Sig P226 .357 magically transforms into Marlin .44 lever rifle

One down, two to go. The Sig P226 just sold to a gentleman up the road in Virginia. The CZ 75 SP01 Custom 9mm and FEG GKK-45 are still on the gunbroker sale block.

And with the funds from the sale of the P226, I can get my new Marlin 1984 .44 Magnum/.44 Special stainless-steel lever gun out of hock at the gun shop Monday.

I feel a .44 Magnum/.44 Special range report coming on next weekend. Life is good!

Like-New .45 ACP BHP Shooter needs a good home

Another of my "too big to carry pistols" is up for sale on gunbroker, my Like-New Browning Hi-Power .45 ACP clone, an FEG GKK-45 made in Hungary during the Cold War and imported into the U.S. by KBI Inc.

It's a great shooter with 8-rd. magazines of my first love in pistol calibers, .45 ACP, and I hate to let it go. But us poor, bitter, backwoods, God-clinging rednecks have to make some sacrifices in these troubled times, since this particular redneck ain't got enough money to buy more carry pistols without selling off some of my full-size pistols.

When I bought it, I found the existing 3-White-Dot sights shot about 2-3 inches low, which is close enough for most folks but not yours truly. So I bought and had installed an LPA rear sight fully adjustable for windage and elevation to replace the existing dovetailed rear sight. Then I discovered with the LPA rear sight adjusted all the way down, it shoots about 1-2 inches high!

But I found if you draw a fine bead without about half of the front White-Dot sight peeping through the LPA rear sight, you can shoot the hairs off a gnat's behind. Close enough.

Ships with original FEG Two-White-Dot Dovetailed Rear Sight, LPA Rear Sight package with Sight Adjustment Tool and Allen Wrench, (1) 8-rd. FEG GKK-45 magazine and (4) 8-rd. ProMag GKK-45 magazines.

The Browning Hi-Power 9mm pistol is the last design of famous arms inventor John M. Browning and was completed after his death by others, first manufactured in 1935 by Browning Arms of Belgium. Most shooters say the grip angle of the Browning Hi-Power is the most comfortable and natural pointing of all pistols, exceeding Browning's most famous design, the 1911 pistol.

Following World War II, the Browning Hi-Power became the leading military pistol in France, England and thoughout Western Europe and was copied behind the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe.

FEG of Hungary, the Hungarian national military arms manufacturer, copied the Browning Hi-Power 9mm design during the Cold War and supplied the Hungarian army with small arms. FEG also improved the BHP 9mm design by replacing the Browning Single-Action trigger (with its awful heavy pull) with a Double-Action/Single-Action trigger design copied from Smith & Wesson.

KBI Inc. of Harrisburg, Pa., imported FEG Browning Hi-Power pistols into the U.S. starting in the 1980s, first the 9mm and later the FEG .45 ACP. The FEG .45 ACP GKK-45 has a DA/SA trigger and is a slightly larger version of the classic Browning Hi-Power in 9mm, scaled up for .45 ACP.

KBI Inc. is owner of Charles Daly and though it is no longer importing FEG pistols from Hungary, the company still provides parts and service for all FEG pistols KBI previously imported.

I pray there's a .45 ACP and Browning Hi-Power enthusiast out there somewhere that will give my GKK-45 a good home and shoot it with pleasure for many years to come.

Marlin Model 1894 in .44 Magnum/.44 Special assaults senses

So there I was, starting another day at the gun shop when it happened. I was pulling the covers off the gun counters getting ready for business when this bright, shiny Stainless Steel Marlin lever-action rifle just jumped right off the rack into my arms and refused to leggo of me.

A Marlin Model 1894 in .44 Magnum/.44 Special! It was exactly what I was looking for when I sold my Remington 742 in 30'06, but I couldn't find a lever gun in .44, so I settled for a Charter .327 Federal Magnum snubnose revolver instead. I had almost forgotten about my lever gun plans as I began saving toward the next carry pistol I have on my ever-growing list.

And then it happened. Oh well, life is what happens along the way to wherever you're headed.

I really do need a lever gun to match up with my S&W Model 29 and share its ammo. I had a brief fling with a Ruger .44 Magnum carbine, but it wouldn't cycle .44 Specials, so that nixed it.

But this Marlin lever gun will feed and cycle .44 Specials just fine because I tested it at the shop. And then promptly put $200 of my small firearm fund into layaway until I can raise the rest.

Wish I could bring it home tomorrow, but I gotta learn patience. Oh Lord, I need a big load of patience. And I need it right now!

Seriously, I'm really looking forward to getting this Marlin .44 out of hock and shooting it. If it shoots as good as I expect it to, and I know it will, it's going to be my car trunk carry gun. Or maybe I should break down and buy myself a pickup truck and hang in the rear window.

After all, I am a genuine Southern redneck, so I gotta have a truck!

Downsizing 'Baddest Tactical Pistols' to carry size

I got on a full-size "Tactical" pistol binge in late 2007 and bought the following handguns in reverse order:

Baddest Tactical Pistol No. 6: Glock 20 10mm Baddest Tactical Pistol No. 5: S&W M&P 357 Baddest Tactical Pistol No. 4: Steyr M9-A1 Baddest Tactical Pistol (Revolver) No. 3: S&W 21-4 .44 Special Baddest Tactical Pistol No 2: CZ75 SP01 Custom 9mm Baddest Tactical Pistol No. 1, Llama IX-C .45 ACP

The S&W Model 21 .44 Special was traded straight up for the Sig P226 when I acquired a S&W Model 29 .44 Magnum/.44 Special and the Model 21 became surplus.

And since I started work as a gun shop salesman in January, I've gone in the other direction, buying a S&W M&P Compact .357 Sig and a Charter Arms .327 Fed. Magnum snubnose revolver.

And now I've decided to take it a step further and divest myself of some of my full-size pistols and downsize for carry weapons.

The Sig Sauer P226 .357 Sig and the CZ 75 SP01 Custom 9mm are the first two up on the block and are now listed on Gunbroker. Though I love both pistols, neither is very concealable and both are fairly heavy so are not good carry candidates.


I'm thinking about replacing the Sig Sauer P226 with 4.4" barrel with a Sig P229 with a 3.9" barrel. Sig Sauer has a Sig Anti-Snag (SAS) carry model of the 229, which I want in .357 Sig with night sights and the Short-Reset Trigger. A set of those nice wood grips shown would be good, too.



And I'm thinking about a new 2009 model of Para Ordnance as the replacement for the CZ SP01 Custom. Para has a .45 ACP model called the Carry 12 which is a subcompact with 3.5" barrel and Para's Light Double Action trigger. The LDA trigger is IMHO the biggest improvement made to date to John Moses Browning's famed 1911 single-action .45 ACP pistol design.

But then there's also that S&W NightGuard model in 10mm. Six rounds of 10mm in a lightweight carry revolver sounds mighty attractive. And Smith has also brought back the incomparable classic Model 24 with a 3" barrel in .44 Special. So many choices and so little money to buy with.

But gotta sell what I got before I can buy something smaller, so I must learn to be patient.

Commander-in-Chief also becomes Warranty-in-Chief

I'm beginning to wonder if I'm the reincarnation of Rip Van Winkle. I took a nap and when I woke up, I found myself in an alternate universe. Last night as I sat down to supper, there was Mr. Overexposed Celebrity himself on TV telling us all to go out and buy a GM or Chrysler vehicle. And don't worry about being left holding an unreliable hunk of Detroit iron when the companies go belly up because our Commander-In-Chief will also be Mr. Warranty-In-Chief.

Since when is it the President's job to sell cars? The Obama Kool-Aid has definitely worn off for David Brooks, by default the last semi-conservative left standing at the Noo Yawk Times, which is dangling on the precipice of shutting down and turning out the lights. Brooks writes an op-ed today that really is an opposing editorial view about our Car Dealer In Chief.

When the economy cratered last fall, the professionals at G.M. went into Super-Duper Restructuring Overdrive. In October, they warned the Bush administration of a possible bankruptcy filing and started restructuring. In December, they came back asking for a loan while they ... (wait for it) ... restructured.

The Bush advisers decided in December that bankruptcy without preparation would be a disaster. They decided what all administrations decide — that the best time for a bankruptcy filing is a few months from now, and it always will be. In the meantime, restructuring would continue, federally subsidized.

Today, G.M. and Chrysler have once again come up with restructuring plans. By an amazing coincidence, the plans are again insufficient. In an extremely precedented move, the Obama administration has decided that the best time for possible bankruptcy is — a few months from now. The restructuring will continue.

But this, President Obama declares, is G.M.’s last chance. Honestly. Really.

No kidding.

Could this really be true? Could the Harvard Business Review’s longest-running soap opera possibly be coming to an end? Could President Obama really scare the restructural recidivists in Detroit into coming up with changes big enough to do the job?

Well, the president certainly acted tough on Monday. In a show of force, he released plans from his Office of People Who Are Much Smarter Than You Are. These plans insert the government into the car business in all sorts of ways. They pick winners (new C.E.O. Fritz Henderson) and losers (Rick Wagoner). They basically send Chrysler off into the sunset. Joe Biden will be doing car commercials within weeks.

Oh well, it can't get any weirder can it? Yeah, it not only can, it almost surely will. And speaking of Joe Biden and weird, the VP's prophetic prediction of the campaign has come home to roost in North Korea, where our rookie President now has his very first international crisis brewing.

SEOUL — Two American journalists detained in North Korea will be indicted and tried on charges of perpetrating "hostile acts" against the Communist state, a crime punishable by years in a labor camp, the North’s state-run news agency reported on Tuesday.

Pyongyang’s decision to put Laura Ling and Euna Lee on trial signaled that the regime has no intention of freeing them soon.

Their indictment comes amid hightening tension between Pyongyang and Washington over a North Korean plan to launch a rocket by Wednesday next week. United States officials consider a possible rocket launch a provocative test of the North’s long-range missile technology.

Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee, reporters for Current TV, a San Francisco-based media venture founded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, was arrested by the North Korean military on March 17 on charges of illegally crossing the border from China. They were in China to report the plight of North Korean refugees who fled hunger at home and were living in hiding there.

The North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency accused the two of “illegal entry" and said, "their suspected hostile acts have been confirmed by evidence and their statements, according to the results of intermediary investigation conducted by a competent organ.”

"The organ is carrying on its investigation and, at the same time, making a preparation for indicting them at a trial on the basis of the already confirmed suspicions," it said.

This was the first reported case in which a U.S. citizen will be indicted and tried in North Korea, South Korean officials said. The North’s criminal code calls for between 5 and 10 years of "education through labor" for people convicted of "hostile acts" against the state.

So the maniac "Dear Leader" in North Korea has two U.S. citizens in the slammer and he's getting ready to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile. "It's only a satellite launch, honest!" protests the lunatic leader of the most aggressive Communist nation on earth. If this doesn't qualify as an international incident, it will do until the real thing comes along.

This is almost laughable if it wasn't so serious. This lunatic in North Korea is very probably in possession of nukes, which he could use at any time, and is getting ready to test an ICBM.

Thomas Sowell writes about our Rookie President's pratfalls in the first inning of this "game."

Someone once said that, for every rookie you have on your starting team in the National Football League, you will lose a game. Somewhere, at some time during the season, a rookie will make a mistake that will cost you a game.

We now have a rookie President of the United States and, in the dangerous world we live in, with terrorist nations going nuclear, just one rookie mistake can bring disaster down on this generation and generations yet to come.

Barack Obama is a rookie in a sense that few other Presidents in American history have ever been. It is not just that he has never been President before. He has never had any position of major executive responsibility in any kind of organization where he was personally responsible for the outcome...

There is no sign that President Obama has impressed the Russians, the Iranians or the North Koreans, except by his rookie mistakes-- and that is a dangerous way to impress dangerous people.

What did his televised overture to the Iranians accomplish, except to reassure them that he was not going to do a damn thing to stop them from getting a nuclear bomb? It is a mistake that can go ringing down the corridors of history.

Future generations who live in the shadow of that nuclear threat may wonder what we were thinking about, putting our lives-- and theirs-- in the hands of a rookie because we liked his style and symbolism?

It's a Dr. Phil kinda question that will come back to haunt America -- what were we thinking? I don't know about you, but I didn't vote for the rookie. But I have to live under his rookie rule.

Here's a news report on the upcoming missile launch in North Korea expected very soon.

One more reason to never go anywhere unarmed

If I ever even briefly consider going anywhere unarmed again, I'll remember Pinelake Rest Home in Carthage.

CARTHAGE -- When Michael Cotten pulled into Pinelake Health and Rehab on Sunday to see his aunt, a big man in overalls fired a shotgun at him before he could even park.

The blast Cotten described was apparently the first in a shooting rampage that left seven elderly residents and one staff member dead, Cotten and two others wounded, and the suspected gunman in custody and hospitalized, police said.

The shootings took place about 10 a.m. at the facility, at 801 Pinehurst Ave. in Carthage, about 60 miles southwest of Raleigh.

"As I was pulling into the parking lot, he started shooting my vehicle before I came to a stop," said Cotten, 53, of Carthage, a food-bank outreach coordinator and retired corrections assistant superintendent.

There's only one hero in this mess, the man in blue who responded to the frantic 911 call.

A Carthage police officer, Justin Garner, 25, was shot in the leg during the incident, but he was treated and released from First Health Moore Regional Hospital in Pinehurst.

Carthage Police Chief Chris McKenzie said Garner confronted Stewart in the hallway of the nursing home. Both men fired. Both were wounded, McKenzie said.

Translation: Police Officer Justin Garner stopped the murderous rampage with one or more well-aimed shots. He was shot in the leg by the murderer, but he stopped the killing.

I worked in Carthage at the weekly newspaper there in the late '70s and in recent years since I've been Pinelake Rest Home to visit the retired managing editor, Woodrow Wilhoit. Thank God Woody has gone on to glory and wasn't one of the victims at Sunday's shooting rampage.

From reading the news accounts, it seems the murderer was looking for his ex-wife, a nurse assistant working at the rest home, but was stopped by Garner before he would find and kill her.

I probably shouldn't be so critical with such scant knowledge, but it appears to me that one of the goats in this mess is the aforementioned Michael Cotten, apparently the first shooting victim who is identified as a "retired corrections assistant superintendent." Seems he's obviously clueless since he identified the murder weapon as a shotgun, while photos clearly show it's a rifle.

But Cotten is mainly a goat for not being armed. He's retired from working in prisons and isn't armed? He of all people should know the world is full of dangerous people, inside and outside prisons. If Cotten had been armed, he could have stopped this rampage when it started.

But again, I'm probably being too critical without knowing enough facts. It's just that this is real close to home and I'm mad as hell. It could have been my elderly mother in that rest home. It could have been my daughter working as a nurse in that rest home.

And even though Officer Garner responded promptly to the 911 call, he was at least two or three minutes away from downtown Carthage to the rest home on the outskirts of town. As the saying goes, when seconds count, police are minutes away. So if you aren't armed, you oughta be.

Buy yourself a handgun. Learn how to use it. Get yourself a concealed carry permit. And then never go anywhere unarmed again. That's the only way to survive and protect the people you love in these dangerous times. If it hasn't happened already, your quiet hometown could be next.

Presidential incompetent idiocy or political psychopathy?

What a twofer. First our Commander in Chief tries to stiff our wounded veterans with their hospital bills. For life. When the hue and cry got loud enough all across the land -- even some Democrats couldn't swallow that one -- Mr. O backed water.

So he takes a break for some comic relief and appears on the Leno show (in between working on his brackets for the NCAA tourney and saving the world from economic collapse) and while chatting with Jayman manages to insult all mentally and physically handicapped people by making an unfunny crack comparing his two-digit bowling game to the Special Olympics.

Then he follows up that side-splitter with a remark about "water heads" which anyone with half a brain knows is a disparaging term for Down's Syndrome children.

So what does Mr. O do when he's not stiffing wounded vets or making fun of the handicapped?

Pull the wings off flies? Set cats on fire? Drown puppies? Do we have our very first President who's a political psychopath? Or is he just an incompetent idiot? A Presidential I.I. isn't quite as bad as a Presidential P.P., so I guess I'm hoping it's the latter and not the former. God help us.

Ruger Mini-14 Tactical Rifle arrives in Stainless Steel

The gun shop where I work just got its first Ruger Tactical Rifle with the ATI collapsible and folding stock. Here it is, but get ready for sticker shock. This one's stainless and the opening bid is $925 on gunbroker. Ruger doesn't even list a stainless model, their site has Tacticals in blue only.

But considering that the cheapest AR rifles in .223 are going for upwards of $1,200, with typical prices reaching past $2K, maybe that Ruger Mini 14 Tactical ain't so pricey after all.

At least here's one gun I'm not lusting after. I've never caught the .223 bug yet. I'm more of a 30'06 or .308 kinda guy. Old fashioned I know, but then, I'm old, so I got a right to be.

How and why women should learn to carry a gun

If you, like me, have had a difficult time trying to interest your wife in firearms, here's an essay from a blog called Women of Caliber on Why this woman carries a firearm.

I'll just list her reasons. The entire essay has the details.

I carry a firearm to ensure my children are educated about firearm safety, not the victims of some other child’s(or adult’s) ignorance.

I carry a firearm because I don’t trust my “gift for gab.”

I carry a firearm because I am a mother (or an aunt, grandmother, sister, etc)—a calling which I take very seriously. As a mother I have no other critical responsibility than to take care of myself AND those entrusted to be in my care.

I carry a firearm to help the nation which I live in and raise my family in, to be strong and secure.

I carry a firearm because I know my physical limits.

I carry a firearm because I prefer my close encounters to be for love, not fighting.

I carry a firearm because I hate waiting and wondering.

I carry a firearm because I am an independent woman, not a statistic.

I carry a firearm because as a woman, I’m all about being prepared.

I carry a firearm because as a woman I have the privilege of giving life.

Laughter is the best medicine when you feel like crying

When the news of the world is so bad you just want to cry, that's when you really need a good laugh.

I could say "I told you so" when the most inexperienced idiot in American history was running for President, but I won't.

Oh for the "good ol' days" when we actually had some adult supervision in Washington, D.C.

I wonder how long the second coming of James Earl Carter Jr. can last?

Give me a call when it's over.

BTW, Go Mizzou! There's some good news after all, my alma mater is going to the Big Dance after a long dry season as a wall flower in March.

The Two Congresspersons from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Hypocrisy, thy name is liberal Democrat Congresspersons. As in Barney Frank and Maxine Waters, the two members of Congress who had leading roles in creating and defending from all attempts at regulation the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac economic tsunami which has shredded our economy.

Frank and Waters tag-teamed as midwives to bring this "affordable housing" mess into being, bullying banks and lending institutions into offering mortgages to folks who were laughably unable to repay them. And guess what happened then? They couldn't repay their mortgages. Duh.

So far, Barney Frank is The Teflon Congressman who lies about his role in the mess and has the audacity of launching an investigation to determine the guilty culprits for the credit crisis.

But Maxine Waters has finally been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. No, not for her role in getting us into this mess, but for snagging $50 million of the bailout funds for the bank for which her husband has a quarter-million in stock and sits on the corporate board.

Michelle Malkin gives us a front-row seat at the Hypocrisy of Waters on display in Congress, when her big mouth even embarrassed Barney Frank, who I thought was unembarrassable:

At a flail-and-wail House hearing last month, California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters melted down in front of big banking CEOs. "Raise your hand! Raise your hand!" she shrieked as she harangued the executives on their business practices and management of federal bailout money. Sneering at the "captains of the universe," whom she refused to address by name ("You, Bank of America!"), Waters excoriated the corporate heads for their greed. "All of my political life," Waters bragged, "I have been in disagreement with the banking and mostly financial services community because of practices that I have believed to be not in the best interest always of the very people that they claim to serve."

As you'll soon see, however, the ethically conflicted Waters has her own special definition of what's in "the best interest" of the people she claims to serve. While she crusades against crony pseudo-capitalism, she is one of its most hypocritical beneficiaries and advocates. Cronyism comes in all colors. Waters has once again earned her title as one of the "Most Corrupt" members of Congress from the left-leaning (yes, left-leaning) Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

The bank CEOs sat meekly during Waters' verbal flogging. But as she frothed at the mouth, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank covered the microphone and briefly chastised her. To no avail. Waters' motor mouth kept on running.

...Fast-forward a month later. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the high-and-mighty Waters had a personal and financial stake in Boston-based OneUnited, a minority bank that received $12 million in TARP money under smelly circumstances. The banks' executives donated $12,500 to her congressional campaigns. Her husband, Sidney Williams, was an investor in one of the banks that merged into OneUnited. They've profited handsomely from their relationship with the bank:

"Congressional financial-disclosure forms show Ms. Waters acquired OneUnited stock worth between $250,000 and $500,000 in March 2004, as did Mr. Williams. Mr. Williams joined the board of OneUnited that year.

"Each sold shares in September 2004 -- including Ms. Waters' entire stake -- but Mr. Williams continued to hold varying amount of the company's stock. In the lawmaker's most recent financial-disclosure form, dated May 2008 and covering the prior year, Ms. Waters reported that her husband held between $250,000 and $500,000 worth of the bank's stock.

"Mr. Williams also received interest payments from a separate holding at the bank, also worth between $250,000 and $500,000. The 2008 form doesn't specify what that is. Mr. Williams stepped down from the bank's board last spring. It couldn't be learned whether he still owns stock in the bank. Mr. Williams didn't return calls seeking comment.

It's good to know there's at least one newspaper not in the left's hip pocket, the Wall Street Journal.

Down the road that's paved with 'Magnificent Intentions'

George Will laments today that so far with the Obama administration, there is no "there" there.

Five months after enactment of TARP, a plan for unfreezing the credit system remains, like Atlantis, rumored but unseen. Twelve months after the government brokered the marriage of Bear Stearns and J.P. Morgan Chase, the government is recapitalizing financial institutions that the market has said should be shuttered. Lawrence H. White, economics professor at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, denies that financial institutions ever were "unregulated." Hitherto, such institutions were "regulated by profit and loss":

"The failure of Lehman Brothers and the near-failure of Merrill Lynch raised the interest rate at which profit-seeking lenders were willing to lend to highly leveraged investment banks. The market thereby forced Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to change their business models drastically and to convert to commercial banks. If that isn't effective regulation, what is? Protecting firms from failure (Bear Stearns, AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup) and mitigating their losses with bailouts renders this most appropriate form of regulation much less effective."

The president's confidence in his capacities is undermining confidence in his judgment. His way of correcting what he called the Bush administration's "misplaced priorities" has been to have no priorities. Mature political leaders know that to govern is to choose -- to choose what to do and thereby to choose what cannot be done. The administration insists that it really does have a single priority: Everything depends on fixing the economy. But it also says that everything depends on everything: Economic revival requires enactment of the entire liberal wish list of recent decades.

The implausibility of this opportunistic hypothesis is deepened by Obama's rhetoric, which says "catastrophe" impends unless everything is done simultaneously. But his budget, in effect, says the danger will soon be gone and the new risk will be whiplash from the economy's sudden acceleration. Although only a small fraction of the supposedly countercyclical stimulus will be spent by the end of the year, the budget assumes that by then the economy will have perked up, and that it will grow robustly -- 3.2 percent, 4 percent and 4.6 percent -- in the next three years. Growth supposedly will cut the deficit in half -- growth and the $1.6 trillion "saved" by first assuming, and then "canceling," a 10-year continuation of the surge in Iraq. Why, one wonders, not "save" $5 trillion by proposing to spend that amount to cover the moon with yogurt and then canceling the proposal?

The first president whose campaign was his qualification for office continues to campaign. And he is overexposed. His schedulers should remember what a contemporary said of Thomas Babington Macaulay, a prodigiously articulate but oppressively constant talker: "He has occasional flashes of silence that make his conversation perfectly delightful."

One afternoon last week, cable news viewers saw, at the top of their screens, the president launching yet another magnificent intention -- the disassembly and rearrangement of the 17 percent of the economy that is health care. The bottom of their screens showed the Dow plunging 281 points. Surely the top of the screen partially explained the bottom.

I, for one, would love to hear just a few "occasional flashes of silence" from Obama. He has already talked me nearly to death and so far all his words have added up to exactly -- nothing.

And speaking of all talk and no action, Ann Coulter gives us a math lesson this morning. Everybody knows Obama and the liberals are the champions of the poor and downtrodden and Bush and the conservatives are heartless, cold, rich, uncaring misers, right? Wrong again.

If liberals are going to show how in touch they are with normal Americans by demanding a Marxist revolution against the rich every time they control the government, how about taking a peek at the charitable giving of these champions of the little guy?

According to their tax returns, in 2006 and 2007, the Obamas gave 5.8 percent and 6.1 percent of their income to charity. I guess Michelle Obama has to draw the line someplace with all this "giving back" stuff. The Bidens gave 0.15 percent and 0.31 percent of the income to charity.

No wonder Obama doesn't see what the big fuss is over his decision to limit tax deductions for charitable giving. At least that part of Obama's tax plan won't affect his supporters.

Meanwhile, in 1991, 1992 and 1993, George W. Bush had incomes of $179,591, $212,313 and $610,772. His charitable contributions those years were $28,236, $31,914 and $31,292. During his presidency, Bush gave away more than 10 percent of his income each year.

For purposes of comparison, in 2005, Barack Obama made $1.7 million -- more than twice President Bush's 2005 income of $735,180 -- but they both gave about the same amount to charity.

That same year, the heartless Halliburton employee Vice President Dick Cheney gave 77 percent of his income to charity. The following year, in 2006, Bush gave more to charity than Obama on an income one-third smaller than Obama's. Maybe when Obama talks about "change" he's referring to his charitable contributions.

Liberals have no intention of actually parting with any of their own wealth or lifting a finger to help the poor. That's for other people to do with what's left of their incomes after the government has taken its increasingly large cut.

As the great liberal intellectual Bertrand Russell explained while scoffing at the idea that he would give his money to charity: "I'm afraid you've got it wrong. (We) are socialists. We don't pretend to be Christians."

And speaking of "change" guess which former President's policies are being tossed aside as President Obama busily enacts his agenda to change America into a socialist state? Hint, it's not President Bush, it's President Clinton. Really. Emmett Tyrell, who was Bill Clinton's fiercest critic during his White House years, is now extending the olive branch to that former President.

With all of this hurly-burly going on, I hope my new friend is not going to suffer the blues. In less than four years, his presidency is going to be looked back on fondly by Democrats and even by me. I think it is increasingly evident that Bill's Democratic successor is the most ill-prepared man to serve as president in a long time. My mind goes back to former President Abraham Lincoln's abrupt successor, Andrew Johnson. Mr. Obama's problems in staffing his government suggest as much, as does the low quality of many of his nominees, at least the nominees who were not dropped for tax irregularities or for being under grand jury investigation. Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner looks and sounds like an undergraduate. His colleague Peter Orszag is hardly better. In the months ahead, we shall see what other duds the president has brought aboard.

His White House staff seems particularly inept. In a matter of days, led by our novice president, his staff got in a no-win row with Rush Limbaugh. Then the White House offended Prime Minister Gordon Brown with an amateurish reception that roused the ire of the British press and, I should think, the prime minister, too. The British press already was spreading rumors that Obama is anti-British because of his staff's unceremonious return of a Winston Churchill bust that then-Prime Minister Tony Blair sent to the White House on loan after 9/11.

So cheer up, Bill. Your legacy is going to look fine, save for that unmentionable run-in with … what was her name again? Already things are turning against the Prophet. Just the other day, Howard Fineman, writing on the Newsweek Web site, said, "The American establishment is taking (the president's) measure and, with surprising swiftness, they are finding him lacking." Bill, let's have a beer.

OK, let's take a break from Obama bashing and take a swipe at our Modern-Day Marie Antionette, Speaker of the House Nancy "Let 'em fly commercial" Pelosi.


And just to be "fair and balanced," have you heard the latest scandal about a Republican Congressman? Nathan Tabor reports U.S. Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana has been caught red-handing doing what few if any liberals in Congress would ever admit to doing publicly -- praying.

Congressman Mike Pence represents the 6th district of Indiana. In his speech to CPAC, he spoke of U.S. News & World Report calling to check out a rumor that he opened his staff meetings at the House Republic Conference with prayer.

“Only in Washington, D.C.,” Pence said, “is being caught in private prayer a newsworthy event.

“We told them, ‘Yes, the Congressman does open meetings in prayer. We pray for the President, for colleagues in both parties, and sometimes we even pray for the press!’

“The truth is that in times like these it is good to ‘remember what your knees are for.’”

Pence recalled how our founding fathers believed firmly in prayer. Prayer was also an important part of the administration of one of our greatest Presidents, Abraham Lincoln:

“At the height of a civil war and on the eve of a bloody battle on a field in Gettysburg, President Lincoln fell to his knees and prayed. Lincoln later recalled to a Union general, ‘I don't know how it was, and I cannot explain it, but soon a sweet comfort crept into my soul. The feeling came that God had taken the whole business into His hands and that things would go right.’”

The fruit of prayer is service. Is it any wonder that Pence, a man of prayer, is also one of the most outspoken champions of the right to life? As Pence told CPAC, “We must stand for the sanctity of life. Ending an innocent human life is morally wrong.

It is also morally wrong to take the money of millions of pro-life Americans and use it to promote abortion at home and abroad.

“The largest abortion provider in America should not be the largest recipient of federal funding under Title X. The time has come to deny any and all federal funding to Planned Parenthood of America,” Pence added.

As Americans, we are facing some of the greatest challenges in our nation’s history. We are fighting two wars abroad and economic ruin at home. Terrorists continue to harbor blood-thirsty hatred against us.

At times like these, we have no alternative but to place our trust in God. We must rely on Divine wisdom to guide us in the many difficult decisions that come our way. Our public officials should follow the lead of Congressman Pence, and start each day with an appeal to the Almighty. This is a country founded on God, and only in God can we prevail.

If we had a few more in Congress like Mike Pence, perhaps there would be hope for our nation.

The Decline and Fall of America the Beautiful

I've been thinking about the decline and fall of America the Beautiful lately and the parallel with the decline and fall of the nation of Israel. The Old Testament comes to a close with the unheeded warnings of the "minor prophets" to the 10 tribes of the northern Kingdom of Israel and the two tribes of the southern Kingdom of Judah. All these minor prophets preached their downfall was near for turning away from God. Neither kingdom listened and both fell. First the Northern Kingdom by the invasion of the Assyrians, then about 150 years later the Southern Kingdom by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians. And there was never again a true king on the throne for either kingdom of Israel. Though Nehemiah and a few captives from the Southern Kingdom returned when they were set free by the Persian King Cyrus, the temple and the city of Jerusalem was rebuilt but the kingdom was not restored. First came the conquering Greeks, followed by the conquering Romans. By the time of Jesus, the so-called King of Israel was Herod, not even a Jew, but a puppet king put in place by the Romans, who held the nation in slavery.

Fast forward to our time. A presidential candidate's preacher is revealed to be a race-baiting, white-hating, frothing-at-the-mouth, wild-eyed lunatic. And the candidate chose this particular church when he moved to Chicago to establish his family and start his political career and stayed in that church, listening to that hate-monger's preaching for 20+ years.

In an earlier generation, the widespread videos of that lunatic's so-called Christian messages would have evoked such outrage that any candidate associated with him would be rejected out of hand. But this candidate makes a speech that does not repudiate the preacher, but his own white grandmother, calling her a racist rather than his preacher. And the speech is proclaimed the greatest statement on racial reconciliation in the history of the republic.

Only when the race-baiting preacher brings his message to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., does the candidate finally repudiate him publicly. Apparently the preacher was fine as long as he stayed in Chicago. And the candidate gets elected as our President.

And everybody forgets about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. No outrage. Just voter apathy. I assert that the kingdom of America, the home of the brave and the land of free, is close to its end. We have forgotten God, elected as our leader a man whose vision of God is some sort of multi-cultural, half Islam, half this or that so far from the God of the Bible that He is unrecognizable.

And the same thing that happened to the kingdom of Israel will happen to the kingdom of America, or God is not the God of the Bible, who hates sin as much as He loves sinners who repent.

Panic Firing: How fast can you shoot accurately?

How fast can you shoot and still hit what you're aiming at?

Maybe faster than you think you can.

I am usually at least a little bit slow when I practice rapid fire shooting, say about a second or so between shots, taking time to realign the sights before launching the next one. But today at the range, I tried something new, just point and let 'er rip, sorta panic fire, I might call it.

I started out with my newest pistol, Charter Arms Patriot .327 Magnum, and after doing some slow single-action and then rapid but deliberate aim rapid fire double-action, I let 'er rip with double-action as fast as I could shoot at seven yards. With several loads of six, I drew and fired in "panic fire" mode and the big majority were in the blue of a man-size target. (First target)

So then I decided to try that with the four carry pistols I was practicing with, Steyr M357-A1, Steyr M9-A1, Glock 29 10mm and Smith & Wesson M&P Compact .357 Sig. I just drew and let 'er rip as fast as I could reset the trigger. And I got pretty much the same result, the huge majority within the blue at seven yards. (Second target)

I even tried it with my S&W Model 29 with .44 Magnum and .44 Special loads, firing fast double-action as quick as I could pull the trigger, with the same type of results. If it were further than seven yards, I doubt it would work.

Maybe it's not a real world kind of practice, but if I ever do get into "panic mode" perhaps I'll still be able to hit what I'm shooting at. And maybe not.

Redneck Reload III: .327 Fed. Magnum earns carry duty

What's a quicker reload than two guns? How about three? I took the Southern Redneck variation of the famed New York Reload another step today and added a third handgun into the mix, my new Charter Arms Patriot .327 Federal Magnum revolver. That's it in the small-of-back holster at right, behind my Kel-Tec PF-9 9mm pistol, which is on my right side as no. 1 backup.

The Charter Partiot was one of the first 1,000 shipped by Charter so it includes a free Kershaw folder, a very nice little bonus. Us rednecks do love our sharp knives and powerful handguns. And the Patriot is a genuine pocket rocket. Four of the loads I tested are at right with the Patriot. From top-left, Federal HydraShok .327 Mag. 85 grain, American Eagle .327 Mag. 110 grain, Federal .32 H&R Mag. 85 grain and bottom right, Speer Gold Dot .327 Mag. 115 grain.

I shot about 100 rounds total from all four loads in the Patriot today and the hottest load, the Speer Gold Dot, turned out to be the best at shooting to point of aim, so the question of which load to carry clearly answered itself. Speer Gold Dots are the champion and six of them will be riding in the Patriot when I go to work at the gun shop next week.

In addition to the Patriot, I was practicing today with the Kel-Tec PF-9, which is now backup no. 2 or perhaps backup 1A if I elect to carry all three at work. I'll more likely rotate the backups as I rotate the main carry pistols. At right is the front view of my carry rig, Steyr M357-A1 .357 Sig on the left and PF-9 on the right.

Other main carry pistols in the rotation are Glock 29 10mm subcompact, Steyr M9-A1 9mm compact and S&W M&P subcompact .357 Sig. I'm left-handed, mostly, but I'm also sorta ambiguous. My strong side is my right so I throw and bat right-handed, but my left eye is my master eye, so I shoot long guns exclusively left-handed. But when it comes to pistols, I feel comfortable with a handgun in either hand. I do shoot a bit better left than right with pistols, but not by much.

Finally, here's a target from the range today, where I peppered a full-size man target at 7 yards with rapid double-action fire with the Patriot with each of the .327 Magnum loads and the .32 H&R Magnum load.

I usually practice a bit more deliberately with rapid fire but with some deliberacy to realign the sights after each shot, say about one shot per second or so.

But with the Patriot on this target, I just lined it up and pulled the trigger double-action as quickly as I could, sorta what you might call panic fire. The big majority are in the blue, so I guess that means I can be effective at seven yards with this new backup.

All the .327 Magnum loads are brisk, but in terms of noise and recoil, I'd rate the Gold Dot as no. 1, the American Eagle as no. 2 and the Federal Hydra-Shok at no. 3, which is labeled as "low recoil."

And after the .327 Magnum loads, when I loaded up with the .32 H&R Magnum, it sounded and felt like a pop gun in comparison. The .32 is OK for practice, but not carry.

When Freddie Met Fannie II: The Sequel opening nationwide

In the news today Barney Frank says he wants to push for prosecution of the people who caused the country's financial meltdown. Say what? The Congressman(?) from When Freddie Met Fannie wants to prosecute those who caused the current recession/depression? "The Great and Wonderful Wizard of Oz says pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"

In other news, the Great and Wonderful Obamessiah says though we are now in the midst of the worst disaster of biblical proportions since the 10 plagues God visited upon Egypt, all will soon be brightness and bluebirds singing under his masterful leadership, as Jonah Goldberg reports.

But there's good news! According to his budget -- which he assures us is an "honest accounting" of our predicament -- the economy will shrink by only a measly 1.2 percent this year (it fell by a 6.2 percent annual rate in the final quarter of 2008) and then take off next year with 3.2 percent growth and soar for years to come.

So don't worry, be happy, Bwarney Fwank and the Obamessiah had absolutely nothing to do with the financial meltdown in their roles as the champions of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and to prove their innocence they are going to search every public golf course in the land to find the dastardly villains who brought this unspeakable evil upon us. Oh wait, that's O.J.'s job. Whatever.

Liar, liar, pants on fire! In his own words, Obama tells whoppers

Bill and Hillary were always known as the King of Whoppers. But they must relinquish their title. Obama, in his own words, then and now. Or to quote another presidential Democrat candidate, he was for it before he was against. Before he was for it again. Or something like that. Whatever.

Fiddling with our freedom while the house burns down

I got up this morning, fixed my breakfast and turned on the TV to Fox News to see what is happening. First guest on The Pundit Pit is a black woman, who responds to this question about nationalizing our health care system, which is being planned by Obama and the nutroots left.

"Is this the right time?" asks the Fox News host. "Oh absolutely this is the right time," responds the Obama spokesperson, but before she can continue her blah, blah, blah, "click" I turn it off.

Our financial house is on fire, has been on fire since last October, and Barack Obama waltzed into the White House on a foggy, blue smoke and mirrors campaign for "change." But 40 days into his administration, it's is obvious even to a stupid redneck like me that his plans for "change" do not include putting the fire out and setting our financial house in order. Quite the contrary, his plans are Neroish. Fiddle away like Charlie Daniels on "The Devil Went Down To Georgia," and while the voters are distracted with worry as the financial system burns down around their ears, their jobs are lost, their retirement funds are zeroed out and their nest eggs are cracked -- while all that is happening, push through the biggest government grab in history to consolidate power.

Push through nationalizing heathcare, mandatory government-funded college educations for all, bankrupt businesses with tax hikes to pay for "alternative energy" and "cap and trade" schemes to solve the nonexistent global warming crisis -- and after all that is done, maybe then we might call the fire department to put out the fire, if there's anything left of our republic unburnt.

Emmett Tyrrell explains quite clearly how the fire started in our financial house.

From our vantage point in early 2009, we can see that critics of Alan Greenspan were right when they said that he lowered interest rates too much between 2001 and 2004. But what about the products that the Wall Street wizards were selling? They were called -- in hushed tones of awe -- "complex derivatives." Actually, they were sausages stuffed with junk loans, mediocre loans, good loans and sufficient spice to sucker the credulous. These sausages were sold all over the world, and every time a transaction was made, those in on the transaction made money, even the vegetarians, even the economic ignoramuses. It was a kind of gigantic chain letter. Government regulators did not take heed. The politicians did not take heed. Those investment bankers who did and who spoke out were ignored.

Complex derivatives. Sorta like sausage with an undetermined amount of hog crap mixed in. Works for a while until somebody smells the crap and guess what? Nobody buys any sausage.

Charles Krauthammer, as usual, cuts through the fog and blue smoke to explain the scheme.

At the very center of our economic near-depression is a credit bubble, a housing collapse and a systemic failure of the entire banking system. One can come up with a host of causes: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pushed by Washington (and greed) into improvident loans, corrupted bond-ratings agencies, insufficient regulation of new and exotic debt instruments, the easy money policy of Alan Greenspan's Fed, irresponsible bankers pushing (and then unloading in packaged loan instruments) highly dubious mortgages, greedy house-flippers, deceitful homebuyers.

The list is long. But the list of causes of the collapse of the financial system does not include the absence of universal health care, let alone of computerized medical records. Nor the absence of an industry-killing cap-and-trade carbon levy. Nor the lack of college graduates. Indeed, one could perversely make the case that, if anything, the proliferation of overeducated, Gucci-wearing, smart-ass MBAs inventing ever more sophisticated and opaque mathematical models and debt instruments helped get us into this credit catastrophe in the first place.

And yet with our financial house on fire, Obama makes clear both in his speech and his budget that the essence of his presidency will be the transformation of health care, education and energy. Four months after winning the election, six weeks after his swearing in, Obama has yet to unveil a plan to deal with the banking crisis.

What's going on? "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," said Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. "This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before."

Things. Now we know what they are. The markets' recent precipitous decline is a reaction not just to the absence of any plausible bank rescue plan, but also to the suspicion that Obama sees the continuing financial crisis as usefully creating the psychological conditions -- the sense of crisis bordering on fear-itself panic -- for enacting his "Big Bang" agenda to federalize and/or socialize health care, education and energy, the commanding heights of post-industrial society.

Clever politics, but intellectually dishonest to the core. Health, education and energy -- worthy and weighty as they may be -- are not the cause of our financial collapse. And they are not the cure. The fraudulent claim that they are both cause and cure is the rhetorical device by which an ambitious president intends to enact the most radical agenda of social transformation seen in our lifetime.

Breathtaking. Rahm Emanuel brazenly admits the Obama administration plan to ignore dealing with the banking crisis and take advantage of it to socialize America for a political power grab.

And Bill Kristol says Don't Worry, Be Happy is the tune Obama is fiddling madly on while the stock markets crash and burn and keep plunging towards a bottom yet unseen.

But the markets were aware of the huge problems plaguing the banking system before Obama became president. Surely what they are reacting to now is his failure to address them. Obama has spent far more time publicly defending his stimulus package, and touting his health care, energy, and education proposals, than explaining how he's going to deal with the banking crisis. Yet virtually all serious observers--whatever their politics, whatever their economics--agree that the financial crisis is the central crisis we face, that the core of the problem is the banking system. But the administration has treated this as merely one "leg" of a three-legged stool (the other two are stimulus and housing), and the least urgent one to fix at that. And now Obama wants to focus on "long term" issues like health care and energy and education--while not showing any sense of urgency about the banking crisis.

Instead, the Obama administration throws more money at Citi and AIG. This at best simply puts off the day of reckoning (but at some considerable cost); at worst, Obama's Treasury is fiddling while Rome burns. And it's not as if there's that much disagreement across the political or economic spectrum as to what has to be done; everyone agrees the toxic assets have to be separated from the rest. And the disagreements about how to do this seem to some degree semantic ("nationalization" followed by selling off good assets vs. setting up a "bad bank" vs. public-private partnerships to buy and manage toxic assets, etc.). What spooks the markets, I believe, is that the Obama administration has shied away from embracing any solution. Under his administration, has a single toxic asset actually been seized, separated, sold, or de-toxified? I don't think so.

No, the stock market isn't like a tracking poll. Tracking polls were just about the electoral prospects of Barack Obama. The stock market is about real money, about the real livelihoods of real Americans. Obama's political advisors may have told him that dealing with the banking system will be politically difficult. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner may want to build up his political capital after a rough confirmation before he steps up to the plate. Larry Summers may not want to endanger his chance to be Fed chairman by being identified with an unpopular bank "bailout". I'm told almost every theme in Obama's speech last Tuesday night was focus-group tested--and the speech played pretty well politically. But the markets weren't impressed. Isn't it time for Obama and his team to get up the nerve to stop playing politics and to govern?

God help us all. He's our only hope. Don't look to Washington for economic salvation. It ain't there.

Let me conclude with a quote from Professor Mike Adams, writing about the weirdos on faculty at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, where he appears to be the only sane person in that insane asylum. The quote is on an entirely different topic, but it expresses my true feelings perfectly about this whole power grab under way by Obama/Pelosi/Reid & Co.

If any member of the Gender Mutiny Collective is offended by this column I invite you to come and monitor my classroom. I also invite you to kiss my ass.

Say goodnight Gracie.

In defense of Rush Limbaugh, who needs no defense

Who's calling who ugly? Paul Begala, who shares one plus among Democrat pundits as being the second-ugliest amongst them. James Carville gets top billing. Just seeing that guy's cadaverous pug gives me the heeby jeebies. But even though Begala isn't quite as ugly as Carville, if he and Rush Limbaugh had a beauty contest, who would win? Would both lose?

Anyway, Emmett Tyrrell comes to Rush Limbaugh's defense by pointing out just what pot is calling the kettle black. When you can't argue effectively against a man's message, what doth the nasty pundits of the left do? They attack the man, of course.

WASHINGTON -- "Rush is the bloated face and drug-addled voice of the Republican Party," Paul Begala is quoted as saying by The Washington Post. Begala is asseverating on Rush Limbaugh, the most popular radio commentator in the country, but alas, one who disagrees with Begala. I think it speaks volumes about Begala's obliviousness that he would bring up physical traits in attempting to make some political point. Has he beheld himself in a mirror lately? Even friends know him as "The Skull," owing to his cadaverous countenance.

You may only have seen him on television. I have had the gruesome experience of seeing him in the flesh. We were in the makeup room being cosmeticized for appearances on a cable television show. The artiste attending to the crevices, the gullies and the bumps of Begala's unfortunate face had to apply so much makeup to it that when he left the makeup room, it looked as though he was wearing plaster of Paris. During the ensuing debate, he may have laughed at one or two of my jokes, or he may have frowned. It was impossible to tell. His ghoulish features were covered up completely.

Obama's true colors not Democrat blue but Socialist red

Famed stock-market analyst Barack Hussein Obama offered us bitter, backwoods clingers to God and guns some sage financial advice yesterday: "Buy low, sell high."

What's coming next? A penny saved is a penny earned? Better make that a billion saved is a billion earned. Or maybe "A few billion here, a few billion there, after a while it adds up to some real money." He's already used "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Presidential plagiarism.

Tony Blankley has coined a phrase for our times that rings true: Obama Lied, the Economy Died.

I am trying to capture the spirit of bipartisanship as practiced by the Democratic Party over the past eight years. Thus, I have chosen as my lead this proposition: Obama lied; the economy died. Obviously, I am borrowing this from the Democratic theme of 2003-08: "Bush lied, people died." There are, of course, two differences between the slogans.

Most importantly, I chose to separate the two clauses with a semicolon rather than a comma because the rule of grammar is that a semicolon (rather than a comma) should be used between closely related independent clauses not conjoined with a coordinating conjunction. In the age of Obama, there is little more important than maintaining the integrity of our language against the onslaught of Orwellian language abuse that is already a babbling brook and soon will be a cataract of verbal deception.

The other difference is that Bush didn't lie about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He merely was mistaken. Whereas Obama told a whopper when he claimed that he is not for bigger government. As he said last week: "As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress to send me a recovery plan by Presidents Day that would put people back to work and put money in their pockets, not because I believe in bigger government -- I don't."

Michael Gerson calls this The Week of Revelation as Obama reveals his true colors, not Democrat blue but red, not as in Republican red, but as in Socialist red with a capital S.

Obama chose a time of recession to propose a massive increase in progressivity -- a 10-year, trillion-dollar haul from the rich, already being punished by the stock market collapse and the housing market decline. This does not just involve undoing the Bush tax reductions but capping tax deductions to collect about $30 billion a year. Despite all the rhetoric of "responsibility" and shared sacrifice, the message of the Obama budget is clear: The wealthy are responsible for the economic mess and they will bear the entire sacrifice so that government can "invest" in the people.

But governments do not "invest," they spend. Such spending can be justified or unjustified. It is wealthy individuals, however, who actually invest their capital in job creation. Most have much less capital than they used to. Under the Obama budget, they would have less still. This does not seem to matter in the economic worldview of the Obama budget. Equality is the goal instead of opportunity or economic mobility. And government, in this approach, is more capable of investing national wealth than America's discredited plutocrats -- meaning successful two-income families, entrepreneurs and professionals.

Even Maureen Dowd, the red-head at the Noo Yawk Times, joins in the chorus of nay-sayers on Obama. She's either off her meds again or she forgot to drink her Kool-Aid yesterday.

In one of his disturbing spells of passivity, President Obama decided not to fight Congress and live up to his own no-earmark pledge from the campaign.

He’s been lecturing us on the need to prune away frills while the economy fizzles. He was slated to make a speech on “wasteful spending” on Wednesday.

“You know, there are times where you can afford to redecorate your house and there are times where you need to focus on rebuilding its foundation,” he said recently about the “hard choices” we must make. Yet he did not ask Congress to sacrifice and make hard choices; he let it do a lot of frivolous redecorating in its budget.

He reckons he’ll need Congress for more ambitious projects, like health care, and when he goes back to wheedle more bailout billions, given that A.I.G. and G.M. and our other corporate protectorates are burning through our money faster than we can print it and borrow it from the ever-more-alarmed Chinese.

Team Obama sounds hollow, chanting that “the status quo is not acceptable,” even while conceding that the president is accepting the status quo by signing a budget festooned with pork.

Obama spinners insist it was “a leftover budget.” But Iraq was leftover, too, and the president’s trying to end that. This is the first pork-filled budget from a new president who promised to go through the budget “line by line” and cut pork.

On “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, dismissed the bill as “last year’s business,” because most of it was written last year.

But given how angry Americans are, watching their future go up in smoke, the bloated bill counts as this year’s business.

It includes $38.4 million of earmarks sponsored or co-sponsored by President Obama’s labor secretary, Hilda Solis; $109 million Hillary Clinton signed on to; and $31.2 million in earmarks sought by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood with colleagues.

(Even Barack Obama was listed as one of the co-sponsors of a $7.7 million pet project for Tribally Controlled Postsecondary Vocational Institutions until he got his name taken off last week.)

And then there are the 16 earmarks worth $8.5 million that Emanuel put into the bill when he was a congressman, including money for streets in Chicago suburbs and a Chicago planetarium.

Blame it on the stars, Rahm, or on old business. But as Shakespeare wrote in “Lear”: “This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune — often the surfeits of our own behavior — we make guilty of our own disasters, the sun, the moon, and the stars.”

As Scooby Do sez, "Ruh Roh!"