VERONIQUE DE RUGY: Stimulus Politics: An Update.

UNHEALTHY: Nearly half of US households escape fed income tax. Everyone should pay at least some income tax. And everyone’s tax bill should go up or down whenever federal spending does. Alternatively, we should abolish the income tax and replace it with a sales tax that varies in the same fashion.

SOME iPad teething problems.

A CALL FOR MORE FINANCIAL REGULATION, from Goldman, Sachs. “This is further evidence of what I’ve been saying for months: just as tobacco regulation was a gift to Philip Morris, toy regulation was a gift to Mattel, and health-care “reform” was a gift to Big Pharma, financial reform will improve Goldman’s profitability, Obama’s populist rhetoric notwithstanding.”

ARE AIRCRAFT CARRIERS obsolete?

TOP 100 FILMS OF THE 1990s.

THE CARNIVAL OF SPACE IS UP.

RIO IN CHAOS from record rains.

TEA PARTY EXPRESS: Michele Bachmann edition. I hear the TPE will be endorsing her.

PETER SUDERMAN: Health Care’s History of Fiscal Folly: “Expanding health coverage busted state budgets. Will it bust the federal budget too?” Plus, a history of Tennessee’s disastrous TennCare experiment.

INSTAVISION: I talk with Byron York of the Washington Examiner, about Tea Parties, the RNC’s travails and whether Michael Steele is getting a bum rap, and what happens between now and November. Plus, what you can do. (Bumped).

MORE PENSION TROUBLES:

The Government Accountability Office has a report out today on the unfunded liabilities of the GM and Chrysler pensions. The most controversial aspect of the bankruptcy reorganizations orchestrated by the Obama administration is that the companies reaffirmed their obligation to their retirement plans, which are often terminated when a company undergoes a bankruptcy. A lot of people–including me–regarded this as a gift to the UAW, at the expense not only of the bondholders who had lent the firms money, but also of the company’s future chances at profitability. . . . Make no mistake, these companies are still on life support. The CBO expects that the lion’s share of the government’s losses on TARP will come, not from anything the Bush administration did, but from the Obama administration’s decision to bail out the automakers and to a lesser extent, its bailout of homeowners. It seems that a big chunk of our cost may come from picking up the gold plated pensions . . . “Cadillac Plans”, if you will . . . of the automakers.

Read the whole thing.

MORE THAN EXPECTED: Jobless Claims Up. (Via Political Byline).

UPDATE: Ah, here’s the AP headline: Initial jobless claims increase unexpectedly.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Federal workers doing fine: “The federal government grows while the private sector shrinks. There are a lot of adverbs and adjectives that can be used to describe that trend, but ‘unexpectedly’ isn’t among them in this adminstration and with this Congress.”

ALEX POLLOCK: How to Cut Government Pay: All the U.S. has to do is follow Ireland’s example.

Government employees on average have higher pay and bigger benefits than the private-sector employees who support them with taxes. This has become a well known fact.

When private firms run extended losses—spending more money than they take in—their employees must share in the necessary adjustments. But how about when governments spend much more than they take in, running huge and extended deficits? What should happen then? This is something Americans who work in private companies might consider while they file their tax returns over the next week.

See what Ireland did to cut government salaries. Why not here? And if government workers know that proliferating deficits threaten their salaries, you turn them into a lobby for responsible spending . . . .

BOB OWENS: Shame on WikiLeaks: Framing Lawful Engagement as Anti-American Propaganda (Part Two).

BUMMER: Draconian UK Digital Economy Bill passes: huge blow for digital privacy, security, freedom. It was crammed through kinda like the health care bill was here. Britain needs a major-league Tea Party movement.

A CLIMATE OF FEAR:

In North Waziristan, a section of Pakistan’s tribal territories that borders Afghanistan, there is growing fear among the Islamic militants who have long used the area as a base area and refuge. So far this year, there has been at least one missile attack a week, leaving more al Qaeda or Taliban, usually leaders, dead. American UAVs, often operating in pairs, or packs of four, roam the skies almost constantly. Terrorist leaders are now terrorized, and have cut back on travel, and use of satellite phones. When terrorist leaders do travel, they use public transport, surrounded by women and children. The terrorists know that American ROE (Rules of Engagement) discourage “collateral damage” (civilian casualties), so the terrorists try to have women and children around at all times. But the locals know that the ROE doesn’t absolutely forbid civilian casualties, and either refuse to rent rooms in their compounds to al Qaeda or Taliban leaders, or flee if the terrorists insist on staying. . . . While the terrorist groups are concerned about the losses, especially among the leadership, what alarms them the most is how frequently the American UAVs are finding their key people. The real problem the terrorists have is that someone is ratting them out.

It’s good that they’re afraid.

NANCY PELOSI: Don’t worry your pretty little heads about Health Care Reform. “It’s like the back of the refrigerator. You see all these wires and the rest. All you need to know is, you open the door. The light goes on.”

Good grief.

UPDATE: Bryan Preston suggests a different analogy:

Sticking with the refrigerator analogy, here’s something that I think gets us a lot closer to reality than anything Pelosi is likely to say. You’re lured to buy a refrigerator, only to find out that once you add up all the hidden costs the price is probably 30 times what was advertised, and the thing ends up taking over your entire house and bankrupting you and your whole neighborhood. You call somebody to come fix it, and the IRS shows up.

Heh.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Ted Gavrilescu emails: “Pelosi’s quote instantly reminded me of the (in)famous fridge incident concerning Rep. Wiliam Jefferson (D). With this in mind, her analogy hits the mark: open the fridge door and you find a whole lot of dirty bribe money.”

HMM: Iraqi forces capture two senior al Qaeda leaders in Mosul.

AT CAPTAIN’S JOURNAL, more on Wikileaks and the Rules of Engagement. “There is ample evidence that the actions did not violate the ROE. . . . To be sure, this video can be disturbing to those who do not understand that war means enacting and enforcing violence, and can be equally disturbing to those who have had to do so either in Iraq or Afghanistan. Memories can be difficult things. It’s always better in retrospect to learn that the targets you acquired and killed were indeed threats against U.S. forces. This is true in this instance except for two very stupid Reuters journalists embedded with insurgents, and two unfortunate children (who, by the way, lived) who should never have been brought into combat by some very stupid – and dead – insurgents.”

UNITED AND U.S. AIR in merger talks?

ROBERT WRIGHT: Why Tiger Woods Matters.

RECORD HEAT IN NEW YORK CITY. It’s obviously proof of global cooling. Hey, if cold weather can be proof of global warming . . . .