Andrew Biggs, FTW.

• Under new policy guidelines from the Obama administration, federal drug agents won’t pursue medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they follow state laws. Cato scholars have long called for drug policy reform, and have examined other drug decriminalization program that have shown tangible, positive results.

• Ignored by the media: Antarctic ice melt lowest ever measured.

• Obama visiting China in November to discuss expanding military agreements. Here’s what’s at stake.

• Video: Why American health care kills.

• Podcast: “Coerced into Medicare”

• Don’t let the sticker price fool you: The Baucus bill would increase the deficit and cost more than $2 trillion over 10 years.

• There’s no getting around it. There will be cuts in Medicare.

• The Supreme Court hears Alvarez v. Smith, which will affect the constitutional property rights of many people around the country.

• Cato’s David Rittgers debates troop build up in Afghanistan.

• Podcast: Baucus Plan Shrinks Health Care Markets

Yes, you read that right. And I had to do the same sort of double-take when I read David Broder’s op-ed in The Washington Post this morning.

Broder writes, “Obama has steered the enterprise to the point that odds now favor a bill-signing ceremony. But the hardest choices still lie ahead.…” Whaa?? How can the odds be better than 50–50 if the biggest fights haven’t even happened yet?

Broder’s optimism continues, “Two things will be needed to reach [a majority in the House and 60 votes in the Senate]: first, a plausible plan for making affordable and comprehensive health insurance available to millions.… And second, a way of financing the coverage.…” But that’s been the whole challenge all along. Is Broder actually acknowledging that Democrats aren’t any closer to a signing ceremony than they were six months ago?

Broder says Democrats can meet the second challenge by taxing high-cost health plans — “a step that would require Obama to face down his labor union allies.” You mean Obama should lean on Democrats to tax a crucial part of their own base? One that’s already activating to block that tax?

Broder also thinks Obama should lean on his fellow Democrats to roll the doctors and hospitals in their states/​districts by including more (some? any?) “delivery system reforms” in the legislation.

Sure. No problem. What could go wrong? This is practically a done deal.

(Cross-posted, sarcasm and all, at Politico’s Health Care Arena.)

The Hill’s Congress blog has a regular series that provides policy experts a forum to discuss current topics of the day. This week, the editors posed this question:

President Obama has taken a very different approach to diplomacy than President Bush. Does the new approach serve or undermine long-term U.S. interests?

My response:

What “very different approach?” Sure, President Bush implicitly scorned diplomacy in favor of toughness, particularly in his first term. But he sought UN Security Council authorization for tougher measures against Iraq; a truly unilateral approach would have bombed first and asked questions later. By the same token, President Obama has staffed his administration with people, including chief diplomat Hillary Clinton and UN Ambassador Susan Rice, who favored military action against Iraq and Serbia in 1998 and 1999, respectively, and were undeterred by the UNSC’s refusal to endorse either intervention.

There are other similarities. George Bush advocated multilateral diplomacy with North Korea, despite his stated antipathy for Kim Jong Il. President Obama supports continued negotiations with the same odious regime that starves its own people. Bush administration officials met with the Iranians to discuss post-Taliban Afghanistan and post-Saddam Iraq. In the second term, President Bush even agreed in principle to high-level talks on Iran’s nuclear program. President Obama likewise believes that the United States and Iran have a number of common interests, and he favors diplomacy over confrontation.

This continuity shouldn’t surprise us. Both men operate within a political environment that equates diplomacy with appeasement, without most people really understanding what either word means. Defined properly, diplomacy is synonymous with relations between states. As successive generations have learned the high costs and dubious benefits of that other form of international relations — war — most responsible leaders are rightly eager to engage in diplomacy. Perhaps the greater concern is that they feel the need to call it something else.

Social Security benefits are indexed for inflation, but because inflation has been roughly zero for the past year, the adjustment formula implies no increase in benefits this year. Nevertheless,

President Obama on Wednesday attempted to preempt the announcement that Social Security recipients will not get an increase in their benefit checks for the first time in three decades, encouraging Congress to provide a one-time payment of $250 to help seniors and disabled Americans weather the recession.

Obama endorsed the idea, which is expected to cost at least $13 billion, as the administration gropes for ways to sustain an apparent economic rebound without the kind of massive spending package that critics could label a second stimulus act.

This is outrageous on four levels:

1. If the president thinks the economy needs more stimulus, he should say that explicitly and have an honest debate.

2. This is the wrong kind of stimulus. Any further stimulus should consist of reductions in marginal tax rates, such as a cut in the corporate income tax (or better yet, repeal).

3. All Social Security recipients already have a moderate guaranteed income, and many have significant income beyond their Social Security benefits. This kind of transfer has no plausible justification as redistribution for the needy.

4. Sending checks to seniors is a blatant attempt to buy their support for Obamacare, which promises to cut Medicare spending substantially.

C/P Libertarianism, from A to Z

• Why there’s no way to enforce a ban on texting while driving.

• How onerous financial rules will only delay economic recovery and dampen long-term growth.

• It’s time to start over on health care reform: “If you’re going the wrong way down a road, the answer isn’t to step on the gas, but to turn around.”

• Is the current recession the worst since the Great Depression? You might be surprised…

• When “history” dials the wrong number.

• Podcast: Will the GOP of 2010 Be led by ideas?