Time for Thorns

Alas,  impressionable youngsters like Monica Lewinsky will no longer have a presidential knee pad career path to internship,  though I’m astonished that Minority Leader Pelosi  agreed with  Speaker Boehner that the congressional page program should be killed.

Hey,  you save $5 million here and there,  and pretty soon it might add up to real money.

Speaker Pelosi has now granted her party in the House blanket authority  to circumvent the standard rules process and expedite floor votes through December 18th.

A dying rattlesnake is still very dangerous…

And speaking of  changing the rules,  read about how corrupt labor unions and a corrupt Obama Administration,  having rigged the rules,  are now changing them to benefit the labor unions  with regard to the Delta/Northwest merger.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has  just announced that she will be running for House Minority Leader.   John Boehner is probably on the floor laughing at the extraordinary help he’s receiving from the Democrats.  The only thing better would be if she actually wins.

The NRCC has a prompt and  amusing response.

Does anyone with half a dozen functioning gray cells still believe the Democrats got the message the voters sent?

Now the question is what kind  of fight we’ll see over the position.

Pretty bad,  if Karen Tumulty,  often found flogging progressive causes in Time magazine,  is  asking this  very thing in the WaPo.   Add to that the Democratic gubernatorial candidate for  Rhode Island says His Oneness  can shove his endorsement,  and November 2nd ain’t looking pretty for the progressives.

The report from the office of Neil Barofsky,  special inspector general  of the TARP bailout slams Treasury and the administration for  manipulating data depending on their audience.    I don’t see how Geithner the Incompetent survives this,  but stranger things have happened.

His Oneness is growing hoarse from  exhorting Hispanics to punish “enemies” by voting Democratic,  while Marco Rubio has this great ad.

To make matters worse,  CBS has shown a “60 Minutes” investigative report which finds that when you take into account the underemployed as well as the unemployed,  the national rate hits 17% and California a staggering 22%.    20% of the unemployed have college degrees,  and a third of the unemployed have been out of work for over a year.   This hasn’t happened since the Great Depression.

Sage Michael Barone  explains in the Telegraph why Americans have turned against His Oneness and big government.   The Daily Beast has a piece up on the  “Five Signs Your Party Is Doomed” and someone let CNBC report that the dollar is  in danger of becoming toxic waste.

The American Spectator points out that  views normally considered mainstream are now being reviled by Democrats as extremist and bigoted.  No one is surprised that Hugh Hewitt calls for radical Democrats to  be booted out next week,  or that Deroy Murdock writes of the stimulus as an  $814 billion flop,  but even the bookies are now coming out with  odds that Republicans will regain the House,  and the new poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press  features a chart which should make Democrats suicidal,  despite Tim Kaine’s  claims that Democrats will hold the House,  and Nancy Pelosi whining that her party hasn’t gotten credit for what it’s done.   Of course,  voters are giving them full credit for what they don’t like…

The G-20 summit has ended  in failure for the administration’s proposal to set a cap for each country’s deficit or surplus.   Even the India trip so  carefully planned  by Obama for immediately after the mid-term elections,  is  generating no buzz,  while gathering some criticism for his use  of teleprompters and failure to  provide an itinerary.

Nutty Nancy called a  press conference to pat herself on the back for blowing $140,000 of your tax dollars on new lighting so efficient it will take barely 10 years to pay for itself,  by adjusting lighting against the amount coming in the windows.

Pelosi said that the new lights in the cafeteria would make the Capitol a “shining example of sustainability” and green technology.

Doesn’t this prove that Democrats are too lazy and too stupid to use light switches and to adjust window shades themselves?

Read Patrick Michaels’ piece on the  global-warming tax in all its job-killing glory.    Steven Milloy has a related read on killing the coal industry  here.

Sarah Palin   launches a rocket at Congress via Facebook,  which I freely admit I don’t use because my computer security system goes into meltdown when I access it.    Mitt Romney  also joins the fray.

A  British friend of The Corner observes some facts which give cause for hope,  which ties in nicely with Rich Lowry’s  reasons not to despair,  along with  differing views of  his readers.

If the  Attorney General of your state isn’t filing suit against the federal government over the health care snatch,   shouldn’t you ask why?

Greg Mankiw offers an  interesting post,   while Sen.  Chuck Grassley suggests His Oneness,  The Mouth,  cabinet members,  and top White House staff be put under the new health care system so they’ll be knowledgeable about it  (h/t Daniel Foster at The Corner).

If you’re curious as to why His Oneness is now going on a  tour to amp up support for the bill which he’s signing Tuesday,   it’s because the White House and progressives knew We the People hated it,  yet passed it anyway.   I think  this proves how wide and deep the antagonism is.

More cases like  this one showing the benevolence and sweet reason of Medicare,  won’t be drowned out by,  to borrow a phrase from Jonah Goldberg,   more cowbells.   More cartoons such  as this won’t help either.

If you want to see how the House voted on the changes to the Senate bill, go  here.  If you want to see Pelosi’s and Reid’s  new approval ratings,  check  this –  they’re even lower than that of Congress!

WSJ has a  fine piece on the blood and guts of the health care deal.

In her floor speech,  Nancy Pelosi mentioned  “life,  liberty,  and the pursuit of happiness.”    I’ve already left a message at her office that she is making my life harder,   depriving me of my liberty,   and hampering my pursuit of happiness.

She also told a fine collection of whoppers,   including that this was being done “for Americans”,  despite the fact that a majority of us want nothing to do with this socialistic spawn.

The amusing thing was that she followed Minority Leader Boehner,  who delivered a real stemwinder of a speech.

Nate Beeler offers a perfect  summation.

Democrats have already begun using Rep.  John Murtha’s death from complications of gall bladder surgery as a reason to avoid tort reform, much as they tried to use Ted Kennedy’s death to push their hideous health reform bills through Congress.

So Pelosi has lost not merely her best bully,  but also  another vote for health reform in the House.    I have nothing good to say about Murtha.   I’m old enough to remember the Abscam scandal,  which Murtha spent two decades lying about,  but what truly reduced him to subhuman level for me was his careless condemnation of the Haditha marines,  all the more disgusting because he was once a Marine himself.

I have known a good many Marines,  and  Murtha was the only ex-Marine amongst them,  proving the exception to the  “Once a Marine,  always a Marine”  saying.   I will shed no more tears for him than I did for Ted Kennedy.    Two powerful and powerfully corrupt men are gone.    Good riddance.

ObamaCare continues to ooze its way forward like some particularly  aggressive slime mold.   You can go  here to see what Pelosi and Reid are up to,  but if you’ve already showered and don’t feel like subjecting yourself to congressional progressive bug juice,  just read Daniel Foster’s post about it  at this link.

If you don’t think progressives believe you’re dumber than dirt,  you haven’t been paying attention!