Hope, Change, Porkulus

51 Replies to “Hope, Change, Porkulus”

1. Does that include delivery?

2. Ahh, Bam Bam’s porkulus at work.
   Who needs a space program, or useful infrastructure projects, when $1.2MM in borrowed money can go towards useful endeavor such as this?
   I suspect this will be making an appearance on Hannity’s Waste 101 report.

3. Even if it is some sort of typo, that is sheer incompetence. I’d rather trust a banker on wall street with my money then the government.

4. Someone should give Clougherty Packing a call and see what’s up.

5. Obama just bought a couple of pounds of ham to prove that he’s not Muslim.
   Of course, if it’s halal ham, then all bets are off.

6. The contract was apparently for 760,000 pounds of sliced ham in 2 lb lots.
   Still, why bring facts into a good rant?

7. What, does this come with the gold sprinkles like some Asian millionaires have done on some food?

8. djb wrote:

   The contract was apparently for 760,000 pounds of sliced ham in 2 lb lots.

   Source?

9. Apparently there is another contract. The same company has a project to slice another 2lbs of ham by the end of September. $2,531,600. Contract number: AG3J14120297210

10. Does anyone know much ham it takes to rebuild a highway overpass?

11. I cannot get to this site at the moment, but this may be the 760,000 pounds to which djb referred:
    http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=STELPRDC5076379
    You can download an Excel spreadsheet with what looks like contract info from here:
    http://www.fpdsng.com/downloads/top_requests/TAS_Report.xls

12. Who cares whether it’s one ham or 39,000 hams? The real issue here is, what is the government doing buying hams with stimulus money? The Army has its own procurement system, as does the prison system.
    Who will be wrapping their teeth around these hams? Certainly not the poor taxpayers who bought them.

13. Pigs buying pig meat to give to other pigs. That is almost cannibalistic.
    The trough runneth over.

14. So where is this ham going?

15. What does 18 mil of stimulus get you:

    $18M Being Spent to Redesign Recovery.gov Web Site

16. Geez, you would almost think the Chretien / Paul Martin/ Gagliano/ Liranos were in power in the US, eh?

17. djb:
    Yeah, the snapshot didn’t give the whole story. Still almost caused C.O.K. syndrome.

18. Allan
    A B52 can carry quite a payload…
    Where to drop for maximum effect?
    Hmmmmmmmmmm…

19. The ham is going to food banks around the country. I’ll get the link ASAP.

20. “A B52 can carry quite a payload…
    Where to drop for maximum effect?”
    More importantly, how many sliced, frozen 2-lb hams can it carry?

21. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/05/21/stimulus_bill_contractors/
    At the bottom:
    Clougherty Packing of Los Angeles won a $1.2 million contract to provide sliced ham to food banks as part of the Agriculture Department’s emergency food assistance program.

22. “Clougherty Packing of Los Angeles won a $1.2 million contract to provide sliced ham to food banks as part of the Agriculture Department’s emergency food assistance program.
    Posted by: allan at July 19, 2009 4:46 PM ”
    Neat,considering most companys DONATE food items! Wonder how much Clougherty donated to the Zero’s campaign?

23. Well there’s the completion of a perfect socialist’s circle.
    Spending millions in borrowed money to buy something that’ll be given away.
    Nice.

24. My sort-of-educated guess as to why this was done:
    the hog sector has been getting a sh!t kicking world wide the past couple of years. This packer got caught with tons (literally) of finished product that it could not unload filling it’s freezers. Through BO connections it got some stimulus money to take it off of their hands.
    Two questions I have:
    1. Where did the ham wind-up? At some Acorn functions perhaps? (follow the hog – there may be some good story material there)
    2. Is it a violation of NAFTA?

25. Actually if anything it would help pork prices. Since the market that the pork is going to wouldn’t pay for it in the first place.

26. Obumbler 3:37. The must has hired the same IT crew that developed the program for the gun registry.

27. The fact that the ham is going to food banks shows that the ‘stimulus’ is not, in practice, acting to develop new infrastructure that enables long term job creation. That’s what the stimulus money was supposed to be for.
    Instead, it’s going to any and all ‘voter-friendly, election-securing funding programs’. Nothing to do with job creation infrastructure.

28. I was leery but with Murtha’s airport, Gore’s climate change, Pelosi’s ownership of shares in carbon trading, campaign fraud (ACORN’s names) and the rest of the crew nothing is beyond belief.

29. As God as my witness, I thought hams could fly…..

30. Still, why bring facts into a good rant?
    I think most of us figured there was more to the story – but you gotta admit, it looks pretty funny…

31. “Actually if anything it would help pork prices. Since the market that the pork is going to wouldn’t pay for it in the first place.
    Posted by: allan at July 19, 2009 6:23 PM ”
    And just how is giving 1.2 million to the board/CEO,etc.of Clougherty improving the pork market? You can bet your bottom buck it isn’t going to the farmers. Allan…..when in a hole,STOP DIGGING!
    Oh wait.Maybe they are using the money to improve their unicorn/rainbow farm!

32. It’s simple supply/demand economics. The people that this food is going to wouldn’t have paid for it in the first place. So essentially you’re artificially removing supply from the market place.
    Enough to make a difference? I really doubt it.

33. A wee bit O/T, but it is really bugging me:
    There are radio ads around now, singing: “Good things gr-o-o-o-ow in Ontario-o-o-o-o – paid for the Government of Ontario.”
    I call BS and LIES. It is paid for by the taxpayers of Ontario. Our Benificent Government has no money, except ours.!@!! Rage! Splutter!! Anger!

34. Allan, why does the department of agriculture have an “Emergency Food Assistance” program. Were there suddenly millions dieing in the streets of US cities??
    No, the socialist dogs needed to buy the support of farmers – directly and immediately.

35. RW,
    I have no idea. In no way was I justifying what happened. Simply pointing out the facts, that’s all.

36. Send his widow a ham, Smithers.

37. Ham, eh? How is the left going to blame this on the joooz?

38. You guys are missing the point. This was very stimulating news for cows and chickens…..think about it.

39. Promoting swine flu and offending Muslims at the same time – is there nothing Obama cannot do?

40. gives new meaning to the age old practice of ‘pork barreling’.
    oink oink.

41. Is it just me or does this contract paid for by recovery funds, spend 80K+ on brochures on how to get more recovery money?
    http://www.recovery.gov/?q=content/contracts-recipient-summary&id=68-GS07F0086T&primeid=1639
    The Environmental Protection Agency at “work”.

42. Another pig in a poke, or a sows ear turned into silk?

43. Does anyone know much ham it takes to rebuild a highway overpass?
    No, but you could build two domed stadiums every year from now till kingdom come with the ag pork Brad Wall shovels into the trough.

44. WTF – I hope and pray to the chosen one that it is HAMBURGER and not prime maple smoked pig meat we are talking about here???!!!

45. Wonder if there were any horses on the payroll?

46. These are truly “pork-ready projects”
    mhb23re
    at gmail d0t calm

47. So lets use Obama’s test….are there slaughterhouse jobs that would have been lost if this ham wasn’t purchased? Unlikely.
    As Kate points out, hardly the kind of infrsatructure for the 21st century he was talking about, no high speed internet, no electric trains, no windmills in any of that.
    Based on his own criteria this absolutely a failure.
    Now, what will Obama do/say….unacceptable, I’ll look into it, this isn’t what I meant and Congress needs to stop this.
    In other words, he will bob and weave away from responsibility on this. Not one ounce of shame wil this guy feel over this.

48. If I see pineapples there could be a bambam’s Hawaiian Pizza scam.

49. Sure the govt didn’t spend $500k a pound for sliced ham, that was a typo, but they did place a two million dollar order at double the price you could get the same product at your local supermarket retail.
    Tell me again how they are going to make health care cheaper? Tell me again what kind of health care a broke government will provide?

50. My father used to tell the story about a bid for a fountain in the village square. Their were two bids, one for $5,000 and one for $10,000. The $10,000 bid won. The winning bidder kept $2,500, gave $2,500 to the politician who awarded the bid, and $5,000 to the other bidder to build the fountain, and everybody was happy.
    How is paying double what you could get a product for at the supermarket, which probably means paying 4 times what the supermarket paid for the product good government?