As Red State and Let Freedom Ring have reported, there is a movement afoot led by democrat representative Louise Slaughter to pass the Senate version of the Health Care bill without even having to vote on it. As Congress Daily reports:

House Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter is prepping to help usher the healthcare overhaul through the House and potentially avoid a direct vote on the Senate overhaul bill, the chairwoman said Tuesday.

Slaughter is weighing preparing a rule that would consider the Senate bill passed once the House approves a corrections bill that would make changes to the Senate version.

This end-around around the Constitutional intent of internal and external checks and balances is nothing less than appalling and dictatorial.

As the polls clearly illustrate, the democrats are now attempting to rule against the consent of the governed, and are doing so with an iron fist, regardless of the consequences. Although they know full well that their present course will invariably spell political disaster for them in November, they continue to press on and fall on their swords for their megalomanaiacal commander in chief. This brazen and blatant thwarting of the will of the people is illustrative of the democrat majority and President Obama acting not as elected representatives, but as overlords.

At least Bill Clinton had enough sense to read the tea leaves in 1994 that the public wanted no part of government-run health care, and let the issue go. In 2006, George W. Bush let go of his signature issue, the privatization of Social Security (which to this day I believe was a good idea) when the democrats convinced a majority of the people to reject it. But Barack Hussein Obama, being the narcissist and megalomaniac that he is, will have none of it. Tyrant and statist that he is, he will get his ‘legacy’ enacted, even at the expense of his underlings, and even at the expense of the well-being of the American people.

Well, we certainly have our ‘change,’ don’t we. I’m still waiting on the ‘hope’ part; but I won’t hold my breath.

Unemployment rises in 30 States – how does the MSM headline it?

State unemployment picture brightens

Why “brightens”? Because in 9 States, the unemployment rate went down. You know, like in Michigan, where it plummeted from 14.5% all the way down to….14.3%…

I’m sure they’re feeling double-plus-good in Michigan about this brightening employment picture…

UPDATE: Reading some business news on this front, it seems that a lot of people are claiming March will be a banner month for employment and will signal the turn-around in our unemployment picture, and thus the real end of the recession. Do keep in mind that whatever numbers come out in March will be highly inflated by temporary Census workers – those jobs will disappear by summer.

We’ll see – but there has to come a crunch time when either the Statist, keynsian model is going to work, or come crashing down. They’ve told us that all this TARP and stimulus is fixing the economy. If so, then people will be swiftly getting back in to wealth creation and thus start creating jobs. If, on the other hand, March isn’t a banner month and/or if April turns out to be a dud, then the game is over.

Biden: Its just easier to condemn Israel than to fight terrorists.

British hero.

Brazilian President: Pretending Brazil is an important world player more important than stopping insane fanatics from obtaining nuclear weapons.

American hero.

Reid and Son officially start to annoy Nevadans.

Government employees now make more than taxpayers who support them.

Iowahawk strikes again: “For he to-day that sheds his approval ratings with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne’er entangle in scandals so vile”

Among the many dreadful things modern liberalism will bring, this is one of the worst:

A new United Nations Development Program (UNDP) report released March 8, entitled “Power, Voice and Rights: A Turning Point for Gender Equality in Asia and the Pacific,” and coinciding with International Women’s Day, highlights the fact that sex-selective abortion continues to increase the gender imbalance in developing countries.

Under the heading “more women than ever are disappearing,” a press release from the UNDP announcing the new report says, “The problem of ‘missing girls’ in which more boys are born than girls, as girl fetuses are presumably aborted, and women die from health and nutrition neglect – is actually growing. Birth gender disparity is greatest in East Asia, where 119 boys are born for every 100 girls.”

The report found that “China and India together account for more than 85 million of the nearly 100 million ‘missing’ women estimated to have died from discriminatory treatment in health care, nutrition access or pure neglect or because they were never born in the first place.”

Seeking the death of the innocent is never the answer. For all of liberalism’s alleged concern for the plight of women, the real result of liberalism is death for women – at all stages of life, but especially when in the womb.

This is demographic catastrophe – China and India, still with growing population, are about to enter first a rapid aging of their population, then a rapid decline of total population.

The aging will put a huge strain on economies which are still poor and primitive in spite of great strides over the past few decades. Then will come the simple lack of young people to man the industries which have been built up over the past 20 or so years. Europe has plugged the gap by importing Moslem youth – proving ever more indigestible and, moreover, only a temporary fix as Islam has also been infected by the Culture of Death and is undergoing a rapid decline in birth rates (in Iran and Tunisia, its already below replacement level, and only barely above it in Turkey and Algeria). China and India have no practical place to import youth from.

This is death for the world – but only for part of the world. And the meek, it seems, really shall inherit the Earth.

Just another branch of Liberal Fascism – in this instance, trying to stop fishing. Yes, including recreational fishing:

The Obama administration will accept no more public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.

This announcement comes at the time when the situation supposedly still is “fluid” and the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force still hasn’t issued its final report on zoning uses of these waters.

That’s a disappointment, but not really a surprise for fishing industry insiders who have negotiated for months with officials at the Council on Environmental Quality and bureaucrats on the task force. These angling advocates have come to suspect that public input into the process was a charade from the beginning…

The wilderness, you see, is for the elite – they can afford to the extra charges necessary to be “green” by definition of environmentalists. The wilderness is not, however, for you and me – us knuckle dragging Bible- and gun-clingers are actually a nuisance out there. How can the fabulously wealthy be expected to enjoy, say, Lake Tahoe if a bunch of middle class cretins are there fishing and hunting and driving boats around the lake?

I doubt much that Obama is even aware of what is going on – sure, in the general sense he’ll always mouth whatever is fashionable at the moment vis a vis the environment, but the real drivers of this are the screwball leftists he’s appointed lower down in the bureaucracy. They are determined to reshape environmental policy and they will not shape it towards the benefit of the majority of Americans (if the majority of Americans benefit from it, the environmentalists will feel they’ve failed).

Whether its something as simple as a weekend angler, or something major like grabbing millions of acres and setting them off limits, the whole thrust of these Enviro-Fascists is to “protect” America from Americans. If they can make it more expensive, more difficult or downright impossible for Americans to use our common lands, they’ll do it. They know best, you see?

We won’t be able to undo this until we beat Obama in 2012 – but once we do we have to be sure that the next Republican President rescinds Obama’s regulations and executive orders whole sale…better to be safe than sorry, and as we don’t know what bits of liberal fascism will be inserted in the fine print, our best defense will be to get rid of them all.

Then we pass a law requiring a 2/3 vote in Congress before public lands can be placed off limits to public use and development…

Getting desperate out there:

In an effort to end the foreclosure crisis, the Obama administration has been trying to keep defaulting owners in their homes. Now it will take a new approach: paying some of them to leave.

This latest program, which will allow owners to sell for less than they owe and will give them a little cash to speed them on their way, is one of the administration’s most aggressive attempts to grapple with a problem that has defied solutions.

More than five million households are behind on their mortgages and risk foreclosure. The government’s $75 billion mortgage modification plan has helped only a small slice of them. Consumer advocates, economists and even some banking industry representatives say much more needs to be done.

For the administration, there is also the concern that millions of foreclosures could delay or even reverse the economy’s tentative recovery — the last thing it wants in an election year.

Taking effect on April 5, the program could encourage hundreds of thousands of delinquent borrowers who have not been rescued by the loan modification program to shed their houses through a process known as a short sale, in which property is sold for less than the balance of the mortgage. Lenders will be compelled to accept that arrangement, forgiving the difference between the market price of the property and what they are owed.

Short sale, though, doesn’t work all that easily. I know people who have been in short sale for months and still nothing. The real problem kicks in when you have a second on your house. Given home values, if there is a foreclosure, the second note holder will get nothing – but there’s also no requirement in a short sale to give the second anything…but, of course, the second can spike the deal unless something is forthcoming. From what I understand, its usually about $3,000.00 to $5,000.00 sent to the second note holder.

What this latest Obama plan amounts to is a means of keeping people in their homes without having to pay their mortgage (if the house is in short sale, there is absolutely zero reason to keep making payments) and for those who do actually manage to get a sale, there’s $1,500.00 to help move (though if you had a mortgage payment of $1,500.00 per month and you’ve been in short sale for 9 months you should have $13,500.00 saved up – if you’re responsible). This is a “tide the housing market over until November 3rd plan”.

As long time readers know, I was yammering on and on about how the best means of curing the situation was to “cram down” the mortgages to the collapsed current value. Now, I’m not so sure – it would have taken some government money and all that has been blown in TARP and Spendulus. And if we do “cram down”, a lot of banks will fail because they are only “solvent” as long as the loans on the books are considered valid. Of course, if nothing is done these loans will still go bad – either in foreclosure because someone lost a job, or in the act known as “strategic default” – the banks will still fail, just not right now.

Its a mess, my fellow Americans. Welcome to national bankruptcy. The sooner we admit it, balance our budget and let the chips fall where they may, the quicker we’ll stark working our way out of it (and don’t let anyone crow over our financial corpse – the rest of the world is just as economically dead as we are…yes, even China).

HAT TIP: Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis

The Culture of Death wants more blood:

A campaign to give elderly people in the Netherlands the right to assisted suicide said Monday it has gathered more than 100,000 signatures, hoping to push the boundaries another notch in the country that first legalized euthanasia.

Remember, this isn’t assisted suicide because you’re terminally ill and in pain, its because you’re old. They are already engaging in widespread euthanasia and infanticide in Holland on the flimsiest of excuses – doing this would make it a free for all (define “old” for me, please). It’ll only take the mildest of court or bureaucratic rulings from that point to assisted suicide for all.

Holland is already below replacement rate in population – except among their Moslems, of course – and this is what the culture of death gets you: an unwillingness to have children coupled with an unwillingness to live, or be bothered with elderly or ill relatives. Childless people without hope committing slow suicide.

This is modern, post-Christian civilization – a pact with death; an unwillingness to live; an example of just why Christianity rose so swiftly in the dying, pagan, Greco-Roman world…they, too, at last became enthralled with death and sterility. With the return of paganism we have the return of despair: there is, then, only one cure for what ails us.

The disintegrating Democrat coalition:

“Rahm Emanuel is son of the devil’s spawn, Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) said. “He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote. He would strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive.”

Rep. Massa describes a confrontation with Emanuel in a shower: “I am showering, naked as a jaybird, and here comes Rahm Emanuel, not even with a towel wrapped around his tush, poking his finger in my chest, yelling at me.”

Massa, of course, is claiming that the Democrats forced him out – with the implication in that being the sexual charges against him are bogus. We’ll have to see how that comes out – some times in politics what you’ve got is a confrontation between liar and liar. Though, of course, Massa could be the victim here.

The main thing about this is the clear evidence that in spite of a friendly MSM unwilling to air dirty laundry, the Democrats are falling apart. What this tells me is that the Democrats’ internal polling must show a disaster looming in November (a bit of confirmation of my theory here is a Democrat poll showing the GOP favored by three in the “generic” Congressional ballot). Things tend to get this bad a week or two before an election when one side sees the writing on the wall.

If we’re seeing the writing on the wall in March…

With all the grim news we see, perhaps its time to lighten things up a bit?

Irish Declare War On France

The French President, is sitting in his office when his telephone rings.

“Hallo, Mr. Sarkozy!” a heavily accented voice said. “This is Paddy down at the Harp Pub in County Clare, Ireland. I am ringing to inform you that we are officially declaring war on you!”

“Well, Paddy,” Sarkozy replied, “This is indeed important news! How big is your army?”

“Right now,” says Paddy, after a moment’s calculation, “there is meself, me cousin Sean, me next door neighbour Seamus, and the entire darts team from the pub. That makes eight!”

Sarkozy paused. “I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 100,000 men in my army waiting to move on my command.”

“Begoora!” says Paddy. “I’ll have to ring you back.”

Sure enough, the next day, Paddy calls again. “Mr. Sarkozy, the war is still on. We have managed to get us some infantry equipment!”

“And what equipment would that be Paddy?” Sarkozy asks.

“Well, we have two combines, a bulldozer, and Murphy’s farm tractor.”

Sarkozy sighs amused. “I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 6,000 tanks and 5,000 armored personnel carriers. Also, I have increased my army to 150,000 since we last spoke.”

“Saints preserve us!” says Paddy. “I’ll have to get back to you.”

Sure enough, Paddy rings again the next day. “Mr. Sarkozy, the war is still on! We have managed to get ourselves airborne! We have modified Jackie McLaughlin’s ultra-light with a couple of shotguns in the cockpit, and four boys from the Shamrock Bar have joined us as well!”

Sarkozy was silent for a minute and then cleared his throat. “I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 100 bombers and 200 fighter planes. My military bases are surrounded by laser-guided, surface-to-air missile sites. And since we last spoke, I have increased my army to 200,000!”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” says Paddy, “I will have to ring you back.”

Sure enough, Paddy calls again the next day. “Top o’ the mornin’, Mr. Sarkozy! I am sorry to inform you that we have had to call off the war.”

“Really? I am sorry to hear that,” says Sarkozy. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

“Well,” says Paddy, “we had a long chat over a few pints of Guinness, and we decided there is no fookin’ way we can feed 200,000 prisoners.

Bring any and all – keep it PG-13!

You think I’m making this up?

Wildlife officials have tried everything to keep sea lions from eating endangered salmon, dropping bombs that explode under water and firing rubber bullets and bean bags from shotguns and boats. Now they are resorting to issuing death sentences to the most chronic offenders.

A California sea lion last week became the first salmon predator to be euthanized this year under a program that has been denounced by those who say there are far greater dangers to salmon – including the series of hydroelectric dams on the Columbia.

This is the second year of the program, which is administered by wildlife officials in Oregon and Washington and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Who in their right mind would even try to get a sea lion not to eat fish? And what sort of lunatic do you have to be to think that the proper response to sea lion eating fish is to kill the sea lion?

We’ve become in a lot of ways very crazy over the past few decades – this is the liberal, we’ll-save-the-world mindset, triumphant. First to think that salmon are actually endangered, second to think that they are so endangered they’d better stop sea lions from eating them. This is what comes of thinking that the world is about to end because of Man.

Look, I can see the need to ensure water flows – as long as it doesn’t prevent farming – but has anyone thought about this for a moment? Are we certain there’s no other way to get increased salmon populations? No way to breed them a bit in captivity and release them in to the streams at the proper time?

Geesh!