rearing [of] large numbers of anthropoids” which includes the “Asian long-horned beetle, the nun moth and the wooly adelgid,” the New Haven Advocate reported.

Duluth, Minn., rarely known for its high temperatures, received $6 million in economic stimulus funds for a snowmaking facility, even though it is the 15^th snowiest city in America, according to City-Data.com.

As much as $30 million in federal funds will go to spring training facilities for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies, two Major League Baseball teams. The full cost of the training complex in Scottsdale, Ariz., is $100 million.

These were just three projects – ranked numbers five, six and 10 respectively – being funded by the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed into law by President Barack Obama in February. The goal of this economic stimulus bill was to revive the ailing economy.

Isn’t that special? It gets worse

But Senate Republicans Friday released a ranking of “10 Stimulus Projects to Remember.” It cites real projects funded by the stimulus while questioning (and poking fun at) their alleged effectiveness. The projects in the rankings are described with quotations from local newspapers.

In March, both President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden pledged that the stimulus funding would be closely watched to ensure it is properly spent.

“And so I’ve said before – I know Joe emphasized this point to you earlier – if we see money being misspent, we’re going to put a stop to it, and we will call it out and we will publicize it,” Obama said.

I guess it depends on your definition of “misspent.” Certainly, $300K to map radioactive rabbit poo can’t be waste, can it? Don’t worry, Sheriff Joe will get right on it.

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It has been used to excuse the chopping off of hands and feet, it has been used as an excuse to stone women that have been victims of rape, and it has been used as an excuse to jail women merely for wearing a pair of pants, driving a car, or smoking a cigarette, but Barack Obama’s Muslim advisor told a British TV audience that Shariah Law has just been “misunderstood.”

Obama Muslim affairs advisor Dalia Mogahed (pictured) was a guest on a London-based TV show hosted by a member of the extremist Hizb ut Tahir al-Islami party (Islamic Party of Liberation), Ibtihal Bsis.

Hizb ut Tahir al-Islami seeks to eliminate western democracy and replace it with an extremist view of Islam which includes the creation of a world Islamic caliphate.

On the TV broadcast, Obama advisor Mogahed sat quiet while other guests and the host said that women should not be allowed to hold positions in government and that western democratic tradition was a “lethal cocktail of liberty and capitalism.”

But worse than not speaking up to these anti-woman and anti-western sentiments was what she herself added to the conversation. Speaking on the barbaric practice of Sharia law, Mogahed said:

“I think the reason so many women support Sharia is because they have a very different understanding of sharia than the common perception in Western media.

“The majority of women around the world associate gender justice, or justice for women, with sharia compliance.

“The portrayal of Sharia has been oversimplified in many cases.”

I guess a tradition that turns a blind eye to the “honor” murders of teenaged girls or forces victims of rape to get her rapist’s permission to take him to court isn’t so bad in this Obama advisor’s eyes? Maybe a law that is used to hang gays until they are dead or one used to institute beatings and oppressions of people trying to practice a religion other than Islam is just “misunderstood”?

If this is the sort of extremist that Barack Obama has “advising” him it is no wonder he’s spent the last 10 months cavorting about the globe apologizing for how evil America is!

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Barack Obama’s amazingly consistent smile from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.

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What happened to President Obama? His wax wings having melted, he is the man who fell to earth. What happened to bring his popularity down further than that of any new president in polling history save Gerald Ford (post-Nixon pardon)?

The conventional wisdom is that Obama made a tactical mistake by farming out his agenda to Congress and allowing himself to be pulled left by the doctrinaire liberals of the Democratic congressional leadership. But the idea of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi pulling Obama left is quite ridiculous. Where do you think he came from, this friend of Chávista ex-terrorist William Ayers, of PLO apologist Rashid Khalidi, of racialist inciter Jeremiah Wright?

But forget the character witnesses. Just look at Obama’s behavior as president, beginning with his first address to Congress. Unbidden, unforced and unpushed by the congressional leadership, Obama gave his most deeply felt vision of America, delivering the boldest social democratic manifesto ever issued by a U.S. president. In American politics, you can’t get more left than that speech and still be on the playing field.

In a center-right country, that was problem enough. Obama then compounded it by vastly misreading his mandate. He assumed it was personal. This, after winning by a mere seven points in a year of true economic catastrophe, of an extraordinarily unpopular Republican incumbent, and of a politically weak and unsteady opponent. Nonetheless, Obama imagined that, as Fouad Ajami so brilliantly observed, he had won the kind of banana-republic plebiscite that grants caudillo-like authority to remake everything in one’s own image.

The spell is definitely broken now, and he may regroup but the damage is done. He is no longer a god in even the most devoted Commie’s mind. He had been pulled down to earth and is a mere mortal. In my opinion, not only mortal but worse than Carter.

Is the Obama team completely incompetent?

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I don’t know if administration officials realize just how much damage they’ve done themselves with their kid-gloves treatment of the financial industry, just how badly the spectacle of government supported institutions paying giant bonuses is playing. But I’ve had many conversations with people who voted for Mr. Obama, yet dismiss the stimulus as a total waste of money. When I press them, it turns out that they’re really angry about the bailouts rather than the stimulus — but that’s a distinction lost on most voters.
So there’s a growing sense among progressives that they have, as my colleague Frank Rich suggests, been punked. And that’s why the mixed signals on the public option created such an uproar.

Zogby has Obama’s approval at 45%!

Bottom line, Obama is fading.

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Fortune/CNN Money: 5 freedoms you’d lose in health care reform

In promoting his health-care agenda, President Obama has repeatedly reassured Americans that they can keep their existing health plans — and that the benefits and access they prize will be enhanced through reform.

A close reading of the two main bills, one backed by Democrats in the House and the other issued by Sen. Edward Kennedy’s Health committee, contradict the President’s assurances. To be sure, it isn’t easy to comb through their 2,000 pages of tortured legal language. But page by page, the bills reveal a web of restrictions, fines, and mandates that would radically change your health-care coverage.

So, Bush, pretty much every Democrat, the entire rest of the world and numerous UN Resolutions agreed that Saddam Hussein — who perpetuated the same idea — had stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons, but Bush “lied about WMD.”

What then should be said about this current president regarding healthcare? Maybe Hans Blix could get away with failing to find evidence that Congress is attempting to impose a system that outlaws private coverage and all individual choice, but Barack Obama, “our president,” shouldn’t be able to.

What the president is doing right now cannot be called “nuance,” folks. He is lying. The president of the United States is lying.

He KNOWS private health coverage will disappear. He KNOWS that costs will not be reduced (he KNOWS the only way for government to contain costs is rationing…and it seems they’ve ghoulishly considered even more “effective” ways to deal with this…he KNOWS this is in the bill, right? Maybe not.). He KNOWS none of this can be done without increasing the deficit but will, in fact, balloon beyond what is already an unfunded multi-trillion dollar proposal. He KNOWS that what he is offering is not a “public option,” but a precursor to a complete government takeover of the healthcare system. He KNOWS that with the “public option” in place that employers will begin eliminating employee coverage plans, moving millions and millions into the government system. He knows that what he and Congress have in mind will not “promote choice” (unless by “choice” he is using the preferred code word for abortion…if that’s the case, I’ll have to concede that he is telling the truth about this). He KNOWS taxes will go up for everyone, not just “the rich.” He KNOWS what a disaster socialized medicine has been in other countries. He KNOWS there are not “47 million Americans who have no health insurance.” He KNOWS that this will extend the power and reach of the federal government and trial lawyers in ways we can’t fathom while all this is still theoretical.

I could go on, but I think this makes the point clearly enough. Not POTUS, not TOTUS…but LOTUS is “ruling” the country.

Check out the rest of the Fortune report linked above for details on five key freedoms (Freedom to choose what’s in your plan, Freedom to be rewarded for healthy living, or pay your real costs, Freedom to choose high-deductible coverage, Freedom to keep your existing plan, Freedom to choose your doctors) that Obama KNOWS he is attempting to steal from us.

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He says it can’t wait! He promises not to sign any healthcare bill that will add to the national deficit, but the small print lets you know he actually means if it adds to the deficit over the next decade. I guess the House should scratch their $239 billion bill. Listen to him below, but keep in mind he is lying. When he tells you that you can keep your own healthcare insurance, know he is lying. The fine print says if you have no insurance you have to go with the government plan. If your insurance company drops you, you can’t shop around and choose your doctor…you have to go with the government plan. The “period, end of story” crap is a bald faced lie. You can sum up Obama’s plan when he says he doesn’t believe insurance companies should be allowed to do as they please. Last I checked we were a capitalist nation, and if an insurance company did anything outside the realm of its competitors they wouldn’t last. Now, they will have to compete against a system backed by the treasury. It won’t take long before rationing comes into play, and the concept of the “duty to die”. When a 25 year old has the same ailment that costs a fortune that a 72 year old has, the 25 year old will gain priority and the 72 year old will have a “duty to die”. After that, forced euthanasia and abortion of the “undesirables” is just around the corner. Yes, there is a slippery slope here and it is very important. Our Republican representatives need to make a stand as much as possible against this Pandora’s box being opened. Democrats are no longer trying to sneak socialism into America, they are doing it right out in the open. Why are we doomed to repeat history in all its mistakes?

Seniors, take a look at the House version.

One troubling provision of the House bill compels seniors to submit to a counseling session every five years (and more often if they become sick or go into a nursing home) about alternatives for end-of-life care (House bill, p. 425-430). The sessions cover highly sensitive matters such as whether to receive antibiotics and “the use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration.”

This mandate invites abuse, and seniors could easily be pushed to refuse care. Do we really want government involved in such deeply personal issues?

Here is a little more you should take note of:

Shockingly, only a portion of the money accumulated from slashing senior benefits and raising taxes goes to pay for covering the uninsured. The Senate bill allocates huge sums to “community transformation grants,” home visits for expectant families, services for migrant workers — and the creation of dozens of new government councils, programs and advisory boards slipped into the last 500 pages.

Obama’s political capital may run out sooner than expected:

Some centrist House Democrats have reached out to Republicans to explore breaking with their party leadership on healthcare and crafting a reform bill with the rival GOP, one congressman claimed Saturday.

Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) asserted that an “interesting development” is taking place underway that, if true, could effectively remove Democratic leadership from the driver’s seat on healthcare reform legislation in the House.

“There’s an interesting development occurring behind the scenes, wherein moderate Democrats — so-called “Blue Dog” Democrats — and business-friendly new Democrats are actually starting to have conversations with us to build a coalition from the center outward, to actually really come up with substantive and well-founded healthcare reform,” Boustany said during an appearance on Fox News. “And that’s the only way to do this.”

Here is Reagan’s advice to Obama:

Uh oh! Democrats are in panic mode as Americans protest! Is it possible Obama is not god?

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Hat tip: Hot Air

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As expected, Joe Biden is fast becoming the clown prince of Washington D.C. His never ending case of athlete’s mouth resulting from his penchant for sticking his foot between his chompers is something that should be no surprise to any long-time Biden watcher. But, amusingly, UPI tries to re-center the Biden story, rescuing him from ridicule, to discuss the supposedly important things that President Obama has entrusted to the vice president.

In “Biden soldiers on amid comedic jabs,” we find UPI trying to tell us of all the important, important stuff our gabby VP is in charge of. But even the UPI can’t hide the fact that these things that Obama put Biden “in charge” of are nothing more than meaningless make-work programs.

Nonetheless, UPI tries to make Biden’s doings sound important.

Amid jibes from comedians, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden continues the serious task of overseeing distribution of billions in stimulus money, his office said.

“Serious”? Really? Let’s face it, the only serious thing Obama wants from Biden is for him to seriously shut up and stay out of the way.

UPI goes on to say how “sobering” Biden’s work has been and how he is “leading” one of Obama’s “top priorities” with the middle class task force that Biden is ostensibly heading. Then there are the “major” foreign policy speeches Biden is giving about the world.

This is all puffery at its worse. Biden has been utterly inconsequential as vice president thus far and all these show efforts he is “in charge” of are meaningless fluff meant to make it seem as if the vp is somehow important in the Obama administration.

So, it’s no wonder that the late-night comedy shows are skewering Biden. The vp’s bluster and big mouth are ripe for fun making.

Now, UPI isn’t the only news agency trying to rescue Joe Biden from himself. As Mark Finkelstein notes, the AP is also employing euphemisms to puff Joe up and detract from the guffaws he inspires. Instead of reporting those moments of Biden’s foot-in-mouth disease, the AP softens the perception to present a Joe that is “known for speaking freely,” instead of known for speaking like a nitwit.

So, the media is trying as hard as it can to prop up the fool on the Hill as much as possible. Too bad Joe is tearing down all that support every time he opens his mouth.

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