AMERICA’S POLITICAL RULING CLASS -- and the perils of revolution.

When [the general public] discovered that virtually no one in a position of power in either party or with a national voice would take their objections seriously, that decisions about their money were being made in bipartisan backroom deals with interested parties, and that the laws on these matters were being voted by people who had not read them, the term "political class" came into use. Then, after those in power changed their plans from buying toxic assets to buying up equity in banks and major industries but refused to explain why, when they reasserted their right to decide ad hoc on these and so many other matters, supposing them to be beyond the general public's understanding, the American people started referring to those in and around government as the "ruling class." And in fact Republican and Democratic office holders and their retinues show a similar presumption to dominate and fewer differences in tastes, habits, opinions, and sources of income among one another than between both and the rest of the country. They think, look, and act as a class.

It’s long, but ... read it all.

HONORARY PRESIDENT of the Boy Scouts of America skips Jamboree 100th anniversary to tape appearance on ABC’s “The View.”

Priorities ....

LOTT AIMS TO ‘CO-OPT’ TEA PARTY:

A 35-year veteran of Congress, former Senate majority leader, and now partner at K Street's most storied lobbying firm, Trent Lott knows the system. And the system has rewarded him richly -- as when Patton Boggs recently wrote a multimillion-dollar check to buy his firm, the Breaux-Lott Leadership Group.

So the last thing Lott needs is a bunch of unwashed, Tea-Partying right-wingers coming to Washington on a wave of anti-establishment, free-market populism, and messing up the good thing he has going.

He’s dreaming if he thinks the Republican establishment can control the Tea Partiers.

IMAGINE THE OPPOSITE OF EVERYTHING YOU KNOW TO BE TRUE, and you have mostly the worldview of the sheltered cultural elite, who navigate in rather protected channels and not in the open seas of the real world.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION: If the federal government can’t – or won’t – enforce its own immigration laws, what can states like Arizona do?

For one thing, Arizona can form and expand its own state militia. Such forces were common when our nation was founded, and the Second Amendment recognizes that a "well-regulated Militia" is "necessary to the security of a free State." In short, Arizona and other states can raise and arm their own military forces.

Hmm.

BARACK OBAMA is the best thing that has happened to America in the last 100 years.

Despite the fact that he has some of the lowest approval ratings among recent presidents, history will see Barack Obama as the source of America's resurrection. Barack Obama has plunged the country into levels of debt that we could not have previously imagined; his efforts to nationalize health care have been met with fierce resistance nationwide; TARP bailouts and stimulus spending have shown little positive effect on the national economy; unemployment is unacceptably high and looks to remain that way for most of a decade; legacy entitlement programs have ballooned to unsustainable levels, and there is a seething anger in the populace.

That's why Barack Obama is such a good thing for America. Obama is the symbol of a creeping liberalism that has infected our society like a cancer for the last 100 years.

Read it all.

I AM A LIBERAL – I hate violence. But sometimes ....



YouTube link is here.

THE WHITE HOUSE may get laughed out of court more quickly than first thought. “It didn’t take long for federal judge Susan Bolton to zero in on the holes in the Obama administration’s argument in their lawsuit against Arizona and its new must-enforce policy on immigration violations.”

CONSERVATIVE DEMOCRAT is maintaining a distant third place in the primary race for D.C. mayor.

In D.C., the election is the Democrat primary; the fact that a relative conservative is even running is significant. I wish him luck.

AMERICAN POLITICS has caught the British disease.

Liberal politics is now – over there as much as here – a form of social snobbery. To express concern about mass immigration, or reservations about the Obama healthcare plan, is unacceptable in bien-pensant circles because this is simply not the way educated people are supposed to think. It follows that those who do think (and talk) this way are small-minded bigots, rednecks, oiks, or whatever your local code word is for "not the right sort".

Linked from Instapundit.

PUNISHMENT WORKS; withholding it doesn’t.

MAMA CAN’T FIND A DOCTOR, and other fallout from new Democratic legislation.

So starting in 2011, seniors will die sooner thanks to a reduction of physicians accepting Medicare, and their estates will be taxed at 55% thanks to the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. For Democrats, what’s not to like?

MRS. MADOFF exonerates Michael Mann. Sad, but true.

NEVADA IGNORES ACORN PR HEAD FAKE, proceeds with vote fraud prosecution. Good.

CAR WARS: the empire strikes again. “[W]e’ve got the government making decisions - perhaps rash decisions - about dealership closings in the wake of the GM and Chrysler nationalizations.... [I]s anyone surprised that such decisions are being made based on politics?”

ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER: Obama era makes Clinton, Bush look better.

MEET CABALIST: a newer, more exclusive JournoList.

Don't these guys ever learn? They just hung themselves with JournoList, and now they're buying another length of rope, forming a noose, tieing the other end to a high branch in a tree, climbing up on a stool, sticking their heads in the noose, and smiling.

Link from the Washington Examiner.

RISING SPECULATION ABOUT BOMBING IRAN’S NUKES: It would be ironic if the professorial Barack Obama launches a military attack when his supposedly cowboy predecessor George W. Bush declined to do so.

MORE LIBERAL HYPOCRISY: Kerry docks luxury yacht in Rhode Island to avoid Massachusetts taxes.

The more things “change” the more they stay the same get worse.

Link from Instapundit.

DOES HARRY REID know what time it is?

No. Don’t tell him.

NOT PART OF THE DODD-FRANK FINANCIAL BILL: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. “The public-private mortgage buyers were the underwriters of the housing bubble ... and have already soaked taxpayers to the tune of $150 billion for unwise loans. These ‘government subsidized entities’ are on the hook for $5.4 trillion and the taxpayer commitment is unlimited. But there is no plan to spin down the taxpayer commitment or to set new rules for the disastrously mismanaged firms -- perhaps because so many of those who did the mismanaging are friends, associates and employees of the president and the primary authors of the bill.”

GOP TO FOCUS ON POLICY, not Pelosi: House Republicans, after failing to win recent elections by attacking Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are vowing to concentrate more on policy and less on personalities this time around. They’d better. Just not being a Democrat won’t work this year.

FROM TOWNHALL:

ANN COULTER: Obama's Poll Numbers Down, Imaginary Racism Up.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The New Racial Mess.

MIKE ADAMS: Professors and Pharisees.

Read them all.

JOURNOLIST: THE MANHATTAN-BELTWAY MEDIA ELITE is once again stripped of its pretense. Just as they all rallied around Dan Rather when he manufactured the news in 2004, now they appear ready to remain silent even in the aftermath of publication of record evidence that many in their number have the "journalistic ethics" of a Pravda lifer in the '60s.

TEA PARTY CAUCUS forms in Congress (third item). “So far, the Tea Party Caucus has these 28 Republican members from the House: Trent Franks of Arizona; Gary G. Miller of California; Doug Lamborn of Colorado; Gus Bilirakis and Cliff Stearns of Florida; Paul Broun, Phil Gingrey and Tom Price of Georgia; Dan Burton and Mr. Pence of Indiana; Steve King of Iowa; Jerry Moran and Todd Tiahrt of Kansas; John Fleming of Louisiana; Roscoe G. Bartlett of Maryland; Peter Hoekstra of Michigan; Ms. Bachmann of Minnesota; Todd Akin of Missouri; Walter B. Jones of North Carolina; Joe Wilson of South Carolina; Joe L. Barton, John Carter, Michael C. Burgess, John Culberson, Louie Gohmert, Pete Sessions and Lamar Smith of Texas; and Cynthia M. Lummis of Wyoming.”

My congressman, Frank Wolf, isn’t a member yet. He’d better be – soon.

LIBERAL JOURNALISTS suggest government shut down Fox News. The rationale for this censorship was that America was teetering on the brink of a fascist uprising (seriously) and the government needed to use extraordinary measures.

In the summer of 2009, agitated citizens from across the country flocked to town hall meetings to berate lawmakers who had declared support for President Obama’s health care bill. For most people, the protests seemed like an exercise in participatory democracy, rowdy as some of them became.

On Journolist, the question was whether the protestors were garden-variety fascists or actual Nazis.

The Daily Caller post is here.

DUDE IN 17-VEHICLE MOTORCADE tells federal workers to drive less.

To paraphrase Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit): “I’ll believe it’s a crisis when the people telling me it’s a crisis act like it’s a crisis.”

EVEN KARZAI IS DISSING OBAMA: "‘I remain determined that our Afghan national security forces will be responsible for all military and law enforcement operations throughout our country by 2014’ — more than three years after President Obama's date for the start of an American troop drawdown, [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai said.”

CAP AND TRADE is finally dead! About time.

A COMEDY OF ERRORS STUPIDITY: follow the links embedded in this Instapundit post.

UPDATE: More here.

EAT HEALTHIER, say the Obamas -- as the president scarfs pastry and cheeseburgers. Vacation in the Gulf States, they say as they head off to Maine. Drive less and reduce pollution, they say as the 17-car motorcade travels four blocks to a speech.

Do as we say, not as we do ....

DOES THE PRESS deserve a bailout? Not only "no," but "hell, no!"

ONE GIANT LEAP -- 41 years ago today.

UPDATE: the moon landing video.

NOT SO FAST: Shirley Sherrod’s disappearing act. I wondered why she resigned so fast after the NAACP video surfaced.

The mainstream media will be over this like water on a hot frying pan.

FOX NEWS: how to hit a nude beach. Uh, take your clothes off?

BELTWAY ELITES lose touch with reality. This is news?

The poll is here.

AN UGLY PREVIEW OF OBAMACARE: “If you want a preview of President Obama's health care ‘reform,’ take a look at Massachusetts. In 2006, it enacted a "reform" that became a model for Obama. What's happened since isn't encouraging... In 1990, health spending represented about 16 percent of the state budget, says the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. By 2000, health's share was 22 percent. In 2010, it's 35 percent.”

A year ago, a state commission urged another approach: Scrap the present "fee-for-service" system. The commission argued that fee-for-service -- which ties reimbursement to individual services -- rewards quantity over quality and discourages coordinated care among doctors and hospitals. The commission recommended a "global payments" system to force hospitals, doctors and clinics to create networks ("accountable care organizations"). These would receive flat per-patient payments to promote effective -- not just expensive -- care. Payments would be "risk adjusted"; sicker patients would justify higher payments.

Remember HMOs? They’ll be back -- worse than ever.

REPUBLICANS ON SAVING: It’s like a broke guy saying “Yeah, I was planning on buying a new Ferrari, but then I changed my mind. What should I do with the $250,000 I saved myself?”

TARP AUDIT CLAIMS OBAMA ADMINISTRATION destroyed “tens of thousands” of jobs in dealer closures: “Let’s keep this in mind when Democrats insist that government can run industries better than the markets themselves. Not only did the White House purposely evade bankruptcy laws in cutting sweet deals for unions during the bailout, but they also destroyed jobs in the process out of incompetency. I’d bet that a number of union members are none too pleased with that outcome, even if the union bosses are.”

UNFAIR, UNBALANCED, and very afraid.

Linked from the Washington Examiner.

CHINA PASSES U.S. as world's biggest energy consumer: “China devoured a total of 2,252 million tons of oil equivalent last year, or about 4% more than the U.S., which burned through 2,170 million tons of oil equivalent. The oil-equivalent metric represents all forms of energy consumed, including crude oil, nuclear, coal, natural gas and renewable sources such as hydropower….China's total energy consumption has clocked annual double-digit growth rates for many years, driven by the country's big industrial base. Highlighting how quickly its energy demand has increased, China's total energy consumption was just half the size of the U.S. 10 years ago…. The U.S. is still by far the biggest energy consumer per capita, with the average American burning five times as much energy annually compared with the average Chinese citizen.”

WILL HILLARY RUN IN 2012? Only the Afghan war knows for sure.

DID JOE THE PLUMBER fix the oil spill?

Impossible. He’s not a “government-credentialed expert.”

WHY REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE solicitation calls go unanswered at my house. Candidates who promote or join a Tea Party caucus – and mean it – I’ll consider funding.

But not the Republican establishment.

THE LAW MEANS WHAT IT SAYS – except when it doesn’t.

After reading this, one necessarily thinks of pretzels ....

TO DEAL WITH DEBT, we have to stop lying about it. Reason’s Veronique de Rugy has some guidance for the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (Obama’s deficit commission) in assessing the quality of the solutions it puts forward.

Do the recommendations really cut spending rather than focus on cutting the deficit?

Do the recommendations allow for political carve-outs?

Do the recommendations fix the budget gimmicks?

Will the debt commission have the guts to face reality? In a word, no. They’re politicians.

EASY CREDIT, hard landing.

Longish, but worth the read.

A DANGEROUS DISAFFECTION. John Hinderaker from PowerLine:

I think [there is] a growing conviction that America is governed by a political class that has its own agenda, involving its own enrichment as well as the endless expansion of its own power, and that this political class is contemptuous of the opinions of ordinary Americans and is determined to impose its will regardless of how Americans vote. I think this perception is in fact true.

To support that contention, Hinderaker’s prime exhibit is the historyy of federal spending, reproduced below.


Hinderaker comments: “You can vote for limited government, but you can't get it; the political class won't let you.” Or, as Alabama Governor George Wallace, running for President in 1968 said, "There is not a dime's worth of difference between the Democrat and Republican Parties!"

I didn’t believe him then. I do now.

YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH! That's the federal government's message to Americans seeking to learn the content of their own DNA.

More here.

NO NEW TAXES: White House will argue ObamaCare mandate is a tax.

This particular Obama promise has been broken so many times it looks like the Gulf beach sand before the tar balls arrived.

A VETERAN puts Elena Kagan to shame. Kagan should not be confirmed to the Supreme Court. Presidents’ choices should be given some deference, but not this time.

TAX BREAKS ARE FOR ME, NOT FOR THEE: Will the Obama administration give trial lawyers a $1.6 billion tax break?

Why not? It’s only our money.

RATIONING IS FOR THEE, NOT FOR ME: In special deal, charity gives rationing advocate [Dr. Donald] Berwick health coverage for life. Berwick was recess-appointed by President Obama to head Medicare and Medicaid.

Just my (bad) luck to be going on Medicare in four months.

FOULED BY THE TAX MAN: LeBron James saved roughly $12 million dollars in state taxes by signing with the Miami Heat as opposed to the New York Knicks. The privilege of working in midtown Manhattan apparently isn’t worth $12 million dollars.

[Rush] Limbaugh drolly asked his audience whether James should take the Knicks' offer "and pay the additional taxes to show his 'compassion,'" or sign with Miami and "use the additional money for his own economic stimulus."

Heh. Read it all; even the extremely wealthy are voting with their feet.

MICHAEL BARONE is no fan of unionization.

And he’s right.

DEMOCRATS revive global warming legislation.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., plans to bring a comprehensive energy and climate bill to the Senate floor by the end of the month that will include a cap on carbon emissions produced by the nation's utilities.

Reid ... wants to introduce the bill, which has not yet been written, the week of July 26.

Reid was vague on details ....

With ObamaCare, it was “pass the bill; then we’ll read it.” Now, it’s “pass the bill; then we’ll write it.”

BREAKING NEWS


The 2010 Democratic Party campaign theme ....

SHOULD THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA BE SUBSIDIZED? Absolutely not.

PAMPERED POPULISTS: “It's surreal to see President Obama play the class-warfare card against the Republicans while on his way to vacation on the tony Maine coast, and even more interesting to note that now gone are the days when the media used to caricature Bush I (‘Poppy’) for boating in the summer off the preppie-sounding Kennebunkport. The truth is that the real big money and the lifestyles that go with it are now firmly liberal Democratic.”

GOOD LUCK. Progressives to “improve California.”

DO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE want the health-care world Dr. Berwick wishes to give them? Here are just some of Berwick’s thoughts on ObamaCare:

I cannot believe that the individual health care consumer can enforce through choice the proper configurations of a system as massive and complex as health care. That is for leaders to do (emphasis mine).

[I]t's important ... to make health a human right because the main health determinants are not health care but sanitation, nutrition, housing, social justice, employment, and the like.

I would place a commitment to ... standardization ... above clinician autonomy as a rule for care.

Welcome to Huxley’s Brave New World.

UPDATE & BUMP: More here.

WHO’S TO BLAME? The Gulf oil spill, the financial crisis – all brought to you by the cult of corporate social responsibility.

Encouraged by NGO’s and aided and abetted by the federal government.

BANKS WIN; you lose.

The big banks won big Thursday as Democratic lawmakers, with the help of the New England Republican caucus, finally extruded the Dodd-Frank financial bill.The big six get VIP regulation and permanent status as too big to fail. They’ll be able to soak up capital from around the world with the implicit backing of the U.S. Treasury as smaller banks struggle for cash and contend with niggling new regulations.

Wasn’t it “too big to fail” that got us into this mess in the first place?

HOW TO REMOVE an unwanted bumper sticker. Listen carefully at the very end.

LOUISANA GOV. BOBBY JINDAL: Ban on deep-water drilling adds insult to injury.

By now, everyone no doubt realizes that I am not a fan of the pace at which the federal government has worked to contain the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Sadly, federal officials were slow to act and overly bureaucratic....

Against this backdrop, the federal government unwisely chose to add insult to injury by decreeing a moratorium on deepwater drilling in the gulf. This ill-advised and ill-considered moratorium ... risks killing 20,000 more jobs and will result in a loss of $65 million to $135 million in wages each month.

[B]y simply stopping all deepwater drilling, federal officials appear more interested in ideology and scoring political points -- as they have done with the misguided cap-and-trade legislation -- at the expense of Americans who derive their livelihood from the energy industry.

Yes. It’s about control, not compassion.

INSTAPUNDIT ON THE PRESIDENT’S WEEKLY RADIO ADDRESS: “Stupid fatcat Republicans — and to maintain their majority, they’re just going to go on making more and more rich people until the country’s completely under their thumb. Meanwhile the Democrats are the party of the poor, man, and — uh, can we get rewrite on this?”

COLLEGES AND HIGH SCHOOLS aren’t preparing students for workplace. “It seems that everyone makes out well from high school and college, except those who must pay for and attend them. Remember all those college administrators and high school teachers who talk about ethnic and cultural studies, and all those other education fashions ...? Turns out they don’t make a lick of difference in the employers’ bottom line.”

UNDER OBAMA, the business of America is government.

The problem for a president and a Cabinet lacking business experience is that they don't understand what the private sector is all about.

President Obama believes its purpose is to "create jobs." The folks out in nongovernment America believe the goal is to make money.

Does ObamaCare will cover Xanax for “free-floating anxiety”?

ANOTHER SMALL STEP: Virgin Galactic's private spaceship makes first crewed flight.



HISTORICAL NOTE: the space shuttle Enterprise made its maiden "flight" on February 18, 1977 atop a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) to measure structural loads and ground handling and braking characteristics of the mated system. Its first crewed flight atop the 747 was made shortly thereafter.

AL QAEDA is racist? Why, sure. If Tea Partiers = Racists and Terrorists = Racists, then Tea Partiers = Terrorists. It’s obvious to the most nuanced mind.

THIS DEBT IS LIKE A CANCER. Speaking at the National Governors Association annual meeting, the co-chairmen of President Obama's debt and deficit commission offered an ominous assessment of the nation's fiscal future.

[A]t present, federal revenue is fully consumed by three programs: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. "The rest of the federal government, including fighting two wars, homeland security, education, art, culture, you name it, veterans -- the whole rest of the discretionary budget is being financed by China and other countries," [Alan] Simpson said.

"We can't grow our way out of this," [Erskine] Bowles said. "We could have decades of double-digit growth and not grow our way out of this enormous debt problem. We can't tax our way out.... The reality is we've got to do exactly what you all do every day as governors. We've got to cut spending or increase revenues or do some combination of that."

An Instapundit reader asks if this debt-as-cancer thing makes Congress the equivalent of Big Tobacco. Instapundit’s reply? “Worse: Big Tobacco had to persuade you to smoke.”

FIRST DOG flies to vacation on separate jet. The First Couple’s oversized egos took up too much room ....

Instapundit reacts.

And Chris Muir captures the moment perfectly.

TARANIS UNVEILED: the first British unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) debuts. First flight is expected in 2011.


The comments are illuminating – but not necessarily in a positive manner.

A PHOTO OF THE DEVASTATION caused by the magnitude 3.5 D.C. earthquake.

PROJECT LABOR AGREEMENTS: a union-only protection racket.

OBAMA OR THE iPHONE: “Isn't it disappointing when a much-hyped arrival lands with a bit of a thud? We were told that this one would be different! Different and better! This one would change the world -- make things easier, faster, cooler."

Read it all. But as far as giving either the iPhone or Obama another chance, forget it.

IF FEDERAL LAW PREEMPTS STATE LAW ON IMMIGRATION, shouldn’t it preempt state laws legalizing marijuana?

THE GREAT RECESSION: America isn’t optimistic. And the least optimistic are the job creators.

YOUCUT THIS WEEK. Vote to:

Eliminate unnecessary Congressional printing; or
Eliminate the “Dodd Clinic” earmark from ObamaCare; or
Prohibit “First-Class” subsidies on Amtrak; or
Reform the Energy Star Program; or
Prevent LIHEAP Payments to individuals who are deceased, incarcerated, or who don’t meet income requirements.

More wasteful programs announced every week.

FINAL STRAW? Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA) asks DOJ Inspector General to launch investigation of New Black Panther case.

The primary responsibility of the inspector general is to ensure “integrity, economy, efficiency, and effectiveness in Department of Justice operations,” according to your office’s statute. The new information provided by Mr. Adams to the commission last week clearly underscores the need for an investigation into whether the department’s “integrity, economy, efficiency, and effectiveness” have been compromised. I recall that you, rightly, had no qualms about investigating allegations of impropriety during the previous administration and I would hope that same ethic would remain during this administration.

There is something rotten happening at the department. Your continued refusal to investigate has been — and remains — inexcusable (emphasis mine).

Now that former DOJ attorney J. Christian Adams as stepped forward, perhaps this will finally receive the attention it deserves.

AS WE APPEAR TO BE entering the second dip of a double-dip recession, it’s nice to find that Obama aborted the recovery.

YOU THOUGHT THE NAACP’s resolution declaring the Tea Party “racist” was bad? Read this.

And think about this: “There are many more black members of the Tea Party—however you define that movement—than there are, by definition, non-black members of the NAACP.” Although from his picture, it’s hard to think of NAACP Chairman Benjamin Jealous as black.

More at Instapundit.

OBAMA’S SUCCESS: manufacturing conservatives and libertarians (and independents) at an unprecedented clip.

Pray the Republicans are wise (not smart, wise) enough to take advantage of Obama’s ‘success’.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON offers a ten-step healing program for our president in the spirit of our therapeutic age.

Will Obama adopt it? Not a chance.

FELONS VOTING ILLEGALLY may have put Sen. Al Franken over the top in Minnesota.

Felony voting, felony representation.

HHS SECRETARY KATHLEEN SEBELIUS visited the Gulf Coast of Louisiana on Friday as part of her department’s “ongoing efforts to address the public health and mental health aspects of the Gulf oil spill.”

We are especially concerned about mental health, as it is clear from past experiences and from all our discussions today that mental health and substance abuse issues are likely to be some of the most long-lasting effects of this oil spill.

Has it occurred to anyone in the Obama administration that they might not have to worry about “mental health and substance abuse” issues if they’d just clean up the damned spill?

SQUIRREL DROPPINGS

There’s new home construction going on up in the topmost branches of the tree. This is the residue.

And here’s the new “home” about 65-70 feet up in the tree. Judging from its size, it’s going to be a cold winter, or our little entrepreneur is planning to sublet.

NAACP RESOLUTION CALLS ON TEA PARTY to repudiate 'racist elements' in movement.

Uh, when did the NAACP publicly condemn this racist rant (1:15 into the video)? And where are the video clips of Tea Partiers saying things equally vile?

The resolution simply proves that NAACP is bigoted ... (and ‘Jealous’).

PEGGY NOONAN: Where is the adult supervision?

There's ... an emerging mentoring gap going on in America right now. You can see it in a generalized absence of the wise old politician/lawyer/leader/editor who helps the young along, who teaches them the ropes and ways and traditions of a craft.

And where did the adults go?

The grown-ups took the buyout. The grown-ups were laid off. The grown-ups are not there.

And it shows. Read it all.

REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER



Linked from here.

TED NUGENT ON GUN CONTROL: to err on the side of freedom is no error.

REPUBLICANS SHOULD embrace Rep. Paul Ryan's road map to achieve fiscal sanity.

The plan would give everyone a refundable tax credit to buy health insurance, allow individual investment accounts to be carved out of Social Security, reduce the six income tax rates to two (10 and 25 percent), and replace the corporate tax (35 percent) with a business consumption tax (8.5 percent). And that's not the half of it.

The Ryan roadmap can be found here.

CHILDREN in the White House: "[Y]ou could be Jim Messina," a status that allows you "to have a cool car and work for a cool president.” Messina is White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations; theoretically he is an adult.

NEW STUDY: Many highly educated people mistakenly believe they're left-wing.

From the comments: "No… it’s the reverse that’s true… Many left wing people mistakenly think they’re highly educated."

NOT THAT I HAD ANY CHOICE IN THE MATTER


The cartoon is Wiley's Non Sequitur. And from the comments:

#1: [You should] list the prices; Hot dog-$75.00, w/Mustard-$175, etc.

#2: I guess I have to arrange lunch insurance… First question on the form: Do you have any pre-existing hunger?

FORGET SOCIAL SECURITY; privatize education. Any (non-educator) parent could come up with a better curriculum than this.

The time has come to disestablish all Departments of Education – state, federal, and university – and return education to private hands.

TRY THE FOOD at U.S. government cafeterias.

More reason for requiring laws – especially nanny laws – be tested on government employees for a period not less than two years before becoming effective on the public writ large.

BOTH PARTIES mull raising retirement age.

(Shaking head in disbelief) With the unemployment rate still at near-record levels and businesses already encouraging older employees to “go Galt,” Congress wants to raise the retirement age?

Now don’t get me wrong. I think raising the retirement age is both necessary and desirable, but don’t you think that right now would be a good time for Congress to worry about the economy having enough jobs for older workers to not retire from?

NHTSA DISCOVERS CAUSE OF TOYOTA ‘SUDDEN ACCELERATION’ PROBLEM: loose nuts behind the wheel. The "I’m-an-Idiot-and-It’s-All-Your-Fault" club continues growing by leaps and bounds.

More here.

ONE NATION, disunited.

The Washington Post article is here.

UPDATE: Day by Day notices.

HOT DAMN! Fiorina 47, Boxer 45; Whitman 46, Brown 39.

SHOULDN’T THE Indiana state quarter be banned as encouraging prolifigate oil consumption in the face of an environmental crisis?

AMERICANS ARE PETRIFIED about their future.

And as Instapundit puts it: “With reason, given who’s in charge and what policies they’re pursuing....”

BIRD, ER, SQUIRREL, ER, DEER FEEDER.

When the squirrels broke the bird feeder, my wife put some birdseed and corn in the old water bowl, and along came Bambi ....


Picture taken through an upstairs window.

MICHELLE OBAMA: Take your vacation in the Gulf, America — We’ll be vacationing in Maine.

Do they practice being tone-deaf?

WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY ROBERT GIBBS said that NASA Administrator Charles Bolden must have misspoken when he told Al Jazeera last month that one of his top priorities is to reach out to Muslim countries: "That was not his task and that's not the task of NASA," Gibbs said.

Thump, thump! ... thump, thump! ... go the wheels of the Obama bus.

OUR YEAR 2 A.B. No hope, no change. But there is this: “[O]ur ‘overseas contingency operations’ are aimed at reminding Muslims that their own past contributions to science have led to breakthroughs like Hellfire missiles.”

DR. NO: America doesn’t need a rationer-in-chief.

HEH: “ 'If you or a loved one has died of mesothelioma, call . . . ' If I ever die of mesothelioma, I plan to haunt a commercial-writer or two.”

Those commercials irritate me as well.

THE MATTRESS ECONOMIC STRATEGY: Buy a mattress; stuff all your money in it; lie down and get some rest.

If I could afford the mattress, there would be nothing left to stuff in it ....

ANOTHER REASON for confidence in the Ivy League.

Don Surber comments: “So he spied? It is not as if Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government prepared people for any honest way of earning a living.”

THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION IS PRO-GROWTH – growth of government.

Surprised?

SO SUE ME: Virginia lawmaker challenges Feds to sue his state over immigration enforcement.

FYI: I live in Prince William county.

THE BERWICK EVASION: “[N]o wonder the White House wanted to dodge a public debate and Senate vote on Dr. Berwick. He's a too obvious reminder of the price controls and care restrictions that are inevitable with ObamaCare.”

OBAMA DISAPPOINTS even lowered expectations. “The fall came when Obama proved to be rankly partisan and surprisingly graceless when dealing with his opponents.... Obama's second drop in public estimation has come from the understanding that not only is he an ordinary politician, but also not a very good one.”

THE PRESIDENT seems to stand foursquare for nothing much.

This is news? Obama is a child of affirmative action – nothing more.

UH-OH: “After her come-from-behind victory in the Nevada Republican Senate primary, Sharron Angle's campaign team has worked to change her image from far-right candidate to a more mainstream Republican. But it may not be enough to save her campaign. State political analysts are now placing their bets on her Democratic opponent, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who just weeks ago was considered political toast.”

THE ULTIMATE in valet parking.

LEADERSHIP is not about knowledge, but character – and commitment.

THE DIET begins in November.

PURE GENIUS


And, yes, I know Obama is a natural-born U.S. citizen. But I think one can make a strong case that he is a cultural immigrant for many Americans.

SENATE PANEL NEAR AGREEMENT on bill to roll back NASA changes. "Obama has finally forged some bipartisan consensus in Washington through this issue. Both sides oppose him."

Heh.

NASA's MUSLIM OUTREACH: Al Jazeera told first.

The Obama administration: stupid, arrogant, and tone-deaf.

CATS AND DOORS: we have three doors leading out of our house, and three cats. Each uses it’s own door. The front porch belongs to Daisy, the back porch to Shadow, and the garage entrance is Diamond’s. Rarely will one cat go out the other cat’s door.

DRUG LOBBY showers money on its hero Harry Reid. “No scalp would be as treasured by Republicans this fall as that of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. And no incumbent is receiving as much air support from the drug industry as is Reid, who championed a health care bill that pads drug company profits.”

MUST BE THAT TEA PARTY VIOLENCE the media keeps harping on. Oil executive targeted with shoebox bomb.

WASHINGTON POST HAILS the arrival of "One Nation," a liberal version of the Tea Party.

That might be a poor choice of name, as an astute Instapundit reader noted: “Though this also pops to mind: Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Nation, ein Führer.”

OBAMA PRESSES BP to recover more oil. The Obama administration has sent BP a letter telling the company to fix the leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico fast and to start collecting more of the oil that has already spilled into the ocean.

Well, I guess now that it’s in writing…

AMERICANS RELATE TO FOUNDERS, not progressives. Obviously Glenn Beck is to blame.

FROM MY EMAIL

Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, et al:

We have stuck together since the late 1950's for the sake of the kids, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has clearly run its course.

Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right for us all, so let's just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way.

Here is a model separation agreement:

Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a similar portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes.

We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them. You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU. Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military. We'll take the nasty, smelly oil industry and you can go with wind, solar and biodiesel. You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell. You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them.

We'll keep capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street. You can have your beloved lifelong welfare dwellers, food stamps, homeless, homeboys, hippies, druggies and illegal aliens. We'll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO's and rednecks. We'll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood.

You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the right to invade and
hammer places that threaten us. You can have the peaceniks and war protesters.
When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we'll help provide them security.

We'll keep our Judeo-Christian values. You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism, political correctness and Shirley McClain. You can also have the U.N. but we will no longer be paying the bill.

We'll keep the SUV's, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Subaru station wagon you can find.

You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors. We'll continue to believe healthcare is a luxury and not a right. We'll keep "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "The National Anthem." I'm sure you'll be happy to substitute "Imagine", "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing", "Kum Ba Ya" or "We Are the World".

We'll practice trickle down economics and you can continue to give trickle up poverty your best shot.

Since it often so offends you, we'll keep our history, our name and our flag.

Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along to other like-minded liberal and conservative patriots and if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the spirit of friendly parting, I'll bet you answer which one of us will need whose help in 15 years.

Sincerely,
An American

P.S. Also, please take Ted Turner, Sean Penn, Martin Sheen, Barbara Streisand, & Jane Fonda with you.

P.P.S. And you won't have to press 1 for English when you call our country.

Heh.

SOFT ON OIL?

Less than four months after President Barack Obama took office, his new administration received a forceful warning about the dangers of offshore oil drilling.

The alarm was rung by a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., which found that the government was unprepared for a major spill at sea, relying on an "irrational" environmental analysis of the risks of offshore drilling.

The April 2009 ruling stunned both the administration and the oil industry, and threatened to delay or cancel dozens of offshore projects in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.

Despite its pro-environment pledges, the Obama administration urged the court to revisit the decision. Politically, it needed to push ahead with conventional oil production while it expanded support for renewable energy.

Another reason: money. In its arguments to the court, the government said that the loss of royalties on the oil, estimated at almost $10 billion, "may have significant financial consequences for the federal government."

Or just greedy?

DEMOCRATS SHAPING BATTLE PLAN against Republicans for November elections - committing political suicide (fourth item).

Sssh! Don’t tell them.

PELOSI: Unemployment benefits create more jobs than any other initiative.

Well, yes, if you mean by “more jobs” you mean more government jobs ministering to the needs of the forever unemployed.

HOW MANY PEOPLE have left the workforce? Well, add one more.

WHY AREN’T BUSINESSES HIRING? “Uncertainty: there has been a tremendous amount of change over the last 12 months. Businesses are still trying to figure out what that means for their own bottom line. Until there are firm answers, they will freeze hiring.”

WHAT DO DEMOCRATS LOVE MORE: benefits for the unemployed or Keynesian deficit spending (third item)?

Given the chance to keep 23-month unemployment benefits rolling by giving up $17 billion of stimulus spending, Democrats refused and spiked the legislation.

Republicans mostly oppose the idea of two-year benefits on the grounds that it has become substitute welfare and actually harms the job market by allowing people to stay out of work for so long, lose their skills and become essentially unemployable by anyone but the government.

But after getting a lot of scorching form Dems about being callous to the needs of the little man, some GOPers are willing to go along with another extension, but not if it’s all deficit spending. But Dems are so protective of their pork, they will not go for offsetting cuts or even allow any of the stimulus slush to be used.

Of course.

COULOMB TECHNOLOGIES HAS ANNOUNCED that it will set up nearly 5,000 electric vehicle charging stations in nine U.S. metropolitan areas: Austin, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Orlando, Sacramento, San Jose/San Francisco, Redmond, Wash., and Washington, D.C. The $37 million project [will draw] on $15 million courtesy of the stimulus bill.

I could live with the $15 million cost if it would confine progressives to those nine metro areas.

A RECENT GALLUP POLL found Obama's support among Hispanics dropped from 69 percent in January to 64 percent in February and 57 percent in May. So what did President Obama do? He issued a strong new call for an overhaul of the nation's immigration system.

No politics here. Nope. None. Move along now.

WHITE HOUSE promotes rain power.

It hurts when I laugh too hard....

I THINK THE PRESIDENCY was always sort of a warm-up, a preparation for worldwide messiah-in-chief.

BIG GOVERNMENT IN PRACTICE is actually the best argument against big government in theory.

[Liberal comedian Jon] Stewart challenged top Obama adviser David Axelrod on whether or not the administration is capable of doing any of the big things it’s promised, an argument long made by conservatives and libertarians wary of government encroachment.

“It’s clear that this administration believes that government can have a stronger hand in regulating Wall Street, in regulating energy, in doing these things. But has government during this time proved itself competent?” Stewart asked.

Axelrod defended his colleagues and argued ... that the administration’s response to the H1N1 flu is proof that it is up to the task of big government.

Oh?

THE SECOND COMING of Jimmy Carter. All Obama has to do is tell everyone to wear a sweater and we’ll officially return to Carter country.

FATHERHOOD.GOV. To which I say mind your own damn business. I’m tired of being treated like some schmuck who has to have help putting his pants on every morning.

And, by the way, where is MOTHERHOOD.GOV?

TEACHER’S UNION SHUNS OBAMA: “This is not the change I hoped for.”

SPIES WILL BE SPIES: The People’s Weekly Brief returns.

RAT DESERTING SINKING SHIP. Or is the sinking ship pushing the rat overboard?

More here.

UH-OH. HARRY REID’S SON RORY won’t campaign using the family name.

OF COURSE it’s a shakedown. What else could it be? And I’m still angry that Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) backed down.

MARK STEYN on presidential performance. Johnny Horton would be proud.

A MODEST PROPOSAL: in order to hold down health care expenses for “children” aged 21 to 26 who remain on their parents’ health insurance policies, ObamaCare may have to set some terms and conditions.

I would also suggest raising the voting age to that when they leave their parents’ policy.

HOIST WITH HIS OWN PETARD. “That old meany goddess Nemesis is at work again, causing havoc nearly in the identical spot as Katrina (but of course)— focusing on the young technocrat who so loudly blamed the “incompetence” of Bush during the New Orleans mess. Now our Oedipus is reduced to raging in his halls against BP, with thousands of hard-working Louisianans and other Gulfers the losers for this divine reminder about the wages of hubris.”

NEW MEDIA TAX confuses journalism with newspapers.

The fact that the internet threatens newspapers’ advertising income reminds me of Robert Heinlein's short story “Lifeline” in which the protagonist, Dr. Hugo Pinero, invents a machine that can accurately predict one’s date of death and thereby threatens the life insurance industry.

Link from Instapundit.

EVERYONE SHOULD have a retail job at least once. And for politicians, there should also be a requirement to clean bathrooms.

HUNDREDS OF FANS BOUND FOR DURBAN for the Germany-Spain World Cup semi final missed the game because their flights were unable to land, after air traffic authorities closed the city’s airport because of congestion on the runway caused by private aircraft.

Remember, these are the same international elites who lecture you about your “carbon footprint.”

MAKE LOUISANA A U.S. PROTECTORATE. The only problem is that to argue favorably, one must assume that the federal government is somehow less corrupt, venal, and incompetent.

That’s a hard pill to swallow.

SLAVERY: Were the Founders hypocrites?

A WAY WITH WORDS: Right now our beloved country is witnessing what Jon Justice, a Tucson talk show host, refers to as "the never-ending parade of stupid."

THE NEW YORK TIMES’ David Brooks writes on risk assessment. Having done a fair number of risk assessments myself, I can agree that much of what Brooks writes is true. However, he does fail the Goofus Test:

“A consultation with Goofus MacDuff. He loves to be called in consultation and really gives it his all and invariably comes up with the wrong answer. The trick is to get his recommendation and then do precisely the opposite.... Every now and then the genius part comes out and Goofus touches every base until he comes to home plate, which he misses by an inch.”

Brooks’ “Goofus moment” is here:

There must be ways to improve the choice architecture — to help people guard against risk creep, false security, groupthink, the good-news bias and all the rest.

The problem is not that the systems are too complex (for a single person) to understand; it’s that the processes for mitigating the risk aren’t followed. By way of analogy, inspecting hard hats and steel-toed shoes is easy; inspecting the steel cables on a multi-ton capacity crane isn’t.

The problem is that the “safety nannies” esconsed within the regulatory authorities are so focused on the mundane, day-to-day risks (the trees) that they can’t (or won’t) see the catastrophic risks that make up the forest.

DO WE NEED A WHITE HOUSE literacy program?

Why? We’re told by the Ivy Leaguers themselves that they can’t be illiterate.

AMERICANS TOO STUPID to comprehend Obama’s genius.

It may well be true for liberals. An average reading level of 9.8 does seem a bit high for them.

More here.

WHO’S MOVING WHERE: Texas versus California. It’s okay as long as the blue-staters don’t bring their attitudes with them ....

The interactive map is here. It appears to be based on 2008 IRS data. Hover on a county and you can see the data behind the map.

DISTRACTED DRIVING a medical condition? Aunt Nanny is on top of it.

Via Instapundit, whose response is priceless.

COAST GUARD shuts down oil-skimming barges due to ...


... lack of life vests onboard.

Thanks to Chris Muir for the appropriate visual response.

CAPTAIN KICKASS AND COMMANDER PASSBUCK knew the Deepwater Horizon story.

WORSHIPING BP? The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, on learning that some (horrors!) Republican called the Gulf oil spill an “act of God”, immediately declared that Republicans must think that “BP is ... God” and called for divine retribution from the Obama administration – which, by analogy, would make it the Democrats’ God.

Quoting Bugs Bunny, the most eloquent social commentor on the state of the liberal mind, “What a maroon.”

MORE: Milbank gets his comeuppance for another moronic editorial.

Via Instapundit.

SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
- Sir Arthur C. Clarke

Any sufficiently advanced bureaucracy is indistinguishable from molasses.
- Anonymous

I prefer magic.

DEMOCRATS’ LAME DUCK STRATEGY? This is worrisome. The voters may well throw the Democrats out of office in November, but they'll still have time to do real damage before they go.

OBAMA THREATENS to follow in FDR's economic missteps. Democrats never learn.

A LESSON IN COMMON SENSE: Thoughts about immigration, ‘racism,’ and political correctness.

THE ROAD TO SERFDOM IS A LONG ONE, but I fear that we are well on our way.

AND NOW THERE ARE THREE: Earlier I posted an Instapundit interview with J. Christian Adams, the former Department of Justice Civil Rights Division lawyer who resigned to protest the dismissal of the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case.

There’s much, much more – including statements by former DOJ lawyers backing Adams.

ANOTHER REASON not to trust the major media.

NEW BLACK PANTHER CHAIRMAN Malik Shabazz praises Osama bin Laden.

EXCELLENT HEALTHCARE “is by definition redistributional." So said Dr. Donald Berwick, Obama’s recess appointment to be the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

You can see why President Obama couldn't allow senators, Democrats as well as Republicans, to ask Dr. Berwick what he meant by such a ditzy remark. "Excellent health care," as everyone else understands it, is health care that makes a patient well, or at least better. A quack understands that much.

Obama wants to control healthcare, not improve it.

MORE on Dr. Berwick. Watch the video clip.

INSTAPUNDIT ASKS: “What would Earth look like if it stopped spinning?”

More likely, Washington, D.C., and its environs would float off into outer space because of all the hot air. That could be good.

MALLARD FILLMORE on cats.


Trust me. When dinnertime approaches, you’ll know they’re there.

HMM. Satellite photos support testimony that Iraqi WMD went to Syria.

This one still bothers me. There was near-unanimity in the world’s intelligence agencies prior to the onset of the war that Iraq had, at least, a WMD research program and yet nothing was ever found.

OBAMACARE WORKS! “In fact, it works so well that it works ex post facto! Either that, or our health care system was delivering excellent outcomes and effective preventive care without requiring a government intervention to do so.”

I suspect the latter.

GONE GALT: from full-time to part-time to on-call (read as effectively retired) in just over a year. The moves were voluntary, but inevitable, driven by a poor economy and lack of corporate interest in keeping a senior staff member fully employed.

CAN BLACK AMERICANS AFFORD OBAMA? Walter Williams asks an unsettling question.

Early indications suggest that the Barack Obama presidency might turn out to be similar to the failed presidency of Jimmy Carter. That's bad news for the nation but especially bad news for black Americans. No white presidential candidate had to live down the disgraced presidency of Carter but I'm all too fearful that a future black presidential candidate will find himself carrying the heavy baggage of a failed black president.

I’m afraid he’s right.

WHEN YOUR ONLY TOOL IS A HAMMER, all your problems start looking like nails. Richard Fernandez writes on the Obama administration. While the article is much broader, citing several points of insanity within the administration, the key graf is this:

They are the Peter Principle writ large: they have been promoted past their level of competency.

What really frightens about this administration is that its only guiding principle is expediency in an unrelenting pursuit for unlimited power. All else is window dressing.

GIVE PEACE A CHANCE WITH GOVERNMENT-FREE SCHOOLS. “Separation of church and state has made America an exemplar of religious pluralism and tolerance. Imagine what separation of school and state could do for education.”

Imagine what separation of marketplace and state could do for the economy.

EDUCATION FOR PROFIT.

[I]n recent years, the University of Phoenix has become the poster child for everything the mainstream academic establishment thinks is wrong about for-profit higher education.... But much of what academic traditionalists see as problems, Phoenix advertises proudly as solutions. The university aims to meet underserved demand for post-secondary education, tailor-made to fit the individual circumstances of harried adults.

Give the Reason article a read. It’s a bit lengthy, but generally fair. My only quibble is in the first page where the for-profit schools are equated to subprime mortgages in the housing market. Given elite schools track record at producing political “leadership” I would be strongly inclined toward the opposite judgement.

The University of Phoenix and it’s competitors do what the mainstream academic establishment (particularly the elites) are increasingly disinclined to do: prepare students for the marketplace – and political correctness is neither measurable in any meaningful sense or marketable.

PRETTY STUPID.

WHITHER CAP-AND-TRADE? Referendum on California’s carbon-limit law qualifies for November ballot. If California is truly a bellwether state, this could be a defining moment in the return to environmental sanity.

AUSTERITY: Queen of England cuts back; Princess Nancy Pelosi doesn’t.

It’s bad enough that pork barrel spending and scores of useless, inefficient government programs have cost the public purse what they have, but for the Speaker of the House of Representatives to set the wasteful example that she has is positively disgraceful.

It would be nice if Princess Pelosi would practice some austerity with my money.

McDONALDS CEO TELLS FOOD POLICE ORGANIZATION to go pound non-fat, sodium-free sand.

About time someone did.

HEALTH CARE INNOVATION: Britain's doctors are being put in charge of patient care - after 60 years of socialized medicine.

Now if they’d take the next step and put patients in charge of their own care, they might have something worth keeping.

GLENN BECK VS. ACADEMIA: the joy of competition.

UNDER OBAMA, NASA HAS ENDED plans to go back to the moon, or go to Mars.... Budgets are tight, you know. Time to hunker down and lower our sights. But we can do Muslim outreach.

DIVERSITY ISN’T ABOUT IMPROVING SCIENCE. It’s all about providing jobs and authority for diversity specialists.

Political correctness run amok.

SHOULDN’T THE DOJ SUE RHODE ISLAND FIRST? Rhode Island already checks immigration status at traffic stops.

Link via Instapundit.

NEWSWEAK NEWSWEEK WANTS TO KNOW: Why doesn’t the Media interrogate Tea Partiers’ beliefs?

Umm, isn’t Newsweek the media?

The simple answer is that they don’t want to know; it would interfere with their carefully constructed politically correct beliefs.

SO WHAT DOES THIS SAY about higher education? I think it says more about political correctness and the economic value of a liberal education than anything else.

ON ELITISM: Of course, Michael Kinsley is a certified member of the nuanced intellectual elite who can read between the lines of what I say - and how I feel - to determine that deep down I’m really a racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, neanderthal bigot.

Obviously I disagree. And I’m not alone. Here’s what some others think of “intellectuals.”

Yuval Levin, in Commentary Magazine, on the liberal reaction to Sarah Palin.

David Thompson on the “academic” elite.

Jonah Goldberg at National Review Online on liberal condescension.

Gerard Alexander in the Washington Post on the liberal’s intellectual condescension and again in a Q&A transcript that followed.

I would suggest that "environmental smug" be within the regulatory purview of the EPA, but I fear that it already is ....

ECONOMIC ILLITERACY FOR LIBERALS: A pair of researchers have concluded that when it comes to grasping basic economic concepts, liberals and Democrats are significantly less "enlightened" than conservatives and libertarians.

But, but ... being “enlightened” is the sole province of liberalism.

SINCE THE CONSTITUTION is more and more in the news these days, here’s a fascinating primer on constitutional law. With the emphasis on the Constitution this election cycle, this could prove interesting. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a lawyer, but I’m slowly making my way through the pdf (download by following the links).

THE ANCHORESS is scathing in her comments about Obama. This post is over a month old, and the “slow but continual drip of bad-to-worse news” continues.

NO REPRESENTATION WITHOUT TAXATION

[I]t is a very bad thing — politically and morally as well as economically — that so many tax payers in the U.S. pay no income tax at all. Some public-spirited lawyer should bring a class-action suit on their behalf, asking why so many people have been denied this essential perquisite of citizenship simply because they are of (relatively) modest means. It is an outrage (this counsellor should argue) that this not-so-hidden half of the population be treated as second-class citizens and be deprived of a stake in the future of our commonweal.

It’s a pleasant thought, but there’s no evidence to support the thesis that tax payers make better voting choices than tax recipients. And if you’re a net tax recipient, is it not a rational choice to go with the party that promises more (What’s the Matter with Kansas?)?

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON on saving Obama from himself.

My question: why?

WHEN WILL THE “EDUBUBBLE” BURST? Soon, thinks Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) who thinks that for many institutions and many majors, the value received is no longer worth the cost.

Post-bubble, perhaps students ... will focus instead on education that fosters economic value. And that is likely to press colleges to focus more on providing useful majors.... My question is whether traditional academic institutions will be able to keep up with the times, or whether -- as Anya Kamenetz suggests in her new book, "DIY U" -- the real pioneering will be in online education ....

Glenn is betting on the latter. I agree.

THE CHIEF FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT for ABC news, Martha Raddatz, delivers herself of the following opinion concerning American fighting forces and drone warfare:

Traditionally, when a nation went to war, it had to invest its blood and treasure, but today’s joystick-wielding drone pilots can launch a missile strike from here at home, then hop in the minivan to meet the wife and kids for dinner. War couldn’t get any more impersonal.

And this is bad? Perhaps Ms. Raddatz should remind herself of this quotation from General George S. Patton: “No poor bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making other bastards die for their country.”

Or buy a burqa.

HMM. There is a ‘reasonably high’ chance BP will file for bankruptcy, something I commented on over a month ago.

It would be a mistake ... to view BP as a political piñata that can be beat around the head repeatedly without consequences. It's not reasonable to expect BP to pay unlimited liabilities and face criminal charges, and the United States needs to understand the size of the gun BP can pull.

And so now officials in Mississippi, Louisana, Florida, and Alabama have asked BP PLC for millions of dollars to pay for mental health outreach and service programs related to the oil spill disaster.

Are learning disabilities required to run for public office?

A SACK OF SACROSANCT: Ann Coulter unloads on liberal “thought”.

[W]hatever liberals disapprove of, they want banned (smoking, guns, practicing Christianity, ROTC, the Pledge of Allegiance) and whatever they approve of, they make mandatory (abortion-on-demand, gay marriage, pornography, condom distribution in public schools, screenings of "An Inconvenient Truth").

Read it all.

OIL MESSED UP: Anger grows along the Gulf Coast at the Obama administration’s pathetic response to the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

[T]his government ... has created a perfect storm of bureaucratic and regulatory gridlock around the Deep-water Horizon disaster. Whatever is done to prevent the oil from coming ashore must be approved by the EPA, OSHA, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Coast Guard, and a host of lesser bureaucracies.

And so nothing gets done. As Norman Augustine put it in Augustine’s Laws, “If a sufficient number of management layers are superimposed on top of each other, it can be assured that disaster is not left to chance (Law XXVI).”