According to Roll Call:

The Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that President Barack Obama must sign Congress’ original health care reform bill before the Senate can act on a companion reconciliation package, senior GOP sources said Thursday.

So…before you can amend a law, it has to be a law?  What a concept.

For ObamaCare to Become Law, House Must Approve Senate Bill Unchanged is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The nominee for EU Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht has taken the brave step of opposing carbon tariffs, called for by many European politicians (including, notably, French President Nicolas Sarkozy).

In the first day of his confirmation hearings, Mr. de Gucht expressed concern that carbon tariffs were a possible first step in a “trade war” and implied that they were in any event inconsistent with current trade law. (I agree.) He also called for abolishing tariffs on goods beneficial to the environment as a trade-friendly way to reduce greenhouse gases, and expressed support for the Doha round of multilateral trade talks. (More here.) While the Trade Commissioner’s influence over actual trade policy in the EU is arguably limited, it is good to have someone in the post who is instinctively suspicious of green protectionism and friendly towards the WTO.

The European Parliament is due to vote on the European Commission nominees (en masse) on January 26.

Someone in Europe Is Talking Sense on Carbon Tariffs is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Will you allow a foreigner to comment on something that has intrigued her about this great country?

All this hand-wringing and then censure (not to mention impeachment talk) over Rep. Joe Wilson’s admittedly rude intervention at President Obama’s speech last week has me baffled. Partly, it is because I come from a land that is governed by a parliamentary system, where Question Time is a much-loved institution. The offense (manufactured, perhaps) that Representative Wilson’s comment has caused is almost laughable when I think about some of the insults that have been hurled in both directions in Australia’s parliament. Here’s a collection of quotes from former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating just for starters (warning: offensive language). Here is a Brit’s take on why American politicians are “a bunch of wimps.”

Mainly, though, I am surprised that questioning of power is not more valued in America. To be sure, the President of the United States is not answerable to Congress in the same way that Ministers (including Prime Ministers) are to a Westminster-system parliament, but I would have thought that questioning the president would be well within the bounds of a nation conceived in liberty and on the understanding that all men are created equal. You got rid of infallible kings in 1776, remember?

I get why the Democrats are making political hay out of Representative Wilson’s outburst, even if I think they are hypocrites for suddenly finding religion on civility, given their own history. And I thoroughly reject, by the way, the notion that much of the criticism directed towards Obama is based on racism, even if this sort of talk gives unfortunate credence to the claims. But those same Dems who are shocked (shocked!) by Joe Wilson’s behavior are right now allowing a tax cheat to pull the nation’s purse strings.

This focus on style — who says what, how they say it, what their motivations might be — over the substance of what the congressional and administrative branches of government are doing is tremendously disappointing. I have heard far more censorious talk about Joe Wilson’s character and the propriety (or lack thereof) of what he did than of the point he was making. Meanwhile, the Dems are keeping “internal” investigations of Charlie Rangel’s ethical violations very quiet indeed.

Quite frankly, I’m far more interested in those than I am in Joe Wilson’s rudeness.

An Australian Perspective on Joe Wilson is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Just when you thought you’d seen everything, ol’ Kaiser Bill emerges from the Beyond to castigate the U.S. president:

Mr. President,

Gott im Himmel! Enough with the czars!

You’ve named 18 so far, according to something I read in Foreign Policy. That includes a border czar, a climate czar, an information technology czar and — I don’t think Thomas Jefferson grew enough hemp in his lifetime to dream up this one — the “faith-based czar.” Your car czar, Steve Rattner, was in the news last week, trying to keep Chrysler out of bankruptcy.

It took Russia 281 years to accumulate that many czars. Even with hemophilia, repeated assassinations and a level of inbreeding that would gag a Dalmatian breeder. You did it in less than 100 days.

And every one of them hurts. I think I speak for all passed-over Victorian despots when I say that.

[...]

…maybe it’s time for a new autocrat to get some air time. Time for something that will stand out even in a White House with a czar in every cubicle.

President Obama’s archduke of information technology announced today . . . Pricks up the ears, doesn’t it?

In Detroit, the president’s car sultan . . . Instant respect. Mainly because those who defy the car sultan might be killed by eunuch assassins.

Or might I humbly suggest the title of an enlightened ruler who — unlike the czars — actually worked well with parliament and the nobility (in your terms, that would be “Congress” and “Oprah”). Somebody whose record is nearly unblemished, except for one invasion of Belgium that everybody’s totally over now.

Today, President Obama congratulated his new climate kaiser . . .

Goosebumps.

Yours in friendship, Wilhelm II

Kaiser vs. “Czar” is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Here’s how YouTube describes the following clip:

Daniel Hannan, Conservative MEP for South East England, gives a speech during Gordon Brown’s visit to the European Parliament on 24th March, 2009.  Read Daniel’s blog at www.hannan.co.uk.

Can I import him?

Can I Vote for This Guy? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog