HOUSE GOP considers privatizing Medicare.

The idea of a Medicare voucher recently received bipartisan support from a debt reduction panel led by former Republican Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico and prominent Democratic economist Alice Rivlin, a former Federal Reserve vice chairman. Obama's own debt commission said the idea should be considered as an option if other strategies fail to get health care costs under control.

Under [Rep. Paul] Ryan's plan, current Medicare recipients would get to stay in the program. People within 10 years of eligibility - ages 55 to 64 - would also go into Medicare. But those now 54 and under would get a fixed payment from the government when they become eligible at age 65. They would be able to use the voucher to buy a Medicare-approved private plan from a menu of coverage levels and options.

Too good to be true, unfortunately. If only I were young enough to take advantage of such a plan.

'REIN' in the regulators. It's about time.

SO NOW I’LL HAVE TO HAVE MY CARDIOLOGIST’S PERMISSION to watch the Super Bowl? Who wants to bet the study was not funded by a government-sponsored health nanny?

SURPRISE, SURPRISE: Maryland can’t live within its budget. So why should I be expected to live within mine?

THE CASE FOR MERCENARIES: ”It may not be politically correct to suggest letting mercenaries deal with nightmares like Somalia and Darfur. But political correctness doesn't save lives. Sending in mercenaries would.”

I WONDERED why Obama’s poll numbers were rising. Now I know.

TIME magazine compares President Obama favorably with former President Ronald Reagan. Here’s another view.

BOEING UNVEILS the Phantom Eye High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) unmanned aircraft.

BUH-BYE: Judge Strikes Down ObamaCare. “Florida judge rules that health care law is unconstitutional and says the entire act must be declared void, a decision that will likely rest with the U.S. Supreme Court.”

EGYPT IS a freedom fight.

A UNIQUELY VICIOUS FORM OF CORRUPTION at the heart of Obamacare: pass terrible legislation, and then collect a toll by exempting your friends--those who pay you lots of money--from that legislation, while your enemies have to live with it.” More here.

A NEW YEAR; new legislative stupidity.

JUST IN TIME FOR SPRING BREAK: the water-powered jetpack.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO HAVE AN AGENDA TO BE INSANE -- but it helps.

"TECHNOLOGY-FORCING" green regulations are job creators. Uh, no. Or as Hugh Hewitt put it, "a dead economy is apparently also a 'green economy'."

FRANCES FOX PIVEN wouldn't even harm a fly. Of course not; flies aren't human.

AN EMAIL from the office of Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli:

Dear Friends,

On January 17th, Ken was speaking at a political rally about a number of the EPA's job killing regulations.

In that speech, Ken said:

"[Tailpipe emissions rules], if fully implemented with all the regulations that go with it, they will keep the temperature from rising nearly five one-hundredths of a degree Fahrenheit. By 2050."

As many of you know - the media has taken issue with Ken's statements about the EPA (including this one!), and claimed that they are false and attempted to discredit Ken's work to educate Virginians about the regulatory abuses being committed by the EPA.

PolitiFact Virginia, a non-partisan fact check source run by the Richmond Times-Dispatch analyzed that statement and found it to be true.

PolitiFact said:

"The EPA said the reductions would be between 0.011 degrees Fahrenheit and 0.027 degrees Fahrenheit and would occur by 2100. The agency's claim is even more modest than Cuccinelli suggested."

What's the big deal with this?

According to PolitiFact: "The agency says these new rules would add about $950 to the price of each new car but that the higher price would be offset by lower fuel costs over three to five years."

Let's recap:

The EPA wants to impose $950 per car in regulatory costs - to affect a change of, at most, .027 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100.

WITH HIS STATE OF THE UNION, Obama lost the Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan: “It is a strange and confounding thing about this White House that the moment you finally think they have their act together ... they take the very next opportunity to prove anew that they do not....”

JIM GERAGHTY: A Short History of the Tea Parties.

OOPS! Errant text message accidentally detonates suicide bomber.

HMM: the three branches of our government no longer include the judiciary.

MSNBC VP: “MSNBC does not have a political agenda.”

Insanity is not an agenda.

EVOLUTION, CREATION, AND POLITICS.

[N]o matter how sound any given scientific theory turns out to be, you’re never going to prove that it wasn’t a flashing, infinitely divine creation. And you’re never going to shake the belief of those who find it a bedrock foundation of their faith. So why should you try? And in a land founded in part on religious freedom, why would you want to try?

Good point.

RUSSIA TO BUILD LUNAR BASE BY 2037.

Russia's Khrunichev Space Center has made a program for moon development in 2025-2037, Russian media reported Wednesday.

According to the plan, a piloted lunar program is scheduled to kick off in 2012 and will cover the creation of an orbital station in a near-moon orbit.

The project will end with the construction of a permanent lunar base, the Interfax news agency reported.

Well, the U.S. sure isn’t going to do it.

GEORGE WILL on government subsidies for electric cars: “A [subsidy] program ‘works’ if it pays people enough to get them to do something they otherwise would consider irrational - to buy something so overpriced it would fail in an unrigged market.”

ANOTHER ENVIRONMENTAL HYPOCRITE.



From the comments: “Nobody ever said you had to be smart to be an environmentalist.... In fact, observation proves the two qualities are mutually exclusive....”

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The Waning of an Old Established Order. It can’t come too soon.

“YOU KNOW WHAT’S COMPLETELY AWESOME? When Obama touts the success of something in his SOTU, only to have to discover later that the reason for the success of that something is because that something did the EXACT OPPOSITE of what Obama would normally support.”

Linked from Instapundit.

AS A RESULT OF OBAMACARE, health insurers in 34 (of Obama’s 57) states have stopped selling child-only insurance policies.

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH "was written at more than a half a grade level lower than 2010's score, which was the 4th lowest in 75+ years."

Of course. He was speaking to his base.

CONSTRUCTION OF WORLD’S LARGEST RADIO TELESCOPE BEGINS IN SOUTHWEST CHINA.

COMEDY GOLD: Chris Matthews says Panama Canal is in ... Egypt!

It’s all Sarah Palin’s fault. She moved it to that narrow strip of land connecting North and South America while Matthews wasn’t looking.

Linked from Instapundit.

SARAH PALIN on Sputnik vs. Spudnut.

We’d be better off if we had a greater appreciation for the free market ingenuity of ordinary American entrepreneurs, both great and small.... Government should be on their side, not in their way.

And

We don’t need a command and control economy that “invests” our money in their half-baked ideas.

The Obamanauts - wrong again.

OOPS. A less mighty wind. Darn that global warming climate change.

UNIONS MAKE UP 40 PERCENT OF EMPLOYEES EXEMPTED FROM OBAMACARE.

WHEN MY AVATAR went to work. A video is here.

More on telepresence.

GOV. CHRISTIE TO PUBLIC EMPLOYEES: “Don't be angry at the first guy that came here and told you the truth.”

HE JUST DOESN’T GET IT: Obama to push gun-control measures.

NASA CHIEF CHARLES BOLDEN: "Fostering education is a key goal at NASA."

And I always thought the NASA [National Aeronautic and Space Admininstration] charter was aeronautical and astronautical (space) research and development. Silly me.

RONALD REAGAN AT 100: A true believer who caught destiny's eye: "I wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn't spring full blown from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation -- from our experience, our wisdom and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries."

OBAMA USES the language of capitalism and the tools of government.

Obama has brilliantly framed the same vision the opposite way: We can't let China or Europe beat us on green energy or biotechnology! This touches our patriotic hearts and plays to our competitive spirit.

But it also undermines our free market and, in the long run, stultifies our economy. Rather than investors and entrepreneurs trying to anticipate and meet consumer demand, we now have GE or made-for-subsidy startups trying to lobby for and receive subsidies.

Lobby for and receive subsidies. That’s ‘new capitalism’ for you.

WANT TO SAVE $500 BILLION THIS YEAR? Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has a way to do it.

It’s a beginning.

RUSSIAN SPACE PROGRAMS are underfunded. But not China: "As for China, it has sufficient resources to undertake space programs on its own."

WILL THE TWO-WAIVER-A-DAY RULE make Obamacare obsolete? Hopefully, yes.

CHRIS MATTHEWS losing battle against obsession. To be more accurate, change "obsession" to "insanity."

WHO KNEW? Thinking requires effort.

FROM THE EMAIL: Congress has announced they intend to make it more difficult to claim unemployment benefits. Starting next Monday, the forms will be printed in English.

MATH DISPUTES are serious.

I'm reminded of the old joke that college faculty disputes are so vicious only because the stakes are so low.

OUCH.

OBAMA WAS RIGHT: “The fact that we are here ... to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure.”

I’m not convinced we can avoid raising the debt ceiling, but if we must, Republicans must demand spending cuts to reduce the deficit to as close to the $400 billion difference between current spending and the current debt ceiling as possible before voting to raise the current $14.3 trillion limit.

RETURN OF the ’Beast of Kandahar.’ The drone is apparently a Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel.

WITH THE SNOW IN DC, I predicted power outages. Unfortunately, it happened to us; we're in a hotel awaiting return of electricity ... and water, and heat ... which hopefully should be sometime Friday. Here's a photo from last night.


The branches you see barely above the deck are normally 12 feet or more above the deck. Lots of power lines came down from fallen branches. At the peak, there were something like 140,000 homes without power.

JOHN STOSSEL’S ‘STATE OF THE UNION’ ADDRESS: brief, to the point - and right.

SARAH PALIN: "The President’s State of the Union address boiled down to this message: 'The era of big government is here as long as I am, so help me pay for it.' He dubbed it a 'Winning The Future' speech, but the title’s acronym seemed more accurate than much of the content."

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH is suing the House cafeteria service providers for $150,000 for allegedly selling him a sandwich wrap with a stray olive pit in it that caused him to chip his tooth.

And these are the clowns we elect to Congress. What’s the matter; can’t he steal enough just by virtue of his office?

SURPRISE, SURPRISE: ObamaMath needs remedial work.

iPHONE AND oBAMA: two expensive new models. The iPhone’s cheaper.

IT’S OUR MONEY: The Most Offensive Line in the State of the Union.

Linked from here.

THE WASHINGTON POST’S RICHARD COHEN confirms his political myopia. It can’t be important if he doesn’t know about it ....

THE WAYBACK MACHINE: on Thanksgiving and capitalism. I had meant to post this last year after visiting the Pilgrim Plantation and the Mayflower II at Plymouth Rock over Thanksgiving vacation.

Every year around this time, schoolchildren are taught about that wonderful day when Pilgrims and Native Americans shared the fruits of the harvest. But the first Thanksgiving in 1623 almost didn't happen.

Long before the failure of modern socialism, the earliest European settlers gave us a dramatic demonstration of the fatal flaws of collectivism. Unfortunately, few Americans today know it.

The Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony organized their farm economy along communal lines. The goal was to share the work and produce equally.

That's why they nearly all starved.

Here are some photos from our visit:


The village arrangement tends to corroborate Reason's assertion that Plymouth Colony was communal. The houses are small, identically built, and closely spaced. The work areas - except for small gardens at each house - are separated from the homes, and the communal areas are larger and more solidly built.


The homes are little more than cooking/sleeping quarters.


The Mayflower II is a replica of the original ship, built in 1955 using original tools and plans.

The original rock fragmented in a years-ago move; this part of the original was set in concrete back in the original location. The date (1620) is barely visible.

DOI/DOE announce solar energy zones.


But where are the population centers that will use the energy?

ENERGY STORIES to watch in 2011. My prediction on each story:

Electric vehicles - no sale, except in very limited circumstances as a second - or third - car.

Smart grid - flop, consumers aren't going to give up control of their thermostats.

Energy trends - 'drill, baby, drill' will gain traction.

Greenhouse gas regulation - dead; either the Supreme Court or Congress will kill it.

MENTAL ILLNESS AND MASS MURDER: the Giffords shooting is just the latest example.

WASHINGTON SNOWS. This after less than an hour of snowfall. It's wet, thick, and heavy; there's more to come.


Note the sagging tree branches with all the snow (and ice) clinging to them. There will be power outages tonight due to falling trees.

MOVE ALONG, ESTABLISHMENT: in with the new.

If we can't get term limits, I'm in favor of mandatory retirement for congressmen after term in which they turn 60.

LET THE BANKRUPTCIES BEGIN: Thomas Sowell on basic economics.

Q: We're getting very close to the point where we could have states default on their debts for the first time. What should happen then?

A: They should go bankrupt. I'm looking forward to it.... There are three possibilities -- bankruptcy or bailouts or ruinous taxations. Of the three, bankruptcy is the one that makes the most sense because it's the one that conveys the most accurate knowledge -- which is that they've run out of money and couldn't cover all the promises they made.

Read it all.

MICHAEL YON reports from Afghanistan.

Linked from Instapundit.

NOW HONDAS ARE EXHIBITING sudden unexpected acceleration. Or, at least my Honda did. The reason - a new pair of boots. The boot sole is just a bit wider than the sole of the shoes I normally wear, and when I moved my foot to brake, the edge of the boot overlapped the accelerator pedal slightly. As I tapped the brake, I also pushed down on the accelerator and guess what? The car surged.

I pressed harder, the car surged more ... until the braking force overcame the engine. When I realized what had happened, I lifted my foot from the brake, and ... the car slowed down.

Elapsed time? About 2 seconds.

BOMBSHELL: men retain less information when delivered by attractive women newscasters.

Well ... that explains why FOX viewers are so dumb compared to say, MSNBC viewers.

MIRACLES HAPPEN.


To say Shadow (in back) and Diamond don't like each other is an understatement, so seeing them both together is something just short of miraculous. But Diamond strongly believes the blanket is hers, so when she found Shadow sleeping on it, she very quietly snuck up and settled in while Shadow was still asleep.

The photo is Shadow's "WTF?" look when he woke up.

FROM COTTON MATHER TO JOURNOLIST: birth of the blues. Follow the links.

GREAT NEWS! Mass slaughter is ‘green.’

ENOUGH! Our Government Needs to Stop Trying to Protect Us.

TECHNOLOGY: a shamwow for oil spils.

AFTER A SHAKY START, “Republicans will officially be moving toward spending cuts. It's just not clear whether they'll all agree on the route.” As long as they start ....

WHO OWNS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY: Big Law, Big Green, Big Labor, and Big Insiders.

A COMPREHENSIVE LIST of tax hikes in ObamaCare.

THE MORTGAGE DEDUCTION heavily favors blue states. The conclusion is controversial - read the comments.

EVEN IN TEXAS, higher ed fatcats get fatter.

FOX NEWS has a poll on their Special Report web page asking if Michele Bachmann's "Tea Party" response to the SOTU will detract from the Republican response. Right now the votes are about 70% "no." Personally, I think the Tea Party response is more important than the Republican response.

NEXT, a 'Federal Pedestrian Management' agency?

Look, Mom, I'm exercisi-AIEEEEEEE!!

Instead of “Let’s Move,” perhaps the First Lady should have called her youth exercise program the “Let’s Move Out of the Way” campaign: “The Governors Highway Safety Association says pedestrian deaths increased in the first half of 2010 and the First Lady’s program to get Americans to be more active could be partly responsible."

Sure, Michelle Obama is cutting down on American kids eating pizza . . . only to watch them become street pizza. She’s getting them to go on expeditions, it is it worth it if they’re getting mowed down by Ford Expeditions? American kids are taking up golf, only to get knocked off the road by VW Golfs. Just as America’s kids can fit in their Wrangler jeans, they’re getting hit by Jeep Wranglers. They’re picking up the pace, only to get hit by an AMC Pacer . . . eh, that joke doesn’t work; if a Pacer hits you, the car ends up getting damaged.

Read it all.

MY WIFE, an elementary school teacher, received in the mail today this ‘Notification of Violation’ from the BUREAU OF CORRECT SPEECH & THINKING, Enforcement Division, Washington, DC.


It was, in fact, a solicitation to subscribe to Human Events magazine. While I doubt we’ll take them up on the offer, I must admit that it is a very clever piece of advertising.

THOSE LAZY, HAZY, CRAZY DAYS OF SUMMER: Andrew Klavan, on the culture.

CAT NAPS

OBAMA’S COMEBACK: PowerLine agrees with my conclusion.

WHY AREN’T more people moving to Massachusetts?

IT’S THE TAXPAYER’S FAULT: In Philadelphia abortion clinic murders, liberals blame stingy American taxpayers.

ARE YOU READY for Senator Olbermann? Well, we’ve already got one loon Senator Franken in the Senate. And let’s face it - a rematch with Linda McMahon (of WWE fame) would be a sportscaster’s dream match.

BARREL FISHING: Ann Althouse is devastating.

Best comment: “Outside of subjects like engineering and the hard sciences, academia has outlived its usefulness in the US. The liberal arts (no coincidence in that nomenclature , is there?) are run by a closed community of ideologues who detest dialogue. I am advising my kids not to go to college unless they wish to study something that is demonstrably useful to the world.”

Linked from Instapundit - more there.

THE RUSH IS ON to make food traceable. And the regulations will soon make food so expensive that there will be no need for traceability -- no one will be able to buy any.

25 YEARS AGO TODAY, Voyager 2 made its close pass of the planet Uranus.


Voyager 2 launched on August 20, 1977. In 1973-74, I was a member of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory design team for Voyager’s communication system. The work I did there eventually led to my doctoral dissertation, Concatenated Convolutional Codes: Applications to Deep Space Telecommunication.

TOWING COMPARISON: "Just remember: If your truck ever had a tough time pulling its gross combined weight up a hill, the Delta IV Heavy generates more than 100,000 times the Ram's power output to lift the near-equivalent weight into space. And it does so with zero emissions."

DUH! ”Environmentalists may not know what they're talking about.”

DR. MANNY ALVAREZ: Will Obama’s State of the Union Make Doctors Happy?

Hmmm . . . I have a headache, let me go to a neurologist to get a CAT scan and get my brain checked out. Then I’ll get the newest, strongest pain reliever. Never mind going to my primary care physician to check my blood pressure and tell me to take a couple of aspirin and relax. But wait – what if he misses something? Oh that’s right, I’ll just sue.

I guess not.

A MODEST PROPOSAL for SOTU seating: alphabetically, like in kindergarten.

PALIN ON REAGAN: he was ‘America’s lifeguard.’

NOTE: it’s not February yet; so Dana Milbank and the Washington Post can still comment.

ALTHOUSE: ”Are we supposed to think of them [academics] as oversmart flakes who are tucked away in institutions where they won't screw up real life for the rest of us?”

Actually, yes.

Linked from this post by Instapundit. Read it all.

E.J. DIONNE gets it wrong again:

With their vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Republicans began their tenure on a negative footing....

Umm, don’t I recall an election back in November? And wasn’t the repeal of ObamaCare an issue in that election?

Obama will emphasize the importance of ... public investment in education, transportation and innovation.

It would be nice if Dionne understood how ‘public investment’ works -- or rather doesn’t work.

OF COURSE: Obama abandons plan to bring up Social Security reform in the State of the Union address. Getting re-elected is ...so... much more important.

THERE’S A COMMITTEE FOR THAT (first item).

COLOR ME UNIMPRESSED: Obama, the Great Deregulator.

HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED: “John Kennedy's inaugural, like Sargent Shriver's institution building, does not fit the partisan template of today's Democratic Party. Kennedy's words come closer to resembling those uttered by another American president, who delivered his first inaugural from the West Front of the Capitol 30 years ago last Thursday, Ronald Reagan. As Shriver's death and Lieberman's retirement suggest, Kennedy's heritage is now national and historic, not contemporary and partisan."

MARYLAND’S assault on alcohol. What happens when the liberals run out of sins to tax?

JUST DESSERTS: Rahm Emanuel booted from Chicago mayoral ballot.

STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH to call for boosting 'competitiveness' while nodding to need for budget cuts. Please explain to me how taking money from the economy, skimming some off the top for administrative and regulatory burden and subsidizing noncompetitive green industries will “boost competitiveness.”

SHOOTING AT A WALMART -- should we blame the rhetoric?

One person appears to have been killed in this incident. It's no laughing matter. So let me ask a serious question about the implications it has for our political discourse.

Should I expect a Paul Krugman column this week inveighing against the heated, anti-Walmart campaign that is being conducted nationwide by labor unions that haven't managed to organize WalMart workers? I hear they have the company in their cross-hairs.

TRADING YOUR JOB ”for a cute widdle lizard.” The endangered species we should all be concerned about is the American worker.

Read it all.

AND NOW THE NEWS.

TIMOTHY CARNEY: “[GE CEO Jeff] Immelt and [Chicago banker Bill] Daley don't represent a new side of Barack Obama -- they represent the unhealthy collusion of Big Business and Big Government that has always been the essence of Obamanomics.”

AN INTERESTING CONUNDRUM. The global warming enthusiasts want to make energy expensive to reduce the effects of global warming. But with no energy to speak of, isn’t global warming a good thing?

HOW COLD IS IT? So cold that I counted only 4 squirrels out at the feeder this morning. The rest are probably shivering in their nests.

FROM THE LEFT: We’re all right with violent speech, provided the Right doesn’t publicize it.

BANKRUPTCY FOR STATES? some thoughts at the Volokh Conspiracy.

OUR COLLEGES are turning into little Club Meds for twenty-somethings, with education as an optional extra, all supplied by the taxpayers, who naively believe that the universities care about teaching.

Related post here.

TO THE LEFT, Sarah Palin is scary not so much in 2012, but because she could be around for a long time to come. Except that we need Palin - or someone like her - soon.

MORE NEWS that doesn’t fit the liberal narrative.

Follow the link.

MORE RING LARDNERISM: It seems Glenn Back, by accurately quoting Frances Fox Piven, has gored the Ruling Class ox again.

OOPS! MSNBC’S ED SCHULTZ attack on [Michele] Bachmann ignores glaringly obvious fact.

Darn those pesky little facts ....

ROBERT A. HEINLEIN leaves Illinois.

DRILL, BABY, DRILL: A solution at Obama’s fingertips.

THE DECLINE of the Obama Justice Department.

Via Instapundit, who writes “[T]hings must be even worse than I thought.”

GOP OFFERS HINTS on ObamaCare alternatives.

HOW TO APPEAL TO HISPANICS: don’t (pander, that is).

HIGH SPEED RAIL, high speed waste.

IT’S MORE THAN ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION: Mexico is losing its war with drug cartels. Military force is going to be required - on both sides of the border.

HOW NOT TO CREATE JOBS: spend more money.

A PHILIPPINE COAST GUARD SHIP finds five Americans who were reported missing after their sailboat experienced engine trouble.

Yes, I know most large sailboats have auxiliary engines, but still ....

THE REAL political parties. You can guess which is which.

Linked from Instapundit.

STATE OF THE UNION: “ ‘Spending our way out of debt’ will remain the long-term strategy — at least until it all comes crashing down.”

Snide - but correct - comment here.

I’D LIKE TO BELIEVE it's desperation, but if there’s any doubt, bet on greed.

AUTONOMOUS QUADCOPTERS work together to build structures. The video features a team of autonomous quad-rotor helicopters "working from a preset algorithm ... constructing a cubic tower structure using specially designed parts that snap together via magnets when placed in the proper arrangement."



The original video is here.

WASHINGTON POST organizes news boycott of Sarah Palin; starts Twitter campaign against GOP star. This after Post columnist Dana Milbank declares February “a Palin-free month.”

This will last only until Palin’s next Facebook post. Will she cooperate?

CORPORATE WELFARE: In Maryland, legislative "mandates for renewable energy force utilities to drop cheaper sources of power, which keep your monthly bills affordable, for higher cost renewables."

You pay, Google wins.

SARAH PALIN’S ALASKA: the real reality show.

PAUL GREENBERG: On Rule by Experts.

Die quickly, before Dr. Berwick - and ObamaCare - can get its hands on you.

WHERE ARE THE GROWNUPS? ’Gun’ hand gesture gets Oklahoma 1st-grader suspended.

It’s clear where the grownup aren’t - in charge of our schools.

My favorite comments:

Did the kid shoot hoops too?

And

“Shoot” hoops?! See, that’s the kind of vitriolic, incendiary rhetoric that we’re trying to stamp out of our public discourse. Let’s all try for a more civil society. Aim higher!

And

Was his hand loaded?

Are there even any grownups left in education?

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING and government service are a bad mix. No kidding. And adding binding arbitration to the mix merely makes a bad situation worse.

FIASCO FOLLOWS GOVERNMENT DIKTAT: Ed Driscoll writes on government intervention.

BACK DOOR ABORTION: Rahm Emanuel on the Stupak amendment that allowed Obamacare to pass.

Unbridled hypocrisy. And (former) Rep. Stupak fell for it.

WHEN IT COMES TO COFFEE, Starbucks and the Washington Examiner agree: Forget the War on Obesity.

OBAMA SPENDS nearly half his presidency outside Washington. I'd think the President should be in Washington most of the time, but with Obama maybe it would be better to keep him away ....

HEH.

GREATEST MOMENTS IN LIBERAL HISTORY.

Greatest Moments in Liberal History Part 1 from RightChange on Vimeo.

Politizoid is here.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: claims to know when he’s ‘making an ass’ of himself.

It’s whenever he opens his mouth.

[Update] More here.

HOW GOVERNMENT CAN FIX THE HOUSING MARKET: get out.

QUELLE HORREUR! Parents of Gabrielle Giffords’ University of Arizona neurosurgeon are Tea Partiers.

UNITED LAUNCH ALLIANCE’S 235-foot-tall Delta IV Heavy Launch Vehicle lifted off at 1:10 pm Friday from Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA with a classified defense satellite on board.

A video of the launch is here; skip forward to about the 4 minute mark to avoid the pre-launch blather.

OBAMACARE: an update on Virginia’s lawsuit from Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.

In the district court's consideration of the health care case, there were seven different questions that the court had to address at one stage or another of the case.

Six of those seven questions were what I would call "binary," i.e., there was a yes or no answer. The seventh question was the nature of the remedy in the case.

Today, I'm going to focus on the remedy question, but first I'll address the first six questions - the binary questions.

The Binary Questions

The first four binary questions had to be addressed in the first round of the case - the motion to dismiss stage.

To prevail in defeating the federal government's motion to dismiss Virginia's case, Virginia had to prevail on all four questions. The reason for this is that the feds only needed one basis to dismiss our case, while Virginia needed to demonstrate that there were no reasons to dismiss the case.

The first three arguments/questions from the federal government were: 1) Virginia is not injured by the individual mandate; 2) If Virginia is injured, it isn't injured yet (i.e., the case isn't "ripe"), because the mandate does not go into effect until 2014; and 3) Regardless of 1 and 2, the case should be dismissed under the Anti-Injunction Act because until the penalty is due for failure to buy the government-approved health insurance, the case can't go forward.

These are all yes or no issues. The court found that Virginia is injured, the case is ripe, and the Anti-Injunction Act does not apply to this case.

The last binary question at the Motion to Dismiss was whether Virginia had even stated a claim-- that is, was Virginia's constitutional challenge even plausible. This was the first time the court was asked to address the merits of our constitutional arguments. The court found them plausible, meaning we advanced to the summary judgment stage, where the court would decide whether those arguments were right.

That took care of the motion to dismiss, now on to the motion for summary judgment (MSJ)...

In the MSJ, there were three questions, two constitutional questions that were binary questions, plus the remedy.

The two constitutional questions were whether the individual mandate (btw, don't you love how the Attorney General of the United States and Secretary Sebilius now call the individual mandate the 'personal responsibility provision'? Fodder for a later Compass...) was permissible under Congress' commerce clause power, and whether the monetary penalty for not buying the government-mandated health insurance was a 'tax' for purposes of bringing it under Congress' power under the taxing and spending for the general welfare clause of the constitution.

Obviously, the court found that Congress does not have the power under either the commerce clause or the general welfare clause to order the individual mandate and/or the penalty. Again, either Congress has this power or it doesn't, thus my term 'binary questions.'

I would note that Virginia had to win all six of these binary questions to win the case and we did. So far, we are the only case in the country not to lose a substantive argument in either our motion to dismiss or our summary judgment. This will be a serious challenge to maintain through the fourth circuit court of appeals, but we'll see how we do!

The Remedy - Severability?

Regarding remedy, the most important part of the Court's decision is its declaration that the individual mandate is unconstitutional. The Court held that the individual mandate and penalty are "neither within the letter nor spirit of the Constitution."

This was by far the most important finding by the Court. It establishes that Congress exceeded its powers in seeking to force citizens to buy a private product or service from a private company. In short, Congress does not have the power to force citizens into commerce so that it can regulate them.

In addition to asking the Court to declare the individual mandate and penalty unconstitutional, we also asked the Court to enjoin the government from further implementation of the health care law and to strike the entire law as unconstitutional. The Court addressed both requests.

Regarding the injunction, the Court did not grant the injunction, but that should not be viewed as a victory for the federal government. The Court did not grant the injunction because it felt that the declaration of unconstitutionality was sufficient, writing that "the award of declaratory judgment is sufficient to stay the hand of the [federal government] pending appellate review." This means that the Court does not believe that the federal government will seek to impose the penalty on Virginians unless an appellate court reverses the declaratory judgment at some point in the future.

Regarding finding the entire law unconstitutional, the Court engaged in what is known as a severance analysis. In doing so, it tried to determine if the unconstitutional individual mandate and penalty could properly be "severed" from the rest of the act.

Ultimately, because the Court found that there were portions of the law that could operate without the individual mandate and penalty, it did not find the entire law unconstitutional. When the case is heard by a higher court, we will again ask that court to review the severance decision and find that the entire law must be stricken.

Of course, the issue of severance will not be the only issue that an appellate court will review. The federal government has indicated it will appeal the Court's finding that the individual mandate and penalty are unconstitutional. We will continue to make the argument that, based on the letter and spirit of the Constitution, Congress simply does not have the power to do what it has tried to do.

From the very beginning of this fight, I have said that the matter can only be resolved in the Supreme Court of the United States. We have taken but one step towards that end, and the fight is far from over. However, while the ultimate fight will not be resolved for some time, we certainly take heart in the fact that we have won the first round.

It isn't over yet, and now 28 (almost half of Obama's 57) states have joined in suing over Obamacare. I just wish I felt more confident.

MINORITY LEADER NANCY PELOSI: “Even if everyone in America had great health care, we'd still have passed Obamacare.”


Um, I think the former Speaker just got “refudiated” (245-189).

IN OUR BACK YARD, a rare moment of bipartisanship. Democrats (blue jays), Republicans (cardinals), and Independents (sparrows) all feasting at the public trough (bird feeder). Democrats outnumbered Republicans 2 to 1.

Unfortunately the bipartisanship didn’t last long enough for a photo.

JEFF JACOBY: “Americans talk too much and think too little, especially when it comes to the sins and sorrows of others. There is 'a time to keep silence and a time to speak,' Ecclesiastes teaches. When a tragedy like the one in Tucson strikes, most of us would do well to keep silence, and to leave the speaking for those with the humanity and wisdom to say something meaningful.”

SUPPORT PJTV. PowerLine adds its voice in support of Pajamas Media. Click on the video (at about 8:00 min) to see a devastating example of perfectly targeted return fire.

A POINT TO REMEMBER. With respect to the “deal” that Republicans cut last December with the Obama administration regarding the extension of the so-called Bush tax cuts, Hugh Hewitt wrote:

What the D.C. GOP failed to grasp and what is now the source of anger among its supporters ... is that for the past two years the D.C. GOP has been complaining bitterly and appropriately about being excluded from the process of governing. No sooner does the D.C. GOP get welcomed into the governing councils of the Beltway but they in turn exclude the people who sent them there, and not just the scores of newly elected representatives and senators who were not consulted on this "deal," but the millions of people who worked and contributed to the victory of November 2.

If the GOP intends to wield their new power the way that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid did over the past two years, they will be shocked at how quickly the public deserts them. Springing this deal on their new colleagues and their supporters without any opportunity to comment on it is the GOP version of refusing to attend townhall meetings.

We must remind the Republican establishment early, often, and vigorously that they work for us and we can - and will - discard them if they don’t.

ON BEHALF OF MILITARY CONTRACTORS, thank you, Chris Muir. (I was in Iraq for a short time in 2006, and again in 2008.)

CIVILITY FROM THEE; but not from me. Victor Davis Hanson on the political Left’s civility scam:

[T]he calls for a general toning down of rhetoric translate far more into a toning down of both an effective media opposition and a rising political obstruction to the Obama agenda. “Can’t we all get along?” in essence means, “Can’t we all just keep quiet and keep going on with the big-government, agreed-on politics of the last fifty years?”

Will that work? No.

The White House introduced the ‘punch back twice as hard’ philosophy. Now it’s time to show the Left that well-aimed return fire at the appropriate targets is effective.

Republicans should not hold back. Reload and return fire. With scorn. Mockery. Ridicule. Challenge. Derision, disdain, rejection, renunciation, repudiation, and finally, refudiation (a wonderful new word introduced by Sarah Palin).

DANA MILBANK: I’m declaring February a Palin-free month.

He won’t last a week.

He’s right on one point though: “my obsession ... cheapens and demeans me.” Every time Milbank opens his mouth or writes a word - especially regarding Mrs. Palin - he polishes his credentials as a world-class loon to an ever-declining audience.

ANOTHER REASON to keep government - at all levels - small: cat is summoned for jury duty in Boston; court rejects owners' appeal to disqualify him.

The cat is smarter than the average Boston juror?

SAYONARA, KEITH: MSNBC says goodbye. I had the good fortune - or misfortune - to catch Olbermann's closing monologue when the cable channel I was really watching lost its signal momentarily.

“I KNOW OBAMA HAS A LIBERAL AGENDA, but more recently he seems to have no agenda, as he flits about, trying this and trying that, in the manner of a forty-something academic who found out his faculty utopianism does not quite work outside the quad.”

For Obama, a lesson unlearned. Read it all.

ROGER KIMBALL: Another stupid idea from the donkey (jackass?) side of the aisle.

Rep. Robert Brady (D-PA) “plans to introduce legislation that would make it a federal crime to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting violence against a federal official or member of Congress.”

But it wouldn’t be a crime “to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening” against a non-office-holding political opponent ... like, er, Sarah Palin?

CONFIDENCE: ”[B]ased on the past two years I’d vote for a syphilitic camel if he ran against Obama.”

FROM THE COMMENTS: “It must be unconstitutional to have a Congressional representative this stupid.”

And she’s a Yale University and University of Virginia Law School graduate. Sorry, Texas. You deserve better.

HEH. “[T]he next time your elected local or state official holds a press conference about global warming, the Middle East, or the national political climate, expect to experience poor county law enforcement, bad municipal services, or regional insolvency.

GOOD NEWS: Study confirms that college is pretty much a total waste of time.

Except possibly the ‘for profits’ where certification - not graduation - is the goal.

CLUNKER MATH (from my email)

A clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 800 gallons of gas a year. A vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year at 25 mpg uses 480 gallons of gas a year. So, the average “Cash for Clunkers” transaction reduced gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year.

The government claims 700,000 clunkers have been replaced so that’s 224 million gallons saved per year. That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil. Five million barrels is about 5 hours worth of US consumption but more importantly, 5 million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel cost about $350 million dollars.

So the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million. Or in other words, it spent $8.57 for every $1.00 saved.

I’m pretty sure they will do a better job with our health care, though.

THE OBAMA APPROVAL INDEX: two years down; two to go.


It was inevitable, I think, that the President’s approval would “bottom out” at some point, but the timing is curious, beginning sometime before the 2010 elections, and increasing more sharply following the Republican landslide vote. Note that those ‘strongly approving’ have remained relatively constant, while the ‘strong disapprovals’ have begun to trade places with the ‘mixed reaction’ middle.


Could this reflect a more charitable view of the President now that his policies can be blocked by Congress?

GEORGE WILL on government hubris and the inevitable fall.

The hubris that is the occupational hazard and defining trait of the political class continues to cause government to overpromise and underperform. This class blithely considers itself exempt from the tyranny of the bell-shaped curve - the fact that in most occupations a few people are excellent, a few are awful, and most are average.

Our political class are all from Lake Woebegon.

NASA REVEALS three visions for a future airliner.

The design concepts reveal both two-engine and three-engine versions of the Boeing hybrid wing-body, a Northrop Grumman concept modelled closely on the Scaled Composites White Knight and a Lockheed Martin design featuring a box wing and twin, tail-mounted engines.

Here’s the Lockheed Martin design.


The Northrop Grumman and Boeing designs can be found at the link above.

OH, JEEZ: Letting sleeping dogs lie in your bed can kill you.

Why can’t these nanny-state do-gooders do something useful -- like jump off the Empire State Building?

CARD CHECK: “Such blatant help for union political allies certainly makes the [Obama] administration's intentions clear, and tells us who really owns this White House.”

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: sending our tax dollars to NGOs to lobby for more tax dollars.

TICK, TICK, TICK: The cost of Obamacare is a time bomb.

The time-bomb nature of Obamacare was presaged by Mitt Romney's health care bill in Massachusetts, which also expanded health insurance coverage by mandating that all individuals buy insurance, prohibiting insurers from dropping customers, and subsidizing the insurance of those with difficulty affording it.

In Massachusetts, these subsidies, mandates and regulations quickly caused health insurance and health care costs to spike, compelling the governor and state legislature to impose cost controls on insurers and providers while raising taxes on the state's residents and businesses.

Repeal passed the House, 245-189, with three Democrats voting for repeal. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor “triple dog dares” Senate Majority leader Harry Reid to bring it to a vote in the Senate.

Reid won't. Coward.

MORE FROM MY EMAIL ...



[Update] More here.

BEST SNOW BLOWER EVER: I could sure use one of these; 1-3 inches expected tomorrow.

CNN'S SOLUTION TO THE GUN DEATH TOLL: ban high-capacity howitzer magazines.

Linked from Instapundit.

OOPS! GLOBAL WARMING CLIMATE CHANGE might not be so bad after all.

IT’S NO LONGER ENOUGH TO BE THIN. Now we need to be sustainably, organically, progressively thin.

JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE PARANOID doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.

Linked from Instapundit.

GO FOR BROKE: cut off all federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

A LANDMARK OF SORTS: Half the states now suing the federal government over Obamacare.

When half the states sue the federal government, what is happening to “government of the people, by the people, for the people?” Is a new Civil War beginning to break out between the ‘political class’ and the ‘citizen class?’

TEXAS, CALIFORNIA, and the tale of the coyote. Yes, the Texas story is true. And while the California part is fanciful, having lived there a number of years, I can confidently assert that it contains a nugget of truth.

CAN’T SAY we weren’t warned.

Linked from Don Surber.

KEITH ELLISON: Palin’s finished politically because she’s “unrepentant.” The more likely possibility is that Keith Ellison’s finished politically because he’s stupid.

THE WHITE HOUSE did a terrible job handling ObamaCare, says … Jim Webb.

Yes, and I emailed both Senators Webb and Warner just yesterday suggesting - no, emphasizing - that I would not vote for either of them again if they don’t vote to repeal ObamaCare.

CREDENTIALISM and getting the best jobs. It’s not just law and business; the FFRDC I used to work for does the same thing. It has been on a slow decline for years, mostly a result of the ‘elite’ academic’s complete lack of common sense.

MORE CONGRESSIONAL INSANITY: Rep. Peter King, a Republican from New York, will introduce legislation that will make it a federal crime to carry a firearm within 1,000 feet of federal officeholders and judges in response to the shooting in Tucson that killed Judge John Roll and gravely injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Does this mean that by carrying a weapon I can be assured that no politician can legally approach within a thousand feet of me?

LIBERALS TAKE A PAGE from the Westboro Baptist songbook.

SARAH PALIN’S MAP. From the New York Daily News: Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' blood is on Sarah Palin's hands after putting cross hair over district.

Here's the deal. Months ago during the election, Sarah Palin put Giffords on her "target list" of Democrats in vulnerable districts who voted for ObamaCare. The list included a map with what the media and those on the left are calling telescopic scope images placed over vulnerable districts. Somehow, the liberals have construed that to mean that Sarah Palin literally wanted to "target" Giffords to be shot.

Here’s the map from Palin’s website:


And here’s the surveyor's mark from the U.S. Geological Survey’s list of topographic map symbols.


Oops!

Linked from Neal Boortz.

HILLARY CLINTON: shooting a form of "extremism".

Question: what about shooting back?

KANJORSKI: “Only fruitcakes' would take my call to shoot a governor literally.”

Rhetorical question: can we now infer that most of the left-leaning media and punditocracy are fruitcakes?

PALIN SYMPATHY? “I don’t particularly care for Palin, but every time they do this to her, I find myself hoping she becomes President, out of pure spite.”

And on Gillespie’s assertion that Palin “ain’t presidential,” I have to say that while I’m still not sure I’d vote for her, she impresses me as far more “presidential” than the current occupant of the White House.

THE “PAPER OF RECORD” HAS REVEALED, for any doubters, that the truth is the first casualty of its op-ed page. I would only add that “paper of record” should also include the Washington Post. See here, here, here, and here.

And there’s this:


From the cartoon gallery at the Washington Post.

MAGICAL THINKING is "reality-based." On the Left's reaction to the Tucson shootings: "The grand lie is the left/media professing to care remotely about the 'tone of political discourse' while spending four days doing everything it could to make it worse. Instant politicization of a massacre, smear after smear about who’s to blame, total amnesia about their own chill attitude towards the vicious demonization of Bush and his circle for years, and every bit of it surreally accompanied by hand-wringing about improving 'the dialogue'.”

POSTER-CHILD FOR THE CREDENTIALED GENTRY: Dumb and lazy. And mean.

“GIVEN THAT JARED LOUGHNER registered as an independent, isn’t it time to condemn the vitriol of the middle?”

AN EXCELLENT IDEA: why not a tax on liberalism? Sin taxes are legal ....

IF, AS THE NEW YORK TIMES ASSERTS with respect to the Tucson shootings, “it is legitimate to hold Republicans and particularly their most virulent supporters in the media responsible for the gale of anger that has produced the vast majority of these threats,” why isn’t it legitimate to hold the Democrats responsible for the acts of their most virulent supporters?

Linked from Right Turn.

ATLANTA: unprepared for global warming?

POLITICAL VULTURES: The sick art of turning insanity into politics.

THE MEDIA misses a good opportunity to keep quiet. “What this moment [the Tucson shootings] does teach is that the media scolds have a clear agenda ... and will consistently miss opportunities to wisely keep quiet.

WE CAN BE FREE of the crooks and buffoons in goverment. “And if that isn’t enticing enough, imagine how being unable to take Social Security money to cover budget gaps would restrain Congressional spending.”

Watch the video.

OH, MY: “[W]e've had some incidents where TSA authorities think that congresspeople should be treated like everybody else." - Rep. James Clyburn, D-SC.

Easily the most positive news I've heard about the TSA ....

ANOTHER EPISODE OF “THE FIREWALL” WITH BILL WHITTLE

SO MUCH FOR THE FIRST AND SECOND AMENDMENTS: Democrats move to limit guns, threatening language in shooting's wake.

WHITHER OBAMACARE FUNDING? “Democrat Earl Pomeroy's vote for the health care bill may have cost him his seat in Congress, but it also earned him a job on K Street.... The congressman is merely the latest lucky winner in the Great Health Care Cash-out, a tawdry spectacle that further sullies Washington's lobbying culture, and also demolishes President Obama's insistent claims that his health care push was a battle against the special interests.”

MEMORIAL SERVICES for those slain in Tucson begin tonight and continue tomorrow - and of course politicians will attend en masse. On the radio, I heard the question asked: “ What do you want to hear them say?”

My answer - nothing. I want to hear the sound of silence.

FROM THE EMAIL: Those who don’t learn history ....

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be
refilled,public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of
officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the
assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome
become bankrupt. People must again learn to work,
instead of living on public assistance."

- Cicero (55 BC)

... are compelled to relive it.

HEH. He’s a Democratic political operative. Just not a very good one.

AND THEY CLAIM Republicans are violent ....

THE WIDENING FIGHT against public-sector unions. About time.

GETTING STRICT: Now if we would just apply it to Congress ....

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES: Why Americans like big cars. "When you have kids, you suddenly realize that [a small car] just isn't going to cut it. Car seats are big, and often mandated by law until children are quite old. Babies especially require lots of baggage and toys. And larger children require space. I shudder at the thought of a future in which I have to cram three non-infant children into the back of a Ford Focus."

Reality is tough.

MEMORIES: a climate of hate.

MY REALITY IS NOT YOUR REALITY: "Nancy Pelosi is busy trying to emphasize to the country that no, she really has been detached from reality these last four years. Here she mounts a vigorous defense of Obamacare, actually going so far as to say that they would have had to pass the bill to save money -- even if everyone in the country was perfectly happy with their health insurance. Why? Because it saves so much money!"

It must be tough having her ego crammed into the Minority Leader's office.

THE STRONGEST CLASS ENVY IN AMERICA "may be the resentment of those who were one club above you at Yale."

Read it all.

OBAMACARE MESS it the legacy of the Democrats' moment of power.

Moral: divided government is good government.

THE DEMOCRATS CONUNDRUM: If you want less income inequality, does that means fewer illegal immigrants?

A MESSAGE FROM THE NEW HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER

We began our new majority with a simple, but highly important act. For the first time in recent history, the House gathered together and actually read the Constitution. It served as an important reminder that this institution is the People's House.

We have also adopted new rules to establish a Constitution-focused House of Representatives. From this moment forward, every bill must be accompanied by a statement of Constitutional authority that permits it.

Our new Majority stands for a different and better way. We believe in a government that controls less and spends less. This Congress will be a "cut-and-grow" Congress. We are going to cut spending and job-killing government regulations, and grow the economy and private sector jobs. Click here to watch the Weekly Republican Address, in which I discuss where Congress needs to go.

For too long, families and small businesses across America tightened their belts while the federal government continued its spending spree. Therefore, our first piece of legislation was to cut our own Congressional budgets - saving the taxpayers millions of dollars in the first year alone.

It passed the House overwhelmingly and our first spending cut is now in effect.

This is only the beginning.

Regards,

Rep. Eric Cantor
House Majority Leader

DEMOCRATIC PARTY ID drops to lowest level in 22 years. I can't imagine why ....

ANIMAL FARM: The Harsh Rhetoric of Anti-Immigration Republicans. Navarette is playing his victim card; the subject is tracking, not animals.

Nevertheless, he does have a small point: all immigrants have traditionally been viewed with some suspicion until they have successfully assimilated.

TAX NON-PROFITS? You betcha!

IRONY ALERT: the solution to government bureaucracy is ... more bureaucracy.

OBAMACARE: barely implemented and already over budget and under-serving.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON writes in defense of the liberal arts. He's right, of course, but the liberal arts he cherishes no longer exists. As one commenter notes: " ... liberal arts [have turned] into a melodrama of race, class and gender oppression. Liberal arts are a sweet fruit that can transform individuals and societies into reasoning and moral beings, but that fruit is completely rotten now ... and thus poisonous. It should be thrown out until it can no longer be used as an excuse to indoctrinate ...."

It would be a pity to toss the baby with the bathwater, but the bathwater is so foul ....

FROM THE EMAIL: the world's largest army -- America's hunters.

The state of Wisconsin has gone an entire deer hunting season without someone getting killed. That's great. There were over 600,000 hunters. Over the last two months, the eighth largest army in the world - more men under arms than Iran; more than France and Germany combined - deployed to the woods of a single American state to help keep the deer menace at bay.

But that pales in comparison to the 750,000 who are in the woods of Pennsylvania this week. Michigan's 700,000 hunters have now returned home. Toss in a quarter million hunters in West Virginia, and it is literally the case that the hunters of those four states alone would comprise the largest army in the world.

The point? America will forever be safe from foreign invasion with that kind of home-grown firepower.

Hunting -- it's not just a way to fill the freezer. It's a matter of national security.

Sarah Palin would be proud.