PETER KIRSANOW: “The American people are being sold the biggest government program in history. They better get their money’s worth.” Nah. Most of the pro-stimulus constituency doesn’t pay taxes anyway. What do they care?

UPDATE: Jerry Pournelle: “The tax cut provisions of the ‘stimulus bill’ seem aimed at solidifying party control: most of it is transfer payments to people who don’t now pay taxes. In the US 40% don’t pay federal taxes. If any large number of those are given money as transfer payments they will learn to rely on them. At which point they will be motivated to vote. And community organizers will see that they do vote. Now understand: many of those who get negative income taxes do necessary work and they aren’t very well paid. The question becomes, is that a federal problem, and should it be dealt with by transfer payments? Because once this is instituted, it’s going to be pretty permanent. Those affected by it will be mobilized to defend it, and it will mean more to them than it does to those opposed. So it goes.” Plus, the meaning of Tom Daschle.

VIDEO: Daryl Hannah shows off her biodiesel El Camino.

THE TAX COURT MAKES A POINT: “Every taxpayer, no matter how famous or notorious, has a legal obligation to honestly report and pay his or her income tax liability each year and is entitled to fair enforcement of Federal tax laws.”

I dunno, that’s not how it’s looked lately.

HYPOCRISY UPDATE: Ellen Goodman: Regulate women’s reproductive organs.

DAVID OBEY ON STIMULUS WASTE: “So what?”

IN THE MAIL: Welcome to Obamaland: I Have Seen Your Future and It Doesn’t Work. Well, it’s not too good at vetting Cabinet nominees, that’s for sure.

HEH. REASON TV ON THE STIMULUS.

HARRY REID versus the moderates.

MORE ON THE ZINNI FUMBLE: “… the question of who should be the next ambassador to Iraq has turned into an embarrassing mess for the Obama administration as it struggles to recover from other stumbles over high-profile nominations.”

Plus this: “Obama has only been President for 17 days. It’s mind-boggling how many screw-ups there have been. . . . It seems to me that the mode of ambulation is the stumble.” Upside for them is that there have been so many screwups I’ve had trouble keeping up with them all. They’ve saturated the screw-up radar….

OBAMA: More reckless than the CEOs he condemns?

GREG JOHNSON: Some of Tennessee’s Blue Dogs were strays.

OBAMA AND THE “STIMULUS” BILL: The Great Overreach:

Now, before I continue, let me say that Barack Obama will still be popular, he will still get things done, and he will declare victory after signing a stimulus bill.

But Obama’s moment is gone, and politics is about nothing if not moments.

The stimulus bill was a bridge too far, an overplayed hand, ten pounds of manure in a five-pound bag.

Read the whole thing.

WILL WILKINSON: Captives in our homes. “Government-subsidized borrowing gave us the housing bubble, precipitated financial Armageddon, helped prompt recession and mass unemployment. But, as the infomercials say, that’s not all! By zealously pushing home-ownership, federal housing policy has pinned to the map many now-jobless Americans who otherwise would have moved to find new work. “

BREDESEN ON HHS: “Not packing my bags.”

OOPS: “Researchers found that teenagers who watched more television had greater odds of becoming depressed. Interestingly, there was no similar correlation between watching videos or playing computer games and depression. Ironically, I first read this news on a TV screen in an elevator. I felt kind of bad about that afterward.”

TALK RADIO HEARINGS COMING? Sen. Stabenow wants hearings on radio ‘accountability’; talks fairness doctrine.

According to Wikipedia, Stabenow is married to an Air America executive. His bio is here.

BIG COPYRIGHT AT JUSTICE: RIAA and BSA’s Lawyers Taking Top Justice Posts:

Following the appointment of RIAA’s champion Donald Verrilli as associate deputy attorney general, here’s a complete roundup of all the RIAA and BSA-linked lawyers comfortably seated at top posts at the Department of Justice by the new government. Not strange, since US VP Joe Biden is well known for pushing the copyright warmongers’ agenda in Washington. Just in case you don’t know, Verrilli is the nice man who sued the pants off Jammie Thomas.

Not surprising that the Dems would side with the entertainment industry, since it’s one of their biggest sources of money.

Plus, this amusing comment: “I suppose putting the attack dogs for anti-competitive businesses in the DOJ is better than putting tax evaders in charge of the IRS…”

BLOGGINGHEADS TV: Obama stumbles out of the gate. “I would have expected Obama to have a plan.”

UPDATE: Charles Krauthammer on “The fierce urgency of pork.” “So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared ‘we have chosen hope over fear.’ Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill.”

YUVAL LEVIN: The Meaning of Sarah Palin.

CAMPBELL BROWN: Congress clueless about retreats: “Yes, while our representatives have been jumping up and down screaming about the excesses of Wall Street, condemning those corporate boondoggle trips to luxurious resorts, what do they do? They all go away on retreat together to a luxurious resort.”

FARHAD MANJOO: How Amazon.com is thriving in a horrendous retail climate. “It’s the one place that’ll sell you stuff for a bargain without making you feel like you’re slumming.” Plus, the power of Amazon Prime: “Be warned, though, that Prime membership will alter how you think about shopping. These days, whenever I become cognizant of some need that would ordinarily require an unplanned trip to the store—when I want a bathroom hook, a shelving system for my closet, a new wireless router, or a discount pack of kitchen sponges—I check Amazon first. It’s usually faster to order the item there and get it shipped for free than to add the thing to my shopping list. With Prime, you don’t really need a shopping list.” That’s something I’ve experienced myself. And you tend to save, not just on gas, but on impulse purchases.

JOE WURZELBACHER TALKS TO DEMINT, COBURN, BROWN ABOUT THE STIMULUS. Video, 5 minutes; free w/no registration. “Do you think it would be smart for the government to start cutting things instead of spending more?”

UPDATE: Blue Dogs Push Back Against Stimulus.

ROPE-JUMPING REPORT IDENTIFIED: A guy from Jewish World Review? “Feuereisen’s 12-year-old son had bought an inaugural magazine of some sort for $8, and ‘his kid just drove him crazy,’ said Jolkovsky.”

LESSONS FROM A STIMULUS THAT FAILED: “Japan’s rural areas have been paved over and filled in with roads, dams and other big infrastructure projects, the legacy of trillions of dollars spent to lift the economy from a severe downturn caused by the bursting of a real estate bubble in the late 1980s. During those nearly two decades, Japan accumulated the largest public debt in the developed world — totaling 180 percent of its $5.5 trillion economy — while failing to generate a convincing recovery. Now, as the Obama administration embarks on a similar path, proposing to spend more than $820 billion to stimulate the sagging American economy, many economists are taking a fresh look at Japan’s troubled experience. . . . Among ordinary Japanese, the spending is widely disparaged for having turned the nation into a public-works-based welfare state and making regional economies dependent on Tokyo for jobs. Much of the blame has fallen on the Liberal Democratic Party, which has long used government spending to grease rural vote-buying machines that help keep the party in power.”

Well, that sounds familiar . . . .

CHICAGO’S MAYOR DALEY REFUSES TO RELEASE STIMULUS PROJECT LIST:

Unlike hundreds of other cities, however, Daley said Chicago won’t make its list public.

“Yes, we do, we have our list, we’ve been talking to people. We did not put that out publicly because once you start putting it out publicly, you know, the newspapers, the media is going to be ripping it apart,” Daley said.

Hope, change, and transparency!