This from an interview with John McCormach at The Weekly Standard. (H/T The Corner)

*Sigh.  Stupak “more optimistic” on the bills passing then he was a week ago.  But remember, the House has to pass the Senate bill as is before the abortion issue can be addressed, and it must be addressed in a separate bill that must pass both the House and the Senate.  Does Stupak and the other (allegedly) pro-life dems believe the President and the Senate will actually address this?  Do they even care, or do they just need a fig leaf? 

*ObamaCare Means a Two-Tier Health-Care System, by James Lewis.

*Today in Health-Care Reform, by Mathew Continetti.

“Three outcomes spring to mind. One, Nancy Pelosi finds 216 votes for a pre-Easter Recess vote and health care reform becomes law. Two, the grinding stasis continues until the November elections and nothing passes. Or three, a major and unexpected event along the lines of Scott Brown’s election occurs and the process is scrambled once again. So the odds are still slightly against health care reform — and will be until the Democrats find a majority.”

Keep in mind, Intrade.com has the odds of ObamaCare passing by June at 64%.

*The Case for Repeal, by Rich Lowry.

*The WSJ warns that Health-Care won’t be the only thing included in reconciliation.

“Everyone knows Democrats are planning to use the budget reconciliation process to get ObamaCare through the Senate. Less well known is that Democrats are plotting add-ons to that bill to get other liberal priorities enacted—programs that could never attract 60 votes.”

Misc.

*Will Millennials Become the Chump Generation? By Robert Samuelson.

“Millennials could become the chump generation. They could suffer for their elders’ economic sins, particularly the failure to confront the predictable costs of baby boomers’ retirement.”

*Stimulus or Sedative? By Thomas Sowell.

“The theory is that, if one thing doesn’t work, it is just a matter of trying another. But, in an atmosphere where nobody knows what the federal government is going to come up with next, people tend to hang on to their money until they have some idea of what the rules of the game are going to be.”

*My Race is American, by Michelle Malkin.

The answer comes in first year business school. When we think about what we need in life to be happy, the most scientific model we have is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It tells us that people have, in order, physiological, safety, love, esteem and self-actualization needs that must be met to allow the next to address. The dumbed down version is you need food and water before you need a safe house to sleep in, and you need that before you need a mate or family, and you need that before you can really worry about mental image, and so on. This theory has been rammed down the throat of everyone who’s gone to school for business or psychology for the last 70 years, but it’s still irrefutably true. We all have very simple needs, and they need addressing before you can worry about anyone but yourself. So what shifted that lets people dwell on the least important issues, if not completely ignore the things that have the most impact on them?

I think the ticker was the start. And we’re all complacent in this. When I go to work (I work in a bar), I stare off into the television during sports games I have no interest in, and watch the scores other games I have no interest in. I do the same thing when watching business news (watching the values of stocks I don’t invest in). Now why is it that I don’t spend a fraction of that same time going all Descartes and thinking about the world around me in a meaningful way? Don’t get me wrong, I try, but I might spend half as much time thinking about how to really change health care as I do thinking about “Lost” or watching Nostalgia Chick again.

So then I get depressed thinking on this. Ratings for network news shows are sky high, but the viewers consistently show that they have no idea why pundit x is saying what they’re saying. The barrage of news flow leads to being reactionary as opposed to delegated in our response. We’re so well off that we feel free to sit back on our laurels and let someone else think for us. This is not a good sign for where people are headed as technology allows for even easier access to media, and as we become more Boolean in our thinking. A generation of “if/then” thinkers probably won’t have the attention span to balance a budget, unless it can be dropped into excel.

So how do you fix this? Really, it’s such a positive statement about the quality of life in America that is almost sounds silly to try and adjust it. But if we aren’t willing to think hard on the big problems, they’re going to get a whole hell of a lot worse, and complacency will just become another issue to fret about. So, if you’re reading this (and you aren’t my mother checking in to see what I’m all worked up about this week), you seem to have the free time, or possibly the headline news drive that I’m trying to address. When you’re done, turn off your computer, and go read something more then five pages long. Hell, this essay is less then two. If we ever hope to fix anything, knowing more about why it’s a problem seems like a good first step.

Levi Starbird is a retired punk rocker living under the guise of a college student in western Colorado. He is a chain smoking, often overdressed twenty-something of an ogre-ish persuasion. He is just as confused as you are as to how he got this job.

Rham-bo isn’t going anywhere (thank god), and he’s still on the warpath. I’ll Let Peter Baker describe Emanuel’s take on his career-

(If health care passes) “Emanuel will be hailed as a savior. If not, well, he does not even allow for that possibility.”

In what is one of the hardest to tolerate examples of free speech, The Supreme Court has decided to hear a case involving the Westboro Baptist Church. If you’ve had the good fortune of being able to forget these bastards, they’re the ones who go to the funerals of American soldiers to protest because, apparently, god killed them for the US being “tolerant” of gays. I’m not sure what’s worse about this- that these people think this is the proper way to express their lunacy or that they think the US is tolerant of gays (let’s look to our over 1,000 laws that only apply to straight couples.) But the father of a Marine who lost his life in Iraq has opted to sue the church, which survived their last legal battle under defense of the First Amendment. The father wants damages for the anguish he suffered, and the exploitation of his sons last hours alive.

This is where it gets hard. In my mind, picketing gay funerals is as (pardon the pun) hellworthy a trespass as ever really happens in America. Using the loss of human life to frame a point based in nothing but hate is as disgusting, ignorant, and most of all ineffective an approach to making your claim as burning a cross in someones front yard. Sadly. this IS America. We have the right to say whatever we want to whoever we want. It keeps us free above anything else. You can have more guns then Ted Nugent in your police proof bunker, but the inability to speak your mind and rationally fix problems is the absolute most integral key to the life we are so privileged to lead. So I have to defend the Westboro church. If there is a more embarrassing group of Americans out there, please let me know to put some comedy in the piece, but no matter what they say, they have the right to say it. Regardless of the courts decision, I will be angry. I want these people silenced, but fear so dramatically the repercussions if they are. I’ll be posting on this in the near future.

Nancy Pelosi might just be losing her choke hold on the house, and it really couldn’t be at a worse time. Democrats, weak willed to begin, had her as the only strong voice for party unity. Rham Emanuel has his hands full, you know, running the White House, and President Obama is apparently really worked up in playing WOW or something, because it looks like he’s got free time, yet Pelosi has stayed firm. In the face of not just opposition, instead downright hatred from the right, with an insurrection from within to boot (both the Black Caucus and the Blue Dogs), she has the unenviable position of getting an agenda across that her constituents DO want while trying to help the nation as a whole. Here’s hoping she doesn’t crack, because someone needs to be in charge.

“I cannot bring myself to believe that any president would manipulate the economy in such a manner for his own political purposes. But I do know this:  while Obama continues to fiddle his atonal health care tune, the flames of war and recession and fiscal collapse rage all around him.

Does he care? Does he even understand the precipice upon which we stand?”

ALSO by Patterson: Obama Plays High Stakes Poker on Health-Care

“The summit and subsequent events have revealed two distinct philosophies that are like oil and water, and are likely to mix just about as well. Democrats obsess over the uninsured; the Republicans over cost. Democrats believe it’s the business of the government to dictate coverage; the Republicans that government’s role must be limited and encourage competition. What we’re talking about here is two vastly different views of the nature and rationale of federal authority in our lives, a difference between top down and bottom up, between centralized or diffused power, between government that knows best and liberty that comes first.”

ALSO by Patterson: Fix Medicare First

*Veganism joins Environmentalism as a protected religious group in the UK.

“The legislation also covers “any religious belief or philosophical belief” and even “a lack of belief”.

*Sean Penn believes in jailing people who call Hugo Chavez a dictator. 

*SURPRISE!  National debt to be higher than The White House predicted.

*Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, ObamaCare, at the WSJ.

“Last week President Obama sanctioned “reconciliation,” a complex tactic that would jam ObamaCare into law on sheer power politics. But what if this gambit is really a false-flag operation, meant to lure House Democrats into voting for a bill that they would otherwise oppose? That’s the question many rank-and-file Members are now asking themselves, and they’re right to be worried.”

Dear Colorado-based Amazon Associate:We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to inform you that the Colorado government recently enacted a law to impose sales tax regulations on online retailers. The regulations are burdensome and no other state has similar rules. The new regulations do not require online retailers to collect sales tax. Instead, they are clearly intended to increase the compliance burden to a point where online retailers will be induced to “voluntarily” collect Colorado sales tax — a course we won’t take.

We and many others strongly opposed this legislation, known as HB 10-1193, but it was enacted anyway. Regrettably, as a result of the new law, we have decided to stop advertising through Associates based in Colorado. We plan to continue to sell to Colorado residents, however, and will advertise through other channels, including through Associates based in other states.

There is a right way for Colorado to pursue its revenue goals, but this new law is a wrong way. As we repeatedly communicated to Colorado legislators, including those who sponsored and supported the new law, we are not opposed to collecting sales tax within a constitutionally-permissible system applied even-handedly. The US Supreme Court has defined what would be constitutional, and if Colorado would repeal the current law or follow the constitutional approach to collection, we would welcome the opportunity to reinstate Colorado-based Associates.

You may express your views of Colorado’s new law to members of the General Assembly and to Governor Ritter, who signed the bill.

Let me send a big ‘fuck you’ to the legislature for aborting our efforts to monetize QC with this ill conceived piece of intrusive nonsense.  I’m going to keep the search box up, for my own convenience if nothing else, but I’ll be taking down the banner up top.  Expect shittier, more obnoxious advertising to follow.  

*Health Care Summit Agreement: Prostate Exams Suck; Barney Frank dissents

*John Boehner Now Blacker Than Obama

*Scientists Warn: Amy Adams “Adorable” in Leap Year

*Dem Blue Dog Coalition Renames Itself ‘Blue Balls’ Coalition: We haven’t been laid since the 70’s, say legislators

*John Edwards Sweeps ‘Dickies:’ Edges out Charlie Sheen, Tiger Woods as “Nation’s Biggest Tool”

*Pelosi Travels To Canada For Operation; I want shitty, universal care, says Speaker

*Association of American Men: Fat Chicks Give Great Handjobs

The Association of American Men Approves This Message

*Lady Gaga Shocks Awards Ceremony With Tasteful, Low Key Gown

*Wal-Mart Defeats Al-Qaeda: Bin-Laden Surrenders To ‘Big Savings’

Save money, live better...or else.

*Fox News Reveals Secret Of Broadcast Success: Babes, Assholes

Click the Image to Watch

Enjoy

-TF