What matters about John Edwards is not whether paying for his love-child’s Pampers with a donation from Bunny Mellon sluiced through a third party fronting as a 501(c) for tax-deductible carbon credits registered as a UNESCO branch office in Haiti is a violation of applicable campaign finance laws, but that he’s a contemptible slug who succeeded in flattering the genteel spinsters of America’s legacy media that his unfitness for office was a subject far too vulgar for such elevated souls to pursue.

- Mark Steyn

DON RUMSFELD, author of the bestselling “Known and Unknown: A Memoir,” to Candy Crowley on CNN’s “State of the Union,” re what would happen if Osama bin Laden were caught: “Oh my goodness, I think he’d probably end up in Guantanamo Bay.” …

CROWLEY: “Just out of curiosity, if we did catch him down and he was down at Guantanamo Bay prison, would you like to go down there and see him?”

RUMSFELD: “No. He’s not my type.”

The existing problems in our national health care system are recognized by
everyone in this case. There is widespread sentiment for positive improvements
that will reduce costs, improve the quality of care, and expand availability in a way
that the nation can afford. This is obviously a very difficult task. Regardless of how
laudable its attempts may have been to accomplish these goals in passing the Act,
Congress must operate within the bounds established by the Constitution. Again,
this case is not about whether the Act is wise or unwise legislation. It is about the
Constitutional role of the federal government.

For the reasons stated, I must reluctantly conclude that Congress exceeded
the bounds of its authority in passing the Act with the individual mandate. That is
not to say, of course, that Congress is without power to address the problems and
inequities in our health care system. The health care market is more than one sixth
of the national economy, and without doubt Congress has the power to reform and
regulate this market. That has not been disputed in this case. The principal dispute
has been about how Congress chose to exercise that power here.

It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place.

Too many newly elected governors have vowed not to raise taxes — including, unfortunately, Andrew Cuomo of New York — fearing giving bad news to voters who have not yet been told how dire things really are.

Liberal Democrats are in revolt at the tax deal that President Obama struck with Republicans on Monday, and it is not hard to understand why. By temporarily extending income tax breaks for the richest Americans, and cutting estate taxes for the ultrawealthy, the deal will redistribute billions of dollars from job creation to people who do not need the money.

And here is where they miss the point.

It’s not that any of us need this money, its that it’s *our* money. Not theirs, not the governments, it’s ours.

We earned it. It’s not yours or anyone else’s to say whether or not we need it.

And that, right there, is one of my fundamental disagreements with today’s Democrats.

First up, Eric Hague writes an ingenious post entitled Our Daughter Isn’t a Selfish Brat; Your Son Just Hasn’t Read Atlas Shrugged.:

I’d like to start by saying that I don’t get into belligerent shouting matches at the playground very often. The Tot Lot, by its very nature, can be an extremely volatile place—a veritable powder keg of different and sometimes contradictory parenting styles—and this fact alone is usually enough to keep everyone, parents and tots alike, acting as courteous and deferential as possible. The argument we had earlier today didn’t need to happen, and I want you to know, above all else, that I’m deeply sorry that things got so wildly, publicly out of hand.

Now let me explain why your son was wrong.

When little Aiden toddled up our daughter Johanna and asked to play with her Elmo ball, he was, admittedly, very sweet and polite. I think his exact words were, “Have a ball, peas [sic]?” And I’m sure you were very proud of him for using his manners.

To be sure, I was equally proud when Johanna yelled, “No! Looter!” right in his looter face, and then only marginally less proud when she sort of shoved him.

The thing is, in this family we take the philosophies of Ayn Rand seriously.

That post in, and of itself, was enough to make me warm and fuzzy inside. But then Lex came in with something even better:

Aidan can’t make a living in the marketplace, so he gets a nice, safe job with the Ball Redistribution Agency. And when he finally wanders over to Johanna and asks for a ball, he doesn’t say, “Have a ball, peas?” he says, “I’ll be taking those balls, missus.” On on either flank, he will have a couple of bigger kids with sticks, thumping them in their palms menacingly.

Johanna was a clever kid, and she saw this coming some weeks before. She has stashed a supply of balls in the Caymans, and when Aidan comes and takes all her balls but one, she picks up that ball and goes to her new home in the islands. Her workers are thrown out on the streets, her factory is shuttered, the board loses access to the taxes their output and wages once yielded and is forced to take care of the laid off workers, spending money that the board doesn’t have. The kids in the playground see all this and grow restless.

Now running at a significant deficit relative to predictions, the board turns its eyes to the Frisbee maker.

#awesomesauce… seriously

5) Benedict Arnold (17)

5) Woodrow Wilson (17)

4) The Rosenbergs (19)

3) Franklin Delano Roosevelt (21)

2) Barack Obama (23)

1) Jimmy Carter (25)

There’s a case to be made that both Benedict Arnold and the Rosenbergs belong on the list of the 25 worst figures in American history. But Jimmy Carter? Woodrow Wilson? Roosevelt? Obama?

Give me a break.

Update: Jim Geraghty over at National Review Online agrees with me:

I actually think you can make strong cases for some of the political figures on this list. Anyone who’s read Liberal Fascism understands Wilson’s inclusion, and there’s a lot of supporting evidence to the argument that Jimmy Carter was the century’s worst, or most ineffective president. I think demonizing FDR is as foolish as lionizing him, and as time goes by, I feel less animus towards Bill Clinton, and his signing of welfare reform alone ought to keep him off this list.

But some of these names strike me as ludicrously small time for the scale of this list. Fahrenheit 9/11 and his other crap documentaries put Michael Moore in the top 20 worst figures in American history? I’m not even sure he’s among my 20 least favorite liberals at this moment. Al Sharpton? Soros?

The idea of public funding for the press stirs deep unease in American culture. To many it seems inconsistent with our strong commitment, embodied in the First Amendment, to having a free press capable of speaking truth to power and to all of us. This press is a kind of public trust, a fourth branch of government. Can it be trusted when the state helps pay for it?

via Lee Bollinger: Journalism Needs Government Help – WSJ.com.

No, journalism does not need government help. And we’re not willing to pay for it.

WordPress is free. So are other blogging platforms. Go use them, write interesting and insightful content, you will bring in business.

When companies like the New York Times spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build new HQ buildings in New York City, find themselves unable to pay for the building a few years later, and then wonder what happened to their business model – there are bigger issues at stake here than just government funding.