A frightening thought for Halloween

You can donate here.

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About the Obama Halloween masks

Regardless of what's said here, I guarantee that you will hear more than a few cries of "raaaaacism!" about Obama masks this year.

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Peggy Noonan: "We're All Governed By Callous Children

"Americans feel increasingly disheartened, and our leaders don't even notice".

Noteworthy:

"When I see those in government, both locally and in Washington, spend and tax and come up each day with new ways to spend and tax—health care, cap and trade, etc.—I think: Why aren't they worried about the impact of what they're doing? Why do they think America is so strong it can take endless abuse.

.....We are governed at all levels by America's luckiest children, sons and daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but they're not optimists—they're unimaginative. They don't have faith, they've just never been foreclosed on. They are stupid and they are callous, and they don't mind it when people become disheartened. They don't even notice."

And we know they don't even care, which is particularly infuriating in light of what their disingenuous campaign rhetoric of last year promised.

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Michelle Bachmann on ObamaPelosiCare

It's worse than you think.

MUCH worse.

It looks like Seniors weren't the only ones not welcome at today's Pelosipalooza

Add House Republican Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia to the list......

Scene from today's Pelosi Public Option pep rally

Upset senior citizens were definitely not welcome.

This is a preview of what's to come in the next days and weeks.

Hat tip: John Goodman.

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"Public Option" reality

Steve Chapman:

"If Medicare were a bank, federal regulators would be closing its doors, selling its operations and sacking its managers. Thanks to soaring costs, the program is fast running out of money -- even though it pays such low fees that many doctors refuse to take Medicare patients. Meanwhile, Medicare fraud costs taxpayers some $60 billion a year, according to a report by CBS's '60 Minutes,' making it among the most profitable fields for felons.

That's our experience with government-run health insurance for the elderly. So what do congressional Democrats propose to do? Offer government-run health insurance to everyone else."

Read the rest of the piece.

Speaking of reading things, I can almost guarantee that regardless of what they spring on us today, they will NOT let us read the whole thing.

The insanity of this is beyond rational comprehension.

UPDATE:

My, oh my! I was wrong.

Here's the disaster, all 1990 pdf pages of it.

This leads me to think some of the alternate theories about this were right. The Dems really don't expect this to be enacted, so the whole thing becomes a bone thrown the Looney Tooner Left's way.

By this evening, we should have all the horrid parts pretty well ready to expose for the bad stuff they represent. The response will be furious and overwhelming.

When the monstrosity ultimately dies it's deserved death, the Dems can then tell their fringe freaks "See? We tried! But those knuckle dragging conservatives and those eeeeeeeeevil insurance companies did us in!"

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Candidate Obama on health care legislation transparency

From Don Surber.



Hat tip: Instapundit.

I guess this guy got kidnapped somewhere along the way, and was replaced with the impostor who's currently playing the role of President of the United States.

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The Public Option? It's a mirage

.....says Robert Samuelson:

"In reality, the public plan, also known as the public option, is mostly an exercise in political avoidance: It pretends to control costs and improve access to quality care when it doesn't. "

Who will benefit from Cap 'n Trade?

Here's a hint: It's not you, and it's not me.


Hat tip: Israpundit.

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The cost of mandates in health care "reform"

Tyler Cowen: "How Insurance Mandates Could Leave Many Worse Off"

Excerpts:

"The paradox is this: Reform advocates start with anecdotes about the underprivileged who are uninsured, then turn around and propose something that would hurt at least some members of that group...

....At this point, it seems more plausible that the cost of health insurance will keep rising, just as the costs of health care services have continued to climb. The upshot is that the burdens of mandatory purchase, the subsidy costs and the associated implicit marginal tax rates will all increase, eventually to the point of unsustainability.....

....As it stands, we’re on the verge of enacting a policy that is due to explode, penalizing many of the very people that it was ostensibly designed to help."

But let's not let little things like that stop us from making the incredibly stupid decision that Obama and his Idiocrats insist we must......

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Not your typical OnStar emergency

(Hat tip: Instapundit)



Note that this car is a Government Motors product, so perhaps we should have expected the call.

It's just a preview of the type of control we can expect if we're not smart enough to bring the Obamanation to a screeching halt starting next year.

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"Next!"

A glimpse at your future health care routine under a "public option".


Hat tip: Gateway Pundit.

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Obama's foreign policy failures laid bare

Charles Krauthammer discusses one of the failures: Russia.

"Henry Kissinger once said that the main job of Anatoly Dobrynin, the perennial Soviet ambassador to Washington, was to tell the Kremlin leadership that whenever they received a proposal from the United States that appeared disadvantageous to the United States, not to assume it was a trick.

No need for a Dobrynin today. The Russian leadership, hardly believing its luck, needs no interpreter to understand that when the Obama team clownishly rushes in bearing gifts and 'reset' buttons, there is nothing ulterior, diabolical, clever or even serious behind it. It is amateurishness, wrapped in naivete, inside credulity. In short, the very stuff of Nobels."

It's also pretty obvious that Obama can't even understand the lessons history teaches about the United States in world affairs, let alone domestic matters:

"These mistakes are important because they point to a serious underlying problem: no historical memory. This president does not have a clue about recent history let alone ancient history. He has no grounding on what works and what does not. His only guide is his philosophy or the ideology of his 'advisors.'

When a president has a philosophy, he must know that there will be a price for implementing it. Ronald Reagan knew that winning the Cold War meant budget deficits and all the problems that they bring. He also knew that implementing Reaganomics would bring long-term gains but also some very strong short-term pain. By knowing history he could craft effective long-term policy and gird his administration against the slings and arrows from his opponents for the downside that those policies bring.

This president has no idea what will work in either the domestic or international sphere. He does not realize that the country can ill afford expensive new social programs while we run a budget deficit that amounts to 10% of GDP. Obama does not understand that if you commit yourself to win a war in Afghanistan, you have to make a reasonable effort to do so and not be hemmed in by left-wing captives of ideology.

Furthermore, the lesson of Herbert Hoover is that a president does not raise taxes when the economy is in the tank. It is not smart economics. Full stop."

What has this increasingly failed President done right to this point in his presidency?

Someone?

ANYONE?

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"All of the President's 'fixes' will just create new problems"

"Obama's Doctor Shortage":

"By drastically increasing demand while doing little to increase primary care physician supply, ObamaCare will turn health care into a consumer nightmare: longer wait times, shorter visits, higher prices, and decreased customer satisfaction. The U.S. will have to rely increasingly on nurse practitioners and physician assistants to meet patient demand. According to the WHO, the nurse-to-physician ratio in Canada and the U.K. are 5.3 and 5.6, respectively, compared to 3.6 in the U.S. And as fewer bright young people pursue medicine due to the profession's general malaise and oppressive bureaucratic regulations, we're likely to see an even greater physician shortage---not just in primary care, but in specialty care as well."

Somehow, some way, the Idiocrats and their "regressive" pals never seem to get around to even considering things like this subject. In their zeal to get their beloved universal health care worldview agenda item rolling, they will say or do anything, regardless of the costs to our nation and to our people, but they'll never be honest about the consequences of their actions.

Do you think they would actually tell the truth about the ugly outrages contained in their version of health care "reform"?

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The Nutroots are getting antsy over their beloved public option's fate

....as well they should be.

This post says the votes are not there to get the "Medicare For All" stupidity into the final House version.

Of course this could be all sandbagging, but it smells like desperation.

(Hat tip: Dan Riehl)

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"Most tranparent Administration ever"?

Yeah, right.

Noteworthy:

"White House Counsel Greg Craig has indicated that he will refuse to allow any of the 18 new 'czar' positions created by President Obama to testify before Congress, according to Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the ranking Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Collins revealed during a committee hearing Thursday that she had spoken with Craig, who had earlier sent a letter on behalf of the president, and that Craig told her personally that Congress would not get a chance to ask fundamental questions of the czars about their roles and responsibilities.

'Indeed, yesterday when I was talking to Greg Craig, the president’s legal counsel, he made it very clear that the White House would prohibit any of these officials with significant policy responsibility from coming to testify before us if they are located within the Executive Office of the President,' Collins said in her written opening statement."

I can hear the Usual Suspect babble on this issue now: "B-b-b-b-b-b-but what about Tom Ridge?", in a feeble attempt to equate the MANY "czars" of Obamanation to the ONE Homeland Security post Ridge held before it was elevated to Cabinet level.

Why the "public options" are not going happen

Even Democrats understand the sheer folly of what's being proposed by their supposed leaders:

"Why don't we fix the two public options we have now instead of creating a third one?"

Responsible Health Care Reform

.....as opposed to the irresponsible health care reform we're likely to get from the Idiocrats, if left to their own devices.

The "Medicare For All" theme is back

Do these Idiocrats never learn?

As discussed here,that's one of the worst options they could possibly brand their version of "health care reform". It's clearly not favored by anyone, except for the respondants in "regressive" inspired push polling, and Usual Suspects near and far, who are a distinct minority.

"Medicare Part E" indeed!

Related:

"The Inevitable Medicare Cuts":

"But, contrary to the president's rhetoric, the bills that Congress is currently debating do cut Medicare.

For example, roughly 10.2 million seniors currently receive their health care through the Medicare Advantage program. That program offers many seniors benefits not included in traditional Medicare, including preventive-care services, coordinated care for chronic conditions, routine physical examinations, additional hospitalization, skilled nursing facility stays, routine eye and hearing examinations, and glasses and hearing aids. The bills currently making their way through Congress would cut payments to Medicare Advantage plans by $100 billion to $150 billion. In response, many insurers are expected to stop participating in the program, while others will probably increase the premiums they charge seniors. Millions of seniors will likely be forced off their current plans and back into traditional Medicare.

The Congressional Budget Office makes it clear that, at the very least, the cuts 'would reduce the extra benefits that would be made available to beneficiaries through Medicare Advantage
plans.' "

Hero worship revisited

HT: Jonah Goldberg.

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Obama's Stimulus job creation scoreboard

Here's the results so far:

Promised: 2.5 million

Created: 30, 383

Additional Jobs lost on his watch: Untold millions, with more to come

Vincent Reinhart thinks that the Obama administration’s financial reform package hits the trifecta of bad policy making:

"The White House proposal misdiagnoses the problem, fails to recognize the inherent adverse dynamics of regulation, and treats the bulk of the industry unfairly.

....and:

"Our fundamental problem is not that institutions deemed too big to fail do not get sufficient scrutiny. Our problem is that some institutions are deemed too big to fail."

It's not Obama's fault. We "raaaaaaaaaaacists" are sabotaging him, obviously.

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The Obama rhetoric versus the Obama reality

We've talked a lot about how badly Obama has failed on the economy and other major domestic issues, but we also need to keep focused on how he's endangered our national security.

In only nine months, The Obama administration is shaping up to be the most calamitous mistake the American public has ever had to endure.

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Health care "reform" means you'll be paying more for less

Price Waterhouse Cooper's study establishes that fact.

Noteworthy:

"The PWC projections track what The Heritage Foundation and many others have said about the legislation: It does not save money. It simply taxes those who have health coverage and uses the money to give care to others.

The White House is said to be livid. After all, President Obama’s claims that he makes care more affordable are exposed as a myth by the new study. Lawmakers claim the bill would 'save' money, but that’s not true for those who have insurance.

The only 'savings' would be to those who receive government-paid health care and subsidies at the cost of higher prices for everyone else. (Even if the legislation 'reduced the deficit', it would do so by making citizens pay more, not by controlling government spending.)"

I'm sure they ARE furious that the smoke and mirrors on this subject has been completely removed.

In addition, don't let the babble, dribble, drool and spew from the "regressives" who spout the "insurance company hack study" have any credibility with you or others..

From Protein Wisdom:

"It should be noted that the slander from tool Rother is against one of the most premiere accounting firms in the nation. Insurance companies did fund the study; however, businesses always pay the bill for their own auditing which does not invalidate the audit. Firms like PWC live or die by their reputations. So attacking where the study came from rather then addressing any ANY of the findings in the study is particularly stupid. Not unexpected, but stupid all the same.

So you think that the "eeeeeeeeevil insurance companies" deny too many claims?

......and that's one of the reasons we need the "public option", or full blown government heath care?

Let's take a looks at who is the biggest denier of health care claims among the major insurers.

Surprise, surprise!

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Obama and the Nobel prize: "The end of American e:xceptionalism"

WSJ:

"......(T)he Nobel citation declares that Mr. Obama's 'diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.'

Now, the world is a big place, much of it run by despots and crooks, each of whom gets the same vote in the U.N. General Assembly as America. The Europeans are applauding that at long last there is an American President willing to let himself and his country mingle as equals with this amorphous global 'majority.'

The Norwegians are on to something. In a mere nine months, the President has promulgated a vision for the U.S. role in the world that breaks with both Republican and Democratic predecessors. Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton's Secretary of State, called America the 'indispensable nation' a decade ago. Ronald Reagan called it a 'city on the Hill,' an example to the world.

Mr. Obama sees the U.S. differently, as weaker than it was and the rest of the planet as stronger, and so he calls for a humbler America, at best a first among equals, working primarily through the U.N. The world's challenges, he emphasized yesterday, 'can't be met by any one leader or any one nation.' What this suggests to us—and to the Norwegians—is the end of what has been called 'American exceptionalism.' This is the view that U.S. values have universal application and should be promoted without apology, and defended with military force when necessary."

Yet another look at Net Neutrality

Nick Schulz says the debate is getting more interesting.

Quoting computer scientist David Farber:

"The problem here is everyone talks about reasonable network management, but if you look at it from a technical perspective, someone trying to build new ways of operating networks is going to sit there saying, 'I wonder if this new brilliant idea is reasonable or not. And if I go through all the energy of implementing it and testing it, will someone in Washington say that that violates some reasonable network management criteria?' "

Obama's pursuit of "peace": All fluff, no substance

But it DOES make American and European lefties "feel better" about America, doesn't it?

Wow, what a deal!

Let's go a little deeper than the incessant babble and drool of the Cheerleaders goes:

"The committee said today that he had 'captured the world’s attention'. It is certainly true that his energy and aspirations have dazzled many of his supporters. Sadly, it seems they have so bedazzled the Norwegians that they can no longer separate hopes from achievement. The achievements of all previous winners have been diminished."

CBO's Obamacare costs are way too low

But we knew that already, didn't we?

ALG has some details

Noteworthy:

"CBO estimates on average that the total cost per individual per year will only be about $2,858—the cost of providing subsidized care to 29 million at a price of $829 billion. The problem is: the average cost of a premium in the United States is $4,700. Either the government plans on expanding coverage by providing below-average, substandard care -- or the cost estimate is grossly understated.

....Currently, only 80.5 million now receive their health care from the government. That means the Senate plan could expand government-run health care to 45 million additional people. The cost? At an average of $4,700 per premium, that would cost an additional $2.1 trillion over ten-years once fully implemented.

Which, of course, is unsustainable. That is why, over time, the quality of care would have to be watered down—i.e. rationed. Not even the tax increases of $406 billion that the bill proposes would be able to pay for it.

Therefore, the real problem with government-run health care, and all government entitlements, is its future burden to taxpayers and yet-unborn generations. Such programs are simply unsustainable. By 2020, according the Medicare and Social Security Trustees Reports, in addition to payroll taxes and premiums, Medicare and Social Security combined will also require an extra 27 percent of federal revenue. By 2030, the programs will need 49 percent of taxes to stay afloat. By 2040, 61 percent. In total, through the century these entitlements constitute some $107 trillion in unfunded liabilities."

Mark Perry examines the historical perspective of government health care cost overruns:

"Bottom Line: If history serves as an accurate guide for the actual cost of the current healthcare bill, we should be prepared for a ten-year cost of closer to $1.6 trillion, double the current estimate of $829 billion, and maybe even much higher.

One other thing: Those of you who expect that your health care costs will become less expensive or even free if Ombamacare manages to get enacted are in for a rude awakening.

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Coming Soon! The Obamacare Alaskan Cruise!

Sorry....the US can't afford your ailments anymore....so your "End of Life Guidance Counselor" has selected you to participate in an all-expense paid cruise!





The official cause of death will be certified by the coroner as "Global Warming".

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Tarnish on the saintly wife's halo

Kaus, on the Elizabeth Edwards follies:

"Elizabeth Edwards had to know at least that there was a good chance Young was not the father--and that her husband was. She certainly had known for a long time that her husband had had an affair with the mother, Rielle Hunter. Perhaps she wasn't proceeding with sure knowledge that she was asking Young to lie for her again, but it's hard to see how she wasn't proceeding with at least what libel lawyers call 'reckless disregard for the truth.' ... Did she ask Young if he was really the father before 'demanding'?. ....

Don't expect to read too much of this kind of stuff from the former Edwardsian cheerleaders locally. JR is certainly not going to put ace investigative reporter Lorraine Ahearn on it, and Cone is not going to talk too much about it.

They're going to stay pretty embarrassed about this whole thing for quite a while, until the political climate is right for a John Edwards' "redemption" type of thing.

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More on Net Neutrality

Once again, be careful of what you wish for:

"So it turns out that Google's enthusiasm for government-imposed 'net neutrality' is qualified. The Internet giant wants cumbersome network management rules applied to everyone—except Google.

....Last week FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski proposed new rules for regulating Internet operators and gave assurances that 'this is not about government regulation of the Internet.' But this dispute highlights the regulatory creep that net neutrality mandates make inevitable. Content providers like Google want to dabble in the phone business, while the phone companies want to sell services and applications.

The coming convergence will make it increasingly difficult to distinguish among providers of broadband pipes, network services and applications. Once net neutrality is unleashed, it's hard to see how anything connected with the Internet will be safe from regulation."