…and bamboo spears. Bill Whittle, on the need for a change in strategy.
This is one of the reasons that I don’t call myself a conservative. The other is that I’m not a conservative.
The Democrats’ United Front
…cracks:
Alternate headline: The rats are jumping off the sinking ObamaCare ship. Remember all that talk about how damaged the GOP was after the Obama/Reid government shutdown? My, how things change in just a week. No longer able to obsess over Ted Cruz, the media realizes what a shambles the Democrats have become.
They’re not happy about it, either, but they’ve reached a point at which they can’t ignore it any more.
Electronics In The Air
Some thoughts on email and battery conservation in airplanes.
Also from Achenbach: a nice review of Gravity (with spoilers, for those who, like me, haven’t yet seen it).
The Space Debris Problem
Can we fix it by taxing it?
Womens’ “Liberation”
In which Emily Yoffe offers common-sense advice, is accordingly attacked by “feminists,” and defended by Ruth Marcus.
The American-Saudi Alliance
It’s in danger of collapsing.
I’d say it’s collapsed. As Glenn often says, another Jimmy Carter was a best-case scenario in terms of foreign policy.
Commercial Spaceflight
…weathers the shutdown. Jeff Foust’s report on last week’s ISPCS conference.
Alternatives To ObamaCare
It’s time to propose some.
Yes, I think it’s ripe now, thanks to the monumental cluster effery of the administration.
[Update a few minutes later]
The Republicans next strategy to kill this monstrosity:
Alexander, the ranking member on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has a plan for replacing Obamacare. It includes providing governors with more flexibility in operating state Medicaid programs, strengthening workplace wellness programs, permitting small businesses to pool their resources and offer lower-cost insurance plans for employees, expanding opportunities for consumers to purchase insurance across state lines and providing greater access to health savings accounts.
Alexander said his plan offers “step-by-step reforms that would reduce the costs of healthcare.”
Alexander isn’t alone in advocating for a process known as “repeal and replace.” The House Republican Study Committee, a conservative group within the GOP caucus, also has offered an Obamacare alternative that it intends to continue pursuing.
“American families and businesses deserve and demand real solutions to the serious problems that exist in our healthcare system,” said Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the committee chairman. “The RSC’s American Health Care Reform Act is a common-sense bill that will lower costs using conservative, free-market solutions which give American families more choices without the unworkable mandates and billions in taxes included in President Obama’s healthcare law.”
The 200-page bill offers $20,000 in tax deductions to families and a $7,500 deduction to individuals to purchase insurance from vendors in any state — thus, supporters say, allowing people to save money by selecting lower-cost providers.
The measure also offers altered proposals to some of the more popular aspects of Obamacare – creation of a $25 billion fund to lower costs for those afflicted with pre-existing conditions, permitting people to carry their insurance from job to job and permitting coverage for adult children up to age 26.
That last remains stupid, regardless of how popular it is.
Obama’s Credibility
Aiiiieeeeeeee! It’s melting!!!!
Those horrid little Tea Partiers:
What is at issue here is not some sacred moral value, such as “In God We Trust.” Domestic politics or the affairs of nations are not an avocation for angels. But the coin of this imperfect realm is credibility. Sydney Greenstreet’s Kasper Gutman explained the terms of trade in “The Maltese Falcon”: “I must tell you what I know, but you won’t tell me what you know. That is hardly equitable, sir. I don’t think we can do business along those lines.”
Bluntly, Mr. Obama’s partners are concluding that they cannot do business with him. They don’t trust him. Whether it’s the Saudis, the Syrian rebels, the French, the Iraqis, the unpivoted Asians or the congressional Republicans, they’ve all had their fill of coming up on the short end with so mercurial a U.S. president. And when that happens, the world’s important business doesn’t get done. It sits in a dangerous and volatile vacuum.
The next major political event in Washington is the negotiation over spending, entitlements and taxes between House budget chairman Paul Ryan and his Senate partner, Patty Murray. The bad air over this effort is the same as that Marco Rubio says is choking immigration reform: the fear that Mr. Obama will urge the process forward in public and then blow up any Ryan-Murray agreement at the 11th hour with deal-killing demands for greater tax revenue.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a president reach complete lame-duck status so soon into his second term.