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284 pages of fiction through which Obama will try to change the face of America. Oh joy. The 200+ page document beneath is the technical support document.

Dissecting this Obama quote: "At the international climate meetings in Copenhagen next month, Mr. Obama will tell the delegates that the United States intends to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions “in the range of” 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050, officials said."

The report is expected to show 123,000 job losses, keeping the unemployment rate steady at a 26 year-high of 10.2%. Some details: Manufacturing and construction companies continued to suffer, losing 88,000 workers in November the report showed. Employment in construction fell by 44,000, the 34th straight monthly drop. Service providers cut 81,000 workers, with financial firms cutting 17,000 positions, the 24th consecutive decline for the industry, ADP said.

An analysis of source data compared to NOAA published data shows an unexplained and unsupported spike in ocean temperatures in 2001, with no correction afterward. Here's the assertion: After crunching data this week from two of our satellite-based microwave sensors, and from NOAA’s official sea surface temperature (SST) product ERSST v3b, I think the evidence is pretty clear: The ERSST v3b product has a spurious warming since 1998 of about 0.2 deg. C, most of which occurred as a jump in 2001.

Some highlights: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) spent $2,993 in taxpayer money on flowers between June and October. House Majority Whip James Clyburn has a thing for Chantilly Donuts, spending about $265 at the Virginia shop in the past quarter. And Rep. Tim Walz (D-Minn.), a fiscal conservative, decided to give about $2,000 in unused office funds back to the government to help reduce the deficit. Entire source doc embedded.

So Congress ignores the polls on specific legislation, ignores the polls on increased government spending in general, and ignores the polls on their own impending retirements in the 2010 general. They ignore the tea-party marches, the thousands of letters and calls, and the revelations about ACORN and falsified climate data. They allow the Administration to fail to prosecute voter intimidation and to investigate ACORN. Congress is, quite clearly, acting wholly outside the interests of the voters. The liberals in charge of Congress and the White House are marching to their own drummer. They refuse to acknowledge our words and refuse...

House Republicans have floated ten points they think are strong enough to vet candidates. Further, as the preamble suggestions, they foist these ten points out there as if they reflect the believes of conservatives. They are insultingly weak. My comments [are in italics and bracketed].

Some highlights, then a full embed - Macroeconomic impact: On the basis of those estimates and its own analysis, CBO concluded that H.R. 2454 would slightly reduce real GDP—by roughly 0.25 percent to 0.75 percent in 2020 and by between 1.0 percent and 3.5 percent in 2050 (see the right panel of Figure 1). By way of comparison, CBO projects that real GDP will be roughly two-and-a-half times as large in 2050 as it is today. Losses in consumption and overall well-being would probably be smaller than losses in GDP.

A source in Kabul for the Afghan secret talks between the elements in the Taliban led by Mullah Mutawakkil, the Foreign Minister of movement between the American ambassador in Kabul, Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, which has achieved progress - without explaining further details. She suggested the United States during the talks give the power to the Taliban in the provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, Uruzgan and Kunar, and Nuristan, in exchange for not firing rockets at U.S. bases. According to the source, Eikenberry met with members of the Taliban led by Mullah Mutawakkil in a secret location in Kabul, and that...

The games continue. Pelosi hawks her health-care bill as a reduction to the deficit. She got there by excluding deficit-increasing items such as the doc fix. However, when all the health-care related items are counted, the deficit increases. Here's the punchline, with the full letter at the end of this post:

As you read, note the front years with no expenses but plenty of revenue - they tax us immediately but don't provide anything until 2013. Note all the new taxes and fines against Americans. Finally, note that the "savings" is less than the $200 billion they are doing outside this bill in the "doc fix."

Have at it, folks. New taxes, new fines, new rationing, new public option.

There's nothing like a retiring Representative to hold nothing back. He lays into Holder and the Administration for having no plan, no decision methodology, and no logic for their approaches to the KSM NYC trial, the Ft. Hood terrorist attack, and the closing of Gitmo. Here's the raw audio of the conference call Bill and I just finished. The full interview runs just under 30 minutes:

Hey folks, I was in on a conference call with Rudy today. Unfortunately, only the big girls got their questions in - seems the moderator cherry-picked. Oh well. The topic was the terror trial in NYC. Here's the raw audio:

Seems like Obama's homies are not impressed: "In discussions with dozens of health-care leaders and economists, I find near unanimity of opinion that, whatever its shape, the final legislation that will emerge from Congress will markedly accelerate national health-care spending rather than restrain it. Likewise, nearly all agree that the legislation would do little or nothing to improve quality or change health-care's dysfunctional delivery system. The system we have now promotes fragmented care and makes it more difficult than it should be to assess outcomes and patient satisfaction. The true costs of health care are disguised, competition based on price...

The co-sponsors are about evenly split by party. Rep. Judge Stone (R-TX) seems to have defeated early dem leadership efforts to kill this. Obama has got to fuming - it opens the door for greater scrutiny of the terrorist-act-committed-by-a-nonterrorist. Here's the press release:

Here you are, Michael: Full of embarrassing bravado, grossly inaccurate, clueless on impact of your words, clueless on voices in the conservative world, an unwarranted superior attitude, and a Racist. You're toxic. You can't be rehabilitated. It's not working out. It's not me ... it's you. Get out.

Obama can plot Problem "X" to Action "Y," but there is ends. The entire third dimension of "Z" is missing. No one seems to think, "OK, we do that. Then what happens?" or "What if there is an unintended consequence to 'Y'?" I wrote before: "The most direct [implication] is an inability to achieve course corrections. He decides the destination, health-care, for example, and the train leaves the station. Every focus is on only achieving the goal." And here we again at that same quandary. "X therefore Y ... X therefore Y ... X THEREFORE Y!"

Dear Republicans, Thanks for making clear that "home of the brave" refers only to US liberals, since we aren't pissing our pants at the thought of Gitmo inmates on US soil. Hugs and kisses, kos

I live in PA-11. Paul E. Kanjorski (D) has repped this district since 1985. He won last cycle by just three points. Although I am slightly out of there, the majority of his district is in NEPA - northeastern Pennsylvania. Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Hazleton: The region the coal companies trashed and left generations ago. If you think the unions and mafia are not monozygotic twins, then you don't come from here. As a kid, we routinely did our trick-or-treating in bars. More often than not, one of us had to stay outside because our dad was in there. Our jobs are...