DO REPUBLICANS HAVE A PLAN?

[Poll] numbers suggest that the Republicans could well wind up with a majority of House seats next year, and perhaps more than they had at any time between 1994 and 2006. And they could even wind up with a majority of Senate seats, as well, though that would require winning all the currently close races and maybe a couple more.

In that case, they may find themselves asking the question the Robert Redford character asked at the end of the movie 'The Candidate': "What do I do now?"

I hope they have an answer to Barone’s question, but I’m afraid this is it.

GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT: a benefit of trickle-down regulation.

THE LIMITED BENEFIT of comprehensive insurance: “What first dollar coverage ... does is drive costs. Since [it’s] about spending other peoples' money, naturally we want the right to spend as much of it as possible, even if it's not very useful.... I doubt it's coincidental that the health care markets where people pay their own way are the ones where there are more real efforts at cost control, like plastic surgery, fertility, and vision care.”

I think that’s right. When I see my insurance claim form and find that the sum of my copay and the insurance reimbursement is about 63% of the billed amount, I know that health care market is badly distorted -- and likely not in my favor.

THE SCIENTIFIC RATIONALE behind this proposed massive intrusion into American life requires more than a “consensus” of like-minded climate analysts and bureaucrats. It needs to be right.

JUST HOURS AFTER Joseph Stack deliberately drove his plane into the Austin TX IRS office building, the media began speculating about a possible link with the tea party movement.

New York Magazine wrote of his Internet manifesto: "A lot of his rhetoric could have been taken directly from a handwritten sign at a Tea Party rally."

A Washington Post blog read: "His alienation is similar to what we're hearing from the extreme elements of the Tea Party movement."

And Time magazine's online write-up twice included links to a background on the Tea Party movement.

Media commentator Bernie Goldberg writes that: "For the record, there is no evidence whatsoever that Joe Stack belonged to any Tea Party organization or ever attended a Tea Party. None."

I’ve read Stack’s “manifesto” as well, and frankly it reads more like the whining of a self-important, self-entitled, spoiled brat than anything I’ve seen, read, or heard at any of the tea party protests I’ve attended.

NOT LOOKING GOOD FOR OBAMACARE: "Any bill that people have to be bribed into voting for can't any good."

CONGRESSIONAL IDIOT saved by Blackwater.

Even Blackwater makes mistakes.