Bill Wilson, ALG: Standard & Poor’s issued a dire warning this week stating a 50 percent likelihood that the nation’s gold-plated Triple-A credit rating will be downgraded in the next 90 days. Not because of any failure to increase the debt ceiling, but because it appears there will be no longer-term plan that substantially reduces the deficit. S&P said that unless an agreement is reached that results in a fiscal

Salt of the earth! In the past decade, unions have become increasingly desperate to obtain new dues-paying members. An example of how desperate can be found in a 70-plus-page intimidation manual from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which only recently came to light in a pending court case. The new union tactic is to use pressure on corporate boardrooms as a means of organizing entire companies nationwide rather than

Spengler makes the case for the McConnell plan: President Barack Obama’s best hope of re-election lies in provoking Republicans to force the United States into technical default, engineering a brief but severe financial crisis in order to appear as crisis-manager-in-chief. The Tea Party movement may be marching into a political ambush, in which Obama will be able to portray the born-again budget-cutters as irresponsible fanatics who threaten to tip America

We’re there. And yet, it is the pragmatists who are now running for cover. Shocking, I know. But Andrew McCarthy has a message for them, and it’s one with which I agree. As you all know by now. Still, let’s hear it again: In the end, would there be deficit spending and a consequent need to raise the debt ceiling? Undoubtedly — but not right away, and not until it

I like conspiracy theories on Sundays. And today is Sunday. So.

John Hayward, Human Events: The new Sarah Palin documentary, The Undefeated, opened to solid box office numbers this weekend. Oddly, the Atlantic tried to cook up a quick hit piece on the Palin film by sending the hapless Conor Friedersdorf to an unadvertised midnight showing in Orange County on a Thursday night. He proceeded to note at great length that not many people were in the theater. This story was

Ben Howe, Red State, reacting to a screening of The Undefeated: There was so much media coverage of Palin, and so many people that were incredibly unfair to her, that I had been desensitized. I didn’t realize it, but I had actually developed a sort of immunity to believing anything positive about Sarah Palin. Rush Limbaugh, a personal hero of mine, sang her praises every time her name came up.

Aaaaaaaaaaaannnnd fold. The House and the Tea Party undermined. Cut off at the knees. Because this will give the cover of bipartisan support to Obama against the Tea Party — and if it is blocked in the House, the press will identify the House GOP as “extremists” and pin the blame, such as it is, directly on them. Boehner can’t handle that kind of pressure. Nor, evidently, could McConnell. We’re

He’s still working on the interview questions I sent him, but he’ll be on Levin’s show tonight to talk about the movie and its reception, for those interested.

It’s the taxes, stupid. I’ve linked this before, but now’s a good time to link it again, as Mark Levin led with it this evening and it may get some more play. The nut, from Scott Hodges at the Tax Foundation: The share of taxes paid by the richest 10 percent of households, the share of all market income earned by that group, and the ratio of what that 10