Various and sundry

Today's rumor is that Obama will choose the "middle-ground option" on Afghanistan, which is as close as he can get to voting present:

Military officials and others expect Obama to settle on a middle-ground option that would deploy an eventual 32,000 to 35,000 U.S. forces to the 8-year-old conflict. That rough figure has stood as the most likely option since before Obama's last large war council meeting earlier this month, when he tasked military planners with rearranging the timing and makeup of some of the deployments.

"After completing a rigorous final meeting, President Obama has the information he wants and needs to make his decision and he will announce that decision within days," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Tuesday morning.

Yesterday's rumor was quite different.


President Obama continues to sink in the polls. Rasmussen has him at a low of 45% approval with 42% of likely voters strongly disapproving of his performance as president.
Maybe a gala White House event will give him a boost.


Someone needs to be prosecuted for allowing Hasan to "practice medicine" on American soldiers. Mark Steyn: Fort Hood confidential

Imagine you're back from a tour in Iraq or Afghanistan. The Army assigns you a shrink who tries to convert you to Islam, and looks on his "counseling" sessions as war-crimes interrogations.

The U.S. military appears awfully close to having colluded in Major Hasan's abuse of his patients. But that's okay, it's not like they're Gitmo detainees or anything . . .

ABC News report here.


On healthcare reform, Joe says no to the public option:

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, speaking in that trademark sonorous baritone, utters a simple statement that translates into real trouble for Democratic leaders: "I'm going to be stubborn on this."

Stubborn, he means, in opposing any health-care overhaul that includes a "public option," or government-run health-insurance plan, as the current bill does. His opposition is strong enough that Mr. Lieberman says he won't vote to let a bill come to a final vote if a public option is included.

Probe for a catch or caveat in that opposition, and none is visible. Can he support a public option if states could opt out of the plan, as the current bill provides? "The answer is no," he says in an interview from his Senate office. "I feel very strongly about this." How about a trigger, a mechanism for including a public option along with a provision saying it won't be used unless private insurance plans aren't spreading coverage far and fast enough? No again.

Sen. Tom Coburn and Tevi Troy have suggestions on how to mend health care reform:

With unemployment numbers at 10.2%, it's not surprising that, by a 2-to-1 margin, Americans want Congress to focus on deficit reduction and economic recovery before tackling health reform. Yet, if the health bills currently in Congress were to pass, most Americans could see their economic situation decline further, and the unemployment situation would worsen. [. . .]

Congressional leaders aren't even attempting to solve this problem. Instead, they propose taxing businesses for not providing health insurance in a manner specified by Congress, even though the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said that "requiring employers to offer health insurance--or pay a fee if they do not--is likely to reduce employment." Independent experts agree.

For a graphic representation of the unsustainability of the Senate healthcare bill click here.


RS McCain reports on the ever-deepening IG-Gate scandal:

Sexual abuse accusations by St. HOPE Academy students against Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson were apparently covered up, possibly with "hush money," according to a 61-page report issued by congressional investigators.

Failure of school officials to report sexual abuse of minors violates California state law, investigative staff of Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) noted in their report on the June firing of AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin.

The allegations investigated by Walpin's office were "very serious," Grassley said in a statement, saying that evidence indicates a political motive for the IG's firing. "It seems a lot of people might have been interested in protecting the AmeriCorps program and the Mayor of Sacramento from an IG who was discovering some unpleasant facts."

Byron York of the Washington Examiner reported today that Obama administration officials tried to mislead the public about the reasons for the firing of Walpin. The Grassley-Issa report details how Walpin's IG staffers investigated charges that Johnson's lawyer and officials of the federally-funded St. HOPE program suppressed sexual-misconduct charges against the former NBA star who was elected mayor of California's capital city last year.

Mr. McCain adds:

Teenage girls? Sex abuse? Powerful politicians? “Hush money”? Dude, if that story’s not front-page news, I don’t know what is.

Maybe journalism schools now offer a special class in how to ignore huge but politically inconvenient stories.

Signs of the times:

Young adults return to nest

"The journey home for Thanksgiving won't be quite so far this year for many adults," said researchers Wendy Wang and Rich Morin, who wrote the report. "Instead of traveling across country or across town, many grown sons or daughters will be coming to dinner from their old bedroom down the hall."

Japanese man marries virtual 2D "girlfriend"

Last month, I wrote about a Japanese husband who confessed to his wife that he had a virtual girlfriend, a character from an addictive Nintendo DS game called Love Plus. Now, another man is planning to hold a wedding ceremony with his Love Plus girlfriend this coming Sunday. The man, who calls himself SAL9000, was so in love with Nene Anegasaki that he decided to marry her and take her on a honeymoon to Guam. Of course, this means that he literally just took his Nintendo DS to Guam...

h/t: Hot Air

Linked at Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)

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