Michelle and Barry's Excellent Adventures

Photoshop® alert! This apparently isn't one!





First Lady Michelle Obama



At first, (sorry Michelle!) I thought this was a Photoshop® of Barack trying to make him look (more) effeminate. Then, I saw in the caption it was Michelle. Remember, our Fearless Leader rode a girl's bike, too...









Then, we find out the price tag for the Obamas vacationing with the "millionaires and billionaires":

The Obamas' summer break in Martha's Vineyard has already been branded a PR disaster after the couple arrived four hours apart on separate government jets.



But according to new reports, this is the least of their extravagances. White House sources today claimed that the First Lady has spent $10 million of U.S. taxpayers' money on vacations alone in the past year.

Guess we need to re-write JFK:

"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what your country can do for me!"

-Barack Obama

The First Lady is believed to have taken 42 days of holiday in the past year, including a $375,000 break in Spain and a four-day ski trip to Vail, Colorado, where she spent $2,000 a night on a suite at the Sebastian hotel.



And the first family's nine-day stay in Martha's Vineyard is also proving costly, with rental of the Blue Heron Farm property alone costing an estimated $50,000 a week.



... 'Michelle also enjoys drinking expensive booze during her trips

But, the pressure of being First Lady! It's got to be hell on her not worrying about mortgage payments or where her next gourmet meal is coming from! I hear in the White House, once she even had to draw her own bath!*

While the President and his wife do pay for some of their personal expenses from their own pocket, the website whitehousedossier.com says that the amount paid by the couple is 'dwarfed by the overall cost to the public'.



The magazine also reported that Mrs Obama, whose fashion choices are widely followed, had been going on 'wild shopping sprees', much to the distress of her husband, who, its sources reveal, is 'absolutely furious' at his wife's 'out-of-control spending'.

Now if he could only bring himself to become furious at Congress for their out-of-control spending!









*Probably not true. Staff would have been fired over such a thing!



H/T Rob Port



Cross posted at LCR. More at Memeorandum

Your Tax Dollars at Work: Keeping the US Free of Basketball Hoops and Lemonade Stands

If you are taking medication for high blood pressure, please do not watch the following video:



In tough economic times, and limited government services, is this really the best use of taxpayer funds, law enforcement and government resources?

And just think of the tremendous carbon footprint of all that heavy equipment! /sarc

H/T Donnie Baseball

Electric Car Maker Folds, City Loses $500,000

Aren't you glad that government is investing in "Green" technology, rather than promoting that nasty old oil that private industry is willing to drill for, pump, refine, pay taxes on, and increase the supply of gasoline to lower its cost? Yeah. Me, too!

A Salinas car manufacturing company that was expected to build environmentally friendly electric cars and create new jobs folded before almost any vehicles could run off the assembly line.

The city of Salinas had invested more than half a million dollars in Green Vehicles, an electric car start-up company. All of that money is now gone, according to Green Vehicles President and Co-Founder Mike Ryan.

The start-up company set up shop in Salinas in the summer of 2009, after the city gave Ryan a $300,000 community development grant. When the company still ran into financial trouble last year, the city of Salinas handed Ryan an additional $240,000. Green Vehicles also received $187,000 from the California Energy Commission.

Funny! I drove through Salinas a couple times today, never knowing they were snookered into investing with a Green Weenie. I was out in the fields with all those nasty gas powered tractors and harvesters and pumps and all the good things petroleum products provide to make American farms prosperous and productive. I even put 388 miles on my own POV just getting there and back.

If only we had a president who encouraged oil production in this country as much as he does in Brazil, or Columbia or China...

The start-up company promised city leaders that it would create 70 new jobs and pay $700,000 in taxes a year to Salinas.

Hope! Change!!

Including the California money, the company... burned through over $700,000 of taxpayer money.

Anyone want to bet that some of that $700,000 was spent on carbon spewing private jets and limos to impress the marks, er, investors, that this was a good deal?

Yeah. Me, neither!


H/T Newsbusters

Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

How Many Limos Does the Government Need?

I don't know. How many have they got?


According to General Services Administration data, the number of limousines in the federal fleet increased by 73 percent, up from 238 in 2008 to 412 in 2010

In tough economic times, it's good to know that the federal government is making do with only 73% more limos than they had in 2008!

And what makes it worse, is the GSA is either not competent enough or honest enough to admit how many. The GSA "cannot say that its report accurately reflects the number of limousines" because "the categories in the Fleet Report are overly broad, and the term 'limousine' is not defined." What a relief! I thought these people were responsible for taking care of public property! Turns out, they can't even identify it!

Is it a limo? All depends on what you definition of "is" is.

And who is it who needs all these extra limos? Hillary's State Department scored the most new limos.

The State Department's 259 limos surpassed every other agency's limo stash in 2010, and the department has gained 194 limos since fiscal year 2008. Of the new 194, 98 were defined as "law enforcement".

And you can see how visiting dignitaries might need to be chauffeured around. But 259? And, law enforcement? 98 limos for "law enforcement"? Boy, that sure sounds like the best use of government funds!

The VA, which once owned 21 limos under George W. Bush in 2008, now sports only one. Similarly, the Government Printing Office went from six to none between 2009 and 2010.

I can see the VA doing with fewer than 21 limos. I can certainly see the Government Printing Office not needing any limos at all. But while these two departments were slimming down, too much of the rest of the government was bulking up.

Unless the GAO wants to be seen as the Keystone Kops of property management, they should be able to accurately identify anything in the government's inventory.

In a time of crushing government debt and lip service to lighter, more energy efficient cars for all of us, the government should be taking the lead in fiscal responsibility and setting an example for the rest of us to follow. And, maybe see if bacon can be harvested from all those flying pigs?

Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

$2.4 Billion Free for the Asking. Oh, and Maybe you Could Build a Train, Too?

"Governors and members of Congress have been clamoring for the opportunity to participate."
-Ray Lahood

Federal Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced Wednesday that 24 states, including Connecticut, are in competition for a share of the $2.4 billion that his agency plans to disburse. Amtrak and the District of Columbia are also looking for a share.

Gosh. $2.4 Billion (with a "B") in goodies being given away and our Transportation Secretary marvels at how popular the program is!

My guess is, is that if they were giving away government money to build leprechaun fences around unicorn ranches, 24 states and the District of Columbia would be in line for that, too.

Can 2012 get here any sooner? I'll have more on the high speed rail boondoggle soon.

Stimulus: Feds Blow $823,000 on African Genitalia Washing

His, not hers!

Your tax dollars at work! For those of you who didn't think the government spent enough money teaching Chinese hookers how to drink responsibly, (Obama Pays Chinese Hookers) here's where your "stimulus" money is going. (This may be the only time the government uses the word "stimulus" appropriately!) Via Judicial Watch:

On the heels of a scathing report exposing incessant waste in President Obama’s scandal-plagued economic stimulus, a news agency reveals that nearly $1 million in recovery funds have gone to a genitalia-washing program for uncircumcised African men.

If this seems like an inconceivable prank, just take a look at the public university study that received $823,200 in stimulus cash to encourage Africans to undergo voluntary HIV testing and counseling. Specifically, the taxpayer dollars will be used to teach uncircumcised African men how to wash their genitals after having sex. You can’t make this stuff up.

The money from the monstrous $787 billion program Obama promised would jumpstart the economy and put Americans back to work was distributed by the National Institutes of Health. The goal is to stop the spread of AIDS in Africa by convincing uncircumcised men to develop an effective after-sex, genitalia-washing regime. The aim, according to the publicly-funded study, is to evaluate the “feasibility and acceptability of a post-coital male genital hygiene procedure” among Africans unwilling to be circumcised.

Doing the jobs Americans won't do, I guess!

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Protest in Bell, California - I Hope I Played a Small Part in This...

by the Left Coast Rebel

.......because I surely support what these residents of Bell, California are doing with every fiber of my being. I wonder if my little Daily Caller canary in the coal mine-post put (even a little more) pressure on these miscreants in the city government that are/were fleecing the residents of Bell, California:



Glenn Reynolds catches the money-line from the Reason video, "They are robbing the city blind...We have a very predatory government."

And although this is sure not a Tea Party gathering in Bell, California - I can tell you that the spirit of the Tea Party and that of freedom is there.

And thinking of this - God help us when the typical-Democrat constituencies wake up to the Obamanation and the abominations that he has forced upon our nation.

Will there be civic unrest? Or is the question - when?

Hat-tip Instapundit.

Cross posted to Left Coast Rebel.