Things aren’t looking good for Florida Governor Charlie Crist. His rival for the Republican nomination in the Florida senate race, Marco Rubio, is now leading by 18 points. Wow!

TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Chamber rolled out its latest poll for members today at their annual Capitol Days meeting, and it’s yet more bad news for Gov. Charlie Crist.

The poll supposedly found Marco Rubio up 48-30 over Crist in the U.S. Senate primary. Back in October, the chamber’s usually trustworthy surveying found Crist leading Rubio 44-30.

This might explain why brain dead talking heads such as MSNBC’s Donny Deutsch are already sharpening their claws for attack. Witness the network which loves to accuse people of racism as they allow a commentator to refer to Marco Rubio as a “coconut” which is a racist term meaning brown on the outside and white on the inside. Classy.

UPDATE: Deutsch apologizes for using the “coconut” slur.

President Obama has invited Republicans to a health care summit but influential conservatives such as Michelle Malkin and Rush Limbaugh are warning the GOP that it could be a trap.

First, Michelle Malkin says:

Please.

The White House spends a full year trashing Republicans for having no ideas on health care reform.

The White House spend a full year promising transparency while subverting it.

And now, after a year’s worth of closed backroom meetings and midnight holiday weekend legislative sessions in which Republicans had severely curtailed ability to offer amendments, President Obama wants to invite them to a televised health care summit to talk about the GOP alternatives he said didn’t exist?

Rush Limbaugh agrees…

And what do you know? The Washington Post is now reporting that the Republican Party might be listening…

Leading House Republicans raised the prospect Monday night that they may decline to participate in President Obama’s proposed health-care summit if the White House chooses not to scrap the existing reform bills and start over.

In a letter to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (Ohio) and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) expressed frustration about reports that Obama intends to put the Democratic bills on the table for discussion at the summit, which would be held Feb. 25.

“If the starting point for this meeting is the job-killing bills the American people have already soundly rejected, Republicans would rightly be reluctant to participate,” Boehner and Cantor wrote.

How does that old saying go? Fool me once…

Last month, Michelle Malkin wrote on her website that when it comes to the Obama Administration, “Everything’s Staged.”

She pointed to faked town halls, fake lab coats and even stand-in produce from the White House garden.

Today, The Hill echoes Malkin’s point while describing Obama’s recent Q & A session with senate Democrats.

Senate Democrats held back from asking President Barack Obama about healthcare reform during a carefully scripted question-and-answer session in front of television cameras.

With the cameras rolling, a group of senators selected in advance by the Democratic leadership asked questions about such topics as partisan gridlock and GOP obstruction.

But once the president left and reporters were escorted out of the room, senators pressed White House officials about healthcare reform, according to those at the meeting.

Carefully scripted, questions selected in advance and reporters conveniently hustled out the door before the real questions came. Sounds pretty transparent to me.

American comedian Joan Rivers was bumped from a Continental flight to New Jersey from Costa Rica because she was singled out as a threat. I feel safer already!

Rivers, 76, was deemed a danger to national security and booted from a Newark-bound flight in Costa Rica on Sunday by a jittery Continental Airlines gate agent who found the two names on her passport fishy.

Her passport reads: Joan Rosenberg AKA Joan Rivers. Rosenberg was her late husband’s last name.

The “nasty and cruel” Continental gate agent bumped Rivers from the last flight out Sunday and the comedian found herself alone (her daughter, Melissa, flew out to Los Angeles earlier in the day) and with no ATM card and just $100 cash, she said.

Rivers’ tale of woe put a famous face on travel’s new reality – one that leaves many feeling like common criminals.

On a more infuriating note, independent war reporter and photographer Michael Yon was handcuffed upon entering a Seattle airport today for refusing to disclose his income. Michelle Malkin has all the details.

I’ve met Michael and have blogged about his enterprising war coverage as an embed in Iraq and Afghanistan for years. The idea of him being treated as a national security threat and handcuffed is as ridiculous as anything we’ve seen from Janet Clown-itano and her cadre.

On Christmas day, a man boarded an international flight in Nigeria. He had no luggage and paid for his ticket in cash. His own father had telephoned government officials to warn them that his son posed a threat, yet he was able to board the plane which he promptly tried to blow up.

Now we have 76 year old comedians and war correspondents being singled out as threats?

Don’t worry though, the government will do a much better job with health care.

Because after all, “they’re a pretty good photo-op.”

Hey why not? We already know sodas are going to be taxed in the name of “progress.”

Why not ban hamburgers?

“(CNN) — Hamburgers are an American passion. And millions of Americans consume burgers, and other forms of meat, every day without consequences.”

“But ground beef contaminated with E. coli bacteria has sickened, paralyzed and even killed some people who ate it.”

“On Monday night’s “Larry King Live,” a wide range of guests joined an in-depth and spirited debate to answer this question: Should meat, and most specifically hamburgers, be a part of the American diet?”

“One person who has said “no” to burgers is Bill Marler, an expert on foodborne illness litigation. Marler has been litigating on this issue since the Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak in 1993.”

“Since the Jack in the Box case, I’ve never had a hamburger,” Marler said. “I have three daughters — 17, 14 and 10 — and they’ve never had a hamburger.”

Here’s the Center for Disease Control on E. coli…

“We reviewed E. coli O157 outbreaks reported to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to better understand the epidemiology of E. col O157. E. coli O157 outbreaks reported to CDC from 1982 to 2002 were reviewed. In that period, 49 states reported 350 outbreaks, representing 8,598 cases, 1,493 (17%) hospitalizations, 354 (4%) hemolytic uremic syndrome cases, and 40 (0.5%) deaths.”

40 deaths in 20 years.

If you read CNN’s entire article, they take great pains to tell a few (truly) sad stories of people who had to deal with an illness or even a death due to E. coli but the statistics from the CDC don’t bear out a ban on hamburgers any more than a ban on crossing the street.

Of course CNN rounds out their article with the money line, pushing the theory once again, that government is the answer to the problem.

“King asked Marler how the average person was to process the conflicting advice, especially with stories such as Smith’s making news.”

“I think what the lay person needs to do is spend a little bit more time putting pressure on their congressmen and senators to pass some food safety legislation that’s been hung up in the House and the Senate,” Marler said.”

As I think about it, I am actually angry at CNN for even writing this article.

Michelle Malkin has written about this on her blog as well. I agree 100% with her closing line:

“The Big Nanny bureaucrats will have to pry the Sonic Bacon Cheeseburger from my cold, dead hands…”

Conservatives in America should thank Michelle Malkin for all of her hard work exposing the Chicago Machine politics behind Mr. & Mrs. Obama and Valerie Jarrett. If you haven’t read it already, you should check out Ms. Malkin’s expose titled An Illustrated Guide: All The President’s Olympic Cronies.

Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod and Mayor Daley stand to make major bucks off the Olympics if the games come to Chicago. Why else would they all be pushing so hard for the city to host? Do they care about Chicago as a city? Do they know a large movement in Chicago does not want the Olympics to happen there? Have they come out to condemn the recent violence there? Not yet.

What’s the true Obama goal with the Olympics in Chicago?

Michelle Malkin explains it all for you. Watch…

I have to admit, this is a question I have asked myself. Who is Allahpundit? The question grew stronger when I read Andy Levy’s remembrance of September 11th, 2001 based on Allahpundit’s recollection.

In the following video (audio) from the Mark Levin Show, Mark asks Michelle Malkin to confirm that Allahpundit is a real person. For the record, I have always known Allahpundit is real. No fake blogger could blow me off as much as he has. Kidding!

Seriously, why are we asking who Allahpundit really is?

Let us focus on truly important questions like, WHO IS SMITTY and why is he obsessed with Jake Tapper’s Twitter feed?

Do you have an answer Mr. McCain?

Praise the Dear Leader of of the USSA, children. Praise His name.

Ignore the fact that Christmas Carols are no longer allowed in public schools.

Just praise Obama.

Well that’s pretty huge.

Senator Mike Johanns (R) of Nebraska introduced an amendment to a piece of legislation TODAY which barres ACORN from receiving federal funds in the wake of all the recent controversy.

It passed this afternoon 83 to 7. Senate page with vote breakdown here.

Read analysis from the experts who broke the news:

Michelle Malkin

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air

UPDATE: The AP has picked up the story, via ABC:

“The Senate voted Monday to block the Housing and Urban Development Department from giving grants to ACORN, a community organization under fire in several voter-registration fraud cases.”

“The 83-7 vote would deny housing and community grant funding to ACORN, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.”

“The action came as the group is suffering from bad publicity after a duo of conservative activists posing as a prostitute and her pimp released hidden-camera videos in which ACORN employees in Baltimore gave advice on house-buying and how to account on tax forms for the woman’s income. Two other videos, aired frequently on media outlets such as the Fox News Channel, depict similar situations in ACORN offices in Brooklyn and Washington, D.C.”

UPDATE II: Which 7 Senators voted in favor of ACORN? Big Government has the answer.

Think about this for a minute. There are 7 United States senators who voted in favor of an organization which is being investigated for vote fraud in 14 states and now is implicated in a scandal of tax fraud and child prostitution in three major US cities.

UPDATE III: Jonah Goldberg of National Review notes the irony:

“I just think it’s beyond hilarious that Acorn gets their dream president, the guy who swears they’ll have a seat at the table, and largely because of the heightened profile the shady group got as a result of Obama’s election, the super-majority Democratic Senate just voted overwhelmingly to deny them governmengt money. Maybe Pelosi will ensure this is just for show by killing the move in the House. But still, what an awful week for Acorn and what a great week for cosmic comeuppance.”