THE REAL REASON why America hates universal health care?

PETER WEHNER: Obama’s Gift To Republicans: Their Resurgence. “From strictly a governing and competence perspective, the health-care process that is unfolding has been one of the worst — and maybe the worst — we have ever seen. Democrats are pushing for legislation that would take over one-sixth of the American economy — and they are doing it in a manner that insults the memory of Mo, Larry, and Curly.”

SALE ENDS TOMORROW: Up to 70% Off DVDs and Blu-Ray.

Plus, TV and Home Theater gear.

CLIMATE CHANGE HYPOCRISY: Prince Charles used up seven months’ worth of the average British person’s “carbon footprint” yesterday flying to Copenhagen on an executive jet to make a speech on climate change.

“WEAKNESS, CHAOS, AND FAILURE.”

GATEWAY PUNDIT: VIDEO PROOF–The Associated Press Just Lied For Al Gore.

ROGER KIMBALL: How do you spell “Chutzpah”?

MORE PRYING INTO MAX BAUCUS’S AFFAIRS:

Sen. Max Baucus and his live-in girlfriend, Melodee Hanes, were in the news recently when it was discovered that the senator had nominated his former staffer for the position of U.S. attorney in Montana (she later withdrew her nomination). When the story broke, Justice Department spokesman Tracy Schmaler said that Hanes was a “political appointee” at Justice: In June, Hanes became the acting deputy administrator for policy in the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

The curious fact about that revelation is that this particular position has in the past been a career slot, not a political position. . . . In other words, the girlfriend of Senator Baucus has been placed in a position usually occupied by a career civil-service employee in what the Justice Department’s spokesman acknowledged was a “political appointment.” So is the DOJ inspector general — who was quite active during the prior administration — going to investigate this obvious political abuse of the civil-service rules? Don’t hold your breath.

It’s like they’re all a bunch of crooks or something.

DATA-TAMPERING? Russians drop climate-change bombshell.

HEH: Greenpeace Pwned.

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Single-payer health care plan dies in Senate. Let’s hope it stays dead.

BILL WHITTLE, SCOTT OTT, STEPHEN GREEN: The Conservative Platform of Houston’s First Openly Gay Mayor.

SHOCKER: European Carbon Credit Trading System Plagued By Fraud.

WHAT TODAY’S “RELATIONSHIP COLUMNISTS” WRITE ABOUT: Themselves. And their families.

PJTV: Kill The Bill: A Report from the Code Red Rally in DC.

UPDATE: Violating the Senate rules today to speed the bill along.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Via email, McConnell’s statement on the rule-breaking.

“The plain language of the Senate precedent, the manual that governs Senate procedure, is that unanimous consent of all members was required before the Senator from Vermont could withdraw his amendment while it was being read.

“Earlier today, the majority somehow convinced the parliamentarian to break with the long standing precedent and practice of the Senate in the reading of the bill.

“Senate procedure states clearly, and I quote: under Rule 15, paragraph 1, and Senate precedents, an amendment shall be read by the clerk before it is up for consideration or before the same shall be debated unless a request to waive the reading is granted.

“It goes on to state that, quote, ‘the reading of which may not be dispensed with, except by unanimous consent, and if the request is denied, the amendment must be read and further interruptions are not in order.’

“You may have heard that the majority cites an example in 1992 where the chair made a mistake and allowed something similar to happen. But one mistake does not a precedent make.

“For example, there is precedent for a Senator being beaten with a cane here in the Senate. If mistakes were the rule, the caning of Senators would be in order. Fortunately for all of us, it is not.

“It’s now clear the majority is willing to do anything to jam through a 2000-page bill before the American people or any of us has had a chance to read it—including changing the rules in the middle of the game.”

I dunno, the caning of Senators is looking better and better . . . .

FROM PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE, thoughts on Universal Jurisdiction. A beheading or two and the enthusiasm will fade, to judge by recent experience.

BBC ASKS: “Should homosexuals face execution?” Not until that “creeping Sharia” creeps a good deal farther . . . .

WILL OBAMACARE COVER SEXBOTS? (Possibly NSFW, though not really racy).

STOCKING STUFFERS under five bucks.

OBVIOUSLY, SOMEONE SHOULD BE PROSECUTED, LIKE WITH ENRON: U.S. National Debt Tops Debt Limit. “The latest calculation of the National Debt as posted by the Treasury Department has – at least numerically – exceeded the statutory Debt Limit approved by Congress last February as part of the Recovery Act stimulus bill. The ceiling was set at $12.104 trillion dollars. The latest posting by Treasury shows the National Debt at nearly $12.135 trillion.”

But we can use “extraordinary accounting rules” to cook the books and borrow more. The country’s in the very best of hands.

And if the right-leaning public-interest law movement were as good as the left, it would be filing lawsuits to block spending, block borrowing, recapture funds, and, perhaps, claim fraud under qui tam statutes.

ANN ALTHOUSE: Blaming Obama Is The New Trend. “People just don’t want this bill. I think the big mistake was skipping the step of winning public support for a particular plan. It wasn’t enough that people believed there was a problem. People needed to believe the solution wasn’t worse than the problem. We were supposed to look away and trust them. The trust was never won, never earned. It’s been a horrific mess, and it just looks messier and messier as time wears on. Obama kept his distance, which looks pretty smart now.”

REAL GLOBAL WARMING: Close-Up Photos of Dying Star Show Our Sun’s Fate. “About 550 light-years from Earth, a star like our Sun is writhing in its death throes. Chi Cygni has swollen in size to become a red giant star so large that it would swallow every planet out to Mars in our solar system. Moreover, it has begun to pulse dramatically in and out, beating like a giant heart.”

NUCLEAR COURIERS: “Suicide Jockeys?”

RAY KURZWEIL ON how technology will change humanity by 2020.

ED DRISCOLL: Guido Beach Meets The Great Relearning.