OBAMA TO CONSERVATIVES

Grab a mop and help me clean up your mess.

Conservatives to Obama: We’d rather grab a broom to sweep you out.

THE WILL TO COWER

Charles Krauthammer on the new liberalism and the end of American ascendancy.

Facing the choice of whether to maintain our dominance or to gradually, deliberately, willingly, and indeed relievedly give it up, we are currently on a course towards the latter. The current liberal ascendancy in the United States--controlling the executive and both houses of Congress, dominating the media and elite culture--has set us on a course for decline. And this is true for both foreign and domestic policies. Indeed, they work synergistically to ensure that outcome.

There’s still time to vote “NO.”

Link via Powerline.

WHITHER COMMON SENSE?

“The upstate New York school superintendent who suspended an Eagle Scout for 20 days for keeping a 2-inch utility knife locked in his car is unwilling to speak to the teen's family or bend in his ruling.”

“The ruling from [Lansingburgh Central School District Superintendent George J.] Goodwin has outraged Whalen's family, which said if district officials are unable to use their own judgment, their roles aren't necessary. 'You could have a trained monkey ....' ”

I think the monkey was just insulted.

BARNEY FRANK, PREDATORY LENDER

This would be funny if it weren't true.

OBSESSED WITH FREEDOM

Unfortunately, this argument makes sense to altogether too many Americans.

ROBOT MOONWALKS ON MAGNETS

A unique robot design for monitoring bridge dynamics in real time.

UNMANNED COMBAT

"At this very moment, at any given moment, three dozen armed, unmanned American airplanes are flying lazy loops over Afghanistan and Iraq. They linger there, all day and all night. When one lands to refuel or rearm, another replaces it. They guard soldiers on patrol, spy on Al Qaeda leaders, and send missiles shrieking down on insurgents massing in the night."

Read the rest.

POTUS, NOT (Wh)OTUS

At least George W. Bush was Commander-in-Chief, not Whiner-in-Chief like the current occupant.

NO NEW TAXES

Nope. None. Well, as long as you don’t include future raises, fees (Ed. - hmm, fees. Fees aren’t taxes? Uh, not according to Obama.) and corporate taxes.

A list of the ”revenue enhancements” included in the just-passed Senate [Baucus] healthcare bill:

-- $201 billion in new taxes on high-premium health care plans.

-- $83 billion in new taxes paid by workers who will receive less employer-sponsored coverage or lose that coverage altogether but will be compensated with higher wages or monetary benefits, which are taxable.

-- $23 billion in penalty fees paid by employers who do not comply with the federal insurance mandate.

-- $4 billion in penalty fees paid by individuals who don't have health insurance.

-- $16 billion in new income and Medicare payroll tax revenue due to changes in Medicare.

And $180 billion in other tax revenues items, including: A new tax on prescription drug makers that would account for $22.2 billion over 10 years; a new tax on medical device manufacturers that would bring in $38.6 billion; and a new annual tax on insurance companies would net the government $60.4 billion.

Are you starting to notice a trend here?

ENOUGH ALREADY

Obama: Let me be clear ....

Terrorists? ‘Now let me be clear: We are indeed at war with al-Qaida and its affiliates.’

Student testing? ‘Let me be clear: Success should be judged by results, and data is a powerful tool to determine results.’

Iran? ‘Let me be clear: Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile activity poses a real threat, not just to the United States, but to Iran’s neighbors and our allies.’

Auto bailouts? ‘Let me be clear: The United States government has no interest in running GM.’

In Moscow: ‘Let me be clear: America wants a strong, peaceful, and prosperous Russia.’

In Ghana: ‘Let me be clear: Africa is not the crude caricature of a continent at perpetual war.’

In Italy, bemoaning poor U.S. leadership on climate change: ‘Let me be clear: Those days are over.’

In Trinidad, announcing new aid: ‘Let me be clear: This is not charity.’

Can’t TOTUS teach him a new phrase?

THE “I’M NOT BUSH” PRIZE

Frank J: [S]hould Obama have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize? "Of course he should have; it’s a useless-moron prize. Obama is the most prominent useless idiot out there right now; I can’t name a better candidate.”

Read it all.

Plus, Frank J. answers the bonus question: can you get post-traumatic stress disorder from reading?

IS OBAMA OBNOXIOUSLY ARTICULATE?

No. Obnoxiously omnipresent.

WASHINGTON IS NUTS

So what’s new?

A BLINDING GLIMPSE OF THE OBVIOUS

Brit Hume on the Senate health care bill:

In breaking with her Republican colleagues to vote for that Senate committee bill, Senator Snowe said she still has reservations about it, especially about its cost. And with good reason. Consider what just happened to the bill in recent days.

Central to it was a tradeoff. Insurance companies would no longer be able to refuse coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. Nor could they charge sick people higher premiums. In return, the bill would require everyone, sick and healthy, to have insurance, thus providing the companies a stream of new premiums from the healthy to cover the care of the sick.

But the committee then voted to weaken the penalties on those who refused to obtain coverage. That made it inevitable that millions would opt out of the system, choosing to pay the modest penalties, and wait until they got sick to get insurance, knowing they could not be turned down because they were sick.

The insurance industry responded with a report Tuesday that said the bill would end up raising health care premiums for everybody. No kidding. The report was immediately denounced by the White House, but that's almost beside the point, which is this:

The major cost of this whole new insurance entitlement is supposed to be paid for by about a half trillion dollars in unspecified Medicare cuts.

Does anyone believe that a Congress that can't put teeth into its insurance requirement, would actually make those kinds of cuts in Medicare, perhaps the most popular program ever passed?”

Where is ObviousMan when you need him?

OH, MY

Geithner aides reaped millions working for banks, hedge funds.

I am shocked. Shocked, I tell you. Absolutely shocked.

THANK GOD

”The headline sent my heart racing. I scanned the article under ‘Pope Canonizes Five New Saints,’ doing a quick search of the five holies. Relief. None was named Obama.”

IS OBAMA WORSE THAN CARTER?

Frank J. describes the Carter years - and reminds: “[H]e’s still eligible to serve another term.”

HATING OBAMA'S AMERICA

Ben Shapiro responds to Eugene Robinson: "I don't root against President Obama because I hate America. I root against President Obama because I hate his vision for America."

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN

More bluster from the White House.

The Wizard of Oz had the good sense to recognize when he was unmasked.

Obama doesn’t. And it shows.

THE IRONY OF IT ALL

Thomas Sowell on the politics of health care: "The crowning irony is that the problems caused by insurance companies refusing to pay for certain medications or treatment are to be solved by giving government bureaucrats that same power, along with the power to prevent patients from using their own money to pay for those same medications or treatments."