Idle Political Chatter: Nothing To Do With The Bakken; Best To Avoid It

While I'm waiting for the daily activity report to come out, some interesting data points:

1. The US deficit for the month of February, 2011, was $223 billion.  Last month, the US spent 223 billion more dollars than it took in. That was last month. Seven days ago. How big is $223 billion. I don't know, but it was more than the deficit for the entire calendar year, 2007, under President Bush II. The most ironic thing about that news report that the mainstream media has not yet picked up on: February is the shortest month of the year. Thank goodness it wasn't a long month. I can only imagine how much more money would have been spent had there been 31 days.

2. The current administration has decided to re-start the trials at Gitmo. This is the same administration that promised to close Gitmo. Oh, well. I didn't have a dog in that fight; didn't care where they held the trials. I didn't even care if they held trials. Most of those folks have been imprisoned longer than some of our own nasty home-grown criminals.

3. ObamaCare? Not to worry. Get a waiver. Health and Human Services has issued more than 1,000 waivers to unions, corporations, and states who cannot afford the price tag. At this rate, there won't be a need to repeal the bill. Everyone will be waived. [Update: this was originally posted March 7, 2011. On March 8, 2011, it was reported that the state of Maine was given a waiver.]

4. SecDef Robert Gates has promised the US that Americans will remain in Afghanistan for at least another five years or so. This was the same administration that promised us that we would be out of Afghanistan by 2014. At least as far as I understood the political rhetoric. But we're there for another five or six years. Oh, yeah, they're considering a "no-fly" (i.e., declaring war) on Libya.

"In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the President to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should have his head examined, as General MacArthur so delicately put it."