Congratulations, It's a . . . Cross-Border Incident! - Mark Steyn - The Corner on National Review Online

Congratulations, It's a . . . Cross-Border Incident! - Mark Steyn - The Corner on National Review Online:

"Here's the latest entry, from Hamilton, Ontario:

Hamilton's neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) was full when Ava Isabella Stinson was born 14 weeks premature at St. Joseph's Hospital Thursday at 12:24 p.m.

A provincewide search for an open NICU bed came up empty, leaving no choice but to send the two-pound, four-ounce preemie to Buffalo that evening.

Well, it would be unreasonable to expect Hamilton, a city of half-a-million people just down the road from Canada's largest city (Greater Toronto Area, 5.5 million) in the most densely populated part of Canada's most populous province (Ontario, 13 million people) to be able to offer the same level of neonatal care as Buffalo, a post-industrial ruin in steep population decline for half a century."

Read Mark Steyn's entire hilarious post. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll write your Senator to urge him oppose ObamaCare.

Fly-Over America Isn't Drinking the Kool-Ade

9 of 10 Americans worry about Obama's spending deficits: Poll | Top of the Ticket | Los Angeles Times: "The shift in public assessments of the stimulus package has clear political ramifications: At the 100-day mark of Obama's presidency, 63 percent of people in states that were decided by fewer than 10 percentage points in November said the stimulus act had or would boost the economy.

Today, in the telephone poll of 1,001 Americans conducted Thursday through Sunday, the number has plummeted to 50 percent in those closely contested states, with nearly as many now saying the stimulus program will not help the national economy."

Wait and see how they feel when the bill for all this spending comes due. I wouldn't want to be a Democrat candidate in those states in 2010.

The Ministry of Information Requests The honor of Your Presence at the Premiere's Next "Press Conference"

Dana Milbank - Washington Sketch: Welcome to ‘The Obama Show': "The use of planted questioners is a no-no at presidential news conferences, because it sends a message to the world -- Iran included -- that the American press isn't as free as advertised. But yesterday wasn't so much a news conference as it was a taping of a new daytime drama, 'The Obama Show.' Missed yesterday's show? Don't worry: On Wednesday, ABC News will be broadcasting 'Good Morning America' from the South Lawn (guest stars: the president and first lady), 'World News Tonight' from the Blue Room, and a prime-time feature with Obama from the East Room."

The Obama administration is pre-arranging questions at press conferences and making arrangements for hand-picked questioners to be in attendance, front and center. The author of this Washington Post column is no conservative, but he has become increasingly concerned about the servile posture of the Washington press corps.

The RNC has created a good spot on this topic: http://www.gop.com/weeklytrunk/index.html

Color-Blind Justice, At Least Until Obama Gets His Second Pick

EDITORIAL: Sotomayor reversed again - Washington Times: "Martin Luther King can rest easy. His dream is being protected by the Supreme Court - against and over the opinion of Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

The high court's landmark decision in Ricci v. DeStefano, the New Haven, Conn., firefighters case, is a dramatic stride toward the cherished goal of achieving a colorblind society. In Ricci, the court told us that people of ability can succeed regardless of skin color, and government bureaucrats seeking racially biased outcomes can be thwarted in their racist designs."

It's sad that the court is already so far gone that this obvious conclusion was only decided on a 5-4 basis.

See No Evil

Target: Hawaii - WSJ.com: "The Pentagon recently announced that it is repositioning ground-to-air radar and missile defenses near Hawaii in case North Korea decides to launch another long-range missile, this time toward the Aloha State. So at least 1.3 million Hawaiians will benefit from defenses that many officials in the current Administration didn't even want to build.

But what about the rest of us? It's an odd time to be cutting missile defense, as the Obama Administration is doing in its 2010 budget -- by $1.2 billion to $1.6 billion, depending on how you calculate it. Programs to defend the U.S. homeland are being pared, while those that protect our soldiers or allies are being expanded after the Pentagon decided that the near-term threat is from short-range missiles. But as North Korea and Iran show, rogue regimes aren't far from having missiles that could reach the U.S."

This administration's missile defense position is to ignore the threat and hope it will go away. Perhaps if we tour the world making grand speeches about a nuclear-free world, regimes like Iran and North Korea will beat their nuclear swords into plowshares.

Right.

Green Jobs and the Wishful Thinking of the Left

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Spain Tilts At Windmills And Pays Price: "The Spanish professor is puzzled. Why, Gabriel Calzada wonders, is the U.S. president recommending that America emulate the Spanish model for creating 'green jobs' in 'alternative energy' even though Spain's unemployment rate is 18.1% — more than double the European Union average — partly because of spending on such jobs?...

Calzada's report concludes that they [green jobs] often are temporary and have received $752,000 to $800,000 each in subsidies. Wind industry jobs cost even more, $1.4 million each. And each new job entails the loss of 2.2 other jobs that are either lost or not created in other industries because of the political allocation — sub-optimum in terms of economic efficiency — of capital."...

Calzada says the creation of jobs in alternative energy has subtracted about 110,000 jobs from elsewhere in Spain's economy.

Yet another example of the fallacies and myths behind Obama's policies. Cap and trade will "create" jobs? Perhaps, but he never tells you about the greater number of jobs it destroys. The last thing our nation needs during a very serious recession is to pass the largest tax hike in the history of the world. But Obama would have you believe it can be done without any cost to the society. He takes these mythical positions on virutally every issue:

- We can provide healthcare for all Americans and SAVE money - because of the efficiencies of electronic medical records and the mythical savings associated with disease prevention (see next post)

- We can SAVE money on healthcare without having to ration it

- We can divulge all of our interrogation techniques to our enemies and not make the country more vulnerable to terrorists

- We can triple the deficit in a matter of months, creating countless permanent new entitlements and not expect it to weight down our economy

- We can expect 5% of taxpayers to be willing and able to foot the bill for everyone else

- We can repeatedly raise taxes on the "rich" and not expect the taxes will change their economic behavior in any way

- We can cheat bondholders out of their money - and give it to our pals in the unions - and expect those bondholders to be willing to lend out their moeny to other industries that need it

- We can stand in the way of domestic energy production but actually become more energy independent

- We can cut the defense budget as we surge in Afghanistan, maintain the peace in Iraq, and face down lunatic nuclear regimes in North Korea and Iran

- We can close down Gitmo without having a plan for what to do with 250 incorrigible detainees that none of our "allies" want either

Nearly the entire agenda of this President is built upon wishful thinking and false promises.

A Doctor’s View of Obama’s Healthcare Plans - WSJ.com

A Doctor’s View of Obama’s Healthcare Plans - WSJ.com: "Prevention of a disease, we all assume, should save us money, right? An ounce of prevention . . . ? Alas, If only such aphorisms were true we’d hand out apples each day and our problems would be over...

It is true that if the prevention strategies we are talking about are behavioral things—eat better, lose weight, exercise more, smoke less, wear a seat belt—then they cost very little and they do save money by keeping people healthy.

But if your preventive strategy is medical, if it involves us, if it consists of screening, finding medical conditions early, shaking the bushes for high cholesterols, or abnormal EKGs, markers for prostate cancer such as PSA, then more often than not you don’t save anything and you might generate more medical costs. Prevention is a good thing to do, but why equate it with saving money when it won’t?"

The author is Abraham Verghese is Professor and Senior Associate Chair for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Stanford University.

Not sure what Dr Verghese's position is on nationalized health care - but what he is clear about is that it is not going to save money in any way EXCEPT by rationing health care. Once again - who do you want rationing health care, faceless bureaucrats in Washington, or you and your family? If we fix many of the government policies that currently distort the choices being made (procedure-driven Medicare reimbursement methodology, too-low deductibles, subsidization of employer-provided healthcare vs individual-provided, lack of competition in insurance market, plaintiff-slanted tort system, etc) we can make huge strides in improving what is already the best health care system in the world. And we won't have to give up control over the most personal decisions in our lives to get there.

Be the Party of No

George F. Will - A Regrettable 'Fix' on Health Care - washingtonpost.com: "As market enthusiasts, conservatives should stop warning that the president's reforms will result in health-care 'rationing.' Every product, from a jelly doughnut to a jumbo jet, is rationed -- by price or by politics. The conservative's task is to explain why price is preferable. The answer is that prices produce a rational allocation of scarce resources.

Regarding reform, conservatives are accused of being a party of 'no.' Fine. That is an indispensable word in politics because most new ideas are false and mischievous."

The GOP should EMPHATICALLY be the party of "no." It will serve both the nation and the party well.

Steyn on Sanford

Mark Steyn: Jacko, Sanford and weirdness | governor, state, bubble, sanford, one - Opinion - OCRegister.com: "As my National Review colleague Kathryn Jean Lopez observed, a sex scandal a week from the Republicans will guarantee us government health care by the fall – in the same way that the British Tories' boundlessly versatile sexual predilections helped deliver the Blair landslide of 1997. And once government health care's in place the game's over: Socialized medicine redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in all the wrong ways, and, if you cross that bridge, it's all but impossible to go back. So, if ever there were a season for GOP philanderers not to unpeel their bananas, this summer is it."

Sadly, hilariously true.

We Have A Month or Two To Get the Truth Out

Despite living under "the most transparent administration in history," the truth about the global warming hoax is being suppressed. The only way the Dems can pass this is if the truth is concealed, as the EPA has tried to do:

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Carbongate: "the institute's Richard Morrison said 'internal EPA e-mail messages, released by CEI earlier in the week, indicate that the report was kept under wraps and its author silenced because of pressure to support the administration's agenda of regulating carbon dioxide.'

Reading the report, available on the CEI Web site, we find this 'endangerment analysis' contains such interesting items as: 'Given the downward trend in temperatures since 1998 (which some think will continue until at least 2030), there is no particular reason to rush into decisions based on a scientific hypothesis that does not appear to explain most of the available data.'"

We have until the Senate vote, probably in September to get the truth out. It's not going to come from the mainstream media, but through the grass roots efforts of each of us to inform our fellow citizens.

Obama to Your Mama - Take A Chill Pill

Obama's Health Future - WSJ.com: "'Look, the first thing for all of us to understand that is we actually have some -- some choices to make about how we want to deal with our own end-of-life care,' Mr. Obama replied. After discussing ways 'we as a culture and as a society [can start] to make better decisions within our own families and for ourselves,' he continued that in general 'at least we can let doctors know and your mom know that, you know what? Maybe this isn't going to help. Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.'"

Of course, tough choices do need to be made at end-of-life - but the issue is WHO makes them? Do you want the President and his army of faceless bureaucrats to decide when doctors should throw in the towel on your mom?

The Candidate Who Wasn't Going to Raise Your Taxes Pushes for the Largest Tax Increase In American History

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Waxman-Markey: Man-Made Disaster: "It is the largest tax increase in American history — a tax on all Americans — even the 95% that President Obama pledged would never see a tax increase."...
And what would we get for all this pain? According to an analysis by Chip Knappenberger, administrator of the World Climate Report, the reduction of U.S. CO2 emissions to 83% below 2005 levels by 2050 — the goal of the Waxman-Markey bill — would reduce global temperature in 2050 by a mere 0.05 degree Celsius.

The cap and tax plan is all pain and no gain.

Haste Makes Waste

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Why The Rush?: "A pattern is emerging for this new presidency. The more radical and far-reaching the plan, the less time the public gets to debate it. Is this due to ambition or fear of push-back?"...

Obama may act supremely confident, but his haste here suggests insecurity. He acts as if he believes his political capital is dwindling so fast that it will be gone by the end of this year.

A stronger leader would take his time. He would not fear being called a wimp for appointing blue-ribbon commissions, because such drawn-out deliberation is actually what the country needs. Health care and finance both need work. But the first step is to understand the problems and think through the possible solutions.

Obama needs to cram this socialist agenda down our throats before the American people catch on. We need to slow him down at every opportunity. The more people know these plans the less they like them. America is not ready for nationalized health care or a centrally-planned economy. Obama knows that - which is why he's in a hurry.

Obama Misses the Point With Iran Response - washingtonpost.com

Charles Krauthammer - Obama Misses the Point With Iran Response - washingtonpost.com: "All hangs in the balance. The Khamenei regime is deciding whether to do a Tiananmen. And what side is the Obama administration taking? None. Except for the desire that this 'vigorous debate' (press secretary Robert Gibbs's disgraceful euphemism) over election 'irregularities' not stand in the way of U.S.-Iranian engagement on nuclear weapons...

And where is our president? Afraid of 'meddling.' Afraid to take sides between the head-breaking, women-shackling exporters of terror -- and the people in the street yearning to breathe free. This from a president who fancies himself the restorer of America's moral standing in the world."

I can't add anything. As always, I recommend you read Charles Krauthammer's column.

Inconvenient FACTS

OCRegister.com: "Then there was this report that followed not long after from Dr. Nils-Axel Moerner, author of 520 peer-reviewed papers on sea level during his 35-year career, which has been devoted entirely to studying the issue. Dr. Moerner concludes sea levels will rise in the 21st century by about 8 inches.

What’s that? Less than an inch per decade? Not exactly reason to abandon the beach-front home, hm?

Since 1993, Dr. Moerner says, when satellites first began to measure sea-level changes, the rate of increase has been a measley 1 foot per century. But - another oops coming here - there has been no statistically-significant sea-level rise during the past three years."

But don't let this get in the way of your cap and trade massive-tax-increase/power-grab-masquerading-as-environmental-salvation schtick, Democrats.

Pithy Take On Iran

Mark Steyn: Iran neutrality not an option for Obama | obama, president, leader, world, supreme - Opinion - OCRegister.com: "The polite explanation for Barack Obama's diffidence on Iran is that he doesn't want to give the mullahs the excuse to say the Great Satan is meddling in Tehran's affairs. So the president's official position is that he's modestly encouraged by the regime's supposed interest in investigating some of the allegations of fraud. Also, he's heartened to hear that O.J. is looking for the real killers."

Mark Steyn, again, naturally. Do read the whole column via the link above.

Pithy Take On North Korea Nukes

Transcript: "we have the Secretary of Defense of the United States making a serious, sober statement about protecting Hawaii from a nuclear attack by a state that has a lower GDP per capita than Zimbabwe. This is deeply damaging to American credibility in the world today."

Mark Steyn on Hugh Hewitt Show.

Chinese Students Know the Score Even if Mainstream Media Doesn't

UPDATE 3-Geithner tells China its dollar assets are safe | Reuters: "Chinese assets are very safe,' Geithner said in response to a question after a speech at Peking University, where he studied Chinese as a student in the 1980s.His answer drew loud laughter from his student audience, reflecting scepticism in China about the wisdom of a developing country accumulating a vast stockpile of foreign reserves instead of spending the money to raise living standards at home." [italics mine]

First of all - I only learned of this startling event by reference made to it in a blog at NRO. Did anybody see this on the news or read about it in their newspapers? Had Geithner been a Bush cabinet member it certainly would have been all over the front pages.

Secondly, congratulations to Reuters for reporting it, but notice the words in italics. This is not an opinion piece, but supposedly a news report. Yet the reporter claims to know the motivation for the audience's laughter, and, what's more, his theory is ludicrous. Had Geithner just said, "China is wise to practice thrift, and invest in foreign bonds," perhaps this theory might have some credibility. But Geithner wasn't commenting on the wisdom of China stockpiling foreign reserves, he was commenting on the safety of the assets that had already been stockpiled (primarily in US Treasuries). It was the assertion that the already stockpiled debt was safe which prompted the loud laughter from the audience.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words, or A Picture Can SAVE A Thousand Words...

This YouTube video is awesome. It's true, the President inherited a mess. But he loves to throw around numbers and plans and agencies and trillions of dollars in tax money based on bogus economic models and projections like the ones lampooned in this video. We all knew the stimulus wouldn't work as advertised by the President. In fact, we knew that the stimulus wasn't a stimulus at all, just long litany of pay-offs to Democratic sacred cows, approved in a frenzy, under the cover of an economic crisis.

Doctors Boo Obama's Obeisance To The Trial Lawyers

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Why He Was Booed: "HHS has further said that reasonable limits placed on noneconomic damages in malpractice cases would save $60 billion to $108 billion a year...'These savings would lower the cost of health insurance and permit an additional 2.4 million to 4.3 million Americans to obtain insurance,' the department said.

Nearly 10% of the cost of health care services, figures PricewaterhouseCoopers, is attributable to medical malpractice lawsuits. Roughly 2% is caused by direct costs of the lawsuits while an additional 5% to 9% is due to expenses run up by defensive medicine...PricewaterhouseCoopers also found that half of health care costs are due to wasteful spending and said that defensive medicine is the biggest producer of waste.

It would make sense to anyone who wants to bring down health care costs that caps on medical malpractice awards should be on the table — unless that person was beholden to the trial bar that is filled with members who make fortunes suing doctors."

Like the UAW, the trial lawyers are a Democrat sacred cow. And they are being paid off by this President with YOUR tax dollars.

Pravda (aka ABC News) Special Report - Greetings, Comrades, and Glorious News From White House on Five Year Plan for Health!!!

DRUDGE REPORT: ABC TURNS PROGRAMMING OVER TO OBAMA 2009®: "ABC TURNS PROGRAMMING OVER TO OBAMA; NEWS TO BE ANCHORED FROM INSIDE WHITE HOUSE
Tue Jun 16 2009 08:45:10 ET

On the night of June 24, the media and government become one, when ABC turns its programming over to President Obama and White House officials to push government run health care -- a move that has ignited an ethical firestorm!

Highlights on the agenda:

ABCNEWS anchor Charlie Gibson will deliver WORLD NEWS from the Blue Room of the White House.

The network plans a primetime special -- 'Prescription for America' -- originating from the East Room, exclude opposing voices on the debate."

This is going to backfire on the President.

Where's the EMPATHY for Thrifty Middle Americans Who Play By The Rules?...

GM's deal erased many average Americans' savings - Washington Times: "When people think of 'bondholders,' they imagine tycoons. J.P. Morgan. Warren Buffett. Even the fictional Gordon Gekko of 'Wall Street' fame.

In fact, tens of thousands of the bondholders of General Motors Corp. are not rich at all — and never were, even before the value of their bonds collapsed in the months leading up to the giant automaker's bankruptcy filing."

...It is trumped by the need to pay off the UAW for its millions in political pay-offs to Democrat pols. Sorry Mr and Mrs John Q Public, you have to give up your legal rights in the auto bankruptcies, forget about that retirement nest egg. But just think how great you'll feel when Chrysler and GM emerge from this mess as dynamic, thriving global enterprises!

Right.

Don't Mess With Texas

Texas AG objects to GM dealer terms - Austin Business Journal:: "The Office of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has filed an official objection with the bankruptcy judge handling General Motors Corp.’s Chapter 11 reorganization proceeding, claiming that the federally backed GM is trying to subvert state law by requiring local dealerships to sign agreements that eliminate some protections in Texas."

This is what I was talking about in the federalism post on Saturday. States need to stand up for their rights. If more did this, the juggernaut could be resisted.

Devastating - Krauthammer Nails the Obama Persona

Charles Krauthammer - Barack Obama Surveys the World - washingtonpost.com: "Not that Obama considers himself divine. (He sees himself as merely messianic, or, at worst, apostolic.) But he does position himself as hovering above mere mortals, mere country, to gaze benignly upon the darkling plain beneath him where ignorant armies clash by night, blind to the common humanity that only he can see. Traveling the world, he brings the gospel of understanding and godly forbearance. We have all sinned against each other. We must now look beyond that and walk together to the sunny uplands of comity and understanding. He shall guide you."...

That's the problem with Obama's transcultural evenhandedness. It gives the veneer of professorial sophistication to the most simple-minded observation: Of course there are rights and wrongs in all human affairs. Our species is a fallen one. But that doesn't mean that these rights and wrongs are of equal weight...

For all of his philosophy, the philosopher-king protests too much. Obama undoubtedly thinks he is demonstrating historical magnanimity with all these moral equivalencies and self-flagellating apologetics. On the contrary. He's showing cheap condescension, an unseemly hunger for applause and a willingness to distort history for political effect.

Distorting history is not truth-telling but the telling of soft lies. Creating false equivalencies is not moral leadership but moral abdication. And hovering above it all, above country and history, is a sign not of transcendence but of a disturbing ambivalence toward one's own country.

The President's preening and posturing dissected, analyzed, and nailed. A must read Krauthammer column.

George Will Slaps Down Media Glbal Warming Chearleaders

George F. Will - Going Green to Alleviate Guilt -- but Not Much Else - washingtonpost.com: "In the history of developed democracies with literate publics served by mass media, there is no precedent for today's media enlistment in the crusade to promote global warming 'awareness.' Concerning this, journalism, which fancies itself skeptical and nonconforming, is neither."

So much said in so few words - awesome.

George F. Will - GM and Chrysler: Good Cases for Judicial Activism - washingtonpost.com

George F. Will - GM and Chrysler: Good Cases for Judicial Activism - washingtonpost.com: "courts have no nobler function than that of actively defending property, contracts and other bulwarks of freedom against depredations by government, including by popularly elected, and popular, officials. Regarding Chrysler and GM, the executive branch is exercising powers it does not have under any statute or constitutional provision. At moments such as this, deference to the political branches constitutes dereliction of judicial duty.

'At present,' notes the Economist, 'there's enough capacity globally to make 90 million vehicles a year, but demand is little more than 60 million in good economic times' (emphasis added). Unfortunately, says Reason magazine's Jacob Sullum, America's president 'can imagine a world in which the internal combustion engine is obsolete but not one in which GM is.' So, doubling down on his predecessor's misbegotten policy, the president is acting strenuously to perpetuate some of America's portion of the excess capacity."...

This would not be happening were Congress awake, or were the courts properly active. Constitutionalists are not amused.

OK, I was hoping there was some reasonable explanation, beside apathy or cowardice, that our Supreme Court didn't step in to defend the rule of law in the Chrysler bankruptcy. Sadly, as George Will so aptly lays is out in this piece, there isn't.

ObamaCare is Gonna P*ss You Off!

Transcript: "There’s a story in Le Journal de Montreal yesterday that said incontinent Quebecers, with serious incontinence problems, that’s people who have to get up to go to the bathroom 12 times per night, have to wait three years for treatment. That’s 12 times a night, 365 times a year, for three years for a routine half-hour procedure for which in the entire province of Quebec, only two urologists will perform it, can perform it."

Reminiscent of an earlier post, another cheery glimpse into the future of American healthcare. But wait, there's good news! The makers of Depends undergarments are coming out with men's and women's styles, promising a much more comfortable fit!

Steyn Eviscerates Letterman

Re: A Boor and a Coward - Mark Steyn - The Corner on National Review Online:

Re: A Boor and a Coward [Mark Steyn]

I agree with Victor on David Letterman's "explanation" of his joke.

It's very difficult to be a state ironist, which is the role America's establishment comedians have volunteered themselves for. If you're going to do jokes about statutory rape and to trash families of leading politicians, Jim Treacher points out that the president's brother, Samson Obama, has been banned from the United Kingdom because of attempted assault of a 13-year-old girl.

So now that the Tiffany network has opened up this promising new seam of comedy gold, wouldn't it be way cooler if Letterman had joked about Sarah Palin's daughter getting raped by Obama's brother? That'd be hilarious, right? Not just 'cause it's a bipartisan rape gag but because it would be — what's the word? — "edgy." You know, like they used to say about Dave three or four decades back . . .

POW!!!

NCR, Wacker, Volkswagen Clearly Didn't Take TARP Money

Southern States Poach Businesses Amid Downturn - WSJ.com: "When NCR Corp. started looking late last summer to move from its hometown of Dayton, Ohio, economic development agencies in the South pulled out all the stops in a bid to lure the 125-year-old company best known as a cash-register manufacturer."

After deciding to build a customer-services center near Atlanta last year, the company last week said it would relocate its 1,250-employee headquarters to the area and open an ATM factory in Columbus.

The Southeast has attracted an array of corporate facilities recently. In February, Asbury Automotive Group Inc., a major chain of national auto retailers, relocated to metro Atlanta from New York. In recent months, Tennessee announced three projects, all valued at more than $1 billion each, by units of Wacker Chemie AG, Volkswagen AG and Hemlock Semiconductor Group. North Carolina last week welcomed a new Apple Inc. data warehouse.

...If they had, President Obama could have simply gotten on the phone and nixed these deals, that move jobs from "blue states" to "red states," just as he did with General Motors a couple of weeks ago. Mark my words, this administration is committed to creating ever more ways to insinuate the federal government into private businesses, so that it may wield veto power over their economic decisions. Do you realize the amount of power we are centralizing in this White House? It makes the designation of any previous adminstration as an "imperial presidency" outright laughable.

Imagine Breaking Up The United States - WSJ.com

Imagine Breaking Up The United States - WSJ.com: "Picture an America that is run not, as now, by a top-heavy Washington autocracy but, in freewheeling style, by an assemblage of largely autonomous regional republics reflecting the eclectic economic and cultural character of the society."...

The anti-federalists lost their battle, but history, in certain respects, has redeemed their vision, for they anticipated how many Americans have come to feel about their nation’s seat of federal power. “This city, and the government of it, must indubitably take their tone from the character of the men, who from the nature of its situation and institution, must collect there,” the anti-federalist pamphleteer known only as the Federal Farmer wrote. “If we expect it will have any sincere attachments to simple and frugal republicanism, to that liberty and mild government, which is dear to the laborious part of a free people, we most assuredly deceive ourselves.”...

In a globalized economy transformed by technological innovations hatched by happily-unguided entrepreneurs, history seems to be driving one nail after another into the coffin of the big, which is why the Obama planners and their ilk, even if they now ride high, may be doomed to fail. No one anymore expects the best ideas to come from the biggest actors in the economy, so should anyone expect the best thinking to be done by the whales of the political world?...

So why not America as the global leader of a devolution? America’s return to its origins—to its type—could turn out to be an act of creative political destruction, with “we the people” the better for it...

I actually do not think it is necessary for the US to be broken up into multiple regional republics in reaction to the current frightening federal government power grab. We need only restore the rule of law and the rights of the states set forth quite clearly in our US Constitution. This could be achieved rather rapdily and peacefully if even a few states began to demand their Constitution rights and prerogatives be restored.

However, we are headed at breakneck speed down a road where the socialists and the big government accolytes in the Democrat party are expoiting their temporary ascendancy to try and emasculate the states and ensure a permanent federal leviathan. If they succeed in spreading the tentacles of federal power into states too deeply, a Consitutional option may elude us. In which case, a breakup is almost inevitable.

I cannot think of anything which will drive us there more rapidly than forcing fiscally responsible and productive states to fund the excesses and failed policies of failing states. The Democrats think they can do anything they want because they control the House the Senate and the White House. They should think twice before assuming that Americans are going to sit still for having their pockets picked by Washington to fund a transition to an America that our Framers would not recognize. In fact, to an America more like the sclerotic European Union than the United State of even fifteen years ago.

Rule of Law - Tales of the Undead

Judge Orders Auction in a Rebuke to Delphi Plan - WSJ.com: "A U.S. bankruptcy court Wednesday sided with a group of Delphi Corp. lenders who said a government-led plan to sell the auto-parts maker's operations to a private-equity fund trampled on their rights.

Judge Robert Drain ordered Delphi to hold an auction and allow bids to challenge the government-brokered sale to Platinum Equity. 'What's so special about Platinum?' asked Judge Drain. 'They're just guys in suits. Why can't the other guys in suits just pay more?'"

Bob Drain for Chief Justice! Common sense and respect for the rule of law - he could never be confirmed.

Flash Forward to US Healthcare's Future

The NHS is bleeding to death, and the time to operate is now - Telegraph: "Many people would have been rather confused yesterday when they switched on the Today programme and heard that the health service is basically bankrupt. Apparently, the NHS needs another £10 billion from the taxpayer to survive in three years' time (put another way, just less than the cost of paying for the entire police service).

Listeners would have been forgiven for thinking: hang on, hasn't the NHS had a lot of extra money already? And they would be right. After a decade of historic spending increases, the NHS budget has more than doubled, from around £45 billion to £105 billion. The service has 41,800 more doctors and 84,700 more nurses. To say the NHS has never had more resources is an understatement: it is in a wonderland of extra money, on a scale that its leaders never expected. Quite amazing, then, that it is coming back to the taxpayer cap in hand."

The only explanation for moving in the direction of Britain on health care is a lust for government power.

Another Big Step Down the Road To Banana Republic Status

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Judicial Error: "'There was a time when we would have called this a scandal,' wrote former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in an e-mail. He points out the UAW contributed $4 million dollars to Obama's campaign in 2008, and $24 million to Democratic candidates since 2000.

He's right. This is little more than a socialist wealth redistribution scheme that rewards political cronies at the expense of others.

More than robbing the rich to give to the poor, it takes from the politically unconnected to give to the politically connected.

Contrary to stereotype, most bondholders aren't millionaires like Thurston Howell III, clipping coupons and living the high life. No, they're cops and teachers with pensions in places like Indiana who must now subsidize autoworkers from their own pockets."

Welcome to the ObamaNation and crony capitalism.

More Americans Want to Cancel the Shamulus Than Want to Keep It

The Weekly Standard: "Forty-five percent (45%) of Americans say the rest of the new government spending authorized in the $787-billion economic stimulus plan should now be canceled. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 36% disagree and 20% are not sure."

Once again, despite media attempts to cover it up, there is brain activity in the American populace at large.

Shamulus

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Europe's Lesson: "Earlier this year, the White House predicted the jobless rate would top out at 8% if Congress passed the $787 billion stimulus package. Well, since then, 1.5 million jobs have been lost, and unemployment just hit a 26-year high of 9.4%. So, by the administration's own yardstick, it hasn't worked at all."

What a surprise. Of course, from the Obama administration point of view, this is not a failure. They get to expand government power and control over the economy, and they get to drag out the recession that is serving so well to justify their power grab.

Slow Learners - But Not Brain Dead

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Europe's Lesson: "last weekend, a Gallup Poll showed most Americans for the first time view President Obama unfavorably when it comes to 'controlling federal spending.'"

Duh!

Rule of Law Staging a Comeback?

High Court Stymies Quick Sale of Chrysler - WSJ.com:

The U.S. Supreme Court threw the sale of Chrysler LLC to Fiat SpA into uncertainty while it decides whether to hear an appeal of the deal.

..."The U.S.-brokered sale of Chrysler, by forcing senior secured lenders to write down their loans to the auto maker, broke with longstanding tradition concerning rights in a bankruptcy: Senior secured lenders usually are paid in full before lower-priority creditors receive anything. This time, a United Auto Workers retiree health-care trust got a 55% equity stake and $4.5 billion note for its about $10.5 billion unsecured claim while Fiat stands to get an initial 20% stake."

I am probably too giddy to think clearly, but I don't see how a review by the Supreme Court could allow this pernicious deal to stand. And if they ruled on the legality of using TARP funds for an auto bailout, that would be too wonderful to imagine.

Post-Racial Flim-Flam

Sotomayor and the Politics of Race - WSJ.com: "The Sotomayor nomination commits the cardinal sin of identity politics: It seeks to elevate people more for the political currency of their gender and ethnicity than for their individual merit. (Here, too, is the ugly faithlessness in minority merit that always underlies such maneuverings.) Mr. Obama is promising one thing and practicing another, using his interracial background to suggest an America delivered from racial corruption even as he practices a crude form of racial patronage. From America's first black president, and a man promising the 'new,' we get a Supreme Court nomination that is both unoriginal and hackneyed."

...the Sotomayor nomination shows that Mr. Obama has no idea what a post-racial society would look like. In selling himself as a candidate to the American public he is a gifted bargainer beautifully turned out in post-racial impressionism. But in the real world of Supreme Court nominations, where there is a chance to actually bring some of that idealism down to earth, he chooses a hardened, divisive and race-focused veteran of the culture wars he claims to transcend.

President Obama is not afraid to say one thing and do another on race matters - because he is sure he will not be called on it. Let's call his bluff. We may not stop Sotomayor, but we'll shine some light on his hypocrisy.

Obama's Voodoo Health Economics - WSJ.com

Obama's Voodoo Health Economics - WSJ.com: "Two-thirds of annual health spending increases are the result of the rapid development and use of new medications and devices, according to the CBO. But, as the CBO reminds us, these innovations 'permit the treatment of previously untreatable conditions.' If you had a heart attack in the 1980s and made it to the hospital you had only a 60% chance of living a year. Now your chance is over 90%. No one wants 1980s medicine at 1980s prices. And in 10 years, no one will want 2009 care."

Let Obama "reform" our healthcare, and in ten years we WILL have 1980's medicine, but at 2019 prices.

Latest Obama Apology Tour Already Bearing Fruit!

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Cairo Candy: "Iran's supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for instance, immediately called the Obama speech 'sweet and beautiful talks to the Muslim nation . . . that will not create a change,' adding that Israel is still a 'cancerous tumor in the heart' of the Muslim world."

Wait a minute, didn't anyone tell the Ayatollah that Obama's middle name is Hussein and that he lived for a while in a muslim country?

Mark Steyn - The Empathy Emperor Has No Clothes

What price our pseudo-empathy? - Mark Steyn Opinion - Macleans.ca: "Er, well, alright. But what does it boil down to in practice? Then-senator Obama voted against the confirmation of Chief Justice Roberts because the nominee said he saw the judge’s role as that of “umpire.” The President wants someone less hung up on the rule book. He likes to cite the case of Lilly Ledbetter, who sued Goodyear Tire for discrimination but ran up against the pesky old statute of limitations. An “empathetic” judge would presumably say, “Screw the statute of limitations.” Strange to hear the same folks who complain that Bush disregarded the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Constitution at Gitmo (both charges untrue, by the way) simultaneously hailing the ability to disregard inconvenient laws as the indispensable attribute of a Supreme Court justice."

Another great bit of writing that lays bare the vapidness of President Obama's criteria for Supreme Court justices.

Shameful - Posturing and Pandering Masquerading as Leadership

Charles Krauthammer - Barack Obama's Israeli Settlements Canard - washingtonpost.com: "Obama says he came to Cairo to tell the truth. But he uttered not a word of that. Instead, among all the bromides and lofty sentiments, he issued but one concrete declaration of new American policy: 'The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements,' thus reinforcing the myth that Palestinian misery and statelessness are the fault of Israel and the settlements."

Let's hope that, as so often is the case, he doesn't really mean what he says.

How Can You Tell He's Playing Fast and Loose? Part 23

Obama Shifts on Coverage Mandate - WSJ.com: "President Barack Obama said he is open to requiring nearly all Americans to have health insurance, clearing one hurdle in Congress's effort to draft a health-care bill.

During his presidential campaign last year, Mr. Obama opposed then-Sen. Hillary Clinton's idea of a health-insurance mandate on individuals. He argued it would put too much burden on low-income families."

...his lips are moving. Mr. Obama is reportedly also leaning toward taxing employer provided health benefits - a position that was proffered by John McCain, over which Obama demagogued McCain repeatedly.

Obama Wants To Expand Program That Drove Americans' Grocery Bills Up By $5 - $8 BILLION in 2007

Ethanol's Grocery Bill - WSJ.com: "Ethanol raises food prices because millions of acres of farmland and three billion bushels of corn were diverted to ethanol from food production. Americans spend about $1.1 trillion a year on food, so in 2007 the ethanol subsidy cost families between $5.5 billion and $8.8 billion in higher grocery bills."

The beauty of being a leftist is that you never are called to task for the "unintended consequences" of your noble deeds. Ethanol is a completely discredited "alternative energy" strategy. It is strictly designed to buy votes in the corn belt and contributions from mega-agribusinesses. The linked article talks about both EPA and CBO reports on the folly of ethanol as a gasoline alternative.

On top of the cost to the taxpayers of all the subsidies, we are paying BILLIONS more in our grocery bills. Where's the empathy in the administration for Americans struggling to pay their rising food bills?

The WSJ sums it up well:

As public policy, ethanol is like the joke about the baseball prospect who is a poor hitter but a bad fielder. It doesn't reduce CO2 but it does cost more. Imagine how many subsidies the Beltway would throw at ethanol if the fuel actually had any benefits.

If the above is true, why do the Dems continue to push this policy? I think you know the answer - every interference in the economy is a chance for statists to use YOUR money to buy votes and influence, and to further regulate your behavior and circumscribe your freedoms.

Sad, Nowadays You Find More Truth in Pravda than in the NYT

American capitalism gone with a whimper - Pravda.Ru: "It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people."

A Russian perspective on the Obama administration. Read the whole column.

What's Good For The Dems Is "Good" for GM

Busy Not Running GM - WSJ.com: "President Obama announced the bankruptcy of General Motors yesterday before GM's CEO even spoke, and the feds will soon own 60% of the company. But whatever you do, please don't think the government is now running GM."

This post goes on to describe how Obama, just a day ago, was on the phone assuring Detroit's mayor that GM would remain in Detroit. A great example of the largess that can be doled out when a government is in control of a major corporation. Other examples already seen or soon to be seen:

Forcing the banks you control to accepts a cram-down bankruptcy settlement so you can transfer their financial interests to your union cronies

Doling out ownership interest in GM and Chrysler to the UAW in preference to creditors (including retirees, pension funds, thrifty individuals) who are contractually owed better treatment under the law.

Ordering GM not to import cars into the US from its foreign operations

Providing specific tax advantages to consumers for buying one specific car (the Volt) from one specific manufacturer (GM)

Locking in union wage agreements that are still not competitive with the rest of the world

Probably sweetening union wage agreements when they come up for renewal during the next election cycle

Passing laws and regulations to try and force US consumers to buy the cars that Obama motors builds, but that no one wants

Doling out $10's of Billions more year after year to try and keep these companies afloat

Forcing Obama Motors to buy American parts and materials, even when they are not competitive in the marketplace

I could go on almost forever...