JIMMY WHO? Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for decades of work seeking peaceful solutions and promoting social and economic justice. Carter won praise for his tireless work as an ex-president in trying to bring peace to places from Haiti to North Korea.

President Obama appointed former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton to oversee Haiti relief funding; when he was President, George W. Bush appointed former presidents Bill Clinton and (his father) George H. W. Bush to oversee Indonesian tsunami relief.

Where is (was) former president Jimmy Carter?

Don Surber has more on the missing ex-president.

I BLAME THE MEDIA for trying to scare the daylights out of everyone.

Port-au-Prince, Haiti: Earthquake victims, writhing in pain and grasping at life, watched doctors and nurses walk away from a field hospital Friday night after a Belgian medical team evacuated the area, saying it was concerned about security.

Via Instapundit.

NEW WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR Dan Pfeiffer on Fox News: "I have the same view of Fox that [predecessor] Anita [Dunn] had, which is that Fox is not a traditional news organization," he said. "They have a point of view. That point of view pervades the entire network both the opinion shows, like Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly, but also through the newscasts during the day."

Greta van Susteren is ready for battle.

WALL STREET OR OBAMA STREET?


Nate Beeler in the Washington Examiner.

CITIGROUP suffers $7.6 billion loss. Much of the bank's big loss was tied to the repayment of its bailout loan.

Question: how much of that loss was taken by Citigroup specifically to get out from under heavy-handed government regulation?

[F]EELING THEY ARE SMARTER THAN YOU, this Democratic president and his compliant Democratic Congress don't want to control spending. They want to control you. And they are spending (and borrowing) your money to do it.

Read it all.

THIS QUESTION came from a Washington Post poll conducted from Jan 12-15, 2010.

Generally speaking, would you say you favor (smaller government with fewer services), or (larger government with more services)?

Nearly 60% favored smaller government.

Given the current political environment, that isn't too surprising. What is surprising is that it wasn't mentioned in the Washington Post article discussing the poll.

More surprising, looking at the details, was that the question has been asked in many polls before, and the results are consistent: 50% or more of the people polled since 1992 has opted for a smaller government with fewer services.


The rapid divergence post-Obama (white line) is particularly striking. The obvious conclusion is that it is a strong reaction to Democrats' overreach following the 2008 presidential election.

The Wall Street Journal has more on overreach.

BERKELEY HIGH SCHOOL might drop its science labs from its curriculum. The reason? Too many white kids were taking these classes.

[T]he lamentable “gap” spoken of by Berkeley commandants isn’t in enrollment, but in grades. The white kids are doing better in excess of what is acceptable ... such that the heart-warming state of equality is absent.

If equality of outcome with respect to grades is [Berkeley's] goal, then eliminating the lab courses does ensure that all students will be equally poor in science.

What's next ... the "inequality factories" of math and science?

IN RESPONSE TO French accusations that the US is “occupying Haiti”, Neal Boortz responds:

The United States - the people and our military - have stepped up in a big way to organize relief efforts in Haiti. Sure ... we sent the military. Who would you rather we send? ACORN? The United Auto Workers? The Service Employees International Union?

Why not? Fight thuggery with thugs.

Fox News is reporting a 53-47 Brown lead over Coakley in the Massachusetts at 9 pm with 52% of the precincts reporting.

Looks like a Brown victory.

[Update] Fox News is reporting that the Associated Press is calling the election for Scott Brown at 9:20 pm with 69% of precincts reporting. The percentages are 53% for Brown, 46% for Coakley. Coakley has conceded.

IS THE STOCK MARKET responding to the Massachusetts senate election?


Dow Jones Industrial Average as of 3:22 pm.

[Update] The Mudville Gazette agrees.

EXACTLY BACKWARDS

"Regardless of the outcome [of the Massachusetts senatorial election] ... this should be a gigantic wake-up call to the Democratic Party - that we're not connecting with the needs, the aspirations and the desires of real people right now," said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

The Democrats are not trying “to connect ... with real people”; they’re busy demanding that real people submit to their authority.

LIBERAL ARROGANCE. Michael Barone slaps a Slate writer around for his attack on Scott Brown:

[L]isten up. Scott Brown made his money.... Scott Brown is a shining example of the American way: he started off at some point near the bottom of the ladder and worked his way up. He wants others to have the same chance. What’s wrong with that?

Conclusion: “This is not a byline I feel I need to check out again.”

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE are losing confidence in Team Obama because quite simply they are tiring of being lied to, and treated like children in need of Ivy-League Platonic guardians.

Read it all.

CRUISE SHIPS are still docking at Haiti despite the earthquake. According to some, this is indefensible:

"I just can't see myself sunning on the beach, playing in the water, eating a barbecue, and enjoying a cocktail while [in Port-au-Prince] there are tens of thousands of dead people being piled up on the streets, with the survivors stunned and looking for food and water," one passenger wrote on the Cruise Critic internet forum.

"It was hard enough to sit and eat a picnic lunch at Labadee before the quake, knowing how many Haitians were starving," said another. "I can't imagine having to choke down a burger there now."

Instapundit readers Leo Jiang and Rob Crawford interpret: Not all money is the same. Rich people on cruise ships give Haiti money voluntarily through evil capitalism. What they really need is handout money confiscated by force from the middle class and given through government compassion.

YOU KNOW YOU’RE WINNING when Keith Olbermann calls you a “homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, teabagging supporter of violence against woman.”

HEADLINE from the Boston Globe web site at 1:51 pm today:

Senate Poll: Coakley up 15 points.

The poll was done on January 10th - over a week ago.

WHY I AM not a Democrat. In a post on the Washington Post's PostPartisan web site, Jo-Ann Armao tries to explain the meaning of the Massachusetts Senate race. The money quote is taken from Ted Kennedy's memoir, True Compass:

That building [the Capitol] symbolizes ... the benevolent power and the majesty of our government.

Wrong. The Capitol building symbolizes the "benevolent power and majesty" of the American people. Or, as Scott Brown so eloquently put it, "It's the people's seat."

T. BOONE PICKENS drops Texas wind farm project. The blowhards are in Washington, not Texas.

I MISSPOKE. The Indian scientist who claimed that global warming will melt the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 has acknowledged it was speculation and not supported by any formal research.

Oops.