Even the MSM is joining in the Obamacare Regret train. From CBS News:

One such surprise is found on page 158 of the legislation, which appears to create a carve out for senior staff members in the leadership offices and on congressional committees, essentially exempting those senior Democrat staffers who wrote the bill from being forced to purchase health care plans in the same way as other Americans. …

This problem was acknowledged earlier in the process – last year, Senator Grassley tried to repair it, but he was rebuffed.

As Speaker Pelosi said a few weeks ago, it’s only after this legislation is passed that we’ll truly find out what’s in it

One law for them that make ‘em, another for the rest of us. Is that what “Change” looks like?

Technorati Tags: Obamacare, Socialized Medicine, Comrade Pelosi, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice

The blogosphere is all a-twitter about Dan Rather saying that Obama couldn’t sell watermelons if you gave him state troopers to flag down the traffic. And yes, at first glance, his statements do appear to be “racist rhetoric”:

DAN RATHER: Part of the undertow in the coming election is going to be President Obama’s leadership. And the Republicans will make a case and a lot of independents will buy this argument. “Listen he just hasn’t been, look at the health care bill. It was his number one priority. It took him forever to get it through and he had to compromise it to death.” And a version of, “Listen he’s a nice person, he’s very articulate” this is what’s been used against him, “but he couldn’t sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic.“

I’m certainly no lover of extreme-left talking heads, but I don’t believe Rather was being racist. I think he was stereotyping conservatives as racists. That is, he wasn’t saying that Obama couldn’t sell watermelons, he was saying that Republicans will say that Obama couldn’t sell watermelons.

So while Rather wasn’t being racist, he was being a typical left-wing moonbat. And yes, I see the irony of me saying that.

Technorati Tags: Dan Rather and Other Barking Moonbats

A memo signed by Charlie Kireker, Chair of the “progressive” talk radio network Air America Media, was distributed this afternoon. Excerpt:

It is with the greatest regret, on behalf of our Board, that we must announce that Air America Media is ceasing its live programming operations as of this afternoon, and that the Company will file soon under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code to carry out an orderly winding-down of the business.

The full memo can be found on the Air America website.

Let us have a moment of silence to mourn the passing of granola-chomping tree hugging terrorist lover yammering on the airwaves.

OK, that’s long enough. Now let’s get on to more important things.

Technorati Tags: Air America, Granola Chomping Tree Hugging Terrorist Loving Yammerheads

Even the incredibly left-wing, terrorist-loving, granola-chomping propagandist over at FreshJive is losing faith, as evidenced by the release of this tee-shirt:

It is, appropriately enough, being released on Black Friday. Oooh, the Left is plunging in black despair and depression! Who could have seen that coming?

Technorati Tags: Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice, Hopeless in America, No Change that is Good Change, The Socialization of America, Bankrupting America, Hope is Fading Fast

From Cavalier’s Guardian WatchBlog:

Real life is far more complicated than Liberals seem to comprehend. That’s why their solutions to the problems we face are usually both simplistic and unrealistic. But they work on paper, so we’re the stupid ones.

Exactly.

It’s been over a week since this poster was first spotted in Los Angeles:

The resulting furor has been quite entertaining. I just don’t understand why it was perfectly fine to equate Bush with Hitler for eight years, but comparing B. Hussein Obama to a comic book character is somehow offensive.

I couldn’t put it any better than Doc Weasel (who also happens to have an awesome roundup on the subject):

Some assholes don’t get it. Obama is the Joker. He wants to tear it all down. He wants to destroy America. He hates America, as it is currently comprised. He detests white people and their culture and their supposed hegemony over the country. He wants a repressive, controlling central authority to take over every facet of the economy and your life. He detests liberty, he wants to repeal the 2nd Amendment and he wants to socialize, if not outright communize, the country. He is a liar, a racist, a sociopath. He despises religion and those who are religious. He despises anyone who is not in his “class”; i.e., working people like Joe the Plumber. He has the same worldview as William Ayres: tear it all down, but he’s doing so from the inside. Unless we stop him. If you can’t understand and see that, you are blind and a fool.

Newsbusters linked to a version of the poster that has shown up in Atlanta, but I couldn’t locate the image leading me to believe that it had been removed from the “news” site. I did, however, find the following image at that site and wanted to save it before it disappeared forever:

This, of course, is in reference to (as Michelle Malkin puts it) the Internet Snitch Brigade.

Technorati Tags: Barrack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice, Socialism in America, Creeping Socialism

Writing for Forbes magazine, Richard Epstein expounds on Why the Obama Stimulus Plan Must Fail. Epstein first directs your attention to the passage of the “stimulus” bill last February:

At the time, brave presidential words promised that this package could create some 4 million new jobs, so that the unemployment rate would top at around 8%. Alas, there are 2.6 million fewer jobs today than when the bill passed, with an unemployment rate of 9.5%, which is still inching upward. …

In the end, the likely result will be that the unwise government programs will drive out better private ones. On net, shrinking productivity translates into fewer jobs, which explains the spike in unemployment rates.

Epstein goes wraps up with:

The president and the Democrats are now in control of Congress. The Republicans are in disarray. So we have to face these grim prospects: continued record deficits, a huge nationalization of health care, the imposition of heavy carbon taxes, an insane Employee Free Choice Act and higher tax rates and special assessments in 2011 on the most productive individuals of our society.

Today’s investors have figured out that tomorrow does not look so rosy. So they are holding back on investment until the storm passes. No new investment, no new jobs. As libertarians well know, each new extension of government power should be examined under a presumption of error. By that standard, the president’s stimulus package–indeed his entire legislative program–should be scrapped.

I am not certain that Epstein is correct when he predicts investor behavior. It seems to me that the market is shrugging off significant chunks of bad news by grasping at bits of good news, reminding me of the famed rose colored glasses. But that is not unexpected, given the current under-valuation of the stock market.

Brian Wesbury and Robert Stein, writing in the same issue of Forbes as Epstein, says indicators show that the economy is indeed turning around, albeit slowly:

Since then, however, the short-sellers have been on the run. Almost every major piece of data since that employment report has been stronger than consensus expectations. This includes the Institute for Supply Management’s services index, jobless claims, the trade deficit, retail sales, industrial production, home building, both consumer and producer prices and, finally, import and export prices. The case for a deflationary malaise was mortally wounded. …

… stocks today are at no more than 50% of fair value . . .

That said, we are also forecasting higher interest rates as the economy grows robustly over the next 18 months and the inflation problem returns. But even using a 10-year Treasury yield of 5.5% suggests the stock market is at no more than 75% of fair value.

Despite this, it is unlikely that stock prices will quickly move all the way back to fair value. Investors have to remain concerned about the prospects for a huge expansion of government in the form of health care spending and regulation as well as limits on carbon emissions. But with each passing week, it appears more and more likely that our new president’s legislative agenda on these issues is not going to be altogether successful.

In other words, the stock market is severely depressed and even the predicted inflationary pressures will only wipe away half of the profits that are within grasp. But standing squarely in the way of recovery is concern over explosive growth of government spending, over regulation, and a ballooning deficit — all elements of B. Hussein Obama’s “vision”. And the only thing giving investor’s hope is the appearance (and fervent hope) that the chosen one’s vision will never come to pass.

So in the end, the Democrats may be successful in turning this economy around by balking at additional spending. Hmmm, how terribly conservative of them. But who will notice?

Technorati Tags: US Economy, Economics, Stock Market, B. Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice, Bankrupting America

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has asked Ben and Jerry’s to substitute human breast milk for cow’s milk in the manufacture of their delicious product.

Really. You just can’t make this stuff up.

The myth that anti-Christian fanatics seem to take the most glee in is that she attempted to ban books from the town library while serving as mayor. This has been repeated often, even making a story in Time Magazine and Salon (2), and an email with a list of 90 books that Palin supposedly attempted to ban is shooting around leftist inboxes as we speak. (The list is fake, ripped off from this page.)

All this, according to the Wall Street Journal:

As it turns out, not only was the list a fake, but when the Anchorage Daily News investigated the story, it found no evidence that Palin had ever sought to remove books from the library. [City librarian] Baker (who was then named Emmons) did tell the local paper back in 1996 that Palin asked her, in the Daily News’s words, "about possibly removing objectionable books from the library if the need arose." Emmons "flatly refused to consider any kind of censorship."

Kilkenny makes an appearance in the Daily News story, quoting Palin as asking Baker at a City Council meeting, " ‘What would be your response if I asked you to remove some books from the collection?’ " Baker’s response was firm and negative, according to Kilkenny, who acknowledges that Palin did not cite any specific books for removal.

The chairman of the Alaska Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee tells the Daily News that there is no evidence in her files of any censorship at the Wasilla library. As for Baker’s resignation, it appears to be unrelated to the putative censorship.

So not only is the book banning story patently false, but another piece of the "retribution queen" story takes a hit.

If this is not the most watched video on the Internet, it is only because most people are incapable of looking in the mirror.

HT to InstaPundit via non-blogging Advised by Wolves.