This is a question without a simple answer. But it comes to mind this evening as I review a comment by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) (Note: The "D" here stands for "dumbass" or "doofus").

Senator Reid's offensive quote:  "The Founding Fathers would be cringing to hear people talking about eliminating earmarks."

Let us all now bow our heads in prayer and thank God that Harry Reid is not a history teacher.

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If you follow anything over at the Club for Growth, you should follow their list of Representatives and Senators who have pledged to swear off earmarks for the remainder of the 109th Congress. Conspicuously absent from the list:  anyone in the Maryland Congressional Delegation.

That's right. The entire delegation -- even the two Republicans (Roscoe Bartlett and Wayne Gilchrest) are MIA on the issue.  Apparently, the Maryland  Congressional Delegation has determined that it is not in the best interests of their constituents to fight to restrain this whorish spending practice.

Contact the members of our delegation now, and encourage them to forswear the use of earmarks in the Federal budgeting process:

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Walter E. Williams, one of the most talented and intelligent economists I have ever had the privilege to read, has an extremely compelling column about the hoax that is ethanol.  Williams repeats the basic arguments (and empirical evidence) against President Bush's stupid and short-sighted ethanol policy. 

But I want to address one component of Williams column that deserves further examination:  the overwhelmingly protectionist, if not outright disastrous, tariff on Brazilian ethanol.

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According to this news item in the New York Times, Hillary Clinton (D-NY), B. Hussein Obama (D-IL) and Bill Nelson (D-FL) had a conversation on the Senate Floor this past Thursday about seating delegates from Florida at the Dummycrat National Convention.

I believe this is a violation of Federal Law, as Federal Facilities can not be used in any way, shape, or form for electioneering or campaign activities. 

The pertinent line in the article:

Mr. Nelson discussed the plan with Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton on Thursday on the Senate floor.

Of course, what else is new.  Democrats violating election law?  Just another day in Gomorrah.

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One of the most frustrating features of this campaign season -- in my mind at least -- has been watching Michelle Obama indulge in a classic "woe is me" whinefest during her husband's campaign.  Her complaints about how hard it is for "working mothers" to make it wring extremely hollow.  And I think it should hurt her husband's campaign, frankly.

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Byron York is reporting that retired General Wesley Clark has (once again) made a complete and utter ass of himself on a conference call while trying to prop-up Senator Hillary Clinton's Commander in Chief Creds.

I am no fan of John McCain's, but Clark's statements are absolutely insane.

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One of the more popular canards being thrown around during this election season -- by Republican and Democrat candidates alike -- is that we can build a new "green" economy through "sound" environmental policies that focus on diminishing man's "contribution" to global warming.  Wait... they don't call it global warming, they call it "climate change" now.

NOTE:  Before long, they will be claiming that global cooling is caused by man, too.

But it is all hogwash, and if you value our way of life, you should be mad.  Really mad.  "Kick a candidate in the crotch" mad.

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John Hinderacker over at PowerLine blog dissects the latest bit of questionable reporting from 60 Minutes, the vaunted inner sanctum of the CBS News Empire.

It just seems they continue to be suckered by skilled scam artists and the insane.

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Today is a day of questions. I have seen Hillary Clinton's new Campaign Commercial.  This is the one that starts out with the line about it being 3am and your kids are asleep, and there is a phone in the White House.  It is awfully reminiscent of Walter Mondale's 1984 ad of the same theme.  And it raises in me some questions:

1)  Do you really think it is smart to rehash campaign commercials from a man who lost 49 states?  If not, the Wendy's commerical "Where's the Beef?" should be out of copyright protection by now.

2)  From January of 1993 to January of 2001, who answered that phone at the White House?  Was that Monica's job pre- "in flagrante delicto"?

3)  Who answered the phone when Louis Freeh called and had hard evidence the Iranians were behind the Khobar Towers bombing?

4)  Who answered the phone when the CIA called with an opportunity to assassinate Osama Bin Laden pre-9/11?

5)  Who answered the phone when we uncovered the plot to assasinate former president George H.W. Bush?

6)  Who answered the phone when the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania -- sovereign US soil under international law -- were bombed?

7)  Who answered the phone when we knew who and why the World Trade Center was bombed (the first time)?

8)  Who answered the phone when the USS Cole was bombed?

Quite frankly, I remember those years pretty well.  And it seems to me that your husband's White House didn't even have voicemail for the phone back then.  Much less anyone to answer it.

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Maybe we pay Vice Presidents of Community Affairs too much? 

According to Byron York at National Review Online, Michelle Obama -- wife of the impending nominee for the Democrat Party for President -- is a Vice President of Community Affairs for the University of Chicago Hospital.

In 2004, when her husband was a lowly Illinois State Senator campaigning for the US Senate, she pulled in a cool $121,910 per annum.  In 2005-- after her husband had taken office as the junior Senator from Illinois -- she was given a salary bump to $316,962.  This does not count the various payments for serving on corporate boards.

What does a Vice President of Community Affairs do for the University of Chicago hospital do to justify a $200k raise just inside in a year?

Hospitals and health care providers are constantly raising the issue of declining reimbursements, increasing costs, the cost of liability insurance, etc.  So how does a public health care institution justify paying a Vice President of Community Affairs over a quarter of a million dollars per year?

I don't mean to knock VPs of Community Affairs for hospitals (I know one or two myself, or people in similar positions).  But let's be real here:  the Community Affairs department at ANY hospital is hardly on the front line of patient care and critical clinical care issues.

In an age where we are constantly bombarded with reports of an impending nursing shortage, or a doctor shortage, or an inability to pay for indigent patients, or too many people without insurance, how can we justify salary levels like these for non-mission-critical personnel?

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