The President has wrestled control of the health care debate away from Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid by finally introducing his own plan. Unfortunately, the White House's proposal includes everything we found untenable about the old Senate bill - only this one is even more expensive!

This is what you might call putting "perfume on a pig."

What's in this "new" proposal? It has the unpopular (and arguably unconstitutional) individual mandate that forces people and employers to purchase health insurance - only this time with much harsher fines on employers who choose not to go along with another expensive government mandate.

It has provisions that will make employers think twice before expanding their workforce. It has cuts to Medicare Advantage, a popular program which allows seniors to pay a little more money out of pocket for better coverage. And, of course, it still has sweetheart deals - only this time they've been extended even more.

I plopped onto a barstool at the HFR Saloon and ordered a Maximus.  "So you're into Double IPAs, eh?" noted the bartender as he served it in a frosty mug.  "Best beer in America," was my response.

"Well, you look like you need a best of something," he observed. 

"What I need is a refuge from insanity.  That's why I come here - the HFR Saloon is a refuge from the insane asylum America is becoming.  Just today, the big headline in my paper [The Washington Times] is "Obama Vows to Get Tough on Earmarks."  He said this as he was signing legislation that had 9,000 earmarks.  If the nation doesn't laugh itself silly over that, then we have a nation of retards.

"But maybe the whole world is going insane.  Again today, the guy who runs Blackstone declares that "45% of the world's wealth has been destroyed" in this global economic meltdown.  What does that mean?  That close to half of all the homes, cars, commercial buildings, all the gold and silver in bank vaults, all the stuff that everybody owns in the world has been demolished?  Is this guy nuts?  And yet it makes headlines. 

I paused to quaff my Maximus.  I was beginning to draw a crowd.

Berlin, Germany. If you were asked to name one person who has enabled more people to gain wealth and security than any other person on the globe, who would you name?

In 1881, here in Berlin, Otto von Bismarck started the world's first modern pay-as-you-go social security system which served as the model for the U.S. Social Security system and that of many other countries, including setting the retirement age at 65. No, Bismarck is not the answer to the opening question.  

The answer is a fellow named José Piñera , for he has made life more secure and prosperous for millions, and with luck it will soon be billions of people. Here is how.

On Feb. 17, I joined a group of prominent conservatives assembled for the purpose of unveiling a document dubbed The Mount Vernon Statement. It was intended to emulate an earlier articulation of the principles that unite the right issued 50 years ago at the Sharon, Conn., home of William F. Buckley Jr., known as The Sharon Statement.

The Sharon document advocated victory over totalitarian Communism.  By contrast, the Mount Vernon document made no mention at all of today's totalitarian ideology - what authoritative Islam calls Sharia - or the threat it poses to America, let alone declare that victory should be our purpose in dealing with this menace.

Still, the Mount Vernon Statement is a paragon of robust national security-mindedness in contrast to what took place in the succeeding three days at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

When I walked into the HFR Saloon today, everyone at the bar was laughing their heads off.  "What's so funny?" I asked.  "Haven't you heard?" came a reply.  "Our messiah-in-chief has a new title.  He's now President Teleprompter."

"Yes, even the New York Times is saying he's addicted - can't give a speech or make the simplest announcement without it," my barmate continued.  There's even a website now: teleprompterpresident.com

"And this guy has the audacity to make fun of Rush Limbaugh - who just spoke at that CPAC conference for 90 minutes straight without a single note.  Can you imagine what would happen to Zero if he had to debate Rush one-on-one?  He'd be a joke."

"He already is a joke, and a quite tasteless one," I responded.  "That's why he's being called ‘Jimmy Obama,' after the disastrous bad joke of the Carter presidency."  I ordered a pint of Guinness.

"But he's already blown way past Carter incompetence.  So I think we should start calling him ‘Richard Obama' - after Richard Nixon."

Everyone at the bar gave me a blank stare.

"Ah, how did Nixon's presidency end?" I asked rhetorically.  "He resigned, he quit.  Our country literally cannot afford four years of Zero - our economy and our national security will be ruined, no joke, no exaggeration.  We need this guy outta here ASAP.  We need him to suffer the fate of Richard Nixon."

Everyone promptly ordered another Guinness with which to properly reflect on this.

Have you ever wondered why so many people see higher taxes and more government as the solution to every problem, despite the empirical evidence that more government reduces economic efficiency and growth, plus diminishes our liberties?

As will be shown, the arguments from the big government advocates are usually based on a combination of economic and historical ignorance, envy, and just plain delusional thinking.

The New York Times editorial page has long been a bastion of this delusional thinking. On April 24, the paper produced one of its classic inane editorials in favor of higher taxes on labor and capital, which contained this gem of a sentence: "Memo to McCain: 401(k) savers get no benefit from a low capital-gains [tax] rate."

Everyone who has ever taken basic economics should know a lower tax rate on an investment (i.e., the capital-gains tax) will lead to a higher rate of return, and hence the investment will be worth more. Though this concept is not difficult for most people to understand, it seems beyond the knowledge and reasoning ability of those who write editorials for the New York Times.

Unfortunately, the Times has plenty of global company when it comes to economic ignorance, envy and delusional thinking. We find it among many politicians in almost every government world-wide.

The capture of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar -- the Taliban's equivalent of Gen. Stan McChrystal -- by Pakistani agents and CIA operatives is a big win.

Subordinate only to Mullah Omar, the Taliban's CEO, Baradar ran the Taliban's military operations in Afghanistan. Responsible for the upgrade in insurgent tactics -- fighting smart, rather than just fighting -- he also created the Taliban's hearts-and-minds campaign.

For two weeks, he's been under interrogation by Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency. The CIA's also involved in the questioning on some level -- but the ISI always holds back some chips.

The grab won't affect the ongoing fight for Marjah in Afghanistan, but the loss of Baradar's operational savvy could degrade future Taliban operations. And if he sings -- as we're told he's doing -- it could be the biggest anti-Taliban bonanza since 2001.

Or maybe not.

The bartender here in the HFR Saloon always eyes me warily when I say off-the-wall things like, "It doesn't matter how much I drink today because I'll still stay sober."

He refused to serve me anything but soda water until I explained myself.  "Well, nothing could be more sobering than what happened to America this week.  You know how they say that in Chinese, the word for ‘danger' or ‘crisis' is the same word for ‘opportunity'?"

He nodded, I continued.  "One thing this entails is that the bigger the danger, the bigger the opportunity.  I'm not sure I can imagine a bigger danger to my country than its president purposefully planning to destroy it - and with the political power to do so."

"The opportunity on the other side has got to be amazingly big to match that," he noted.  "What is it?"

"To get rid of all this liberal-commie anti-American fascist Big Brother crap once and for all.  To replace the Moocher America we have now with a Free America, a Constitutional America."

His brow furrowed.  "So you're saying that having a president out to destroy America is what it takes to wake people up and get them to save America?  Does that mean you're glad to see this guy in the White House?"

I winced.  "Ouch.  Let me think about that, man.  I better stick to soda water today, huh?"   "Good idea," he observed.

What would you think if members of Congress voted to require the U.S. military to forgo purchases of most of Canada's oil and thus be forced to increase their dependency on Saudi Arabian produced oil?

As bizarre as it may seem, this is not a hypothetical question.  It is precisely what Congress did in passing the falsely named Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.

Chairman Henry Waxman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wrote a letter to Chairman Jeff Bingaman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on March 17 of this year, detailing the "proper interpretation" of the Act.

Mr. Waxman's interpretation makes one wonder if his purpose is to cause as much damage to the US economy as possible.

Sarah Palin, who is considering a run in the 2012 Republican presidential primaries, is using her public platforms to reassemble the coalition of security hawks, social conservatives and blue collar workers that propelled Ronald Reagan to the White House in 1980. Her support for Israel serves her in building support among both security hawks and social conservatives.

Unlike Obama's empty protestations of support for Israel, Palin's support is obviously heartfelt and therefore will not diminish while Obama remains in office. And as Palin becomes stronger, her ability to influence the US debate in a manner that constrains Obama's freedom to intimidate Israel into allowing Iran to become a nuclear power will rise.

In spite of Palin's extraordinary support for Israel, the American Jewish community overwhelmingly rejects her. As Jennifer Rubin noted in her article, "Why Jews hate Palin," in Commentary magazine, Jews disapproved of Sen. John McCain's choice of Palin as his running-mate by a 54 to 37 percent majority. The sneering broadsides published against Palin by leading American Jewish writers are legion.

In her article, Rubin gives a number of reasons for American Jews' rejection of Palin.

Ensconced in a booth in the HFR Saloon, we have to be extra careful today.  For no matter how many of Durk Pearson's Party Pills we take to nutritionally protect us from booze, if we were to drink to all the marvelous events of this week, we would all get very seriously sloshed.

So, bartender, just set down a bottle of 12 year-old Famous Grouse and we'll each have a wee dram in praise of...

Let's see, first would have to be celebrating the ongoing travails of Senator Tombstone Burris.  He has become such an embarrassing joke to the Dems that not only has the Chicago Tribune and Illinois Governor Patrick Quinn called for him to resign, the black pastors of Chicago have as well...

...What was it that W. C. Fields said about water?  That it was the stuff that rusts pipes, that you can't trust it because even a straight stick turns crooked in it, that fish do unmentionable things in it.

In light of another of his famous quips, that "Once in the wilds of remotest China, I lost my corkscrew, and was forced to live on food and water for days..." he might get a chuckle out of this headline of February 16: "Parched China to Slash Water Consumption by 60 Percent"

...Amidst all the outrage over our new terrorist-pardoning Attorney General, Eric Holder, accusing America of being "a nation of cowards," shouldn't we notice the irony that Holder is right, in precisely the opposite way he intends?  America is a nation of cowards for electing Obama.  The only reason he was elected is because he is black.  

There is still time to avoid a recession - a recession being technically defined as two quarters of negative economic growth.   What needs to be done, and can be done in the next 60 days, follows.

First, it is important to realize the present economic slowdown was caused by a series of mistakes by the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the administration, and Congress.

Many of our government policymakers and politicians still insist it was the other guy's fault and pretend that taking money from one group of taxpayers and giving it to another (a k a, a "stimulus package") will somehow miraculously revive the economy.

The administration is guilty of having both proposed and acquiesced to spending that resulted in more costs than benefits to the economy, which has slowed growth. Even though those in the administration cannot suddenly reverse much of the wasteful spending on their own, they can do several things by presidential directive - Executive Orders issued by President Bush -- to make things better immediately.