No president with this kind of lopsided majority in the House can not score a victory on health care, given the auction-bloc bidding being conducted behind the scenes. So I predict the bill will pass the House …but the battle is far from over. For one thing, Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad [D-ND] is making sounds like the bill will have to go back his committee for some fixing—then to another vote of the full Senate…and ultimately it would have to go back to the House again! Mitch McConnell... 

NIMBY is a well-used acronym for “not in my back yard.” Like the controversy about depositing nuclear waste in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain: nobody wants others’ toxic material, or hazardous residue, in close proximity. Here’s two acronyms which aptly describe Julie Hamos’ defeat in the North Shore 10th congressional district’s Democratic primary on Feb. 2: NIMCD and ITWY. They mean, respectively, “not in my congressional district” and “it’s the wrong year.” Hamos, a 12-year state... 

Hot on the heels of the liberal women religious orders thatreleased a statement yesterday in support of the anti-life health care bill, this statement was released today by the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious (bold parts are mine): In a March 15th statement, Cardinal Francis George, OMI, of Chicago, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, spoke on behalf of the United States Bishops in opposition to the Senate’s version of the health care legislation under... 

ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION Highway Infrastructure Investment Grant: Urbanized Areas over 200K Population Award Amount: $1,320,000 Reported Jobs: 4.66 HT Founding Bloggers and Newsalert  Read More →

Late last year, when the consensus expected an anemic recovery of 2.8% real GDP growth in the second half of 2009, we laid out a case for a growth rate of 4.7% (“Hold onto Your Hats: Strong GDP Reports on the Way,” 10/19/2009). In the end, real GDP grew at a 4.1% rate in the second half of 2009 (5.9% in Q4) vindicating our optimism versus the consensus. Now the consensus is forecasting a growth rate of 2.7% for the first half of 2010. In contrast, we are predicting 4.5%, with faster growth... 

What’s there about the whiff of statism that Cardinal Francis George and the USCCB [United States Conference of Catholic Bishops] voice support for despite all evidence to the contrary? ObamaCare, he and they view as complementary to the goals of social justice with one exception: its failure to include the Hyde amendment. All the other social entitlements are bankrupt: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. The Catholic aim of social justice, they aver, is indissolubly tied to taxpayer funding....