ACORN, you may recall, is the left-wing activist group with longtime ties to community organizer-turned-President Barack Obama. The nonprofit, which now takes in 40 percent of its revenues from American taxpayers after four decades on the public teat, has a history of engaging in voter fraud, corporate shakedowns, partisan bullying and pro-illegal immigration lobbying. The Democrats' stimulus proposals could make the group - and its lesser known but even more radical ideological allies - eligible for upward of $5 billion in new public cash.

The deal looks bad and smells worse.

Raising the traditional and early retirement ages will mean extending workers' taxable earning years, fueling economic growth and putting a dent in our unfunded-liabilities crisis by delaying payouts.

Out: Reading is fundamental. In: Feeling is fundamental.

Bean-counting government bureaucrats are free to take race, ethnicity and gender into account when doling out public funds to non-white-male contractors. But God help law enforcement officers, air marshals and border agents who try to use those same factors to combat terrorism and protect American lives.

Most small-business owners will tell you they don't want Obama 'boosting' them. They just want him to get out of the way.

The only true allegiance a politician has is to his own re-election.