IS OBAMA creating a new entitlement culture in America?

Entitlements in the Obama era are no longer a decent provision for the vulnerable; they are intended for citizens at every stage of life.

He’s certainly trying.

Americans resist taking this lollipop precisely because America is not Europe -- which even Europe, it seems, can no longer afford to be.

But, hopefully, not succeeding. Read the whole thing.

JINDAL ACTS; Obama waffles.

Louisiana's request to build sand barriers to protect marshes threatened by oil was still "under consideration" -- nearly two weeks after Gov. Bobby Jindal made the request.

Obama yesterday finally gave the go-ahead to build the sand barriers -- but only for half of the 86 miles requested.

That's hardly reassuring to the people of Louisiana -- who have already been forced to close three beaches.

“The 1990 Oil Pollution Act ... created new procedures for offshore cleanups, specifically putting the federal government in charge of such operations.” And 40 days later, our President finally “took charge.”

As I pointed out in an earlier post, the first priority should be to plug the d#*! hole; the second priority should be to clean up, and the last priority to apportion blame. Looks like the President got the order backwards.

SARAH PALIN: Passing the buck doesn’t “Plug the D#*! Hole.”

HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE COMPETENT. Peggy Noonan writing in the Wall Street Journal:

The president, in my view, continues to govern in a way that suggests he is chronically detached from the central and immediate concerns of his countrymen. This is a terrible thing to see in a political figure, and a startling thing in one who won so handily and shrewdly in 2008. But he has not, almost from the day he was inaugurated, been in sync with the center. The heart of the country is thinking each day about A, B and C, and he is thinking about X, Y and Z. They're in one reality, he's in another.

Of course. He’s from the “reality-based” community. Read it all.

ADDED. Peggy Noonan has joined the Tea Party: “When you ask a government far away in Washington to handle everything, it will handle nothing well.” Welcome, Peggy.

BRASS OVARIES

Maybe it's time to unleash the "mama grizzlies."

Linked from Instapundit.

THE WHITE HOUSE wants Congress to grant President Obama “expedited recission authority” - a weakened line-item veto. But when former President George W. Bush requested almost exactly the same expedited rescission authority Obama now wants for himself, then-Senator Obama opposed it.

So Bush couldn’t be trusted to exercise that authority responsibly, but Obama can.

Yeah, right. It's all about control.

'JOBS' BILL PICKS UP leftover costs from ObamaCare: “[L]awmakers promised doctors a long-term fix if they would back the Democratic health care reform bill. Initially, this expenditure was included in President Obama's $1 trillion national health program, but it was stripped out in order to keep the bill from adding $59 billion to the deficit.... Now it comprises nearly one fifth of the cost of the jobs package.”

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: regulator or racketeer?

Racketeer sounds more nearly correct.

DOWN IN THE POLLS, Democrats at war with themselves. “What we're seeing here are attempts to scramble out of trouble by members of a party whose big government policies have proved, to their surprise, to be highly unpopular.”

Their surprise, perhaps; not mine.

PUNCHING BACK: Nina Easton on SEIU’s home invasion. Watch both video clips.

I wonder if SEIU is aware that Maryland is a "Castle Doctrine" state. They should think long and hard before trying that stunt again.

PLUG THE DAMN HOLE


Probably not what he had in mind.

THERE WAS A TIME when $5 billion was real money; now it's just pocket change. The nation's public debt, according to the obscure Treasury Department website that tracks it, stood at $12,995,779,490,444.52 on Tuesday, just $5 billion short of thirteen trillion dollars.

UPDATE: Interesting - the debt tracker, supposedly updated daily, is still stuck on Tuesday.

THE GREY LADY: taking the ‘new’ out of news.

Linked from Instapundit.

DEATH OF THE POSTMODERN DREAM: “Bankruptcy, not politics, is the final arbiter ....”

Read it all.

SOME INTERESTING COMMENTS on the meaning of “ObamaCare”. If you’re in favor of health care reform, how can it be pejorative?

Instapundit notices, too.

A NEW LOW: Obama’s Presidential Approval Index, as tracked by Rasmussen Reports, has dropped to a new low of -22 today.


Gulf oil spill, perhaps?

BLACK PANTHER REDUX. A trial attorney with the Department of Justice’s Voting Rights Section has resigned, citing concerns about the government’s refusal to prosecute a case involving voter intimidation by the New Black Panther Party.

I would like to believe this won’t be swept under the rug, but it will.

SEX LIVES of Supreme Court justices. Some people have way too much time on their hands.

HOW LONG does the Most Transparent Administration Ever plan to play dodgeball with the public?

As long as it takes to gain full control of the country.

OIL SPILL INSIGHTS from a retired manager of an offshore underwater service company. A clear and concise description of the technical aspects of deep-water drilling.

And a bit of an odd post, as well, since from the comments and other posts the Oil Drum appears to be something of an "environmental survivalist" web site.