“I will not accept any advice that comes from outside, from wherever it comes and for whatever reasons.” Meaning, he ain’t going anywhere until the elections in September. Though he says he’ll turn things over to the VP at some point. And the feckless US — having turned on its ally — now has the worst of both worlds: we appear weak to our enemies and duplicitous to our friends.

Finally. Some balls: In another victory for tea party rebels in Congress today, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky., scrapped his original plan for spending cuts and announced that he will seek to cut $100 billion from what President Obama had requested for this fiscal year. “My committee has been working diligently to go line-by-line in every agency budget to find and cut unnecessary spending to reduce our deficit

This fucked. Freedom!

So says the Egyptian information minister. The story, apparently, is quite fluid. Much like the Obama Administration’s stance has been! Zing!

Going Gingrich? Notes TerryH, who sent along the link, “I suppose you could say it’s better than nothing. […] However, given the huge deficits embedded within Medicare, Social Security, ObamaCare, etc would it be more accurate to say that ignoring entitlements is worse than nothing in that it ignores the root cause of the deficit problem?” To which protein wisdom responds: Ahyup. More here.

HP: Reports are saying that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will “meet protesters demands,” with some saying that he will transfer power to the military tonight. […] Reports the AP: Military and ruling party officials say President Hosni Mubarak will speak to the nation soon and meet the demands of protesters. Protesters are insisting he step down immediately. Military officials say the armed forces’ supreme council has been meeting all day

ALG: scarcely a month after being handed control of the U.S. House, Republicans are already losing sight of why they were given another chance. In retreating from their commitment to cut $100 billion from the budget (which let’s face it — will barely make a dent in our $14 trillion debt) the GOP is demonstrating a fundamental but all too familiar lack of courage. Republicans are also refusing to address

Who knew? No, really. Is it possible the administration (and John McCain, naturally) backed the wrong horse? That they were completely unprepared? That, for the sake of appearances, they urged the ouster of a long-time ally — without having a plan for any kind of transition, and without having an adequate understanding of the players? The problem is, once you’ve come out for FREEDOM! — and you’re all about appearances

A nice companion piece to Harsanyi’s column, this time from CNS News. “American Businesses Should Spend Some of Their Cash Reserves to Create ‘Green’ Jobs, Suggests EPA’s Lisa Jackson”: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson suggested on Tuesday that American businesses with a “record amount of cash holdings,” estimated at $1.93 trillion, could invest some of those holdings to create jobs that advance pollution control. Jackson, speaking at the BlueGreen

Harsanyi on the new normal. “Cronyism isn’t capitalism”: “Right now, businesses across this country are proving that America can compete,” Obama explained, listing a number of businesses that get it like Caterpillar, Whirlpool, Dow and a company named Geomagic. All of these phenomenal success stories (thanks to Ira Stoll at The Future of Capitalism blog for pointing this out) also share, in one way or another, the privilege of feeding