Tocqueville had Barack’s number.

There is nothing new under the sun.

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The crowd loves her. “I’ve bee watching the MSNBC coverage of CPAC. Is there any other network where you know every host was at the alternative prom?”

The main reason the leftoids hate Ann Coulter is because she treats them with the obvious and undisguised contempt with which they treat everybody not on the left.

They can dish it out but they can’t take it. I find that immensely entertaining.

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A Los Angeles clinic is offering the ultimate in designer babies. Want a son with brown eyes, black hair and a dark complexion? Or a pale-skinned, blonde, green-eyed daughter?

Want a smart kid? Have a hundred and kill all but the smartest. Not a problem.

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Read it. Cue the violins.

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How was it that a German priest writing in Latin and living in a French city far from the coast became the first person to tell the world that a vast ocean lay to the west of the American continents?

Mark Steyn decides that there’s something Comical about the bailout.

If you find it hard to keep track of these all these evolutions, the President in his address to Congress finally spilled the beans and unveiled our new hero in his final form: the Incredible Bulk, Statezilla, Governmentuan, a colossus bestriding the land like a, er, colossus. What superpowers does he have? All of them! He can save the economy, he can reform health care, he can prevent foreclosures, he can federalize daycare, he can cap the salary of his archenemies the sinister Fat Cats who “pad their pay checks and buy fancy drapes.” No longer will the citizenry cower in fear of fancy drapes: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! With one solar panel on the roof of his underground headquarters, Governmentuan can transform the American energy sector and power his amazing Governmentmobile, the new environmentally friendly supercar that soon we’ll all be driving because we’ll be given government car loans to buy the government cars! He’ll have hundreds of thousands of boy sidekicks, none of whom will ever be allowed to drop out of high school because (in the words of his famous catchphrase) “that’s no longer an option!” “Gee, thanks, Governmentuan!” says Diplomaboy the Boy Wonder, as he goes off to college to study Gender As A Social Construct until he’s 34.

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Boy, those Zimbabweans are sure lucky they’re no longer under the boot of that oppressive white regime.

Thank God for the U.N. and the international community, or who knows what sort of hell they’d be living in now.

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Stronardron Douglas fir in Argyll, which has been revealed as Britain’s tallest tree.

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If law enforcement officials break the law, fine, punish them. But don’t “punish” them by letting criminals off the hook; that “cure” is worse than the disease.

When people see criminals escape without punishment on technicalities, they lose respect for the law, and either give up and cease to resist crime, or take their own steps to prevent and punish it. Neither is characteristic of a civilized society.

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That would be entertaining; I’d pay to watch it.

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Looks like a motorcycle designed by somebody who drives a Prius.

No, that’s not a compliment.

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Well, it is the Onion, after all, but still…. It’s a legitimate question. How well do you think Caroline Kennedy would cope with the Apocalypse? Or Chelsea Clinton? Or the Bush girls? (And what is it with Presidents only having daughters, anyway? There’s a sign right there.)

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Note the examples cited. Although Hess (being a loyal “progressive” from the Brookings Institution) cites two Republicans, this is a practice more characteristic of the Democrat party, and illustrates its essential nature as an alliance of the upper class and the underclass against the middle class.

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And I seriously doubt that they’ll learn anything from this experience. Learning from experience isn’t something that “progressives” do very well.

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How can we have a European-style state without European-style taxation?

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That’s an … unusual reaction.

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… limns why I’m not a professional writer.

Better him than me. But I am looking forward to Wise Man’s Fear.

And if you haven’t yet read The Name of the Wind, the angels will weep for you. Run, don’t walk, to your bookstore and buy it. Or get it from Amazon. But get it. You’ll be glad you did. I guarantee it.

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It is my sad duty to inform anybody who voted for any Democrat on the basis that the Democratic Party would end the influence of lobbyists in government: you did not just fall for a lie. You fell for a stupid lie. Democrats like government, intrinsically; and while you can have a legitimate policy debate over whether that’s a sensible notion or not what’s not at debate is that when government gets bigger, so does its budget. The money in that budget has to go somewhere, and many people are going to have a personal opinion about where.

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Not really news, but a useful reminder.

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I know that’s certainly one of my highest priorities….

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Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

Actually, seeing guys with little fringe beads wearing ugly earrings leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but I suppose that’s just me.

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it’s a moral imperative.

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Just in case you were wondering. i know I was.

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No shit.

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The best thing President Barack Obama can do for the economy is keep quiet.

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Hey, everybody needs a hobby.

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In 1990, President Bush 41 had negotiated hard caps on appropriations spending that lasted through 1995. The “baseline” Congress used in 1992 assumed these caps held because a breach would trigger across-the-board cuts. In the first year of his presidency, Clinton wanted to look like he was cutting one dollar in spending for every dollar of taxes he was increasing, even though he wasn’t willing to take the heat for real cuts. The solution? He redefined the baseline to assume the caps were no longer operative, announced his support for keeping what was already the law of the land, and claimed a sizeable spending “cut” as his own.

Mark Steyn says “I told you so.”

In some ways, this is merely a domestic extension of what was called the “flypaper” strategy. Luring jihadist Brits overseas and killing them in Afghanistan is certainly a swifter response to the problem than having them sitting at “home” plotting to blow up Glasgow Airport while the government makes ever more desperate efforts to appease them. But no doubt some obliging judge will soon rule that it’s in breach of the European Human Rights Act for British troops in Afghanistan to shoot at British passport holders.

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Not good news.

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No good need goes unpunished.

Moral: Stay away from Denver.

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Taxpayers in the UK pay more for policing than any other leading country but are still failed in being protected from either serious or local crime, a think tank has warned.

1. Thank God you don’t live in Britain.
2. Without eternal vigilance, it could happen here. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s happening already in D.C., Detroit, and L.A.

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Even the most basic inspection of the IRS income tax statistics shows that raising taxes on the salaries, dividends and capital gains of those making more than $250,000 can’t possibly raise enough revenue to fund Mr. Obama’s new spending ambitions.

“Soak the rich” is fine until the rich dissolve — and then where will you get your money?

A tax policy that confiscated 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That’s less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010. Even taking every taxable “dime” of everyone earning more than $75,000 in 2006 would have barely yielded enough to cover that $4 trillion.

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The omnibus spending bill now moving through the House includes language designed to kill the Opportunity Scholarship Program offering vouchers for poor students to opt out of rotten public schools. The legislation says no federal funds can be used on the program beyond 2010 unless Congress and the D.C. City Council reauthorize it. Given that Democrats control both bodies — and that their union backers hate school choice — this amounts to a death sentence.

Not every black kid can go to Sidwell Friends.

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We have the technology.

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I never understand how kooks like this get commissioned.

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Well, that would be interesting.

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Not really news, but a useful reminder.