† Never Mind Marxism. Will An Obama Administration Be Totalitarian?: Part II: Unlike other administrations that “reserved presidential appearances for big occasions,” as The Wall Street Journal puts it, Washington Post columnist Howard Kurtz notes, President Barack Hussein Obama “will hit the airwaves whenever he can, as often as he can, in as many formats as he can, any time he's got something to sell. Which is pretty much all the time”:

It's not quite the full Ginsburg, but … [a]fter the health care address to Congress and sitdowns with Steve Kroft of "60 Minutes" and CNBC's John Harwood, Obama's schedule includes "Meet the Press," "Face the Nation," "This Week," "State of the Union" and a Univision show - everything but "Fox News Sunday." And in case that doesn't provide enough pop, he'll do Letterman on Monday.

Republican strategist Kevin Madden tells ABC News: "[I]t's gone beyond overexposure and now we have what I would call the 'Obama omnipresence.' You almost can't escape this president.  … [Y]ou're flipping on ESPN and you're seeing him talk about basketball or you turn on the Lifetime channel and you hear what Michelle Obama is wearing this week. And I think that begins to wear on a lot of people."

Madden’s not kidding. According to a study by researchers at George Mason and Chapman universities since Obama took office, “[c]overage of the Obama administration has focused heavily on the president himself. Even members of his family have been featured in more stories than most than most of his appointees.” The “Top 10 administration newsmakers” include: President Obama (#1; 1,205 stories), Michelle Obama (#4; 79 stories); Sasha and Malia Obama (#8 and 9; 28 stories each). To put this in perspective, Obama’s vice president was #5 on the list (33 stories).

† Obama’s Healthcare Speech: Same Old, Same Old: President Barack Hussein Obama did not budge the needle one millimeter towards increased support of healthcare “reform” with his speech to a joint session of Congress last week, according to Rasumussen Reports:

Just before President Obama gave his speech to Congress last week, 44% of voters nationwide supported his health care reform proposal and 53% were opposed. … [A] new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 44% support the health care plan and 53% are opposed. …

It’s worth noting that support and opposition were at precisely the same levels in mid-July. In fact, other than brief blips following a nationally televised press conference by the president and his recent speech to Congress, opposition to the plan has been stable at 53% throughout July and August and now into September.

The latest figures show that 25% Strongly Favor the plan and 43% are Strongly Opposed. In late August, those figures were 23% and 43% respectively.

This suggests public opinion is hardening when it comes to the plan proposed by the president and congressional Democrats that is currently working its way through Congress.

† Is This Any Way To Run A Transition?: After his constituents repeated raised the issue of Obama’s army of policy czars at town hall meetings, Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-WI) sent a letter to the White House asking for an explanation of each one’s "roles and responsibilities," reports The Washington Post:

Feingold also asked the president's legal advisers to explain how their appointments square with the Constitution's mandate that the Senate oversee executive appointments.

"I hope that this information will help address some of the concerns that have been raised about new positions in the White House and elsewhere in the Executive Branch," wrote Feingold, chairman of the Senate Constitution Subcommittee.

† Obama Puts The Stamp Of Approval On Government Healthcare “Reform”: A month ago, President Barack Hussein Obama held up Fed-Ex as an example of a private company that’s “doing just fine” despite having to compete against the public option, the USPS.  As The Stiletto pointed out then, the president’s choice of Fed-Ex and UPS to shore up support for socialized medicine did not help his growing reputation as being less than savvy when it comes to fiscal matters, at least, when it comes to a capitalist economy. Now, The Wall Street Journal reports that FedEx Corp.'s first-quarter earnings “slumped 53%”:

FedEx, an economic bellwether, has cut jobs and reduced capacity at its express and freight segments to reflect reduced demand. But it recently expanded some international economy shipping services, partly to capture sales from companies aiming to reduce costs. …

At its FedEx Express business, revenue fell 23% and earnings were off 70%. U.S. domestic package revenue dropped 22%, as revenue per package declined amid lower fuel surcharge revenue, though package volume grew slightly. The results were partly offset by gains from DHL's exit from the U.S. domestic package market and lower expenses due to cost cutting and fewer flight hours.

The reputedly “brainy” president (Maureen Dowd, one of Obama’s flacks at The New York Times, keeps churning out press release after press release using this adjective and its synonyms) has also said that the public insurance option would “keep pressure on private insurers to keep their policies affordable and treat their customers better, the same way public colleges and universities provide additional choice and competition to students without in any way inhibiting a vibrant system of private colleges and universities.” To parents who can no longer take out a second mortgage on their overleveraged homes to pay stratospheric tuition fees, the analogy had the opposite effect than Obama intended.

Interviewed for a recent article examining “why college costs rise, even in a recession,” Lafayette College (Easton, PA) president, Daniel H. Weiss tells The New York Times:

In some ways, higher education is more like a political environment than the management of a private corporation. Except that thanks to tenure, it is difficult to vote anyone out of office. Alienating some of your faculty members, if you can avoid it, is something you shouldn’t be doing.

On his blog, Dick Morris writes:

Rapidly rising tuitions, fees, and costs for room and board are pricing millions of students out of a good education – or any higher education at all – even as they saddle others with debts that are all but impossible to pay. A lifetime of debt slavery awaits all too many college graduates once they shed their caps and gowns.

Obama’s expansive and expensive plans for healthcare “reform” will extend the debt slavery to the children and grandchildren of these college graduates - who may well be the last generation of their families to get a college degree.

† Not Giving Credit Where Credit’s Due: The New York Post reports that suspected al Qaeda terrorist Najibullah Zazi - who was stopped and searched on the George Washington Bridge after several FBI raids in Queens - reportedly had diagrams of bombs on his computer and video footage on his cell phone of the interior and exterior of Grand Central Station, yet was allowed to return to his home in Aurora, CO:

A grim-faced Zazi, who has not been charged, arrived at the FBI's Denver offices at around 2 p.m. and was questioned for eight hours before being sent home. He's due back today.

Zazi, 24, who sources said trained at a Pakistani terror camp, had answered all the agents' questions Wednesday night, except for one requiring him to speculate about the actions of the NYPD, his lawyer said. …

Also yesterday, it was revealed that Zazi filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, listing more than $50,000 in credit-card debt.

Agents turned up the heat on Zazi after he rented a car and drove to the Big Apple last weekend. They then raided the three Queens homes he had visited.

Investigators believed they had uncovered a plot to "blow up several places simultaneously and take out as many people as possible," a source said.

Commenting on all this, the wags at New York Magazine note, “This is the first time we can remember a reported "person of interest" in a terrorism plot in this situation - basically, getting treated like anyone else suspected of a crime. It's just so full of ... due process. Isn't it strange that this seems strange to us?” No, the strangeness you feel is the nascent stirrings of your inner neocon. Deep, deep, deep down inside you know that terrorists are not garden-variety criminals, and that Gitmo should not be shuttered.  

† Updates To Previous Posts (second item, The Keystone Kops Are Enforcing U.S. Immigration Laws): Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) criticized Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for “treating the economic stimulus plan like a ‘bottomless pit’ of taxpayer money,” reports The Associated Press:

Napolitano has faced questions since The Associated Press reported last month that Homeland Security officials did not follow their internal priority lists when choosing which border checkpoints would get money for renovations. Under a process that is secretive and susceptible to political influence, officials planned to spend millions at tiny checkpoints, passing over busier, higher-priority projects. …

"There's no common sense at all to a requirement that says you've got to put up a $15 million facility for a small port of entry that's host to about five vehicles an hour," Dorgan, whose state stood to receive $128 million for checkpoint improvements, said in a telephone interview.

In response, Napolitano promised to conduct a 30-day review of how border construction projects were selected, and to make the results of the investigation public. Meanwhile, all new projects have been frozen.