Here’s this week’s most obvious headline: Probe of CIA Imperils Interagency Trust. Seriously, why would anyone want to work at the CIA? They blame you when you get it wrong. Worse, they investigate you when you get it right, and question the methods you used to do so. It’s despicable.

It’s also history. Those few CIA officers who truly committed wrongs have long ago been punished (and some their careers ended early). The CIA’s inspector general created a tell-all report in 2004, a rare example of transparency in the Beltway — just try asking Congress to do the same.  Indeed, just this week the New York Times exposed excessive abuses of the New York state penitentiary system (minus, of course, any state inspector general report). Attorney General Eric Holder isn’t giving the public anything new, he’s just digging up the past to score political points.

And what did this CIA IG report conclude? Marc Thiessen writes:

While the focus of the news media has been on the abuses described in the report, the inspector general himself describes these abuses as deviations from approved procedure. The inspector general further concluded that, “The CTC [CIA Counterterrorism Center] did a commendable job in directing the interrogation of high value detainees. . . . Agency personnel—with one notable exception described in this review—followed guidance and procedures and documented their activities well. . . . Numerous agency components and individuals invested immense time and effort to implement the CTC program quickly, effectively, and within the law.”

As bad as the Obama administration repackaging yesterday’s fabricated outrage is their selective focus — why not investigate Congress too?

[WSJ] Congress also knew about it. The IG report belies House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s claims that she wasn’t told about all this. “In the fall of 2002, the Agency briefed the leadership of the Congressional Intelligence Oversight Committees on the use of both standard techniques and EITs. . . . Representatives . . . continued to brief the leadership of the Intelligence Oversight Committees on the use of EITs and detentions in February and March 2003. The [CIA] General Counsel says that none of the participants expressed any concern about the techniques or the Program . . .” Ditto in September 2003.

And if that liberal hypocrisy isn’t enough, consider that Eric Holder’s investigation has the potential to betray both sources and methods of CIA investigations. Just a few years ago our liberal friends were supposedly outraged that a Bush official had outed Ambassador Joe Wilson’s wife (Valerie Plame, aka Plamegate), although it actually turned out to be Dep. Sec. of State Richard Armitage — a Bush critic, and someone who was never punished, unlike Scooter Libby.

In April, President Obama appeared before the CIA and promised to “protect your identities and your security as you vigorously pursue your missions,” reminds Bret Stephens.

What’s nearly certain, however, is that the names of the agents will soon become a part of the public record, either directly or through leaks that the liberal press will have no scruple about printing. Last year, for instance, the New York Times published the name of a CIA officer who interrogated 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. This was despite the protests of the officer and the CIA that to identify him would “put him at risk of retaliation from terrorists or harassment from critics of the agency,” as the Times put it in an editor’s note.

So much, then, for President Obama’s solemn promises to the CIA troops. Nor is Mr. Holder’s decision the only political missile tracing a course toward Langley.

On Friday, the Washington Post reported that the Justice Department is looking into allegations that military defense attorneys for top al Qaeda detainees had shown their clients photographs of CIA officers and contractors.

The pictures, some of which were “taken surreptitiously outside [the CIA officers'] homes,” were gathered by an outfit called the John Adams Project, jointly sponsored by the ACLU and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. The Project seeks to identify the interrogators to serve as witnesses if and when their clients are tried in federal court or by military commissions. “We are confident that no laws or regulations have been broken,” ACLU executive director Anthony Romero told the Post.

He’s got to be kidding. The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, the law endlessly invoked in Mrs. Wilson’s case, specifically proscribes anyone “in the course of a pattern of activities” from seeking to expose the identity of covert agents “to any individual not authorized to receive classified information.” Equally plain is the penalty: “fined under Title 18, United States Code, or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.”

Justifiably terming it “unsustainable,” the Congressional Budget Office expects that debt held by the public as a share of GDP will rise from 40% in 2008 to 67.8% in 2019. The Wall Street Journal explains:

Many of the current budget assumptions are laughably implausible. Both the White House and CBO predict that Congress will hold federal spending at the rate of inflation over the next decade. This is the same Democratic Congress that awarded a 47% increase in domestic discretionary spending in 2009 when counting stimulus funds. And the appropriations bills now speeding through Congress for 2010 serve up an 8% increase in domestic spending after inflation.

Another doozy is that Nancy Pelosi and friends are going to allow a one-third or more reduction in liberal priorities like Head Start, food stamps and child nutrition after 2011 when the stimulus expires. CBO actually has overall spending falling between 2009 and 2012, which is less likely than an asteroid hitting the Earth.

Federal revenues, which will hit a 40-year low of 14.9% of GDP this year, are expected to rise to 19.6% of GDP by 2014 and then 20.2% by 2019—which the CBO concedes is “high by historical standards.” This implies some enormous tax increases.

Those enormous tax increases will begin in the form of the targeted variety — vice taxes (i.e., alcohol and cigarettes) — but will then be spread to include the vast majority of middle America, or the very persons Obama promised would never see a tax increase.

Pete DuPont expands on the prediction:

First, allowing the expiration of the previous Bush administration tax cuts at the end of 2010. These reductions increased government tax receipts by $785 billion (just as the Kennedy and Reagan tax cuts increased tax revenues) and gave us eight million new jobs over a 52-month period. The cuts go away if Congress does nothing, raising tax rates on the top earners will to 39.6% from 35%, and on the next-highest bracket to 36% from 33%. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that 55% of these tax increases will come from small-business income.

Next comes Rep. Charles Rangel’s additional tax increases, a part of the House health-care bill. The House Ways and Means chairman calls for a 1% surtax on couples with more than $350,000 in income, 1.5% on incomes more than $500,000, and 5.4% on incomes more than $1 million. The extra tax would kick in at lower levels for unmarried taxpayers. And if promised health-care cost savings don’t materialize, the surtaxes would automatically double.

The House health-care bill contains several tax increases that would hit couples earning under $250,000 a year, contrary to President Obama’s promises: $8.2 billion of tax increases for people using health savings accounts or other tax-free savings to purchase over-the-counter drugs; a “Comparative Effectiveness Research Tax” of $2 billion on all private and “public option” insurance, plus up to 8% paid by employers–mostly small businesses–that don’t offer health insurance. There is even a proposed tax on individuals who do not have health insurance.

Then come some other tax increases the administration has favored:

• An increased tax on American companies doing business in other countries.

• Raising or abolishing the wage cap on Social Security taxes, which would effectively convert Social Security into a welfare program.

• Reducing the tax benefit for itemized deductions like charitable contributions, which would reduce philanthropy.

And, adds DuPont, that’s not including any harebrained cap-and-trade policies that the Obama Congress might attempt to jam down our throats.

A comically sad but accurate chart converts sentences for modern day infamous killers, courtesy of Michael Rubin:

Yesterday, a Scottish court released Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds. He served 3,123 days for the murder of 270 people. That comes out to an average of 11.5 days per person.

For perspective, here’s what Scottish justice would mean for other prominent murderers:

Obama tossed some more red meat to his constituents (at the expense of our safety): Obama Administration to Investigate CIA Terror Interrogations.

How stupid a decision is this? CIA Director Leon Panetta is threatening to quit. Panetta isn’t exactly a Dittohead Limbaugh listener.

Among the investigations: The Washington Post reports a now retired CIA officer used a gun, and another a power drill, back in 2002 to “intimidate a captured al-Qaeda suspect.” That former suspect, by the way, was USS Cole bomber Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. I wonder if the families of those 17 sailors shed a tear for the “intimidation” of this killer?

A statement from Mr. Panetta hit the nail on the head:

“I make no judgments on the accuracy of the 2004 IG report or the various views expressed about it,” Mr. Panetta wrote. ”Nor am I eager to enter the debate, already politicized, over the ultimate utility of the Agency’s past detention and interrogation effort.”

Still, he wrote, “this much is clear: The CIA obtained intelligence from high-value detainees when inside information on al Qaeda was in short supply.”[emphasis mine]

Exactly! Let alone the triviality of this — we “simulate,” we “intimidate,” we “threaten,” whereas our enemy flies passenger planes into skyscrapers and cuts peoples’ heads off — note the complete lack of context. These same CIA officers were in 2002 being grilled by Congress and the public as to why they didn’t stop 9-11. So we captured a bunch of the terrorists. We demanded answers. But now these same CIA personnel are being grilled because seven years later the Obama administration needs a quick PR victory.

And what else other than investigating the CIA would one expect from Obama for such a victory, given his cash for clunkers debacle, lots of egg on his face from a unified American public saying “no thanks” to his single-payer health care proposal, a DOA climate change bill, TARP Part Two, or as George Will noted, “an 85 percent unspent stimulus.” (aka, not a stimulus).

Approval rating is down, call in the investigators! This is a tried and true Pavlovian response from the ‘blame America first’ wing of the Democratic Party.

It’s also adding a little insult to the injury following the UK releasing the 1988 Lockerbie bomber. Sure it’s the UK, not Obama, but other than the typically bland “we’re disappointed” statements from team Obama, there’s not been much of a reaction. It’s as if they’re recollecting a bad meal — “we’re disappointed with the fillet” — rather than the release of a terrorist who murdered 270 people.

How’s about a bit of outrage? Leftists are great at outrage, so long as it’s targeted at Big Oil, or Big Pharma, or Big Banking, or Big Anything, so long as it’s not, you know, Big Terror.

One can’t see how any of this could be a political victory except amongst his most Kool-Aid filled backers. Most Americans will recognize that keeping the country safe requires a bit more than name, rank and serial number from terrorists who have several aliases, but no rank, and no serial number.

At the same time, this administration which excels at apologizing for American behavior is creating the exact risk-averse intelligence culture which assisted 9-11 hijackers in executing their murderous plan. Adds the UK Daily Mail, “Tactics in the grey area between torture and legal questioning – such as sleep deprivation and playing loud music – will be banned.” Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ll sure sleep easier knowing that we won’t deny a mass murderer like Khalid Mohammed of his beauty rest.

You see, it’s not enough to start a witch hunt against our intelligence services. The Obama administration is also going to castrate them:

President Obama has approved the creation of an elite team of interrogators to question key terrorism suspects, part of a broader effort to revamp U.S. policy on detention and interrogation, senior administration officials said Sunday.

Obama signed off late last week on the unit, named the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG. Made up of experts from several intelligence and law enforcement agencies, the interrogation unit will be housed at the FBI but will be overseen by the National Security Council — shifting the center of gravity away from the CIA and giving the White House direct oversight.

Panetta says he expects a flood of employees from the CIA. But the ones who remain won’t be in charge of investigating much. Instead, the White House is going to “nationalize” the intelligence biz, micromanage it from the top, becoming subject matter experts on interrogation. Yeah, that’ll work about as good as them becoming subject matter experts on the automobile industry. And how’d *that* experiment work out, fellas? Not so hot, eh?

Maybe they’re not quite going to be “death panels,” but there’s no denying that Obama’s “federal option” single-payer health care system will ration health care, and the older one gets, the less likely the government will be to approve one’s health care expenses. Obama has replied “so what?” because technically the private market rations health care right now. But that’s missing the point. Markets ration everything — from your food to home to gasoline — based on price, not on a government bureaucracy that just gives yea or nea decisions.

Yes, the U.S. “rations” by ability to pay (though in the end no one is denied actual care). This is true of every good or service in a free economy and a world of finite resources but infinite wants. Yet no one would say we “ration” houses or gasoline because those goods are allocated by prices. The problem is that governments ration through brute force—either explicitly restricting the use of medicine or lowering payments below market rates. Both methods lead to waiting lines, lower quality, or less innovation—and usually all three.

A lot of talk has centered on what Sarah Palin inelegantly called “death panels.” Of course rationing to save the federal fisc will be subtler than a bureaucratic decision to “pull the plug on grandma,” as Mr. Obama put it. But Mrs. Palin has also exposed a basic truth. A substantial portion of Medicare spending is incurred in the last six months of life.

From the point of view of politicians with a limited budget, is it worth spending a lot on, say, a patient with late-stage cancer where the odds of remission are long? Or should they spend to improve quality, not length, of life? Or pay for a hip or knee replacement for seniors, when palliative care might cost less? And who decides?

In Britain, the NHS decides, and under its QALYs metric it generally won’t pay more than $22,000 for treatments to extend a life six months. “Money for the NHS isn’t limitless,” as one NHS official recently put it in response to American criticism, “so we need to make sure the money we have goes on things which offer more than the care we’ll have to forgo to pay for them.”

Before he got defensive, Mr. Obama was open about this political calculation. He often invokes the experience of his own grandmother, musing whether it was wise for her to receive a hip replacement after a terminal cancer diagnosis. In an April interview with the New York Times, he wondered whether this represented a “sustainable model” for society. He seems to believe these medical issues are all justifiably political questions that government or some panel of philosopher kings can and should decide. No wonder so many seniors rebel at such judgments that they know they could do little to influence, much less change.

Mr. Obama has also said many times that the growth of Medicare spending must be restrained, and his budget director Peter Orszag has made it nearly his life’s cause. We agree, but then why does Mr. Obama want to add to our fiscal burdens a new Medicare-like program for everyone under 65 too? Medicare already rations care, refusing, for example, to pay for virtual colonoscopies and has payment policies or directives to curtail the use of certain cancer drugs, diagnostic tools, asthma medications and many others. Seniors routinely buy supplemental insurance (Medigap) to patch Medicare’s holes—and Medicare is still growing by 11% this year.

The political and fiscal pressure to further ration Medicare would increase exponentially if government is paying for most everyone’s care. The better way to slow the growth of Medicare is to give seniors more control over their own health care and the incentives to spend wisely, by offering competitive insurance plans. But this would mean less control for government, not more.

“Researchers who have examined the effects of preventive care generally find that the added costs of widespread use of preventive services tend to exceed the savings from averted illness.”

That’s a quote from a recent letter penned by Director Doug Elmendorf of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to Congress. It’s just one more inconvenient truth for the Obama administration’s health care experiment, one of many that have already come from the CBO, including estimates to Congress that the proposed plans by the two different Democratic committee plans would add a $1 trillion and $1.6 trillion, respectively, to the national debt over just the first 10 years.

The latest CBO letter, the one which included the quote above, was in response to the Obama fallacy that preventative health care “saves money.” Saves for the one, yes. But saves for all? Not so.

Charles Krauthammer explains:

How can that be? If you prevent somebody from getting a heart attack, aren’t you necessarily saving money? The fallacy here is confusing the individual with society. For the individual, catching something early generally reduces later spending for that condition. But, explains Elmendorf, we don’t know in advance which patients are going to develop costly illnesses. To avert one case, “it is usually necessary to provide preventive care to many patients, most of whom would not have suffered that illness anyway.” And this costs society money that would not have been spent otherwise.

Think of it this way. Assume that a screening test for disease X costs $500 and finding it early averts $10,000 of costly treatment at a later stage. Are you saving money? Well, if one in 10 of those who are screened tests positive, society is saving $5,000. But if only one in 100 would get that disease, society is shelling out $40,000 more than it would without the preventive care.

That’s a hypothetical case. What’s the real-life actuality? In Obamaworld, as explained by the president in his Tuesday town hall, if we pour money into primary care for diabetics instead of giving surgeons “$30,000, $40,000, $50,000″ for a later amputation — a whopper that misrepresents the surgeon’s fee by a factor of at least 30 — “that will save us money.” Back on Earth, a rigorous study in the journal Circulation found that for cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, “if all the recommended prevention activities were applied with 100 percent success,” the prevention would cost almost 10 times as much as the savings, increasing the country’s total medical bill by 162 percent. That’s because prevention applied to large populations is very expensive, as shown by another report Elmendorf cites, a definitive review in the New England Journal of Medicine of hundreds of studies that found that more than 80 percent of preventive measures added to medical costs.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be preventing illness. Of course we should. But in medicine, as in life, there is no free lunch. The idea that prevention is somehow intrinsically economically different from treatment — that treatment increases costs and prevention lowers them — is simply nonsense. Prevention is a wondrous good, but in the aggregate it costs society money. Nothing wrong with that. That’s the whole premise of medicine. Treating a heart attack or setting a broken leg also costs society. But we do it because it alleviates human suffering. Preventing a heart attack with statins or breast cancer with mammograms is costly. But we do it because it reduces human suffering.

However, prevention is not, as so widely advertised, healing on the cheap. It is not the magic bullet for health-care costs.

Seriously, folks, one could dedicate an entire blog on the ridiculous statements legislators make to promote fear over (unfounded) climate change. Here’s the Detroit News’ Henry Payne remarking on Michigan Democrat Senator Debbie Stabenow’s anecdotal evidence packaged as scientific method.

Detroit, Mich. – Michigan just experienced its coldest July on record; global temperatures haven’t risen in more than a decade; Great Lakes water levels have resumed their 30-year cyclical rise (contrary to a decade of media scare stories that they were drying up due to global warming), and polls show that climate change doesn’t even make a list of Michigan voters’ top-ten concerns.

Yet in an interview with the Detroit News Monday, Senator Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.) – recently appointed to the Senate Energy Committee – made clear that fighting the climate crisis is her top priority.

“Climate change is very real,” she confessed as she embraced cap and trade’s massive tax increase on Michigan industry – at the same time claiming, against all the evidence, that it would not lead to an increase in manufacturing costs or energy prices. “Global warming creates volatility. I feel it when I’m flying. The storms are more volatile. We are paying the price in more hurricanes and tornadoes.”

And there are sea monsters in Lake Michigan. I can feel them when I’m boating.

As one commenter noted, there haven’t been more storms or stronger storms, just better technology to track them:

“A NOAA-led team of scientists has found that the apparent increase in the number of tropical storms and hurricanes since the late 19th and early 20th centuries is likely attributable to improvements in observational tools and analysis techniques that better detect short-lived storms.”

Stop. Go to Free Our Health Care Now, and sign the petition demanding among other things that the U.S. Congress “stop any increased role of the government in my health care decisions.”

Far from Nancy Pelosi’s accusation that such protest is somehow “unAmerican,” and no matter that the White House asked citizens to report suspicious health care statements by others, the First Amendment still guarantees the “right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

So don’t just sit there. Exercise that right.