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.”