Obama gives Copenhagen agreement a B+ - Fox News: "Obama: U.S. reaches meaningful breakthrough on climate change." Illusory metrics, gaping loopholes, and nothing is legally binding. Otherwise: "meaningful" yes.

"This means something"

Close your eyes and vote

It's hard to believe that the Senate is cramming through legislation that will affect one-sixth of the whole U.S. economy and nobody knows what's in the bill:

With the clock ticking down on health care reform, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has until Saturday to strike a 60-vote compromise if Democrats hope to meet a Christmas Eve deadline - but the obstacles kept piling up Thursday.

Reid still had no legislative text and no cost analysis to release.

That seems like a rather large obstacle (no CBO score either). Which begs the question: what's the big rush? Why must this legislation get passed in December instead of January or February, especially when most of the provisions of the proposed bill don't go into affect until 2014? As Jennifer Rubin notes, every day that ticks by reveals a new low in popular support:

Time, of course, is the kryptonite of health-care reform, the one phenomenon that disrupts the hype and pressure on lawmakers to vote on something, anything, and do it right now. It forces lawmakers to reflect and to worry (Sixty percent of the voters in my state oppose this?), and it reveals that the only thing ReidCare has going for it is an illusion of urgency.

I strongly suspect that the rank-and-file Democrats don't want to pass this awful legislation on a party-line vote. There's now strong incentive for at least a couple of Democrats to say: "hey, let's slow down, and do this right."

Extra - Everybody hates it.

And now this - Politico: "MoveOn opposes Senate bill." Uh-oh.

Stop, look, listen - Long post over on RCP blog: "The health care bill is political suicide."

Extra - Now the unions are going wobbly: "Unions decline to endorse Senate bill."

More - What's Jim Webb up to? He's been very quiet.

And this - Bill Kristol urges Ben Nelson to announce he won't vote for cloture so that everybody in Washington can 1.) avoid a big snowstorm and 2.) read the bill. Reading the actual legislation? What a concept.

Twelve days of Christmas

I heard this on the radio this morning and laughed my butt off:

Monopoly money

Former Senator Phil Gramm used to have what he called the "Dickie Flatt" test: he would ask himself if a certain government expenditure was worth taking a dollar from his friend's wallet. I don't think anybody in the Obama White House has any clue or compunction about where the money comes from: "U.S. ready to join $100 billion climate aid fund."

Sure, why not? Throw it on the pile.

Extra - Deep impact.

And a commenter will lead them

In a display of populist pique, the Boston Globe decided that – gosh darn it – we should take those bonuses away from the bankers: "Go ahead, tax these bonuses."

So a tax on bonuses at US banks would simply give back to taxpayers some of the money they have donated to the banks. That crack of the whip might also caution the banks against another speculative spree, encouraging the pursuit of long-term stability in place of short-term bonanzas. A bonus tax is not a cure-all for the banks’ vices, but it will do no harm and may do some good.

It took exactly one comment for somebody to school the Globe on that thing we call "the Law"

Well, Globe, there is just one problem with your suggestion. It's called the Constitution of the United States which prohibits bills of attainder.

Nice try.

Two out of two doctors agree – They're the original odd couple: Drs. Howard Dean and Tom Coburn both write that the health care reform bill should be scrapped.

Related - MSNBC's First Read: "Public sours on health reform"

Whatever, Ezra Klein (a continuing series) - Without a trace of introspection or irony, the WashPost blogger defends the following about health care reform: "An insurer will have to offer insurance at the same price to a diabetic and a triathlete." What a great deal...for the diabetic. The young and the healthy - it's time to pony up.

Fisking is alive and well - Matt Hoy takes apart Thomas Frank.

Five health care reform whoppers

Straight from Cato:

1. Health care reform will reduce your insurance premiums

2. Middle-class taxes won't be raised

3. You can keep your current insurance

4. It will only cost $484 billion

5. It will reduce the budget deficit

Quotes from 2006 - Guess who said this: "Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership."

Al Gore takes Copenhagen - Just makin' stuff up now in a free-form green exploration in front of a festival crowd.

Extra - At COP15, "misinformation" and frozen toes.

I've heard that song before

Here's Mark Steyn on Obama's speechwriters:

They seem to be the last guys on the planet in love with the sound of his voice and their one interminable tinny tune with its catchpenny hooks. The usual trick is to position their man as the uniquely insightful leader, pitching his tent between two extremes no sane person has ever believed: "There are those who say there is no evil in the world. There are others who argue that pink fluffy bunnies are the spawn of Satan and conspiring to overthrow civilization. Let me be clear: I believe people of goodwill on all sides can find common ground between the absurdly implausible caricatures I attribute to them on a daily basis. We must begin by finding the courage to acknowledge the hard truth that I am living testimony to the power of nuance to triumph over hard truth and come to the end of the sentence on a note of sonorous, polysyllabic if somewhat hollow uplift. Pause for applause."

It didn't come but once at Oslo last week, where Obama got bad press for blowing off the King of Norway's luncheon. In Obama's honor. Can you believe this line made it into the speech?

"I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war."

Well, there's a surprise. When you consider all the White House eyeballs that approve a presidential speech, it's truly remarkable that there's no one to scribble on the first draft: "Scrub this, Fred. It makes POTUS sound like a self-aggrandizing buffoon."

This begs the question: does Obama read his own speeches or did he add that line in himself? (H/T Maggie's Farm)

Whatever, Ezra Klein - Somebody's knee-deep in the big muddy of moral vanity today. The WashPost blatherer all-but-called Senator Joe Lieberman a murderer for standing in the way of health care reform, specifically the expansion of Medicare. Klein's earned some criticism but it looks like he's really not apologetic because, gosh darn it, people are dying.

Well, like all moral imperatives, there's no cost Klein is unwilling to (let others) bear to pay for universal health care. But why stop there? The lack of health insurance is a piker when it comes to the #1 killer of Americans: automobile accidents. Surely, we must lower the speed limit to 30 miles per hour. No, 15. And what's with all the people "murdered" by heart disease? Can we really stand by as - in the words of Klein - hundreds of thousands of Americans die from cheeseburgers and shakes?

And so on.

There is no cost control - Opinion Journal: "The cost control bill of goods"

By the way, last night on "60 Minutes" President Obama insisted that he's holding to his guideline that any health care legislation be "deficit neutral." I really wish Steve Kroft had pressed him on this issue since nobody outside the administration believes it. Obama has summoned Senate Democrats to the White House tomorrow for yet another pep talk about "history" - which is what some Senators are going to be if they vote for this monstrosity.

It's all about feeding the ego

Boston Globe: "Don't buy green"

Two articles this week suggest that buying "green" products like fluorescent bulbs and recycled plastic toys can be counterproductive. In Slate, Ideas contributing writer Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow discusses social-science research that has explored the effects of such small actions on our psyches. Studies have found that the warm glow of self-satisfaction they produce leads us to relax our ethical standards in other areas of our lives.

In The Washington Post’s Outlook section, meanwhile, Mike Tidwell, executive director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, makes the more familiar case that small-scale individual acts are no substitute for large-scale public policy.

The NY Times stripped bare the feel-good eco-movement a couple years ago with "Eco-socialites make cleaning green a priority"

These days Ms. Barnett, a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan whom Women's Wear Daily once profiled under the headline "Sloan Ranger," is today a consumer reporter for KNTV, the NBC television affiliate in San Jose, Calif. She recycles and has tossed away her children's plastic sippy cups. Concerned with carbon emissions, she is about to replace the Barnetts' two family cars with hybrids. "I turn the water off when I’m brushing my teeth," she said. "I'm always learning, I'm always trying to improve."

Still, she has no plans to reduce the family’s significant carbon footprint by, say, selling the Manhattan second home. "I'm not a perfect person," she said. "I'm not the greenest woman in America." And there was scant indication that other guests, most of whom, presumably, knew their way up the steps of a private jet, were contemplating major lifestyle cutbacks. Glancing about the room, Ms. Barnett said, "We aren't all going to move to one-bedroom apartments."

Heavens, no! How about some CFL bulbs?

She plans to practice conservation, to a point. Energy-saving light bulbs are fine - for the utility closet, perhaps. In other rooms, "they don’t give a very pretty light," she said.

Classic stuff.

Extra – Don't forget about this oldie: "Gore defends mansion's power consumption."

A different strategy - Economics professor Greg Mankiw notes in the NY Times: "Tax cuts might accomplish what spending hasn't." Do you know who was a big fan of this concept before she joined the Obama White House? Chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisors Christina Romer. Maybe she could share her research with her boss.

Ungovernable - Instapundit called it.

Does not reduce costs, does not contain costs. Guess what? – WSJ "Senate health bill will raise costs": "The report, compiled by the chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, estimated that total health costs in the U.S. would be $234 billion higher than if the bill weren't passed. President Barack Obama has said Democrats' health plan would reduce the growth of health-care costs." Yeah, that's what they said.

Engorge the beast

The United States is fast approaching a debt burden equal to GDP which has not been seen since the days of the Great Depression and World War II.

Not that the press corps cares anymore, but the omnibus also continues the earmark explosion that Speaker Nancy Pelosi vowed to end when she was trying to oust Republicans in 2006. The Heritage Foundation counts 5,224 earmarks, bringing the total for the year to about 10,000, or about 23 for every Congressional district. There is money for bike paths, skate board parks, museums, water-taxis to resort towns, and other absolute necessities.

Not exactly Hoover Dam and the USS New Jersey.

Senator Kent Conrad, the ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee, is a walking example of the split Democratic spending personality. He frets that U.S. debt will soon be 114% of GDP, a level he says is "absolutely unsustainable" and a "threat to the economic security of America." Yet he keeps voting for every spending bill and will vote for the multitrillion health bill too.
….
After so much double talk, we've concluded this is all part of a conscious political strategy. Spend so much and run up the deficit to unprecedented levels, then turn around and claim that there's a fiscal crisis that can only be solved with higher taxes. They spend, you pay.

Emphasis on "you" because, no matter how much the Democrats swear the tax burden will only fall on the "rich," there's simply not enough in Bill Gates' bank account to cover all this spending. Washington is playing with the monopoly money of China's easy credit but, just like my post-Christmas credit card bill, we gotta pay in the end.

Kinda releated - Megan Mcardle: "A new breed of deadbeats"