Did I Forget To Mention That It's One Nightmare?

clipped from hotair.com Is America sliding into fascism? Not completely, or quickly… but it’s a potent venom, deadly in small doses. We should not dismiss the menace of fascism by reasoning that it always comes dressed in black uniforms and jackboots, patrolling the perimeter of concentration camps - so we’re in good shape as long as those horrors are not in evidence. We shouldn’t be fooling around with such a toxic ideology at all. No matter how noble the stated goals at the beginning of the collectivist journey, it always ends at the same destination. Promoting his latest propaganda film, Michael Moore said that “capitalism is evil, and you cannot regulate evil. You have to replace it with something that is good for all people, and that something is democracy.” This is more than just laughable hypocrisy from a millionaire leftist. Capitalism is the exchange of goods and services between free men and women. In the end, there is only one alternative to it, and it is not “democracy.” Many names, one nightmare.

Suicide Run

clipped from pajamasmedia.com Mainstream news outlets have been caught off guard before, but they used to play catch up. Today they play “hide the ball.” So what changed? Ironically enough, scrutiny and accountability is the cause of much of the media’s increasingly disgraceful behavior. Once trailblazer media watchdogs like talk radio, The Media Research Center and Bernard Goldberg were joined with the awesome power of the Internet and Fox News, the media’s sins of omission and commission could no longer be hidden from the general public, or denied. This gave the Fourth Estate two options.  They could either: A) Clean up their act and do their jobs honorably … or B) Surrender their fig leafs of objectivity and run amok as the ideologues they really are. Doing their jobs honorably would mean a setback for the Leftist cause, and so they chose B. The good news is that this appears to be a suicide run.

Dungeons Of The Mind

clipped from www.davidwarrenonline.com This phrase, "political correctness," adjective "politically correct," is a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because it gives a name to something that does not wish to be named: to a "syndrome" in the old Greek sense, of "things that run together." It was once a Maoist phrase, expressing a Leninist idea. Something could be "politically correct" even if it were factually a lie; for, to the Communist, truth has no independent existence, outside the interpretation of the Communist Party. Today, the phrase refers to the post-Communist utopian ideology, and its "progressive" political agenda -- to social engineering schemes designed to remold human beings in obedience to feminist, environmentalist and multiculturalist dictates, as well as to the old socialist ones. Beyond this, the phrase encompasses the methods of intimidation used to silence opponents of the current agenda

COTD: Complaining About The Poor

clipped from gatewaypundit.blogspot.com Liberals believe in words, not actions. They believe in symbolism and style of substance. Look at Obama: He pays lip service to civility, which gives him permission to launch vile, dishonest partisan attacks. Tom W. | 09.13.09 - 6:55 pm | # Let me add an anecdote that precisely confirms this characterization: I have a friend who complains about the poor all the time, that conservatives don't care for them. So I told him I support two children in poor countries, they receive medical care, an education, clothing, and food -- it costs me about 50 bucks a month or so. I gave my friend a pamphlet so he could sign up a needy child or two -- he refused stating, "how can I be sure the kids will get the money?" This is a non sequitur. Why? Because no matter how much proof I offered about the legitimacy of the organization, he would commit to the cause. Like Tom says, it's the symbolism and faux outrage that allows him and other liberals to safely stroke their egos. 'he would not'

Storm's Scale

clipped from www.davidwarrenonline.com And when we turn to the United States itself, we have the spectacle of the Obama administration, now seeking to prosecute the very people -- very decent people so far as I have met them myself -- who had the unwelcome job of protecting Americans from fresh domestic terror strikes. We have innumerable signals of apology and weakness from the same administration on almost every international front. And this further compounded by many naïve acts of economic self-immolation, from the extravagant bailout schemes to massively bureaucratic "health-care reform." The U.S. is once again shrinking its military, and piling up debt -- the latter on an unprecedented scale. America's allies have meanwhile shirked their own responsibilities, leaving the U.S. to carry all bags, first in Iraq and soon in Afghanistan. We are courting catastrophe on a scale vastly larger than 9/11.

Welcome To The New Emergency Room, Same As The Old Emergency Room

clipped from www.realclearpolitics.com I'm always amazed by the educated people who buy the fable that universal health care will reduce emergency-room visits -- and hence practically pay for itself. Wrong. As The Week magazine reported, after Massachusetts passed a universal health care plan, "demand at emergency rooms has only increased; more people are seeking medical care because they are insured, but there are not enough general practitioners to treat them."

The Trend Is Accelerating

clipped from pajamasmedia.com TYLER COWEN ON POLITICIZING THE ECONOMY: FOR years now, many businesses and individuals in the United States have been relying on the power of government, rather than competition in the marketplace, to increase their wealth. This is politicization of the economy. It made the financial crisis much worse, and the trend is accelerating. Well before the financial crisis erupted, policy makers treated homeowners as a protected political class and gave mortgage-backed securities privileged regulatory treatment. Furthermore, they allowed and encouraged high leverage and the expectation of bailouts for creditors, which had been practiced numerous times, including the precedent of Long-Term Capital Management in 1998. Without these mistakes, the economy would not have been so invested in leverage and real estate and the financial crisis would have been much milder. Problem is, to the political class, politicizing the economy isn’t a bug, it’s a feature . . . .

Non-Persons To Protest You-Know-What

clipped from pajamasmedia.com Showdown? On Saturday, as reported on  Mousavi’s Facebook page,   “A new era of censorship has started following the statement by National Security Council (headed by Ahmadinejad) which banned all the domestic press from reflecting any news regarding Mousavi, Karoubi or the disputed presidential election! This has been confirmed by three reformist newspapers.” In good Soviet fashion, Mousavi and Karroubi have been declared “non-persons.”  And the “elections,” which really were non-elections all along, have been put on the Iranian Index.  Within minutes, millions of bloggers, tweeters and facebookers had the news, and were accordingly talking about Mousavi, Karroubi and the elections. This is the latest move by a regime that fears time is working against it, and, at least for the moment, the big showdown is now scheduled for next Friday, “Quds (Jerusalem) Day,” on which a monster demonstration has been called by the followers of the two non-persons to protest you-know-what.

Sounds a lot like the Tea Party doesn't it? RTWT.

What Protest?

clipped from corner.nationalreview.com As a journalist who wears his cynicism like a badge of honor, to say that today's tea party protest wildly exceeded my expectations would be an understatement. I've yet to see a reliable estimate of the crowd size and the cops seemed bound and determined to keep any photographers away from any high vantage points, but I'd be shocked if it wasn't well into six figures. I've heard crowd-size estimates ranging from 350,000 to 1.5 million — the latter seems overly optimistic, but even the former figure would still be incredibly impressive. The march wasn't supposed to begin until eleven, but this was the scene at Freedom Plaza when we arrived at ten:

ACORN: THE Black Leaders?

clipped from biggovernment.com In the following weeks, I was made aware of the fact that ACORN had reopened its New Orleans office (several months after the storm). Various groups from around the city informed me that Acorn was upset with us because we were in “their” community and had not sought approval from ACORN to operate there. I was told that ACORN said that we were “privileged white people who had come to a Black community as saviors and we refused to work with local Black leadership.” The more I pondered the matter, the more I realized what was happening. As usual in marginalized and impoverished communities, a small group of radical self-proclaimed leaders was insisting that all local aid and relief came through them—even if they were AWOL for several months. Though the majority of residents either hadn’t heard of ACORN or simply disagreed with their politics- ACORN insisted that they were THE Black leaders. This was upsetting to me. Sure, the local pastor we worked most closely with was Black

Ezekiel Emmanuel Watch

clipped from newsbusters.org For the record, this is what Obama said Wednesday evening before Wilson's outburst: Some of people's concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but by prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Now, such a charge would be laughable if it weren't so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple. There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false. The reforms -- the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally. As such, what the Obama-loving media have been ignoring is that the anger on display Wednesday evening was a result of Republicans being called liars by a President who was himself misrepresenting the facts concerning what's in the current healthcare bill.

Throwback

clipped from online.wsj.com The fallacies of Keynesian economics were exposed decades ago by Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. Keynesian thinking was then discredited in practice in the 1970s, when the Keynesians could neither explain nor cure the double-digit inflation, interest rates, and unemployment that resulted from their policies. Ronald Reagan's decision to dump Keynesianism in favor of supply-side policies—which emphasize incentives for investment—produced a 25-year economic boom. That boom ended as the Bush administration abandoned every component of Reaganomics one by one, culminating in Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's throwback Keynesian stimulus in early 2008. Mr. Obama quintupled down on Mr. Bush's 2008 Keynesianism. Rejecting Keynesianism in favor of fiscal restraint, France and Germany saw economic growth return in the second quarter this year. U.S. economic recovery and a permanent reduction in unemployment will only come from private, job-creating investment.

$999,999,999,999.99

clipped from article.nationalreview.com 6) Say things just because they sound good. Why not? Obama always says he’ll reduce costs even though the Democratic plans do little or nothing to reduce costs. That’s his sound bite, and he’s sticking to it. 7) Dissemble as necessary. Don’t hesitate to brazen it out as needed. The House plan authorizes the secretary of health and human services to include abortion coverage in the public option. But Obama insists reform won’t cover abortion, and accuses his opponents of lying when they say it will. Shamelessness has its advantages, especially if a compliant press will overlook it. 8) Make the price right. Washington’s new standard for expensive is $1 trillion. Naturally, Obama’s plan came in at $900 billion. He might as well have said it will cost $999.999 billion. 9) Never admit any cost or downside to what you are proposing. Even an unparalleled genius of an orator has trouble selling things people don’t like. So don’t do it.

Don't Forget The Linen ... Or Toilet Paper

clipped from corner.nationalreview.com I asked one guy, who came up from South Carolina with 160 people on three buses, who put his trip together. He laughed and said, "My neighbor." Can we drive a stake through the astroturf claim now? Another interesting detail about the march — it was filled with immigrants. I'm pretty sure every Cuban in a thousand mile radius was there, helpfully explaining to everyone who would listen that Cuba's vaunted free health care system involves shoddily trained doctors and bringing your own linen to the hospital. I also spoke to angry immigrants from England and Ireland, appalled the country was slouching toward socialized medicine.

COTD: Striped Allies

clipped from reason.com To those who just can't understand why anyone would protest against an "enlightened" Democrat administration, unless there was some kind of racism involved; I'm black. Not African-American or any other PC crap. Just plain BLACK. I am an atheist. And I am a libertarian (small l). I acknowledge that some (not most) so-called libertarians ARE racist, ignorant, fools, or just plain loony. However, I utterly reject the meme that anyone who doesn't like Big Uncle Sugar must be a redneck racist. And no, I never got a job through affirmative action, never got a minority grant, or any other crap that the so-called left like to hurl out to try to make me look line an ingrate. My poor-ass family worked hard. The people at those protests, whether they were black, white, blue, or f***ing striped, are my allies in the fight to restore the idea of reward for effort, frugality, and liberty. So, knock of the racist crap. There are asshats in every political party.

The ChicagO Way

clipped from www.suntimes.com The man federal prosecutors pressured to cooperate in the corruption probe of ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich died of an apparent aspirin overdose on Saturday, law enforcement sources said. Christopher Kelly, 51, of Burr Ridge, was pronounced dead at Stroger Hospital at 10:46 a.m. An autopsy is scheduled for today, a Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office spokeswoman said. Kelly was Blagojevich’s “go-to guy” who once was the mastermind of the ex-governor’s lucrative campaign fund. Kelly’s death comes just four days after he pleaded guilty to a scheme involving $8.5 million in fraud at O’Hare Airport. It was the second conviction he notched this year -- he still faced trial along with the ex-governor, in June. Kelly had been indicted three times since 2007 but refused to become a cooperating witness. When he pleaded guilty to the O’Hare scheme Tuesday, Kelly spoke of feeling intense pressure by prosecutors to abandon his loyalty to Blagojevich and cooperate with the feds.

War O Choice II: Irreversible

clipped from article.nationalreview.com Likewise, Obama didn’t “join” himself to the liberal leadership; he is the liberal leadership. The administration didn’t fall in with the wrong crowd; they are the wrong crowd. Van Jones, Yosi Sergant, and ACORN are where Barack Obama has chosen to live all his adult life. Even if he wanted to be the bipartisan centrist of David Brooks’s fantasies, look at his Rolodex and then figure out just where such a man would estimate the “center” to be. My sense from Wednesday’s speech is that the president’s gonna shove this through in some form or other. It may cause a little temporary pain in Blue Dog districts in 2010, but the long-term gains will be transformative and irreversible.

War O Choice

clipped from article.nationalreview.com And that, ultimately, gets closer than anything else he says to giving the game away. For most of the previous presidency, the Left accused George W. Bush of using 9/11 as a pretext to attack Iraq. Since January, his successor has used the economic slump as a pretext to “reform” health care. Most voters don’t buy it: They see it as Obama’s “war of choice,” and the more frantically he talks about it as a matter of urgency the weirder it seems. If he’s having difficulty selling it, that’s because it’s not about “health.” As I’ve written before, the appeal of this issue to him and to Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, et al., is that governmentalization of health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture — one in which elections are always fought on the Left’s issues and on the Left’s terms

Unblinking II: TonySopranoCare

clipped from www.forbes.com Obama didn't say exactly how he would make "everyone do their part"--a question he posed repeatedly to Hillary. But his buddy Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., has some rather well-developed ideas on that score. Baucus has proposed a bill that would force the uninsured to pay fines on a sliding scale of income, with those making 300% of the poverty level having to cough up as much as $3,800 a year. In short, Americans would have to pay Uncle Sam for the privilege of remaining uninsured. If there were truth-in-labeling laws for Congress, it would be required to call this bill TonySopranoCare. Which brings us to the second promise Obama broke Wednesday night: That he would impose no new taxes on anyone making less than $250,000. The penalties that the uninsured--all of whom, I would wager my grandma's life support, make under $250,000--would face are certainly a tax.

Unblinking

clipped from www.forbes.com Perhaps the most striking--and disturbing--thing about the speech was the unblinking confidence Obama exuded while breaking key campaign promises he made to voters. He had raked poor Hillary Clinton over the coals for admitting that her road to universal coverage was paved with an individual mandate. "Everyone would be forced to buy coverage, even if you can't afford it," warned Obama in an ad. "You pay a penalty if you don't." Yet, there he was last night scolding "individuals who can afford coverage but game the system by avoiding responsibility." Never mind that the prime gamers are not the uninsured (whose unpaid bills cost "the system" less than $40 billion every year) but the underinsured covered by Medicare and Medicaid (whom private insurers cross-subsidize to the tune of over $90 billion annually because the government refuses to pay the full cost of their care). Still, he hectored: "Improving our health care system works only if everybody does their part."

Absolutely Clean

clipped from pajamasmedia.com HEADLINE: Up to two million march to US Capitol to protest against Obama’s spending in ‘tea-party’ demonstration. So maybe I was wrong to be so skeptical. But cut it in half and it’s still a huge number. And this is priceless: “Many protesters said they paid their own way to the event – an ethic they believe should be applied to the government.” Why is the British press more honest in its reporting on this stuff than the American press? Meanwhile, a reader emails: “I’ll tell you what I find impressive. I’m watching the Fox news video about 15 minutes after the end of the event. The crowd has thinned out enough that you can see the ground and there is not a speck of trash on the grass. Absolutely clean. To contrast, google ‘pictures of litter on the mall after the inauguration.’”

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other

clipped from prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com The White House on Friday said it would bar illegal immigrants from purchasing health coverage through a proposed insurance marketplace. But the administration also said that the federal government would continue to require hospitals to provide emergency treatment to illegal immigrants at taxpayer expense.

Joe Wilson watch.

Orwell Quotes For Today

Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Four legs good, two legs bad.

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.

In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

LESS FAMOUS:

A family with the wrong members in control; that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.

Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility.

Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper.

As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.

In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.

Men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be.

No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.

On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.

Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.

Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there.

Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.

Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting.

So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot.

The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded.

The Catholic and the Communist are alike in assuming that an opponent cannot be both honest and intelligent.

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.

The intellectual is different from the ordinary man, but only in certain sections of his personality, and even then not all the time.

The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.

There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.

There is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one side stands more of less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction.

To an ordinary human being, love means nothing if it does not mean loving some people more than others.

To survive it is often necessary to fight and to fight you have to dirty yourself.

War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.

War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.

What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?

Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.

All Day

clipped from www.qando.net I never watch morning TV. I can’t stand all the caffeine fueled happy talk on the morning news shows and anyway I’d rather ease into the news cycle the old fashioned way – with a newspaper. But on September 11th of 2001 I happened to be listening to the radio when I heard a report that it was believed that an airplane had hit one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. I walked over and turned on the TV. I forget which channel or network it was but I remember the anchor talking about what was then thought to be a horrific accident. It couldn’t have been 5 minutes later that the second tower was hit. I stood in horrified amazement. I realized it was no accident but I didn’t understand yet what it all meant. Then the report came in about the Pentagon. Finally I realized that it was an orchestrated attack. I wouldn’t hear about the plane that crashed in PA for a while. I remember doing something I never do – sitting in front of that TV all day.

You Can Look It Up

clipped from article.nationalreview.com Scenario A: The supposedly inept president of the United States carefully planned and orchestrated the worst terrorist attack on American soil in our history. Though “only” 3,000 people died, the plan was to kill many more by simultaneously attacking the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and either the U.S. Capitol or the White House itself on Sept. 11, 2001. Then there’s Scenario B: An ambitious and extremely clever politician, who has at best been selectively forthcoming about large chunks of his youth, lied about his place of birth so he could be eligible for the presidency. Now, which one is more believable? For the record, I don’t believe either. But it seems to me the “birther” hypothesis is vastly more plausible than the “truther” hypothesis. Politicians lie to advance their careers. You can look it up. Whole governments rarely orchestrate incredibly complex acts of physics, logistics, and mass murder all the while pinning guilt on others (who boast that they acted alone).

pathOs

clipped from www.qando.net “Obama doesn’t need to get ‘Republicans on board.’ He doesn’t need to get Blue Dog Democrats on board. He needs to get voters on board.” And if there’s any tactic less effective at wooing skeptics than number-fudging insincerity, it’s number-fudging insincerity coupled with attacks on the veracity, motivation, and worldview of the skeptics themselves. And that is precisely the path Obama took last night.

Stated More Concisely

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com Last night, Scott wrote about "Obama's missing millions." These are the 16 million people who were included when President Obama said last month that 46 million Americans lack health coverage but excluded when, in his speech to Congress, Obama lowered the number to 30 million. It seems clear that most of these missing millions (9.6 milllion, in fact) are non-citizens, and, in most of these cases, illegal immigrants. The remainder, I assume, are people who are enrolled in Medicaid or S-CHIP but didn't tell the census taker. So Obama counted non-citizens as "Americans [who] don't have health coverage" in his Portsmouth, New Hampshire speech when he wanted to inflate the number of uninsured Americans so as to persuade us that there's an enormous crisis. He then discounted them when the charge that Democrats will insure illegal aliens gained traction. Stated more concisely, in order to make his opponents out to be lying, our slippery president must now abandon his prior false statement.

Dirty Harry And The End O The World

clipped from pajamasmedia.com To get a sense of the atmosphere in Tehran these days, it suffices to know that when Karroubi’s office was raided, the chief security guy said to him, “this is the last time we will come and not arrest you.”  Karroubi replied “no need to wait, why don’t you arrest me now?  It would be an honor.” I’m impressed by that sort of response.  I only wish that the feckless leaders of the West lived up to their job titles and gave the Iranian Green Wave the sort of support it so richly deserves.  And not only for them.  For us.  That global conspiracy aimed at our destruction is for real. It would have taken all the skills of the greatest espionage writer–Charles McCarry perhaps?–to have conjured up this conspiracy, but there it is, in black and white, obvious to anyone who takes the time to read. The good news is that the American people get it.  Here’s another very important headline from the last few days: “Smith & Wesson Reports 1st Quarter Results (Net Income Up 458%)”. Dirty Harry is smiling.

Unpossible

clipped from ace.mu.nu There are questions about when these weapons entered Afghanistan, but a top U.S. military official tells FOX News that an Iranian rocket was recently fired at a base in Herat. Additional intelligence suggests that Iranians have been providing support directly to the Taliban. Hold on. The Shia Muslims of Iran helping the Sunni Muslims of the Taliban? Didn't the Democrats tell us that was unpossible? Why yes, yes they did (Warning: Think Progress link). I'm sure Obama will dash off another letter after tonight's speech. We'll get this unpleasantness cleared up right away.

Must Be A King

clipped from www.youtube.com

Billy Mays' Replacement Found

clipped from proteinwisdom.com 5:54 — “I will seek common ground, my door is always open.” When exactly is Obama IN the Oval office and not infront of a camera somewhere? 5:56 — Oh gawd… Dead Kennedy moment. Pimp that corpse, Barry! 5:57 — “Social justice” DRINK!! 5:58 — How can Obama say “self-reliance” in the same breath as proposing statism? 5:59 — Hey Barry — that helping hand is voluntary! the Government hand is NOT voluntary! 6:00 — Barry knows his history of Social Security as well as 57 states 6:01 — “without the leavening hand of Government” WTF? 6:02 — Barry is winding up with usual Messiah rhetoric unmatched by reality …. good lord that was tedious….. ****************************** Sarah Palin, whose writings have gotten the Left and Obama all wee wee’d up has a pointed response (h/t royf) ****************************** The congressman who got fed up the Obama’s blatant lie — “illegal aliens won’t get benefits under this reform” — was one Joe Wilson

#Comment by Huey on 9/9 @ 6:43 pm #

Yup, I think we just found a replacement for Billy Mays.

And Second Homes In Maine

clipped from pajamasmedia.com Stephen Green: “Self-reliance! Love of freedom! Skepticism of government! And socialized medicine! Sing it with me now: One of these things is not like the other…” My question: Is America ready to believe that a politician from Chicago will eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse? MORE: A wrapup from Megan McArdle: “In the end, I think this speech satisfied no one. There’s a little information for the wonks, but not nearly enough. There’s a little stirring rhetoric for the non-wonks, but again, not nearly enough. Journalists seem to have liked it. But if journalists were any reliable key to the sentiment of the American people, we’d already have national healthcare, and national second homes in Maine.” And profitable newspapers everywhere! And Larry Sabato tweets: “That was a tough, partisan speech. All pretense of bipartisanship is gone on both sides.”

About Those Petitions

clipped from www.humanevents.com (14) National health care will not cover abortions or illegal immigrants. This appeared in an earlier installment of "Liberal Lies About Health Care," but I keep seeing Democrats like Howard Dean and Rep. Jan Schakowsky on TV angrily shouting that these are despicable lies -- which, in itself, constitutes proof that it's all true. Then why did Democrats vote down amendments that would prohibit coverage for illegals and abortion? (Also, why is Planned Parenthood collecting petition signatures in Manhattan -- where they think they have no reason to be sneaky -- in support of national health care?) If any liberal sincerely believes that national health care will not cover illegals and abortion, how do they explain the Democrats frantically opposing amendments that would make this explicit?

Steyn Again: Stay The Hell Out Of My Life

clipped from corner.nationalreview.com Derb, I'm with Jonah on this. Yes, it's pathetic that eight years after 9/11 Ground Zero is still a big hole in the ground, but these days the biggest obstacle to making things happen is Big Government of the kind Thomas Friedman mostly favors — see, for example, a typical day's pair of minor news items from the formerly Golden State. This is a fundamental difference: I feel the best way to "make things happen" is for Friedman and his pals to stay the hell out of my life. Thomas Friedman feels the best way to "make things happen" is for him and his pals to stick their nose into everything. I would bet the consequence of that would be accelerating sclerosis with more and more deforming side effects. The Ungumming Lobby should give him a wide berth.

Friends

clipped from colonelrobertneville.blogspot.com

The Boundless Me, Myself And I

clipped from secularright.org The overheated right-wing pundits were on to something after all.   Obama’s speech to the “nation’s students” was pompous, ridiculously long, chock-full of ed-school bromides, and wholly beyond a president’s proper role.  Why should students study, according to Obama?  Because they will develop “critical thinking skills” from “history and social studies” that will allow them “to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free.” How about studying because you will gain actual knowledge–not just “critical thinking skills”–that will lift you out of ignorance?  How about for the love of learning and beauty?  How about because facts matter?  But reading the speech, I have changed my mind.  The impression it gives is of an enormous ego and sense of boundless power and portfolio.

Watermelon Crazed

clipped from article.nationalreview.com Van Jones spent the 1990s as an avowed Communist. He is an unabashed political hater. He traffics in poisonous “truther” conspiracy theories about 9/11 as an inside job. And, yet, he is a mainstream figure within environmentalism. The real Jones scandal is less his wince-inducingly sophomoric radicalism than how comfortably he fits within the broader world of contemporary liberalism. Even as Jones was forced from his position as the White House’s special adviser for green jobs, the Left had his back. Jones calls his vision a “Green New Deal,” but it’s more of an American Great Leap Forward, giving “an honored place for labor and social activists” so they can “change the direction of our society.” The effort “will require a World War II level of mobilization.” Lunacy? Not for enviros. As Gus Speth, a co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, told The New Yorker, “We in the environmental movement cannot fail Van Jones.”

What's green on the outside and red on the inside? Eco-socialism of course.

Insider Buying Is Non-Existent

clipped from www.theneweditor.com