Obama's America, where a private insurance company can't charge you more for being a smoker (because loving to inhale a mixture of tobacco and chemicals directly into your lungs is a pre-existing condition, obviously), but where the government can add a nearly dollar per pack to cigarette taxes to fund pre-K education.

As Kevin Williamson notes at National Review, we should expect more of this as ObamaCare ramps up in the near future:

[T]urning around the country’s economy is more important to the country’s economic and political future. That goes for gun control’s prospects, too. If the Democrats want to pass tough gun control measures—or address even more far-reaching issues like climate change—they need to win back the House, and they can’t do that with a faltering economy. But I’d also suggest that on the substance of the matter, turning around the economy is as important to ending gun violence as passing the kind of compromise gun control legislation that the Senate might pass, which would leave one important kind of “straw purchases” of guns—and a key source for guns used in crimes—out of its purview.

In a particularly tragic chapter in our nation’s struggle with such violence, at least four people — including two children — were seriously injured or killed since last weekend in accidental shootings where toddlers obtained loaded weapons:

Massof, who, like other witnesses, has himself pleaded guilty to serious crimes, testified "It would rain fetuses. Fetuses and blood all over the place." Here is the headline the Associated Press put on a story about his testimony that he saw 100 babies born and then snipped: "Staffer describes chaos at PA abortion clinic."

"Chaos" isn't really the story here. Butchering babies that were already born and were older than the state's 24-week limit for abortions is the story. There is a reason the late Democratic senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan called this procedure infanticide.

The current state house has a 26-15 Democratic majority; the current state senate is split 13-8 for the Democrats. Gov. Jack Markell has supported gay marriage for years. And I already mentioned Joe Biden.

Well, the gay marriage push starts today. This afternoon, most of the state's leadership -- governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, state senate president, speaker of the house -- will gather in Wilmington to announce legislation that would legalize gay marriage. All they need to do is alter Delaware's statute on marriage, which prohibits unions between "people of the same gender."

I'll be keeping a watch on this. Do readers know of any other states with similar efforts? 

A rare cache of fossil dinosaur embryos discovered in China reveals that these extinct behemoths grew faster in the egg than any animal known, an international research team reported in Nature on Wednesday.

The researchers believe the 195-million-year-old remains belong to a long-necked, plant-eating dinosaur called Lufengosaurus, which grew to as long as 30 feet. This dinosaur family, once common in China, eventually evolved into the largest creatures to ever walk the Earth.

"These things were growing faster than anything we've ever seen—faster than any living mammal or bird today or any known dinosaur," said paleontologist Robert Reisz at the University of Toronto at Mississauga in Ontario, who led the team of experts in China, Taiwan, Australia and Germany that analyzed the specimens.

That group, of course, is the "Don't Ever Touch Entitlements in Any Way" Caucus, chaired by the venerable Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. As reported by the Boston Globe:

“In short, ‘chained CPI’ is just a fancy way to say ‘cut benefits for seniors, the permanently disabled, and orphans,’” Warren fired off in an e-mail to supporters. She related the experience of her brother, David Herring, a military veteran and former small business owner who lives on monthly Social Security checks of $1,100. “Our Social Security system is critical to protecting middle-class families,’’ she wrote, “and we cannot allow it to be dismantled inch by inch.”

The section devoted to the question "Are there still Jews in Germany?" presents a highly unusual "exhibit." At set times, a Jewish guest will take his or her seat in a real showcase and, if desired, respond to questions and comments from the visitors. With this idea, the organizers are taking up the gauntlet that critics of Jewish museums have thrown down at the feet of the museums’ founders. The substance of this criticism: Jewish museums could unethically use Jews as "exhibition objects" and subject them to voyeuristic curiosity. Others believe that the Jews in Germany, who have played a prominent role over the past few decades and are seen by many as a symbol of the millions murdered in the Holocaust, are already treated as specimens under glass.

Many have found the ‘Jew in a box’ portion of the exhibit rather insulting.

Charles Moran, who helped raise funds for Kevin James in the Los Angeles mayor race, with a guest post on the upcoming vote that amounts to a referendum on LA's future:

Now, Chained CPI and limiting Medicare spending are a nice start. They don't really solve our problem, which is an aging nation that will have more retirees per worker than the historical norm, but that was a problem we should have attacked forty years ago. Instead, we've got this:

Well Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) — who also happens to be chairman of the House GOP’s re-election committee — just showed how it’s done, saying Obama’s budget “lays out a shocking attack on seniors.”

Do you ever come across a word or phrase that so perfectly sums up a concept, you can't believe you haven't known it forever?

I had such a moment yesterday, when the following tweet popped up in my timeline:

President Obama finally released his proposed budget today. Here's what's in it, and how people are reacting.

The main points, as summarized from Forbes:

• Increased revenues resulting from the chained CPI [cost of living adjustment]. 
• Instituting the “Buffet Rule” 
• Cutting direct payments to farmers
• Limiting the tax deferral benefits of contributing to a retirement account.
• A new federal tax on cigarettes and other tobacco products to be used to fund the expansion of pre-kindergarten education programs.
• Limiting itemized deductions for high-income households to 28 percent after charitable contributions.
• Change carried interest tax rates into ordinary income tax rates. 
• Close additional tax loopholes.
  

Derek Thompson of The Atlantic: