Dan Calabrese

Get ready to hand over your financial life so you can get ObamaCare

Apparently the first draft of the form they wanted people to fill out was so long and complicated that even ObamaCare's biggest supporters were afraid no one could get through it. So now they're unveiling a "simplified" form that oddly doesn't sound all that simple:

AP worried Obama won’t gain politically from ‘recovery’

They get right to what really matters - to them, and to the rest of the political class. The issue is not whether you will benefit from whatever positive economic developments there may be. Screw you. It's all about whether our favorite celebrity politicians will stay fat and happy.

White House Correspondents’ Dinner restores columnist’s belief that America is screwed

There are times when I think I'm going too far in my belief that the United States of America has basically had it - that we're past the point of even grasping how to deal seriously with existential crises like debt and unfunded entitlement obligations, and that at this point it's really just a matter of how long the political class can maintain the illusion that everything is hunky dory until we wake up one day and we're told, sorry, it's been fun but nothing lasts forever.

Keith Hennessey: George W. Bush is smarter than you

Admit it. Most of us are influenced by popular notions in the media or the culture, even though we would deny it. You might believe George W. Bush actually said "strategery." (He didn't. That came from a Will Farrell routine on Saturday Night Live, just as Sarah Palin never said, "I can see Russia from my house.")

What? Evidence that Hillary lied? Well there’s something new!

Remember when Democrats used to complain that Reagan was the "teflon president," because no charge or hint of scandal could ever stick to him? The inoculation of Hillary Clinton works a little differently. If you really want to start going through every example of her dishonesty and malfeasance, it's easy. Whether it's cattle futures, Bosnia or even Watergate, Hillary is about as shameless a liar as you're ever going to find. She might even be the most dishonest person in her own family, which is saying something.

Smart kids figure out clever alternatives to college

I've been saying this for some years now, and it usually earns me shocked reactions from people who can't believe I would actually question the value of that sheepskin. Why, all the studies show that college graduates earn $1 million more on average over the course of their lives! How can you question that?

Whoa: Obama favorite Fisker was spending $660,000 for every electric car it produced

We've seen this before, haven't we? Once the Department of Energy's money is flowing freely, green energy wards of the state are pretty loose with the spending (just like the government!), figuring you can always go back to a sugar daddy that can print its own money - especially when said sugar daddy has an ideological stake in keeping you viable.

The ‘martial law’ nonsense (or, why libertarians will never escape the fringe)

Oh libertarians. As Ann Coulter recently told a group of you, for self-proclaimed individuals, you certainly are mobbish.

Mirror: FBI hunting 12-strong sleeper cell linked to Boston Marathon bombing

We may have only seen the start of this. The UK's Mirror quotes "a source close to the investigation" (so be careful, since the source is unnamed) saying the FBI does not think the Tsarnaevs acted alone:

Police say they’ve killed one of two Boston Marathon suspects

A developing story as of this moment. Police in Massachusetts say they have killed one of the two Boston Marathon bombing suspects in a standoff in the city of Watertown. The other suspect is still at large. The standoff arose from a robbery at a 7/11 in Cambridge. Here is more from the New York Times:

Absolute horror: Texas explosion levels 8-12 blocks

This has certainly been the week for jaw-dropping events that leave a columnist coming up empty for much that's meaningful to say. The West, Texas explosion is many degrees worse than Boston simply in terms of the number of deaths and injuries, which is not to minimize those suffered in Boston in any way.

VIDEO: Foul-mouthed University of Buffalo professor not a fan of pro-life students’ display

Well. She's a film professor. I guess she likes the R-rated flicks. There's something about a woman who swears like a sailor! Something arresting, at least in this case.

Ron Fournier: You know what evangelicals need to do? Embrace liberal political positions.

I've told you about Ron Fournier before. If you want to read one creature of the Washington media establishment who perfectly encapsulates the consensus thinking of the whole bunch, this is the guy. And since most of official Washington accepts the same conventional wisdom, reading Fournier helps you to understand why the whole country is in so much trouble.

Here we go: Left hopes the bomber is a white dude

It's not really a big shock that they're thinking this, is it? It's the same instinct they showed after 9/11, when they seemed as concerned about the (mostly imaginary) blowback against Muslims as they did about the actual attack. This is pretty standard thinking among left-wingers and their media allies, who will talk amongst themselves about how those simpleton Americans will want to start burning down mosques or whatever.

New York Times: Yeah yeah, Gosnell is bad, but the ‘real issue’ is pro-lifers oppose cancer screenin

They really think thoughts like this in the Blue Cocoon. It's hard to imagine how they work themselves into such logical pretzels, but I bet we can do it. Andrew Rosenthal, editorial page editor of the New York Times, defends the paper's practice of basically ignoring the Gosnell trial while hyping incidents that reflect poorly on the anti-abortion side. He basically hues to the left-wing company like that Gosnell's crime really "highlights the need for safe, affordable and available women’s reproductive health care."

Media pretty surprised Chavez puppet barely wins Venezuela election

Time Magazine is stunned that Nicolas Maduro, who was handpicked by Hugo Chavez to succeed him as iron-fisted dicator of Venezuela, just barely won the election designed to make his elevation official. Gosh. What could be behind the nation's lack of enthusiasm for Maduro? Could it be "rising discontent over problems ranging from crime to power blackouts"?

More opportunity just means more inequality, because a lot of people are clueless

This comes from PBS of all places, and it's one of those things that everyone sort of understands intuitively, but that most don't want to take the risk of saying publicly for fear of the hellfire that will rain down on them. And I don't want to put words in the mouth of economic historian Jerry Muller, who wrote the piece, but my summation of it is basically this:

White House: Some of you are trying to save more than you need, and we’re not going to have that

Via Dave Ramsey: I will quote the White House directly.

WaPo reporter: I’m not covering the Gosnell abortionist trial because it’s not really a policy story

One person deserves the bulk of the credit for bringing to light the media's criminal neglect of the Gosnell trial, and that's liberal columnist Kirsten Powers. Yeah, she is often conservatives' favorite liberal (although I have a few others), not only because she's a Christian, but also because she is intellctually honest and refuses to parrot the left-wing company line on stuff like Benghazi or even the treatment of Sarah Palin.

Media left ‘scratching their heads’ after Texas Rep. Joe Barton cites Bible

A little tip on how to recognize media bias: What they think is news, and why they think that, is just as important as how they write a particular story. In the case of comments made yesterday by U.S. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) concerning the Keystone XL Pipeline and global warming, both types of reporting bias come into play.