...has far to go.
AFTERNOON UPDATES:
ITEM: NASA Scientist and Moonbat Warmist James Hansen says that “The democratic process doesn’t quite seem to be working” with regards to climate change and is calling for protests and direct action (Wikipedia: “Direct action can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action participant.”). The man is certainly free to speak his mind, but he should not be calling for “violent activities” as an official of the US Government.
ITEM: Speaking of NASA, they should look at hiring these teenage students over in Spain.
ITEM: Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski to Barack Obama: stop opinining on the NCAA playoffs and focus on the economy. (“It’s the economy, stupid.” — James Carville to Bill Clinton in 1992.)
ITEM: Texas Thunderdome: “Texas High School Staged Cage Fights Between Students, Documents Say.” As my wife said, “Only in Texas.” (And I’ve lived there twice and love the state.) “Two men enter; one man leaves.” — Tina Turner to Mel Gibson.
ITEM: Congressional hearings on ACORN, which organization the White House wants to have help out with the 2010 Census. More commentary and coverage over at Ace of Spaces.
ITEM: “Think of it as evolution in action”: individuals unlikely to reproduce.
ITEM: Mickey Kaus (a daily must-read) comments on the existence of “Journolist”, the left-wing echo chamber (or is that “star chamber”) for journalists (I posted about it on Tuesday)) and is told to shut up if he knows what’s good for him (or something like that).
ITEM: He can run but he can’t hide. Karl posting at Patterico’s Pontifications documents just how complicit Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) was in the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac debacle and, in fact, in the whole subprime catastrophe.
OVERNIGHT/MORNING POSTS:
ITEM: It’s a bull market rally for Obama’s popularity! The Rasmussen Obama Approval Index is back up to +7!
ITEM: And now Obama’s ubiquitous teleprompter has its own blog! (Hat tip to Mark Hemingway at the NRO Corner.)
ITEM: According to one Congressman, thirteen of the bailout firms are deliquent on $220 million in taxes. Hey, it’s not like they’re being nominated for a Cabinet position or anything.
ITEM: A group of moderate Democratic Senators is questioning the current headlong rush on the Obama agenda. Of course, they haven’t done anything to halt it so far. Bryan York documents Obama tossing fiscal responsibility under the bus. Nouriel Roubini joins the chorus trying to point out that US economics have been one big Madoff/Ponzi scheme for years. And Amity Schlaes points out lessons for us (and for the US) from other countries.
ITEM: Obama in his town hall meeting yesterday assured his listeners that rich people can afford to pay more taxes, with “rich” meaning an income of over $250,000. Leaving aside the class warfare implications, what about small businesses, particularly LLCs and sole proprietorships? That’s where much of the job growth is, and that’s exactly where the Obama Tax Hike will hurt people the most. Obama’s solution? Lend them more money so they can pay those taxes.
ITEM: I predicted yesterday that the Obama idea to make veterans wounded in action pay for their medical treatment using their private insurance would be gone by Friday. I was too conservative; it died yesterday afternoon.
ITEM: So the new question is: will Treasury Sec’y Tim Geithner be gone by Friday? This Time article sure isn’t going to help him. Meanwhile, the folks at Bespoke Premium are betting it won’t happen until either the end of June or the end of the year. They don’t understand that when Obama wants to get rid of someone, they go quickly.
ITEM: Remember Bush’s comments from yesterday? “”I’m not going to spend my time criticizing him. There are plenty of critics in the arena. … He deserves my silence.” It just struck me that Bush may have remembered the famous dictum (usually attributed to Napoleon), “Never interfere with your enemy when he is in the process of destroying himself.”
ITEM: Bush may be keeping quiet but Karl Rove — the Democrat’s other favorite eeeevillll mastermind (besides Cheney) during the past eight years — is not.
ITEM: Obama, the “common man” who is so angry at those Wall Street fat cats, signed a children’s book deal that included a $500,000 cash advance just five days before he took office as President. Nice work, if you can get it, particularly since it only involves editing down one of his existing books, not actually writing a new one. Does anyone think that Crown Publishing would have paid him half a million if he hadn’t been elected President. And doesn’t that mean he is, in effect, trading on his status as President to make money? From the article:
Analysts say there don’t appear to be any rules that would bar such transactions after a president takes office, but it’s unclear whether an incoming or sitting president has ever signed a book deal upon entering the White House.
“I don’t recall any sitting president entering into a book deal,” said campaign finance lawyer Jan Baran, former general counsel to the Republican National Committee. “They all have historically done that after they leave office.
ITEM: Once a Communist, always a Communist! Mikhail Gorbachev argues for state control of economics. Yep, we all remember how well that worked out for the (former) Soviet Union!
ITEM: Peter Brown schools VP Joe Biden, as does John DeVore, over his latest inanity (“President Obama has inherited the most difficult first 100 days of any president, I would argue, including Franklin Roosevelt.”) Yep, the smartest man in the room, alright.
ITEM: Obama claims “the buck stops here” with regards to the AIG bonuses but then (as Philip Klein puts it) goes on to blame other people. That’s not quite accepting responsibility, is it?
ITEM: In the meantime, the Obama Administration is now throwing the Federal Reserve Bank under the bus over the AIG bonuses. Everyone’s to blame but Obama.
ITEM: And what about all those Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonuses? If you want to talk about corrupt and insolvent, Fannie and Freddie fit the bill.
ITEM: Meanwhile, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Ireland) admits that, yes, he did indeed insert the loophole for the AIG but did so at the insistence of the Treasury Department. Paging Tim Geithner….
ITEM: Shepard Smith at Fox News speaks truth to power about the hypocrisy and grandstanding that Congress is doing right now over AIG (hat tip to Gerard Vanderleun at American Digest):
ITEM: In a similar vein, Caroline Baum over at Bloomberg.com compares the AIG situation to “Atlas Shrugged” and says that Obama needs new AIG Chairman Liddy more than Liddy needs Obama. Diana Furchtgott-Roth, in the meantime, sees all the AIG-bashing as a political smokescreen (and I might add, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”). And Michael Godwin at the NY Daily News says that Congress was the real loser at yesterday’s hearings.
ITEM: Speaking of hypocrisy, someone on the radio today asked a simple question: why is Congress so outraged over $165 million in post-bailout bonuses, yet just a few weeks ago they passed a spending bill with nearly $5.5 billion in earmarks (over 30 times more than the AIG bonuses). Oh, and Obama signed that bill, despite his campaign promises to the contrary. Of course, he also signed the stimulus bill that allowed the AIG bonuses. Of course, Daniel Drezner argues — not without reason — that neither bonuses nor earmarks matter very much in the whole scheme of things.
ITEM: Obama compares dealing with AIG to dealing with a suicide bomber. No, really.
ITEM: Speaking of suicide bombers, our new US Attorney General Eric Holder has stated that he may release some of the Gitmo terrorist detainees right here in the United States. This has been a public service announcement.
ITEM: James Lewis over at American Thinker wonders if the Democrats really, really understand where all this is going to end? (Here’s a clue: very, very badly.)
ITEM: From the sauce for the goose department: SEIU (that’s a biiig union, and one that’s quite cosy with the Obama Administration) has had a unfair labor complaint filed against it by its own unionized employees, who claim that it’s laying off salaried staff and going to outside contractors.
ITEM: The Dem’s future nightmare, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, is still killing wolves. Hey, she has to keep her fighting edge somehow. And, boy, wasn’t it a good thing she didn’t end up in the White House?
I’m sure there’s more out there, but you’re on your own for now. ..bruce w..