IF HIS SUPPORTERS WERE MORE VIOLENT, THIS WOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED: The arrest of Geert Wilders.

CBO SAYS TRUE COST OF THE STIMULUS IS $3.27 trillion over ten years. It’ll be the biggest heist of all time . . . .

UPDATE: Associated Press: World stocks sag on concerns about Obama plans. But gold and silver have jumped.

GREG MANKIW has an interesting chart on the budget balance.

HMM: Mysterious Scientology Project Raises Questions in Wyoming.

THE CITIZENS’ HEARING ON THE STIMULUS will be live and free on PJTV in just a bit.

IN THE MAIL: From Austin Bay and Jim Dunnigan, A QUICK AND DIRTY GUIDE TO WAR, 4th Edition – The Tools for Understanding the Global War on Terror, Cyber War, Iraq, the Persian Gulf, China, Afghanistan, the Balkans, East Africa, Colombia, Mexico, and Other Hot Spots. This book is a classic — Austin Bay calls it an exercise in “the applied humanities” — now in a new edition. Read it and you’ll know more than all but a few of the talking heads on TV.

GAZA WAR LEADS TO DROP IN SUPPORT FOR HAMAS: “There is a commonly held view that taking military action against terrorists has the counterproductive effect of strengthening their popular support. Recent polling data suggest that Israel’s recent action in Gaza had precisely the opposite effect. It turns out that military defeat (Israeli forces killed hundreds of Hamas fighters and damaged its infrastructure, while taking few losses of their own) actually lowered Hamas’ support among Palestinians.”

In other news, the response to Pearl Harbor led to a dramatic reduction in Japanese militarism.

TOM BLUMER on when the recession started, and why. “What Mr. Obama ‘somehow’ forgot to tell us is that almost 1.8 million of those seasonally adjusted job losses have occurred since his election, when his non-stop economic no-confidence game went into high gear, and that 2.8 million jobs have gone away during the seven months that began in July 2008, the first full month of the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) economy.” Hmm. I don’t think that Obama’s doomsaying — designed to gin up fear to pass the pork-laden “stimulus” bill — did any good, but the economic downturn seems to be a global phenomenon, one that’s actually worse elsewhere than here. But look at the numbers and make up your own mind.

CONSEQUENCES FOR PRESS IRRESPONSIBILITY? Michael Silence says, “I warned you.”

BYRON YORK: Who Will Investigate the Obama Administration? “The census controversy brings the first test of accountability and oversight in the new administration.”

AND YET PEOPLE SAY OUR PROBLEM IS UNFETTERED CAPITALISM:

New York City’s main industry lies in ruins; its finances are in peril; its housing market is falling. What does the city need? That’s right, tougher rent controls!

In times like this, it’s easy to believe that if you laid all the economists in the world end to end, they still wouldn’t reach a conclusion. But here’s one of the things that basically everyone, left to right, agrees on: rent control is the surest way to destroy a city’s housing stock short of aerial bombing.

Yeah, and the damage from rent control lasts longer. Plus this:

This bill, if it passes the Senate, will represent the third time that New York has reneged on its promises not to control new housing. From what I can tell, it’s trying to claw back decontrols of units that were built under laws providing for time-limited stabilization in exchange for tax breaks. Just like the first two times, it’s a good bet that New York City will now have a damn hard time getting anyone to build anything except another skybox for rich patrons who do not arouse the sympathy of the New York State legislature. Every time a New Yorker curses their dirty, run-down shoebox of an apartment, they should save an especially juicy oath for Sheldon Silver.

Politicians can’t do much to fix an economy, but they’re great at wrecking one.

POST-RACIAL? Slate Magazine Asks Whether Michael Steele Is Barack Obama’s “Evil Twin.”

LETTING THE CAPITALISM out of the bag.

NPR: In Dodd We Trust? Maybe Not Among Voters In Connecticut.

HAPPY LINCOLN’S BIRTHDAY: Here’s our Glenn & Helen Show interview with James Swanson, author of Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer. Which is a great book — like a Tom Clancy thriller, except that it all really happened.

DISCRIMINATION: “Central Michigan and its women’s basketball coach are being sued by a former player, who claims her heterosexuality was a factor in losing a scholarship after two seasons.”

SOME GOOD NEWS: Man appears free of HIV after stem cell transplant.

OKAY, I MENTIONED THIS IN LAST NIGHT’S SHOW, but in case you missed it, there will be a citizens’ hearing on the stimulus today at noon Eastern, at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in D.C. It’s open to the public, and it’ll also be covered live on PJTV.

MICKEY KAUS: Turning Over The Rock: “Robert Rector and Katherine Bradley note that the anti-welfare-reform provisions in the stimulus bill aren’t as bad as I’d feared. They’re worse. They attempt replicate the fiscal mechanics of the old welfare (AFDC) ‘entitlement,’ but with a bigger incentive to welfare expansion.”

OBAMA DONOR starts antistimulus campaign.

Here’s the website.

A LOOK AT UNCONVENTIONAL WARFARE TECHNOLOGY from the Special Forces Symposium.

LATE-NIGHT COMEDY SHOWS start making fun of Obama.

HERE’S YER WORKING CLASS TAX BREAK: “$13 a week in take-home pay, falling to about $8 a week next January.” Don’t spend it all in one place!

NEW YORK TIMES: Following Mr. Murtha’s Money. “The surprise is not that Justice Department investigators dare to poke into Mr. Murtha’s defense appropriations trough. The surprise is that it took them so long.”

A FOOLPROOF PLAN FOR MAKING CONGRESS LOOK DUMB: Let ’em talk in public.