THE BUDGET AND THE BAILOUT BLUES

As much as Obama would like to portray himself as a giant budget cutter, it isn’t going to happen. Despite what he says about going through the budget line-by-line looking for waste, he has no line-item veto authority. In fact, there have never been any meaningful budget cuts. Budgets simply continue to grow.

The really frustrating part is that we blithely continue to re-elect the same politicians that got us into this mess in the first place who insist on growing the budget and going further into debt. When the house of cards falls, it won’t be pretty.

LOOKING BACK FROM THE LEFT COAST

By Schmid

LEFT BEHIND

Obama’s centrist Cabinet picks must have Democratic ideologues wondering what happened to the change they can believe in.

OBAMA A CENTRIST? LIKE I'M A LIBERAL

I am far less convinced than many that Barack Obama will be a centrist in office. Despite his announced future Cabinet appointees, I find it amazing that people are so willing to believe he'll change his stripes that fast.

SERVING SARAH THE OLD PATRIOTISM LIE

Some of the criticisms of Sarah Palin are fair. Some of them are unfair. There’s no question about the category into which this latest criticism falls: Blatantly unfair. Historically dishonest. If the Anchorage Daily News wants to complain that Sarah Palin’s spent too much time away from her state already, fine. But by lending her star power to Chambliss’s reelection-runoff bid, she’s not campaigning for “a reprehensible Republican chicken hawk.” If you want Jim Martin to win, fine. But you do him, your readers, American politics — and, yes, your governor — a disservice by keeping a political lie alive.

DON'T BLAME BUSH FOR SUBPRIME MESS

ousing Crisis: A new report from the Associated Press claims that the mortgage meltdown is due largely to President Bush's failure to act in 2005. Sounds plausible — until you actually look at the facts.

STANDING UP TO RUSSIA'S THREATS

The Obama Administration should reject Medvedev's missile threats, exposing them as a throw-back to the Cold War. The great irony and blunder of Russia's actions is that had Moscow acted more responsibly, the Obama Administration might have delayed the European missile defense system altogether. Now the Obama Administration must resist Russian pressure, if only to avoid the appearance of weakness and to discourage Russia's strategic revisionism.

WHO IS RAHM EMANUEL?

By all accounts, Rahm Emmanuel is a savvy political operator. But if his voting record is anything to go by, a penchant for centrist accommodation is not among the talents he will bring to his new role as White House chief of staff.

THE HUMAN SIDE OF LEADERSHIP

One of the best films about the Vietnam war came out in 2002, "We Were Soldiers", starring Mel Gibson. The technical director who counseled the portrayal of leadership was spot on.

MITT ROMNEY: LET DETROIT GO BANKRUPT

IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.

INSANE SAME-SEX-MARRIAGE RAGE

Corporate honchos, church leaders, and small donors alike are in the same-sex marriage mob’s crosshairs, all unfairly demonized as hate-filled bigots by bona fide hate-filled bigots who have abandoned decency in pursuit of “equal rights.” One wonders where Barack Obama — himself an opponent of Proposition 8 — is as this insane rage rages on. Soul-Fixer, Nation-Healer, where art thou?

OF FAITH AND FILM

It had all the trappings of a made-for-TV movie: a former sitcom star in the leading role, a Hallmarkian sentimentality, and a direct-to-DVD budget. It's the kind of project studio execs pass on. They did, yet Fireproof raked in the money.

DEEP-SIX PIRACY

Energy: Piracy has always been a shipping hazard, but Somalia's buccaneers have taken it up a notch. Their hijacking of a supertanker Monday shows how vulnerable oil supplies are and how critical it is to stop them.

OBAMA HEARS A GIANT SUCKING SOUND

His friends advise Barack Obama to launch a "New" New Deal. Maybe that's because the old New Deal is sinking fast.

Mr. Obama's one deeply false note during the campaign was his harping on "deregulation" as if that were the source of current troubles. His real problem is the crack-up of the world FDR built.

ND DEMOCRATS MUST DECIDE ON RECOUNTS

After the state canvassing board approved this year's general election results Tuesday, Democrats now have until Friday to demand any recounts.

AUTO BAILOUT IGNORES EXCESSIVE LABOR COSTS

Without government intervention, one or more of the Big Three automobile manufacturers--General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler--faces restructuring in bankruptcy. Bankruptcy would not be the end of the Big Three but a new beginning. Coming out of bankruptcy, the automakers would start fresh, free of the contractual obligations that have kept them uncompetitive.

N.D. ATTORNEY GENERAL WILL NOT OPINE ON BLUNT SEVERANCE

Question of law not finding of fact is job of the ND Attorney General.

The AG will not supply an opinion to the ND State Auditor's Office on the question of Sandy Blunt's severance pay when he left the employ of WSI.

BRUCE WALKER: TRULY FAIR TAXES

Redistribution of wealth presumes knowledge that no one in a market can ever posses. Just as the action of observing events at the subatomic level itself induces a result, so the act of acquiring information from a market itself changes the dynamics of the market. Yearning for such impossible fairness is simply greed, lust, and envy dressing up in more respectable clothes.

LOOKING BACK FROM THE LEFT COAST

DEER SEASON, CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET?, FAT CHANCE, OVERPROMISES, SEN. CONRAD told WDAY, IMAGINE THAT!, THE MYERS BROTHERS OF MINOT, THE U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

FATE OF COAL PLANTS IN LIMBO

The fate of scores of new coal-burning power plants is now in limbo over whether to regulate heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

The uncertainty resulted when an Environmental Protection Agency appeals panel on Thursday rejected a federal permit for a Utah plant, leaving the issue for the Obama administration to resolve.