Obama needs at least a few GOPers to sign on to his big government health care scam in order that when it falls apart, Democrats won’t bear 100% of the blame, and it looks like that prospect is fading:

Sen. Orrin Hatch said Wednesday he has withdrawn from a bipartisan Senate group that is negotiating legislation to overhaul the health-care system.

Mr. Hatch (R., Utah) is one of four Republicans that began negotiating with the aim of reaching bipartisan agreement on a bill. However, of the four, he had been considered the least likely to support a final product. Talks are continuing to try to get Sens. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa); Olympia Snowe (R., Maine) and Mike Enzi (R., Wyo.) to throw their support behind the package.

“It’s going to be difficult for me to support what they are talking about, so I’d rather be upfront about it,” Mr. Hatch told reporters after a Senate vote. He said he informed Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.), who has been leading the so-called group of seven, of his decision Wednesday.

Snowe (R-ME) will be the hardest to detach – but if we can get it down to just her, then no matter how they slice and dice it, they won’t have anything bi-partisan about their bill. If we are to have this hopelessly corrupt, anti-common sense and un-American plan shoved down our throats, then let us hang the dead-certain miserable results on the Democrats.

UPDATE: Catholic Bishops condemn Obamacare over its stealth-provisions for federally funded abortion on demand.

Many have been wondering when the U.S. bishops would comment on the Obama health care plan — given that it contains abortion coverage.

Well, their statement has finally arrived. It comes in the form of a letter from Bishop William F. Murphy of Rockville Center to all the members of Congress.

Bishop Murphy writes as chairman of the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development.

“No health care plan should compel us or others to pay for the destruction of human life, whether through government funding or mandatory coverage of abortion. Any such action would be morally wrong,” writes Bishop Murphy.

The bishops have been lobbying for universal health care for many years, thus the letter from Bishop Murphy contains many specific proposals they would like to see incorporated into the legislation. For example, Bishop Murphy asks for a repeal of the five-year waiting period for legal immigrants to receive Medicaid benefits.

I included that last bit – the desire to cover legal immigrants from day one – because I wanted to point out that the Catholic Bishops have been in favor of a universal health care for a long time, including a sort of coverage many liberals oppose. Well, here it is, and the Bishops have been forced to oppose an age-old dream because fanatics on the left are inserting anti-life provisions. Point blank, no one really knows what is in this dog of a bill – and that is how Obama and his Democrats wish it to remain…just pass the blasted thing, and then Obama will tell us what he finds in there.

Nothing doing, Barry.

UPDATE II: Nancy Pelosi says she’s got the votes. Yeah, whatever.

Just can’t think of anything relevant or true for the main, morning entry. Have at it, boys and girls.

Our folly invites tyranny:

Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness. – George Washington

Can’t get much stupider than this:

The U.S. government threw its weight behind Arias’ proposal that Zelaya, who was (removed by constitutional means on June 28), be reinstated to set up a coalition government.

“We’re in constant contact with a number of countries in the hemisphere regarding the situation in Honduras, and we believe the Arias mediation is the right way to go, and the time is now to … resolve this issue,” State Department deputy spokesman Robert A. Wood told reporters.

“We think that this is the best (way) … to restore the constitutional order in the country, and we want to see that happen now,” he said. (Ed. Note: MSM report edited to make it true)

Uh, Woody, old buddy – the constitutional order is intact in Honduras…what would screw it up is forcibly installing a President deposed via constitutional means. We’d be installing a dictator in the name of democracy if we carried through stated US policy – even in the worst of the Carter Administration, I don’t think we ever got this short-sighted about foreign policy.

I pray the people of Honduras don’t back down – Zelaya was planning a coup designed to set up a Chavez-style dictatorship and it is simply asinine that our policy is to reward a would-be dictator.

From the Goron’s home town:

Cool weather has broken a previous low temperature for July 21 in Nashville that was set when Rutherford B. Hayes was president.

When the temperature at the National Weather Service station dipped to 58 degrees at 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday, it wiped out the previous record low for the date of 60 degrees, which was set in 1877.

NWS forecaster Bobby Boyd noted it was the third consecutive morning when Nashville either tied or broke a daily low temperature record.

Temperatures were cool, but did not break records at several Tennessee cities.

Knoxville dropped to 59 degrees Tuesday morning, Chattanooga had 60 degrees, Tri-Cities recorded 58 degrees and Memphis was 69 degrees.

And, by the way, it seems that it was that big, yellow thingy in the sky which caused temperatures to rise…imagine that? I know, who woulda thunk it? Now it looks that the glowing, hot round whatchamacallit is going in to a period of lower activity, and thus we’ll have lower temperatures. I wish that Super Scientist Al Gore would get on this and figure out what we can do to fix this problem.

Its been bubbling around out there since last summer, and now Hot Air notes that some MSM outfits are picking up on it, if only to knock it down. For those who either (a) live under a rock or (b) manage to filter out every single conspiracy theory out there, the issue goes thusly:

Obama has yet to provide a very verified copy of his birth certificate (the one provided just isn’t good enough); there are some rumors out there of Kenyans who witnessed Obama’s birth in Kenya and/or saw him and his mother there shortly after the birth; If Obama is born in Kenya, he’s disqualified to be President under the Constitutional provision requiring native birth to be President; unless we force this issue to the forefront and get Obama out of office, our entire constitutional structure will be ruined.

Here’s my view on the matter:

1. President Obama is my fellow citizen of the United States, without a doubt born to a natural-born American citizen.

2. If there was any funny business as regards Obama’s birth place, it was his mother’s doing, not his and I’m not about to visit the sins of the mother upon the son.

3. The constitution was wrecked in 1913. Its only been obeyed partially since the 1960’s. If we can survive Roe, we can survive a Kenyan birth. If the only thing wrong with obedience to the constitution was a President born in Kenya, that would be the best thing, ever. We’ve got larger constitutional fish to fry, ya dig?

4. Obama and his Democrats are setting themselves up for an epic failure in the 2010-12 time frame and if we GOPers will ride the near-revolutionary populist wave, we’ll secure a majority strong enough to repair all the damage done in the past century. If we concentrate on Obama’s birth certificate, we’ll be wasting time and resources and might waste our last chance to restore America.

So, I’m not having any of this – I bring it up because I want to be on record about it. Its a non-issue for me except in as much as it distracts from the real issue, so I’ll henceforward never mention the issue save, as necessary, to slam hard on anyone trying to make it an issue.

UPDATE, by Matt Margolis:  Here’s my view on the matter…

I was initially dismissive about the birth certificate issue… nevertheless, there are enough things, be they circumstantial or anecdotal, or whatever, that give me plenty of reason to be justifiably suspicious.

For one thing, Obama has done a lousy job putting the issue to rest. He refuses to provide the original birth certificate, only offering a meaningless computer-generated certificate of live birth.  Obama has reportedly spent a huge chunk of money getting the original birth certificate sealed from the public. It naturally leads to the question “If there is nothing wrong with the certificate, and it states he was born in America, then why not produce it?” Obama risks having this issue becoming increasingly more mainstream. If the proof is not ever produced, this will always hang over his presidency, far more than liberal whiners complaining about Florida 2000 did for Bush’s presidency.

Second, I notice liberal bloggers and pundits, when addressing this issue, have absolutely no good rebuttals to counter the claims of so-called “birthers.” There is no good answer to “Why doesn’t he just produce the birth certificate if he has nothing to hide.” The simplest explanation is that Obama doesn’t want to incriminate himself. It’s Occam’s Razor. There is no simpler explanation. Instead of addressing the facts, they attack those who bring it up and write them off as “wingnut fringe.”

Perhaps the most damning evidence that suggests Obama has something to hide is the revoking of deployment orders for a soldier who challenged Obama’s authority as commander-in-chief with regards to the birth certificate issue.

Sorry, but you can’t blame people for shouting “Fire!” when you are the one hiding the fire extinguisher.

The only surprising thing is he admitted it:

With the public’s trust in his handling of health care tanking (50%-44% of Americans disapprove), the White House has launched a new phase of its strategy designed to pass Obamacare: all Obama, all the time. As part of that effort, Obama hosted a conference call with leftist bloggers urging them to pressure Congress to pass his health plan as soon as possible.

During the call, a blogger from Maine said he kept running into an Investors Business Daily article that claimed Section 102 of the House health legislation would outlaw private insurance. He asked: “Is this true? Will people be able to keep their insurance and will insurers be able to write new policies even though H.R. 3200 is passed?” President Obama replied: “You know, I have to say that I am not familiar with the provision you are talking about.”

We have to rush, rush RUSH this through because it will cure all our health care ills and Obama and Co are putting out ads and other pressure assuring us of what it will do…except that Obama doesn’t know what it will do, because he doesn’t know what is in the bill. Of course, this is natural – the point of the program isn’t to do anything for health care, but to do something for the increase of government power over our lives.

You see, the whole thing about Obama and his Democrats is that they are certain that once they’ve got full control, they can sculpt our society in to what they believe is just. It doesn’t matter if people are poor, have substandard health care of what have you – as long as it is all “equal” and “fair” as liberals view it.

Its not worth it, to a liberal, that there be a fantastic health care system for some and a so-so system for others…better to have a lousy system, as long as all can access it (at least in theory). And don’t think that self-interest will thwart them – they, the elite, will not be part of the system. They’ll have special privileges which allow them to live a very nice life, all justified by the concept that as the people who know best, they have a right to special privileges to make the burden of taking care of us endurable. Keep in mind that in the old USSR, the elite had special currency good only at stores and resorts the elite could access – don’t think that Obama and his liberals won’t devise a two-tier system like that for the United States…if they feel it helps them make us more “fair”, they’ll do it.

President Obama let the cat out of the bag a little bit here – he’s not supposed to admit to anything less than omniscience. The proper answer for Obama would be “a careful reading of that provision shows that it isn’t like that at all, blah blah blah”. Count this as a proof that Truth does rule the world – and it will come out, even if its out of the mouths of the dishonest, from time to time.

From Iowahawk:

Today, America still has a space effort, but sadly it just doesn’t inspire like it once did in the heady days of Apollo and Gemini. Unmanned probes and orbiting space labs are fine, I guess, but where is the glamor? Where are the crewcut astronaut he-men with names like ‘Deke’ and ‘Buzz’ and ‘Gus,’ driving around Houston in matching big block Corvettes and Ray-Bans? Nowhere, that’s where. They’ve all been outsourced by space computers and floaty-haired National Junior High Science Teacher of the Year nerds. You tell me — do we really want dorks like these as Earth’s first line of defense against invading intergalactic aliens? No wonder my brother and I have to be half-blotto before we play pretend astronauts anymore.

If America wants to get back on the right track, scientific space mission-wise, we need to once again pick an inspiring, audacious goal, and man it with the kind of inspirational crew to make it happen. At long last, let us realize mankind’s most cherished dream — sending the entire United States Congress to the Moon by 2010.

I’m for it. And it’ll be easy – just tell ’em there’s $35 trillion dollars up there, hidden by Nixon because he hated liberals and poor people and didn’t want them to get their hands on it.

Not looking good for Obama:

If the 2012 presidential election were held today, President Obama and possible Republican nominee Mitt Romney would be all tied up at 45% each, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

The president, seeking a second four-year term, beats another potential GOP rival, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, by six points – 48% to 42%.

In both match-ups, seven percent (7%) like some other candidate, with three percent (3%) undecided.

Vastly early, but not the sort of numbers one wants to see for his Presidency. Right now, Obama is coming off more than a year of the most adulatory, servile and devoted MSM coverage imaginable, while Palin is coming off the most hostile, confrontational and unfair MSM coverage we’ve seen…for Palin to be only 6 points back of Obama, with Obama under 50%, shows how badly the Obama brand has been knocked down.

UPDATE: More from Matt at American Issues Project.

Now, how does it taste?

…The program crafted by Obama and the Democratic Congress wasn’t engineered to maximize its economic impact. It was mostly a political exercise, designed to claim credit for any recovery, shower benefits on favored constituencies and signal support for fashionable causes.

As a result, much of the stimulus’s potential benefit has been squandered. Spending increases and tax cuts are sprinkled in too many places and, all too often, are too delayed to do much good now. Nor do they concentrate on reviving the economy’s most depressed sectors: state and local governments; the housing and auto industries. None of this means the stimulus won’t help or precludes a recovery, but the help will be weaker than necessary….

…There are growing demands for another Obama “stimulus” on the grounds that the first was too small. Wrong. The problem with the first stimulus was more its composition than its size. With budget deficits for 2009 and 2010 estimated by the CBO at $1.8 trillion and $1.4 trillion (respectively, 13 and 9.9 percent of gross domestic product), it’s hard to argue they’re too tiny. Obama and congressional Democrats sacrificed real economic stimulus to promote parochial political interests. Any new “stimulus” should be financed by culling some of the old.

Here, as elsewhere, there’s a gap between Obama’s high-minded rhetoric and his performance. In February, Obama denounced “politics as usual” in constructing the stimulus. But that’s what we got, and Obama likes the result. Interviewed recently by ABC’s Jake Tapper, he was asked whether he would change anything. Obama seemed to invoke a doctrine of presidential infallibility. “There’s nothing that we would have done differently,” he said.

And that, dear Liberals, is from Robert Samuelson – hardly a card-carrying member of the Vast, Right Wing Conspiracy. And here’s the real kicker – we done told you and we done told you. This is not in the least a surprise to us. We’re spending vast sums of money and none of it is really going to stimulate anything. And Obama and Co would not have done anything different because the whole point of the exercise was to reward those special interests who swung behind Obama during the primaries – and to cement their support for 2012. Obama doesn’t care if the economy gets better – he’s convinced he’s some sort of chosen one who will be re-elected come what may…and believes this because, after all, he managed to get elected even with someone like Wright hung ’round his neck. If Obama can carry that over the finish line, then he’ll easily convince himself that 15% unemployment in 2012 is no obstacle.

He is your man liberals – he is what you went to the mat for; he is the man you backed over and above far more experienced Democrats and then carried him to victory over the vastly more experienced McCain. He said he was going to control spending, lower taxes, rebuild America’s reputation abroad – hope and change everything to heck and gone and he never for a moment intended to do any of it. He suckered you and he fully expects you to remain suckered. I expect it, too. Critical thinking skills seem to be optional for liberals. I mean, if the fact that he’s chicken-poop hiding budget numbers until after a vote doesn’t move you to the GOP camp for 2012, nothing will.