• Enough already with trying to beat the business cycle. The government has been promising to do this for about a century and it has failed. Get it out of here!
• Enough already with getting other people to pay for your health care. It is cruel, wasteful, and unjust.
• Enough already with sending little Johnny off for a mandatory twelve year sentence at the state educational penitentiary. Hey, at least your average violent offender at the regular pen gets a trial of his peers and time off for good behavior.

• Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) ridiculed Bush nominees including Brown, as "Neanderthals." He attacked Brown as "another extreme right-wing candidate ... a judicial activist who will roll back basic rights."
• Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) said: "I oppose giving Justice Brown this lifetime promotion to the second highest court in our land because the American people deserve judges who will interpret the law fairly and objectively. Janice Rogers Brown is a committed judicial activist who has a consistent record of using her position as a member of the court to put her views above the law and above the interests of working men and women and families across the Nation."
• Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said: "Janice Rogers Brown is one of President Bush's most ideological and extreme judicial nominees."
• Schumer said: Judge Brown "is the least deserving of all of President Bush's appeal court nominees."

Three of the five majority opinions written by Judge Sotomayor for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and reviewed by the Supreme Court were reversed, providing a potent line of attack raised by opponents Tuesday after President Obama announced he will nominate the 54-year-old Hispanic woman to the high court.

Rick Moran wrote in "More evidence emerges that Chrysler Dealer closings was politically motivated," The dealer closings were not ordered by the bankruptcy judge but by the White House. This puts a whole new light on how the dealers to be closed were chosen and, more importantly, who did it.

And Jim Hoft has found an incredible piece of information. Apparently, a politically connected group of Democrats who own six Chrysler dealerships not only were allowed to keep them, but their competition was deep sixed. Hoft has a link to a blog on the Chrysler dealer shutdowns run by Joey Smith who reports:

The company is called RLJ-McLarty-Landers, and it operates six Chrysler dealerships throughout the South. All six dealerships are safe from closing. The dealer locations are:

Bentonville, AR (northwest Arkansas)
Lee's Summit, MO (south of Kansas City, MO)
Branson, MO
Olathe, KS (near Kansas City)
Bossier City, LA (near Shreveport)
Huntsville, AL

The interesting part is who the three main owners of the company are. The owners are Steve Landers (long-time car dealer, 4th-generation dealer), Thomas "Mack" McLarty (former Chief of Staff for President Clinton), and Robert Johnson (founder of Black Entertainment Television and co-owner of the NBA's Charlotte Bobcats). Landers has given money to Republicans in the past, but McLarty campaigned for Obama in 2008, and Johnson has given countless amounts of money to Democrats over the years.

This thing is getting stinkier by the hour. And it's starting to smell like rotten bananas - as in the tactic the White House is using is something you'd find in a central American banana republic and not the greatest nation on earth.

I wrote a piece on my own blog a while back when Chrysler dealer George Joseph wrote a letter published on AT about his own troubles with being shut down. In that piece, I made the argument that what we were seeing was not socialism, but gangsterism. And how did it happen?

It can happen because we are barking up the wrong tree when we accuse the Democrats of practicing socialism. Any Chicagoan recognizes what's going on as pure gangsterism - the application of power through the use blackmail, threats, and pure muscle and the devil take the Constitution, the rule of law, and simple fairness.

It can happen because we've elected a president who aggrandizes power unto himself while running roughshod over individual rights.

He writes: "A lawyer representing a group of  Chrysler dealers who are on the hit list deposed senior Chrysler executives and later told Reuters that he believes the closings have been forced on the company by the White House.

"It became clear to us that Chrysler does not see the wisdom of terminating 25 percent of its dealers. It really wasn't Chrysler's decision. They are under enormous pressure from the President's automotive task force," said attorney Leonard Bellavia.

RedState.com's Josh Painter has a useful roundup of what has been found so far by a growing number of bloggers digging into what could be a very big story indeed. Also, see my column on this issue and how it fits into the larger context dubbed by the Examiner's Michael Barone as "gangster government."

UPDATE II: White House car czar married to Democratic fund raiser

RUSSIA FEARS NKOREA CONFLICT COULD GO NUKE

American flag yanked from work cubicle - Hospital supervisor complained about woman's 'offensive' display at office

Though there was also a slight easing of targeted emissions reductions for 2020, which resulted in a marginally lower economic impact, the new distribution of allowances created a less efficient pattern of government expenditures and more than offset the gain from the lower cap for 2020.

According to researchers, by 2035, the Waxman-Markey bill would:

• Destroy 1,105,000 jobs on average, with peak years seeing unemployment rise by over 2,479,000 jobs.
• Raise electricity rates 90 percent after adjusting for inflation;
• Raise inflation-adjusted gasoline prices by 74 percent.
• Raise residential natural gas prices by 55 percent.
• Raise an average family's annual energy bill by $1,500.
• Increase inflation-adjusted federal debt by 26 percent, or $29,150 additional federal debt per person, again after adjusting for inflation.

Ultimately, this bill would result in government-set caps on energy use that damage the economy and hobble growth--the very growth that supports investment and innovation, says Heritage. 

But is all of this economic pain justified by gains against global warming, asks Heritage?  

• Waxman-Markey raises energy prices by 55-90 percent.
• These higher energy prices push unemployment up by 1,105,000 jobs. In aggregate, gross domestic product (GDP) drops by over $9.6 trillion.
• The next generation will inherit a federal debt pumped up by $29,150 per person, say researchers.

Source: William W. Beach, et al., "Son of Waxman-Markey: More Politics Makes for a More Costly Bill," Heritage Foundation, WebMemo, No. 2450, May 18, 2009.

For text: http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm2450.cfm