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Also known as pug dog economics.

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Debt-limit extremism

I generally like Jennifer Rubin's writing quite a lot. But this brought me up short:

And the GOP extremists don’t get their balanced budget amendment passed and sent to the states or the satisfaction of blowing up the deal. 

Extremists? Is that really the right word? Extremism is spending $4 trillion while taking in $2 trillion. Here's Sen. Marco Rubio on some other debt-limit extremists:

“And instead let me tell you what we’ve seen for the last few days. First of all, for today and for much of this time I have heard all these attacks and name-calling. If we had $1 billion for every time I heard the words "tea party extremist," we could solve this debt problem.

“So all this name-calling, so I said let me read some quotes about this debt limit and I found some pretty extremist quotes.

“Here's one.

“It says, "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I, therefore, intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt.” A quote from a tea party extremist, right? No. This is a quote from March 16 of 2006 from Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.

“I found another extremist quote. This one says, "Because this massive of accumulation of debt was predicted, because it was foreseeable, because it was unnecessary, because it was the result of willful and reckless disregard for the warnings that were given and for the fundamentals of economic management, I am voting against a debt limit increase.” Well, that must be from a tea party extremist member of the House, right? No. This is March 16, 2006, from Senator Joe Biden of Delaware.

“And last but not least, here's a quote from September 27 of 2007. It says, "I find it distasteful and disturbing to increase the debt limit yet again. Clearly we need to change course and this debt limit bill is just another reminder of that." And that is from the distinguished Senator from Nevada, the majority leader. On that date in 2007.

If you watch the video it's shortly after this that Sen. John "Man of the People"  Kerry, perhaps the most tedious, pompous blowhard in the US Senate (and that's saying a lot) interrupts to defend being-against-it-before-being-for-it. Or something. Try to ignore him and pay attention to Rubio. He gets it. (Which is probably why Patricia Heaton hearts him.)

Back to Ms. Rubin's disparaging comment. Even Charles Krauthammer didn't condemn the principled opposition to the Boehner bill in its various versions as bad-faith "extremism." He gave them a lot more credit than that:

I have every sympathy with the conservative counterrevolutionaries. Their containment of the Obama experiment has been remarkable. But reversal — rollback, in Cold War parlance — is simply not achievable until conservatives receive a mandate to govern from the White House.

The truth of that is obvious, but a sincere conservative still has to make a prudential judgment on how he'll vote on a given bill. These are tough votes for those who abhor the status quo of ever-expanding government.

***

See John Podhoretz: Containment, Rollback, and the Debt Compromise

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Linked at MichelleMalkin.com -- thanks!

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Ah, a deal: does it even matter?

***written by politicaljunkie Mom.

After reading Mark Steyn at his most scathing, no:

The Democrat model of governance is to spend $4 trillion while only collecting $2 trillion, borrowing the rest from tomorrow. Instead of “printing money,” we’re printing credit cards and pre-approving our unborn grandchildren. To facilitate this proposition, Washington created its own form of fantasy accounting: “baseline budgeting,” under which growth-in-government is factored in to federal bookkeeping as a permanent feature of life. As Arthur Herman of the American Enterprise Institute pointed out this week, under present rules, if the government were to announce a spending freeze — that’s to say, no increases, no cuts, everything just stays exactly the same — the Congressional Budget Office would score it as a $9 trillion savings. In real-world terms, there are no “savings,” and there’s certainly no $9 trillion. In fact, there isn’t one thin dime. But nevertheless, that’s how it would be measured at the CBO.

Like others, I have a hard time fathoming "trillion." Steyn points out $9 trillion eclipses the combined GDP of Japan and Germany. Still having trouble? Try this. It adds a certain dimension to the debate, no? If we're incapable of honestly cutting money from our budget now, then we're headed down the tubes in no uncertain order unless we kick the charlatans out of DC. A goodly number of Republicans included. For-ev-er.

So what lies ahead? Steyn paints a rather dismal picture. Read the rest.

Related: Friday Limbaugh, "You can be proud, Conservatives: Tea Party puts country over party."

Cross-posted at pjM.

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Thoughtcrime

Ann Althouse speaks the unspeakable

The 2-income family gives a shocking amount of the extra money they scramble to earn to the government...

Why don't more couples do the math and figure out that they should not do all that extra work for the government? Life is so much simpler with the 1-earner family, and the spouse who doesn't bring in the dollars can provide great economic benefits by directly performing work that would otherwise have to be paid for, most notably child care. Since this economic benefit isn't taxed, it's a double benefit. Instead of buying inferior childcare (or other services) with after-tax dollars, you perform the work that is worth that much money, and you're not paid, so you don't pay taxes on the value it represents...

But perhaps the government, through its schools, does not want to reveal the amazing secrets of legal tax avoidance. How much better to indoctrinate kids to seek the highest incomes they possibly can achieve! That is the government's strategy for raking in the most most taxes. And it works so well. The liberal teachers support the ideology of women working and don't want to tip off young people that the traditional 1-earner family is an excellent approach to personal wealth. And the liberal legislatures don't want to alleviate the tax-burden on the 2-income families, because they love raking in the tax money.

At least she doesn't mention the M-word...

h/t Instapundit

Debt kabuki and Noonan regret: It's Saturday laundry

***written by politicaljunkie Mom.

Harry Reid and his cronies will shred the Boehner bill and stick it not to "the rich" but to the rest of us. How? Ed Morrissey explains the CBO process of scoring, and how Reid has figured the expiration of Bush tax cuts and the absence of an alternative means tax (AMT) patch will pad the coffers:

Total tax hike over 10 years, according to the GOP analysis? $3.8 trillion. And those would not just be tax hikes on the “wealthy,” either. Those tax hikes would hit the middle class like a freight train, both on basic rates and the AMT creep that Congress has parried for years. If this analysis is correct, Reid either wants to hit the US with the biggest tax hike in its history, or he’s offering bogus deficit reduction that will never occur.

Oh, I'm sure Obama won't veto that, eh? We're being played as rubes. Where are the entitlement discussions? Oh, only military retirement. Rubes, the taxpaying kind. Victor Davis Hanson reminds us how difficult it is to pry the entitlements away from those who vote for their government checks:

About 50 percent of taxpayers don’t pay federal income taxes. Almost half of American adults receive either the majority of or all of their income in some form from government. They are naturally desirous of even more entitlements, in the sense that even higher taxes on the top 5 percent might ensure at least some of the needed revenue to pay for them. And if that echelon must pay 70 percent or 80 percent rather than the present 60 percent of all collected income taxes, it would still not be such a bad thing, inasmuch as the circumstances surrounding their earned income must be somewhat suspicious. In the words of the president, the so-called affluent surely at some point must realize that they have made enough money and have hundreds of thousands in unneeded income that could easily be assessed with higher taxes.

The agenda of the poorer and lower-middle classes is championed mostly by an affluent elite located on the two coasts, who find power and influence in representing “the people,” and are themselves either affluent enough, or enjoy enough top government salaries and subsidies, to be largely exempt from any hardship that would result from their own advocacy of much higher taxes and larger government expenditures.

Nancy Pelosi, et al. They're sending us straight into servitude for generations to come, but since they own the shackles, it matters not. I guess it's "fair" that we're all poor together. I have never understood why liberals subscribe to this vision--that those who succeed must be punished--rather than the Reagan idea: lift everyone up together. I suppose it's easier to punish.

Finally, regret from Peggy Noonan. I find it humorous to note her exclusion from the title at WSJ: They've lost that lovin' feeling. In part:

[...] nobody loves Obama. This is amazing because every president has people who love him, who feel deep personal affection or connection, who have a stubborn, even beautiful refusal to let what they know are just criticisms affect their feelings of regard. At the height of Bill Clinton's troubles there were always people who'd say, "Look, I love the guy." They'd often be smiling—a wry smile, a shrugging smile. Nobody smiles when they talk about Mr. Obama. There were people who loved George W. Bush when he was at his most unpopular, and they meant it and would say it. But people aren't that way about Mr. Obama. He has supporters and bundlers and contributors, he has voters, he may win. But his support is grim support. And surely this has implications.

Noonan brands Obama a disaster, and fails to acknowledge the wool was pulled over her own eyes:

But he's not good at building, creating, calling into being. He was good at summoning hope, but he's not good at directing it and turning it into something concrete that answers a broad public desire.

And so his failures in the debt ceiling fight. He wasn't serious, he was only shrewd—and shrewdness wasn't enough. He demagogued the issue—no Social Security checks—until he was called out, and then went on the hustings spouting inanities. He left conservatives scratching their heads: They could have made a better, more moving case for the liberal ideal as translated into the modern moment, than he did. He never offered a plan. In a crisis he was merely sly. And no one likes sly, no one respects it.

So he is losing a battle in which he had superior forces—the presidency, the U.S. Senate. In the process he revealed that his foes have given him too much mystique. He is not a devil, an alien, a socialist. He is a loser. And this is America, where nobody loves a loser.

Hell hath no fury like a woman who voted for the loser in '08.

More Saturday reads:

Democrats on the Hill complain Obama isn't a leader. Oh, the irony.

Unintended consequences for liberals: our economy stinks so badly, the legions of illegals head back home as the Mexican unemployment rate is half of our own. 300,000 have left California. Only 2.6 million more to go. Maybe without the $10 billion annual cost of social services to illegal immigrants, California will be able to right its own sinking budgetary ship.

Cross-posted at pjM.

UPDATE: linked by Michelle Malkin. Thanks!

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Not business as usual

I'll be away this weekend and have asked my friend Politicaljunkie Mom to post here as her time permits. Before I'm off, here are a few links on the events of last night from different points of view.

Michelle Malkin: The GOP Crappy Meal: It's Not Perfect, But It's Better Than Nothing!

Update 9:21pm Eastern…Buzz on Capitol Hill is that the bill will be sent back to the rules committee for “tweaks” to win more votes.

Yep, they’re adding crapples to sweeten the GOP Crappy Meal deal.

How about tweaking it into the trash and sending Cut Cap and Balance back to the Senate?

Jonah Goldberg:

Given that the likes of Paul Ryan, Tom Sowell, Charles Krauthammer, Laura Ingraham and a bunch folks around here are in favor of the Boehner plan, I do wish that some of our friends who are opposed to it, for completely honorable reasons, could find a better argument than one that hinges on terms like RINO. Likewise, folks who favor it probably don’t help things either by calling a vote against Boehner a “pro-Obama vote.” I understand that this is meant in a tactical sense, not a description of motives. But it doesn’t seem to be playing that way in various quarters. I’m in favor of the Boehner plan, not so much on the merits, but simply given the facts of our national situation.

Don't forget Ann Coulter. RTR.

Call me cynical but I don't think it matters much either way. Trying to stanch a hemorrhage with a pinky-sized bandaid won't prevent the inevitable bleed-out. Most Americans are either oblivious to the fiscal mess we're in or panicked by Obama and the liberal media into the view that their intransigent representatives need to hurry up and "fix" this with more borrowing. What's clear is that we -- Congress and most Americans -- lack the will to deal with it in any significant way.

Steyn:

MS: Well, realistically, I don’t think this makes any difference, because I think the world is looking for about $4 trillion dollars of real cuts. And what we’re being offered, depending on how you score it, is about $7 billion dollars of cuts from fiscal year 2012. That’s, what, about the United States government borrows every thirty hours. So in other words, we have spent a month negotiating, in real terms, a cut that represents what the United States government borrows every 30 hours. I think this is just inadequate to the scale of the challenge that faces the United States. It distresses me. I have no time for the European Union whatsoever, as you know. I’ve got no use for the Euro. I think it’s a blight and a pestilence, and to hell with all of them. But whatever one says about Portugal and Greece and Ireland, they’re not talking about theoretical cuts in 2017, 2018, 2020. They’re cutting now. And that’s what’s so totally depressing and demoralizing about this, the refusal to recognize that we need to cut now. 

Something ominous via Allahpundit:

Update: A liberal on Twitter warned me last night not to make too much of the lefty chatter about Obama’s supposed Fourteenth Amendment option since the White House itself has rejected it several times. Makes sense — except that Clyburn, who’s number three in the caucus, was rapturous about it yesterday. And now here’s none other than Steny Hoyer rattling the constitutional saber:

“It’s arguably his power to do so,” Hoyer told MSNBC.
“Very frankly, if it came down to his looking default in the eye on Tuesday or taking this action, as President Clinton said, better to take the action and find out later that perhaps he went beyond his authority but at least protected the credibility of the United States of America,” he said.
The remarks align Hoyer with a number of other House Democratic leaders, who are urging Obama to invoke the Constitution to prevent a government default if Congress fails to raise the debt limit before an Aug. 2 deadline.

Is that what Carney was alluding to in the clip I posted up top? Because let me tell you: If you think this standoff can’t become any more of a clusterfark, let the Democrats try to raise the debt ceiling on their own. Bedlam.

But if you think a looming credit downgrade or a constitutional crisis is upsetting, hang on for the worst news of all: Obama is "getting absolutely no sleep."

And to all of you impertinent yahoos out there who criticized Dear Leader for offering no plan of his own -- take this! He did have a plan, but it was a special, secret plan that no one was allowed to see:

Chief of Staff William Daley told CNN's Wolf Blitzer last night that Obama has issued a secret plan for solving the debt crisis.
From the transcript:

BLITZER:  So what you're saying is the president did present a plan to the speaker, John Boehner.
DALEY:  Yes.
BLITZER:  But - but he didn't...
DALEY:  Right.
BLITZER:  - make it public.
DALEY:  No, because there's... both the speaker and - and the president had agreed and - that these sort of negotiations do not happen in public.

I suppose Speaker Boehner will be able to confirm or deny when he gets a minute. But for now, at least it's good for a laugh.

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Giving the people what they want

Very discouraging: CBO scores Boehner’s new bill: $22 billion in savings this year, $917 billion over 10 years

Andy McCarthy, still stubbornly applying rational thought to this absurdist drama, argues that the debt-ceiling hikes should be staggered over the fabled "out years" just as the "cutting" is:

Why can’t we propose to increase the debt ceiling as real spending cuts happen? I understand that doing this on a dollar-for-dollar basis may be impractical. But even if we proposed to give him two or three dollars of raised debt ceiling for every dollar of real cuts as the real cuts actually occur, that would be a lot better than the proposals on the table. We’d be able to show we were not unwilling to raise the debt ceiling, but we’d be ensuring that it was raised no more than is necessary to give the government breathing room on pending obligations. It would also keep the focus on spending, and it would force Obama (who claims to be for deficit reduction but hasn’t produced any actual plan) to tell us what he would cut — if he wants the ceiling raises, he’s got to come across with the cuts.

This would be a real compromise. We don’t want to raise the ceiling at all. The principle of matching the ceiling rise to spending cuts has already been generally accepted. What I’m talking about would just insure that there is reality on both sides of the equation: real raises only upon real cuts.

But what does it matter? Most Americans aren't really serious about compelling the government to live within its means. Blame Boehner and the business-as-usual GOP all you want, but if the people were really clamoring for fiscal restraint and smaller government, both parties would be talking about freezing spending and canceling profligate, cockamamy schemes. Instead, they're quibbling about the calibration of the rate of government expansion. That the federal government, fueled by our grandchildren's money, will continue to balloon, is a given. If the majority of the people were demanding real change, we'd be having a different conversation right now.

I have to agree with Steyn: "The Boehner plan tells us that real fiscal discipline is impossible within the US political system." Whether, in 2012, another mass ejection of the spendaholics we've so blithely enabled over the years will be enough to make a difference remains to be seen. My feeling is that it won't be. The American people have mixed feelings about this monster they've created, but whether they like it or not, they lost control of it a long time ago. Weak attempts to restrain it won't be enough to keep it from devouring us.

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Choosing time for conservatives

William Kristol writes in support of the (presumably re-written and improved) Boehner plan:

To govern is to choose. To vote is to choose. To vote against John Boehner on the House floor this week in the biggest showdown of the current Congress is to choose to vote with Nancy Pelosi. To vote against Boehner is to choose to support Barack Obama. It is to choose to increase the chances that worse legislation than Boehner’s passes. And it is to choose to increase the chances that Obama emerges from this showdown politically stronger. So when the Heritage Action Fund and the Club for Growth, and Senators Vitter, Paul, et al., choose to urge House Republicans to join the Democrats to defeat Boehner, they’re choosing to side with Barack Obama.

That may all sound pretty reasonable until you consider, well . . . reality. Mark Steyn:

In other words, in the time it takes to photocopy and distribute Boehner’s “plan”, the savings have all been borrowed back.

THE DEBT MOUNTAIN LABORED ...and brought forth a mouse. This kind of nonsense from the political class is why you need to read After America.

(Yes, you do. Buy it now. You know you want to.)

Rep. Paul Ryan is willing to take what he can get:

The Budget Control Act takes an important step in the right direction by cutting $1.2 trillion in government spending over the next decade. Critically, it does this without resorting to Senator Reid’s gimmicks and without imposing the president’s preferred tax increases on American families and the struggling economy.

This bill is far from perfect. We still have a long way to go toward getting the key drivers of our debt — especially federal health-care spending — under control. But considering that House Republicans control only one-half of one-third of the federal government, I support this reasonable, responsible effort to cut government spending, avoid a default, and help create a better environment for job creation.

Michelle Malkin points out that Ryan was on the wrong side of TARP, too, and asks, "Is Reduce, Reuse, Retreat the best we can do?"

Mark Levin urges conservatives: Stick to your principles!

Bill Kristol (continuing from above) has some harsh words for Levin and company:

Now, Heritage Action and the Club for Growth are siding with and strengthening Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. They’re working to produce a policy and political defeat for John Boehner and Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan and the Republican majority in the House. This isn’t principled conservatism. This is self-indulgence masquerading as principle, sectarianism masquerading as conservatism.This isn’t principled conservatism. This is self-indulgence masquerading as principle, sectarianism masquerading as conservatism. 

Erick Erickson sees things playing out the way they always do:

I’m left with the only inescapable conclusion one can derive from all of this. Republicans are being played for fools, will wind up with all of the blame and very few cuts and the size and scope of the federal government will continue to grow all thanks to John Boehner who is on his third plan continuing to compromise not with the Democrats, but with the Republicans.

I agree with Erickson that the government will only grow, but I don't really blame Boehner. He's facing a hydra-like foe fed by generations of Americans. I don't see that we possess the will to correct our fiscal course by any means other than a crash. It will hurt in ways we probably can't conceive of at present. But at least, writes Victor Davis Hanson, the impact may jolt us into reality:

In hard times, as in war, questions arise that were once considered taboo. As we approach $15 trillion run up in aggregate national debt, and confront the reality of a welfare state that is predicated on flawed assumptions about everything from demography to human nature, a rendezvous with brutal reality is now upon us. [. . .]

There is a certain brutal honesty about this debt crisis. It is slowly beginning to force us to see the world in the tragic way it is, rather than in the therapeutic way we dream it must be.

Read the whole thing.

Here's a bit of comic relief, if you enjoy watching weasels be weasels:




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Update: Krauthammer's take: It will be "catastrophic if Republicans were not to go with the Boehner plan."

***

Linked at MichelleMalkin.com and Legal Insurrection -- thank you.
Thanks, also, to Doug Ross and CMR.

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Tired talking points and class warfare

That, and the freedom to falsify and distort with impunity, is all he's got. Jim Hoft gets it right:  

Maybe Obama's stale talking points would poll better if they made sense

Obama started off strong last night in his address to the nation. But, it all went down hill after “Good evening.”

Yup. If you missed it, try to guess what came next, keeping in mind that, on Planet Obama, certain themes never, ever get old:

For the last decade, we have spent more money than we take in.  In the year 2000, the government had a budget surplus.  But instead of using it to pay off our debt, the money was spent on trillions of dollars in new tax cuts, while two wars and an expensive prescription drug program were simply added to our nation’s credit card.

After that it was hard to keep listening. But Jennifer Rubin managed somehow:

The speech itself was part panic attack, part platitudes and a whole lot of class warfare (corporate jets! hedge fund managers!). He stood awkwardly at the East Room podium, minus any press corps. He began with a ponderous recap of the budget train wreck, and then described his grand bargain (light on the details, because, of course, he never put a concrete plan out there). He ridiculed the Republican plan, saying it didn’t ask for sacrifices from the rich. But wait, Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) doesn’t have taxes in his plan. In fact, his whole plan was an indictment of Reid’s no-tax plan. Apparently, he assumed no one was keeping up with current developments.

Read the rest and stay tuned as the drama rages on. A few more items:

William Kristol: Baby Talk
He can't hide his condescension.

Power Line: Obama: After 2 1/2 Years, A Has-Been
He's not so smart at politics, either.

Right Scoop: Why Obama's lie to seniors about social security checks is pure evil
He knows it's not true. (Post includes video of speech.)

Michelle Malkin: Obama: Blather, rinse, repeat; Boehner: Reduce, reuse…retreat?
Same old same old.

Hot Air: Obama speech: lots of words, no solutions
He's irrelevant.

Linked at MichelleMalkin.com -- many thanks.

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Touching profile of a late-term abortionist

Leah H. Sun of the Washington Post writes what is meant to be a sympathetic profile of notorious late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart, who commutes between Nebraska and the People's Republic of Maryland striving to fill that special niche in women's "health care": the destruction of unborn babies who have been allowed to get too close to their birthdays for run-of-the-mill clinics to do the scraping and suctioning.

The "weary" Carhart labors mightily, at great risk to himself:

LeRoy Carhart travels from his home in Nebraska almost every week to perform abortions at a clinic in Germantown, Md. He rarely stays at the same hotel twice. He rolls dice to pick the route he’ll take to work, because “the biggest part of security is not being predictable,” he said.

Like the song says, the devil ain't lazy, no sirree.

It's dangerous work, though to tell the truth, it's much more so for the child in the womb. But the article doesn't mention that; in fact, it doesn't mention the word "baby" or "child," even once. Go figure.

But anyway, Dr. Carhart is a man on a mission:

The obstacles only make him more committed, he said. The women who have turned to him for abortions have had severe fetal abnormalities, he said. “We have helped them. . . . They’d rather die than have these pregnancies,” he said.

Pardon the euphemisms and obfuscating language, but going into the details of Carhart's "work" would totally ruin the whole martyr thing this profile is trying to conjure up.

Carhart, a grandfather and retired Air Force general surgeon, has an understated manner, speaking so softly that he can barely be heard.

His voice was weary at the end of a recent workday as he went over logistics with his wife, Mary, a straight-talking former schoolteacher who helps manage the clinic.

Pay attention to the writing here, kids. He's a "weary," soft-spoken grandpa and veteran, married to a "straight-talking former schoolteacher." Upstanding, benign folks. Selfless public servants.

Carhart performs about 60 abortions a month in Germantown. Many of the women have been referred by other doctors. Six to 10 per month are late-in-pregnancy abortions; he declines to specify how late.

But why not? He's a hero for saving these women from the burden of an imperfect or inconvenient child, and doing a job other doctors won't do. You'd think he'd want to take credit.

A few other questions a curious, objective journalist might ask Dr. Carhart:

- How much money do you make performing abortions?
- Do you charge extra for late-term abortions? How much?
- What is the procedure like? (Read the answer here, in Carhart's own words. NOTE: Content warning.)
- Do you perform partial birth abortions?(Yes indeed.)
- Has a baby ever survived the "procedure"? If so, what happened next?

More from the profile:

Carhart, who once dreamed of becoming a hand surgeon,

Sad irony there -- instead of putting intricately made human beings back together so they may live better lives, he dismantles and dismembers them for a living. But I digress:

said he witnessed how abortions often went bad when he was a medical resident in Philadelphia in the 1970s. In emergency rooms, he saw women who had tried to self-abort with knitting needles and coat hangers. Many required serious surgery; some died.

Really? How many cases like that did he actually see? (Note to reporter: It's rusty coat hangers. I can't believe your editor didn't fix that.)

It's interesting that Carhart became inspired by botched abortions in the same city where infanticidal maniac Kermit Gosnell provided the same legally sanctioned "health services" to women who would "rather die" than "have a pregnancy." In Gosnell's case, some women not only got rid of their "pregnancies," but lost their own lives, too.

The profile continues:

After retiring from the Air Force in 1985, he worked for a few years as a general surgeon but began performing abortions part time at an Omaha clinic at the request of a former patient, also the clinic’s nursing director.

Still no mention of money.

On Sept. 6, 1991, the day Nebraska passed its parental-notification law, his farm burned down. No family members were hurt, but the fire destroyed his house and other buildings, and killed his dog, cat and 17 horses. The next day, Carhart received a letter informing him that the fire was in retaliation for the abortions. Local officials were unable to determine the fire’s cause.

Never determined to be arson, but you get the idea, right?

“That was when I decided I would not be part time,” he said. “It’s where my tenacity comes from.” He resigned his hospital privileges. He began training other doctors. He opened his own abortion clinic the next year.

“I decided I wasn’t going to just be a provider, I was going to be an activist.”

It takes a tenacious man to go after a defenseless infant with sharp instruments and a suction machine. 

All the late abortions Carhart has done in Germantown have involved fetuses with anomalies, he said. 

Really? Did the reporter see any documentation of that? What kind of anomalies exactly? Did anyone check the remaining bits of the "fetuses" after the "procedure" to confirm the diagnosed imperfections?

One patient last week was just under 21 weeks pregnant; the fetus had spina bifida and would have been paralyzed from the navel down, he said.

Dear God in heaven. Enough. Read the whole article if you can stand it.


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Brave new world: Hybrids, cybrids, and chimeras

Well, it looks like this is the end. Mad scientists are concocting hybrid human/animal creatures. Matthew Archbold:

Scientists in the UK have created at least 150 animal/human hybrids. But don't worry. It's all so they can come up with cures and you don't have to worry because they're killing them just a few weeks into their lives.

Yup. That's supposed to make us all feel better.

Daily Mail:

Figures seen by the Daily Mail show that 155 ‘admixed’ embryos, containing both human and animal genetic material, have been created since the introduction of the 2008 Human Fertilisation Embryology Act.

This legalised the creation of a variety of hybrids, including an animal egg fertilised by a human sperm; ‘cybrids’, in which a human nucleus is implanted into an animal cell; and ‘chimeras’, in which human cells are mixed with animal embryos.

Scientists say the techniques can be used to develop embryonic stem cells which can be used to treat a range of incurable illnesses.

Three labs in the UK – at King’s College London, Newcastle University and Warwick University – were granted licences to carry out the research after the Act came into force.

All have now stopped creating hybrid embryos due to a lack of funding, but scientists believe that there will be more such work in the future. [. . .]

But the lead author of their report, Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, from the Medical Research Council’ s National Institute for Medical Research, said the scientists were not concerned about human-animal hybrid embryos because by law these have to be destroyed within 14 days.

He said: ‘The reason for doing these experiments is to understand more about early human development and come up with ways of curing serious diseases, and as a scientist I feel there is a moral imperative to pursue this research.

‘As long as we have sufficient controls – as we do in this country – we should be proud of the research.’

So it's all good! Archbold again:

And we can be rightly outraged but this is just the logical extension of the complete devaluing of life in our culture. Why would be OK to kill an embryo but not turn it into a half platypus before killing it. I can't think of a logical argument that allows the former while prohibiting the latter.

We must cling to a radical love and respect for individual life or prepare for a reckless future ruled by mad scientists promising us great cures if only they're allowed to take one little step further.

Updated August 16, 2011, Mark Steyn: How Weird How Soon?

So the Brits retain a bit of squeamishness in this area: They’re aware of the pitfalls of injecting Ozzy Osbourne’s brain into an orangutan. Who might be less concerned about this fine ethical line? It was recently disclosed that China has a herd of 39 goats with human-style blood and internal organs created by injecting stem cells into their embryos, the work of Prof. Huang Shuzheng of Jiao Tong University.

I wonder what else the Chinese are sticking human stem cells into. I’m sure they’ll tell us when they’re ready.

Read the whole thing.

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Debt drama's thickening plot

Jennifer Rubin has the scoop. First:

A Republican aide e-mails me: “The Speaker, Sen. Reid and Sen. McConnell all agreed on the general framework of a two-part plan. A short-term increase (with cuts greater than the increase), combined with a committee to find long-term savings before the rest of the increase would be considered. Sen. Reid took the bipartisan plan to the White House and the President said no.”

If this is accurate the president is playing with fire. By halting a bipartisan deal he imperils the country’s finances and can rightly be accused of putting partisanship above all else. The ONLY reason to reject a short-term, two-step deal embraced by both the House and Senate is to avoid another approval-killing face-off for President Obama before the election. Next to pulling troops out of Afghanistan to fit the election calendar, this is the most irresponsible and shameful move of his presidency.

As for the House, why not pass the deal that Sen. Harry Reid agreed to, send it to the Senate and leave town? Enough already.

Yes! Why not?

Follow-up from Ms. Rubin: The Reid plan:

As I reported earlier, the president rejected a bipartisan congressional deal that would have calmed the markets, resolved the debt-ceiling crisis and restored faith in Washington politicians. President Obama was having none of it, demonstrating once and for all that the problem is NOT the House Republicans, but the election-obsessed White House.

So then the parties begin to devise separate congressional plans. The Post reports, “Senate Democrats are preparing to introduce legislation that would avert a national default on Aug. 2 and achieve $2.7 trillion in deficit savings over the next decade without raising taxes.” [. . .]

A Senate aide says dryly that Reid “has about a trillion in ‘savings’ from ending the war in Iraq that’s already going to end.” And a disgusted House adviser bluntly tells me that Reid’s plan “isn’t real.” [. . .]

It is extremely telling, however, that Reid’s plan contains NO tax hike. As I suspected, Obama doesn’t have enough support even in his own party (and particularly from Senate Democrats facing reelection) to pass the massive tax increases that he and his liberal base demand. And yet Obama at the last minute in negotiations with the speaker of the House last week threw in $400 billion in more taxes. There could only have been one purpose for that, since the Senate is as tax-hike-averse as the House: to create a crisis. We have finally found the president’s strong suit.

Yes indeed. Read the whole thing.  Philip Klein also strongly suspects the cuts in Reid's plan are the usual phony baloney.

How you like him now?

By the way, don't believe the rumors that Obama is suspending his campaign because of the debt ceiling crisis. He will never stop campaigning.

***

Update: Byron York: Reid played key role on debt bill before Obama nixed plan

***

J-Ru updates:  Boehner's solution to debt-ceiling standoff

A House senior aide tells me, “The plan we are introducing is essentially the plan that McConnell, Boehner, and Reid agreed to and which Reid presented to President.” A Senate adviser confirms, “If there are any changes, they are minor.”

What now? A Republican insider tells me that if/when it passes the House, it will go to the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has his own plan but won’t have 60 votes to pass the Senate. Eventually, the Senate will pass the House bill and send it to the president. Obama can send the country into default or sign it. Hey, isn’t that what Right Turn has been talking about or days now? Yup.

Read the whole thing.


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President Planless preaches and postures

Some cogent commentary about last night's press conference:

Charles Krauthammer on President Don't-Make-Me-Come-Over-There:

This is Obama at his most sanctimonious, demagogic, self-righteous and arrogant. And given the baseline it wasn't a pretty sight. Look, he started out by summoning the leaders of Congress -- summoning them -- at 11:00. Who does he think he is? In the American system, the executive and Congress are coequal. In a banana republic, the caudillo will summon the members of the Congress. The way he demanded their appearance in the Oval Office I thought was disgraceful. The branches are coequal.

Second, on this issue he said "We have set forth a plan." He has set forth nothing. Nor has the Democratic controlled Senate. The Republicans offered a detailed plan. The Ryan plan in the House, and they offered Cut, Cap and Balance this time around. The President has offered nothing except he says if you go in the back room now my staff will give you a tick-tock of everything I'm supposed to have given. He has never once spoken about real cuts.

To which the Dems might reply, Hey Krauthhammer, where's your plan? Why, here it is, right here. Feel free to use it.

Though the Dems' have been understandably reluctant to put it in writing, Mark Steyn has discovered their real plan:

The only “plan” Barack Obama has put on paper is his February budget. Were there trillions and trillions of savings in that? Er, no. It increased spending and doubled the federal debt.

How about Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader? Has he got a plan? No. The Democrat Senate has shown no interest in producing a budget for two-and-a-half years. Unlike the president, Senator Reid can’t even be bothered pretending he’s interested in spending reductions. But he is interested in spending, and, if that’s your bag, boring things like budgets only get in the way.

It seems reasonable to conclude from the planlessness and budgetlessness of the Obama/Reid Democrats that their only plan is to carry on spending without limit. Otherwise, someone somewhere would surely have written something down on a piece of paper by now. But no, apparently the Department of Writing Down Plans is the only federal expense the president is willing to cut.

Read the rest.

Along those lines, Sen. Rubio challenges President Planless and company to write something down:

I’ve watched the President give press conferences. I’ve watched the President give speeches, but I have yet to see a plan from the President. And with all due respect to my colleagues in the other party here in the Senate, I haven’t seen a plan from them either. They’re the majority party; they control this chamber. They control the Senate and I haven’t seen a plan from them.

A moment ago we heard this talk about we have to compromise. It’s really hard to compromise when the other side doesn’t have a plan. What do you compromise on? Where is your plan? You can’t compromise if only one person is offering plans. There is only one plan that has been voted on by any house to deal with this issue and it’s the one we’re on right now Cut, Cap and Balance. [. . .]

And if you don’t like it change it, you’ve got the votes here to do it. If you’ve got a better idea, bring this bill up and amend it. Put your ideas on it. But how could you ask for compromise? How could you ask the House? How could you scold Republicans in the House for refusing to compromise if you don’t have a plan of your own? How can you compromise if you don’t have any ideas of your own? It’s not a fair thing to say.

And so I would urge the leadership of this chamber and the President of the United States to offer their ideas on paper. Put your ideas on paper and offer them so we can begin to work on this idea of compromise that you’ve offered. You can’t compromise and you can’t negotiate with people that will not offer a plan.

Why don’t you vote to proceed to cut, cap and balance? Proceed to this bill so that we can have a debate on this bill and so that you can offer your ideas on this bill. This is the perfect opportunity to do it. Let’s stop negotiating in the media and through press conferences and start doing it here on this floor which is what people sent us here to do.

Obviously a newbie, Rubio hasn't yet learned that the Senate's job is to bloviate, posture, and do nothing.

But let's end on an upbeat note. Steyn, sitting in for Rush this week, suggested this as a theme for Obama's birthday bash:




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Boehner walks, Obama talks

Boehner explains in a letter to his colleagues. A bit:

During these discussions – as in my earlier discussions – it became evident that the White House is simply not serious about ending the spending binge that is destroying jobs and endangering our children’s future.

A deal was never reached, and was never really close.

In the end, we couldn’t connect. Not because of different personalities, but because of different visions for our country.

The president is emphatic that taxes have to be raised. As a former small businessman, I know tax increases destroy jobs.

The president is adamant that we cannot make fundamental changes to our entitlement programs. As the father of two daughters, I know these programs won’t be there for their generation unless significant action is taken now.

For these reasons, I have decided to end discussions with the White House and begin conversations with the leaders of the Senate in an effort to find a path forward.

Obama went on live TV to give his take. I haven't found video or a complete transcript yet but Politico has a live-blogged version here. A portion:

Obama indicated that it has proven more difficult than he expected.

“I’ve been led to the altar a couple of times,” Obama said.

I think he actually said "left at the altar."

"The question for House Republicans is 'can they say yes to anything?'" Obama said.

 “I have not seen the capacity for the House Republicans in particular to make those tough decisions,” Obama continued.

The question for Republicans, Obama said, is “how serious are you about debt and deficit reduction?”

“Or do you simply want it as a campaign ploy going into the next election?”

Gee, why can't they get anywhere with President Obama?

As for saying "yes," the Republicans, and even a few Democrats, did so just this morning to the Cut, Cap and Balance bill. I guess that doesn't count.

***
Excellent analysis from Bryan Preston:

Update: Obama sounds “impotent and frustrated,” says NYT reporter. When you try leading from behind, or not at all, impotence and frustration seem like they would both be very likely outcomes. Who couldn’t have seen that coming?

Only the man scolding everyone else for not being serious.

Update: Now the president is claiming that Americans, including Republicans, write letters to him full of Democrat talking points about “balancing the budget on the backs of seniors,” talking points that are about 40 years old. Does he expect anyone to believe that he really gets these letters?

Now he’s getting angrier and angrier. Are we about to see the President of the United States crack up before our eyes? All I can say is, thank goodness the markets are closed. This rant might rock them.

Update: Funniest line of the presser: Obama said “Sometimes if you wanna be a leader, you have to lead.” And then in typical Obama fashion, he walked out of the room.

Some leader. We’re seeing what happens when someone with zero executive experience gets elected to the most difficult job in the world. Barack Obama is in over his head.

To recap a bit of history, Barack Obama has been president going on three years. In that time, he has proposed one budget, which was such a fine document that the Democrat-controlled Senate shot it down 97-0. His party has failed to move on a budget for more than 800 days. Even now, they have no plan for the debt ceiling crisis. None. The only real plan has come out of the House, where it passed. The Democrat-controlled Senate killed it on a party-line vote today.

Read the rest.

Here's the video:


Complete transcript here.

Boehner press conference:



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Some good advice for John Boehner

Weasel Zippers:

Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.) urged Boehner “appeal to [Obama’s] ego because its “bigger than the deficit.”

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Obama: "This would be easier if I could do this entirely on my own"

Obama should resign. Not only does he stink at his job; he resents it.

When the going gets tough, the tough parade around in front of a friendly, hand-picked audience.

I'm sympathetic to your view that this would be easier if I could do this entirely on my own. It would mean all these conversations I've had over the last three weeks, I could have been spending time with Malia and Sasha instead.

Obama touches on a couple of his usual themes here: He begrudges the time he's forced to spend "working" (aka blowing hot air) and plays the martyr about the way it cuts into his personal time. And he's miffed that his power is so darned limited.

***
Just came across this:

He didn’t shed any light on the details of the deficit talks with Republicans, but he did ladle sarcasm over the situation, telling the students that he’s felt “cooped up” having to sit through the negotiations constantly.

“There's nothing I enjoy more than sitting hour after hour, day after day, debating the fine points of the federal budget with members of Congress,” Obama said.

Ah, that first-class temperament.

Previous presidential complaints:
Obama wishes he had an easier job, like president of China
This just in: Obama's not Aquaman
What Obama finds humbling

***

Another Obama greatest hit, this from July '09:



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Debt-ceiling drama continues

Alexander Bolton reports on the absence of trust among the debt-ceiling deal-makers, even between Democrats. (And why not? Would you trust any of these weasels?) Reid had a little meltdown yesterday:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) confronted White House budget director Jack Lew during a Thursday afternoon meeting about secret talks on a deficit-reduction deal between the president and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).

“I’m the Senate majority leader — why don’t I know about this deal?” Reid demanded as soon as the budget director walked into the historic Mansfield Room for a meeting with Senate Democrats, according to a lawmaker who witnessed the exchange.

Lew shot back: “If there’s a deal, then the president doesn’t know about it, the vice president doesn’t know about it and I don’t know about it.”

But Sen. Reid's biggest fear, even scarier than being bypassed, is that the deal won't include a tax hike. That's what "outrages" Democrats:

Democrats were outraged about reports that Obama was willing to accept major spending cuts in exchange for reforming the tax code at some point in the future as part of a deal to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling.

Reid and other Democrats warned the administration officials in the meeting that they might not support a deal between Obama and Boehner if kept out of the loop.

“It was a heated session,” said a senior Democratic senator who attended the lunch. “There’s a basic lack of trust with the president.”

The lawmaker said the lack of trust stems from what they suspect are secret negotiations taking place between Obama and Boehner, without the input of Reid and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.).

“Harry’s not being included!” exclaimed the second senator.

Read the rest. It does sound as though Boehner and Obama are having their own discussion. Let's hope Boehner doesn't trust Obama any more than Harry Reid does. I like John Boehner but I don't trust him not to give away the store. Do you?

Meanwhile, the Senate will have a vote, of a sort, on the House's Cut, Cap and Balance bill. But instead of having a real debate and vote on the bill in the Senate on Saturday, as originally agreed to, Sen. Reid has pulled a fast one:

In order to call a vote at the last minute, Senate Democrats deployed a rare procedural tactic, moving to table the cloture “motion-to-proceed” on the legislation.

The move, hinted at by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) earlier in the day, represents a shift in the Democratic leader’s strategy on dealing with the Republican plan.

Earlier in the week Reid said he intended to allow Republicans to debate their bill until Saturday morning.

"I am committed to allowing a full and fair debate on this bill," Reid said on Wednesday. "I want the proponents and opponents of this bill to have time to air their views."

Then came the "shift." Reid now declares Cut, Cap and Balance a waste of time and "about as weak and senseless as anything that has ever come on this Senate floor." [Insert your own insult here.]

Tell that to the American people, Senator. Polls show that Americans support it in impressive numbers. Hot Air:

The CCB/BBA approach wins majorities in every single demographic — including self-described liberals.  Sixty-three percent of Democrats back the House bill.  The least supportive age demographic is 50-64YOs at 62/37; the least supportive regional demographic is the Midwest at 61/39.  Even those who express opposition to the Tea Party supports it 53/47.

In other words, it’s a clean sweep.  Simply put, there is no political demographic at all where the CCB/BBA doesn’t get majority support.  The BBA on its own does even better.  It gets 3-1 support (74/24), and except for those Tea Party opponents (56%) and self-professed liberals (61/37), doesn’t get below 70% support in any demographic.

That should matter, right? You'd think it might even be enough to sway some Senate Democrats. But don't count on it. They've proven beyond a doubt how little they care about the will of the people. They're committed above all to feeding the voracious, ever-expanding beast of government and inertia is on their side.


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Host your own Dear Leader birthday bash!

This is not a joke:

While aides plan a glitzy Aug. 3 fundraiser-bash for Obama at Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom, organizers are encouraging thousands of supporters who can’t attend to plan and host house parties of their own.

The campaign has rolled out a website dedicated to promoting the parties -- and a glossy 4-page, step-by-step guide that instructs would-be hosts on everything from “recruiting” attendees to electronically relaying participants’ personal information back to headquarters.

Friends don't relay friends' personal info back to HQ. But we're talking Obama drones here.

Who should be invited? “At least 50” friends and neighbors.

Good luck with that. 2008 is over.

Where should it be held? “A quiet and focused place to talk and organize.”

Par-tay! But the best is yet to come:

Aides say Obama will deliver a 50-minute video message to house party attendees that will stream over the internet on hosts’ computers once the events are underway. 

50 minutes? The guy's a wet blanket in more ways than one.

For a mere $150:

They’re also offering help with decorations, selling special “host packs” of birthday hats, buttons, balloons, stickers and signs, all emblazoned with a giant 5-0, “Happy Birthday,” and the campaign’s official logo.

And, don’t forget to snap a picture, they say.  “We’re collecting hundreds of photos from house parties across the country and will display them for President Obama at his house party in Chicago.”

And you were worried Obama would suspend his campaign because of the debt crisis. Never.

Here's the site. I predict this idea will go over like a lead Obama balloon.

Commenter at Political Punch:  

really? We're in a budget crisis, an unemployment crisis, and a foreclosure crisis. Do people bring food to these parties or just tin cups?

Bonus: Remember this monstrosity from two years ago?

***

Ed Driscoll links, but with a twist. Heh.

***

Cross-posted at The Conservatory.

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Gang of Six plan is "terrible"

Keith Hennessey lists 17 reasons why he's opposed to the Gang of Six plan. Reason number 6 is enough for me: 

It trades a permanent tax increase for only a temporary respite on spending.

And that's the way it always works. The tax increases are real, always more substantial and enduring than they first appear, and the cuts are shifting mirages which recede further into the distance the closer you approach them. Read the rest.

James Capretta calls the Gang of Six plan "the worst plan so far." Which means -- it's got legs! How bad is it?

But now, along comes the Gang of Six plan, and some Republicans are apparently intrigued by it. They shouldn’t be. It’s a terrible, terrible plan. It will hand the president a huge strategic victory and deliver nothing that the GOP should be seeking in this fight. It’s far, far worse than anything we have seen thus far, and certainly much worse than the McConnell plan. [. . .]

In short, the Gang of Six has essentially offered a plan in which Republicans would hand over control of the budget process to Democratic senators and hope for the best. Enough said.

Read his piece for the gruesome details. I can't believe any remotely responsible person would give it the time of day. But of course, this is Washington DC, where reason and reality are routinely turned on their heads.

Along those lines, here's George Neumayr on how the liberal media effortlessly  manipulate the debt debate by calling black white and up down:

The politicians most responsible for America's debt crisis are portrayed by the media as "grown-ups" while those least responsible for it are dubbed "intransigent." Veteran profligate spenders have been credited in recent days with a "balanced approach" to the crisis, even as Tea Partiers in Congress with no fingerprints on the debt have been cast as recklessly indifferent to it.

The mainstream media exclusively defines "intransigence" as conservative opposition to non-negotiable liberal demands. Hence, President Obama's willingness to risk default rather than drop his insistence on tax increases isn't considered intransigent and reckless but principled and mature.

Read the rest, especially the last paragraph.

Just words: You may recall that President Obama declared his absolute opposition to a temporary solution to the debt-ceiling stand-off. He said he'd never sign a temporary solu-- oh . . . never mind. It's time for him to move on. August is a busy month for the President.

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Obama Sr. coulda been somebody if not for "white antipathy" at Harvard

So says David Garrow, reviewing Sally Jacobs's The Other Barack in last Sunday's Washington Post. In keeping with the image of Obama Sr. as a brilliant but flawed fellow, Garrow points his finger at the real dream-destroyer (emphasis mine):

Obama stumbled in and out of several mid-rank government jobs before killing himself in his umpteenth drunken car crash in November 1982. By then he was living with a fourth wife, or wife-to-be, a 20-year-old woman who had given birth to his youngest child six months earlier. The great promise and energy that Betty Mooney had seen in him a quarter-century earlier was long spent. But had white antipathy toward his unrestrained personal life not shattered Obama’s life dream of a Harvard PhD, whiskey might not have derailed a brilliant alcoholic from a life of far greater length and achievement. 

The guy was a predator who didn't worry about the ages of his victims or the consequences to them of what Garrow calls his "active social life." After two years, Harvard apparently saw him as more of a liability than an asset:

Obama’s admission to Harvard’s PhD program in economics attested to his academic success in Hawaii, but once again his freewheeling personal life attracted official criticism. A Unitarian minister complained to U. S. immigration that Obama was intimately involved with a young Kenyan woman attending a Boston-area high school, and after two years, Harvard’s international student adviser told immigration agents that the university did not want Obama’s visa to be extended for a third year. Obama had passed the examinations qualifying him to begin writing his dissertation, but Harvard’s action — expressly motivated by animus toward his personal conduct, and with no academic rationale — forced the visibly upset graduate student to return to Kenya with only a master’s degree.

Please help me find the racism in that.

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Wealthy GOP donors "couldn't live with Sarah Palin," voted for Obama instead

And now they're feeling betrayed.

It's in this must-read post from Jim Geraghty. He quotes Gov. Chris Christie's comments to a gathering of big election donors on why he will not be running for president, which is a worthwhile read in itself.

But even more interesting is what Geraghty quotes from Politico's Mike Allen's newsletter (apparently not available online). Allen relays what he heard from the "moderate Republican" millionaire-billionaire donors at the meeting:

Several of them said: I’m Republican but I voted for President Obama, because I couldn’t live with Sarah Palin. Many said they were severely disappointed in the president. The biggest complaint was what several called “class warfare.” They said they didn’t understand what they had done to deserve that: If you want to have a conversation about taxation, have a conversation. But a president shouldn’t attack his constituents – he’s not the president of some people, he’s president of all the people. Someone mentioned Huey Long populism.

Cry me a river. They looked at Obama's Harvard law degree and that sharp pant crease and thought he was one of them, or at least more so than that uncredentialed piece of Wasilla trash, with all her vulgar "you betchas" and excessive children, including that embarrassing baby she doted on. And these snobs, instead of apologizing for contributing to the downfall of America, have the nerve to complain about "class warfare."

Jim Geraghty goes easier on them but still holds them accountable for their very grievous misjudgment:

Dear wealthy moderate Republicans: I mean no disrespect, as you’ve made more money than I’ll probably ever earn and you’re quite accomplished in your fields. And like you, I find Chris Christie to be a bold and inspiring leader, who makes a very intriguing option at the national level someday.

But not all of us are shocked and stunned about Obama’s class warfare and his demonization of you and the sense that he doesn’t think of himself as your president too. Some of us spent two years telling anyone who would listen that he was a lot more liberal than his bland, blank-slate rhetoric suggested. And was all of this worth it because you “couldn’t live” with Sarah Palin? Really? The prospect of having her living at the Naval Observatory was so epically offensive to your sensibilities that you really thought this, and all of the economic joy we’ve endured for the past thirty months, was the better option?

By any chance, have you done any reexamination of all of that thinking in the past two and a half years?

Don't bet on it.

Instead of whining and complaining they should volunteer a few hours apiece for some public shaming and promise not to screw it up so horribly next time.

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Thanks also to Maggie's Farm, Creative Minority Report, The Virginian, Ed Driscoll, and others you'll find after the comments. No time right now but I'll try to link them all here later on.

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The Devil's In The Cows

Blogger and furniture maker extraordinaire Gregory Sullivan, whom you might remember from my links to his lively Maine Family Robinson series on RightNetwork, has just published a collection of flash fiction called The Devil's In The Cows. You can read an excerpt and find ordering info here. Here's a promo:



Intriguing, no? If you're in the lucky minority of Americans planning a summer vacation this year, buy it and bring it along. If you're staying put, all the more reason for some diverting reading.

I won't get any kind of kickback if you buy one of his $11.95 books. Unless I add it to my Amazon store. Then I'll get 20 cents or something like that. (No, I'm not getting rich from my Amazon pennies.)

By the way, my favorite MFR pieces are That's funny; I have zero tolerance for you, too and Yer doin' it wrong! Sullivan is a talented writer. Check him out.

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Gang of Six "plan": Cut some spending, someday, maybe

Conn Carroll: There is no Gang of Six plan

The plan claims to achieve a $500 billion “aggressive deficit reduction down payment,” but outside of a repeal of Obamacare’s CLASS Act, no specifics are identified. Instead the plan calls for “discretionary spending caps” (meaning no specific cuts have been agreed to) and other “numerous budget process reforms.”

The rest of the plan just kicks all decisions down the road to Senate committees. For example, the Senate Finance Committee would be charged with reporting legislation that “would permanently reform or replace the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate formula ($298 billion) and full offset the cost with health savings” and “find an additional $202/$85 billion in health savings,” and “maintain the essential health care services that the poor and elderly rely upon.”

In other words, Finance would have to increase payments to doctors by $298 billion over the next ten years, find the money from other government health care programs to pay for it, then cut another $85 billion from government health spending, and accomplish all of these cuts without rationing care for those on government health programs. That isn’t a plan, its a fantasy.

So the plan is to, you know, cut stuff. Later on. Maybe.

They think we're all morons.

More from Philip Klein: Gang of Six plan is another Washington punt

Though it’s being billed as a $3.7 trillion deficit-reduction package, based on the limited details we have, it looks like it defers the actual tough decisions to a later date.

The plan claims just $500 billion in “immediate deficit savings,” but even these don’t seem all that immediate. Here’s what’s included as “immediate”:

 -- Statutory spending caps through 2015. But that still leaves the actual cuts to be determined.
-- “(N)umerous budget process reforms.” Again, that’s not an actual cut.
-- “Shift to the chained-CPI (a more accurate measure of inflation) government-wide starting in 2012, along with the following specifications for Social Security: (1) exempt SSI from the shift for five years, and then phase in the shift over the next five years; and (2) provide a minimum benefit equal to 125% of the poverty line for five years.”

In other words, let some future Congress can fight it out with AARP in 2017 when it comes times to actually implement this change.

And so on! But it gets better: Gang of six plan raises taxes by $3 trillion. So we know why Obama "hailed" it. Husband's comments:

I love the byzantine constructions they come up with to diffuse responsibility: if 60% of the Senate or 2/3 of the committees do not agree to a plan incorporating 40% of the 90% goals included in the revised and amended plan before the 6th day of the first month after the last day of the first month containing 2 full moons, a committee will be chosen by each caucus to select members to form a commission to propose alternative plans to meet or revise the previous goals, reporting no sooner than 1 day after the next election...

Thanks to Michelle Malkin for the Buzzworthy link.


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Why President Wet-Blanket loves taxes

Why is Presdient Obama so obsessed with increasing taxes, despite the weakness of the economy? Easy: Because he's obsessed with expanding government. James Pethokoukis:

But Obama’s tax obsession becomes understandable when you realize the long game he’s playing: Big Taxes to fund Big Government. Decade after decade. See, it’s an almost universal belief among left-of-center journalists, economists, policymakers and politicians that Americans must pay higher taxes in coming years to cover the medical expenses of its aging population – not to mention all sorts of brand new social spending and green “investment.” Dramatically higher taxes. On everybody. And if we have a debt crisis, maybe those tax increases come sooner rather than later. [. . .]

No wonder Obama rejected his own debt commission last December. It would limit the tax and spending burden to 21 percent of GDP. Neither is nearly enough for the Obamacrats and their successors. Just look at Obama’s budget from last February. Over a decade, it never reduces spending to less than 23 percent of GDP and spending is actually higher at the end of the ten-year span than in the middle. And eventually all that spending would need to be paid for via higher taxes. Recall that back in 2009, the White House floated a trial balloon about instituting a value-added tax to pay for healthcare reform or general debt reduction.

Underlying all this longing for higher taxes is a belief government can’t and shouldn’t be cut. Nonsense.

Read the whole thing, then have another from Mr. Pethokoukis: Would the GOP’s ‘Cut, Cap and Balance’ plan really cost 700,000 jobs? Heck no. 

This is the Democratic talking point: Cutting spending by $111 billion, as some Republicans want to do, would cost the economy 700,000 jobs.  Now I will admit that I am not sure if those are jobs somehow not created, jobs somehow not saved or what exactly. 

But the basic point is that less government spending means fewer jobs. But to believe that, you also have to believe that more government spending means more jobs.  [. . .]

So if the GOP plan cost any jobs, it might be in the tens of thousands. And that number might be more than offset by massive new hiring caused by the decrease in business and consumer uncertainty. Deep cuts in spending, hard spending caps and a balanced budget amendment would go a long way toward removing the threat of fiscal crisis from the fiscal horizon. If only the EU could say the same right now.

Kill jobs? The GOP plan would potentially be a powerful job creator.

I've extracted all the meat from Pethokoukis's argument so please read the whole thing.

Along those lines: ". . . this administration is the greatest wet blanket to business, and progress and job creation in my lifetime."


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Obama the dealmaker

True to form: The president's negotiating skills haven't evolved much during his tenure in the Oval Office. He feels no obligation to contribute anything of his own to the issues at hand, aside from hot air, petulance, and ill will.

Jan. 15, 2010, on Obamacare: You guys figure it out. I'm tired.

As the clock neared 1 a.m., the two sides were at an impasse. Mr. Obama stood up.

“ ‘See what you guys can figure out,’ ” one participant remembers him saying, adding that the failed effort left the president mad.

March 2010, to visiting head of state: Enough of this aggravation. I'm gonna go eat my waffle.

After failing to extract a written promise of concessions on settlements, Mr Obama walked out of his meeting with Mr Netanyahu but invited him to stay at the White House, consult with advisers and “let me know if there is anything new”, a US congressman, who spoke to the Prime Minister, said.

“It was awful,” the congressman said. One Israeli newspaper called the meeting “a hazing in stages”, poisoned by such mistrust that the Israeli delegation eventually left rather than risk being eavesdropped on a White House telephone line. Another said that the Prime Minister had received “the treatment reserved for the President of Equatorial Guinea”.

July 2011, on raising the debt limit: This on-call business is no bed of roses, you know.

The President said that in the next 24-36 hours, he wanted the leaders to talk to their caucuses and call him about a path forward that can pass both the House and Senate.

"I'll be on call," the president told them.

Heavy hangs the head that wears the crown. 

How dare they?

At this point, Cantor explained, the president became “very agitated” and said he had “sat here long enough,” that “Ronald Reagan wouldn’t sit here like this” and that “something’s got to give.” Obama then told Republicans they either needed to compromise on their insistence on a dollar for dollar ratio of spending cuts to debt increase or agree to a “grand bargain” including massive tax increases. Before walking out of the room, Cantor said, the president said: “Eric, don’t call my bluff. I’m going to the American people with this.” He then “shoved back” and said “I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

Just words. And words. And more words:

In the private talks, he’s dominated the discussion with the eight most senior members of Congress in an overbearing way not likely to lead to compromise. He’s been argumentative. He’s come across as President Blowhard.

After Sperling briefed the group on the deficit cap proposal, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi addressed another subject. When a Republican participant criticized the deficit cap, Obama interrupted with a monologue. When the Republican tried to speak a second time, the president quickly cut him off and delivered another sermon on why the criticism was wrong.

What a tiresome man.  

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