How to lose friends and infuriate people, Part XVIII:

A visibly angry Barack Obama threw down the gauntlet at China and other developing nations Friday, declaring that the time has come “not to talk but to act” on climate change.

Emerging from a multinational meeting boycotted by Chinese Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Obama warned delegates that U.S. offers of funding for poor nations would remain on the table “if and only if” developing nations, including China, agreed to international monitoring of their greenhouse gas emissions.

And China’s thinking, “Obama’s going to come to us for the money he’s promised to give to Uganda or wherever in the first place.” (And isn’t it so typically liberal to pretend at virtue by giving away other people’s money?) So, yeah, threatening to cut off the borrowing isn’t likely to spur China into action.

Maybe if Obama tried holding his breath…

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On the final Trifecta for the week, Scott Ott is tired after a year of looking up the President’s nose.

Bill Whittle and I get strained necks.

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George Will would like you to consider what just happened in Kentucky:

There a Republican candidate succeeded in nationalizing a state Senate race. Hugely outspent in a district in which Democrats have a lopsided registration advantage, the Republican won by 12 points a seat in Frankfort by running against Washington — against Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and their health care legislation.

As Will himself would say — dude.

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Ladies and gentlemen, the man who made “trillion” into a household word would like to have a word with you about responsible finance:

President Obama told ABC News’ Charles Gibson in an interview that if Congress does not pass health care legislation that will bring down costs, the federal government “will go bankrupt.”

Then stop increasing the scope and power of the Federal government like a Congressional Republican on acid, cocaine, and a lobotomy — you socialist, spendthrift little pretender.

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Leadership:

While many House Democrats have expressed anger with the Senate for the watered-down bill, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) argued that it was really Obama who let centrists take control. “Snowe? Stupak? Lieberman? Who left these people in charge?” he said. “It’s time for the president to get his hands dirty. Some of us have compromised our compromised compromise. We need the president to stand up for the values our party shares. We must stop letting the tail wag the dog of this debate.”

It’s almost as if the President was sworn into office completely lacking in executive experience.

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Sure, Houston elected a gay mayor — but the big secret is, she’s a conservative.

Bill Whittle, Scott Ott and myself come out of the closet on a very special Trifecta.

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Instead of three Trifectas, we shot four of them today. And we’ll shoot four more tomorrow — we’re stackin’ up high for the holidays. The first one up at PJTV is the last one we shot. And that means Bill Whittle, Scott Ott and I were all pretty slaphappy by the time we taped what you’re about to see.

Or at least that’s my excuse for comparing the current Administration to a bra strap circa 1985.

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First, the background.

When President Obama made his West Point speech on the Afghanistan surge, it included a July, 2011 expiration date. That caused so much outrage, that the following weekend he sent Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates out together on three of the Big Four Sunday chat shows to argue that the expiration date didn’t really mean anything — that it was “the beginning of a process.” (A process of bugging out, as I already explained.) So the expiration date had an expiration date.

Now, there’s this:

White House officials say the vice president is now playing the role of character witness to his former friends in Congress, telling them that the president is committed to the narrower strategy and the beginning of the withdrawal in July 2011—no matter what the public comments of Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

The expiration date on the President’s expiration date has expired.

And all of it took exactly two weeks.

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You suffered all Sunday morning watching the talking heads shows — or maybe that was just me. Whatever the case, your “Hair of the Dog” is up at PJTV. On this week’s show:

Wall Street wins with the White House.

Bessie is trapped in a well.

The latest in Climaquiddick joke technology.

Plus, dueling economic advisors!

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It’s simply the most effective evisceration of a New York Times columnist I’ve ever read.

Seriously, there’s blood on my walls.

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The Times has the scoop on Iran’s nuclear program:

Confidential intelligence documents obtained by The Times show that Iran is working on testing a key final component of a nuclear bomb.

The notes, from Iran’s most sensitive military nuclear project, describe a four-year plan to test a neutron initiator, the component of a nuclear bomb that triggers an explosion. Foreign intelligence agencies date them to early 2007, four years after Iran was thought to have suspended its weapons programme.

An Asian intelligence source last week confirmed to The Times that his country also believed that weapons work was being carried out as recently as 2007 — specifically, work on a neutron initiator.

The technical document describes the use of a neutron source, uranium deuteride, which independent experts confirm has no possible civilian or military use other than in a nuclear weapon. Uranium deuteride is the material used in Pakistan’s bomb, from where Iran obtained its blueprint.

There’s no way this ends well.

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The headline is from the Nashville Post, announcing that Tennessee Blue Dog Democrat Bart Gordon won’t seek reelection next year.

He won in 2008 with a comfy 74%.

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At Right Wing News, John Hawkins has a Senate source who predicts the health care bill won’t be voted on before January — and has less than a 50% chance of passage.

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Just in time for the President to fly off to Copenhagen to accomplish squat, “his” health care bill is dying in the Senate:

The bill’s supporters had said earlier that they thought they had secured Mr. Lieberman’s agreement to go along with a compromise they worked out to overcome an impasse within the party.

But on Sunday, Mr. Lieberman told the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, to scrap the idea of expanding Medicare and to abandon the idea of any new government insurance plan, or lose his vote.

Here’s where it gets really tricky. If Obama skips (or even cuts short) Copenhagen to rally support for the Senate bill, and it still dies, then he loses three ways. If Obama keeps his trip as scheduled, then maybe he’ll lose only two ways. It was, after all, Obama who decided to stake his (our) prestige on a big result in Copenhagen, and who made health reform his signature domestic agenda item.

This is what we call “hoisted by his own petard.”

It’s also what we call “amateur hour at the White House.” Or we would call it an hour, had it not been going on for 11 damn months already.

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It’s an all-new PJM Political, just pirated off of the Sirius/XM master satellite and made available for your web pleasure.

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At long last — job creation! Except that it’s at the IRS.

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Under the Obama Plan, no one making less than $250,000 a year will see a tax increase — except for 68 million middle class Americans who happen to buy health insurance.

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I’m only linking this totally-NSFW video from Hot Air about “safe schools” czar Kevin Jennings because I’ve been dying to use that headline.

Sorry.

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You’ve watched the video, now click the links!

Green book

Pretzel logic.

Any major dude will tell you.

The royal scam.

Don’t take me alive.

Time out of mind.

Everything must go.

Razor boy.

Negative girl.

Only a fool would say that.

Find out what it all means on the all-new Week in Blogs.

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Mark Steyn channels the President:

“There are those who say there is no evil in the world. There are others who argue that pink fluffy bunnies are the spawn of Satan and conspiring to overthrow civilization. Let me be clear: I believe people of goodwill on all sides can find common ground between the absurdly implausible caricatures I attribute to them on a daily basis. We must begin by finding the courage to acknowledge the hard truth that I am living testimony to the power of nuance to triumph over hard truth and come to the end of the sentence on a note of sonorous, polysyllabic if somewhat hollow uplift. Pause for applause.”

The worst (best?) part? Steyn’s parody was so pitch-perfect, I heard it in my head in Obama’s voice. Read the whole thing here.

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Harry Reid has cancelled that New Orleans fundraiser.

Republicans mock.

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The lede from an AP report I found on Google… well…

WASHINGTON — With a Nobel Peace Prize in hand, President Barack Obama returned to the grind of governing, refocusing on his top domestic priority as the Senate moves toward a pivotal moment on legislation to remake the nation’s health care system.

Do you really think reporter Ben Feller would have used the word “grind” if the bloom was still on the rose?

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President Obama’s EPA might just have outsmarted itself with the recent CO2 ruling. Here’s Kimberly Strassel in today’s Wall Street Journal:

From the start, the Obama team has wielded the EPA action as a club, warning Congress that if it did not come up with cap-and-trade legislation the EPA would act on its own—and in a far more blunt fashion than Congress preferred. As one anonymous administration official menaced again this week: “If [Congress doesn't] pass this legislation,” the EPA is going to have to “regulate in a command-and-control way, which will probably generate even more uncertainty.”

[snip]

Bottom line: At least some congressional Democrats view this as breathing room, a further reason to not tackle a killer issue in the run-up to next year’s election. Mr. Obama may emerge from Copehagen with some sort of “deal.” But his real problem is getting Congress to act, and his EPA move may have just made that job harder.

The angle Strassel left out — because it wasn’t germane to the story — is that, once again, Obama has gone abroad, put American prestige on the line, and will come home with no deal, and to increased political opposition.

UPDATE: Oh, that’s gonna leave a mark.

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How vital is health care reform? Meh, nothing that can’t wait until after Harry Reid holds another fundraiser.

Something tells me he’s gonna need the money.

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Want to hijack the Republican Party (you know I do) and try to turn it into something less shameful?

Nevada shows the way:

According to conservative grassroots activists behind the Nevada success story, a small group of about 30 Tea Party activists took matters into their own hands by way of filling vacant GOP precinct chairs, first at the local level, then the county and six months later, Tea Party activists seized control of the state GOP precincts, placing local Tea Party approved people at the head of the Nevada GOP.

Nevada precinct activist Tony Warren describes the timeline of events here at the new National Precinct Alliance web site.

“Nevada just had its elections for GOP Leadership. As a PC, It was my duty and great pleasure to drive 5 hours from Las Vegas to Hawthorn Nevada, along with our other delegates, to represent Clark County. Our approved slate of candidates swept the elections and we now control the entire State. No RINO was left standing. Every one of them has been moved out of our way. Every change to the State Party bylaws we didn’t approve of was voted down. It was a complete and total VICTORY for the grassroots conservatives in Nevada.”—said Warren

Now how hard does that sound?

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Bill Whittle hosted this week’s third and final Trifecta, and again dug up a story everybody else missed — President Obama dissed the world’s best plane and best pilots, just to spare himself some potential embarrassment.

Classy.

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Is it possible the The Once will someday make us look back longingly at Jimmy Carter?

Some Israelis already do…

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