I was a little worried that if ObamaCare passed, people would quickly adjust their thinking and tell themselves "it's not so bad, I guess I can live with it." But with a new story every day of some unanticipated evil lurking in the bill, people aren't ready to forgive and forget (yet):

One week after the House of Representatives passed the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats, 54% of the nation's likely voters still favor repealing the new law. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 42% oppose repeal.

Those figures are virtually unchanged from last week. They include 44% who Strongly Favor repeal and 34% who Strongly Oppose it.

Only 17% of all voters believe the plan will achieve one of its primary goals and reduce the cost of health care. Most (55%) believe it will have the opposite affect and increase the cost of care.

Forty-nine percent (49%) believe the new law will reduce the quality of care. Sixty percent (60%) believe it will increase the federal budget deficit. Those numbers are consistent with expectations before the bill was passed.

The President says that if Republicans want to run against the bill, we should "bring it on." I agree. The House in November 2010. The Senate in November 2012. The 45th President of the United States should be ready to sign repeal legislation on January 21, 2013.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:38 AM | Comments (74)
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Slublog sends this along and notes that there's no reason Steele should still be RNC chairman at the end of the week.

In the sixth paragraph of the inaptly titled article "High flyer: RNC Chairman Steele suggested buying private jet with GOP funds", Jonathan Strong of the Daily Caller writes:

Once on the ground, FEC filings suggest, Steele travels in style. A February RNC trip to California, for example, included a $9,099 stop at the Beverly Hills Hotel, $6,596 dropped at the nearby Four Seasons, and $1,620.71 spent [update: the amount is actually $1,946.25] at Voyeur West Hollywood, a bondage-themed nightclub featuring topless women dancers imitating lesbian sex.

RNC trips to other cities produced bills from a long list of chic and costly hotels such as the Venetian and the M Resort in Las Vegas, and the W (for a total of $19,443) in Washington. A midwinter trip to Hawaii cost the RNC $43,828, not including airfare.

Bondage-themed clubs on the RNC's dime? When you hear stories like this, I always wonder what the inevitably shamed and fired was thinking. Did Steele not know that the RNC has to disclose its expenses?

Steele has been an embarrassment almost from the start. Someone forgot to explain that when you're RNC chairman, your job is to put the spotlight on the candidates and their politics, not yourself. It's past time for him to go.

UPDATE: Will Tucker Carlson's still-got-the-new-car-smell Daily Caller soon be making some embarrassed apologies of its own?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:14 AM | Comments (220)
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Mary O'Grady of the Wall Street Journal has been on this story since the beginning and she's not letting it go. Not only does she have new details on the machinations of the US government in support of Manuel Zelaya Chavez lite attempted coup and America's continuing efforts to destabilize a democratic ally.

Last year, the U.S. tried to force the reinstatement of deposed president Manuel Zelaya. When that failed and Team Obama was looking like the Keystone Cops, it sent a delegation to Tegucigalpa to negotiate a compromise.

Participants in those talks say Dan Restrepo, senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council, let slip that the U.S. interest had to do with American politics. The Republicans, he said, were using the administration's support for Mr. Zelaya, an ally of Venezuelan Hugo Chávez, against the Democrats. It's not going to work, Mr. Restrepo is said to have informed the other negotiators, because "we have the power" and would be keeping it for a long time.

It can't have been comforting for Hondurans to learn that while their country was living a monumental crisis, fueled by U.S. policy, Mr. Restrepo's concern was his party's power. For the record, an NSC spokesman says "Mr. Restrepo didn't say that." But my sources are more plausible considering what has transpired since.

Four months after a presidential election, reports from Honduras suggest the Obama administration remains obsessed with repairing its foreign-policy image by regaining the upper hand. The display of raw colonialist hubris is so pronounced that locals now refer to U.S. ambassador Hugo Llorens as "the proconsul."

...The U.S., as represented by Mr. Llorens, has been at the center of the Zelaya crisis all along. People familiar with events leading up to Mr. Zelaya's arrest on June 28 say that had the U.S. ambassador not worked behind the scenes to block a congressional vote to remove the president a few days earlier, the dramatic deportation would never have happened.

The State Department denies this allegation. But numerous sources maintain that Mr. Llorens' interference allowed Mr. Zelaya to push ahead with an unconstitutional referendum. Fearing he would use violence—as he had before—to trample the rule of law, the Supreme Court took action. Mr. Zelaya was arrested, shipped off to San José, and removed from power by a vote of Congress the same day.

Displays of raw power and ineptitude...that about sums up this administration.

Read the whole piece and see how Llorens is still interfering in Honduran affairs though manipulations of visas and the role he may have plaid in having former interim president Roberto Micheletti (a key figure in saving Honduras' democracy) removed for his party position.

Amazingly but not shockingly, Obama is still pressing for Zelaya's return to Honduras without facing any charges for his actions as President. Aside for this naked interference in the legal process of a democratic ally, Zelaya's return would likely lead to renewed violence. Given the economic damage done to this already desperately poor country by Zelaya's actions, his return is the last thing the country needs. Yet Obama, not content with ruining one country financially, is insisting upon it.

I was disgusted by Obama's sting of apologies to foreign nations last year but the fact is the next president is going to have issue quite a few apologies for the behavior of this disgusting administration.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:09 AM | Comments (35)
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Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:46 AM | Comments (52)
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During the morning commute. Moscow authorities say two female suicide bombers.

Twenty-four died in the first blast at 0756 (0356 GMT) as a train stood at the central Lubyanka station, beneath the offices of the FSB intelligence agency.

About 40 minutes later, a second explosion ripped through a train at Park Kultury, leaving another 13 dead.

The FSB said it was likely a group from the North Caucasus was responsible.

The BBC's Richard Galpin in Moscow says no group has yet said it carried out the attacks, but past suicide bombings in the capital have been carried out by or blamed on Islamist rebels fighting for independence in Chechnya.

tip via Mesa

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:57 AM | Comments (168)
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Last call for the weekend. So let's make it count. And don't forget that the ONT is an open thread so nothing is off-topic.

And hey the HQ has made the news. Yeah they're snarking on us but at least we're finally No. 1 at something. And it's nice to finally get some respect for our hobo beatdowns. Thanks to several commenters that pointed this article out.

Naked Mole Rat Cam!

Yeah the naked mole rat has been longtime sponsor of the ONT and now you can watch them in their natural state. Which seems to be mostly sleeping and stumbling around in the dark which also might explain their popularity among the morons.

And they're some pretty damn odd creatures. According to Wikipedia they live up to 28 years, never get cancer, and are the only known mammals to have a queen-based social structure with worker castes.
[note: the rats sometimes wander around so you may have to wait for them to return]
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Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:45 PM | Comments (936)
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I caught the first two episodes of HBO's The Pacific.

I've seen a lot of folks that are talking down the show, mostly based on a couple of foolish comments made by Tom Hanks just before the premiere. Me? I'm liking it. I greatly enjoyed, and was deeply moved and influenced by the two main source works that inspired the series, Helmet for My Pillow, by Robert Leckie, and With the Old Breed, by Eugene Sledge.

Some people are arguing that the series has an antiwar slant. Well, duh. The primary campaigns covered, Guadalcanal, Peleliu, and Okinawa, are amongst the most trying battles fought by our nation. There was a level of savagery in the Pacific that the European theater, for all its wholesale carnage, never achieved. And while our troops weren't motivated by a genocidal imperative as some might think, it is undeniable that there was a racial component that was almost entirely absent in the European theater. Let's face it, we were a country that wouldn't even allow blacks to fight- how do you think our troops felt about the Japanese, who were not only different looking, but culturally almost incomprehensible to us?

Some of you may not have HBO (nor do I) so you can watch it online at CastTV.

Episodes One and Two are already available, and Episode Three should be available later tonight or early tomorrow.

Crossposted at XBradTC

Posted by: Open Blogger at 02:30 PM | Comments (557)
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Michigan State takes Tennessee on Raymar Morgan's free throw to head to the final Four.

All Baylor and Duke now. Two small schools, one with a basketball heritage, and one with nothing but a lot of basketball pain from stupidness.

I'm watching it online here.

Full disclosure, Baylor was the first school I ever got kicked out of. I don't blame them, I'da thrown me out too.

Go Bears.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 01:26 PM | Comments (95)
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I suppose I'm glad to see him take a break from the healthcare bill wonderfulness campaign trail to do something about his other duties.

Barack Obama has told US troops on his first visit to Afghanistan as US president that they are there to help Afghans to forge a "hard-won peace".

Addressing soldiers at Bagram air base near the capital Kabul, he thanked them for their service and said they would prevail against their enemies.

They were there, he said, to "keep America safe and secure".

Glad isn't exactly the right word, but I'll acknowledge he's doing something he should do. He's the Commander in Chief, and our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines are deployed in a war zone, carrying out our nation's mission, a mission he has endorsed. If he has the courtesy to travel halfway around the world and say "thank you", well good.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 12:19 PM | Comments (203)
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Well, maybe not a squirrel in absolute zoological terms, but a fresh post at least.

Bad things of note:

The Obama double dip recession is still on schedule for delivery in the next month or so.

Good things of note:

Obama has yet to find a way to wreck the laws physics, particularly gravity, so we can expect our chairs to stay on the floor and computers to remain on desks at least for a while.

In spite of all the crashes and wild swings of economic indicators, Chemists will be pleased to learn properties of the elements in Periodic Table have remained remarkably stable and resilient in the face of all this uncertainty.

If the Period Table can hold fast, so can we. We will prevail.

All indicators are that pitch fork and tar futures will be spiking sharply Monday morning. Place your bets now.
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Posted by: Purple Avenger at 11:45 AM | Comments (180)
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