*President Obama complained yesterday that he was getting no credit for that 17 billion in budget cuts.  Jake Tapper calls shenanigans:

“Of course, it’s probably worth saying that the $17 billion in cuts — assuming they actually go through — is not a cut per se, it’s just a re-allotment of that money to other programs in the $3.55 trillion budget.” (H/T Hot Air)

*Fiscal Suicide Ahead, by David Brooks.

*Caracas on the Potomac: Welcome to the Banana States of America, by Stephen Green

*Could Obamalaise be on the Horizon? By Sean Brasswell.

*Cracks in the Façade, by Victor Davis Hanson.

“They embrace the term “100 days”; do they realize its genesis is 1815 and Napoleon’s return from Elba? (they should: it ended at Waterloo).

*Fantastic.  Federal tax revenues will have to be raised 81% just to pay for existing commitments on Social Security and Medicare.  That’s 81% without Cap and Trade and Rationed Nationalized Healthcare being taken into account, mind you.  See the banana republic article above.

RELATED: Medicaid’s Soaring Cost, from CATO.

RELATED II: Wage Growth and Social Security, also from CATO.

*Israel Today, the West Tomorrow, by Mark Steyn.

“Not long ago, I found myself watching the video of another “pro-Palestinian” protest in central London with the Metropolitan Police retreating up St. James’s Street to Piccadilly in the face of a mob hurling traffic cones and jeering, “Run, run, you cowards!” and “Allahu akbar!” You would think the deluded multi-culti progressives would understand: In the end, this isn’t about Gaza, this isn’t about the Middle East; it’s about them. It may be some consolation to an ever-lonelier Israel that, in one of history’s bleaker jests, in the coming Europe the Europeans will be the new Jews.”

*Obama the Destroyer, by Quin Hillyer.

*Your Daily Dose of Awesome: Molecule of Life Emerges From Laboratory Slime.

-QC-