This is not hyperbole on my part - watch the slide show.

This is an unbelievably disturbing combination of gross policy distortions and patronizing of women fueled by a philosophy of total government dependency and what can only be described as clinical narcissism.

Check out these great perspectives from NRO's Kevin Williamson and Human Events' David Harasanyi.

Update: For an alternative vision of public policy proposals that would empower Julia, check out the Heritage Foundation great post here.

If you are from Illinois, this is quite alarming.

Even if you are not from Illinois, this is a real wake-up call.  The anti-growth, big government policies persued for decades in Illinois that have led to this decline are what President Obama is pursuing for the rest of the nation.  Think about that come November.

It is a plug in from Detroit that's been catching fire.  Not in terms of sales, though...only about 6,000 have sold.  It has literally been catching on fire.

The Chevy Volt, a plug in hybrid,would merely be chalked up as another "green" and Detroit automaker failure if it weren't for the fact that taxpayers have footed $250,000 per car in subsidies as the folks at the Mackinac Center recently discovered.

Proponents of subsidies like this claim that "everybody is doing it" and that it creates jobs.  But who decides which projects get subsidies?  Those with political clout, not necessarily those with the best projects at the best price, tend to win out.  This has been a halmark of the Obama administration.  Decisions on investment in emerging technology are best left to the market where decisions are made most efficiently and, in sharp contrast to the use of taxpayer subsidized "investments," made willfully.

Politically directed investment is dangerous, as demonstrated by the Volt and the Solyndra fiasco.  It is also morally wrong.  Much like the Cash for Clunkers failure, the Volt subsidy is essentially a wealth transfer from the lower end of the income spectrum to the higher end.

Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize new kinds of electric cars any more than they should be asked to bankroll electric yachts or helicopters.

From the Illinois Policy Institute's recent paper on the topic:

The misguided affiliate nexus law attempts to offer a backdoor “solution” to the thorny issue of online sales tax collections. In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that out-of-state retailers who do not have “nexus” – a significant physical presence in a given state – are not required to collect sales tax on purchases made by consumers in that state.

Illinois sidestepped this decision by legislating that an advertising relationship with an Illinois-based online affiliate marketer creates enough of a physical presence to compel tax collection from an out-of-state retailer. Online affiliate marketers are individuals, start-ups, established small businesses or nonprofit organizations. These affiliate marketers direct traffic to retailers through a link or coupon website in exchange for a small portion of resulting sales.

The following video explains the issue and how it impacts people.

For the full report, click here.

Host Paul Lisnek brought up an interesting question: isn’t calling the recent federal health care bill “ObamaCare” partisan or, as Jon Stewart once asked me, offensive?

I don't believe it is partisan at all.

For one, ObamaCare is simply what most people call this law. Most people don’t know it by “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” Calling it that or some version of that, like “the Affordable Health Care Act” as Jim did isn’t a balanced clarification, it is premeditated rebranding. Most citizens and most pundits call it ObamaCare. Calling it by its technical name is confusing for viewers, plain and simple.

Case in point from the other side of the aisle: when you think of the tax cuts that first came from the last guy in the White House, what do you hear pundits calling it – on both sides of the aisle? The Bush tax cuts. Nobody calls them by their official legislative name. I should say names, as they were codified in two separate bills during Bush’s tenure: the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003. That’s a mouthful.

Second, the technical name is ridiculous. Like many bills and laws – Republican or Democrat – this law’s name doesn’t accurately reflect what it does. Why talk about bills or laws on the terms Beltway wordsmiths set? ObamaCare doesn’t protect patients or make health care more affordable. It does just the opposite.

Perhaps most importantly, if this bill is so great and this president is so proud of how great it is, why wouldn’t the president, his supporters, and supporters of this bill want to call it ObamaCare?

For the full set of videos, click here. Click here for: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, or Part 4

Last night I went on Fox Chicago to debate the debt ceiling issue.

My last comments that were cut from the segment were:

1) Obama isn't sticking to his guns - we don't know what they are as he simply assigns blame and doesn't have a plan of his own.

2) Democrat or Republican, if you're a lawmaker and serious about getting this country back on a fiscally responsible path, taxpayers deserve a guarantee of serious structural spending reform in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.

Our nation - like Illinois - doesn't have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem that got us to this very high ceiling in the first place.

If your teenager taps out the credit card limit at $20,000, you don’t just call up American Express and ask for a raise in the limit without engaging in serious conversation where you assess past spending habits (what’s necessary, what was excessive, what’s possible in the future within a certain budget) and secure a guarantee of change in behavior for more responsible prioritization and spending in the future.

That isn’t partisanship, which is all too common in Washington and state capitals across the country. It is common sense and it is in short supply in this debate.

I love shooting as much as the next guy...probably more...but taxpayers shouldn't be in the business of running a trap and skeet facility.

A number of companies have threatened to leave Illinois for more business-friendly states.  Unfortunately, this all too often makes good business sense given that Illinois is ranked 48th in economic performance and 47th in economic outlook according to a recent ALEC-Laffer study.

Just recently, Chief Executive magazine ranked Illinois as being the third worst place to do business in the U.S.  From the report:

"Illinois has dropped 40 places in five years and is now in a death spiral. Its bond ranking is 49th, ahead of only California. The state may play host to fugitive state senators from nearby Wisconsin and Indiana who avoid voting in their home legislatures, but businesses are heading for the exits."

Many of the companies threatening to leave have run to Governor Pat Quinn for special tax treatment as an incentive to stay. Quinn recently signed an enormous tax "incentive" deal to keep Motorola in Illinois.

The latest in this trend is Sears whose current tax breaks are set run out in 2012. They are looking at possibly moving to Georgia or North Carolina. Governor Quinn says he’s got a good “friendship” with the folks at Sears and wants to do what he can to keep them in Illinois.

If Governor Quinn is serious about doing what he can to retain businesses, he should work with lawmakers to lower the overall regulatory and tax burden on job creators in Illinois. Unfortunately, he did just the opposite of that in January when he signed the biggest tax hike in our state’s history, increasing the corporate income tax by 46 percent and the personal rate by 67 percent.

Ironically, Quinn's recent habit of giving special treatment to certain corporations is an implicit admission that his propensity to tax and regulate and refusal to trim government is further pushing Illinois into an economic death spiral.

While it is completely rational for companies to seek the best deal they can get, this isn’t good public policy. Instead of giving special treatment to companies with the most clout, Quinn and lawmakers in Springfield should focus on reducing the tax burden for all companies – big and small – not just the ones that are friendly with Governor Quinn.