'The only time to kill a snake is before it comes out of the hole'

Here are some insights on the path of Obamacare.

Quote of the Day:

"People think this bill will do something to them rather than for them...” -- Rep. John Tanner (D-TN).

How right they are, Congressman.

More, regarding the final content of the bill:

".....Pelosi will rewrite the House bill before she puts it on the House floor. Now, who will she listen to? Mostly, herself.

As for those bewildered, assaulted, fearful health care industry lobbyists still sitting, almost silently, at the table hoping that Max Baucus saves them from being put “on the menu,” please consider that the House-Senate Conference Committee will write the only real bill. That process will be dominated by Pelosi, Waxman, George Miller, Kennedy (yes, from offstage), Dodd, Mikulski, Reid, Orszag, the Brothers Emanuel and Barack Obama."

I think they will have a little surprise awaiting them in the Senate if they don't lose the "public option" reform killer provision.

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'Oh, the humanity!'

(Hat tip: Get Liberty dot org)

Wasn't there a song about this? Let me think......

"Been Dazed and Confused for so long it's not true
Wanted healthcare reform, never bargained for you
Lots of people talk and few of them know,
Soul of Obamacare was created below

You hurt and abuse tellin' all of your lies
Run around Barry, Lord how you hypnotize
Lefty little Barry, we don't know where you've been
Gonna beat you Barry, let it begin"

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Villifying the insurance industry

"It's all those evil, wicked, mean and nasty insurance companies fault!" says the Wicked Witch of Washington.

Noteworthy:

"Pelosi said she favored a 'robust' public insurance plan to 'keep the insurance companies honest' by increasing competition that should bring down costs. She noted that all three House measures, and one version of the Senate legislation, include the so-called public option."

"Robust"?

"Keep the insurance companies honest"?

Try "poisonous" to quality of health care.

Try "killing off private health insurance completely".

It's just predictable pushback from one whose reach exceeds her grasp.

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Obama and the Law of Unintended Consequences

It doesn't look pretty for the Anointed One.

Noteworthy:

"President Obama is completing what for him has been quite a bad month: his signature initiative is becoming increasingly toxic, and Obama himself is beginning to bleed politically. His loss of support among independents and the rising opposition to his health-care proposals are the two most alarming developments for the president. In addition, restlessness and wariness among Democrats have quickly given way to deep concern; their angst is increasing with every passing day. That may well be amplified during the August recess, when members of Congress hear directly from their constituents about the exploding deficit and debt, their frustration with high unemployment and a sluggish economy, and their opposition to nationalizing our health-care system."

Once again, let's be specific: If Obama is defeated on Obamacare and Cap 'n trade, which now seems to be a likely outcome, he becomes the lamest on Lame ducks.

His presidency will effectively be OVER.

That's certainly something to look forward to this fall, and the following November when the effects will be felt in the national election, as the "progressive" short-lived political circle jerk continues to self-destruct.

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Obama says 'You can keep your own health care'?

What a cruel, twisted lie the Thug-in-Chief has propagated.

Here's a major reason why:It destroys ERISA.

Excerpt:

"The reality is that once Erisa is broken the whole universe of business benefits will be distorted by Congress’s gravitational pull. For instance, some employers are trying to save on insurance costs by giving workers financial incentives to lose weight or exercise more. Pressure groups such as AARP and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees are demanding that Democrats prohibit this practice as discriminatory. “If you give one person a discount, someone else is going to end up paying more,” an AARP lobbyist told Kaiser Health News. Well, yes. That’s the point.

The employer-sponsored system has its problems, but one of them is not a lack of Congressional supervision. The House Erisa provisions are definitive proof that ObamaCare would in fact erode 'the health care you have.' "

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Don't be fooled by the health care 'co-op' tags

It's just another way to hide the loathesome "public option" provision of Obamacare.

Noteworthy:

"If by health care 'co-op,' Congress means allowing private associations to collectively buy health insurance for their members or operate a health insurance exchange, or allowing people to buy health insurance from a non-profit, member-owned private insurer, then those would be positive, pro-consumer developments.

However, simply slapping the word 'cooperative' onto a new 'insurer,' but then specifying that the government — not the policyholders — picks the board of directors (as Sen. Schumer wants), or that taxpayers will subsidize it, or that it has to pay doctors and hospitals at Medicare rates, would just be an exercise in trying to disguise a 'public plan.' "

This is just another attempt at "progressive" smoke and mirrors, put forth in an effort to keep you poor and stupid when it comes to "health care reform" in the Obamanation.

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Here's the definitive information aboth the lies and deception in Obamacare

To say that this whole mess is an "improvement" over the current system is perhaps the most outrageous of all the deception, deflection, and lies the Obamanation and the Obamabots have made so far.

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Hiding the actual costs of Obamacare

Cato's Michael Cannon:

"House Democrats are scrambling to come up with tax increases or other means of paying for their $1.2 trillion medical insurance plan. Yet the legislation they're trying to cram through Congress is even costlier than they'd have you believe.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the House Democrats' legislation would spend $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years. Yet that cost estimate is based on a tried-and-true budget gimmick that members of Congress use to hide how much of your money they want to spend.

In reality, the Democrats' health care bill is at least 50% more expensive than the $1.2 trillion estimate suggests.

President Obama and his fellow partisans want the federal government to guarantee medical insurance coverage to all Americans. According to estimates by the left-leaning Urban Institute, providing health insurance to all of the uninsured would cost just under $2 trillion over the next 10 years.

And that's a minimum. Since any conceivable change would end up subsidizing some people who already have coverage, the cost would be a good bit higher.

....Indeed, Democrats aren't reforming anything. They're just throwing more money at a broken health care sector. And they'd prefer you not know how much."

The lies about the cost are right up there in line with the lies about what actual provisions are contained in the proposed legislation:

" 'Here's a guarantee that I've made: If you have insurance that you like, then you will be able to keep that insurance. If you've got a doctor that you like, you will be able to keep your doctor.'

This is an exact quote from President Obama's AARP meeting on Tuesday. The transcript is here. But a transcript shouldn't be necessary. The president has made the same detailed and absolute assurance on a half dozen occasions in the past few weeks. Only once was he pressed on it, by ABC's increasingly head-and-shoulders-above-the-rest-of-the-White-House-correspondents Jake Tapper, and the president deflected the question and quickly moved on.

The president has to flee from questions about these twin assurances that he routinely gives because they are not true. Have never been true. Cannot be made true.

....The president's pitch for his radical makeover of American medicine is built on a big lie of 'you get to keep what you have.' "

More:

"Read the healthcare bill? You don't need to read the bill! Just vote Yes."

Meanwhile, the compromise deal worked out in the Senate is unacceptable:

".....instead of a government-run 'public option,' it would set up a nationwide health-insurance co-op.

Now, if this was really going to be a co-op like rural electrical co-ops or your local health-food store — owned and controlled by its workers and the people who use its services — it would be a meaningless but harmless diversion. America already has some 1,300 insurance companies, so it's hard to see what one more would add, but it would be unlikely to do much harm.

But these aren't true co-ops. The members wouldn't choose its officers — the president would. Plus, the secretary of Health and Human Services would have to approve its business plan, and thus could force it to offer whatever benefits, premiums and reimbursement schedules Washington wants. Finally, the federal government would provide start up, and possibly ongoing, subsidies.

A 'co-op' run by the federal government, under rules imposed by the federal government and with federal funding is simply government-run health insurance by another name.

Or, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid put it, 'We're going to have some type of public option, call it "co-op," call it what you want.' "

I call it typical deceipt by the party of "transparancy".

Michelle Malkin: 'Obama is a racial opportunist'

Did you notice how glum Lauer the Twerp was at the end of the piece?

He obviously thought he could use this opprotunity as a "teachable moment" to advance his agenda nonsense, but Malkin flat out nailed it (and him), leaving Lauer little choice other than to shut up, and move on.

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Today's thoughts on 'Hope 'n Change'

Obamacare: 'Reform' at the expense of quality health care for Seniors'

Details:

Losing Your Doctor:

"Under the current system, more and more seniors are discovering that it is becoming harder and harder to find and keep doctors who will accept Medicare patients. A 2008 survey found that 29% of the Medicare beneficiaries it surveyed who were looking for a primary care doctor had a problem finding one to treat them, up from 24% the year before. This problem is compounded by the fact that our nation is facing a growing shortage of doctors. Obamacare promises to only make these problems worse. First, Obama plans to pay for up to a third of his plan by cutting $313 billion in Medicare reimbursements to health care providers over the next 10 years. This will only force more doctors to stop seeing Medicare patients. Second, Obama’s public “option” could decrease the annual net income of hospitals by $36 billion, while the annual net income of physicians could drop by $33.1 billion. Facing a sharp reduction in their pay, more doctors will retire early and more bright students will elect to pursue other careers, thereby reducing access and ensuring lower quality health care for future generations as well."


Losing Your Coverage:

"22% of all Medicare patients, which translates to 10.5 million seniors, are currently enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans. These health plans cover all of the traditional Medicare benefits and much more, including coor­dinated care and care-management programs for enrollees with chronic conditions as well as additional hospitalization and skilled nursing facility stays. President Obama has proposed killing this program entirely. A new study for the Florida Association of Health Plans found that, because Medicare Advantage plans have richer benefits and lower deductibles and co-payments than traditional Medicare, seniors in that state would face dramatically higher payments if forced to give up their Medicare Advantage plans. Cost increases would range from $2,214 a year in Jacksonville to $3,714 a year in Miami."


Rationing Your Care:

"Another centerpiece to Obamacare is the creation of a federal health board that will ration your health care. Obama supporter and infanticide advocate Peter Singer made the case for rationing health care recently in the New York Times, writing: 'The task of health care bureaucrats is then to get the best value for the resources they have been allocated.' Conservatives in Congress have given Obamacare supporters every opportunity to disavow government-rationed health care, but Obamacare supporters have voted down every anti-rationing amendment proposed. Make no mistake, Obama plans to pay for expanded coverage for the young and healthy by denying treatments to the old and sick. Americans can do better."


Here's the truth about Obamacare, in response to the Obamanator's "town hall" meeting yesterday:





If the Obamacrats don't lose the "public option" from any of the various plans being floated, health care reform is DEAD.

If you are really concerned about achieving some measure of health care reform, tell your elected Federal officials to insist that the public option disappear post haste.

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Dems don't want you to see the flow chart for Obamacare

The PDF of the chart won't upload to Blogger, but you can see it here.

HOW does the Obamanation think its's going to save on health care with that kind of bureaucratic nightmare in place?

I know they think we're too stupid for our own good, but the notion of "saving costs" and "simplicity" in Obamacare is not out in left field, it's somewhere near the North Pole at this point.

This is why the whole issue of Obamacare is one big nightmare that needs to go away, at least in its present socialized form.

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More Cambridge police officers speak out

We continue to hear the "progressive" sources' desperate attempts to distract attention away from Gates' bad behavior by coming up with any little distraction that will focus attention on Sgt. Crowley.

And still no apology to Crowley from Gates, Obama, Patrick, and Cambridge Mayor Simmons.

Why is it that the "raaaaaaaacism" and "hate crime" thing only works one way?

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'The Second Coming of Keynes'

"Paul Krugman wants to be our savior."

More:

"Like a savior, he would perform a miracle for us: that of turning consumption into wealth. But who would accept a messiah with such a John the Baptist as John Maynard Keynes, who proclaimed that credit expansion could perform the 'miracle … of turning a stone into bread'?

In any case, Krugman is a curious kind of savior: one more interested in exercising his brilliance than in actually helping people. In the Newsweek profile, he said of his policy advocacy,

"I am not overflowing with human compassion. It's more of an intellectual thing."

Indeed, there is something almost calculated in the unblinking wrongheadedness of both Keynes and Krugman. You're not likely to get much notoriety as a public intellectual advocating common sense."

Read the whole thing.

It's a brilliant and thoroughly devastating rebuke to the Klown Prince of "progressive" agenda economics.

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Obama's Dorian Gray revelation

Hat tip: ALG.

Next up for the Obamanation: Wide open borders, and completely unchecked illegal immigration

"The Administration is under great political pressure not to have an effective immigration policy. The fact is there's huge political pressure coming from the extreme Left that wants open borders and do not want illegal immigration to be stopped."



Hat tip: Washington News Observer.

The infinite wisdom of dogs

Seniors will suffer under Obamacare

There is no question about it

But that will not stop the "progressives" who want to create a smokescreen to hide this fact, or those who just want to direct attention away from this point in order to save their beloved worldview agenda item of "universal health care" from dying the death it most assuredly deserves.



Let's make sure these cretins do not get a chance to inflict medical misery on your grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, and eventually you, all in the name of "progress".

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When a hate crime isn't a hate crime

I guess it all depends on the race of the victim, doesn't it?

Here's all you need to know:

"Early Friday morning, Barbara Frische said she woke up to the sound of glass breaking inside her East Austin home.

She called police but didn't learn what had shattered the double-paned window in her 4-year-old son's room until after police arrived. Officers showed her a brick with a note attached: 'Keep Eastside Black. Keep Eastside Strong.'

'It's the first time anything like this has ever happened to me,' said Frische, who is white. She has lived in her house on 13th Street for about 10 years.

The incident doesn't fall under the hate crime category, which is a classification of a charge but not a charge itself, said Austin police Sgt. Richard Stresing. He said the charge probably would be criminal mischief and deadly conduct, both misdemeanors.

Crimes based on race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, disability or gender are flagged as hate crimes, Stresing said, so they can be referred to the Department of Justice. The note attached to the brick didn't include hate speech, he said."

James Taranto, at Best of the Web:

"Stresing’s explanation is confusing--and confused. There is no law against 'hate speech,' which is protected by the First Amendment unless it rises to the level of incitement or fighting words.

Further, Texas’ James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act does allow for enhanced penalties in cases of both criminal mischief and deadly conduct (the latter an offense under Title 5 of the Texas Penal Code). The Byrd Act defines a hate crime as one in which the defendant targets a victim or property 'because of the defendant’s bias or prejudice against a group identified by race, color, disability, religion, national origin or ancestry, age, gender, or sexual preference.'

If a suspect is caught and prosecuted, perhaps his lawyer can convince a jury that there is reasonable doubt that the crime was motivated by bias or prejudice. But the note attached to the brick would seem to be prima facie evidence of a hate crime. The police’s dismissal of that possibility is awfully odd."

Actually, it's not.

In this so-called "post racial" era of Obama, a day and age, where a disgraceful example of bad behavior by an Ivy League elitist African American scholar gets summarily rationalized as being a result of "racism", why would we expect consistency in the application of ethical, moral, and legal determination?

We all know how these "progressive" double standards work.

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Speaking of arrogant NYT columnists

Here's some comment on an even more arrogant and bigger assoholic than Friedman:

Paul Krugman:

"The standard competitive market model just doesn’t work for health care: adverse selection and moral hazard are so central to the enterprise that nobody, nobody expects free-market principles to be enough."

Hodak Value:

"Whenever I see such nonsense, I have to keep reminding myself that the trade theories for which Krugman won his Nobel Prize were explanatory and predictive. Krugman did not win a prize for mechanism design; he could not have predicted E-bay.

The idea of people bidding for stuff they can’t really see from people that they’ve never met is fraught with asymmetrical information. Honest sellers could not hope to compete with liars selling competitive products. Honest bidders could not hope to compete with fraudulent bids that may not be honored. Such a market, failing as it does the test of a 'standard competitive market model' could never exist.

Except that it does.

E-bay exists because they managed to attach a credibility mechanism to their bidding process. This mechanism rewards people for neither understating nor overstating the qualities of the items they have put up for bid. It encourages honest bidding."

As posted at Carpe Diem

Read this gem found in the comments:

"One wonders if Krugman can predict the time of day let alone anything else...

'Daniel Okrent, one time editor of the New York Times wrote the following back in May of '05: "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults'..."

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Tom Friedman and Green Scaremongering, pt 2

Today's "Do As I Say, Not As I Do" global warming climate change moment.

Globalization maven, New York Times arrogant ass hypocritical columnist Tom Terrific Friedman, on Cap 'n Trade:

"Yes, this bill’s goal of reducing U.S. carbon emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 is nowhere near what science tells us we need to mitigate climate change. But it also contains significant provisions to prevent new buildings from becoming energy hogs, to make our appliances the most energy efficient in the world and to help preserve forests in places like the Amazon."

Guess who lives here?

Just a day in the life of yet another elite media jerk.

Hat tip: American Digest.

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The Obamanation's slide continues

"Strong disapproval" has an 11 point spread. At this rate, don't be surprised if the spread is at -20 or greater by Labor day.

The more Obama talks about Obamacare, the worse it gets for him. When he starts on his Cap 'n trade PR parade, it will only get worse, as pundits will continue to poke huge holes in that piece of.....legislation, in much the same way as they've made Obamacare look like a piece of Swiss cheese.

I wonder whether he's started his contemplation on whether it's better for to burn out, or to just fade away into obscurity, where the only historical reference will have to do with the uniqueness of his election, and of the damage he caused in his brief presidency.

On the other hand, perhaps his well documented arrogance has him firmly trapped in La La land, where nothing ever goes wrong, and he remains clueless about the imminence of his failed presidency.

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Mars attacks!

Imagine this conversation between two invading Martians intent on destroying Earth:

Martian # 1: We must destroy the Earthlings. But how?

Martian # 2: Why not let man-made global warming do it for us?

Martian # 1: Are you kidding? We do not have 100,000 years.

Martian # 2: Why not just wait for Earthlings to pass their Cap and Trade Climate Bills?

Martian # 1: Great idea! That way the energies of the planet remain preserved while the Earthlings quickly tax themselves to death.

Martian # 2: I think it would be a win-win for us.

Martian # 1: I agree. Hey, you want to watch a movie? I have my favorite sci-fi DVD with me, An Inconvenient Truth, starring Al Gore.

Martian # 2: I cannot right now. I have plans to beam down to the United States because I am in need of surgery. You know it is common knowledge that America provides the best medical care in the galaxy.

Martian # 1: But we Martians have good universal healthcare.

Martian # 2: Yeah, but good luck. I am presently on an eighty-year waiting list.

Martian # 1: But you do not have any Earthling American dollars to pay for surgery!

Martian # 2: That's not a problem. I don't need any. I'm an alien.

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So you think there's some sort of 'moral imperative' regarding CO2?

You may be right, but not for the "scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming" agenda issue lies the True Believers want to embed as "settled science".



(hat tip: CO2 Science)

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Thug Politics: Republicans are not allowed to say 'government run health care'

And our Roch-ette scientist "progressives" say we're being paranoid?

Yeah, right.

Noteworthy:

"What we proposed as language was as follows, 'House Democrats unveiled a government-run health care plan,' Carter said. 'Our response from Franking was, "You cannot use that language. You must use, 'The House majority unveiled a public option health care plan,' which is Pelosi-speak, or 'just last week the House majority unveiled a health care plan which I believe will cost taxpayers…' "

Nonsense like this is no longer unbelievable in the era of the Obamanation.

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Mark Levin, on "progressive" statism

Excerpts:

"You know, Ronald Reagan built a pretty darn good foundation with conservative principles. Was it perfect? No. But it was the most perfect in my lifetime. And you would expect the next Republican president and Republican presidents subsequent to them to build on that foundation.

They didn’t. They lurched back to FDR New Dealism and Great Society. And for some reason, Republicans seem to think they don’t have the ability to slowly explain things to the American people and reverse course. They do, but they won’t because it’s hard work. It’s easier to go along.

Of course you can’t abolish Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid even though they will be abolished one day by their own weight. There’s no question about it in my mind. But what you can do is introduce some real reforms that slowly unravel them in the sense that people who really don’t need them shouldn’t get them. There should be limits on them. There should be private aspects to them.

Look, the statist knows exactly what he’s doing. I explain in the book why Social Security was created the way it was created. As opposed to a welfare program for poor people, FDR wanted to imprison everybody in the system. Lyndon Johnson wanted to use that trust fund for general obligations. This is all intended to build a political base, so if anybody dares to question these entitlements, they’ll be defeated. What we have to do is explain to the next generation: Do you understand that these programs are broke? Do you understand that you owe all this money? And explain it in a way that’s understandable."



"The liberal vision is, to be even more precise, that the individual needs to be controlled, that his aspirations need to be limited, that he has to learn to get along and go along. And that if that means dispiriting the individual, if that means economic or other forms or repression, then so be it for the good of the general society. And that a handful of individuals, self-appointed, who assume power one way or another, they will make the decisions for all the rest of us. In one form or another, that’s what the statist believes."


" You and I know that at every level we’re under attack. We know the next shoe to drop is to create citizenship for illegal aliens and to open the borders to more because they want to change the demography and they want to change the electorate. We know this.

We know what they want to do with national health care. It’s not about making sure people have health care. You know, just because you have a health care policy, doesn’t mean you actually get health care, timely and in quality. No, it’s to secure as many drone-like citizens as you possibly can.

We know what they’re up to, and at bottom, what I’m saying is, we have to reacquaint ourselves with why we are a great nation, with who we are, with our founding, with our history, and what it is that makes humanity prosper and flourish. Everything Obama does counteracts that. Everything that this Congress is doing counteracts that."

Transcript here.

No wonder Levin is so high up on the Dem/Lefty/"Progressive" Looney Tooner hate list.

He makes them look like the slobbering mental midgets they actually are.

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The mis-use and abuse of racial and identity politics never stops, does it?

Here's the type of health care reform Obama NEEDS to get behind

The Chief Thug needs to come to the understanding that the "progressive" version of "health care reform", including the "public option, is dead in the water.

Why?

Only the most looniest of lefties really wants to support an out of control spending approach that covers slackers and illegal aliens, at the cost of sacrificing quality of life health care for seniors.

If Obama and his "progressive" enablers REALLY want reform in a program that most people will support, THIS is an approximation of what it should contain.

Key point:

"Mr. Obama is backing himself into a corner by insisting on the false political dilemma of either doing nothing or putting U.S. health care into government hock. This leaves him trying to pick off one or two Republicans to give a facade of bipartisanship and then ramming government control into law; or else failing to pass anything and damaging his Presidency.

This political leap of bad faith is already scaring moderates in Mr. Obama’s own party, as well as voters concerned about the tax increases and medical rationing that it will require. There is a middle way to success, Mr. President, but it means pursuing policies that are true to your campaign rhetoric about bipartisanship rather than to the liberal dream of government-run health care."

The odds are that he won't do it.

As I said elsewhere about him: hubris.

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Obama sends the WRONG message about the interaction between public and police

......particularly to the black community, as evidenced by his knee-jerk response to Henry Louis Gates' bad behavior in the incident with the police at his Cambridge MA home.

Noteworthy:

"Mr. Obama’s broadside against local cops sends the wrong message to Americans of every race about how to respond to misunderstandings with police. His comments may also do more to aggravate than alleviate tensions between police officers and the minority communities they serve."

And, as discussed elsewhere, gives carte blanche to opportunistic race baiters everywhere to rationalize bad behavior.

And allows further babble, dribble, drool, and spew from "progressives".

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The 'Scientific Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming' scam takes yet another broadside hit

A new peer reviwed study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research has established that nature, not man, is responsible for "climate change".

Noteworthy, from the study itself:

"Time series for the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) and global tropospheric temperature anomalies (GTTA) are compared for the 1958−2008 period. GTTA are represented by data from satellite microwave sensing units (MSU) for the period 1980–2008 and from radiosondes (RATPAC) for 1958–2008. After the removal from the data set of short periods of temperature perturbation that relate to near-equator volcanic eruption, we use derivatives to document the presence of a 5- to 7-month delayed close relationship between SOI and GTTA. Change in SOI accounts for 72% of the variance in GTTA for the 29-year-long MSU record and 68% of the variance in GTTA for the longer 50-year RATPAC record.

Because El Niño−Southern Oscillation is known to exercise a particularly strong influence in the tropics, we also compared the SOI with tropical temperature anomalies between 20°S and 20°N. The results showed that SOI accounted for 81% of the variance in tropospheric temperature anomalies in the tropics. Overall the results suggest that the Southern Oscillation exercises a consistently dominant influence on mean global temperature, with a maximum effect in the tropics, except for periods when equatorial volcanism causes ad hoc cooling.

That mean global tropospheric temperature has for the last 50 years fallen and risen in close accord with the SOI of 5–7 months earlier shows the potential of natural forcing mechanisms to account for most of the temperature variation."

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The 'Great Unifier' unmasks himself

.....and once again reveals himself to be the obnoxious Thug-in-Chief we've known for quite some time now.

Noteworthy:

"It is truly a sad day in America when the president of the United States fans the flames of racial hatred. The man elected to be president of all the people, in his speech at the NAACP basically said, though America is racist, sexist and homophobic, you can make it in spite of those white SOB's attempts to stop you. Wonderful. How inspiring. The NAACP audience erupted in applause. Obama's condemnation was 'red meat' to the liberal, protective of their victim status, organization."

The outrage of Obama's words are a driving force for the rising occurence of bad behavior of people like Henry Louis Gates excused by using the race card.

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The Thug-in-Chief strong arms the CBO director

It's just what you would expect from the Dale Earnhardt wannabee who occupies the White House, particularly when someone refuses to sanctify the deception and lies about a favored presidential agenda item.

Noteworthy:

"As Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the Republican who ran CBO from 2003 to 2005, put it, 'The only appearance could be that they’re leaning on him. CBO was created for Congress, for independent analysis. The White House did him [Elmendorf] a terrible disservice.'

In retrospect, it's probably not nearly as big a deal when compared to the ENORMOUS disservice The Thug is doing to the nation.

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Can you smell what The Barack is cooking?

The only problem is that this isn't the WWE, and this isn't Summer Slam we're talking about.

The danger here is for real, and his scripting is deadly serious. And there's no need for kayfabe on his part.

It's real.

(Hat tip: Jammie Wearing Fool, by way of Jus' Sayin' (Dallas).)

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It's official: The Obama Agenda is in a Recession

I guess that's to be expected, considering the deception, lies, arrogance, grandstanding, strong-arming and posturing of the Thug-in-Chief, isn't it?

Noteworthy:

"For Mr. Obama, this is all a potentially disastrous turn of events. On Capitol Hill, delay favors the opposition and tends to lead to defeat. The longer a bill sits around, the more its contents are dissected and the less likely it is to pass. Mr. Obama realizes this fact, which is why he is pressing for a quick vote on his health-care reform.

His plan has been to exploit the economic downturn to enact his entire agenda, not just the stimulus. The president's position, which he repeated again this week, is that his health, energy and education reforms are necessary to create a sustainable economic recovery. It's a clever political argument, but it makes little economic sense and few people buy it.

That's not all. The stimulus is such a large increase in spending that it turned the deficit into a political issue. There is a growing national wariness to adding billions (or trillions) to the budget, even for a relatively popular cause like health care.

Had Mr. Obama and Democrats proceeded differently, they'd have better odds now for enacting their agenda. They are victims of their own tactics."

Let's hope Barnes is right.

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So which opinions will Sotomayor hold after her confirmation?

The ones she professed during her public Senate hearing? Or the ones she's had for all the previous years of her judicial life?

You get three guesses on the correct answer, and the first two don't count.

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Has Ted Kennedy torpedoed Obamacare?

Bill Kristol thinks this just might do the trick, as Kennedy has come right out and said Obamacare means rationing of healthcare.

Excerpt:

"For Kennedy and his co-author, Bob Shrum, have let the rationing cat out of the bag. And that's a problem for President Obama and the Democrats. Make no mistake: Beyond all the other crippling problems with the Democrats' health care proposal--its cost at a time of massive deficits, the tax increases it requires at a time of recession, its preference for government over the private sector and for central planning over free competition--the deepest vulnerability of Obamacare is that it (intentionally) puts us on a course towards government rationing of health care."

Quoting the The Swimmer, and co-author Shrum, in the linked Newsweak article:

"We also need to move from a system that rewards doctors for the sheer volume of tests and treatments they prescribe to one that rewards quality and positive outcomes. For example, in Medicare today, 18 percent of patients discharged from a hospital are readmitted within 30 days--at a cost of more than $15 billion in 2005.

Most of these readmissions are unnecessary, but we don't reward hospitals and doctors for preventing them. By changing that, we'll save billions of dollars while improving the quality of care for patients."

Kristol again:

"For in reality the government isn't going simply to reward 'good"'and penalize 'bad' admissions. It's going to prevent insurance companies from paying for 'unnecessary' admissions and procedures, if those companies want to participate in the government system.

In other words, government bureaucrats are going to deem entire categories of treatment inefficient for all or certain categories of patients, and put those treatments out of bounds for doctors and hospitals."

But we knew that already, didn't we?

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Earthrise

Forty years on.

I remember.

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'Send In The Clowns'

(Hat tip: Fred Gregory)

Obama: How do we scorn you? Let me count the ways......

Summing up the essential Sad Sack-ness of the Obamanation so far.

Noteworthy:

"....Obama seems to believe that saying one thing, while doing another, somehow makes it so. His first budget was titled 'A New Era of Fiscal Responsibility,' even as his own projections showed a decade's worth of historically high deficits. He vowed no new taxes on 95 percent of Americans, then jacked up cigarette taxes and indicated a willingness to consider new health-care taxes as part of his reform package. He said he didn't want to take over General Motors on the day that he took over General Motors.

Such is the extent of Obama's magical realism that he can promise to post all bills on the Internet five days before signing them, serially break that promise and then, when announcing that he wouldn't even try anymore, have a spokesman present the move as yet another example of 'providing the American people more transparency in government.'

What the new president has not quite grasped is that the American people understand both irony and cognitive dissonance. Instead, Obama has mistaken his personal popularity for a national predilection toward emergency-driven central planning. He doesn't get that Americans prefer the slower process of building political consensus based on reality, and at least a semblance of rational deliberation rather than one sky-is-falling legislative session after another."

And, as already established, that "personal popularity" is an illusion.

(Hat tip: Instapundit.)

Related: Obama's Summer of Discontent.

Key point:

"In sorting through all of this, it would be silly and wishful thinking on the part of Republicans to pretend that Obama is in free-fall. But it would be equally silly and demonstrative of wishful thinking on the part of Democrats to ignore the warning signs. Barack Obama is no longer sailing on a summer sea. A public that was strongly supportive of Obama has, in six months, become increasingly wary of and resistant to his policies. He is governing in a manner that is different, and more liberal, than they were led to expect. Obama's soothing words are beginning to fall a bit flat, as is his effort to blame everything on his predecessor. That worked for a season, but that season has come to an end. And Obama is increasingly beginning to sound (and spin) like a conventional politician.

Worst of all, in my estimation, Obama is prescribing exactly the wrong antidote for our ailing economy. I may be mistaken; if so, and if Obamaism is sound economics, he could turn out to be a political Colossus. But if I, along with others far more knowledgeable about economics than I am, are right, then the ripples we are seeing will soon become large breakers, ones that may well begin to wash away recent Democratic gains and, in the process, do enormous, and perhaps irreparable, damage to modern liberalism."

Wehner is being charitable here.

Obama is in over his head, and the public is starting to figure it out.

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I wonder when the NEXT 'official revision' on the 'Stimulus' will be forthcoming?

Perhaps just as we get ready for "Stimulus" II?

Also, can we make sure Slow Joe STAYS asleep?

Minor little details about the costs of Obamacare that 'progressives' don't want you to know about

When we consider the hidden costs of entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, it's clear the true costs of Obamacare are FAR more than what the program's pimps are telling you.

The Hidden Cost of ObamaCare

By Robert Romano

"It is now projected that through 2080, more than $104 trillion will be owed in unfunded liabilities to Medicare and Social Security—or $89 trillion and $15.1 trillion, respectively.

It's an absurd figure to look at, let alone to begin planning to somehow pay for. Yet, such is the hidden cost of entitlements—at least the cost that the Board of Trustees for Medicare and Social Security is now willing to admit to.

And make no mistake about it: It is a cost that will bury the public treasury—along with the taxpayers expected to foot the astronomical, insurmountable bill.

The basic lesson here is that when something—whether it be health care or retirement funds—is guaranteed to everybody, it goes ever deeper into the red.

Far, far into the red. That is why entitlements are not—and never can or will be—deficit "neutral." The total cost is not how much money is allocated by Congress, but how much money Congress promises to continue paying out through the entitlement for decades and decades to come.

The irony is that the $104 trillion price tag, horrendous as it is, may actually be small in comparison to what Americans will really be forced to pay once the new government-run health care plan is implemented.

Consider this: Under the House version of the so-called public "option," individuals up to 400 percent of the poverty level, or making approximately $43,320 or less annually, will be eligible for some level of health coverage under the plan whether through the public "option," Medicaid, or otherwise.

There's a small problem. As of 2006, there were approximately 91.5 million people aged 25-65 who fall into that income bracket, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Factor in the nearly 35 million who were 65 and older at that time, and the total figure comes to over 125.8 million who will be eligible for government-administered health care.

And once the new so-called public "option" crowds out and eliminates all other private health options (as the program's sponsors fully expect it to do according to page 16 of the bill), sooner or later the total entitlement will extend to all 125.8 million.

The cost to taxpayers? Far, far more than we can possibly bear.

Presently, the average premium for single coverage is $4,700, according to the National Coalition on Health Care. If all 125.8 million of those eligible received fully-funded "average" health plans, the total burden to taxpayers would rise to a staggering $591.26 billion annually.

But let's just deal with the 91.5 million aged 25-65. They alone would cost the taxpayers $430.05 billion annually. This means that if nothing else changed—the population, inflation, the average cost of premiums, etc.—by 2080, the unfunded liabilities would rise to $30.1 trillion above the Board of Trustees' current $104 trillion estimate. But, of course, that's a low-ball figure, since the population will rise, inflation will increase, and undoubtedly so, too, will the cost of the average premium.

Of course, Barack Obama is ever-optimistic. Or, perhaps, simply duplicitous. Just a week ago, he said, "I've said that it's got to be budget neutral, it's got to be deficit neutral, and so whatever bill is produced has to be paid for, and that creates some difficulties because people would like to get the good stuff without paying for it."

Well, that's one way of putting it. The fact is, once the hidden costs of these entitlements—Social Security, Medicare, and the public "option—are fully realized over the next century, the American people will not be getting anything good at all—including the most basic health care we now take for granted. A country that has been plunged into decade after decade of half-trillion dollar annual deficits won't have a plug nickel left for adequate health care—and barely enough left for funeral expenses."

Are you sure Biden didn't say this?

From Cato@Liberty:

"Reacting to a statement by former GAO comptroller general David Walker that 'you can’t reduce costs by expanding coverage,' [White House National Economic Council Director Lawrence] Summers said President Obama rejects that view. 'We won’t make progress in costs without addressing access,' Summers said."

Yet another example of the "we-had-to-save-the-patient-by-killing-him" School of Logic, as exemplified by Obamacare and "progressives" in general.

'Next?'

(hat tip: Carpe Diem)

Today's edition of 'Every Picture Tells a Story, Don't It?'

Actually, the label would be more accurate if it said "Wrong v. Right".

(hat tip: Patriot Post US)

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They've got this one already produced and reading to run when needed

Telling the truth about Obamacare

Don't expect Obama Magnus and the Blue Bozo Brigades to stop lying about Obamacare. They figure they'll get it rushed through into law before you figure out just how bad it actually is.

Noteworthy:

"Many extravagant claims have been made on behalf of the various health care "reforms" now emerging from Congress and the White House. But on closer inspection, virtually all prove to be false.

Yet even as many Americans start to have second thoughts about our government's possible takeover of the health care system, Congress is rushing to make it happen."

Read the rest for the truthful counter to the "Progressive" propaganda.

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Knock Knock: 'Open up! It's the Obamacare Health Care Police, and we're here for an intervention....'

It's just one more thing to look forward to from Obamacare.

Excerpt:

'We are from the government,' says the man, 'and we’re here to help.'

Is this a scene from the over-heated imagination of an addlepated conspiracy theorist? Or is it something akin to what is actually envisioned by the health-care reform bill approved this week by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee.

The committee’s official summary of the bill says: 'Authorizes a demonstration program to improve immunization coverage. Under this program, CDC will provide grants to states to improve immunization coverage of children, adolescents, and adults through the use of evidence-based interventions. States may use funds to implement interventions that are recommended by the Community Preventive Services Task Force, such as reminders or recalls for patients or providers, or home visits.'

Home visits? What exactly is the state going to do when it sends people to 'implement interventions' in private homes designed 'to improve immunization coverage of children'?"

Perhaps they'll use the "intervention" to find out if there are any undeclared tobacco users who underpay their Obamacare premiums in the household:

Noteworthy:

"In other words, a person could have been admitted to hospitals three times for heroin overdoses, or been pregnant five times out of wedlock, or been treated for venereal diseases at least once per year for the past five years, but none of these factors could be used to charge that person a higher insurance premium.

If they smoked a pipe it would be a different story—depending, of course, on what was in the pipe. They could be charged a higher premium if it was tobacco—but apparently not if it was marijuana, hashish or crack cocaine.

'Health status underwriting and the imposition of pre-existing condition exclusions are prohibited in all individual and group employer markets,' says the committee’s summary. ' Rates within a geographic region may only vary by family composition, the value of the benefits package, tobacco use, and age by a factor of not more than two to one. Guaranteed issue will be required for all insurers operating in the individual and group health insurance markets.' "

And then, of course, we have the mechanism by which coverage for abortion will be mandated under Obamacare:



After that, it won't be any big deal to morph "mandatory abortion coverage" into just plain old "mandatory abortion", will it?

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Pat McCrory: Where's Our Stimulus $$??

NC Mayor: Where's Our Stimulus $$??

Shared via AddThis

Libthink at its worst: 'Why We Must Ration Healthcare'

Here's the early rationale and excuse for what's surely on the way with Obamacare:"Healthcare rationing is good for you. And you will like it!"

How offensive is this?

"Rationing health care means getting value for the billions we are spending by setting limits on which treatments should be paid for from the public purse. If we ration we won’t be writing blank checks to pharmaceutical companies for their patented drugs, nor paying for whatever procedures doctors choose to recommend. When public funds subsidize health care or provide it directly, it is crazy not to try to get value for money. The debate over health care reform in the United States should start from the premise that some form of health care rationing is both inescapable and desirable."

Or this?

"Governments implicitly place a dollar value on a human life when they decide how much is to be spent on health care programs and how much on other public goods that are not directed toward saving lives. The task of health care bureaucrats is then to get the best value for the resources they have been allocated. It is the familiar comparative exercise of getting the most bang for your buck."

And this:

"As a first take, we might say that the good achieved by health care is the number of lives saved. But that is too crude. The death of a teenager is a greater tragedy than the death of an 85-year-old, and this should be reflected in our priorities. We can accommodate that difference by calculating the number of life-years saved, rather than simply the number of lives saved. If a teenager can be expected to live another 70 years, saving her life counts as a gain of 70 life-years, whereas if a person of 85 can be expected to live another 5 years, then saving the 85-year-old will count as a gain of only 5 life-years."

We all know the low value roch-et scientist Usual Suspects place on life from their attitudes on completely unfettered abortion rights, but what singer advocates is one step away from a Final Solution mentality toward the elderly, disabled, and others who just don't measure up to some quality of life excuse for rationing.

More on Singer's value system that rejects sanctity of life for his spurious "quality of life" standards:

"The new tradition that Singer welcomes is founded on a 'quality-of-life' ethic. It allegedly replaces the outgoing morality that is based on the 'sanctity-of-life.'

Wesley J. Smith states that Rethinking Life and Death can fairly be called the Mein Kampf of the euthanasia movement, in that it drops many of the euphemisms common to pro-euthanasia writing and acknowledges euthanasia for what it is: killing.

A disability advocacy group that calls itself 'Not Dead Yet' has fiercely objected to Singer's views on euthanasia. Some refer to him as 'Professor Death.' Others have gone as far as to liken him to Josef Mengele. Troy McClure, an advocate for the disabled, calls him 'the most dangerous man in the world today.' "

Sorry, Mr. McClure. I'm afraid that title now belongs to Barack Obama.

There's more:

"He finds notions of 'sanctity-of-life,' 'dignity,' 'created in the image of God,' and so on to be spurious.

'Fine phrases,' he says, 'are the last resource of those who have run out of argument.' He also sees no moral or philosophical significance to traditional teens such as 'being,' 'nature' and 'essence.' He takes pride in being a modern philosopher who has cast off such 'metaphysical and religious shackles.' "

And finally, the absolute worst:

"According to this avant garde thinker, unborn babies or neonates, lacking the requisite consciousness to qualify as persons, have less right to continue to live than an adult gorilla. By the same token, a suffering or disabled child would have a weaker claim not to be killed than a mature pig. Singer writes, in Rethinking Life and Death:

Human babies are not born self-aware or capable of grasping their lives over time. They are not persons. Hence their lives would seem to be no more worthy of protection that the life of a fetus.

And writing specifically about Down syndrome babies, he advocates trading a disabled or defective child (one who is apparently doomed to too much suffering) for one who has better prospects for happiness:

'We may not want a child to start on life's uncertain voyage if the prospects arc clouded. When this can be known at a very early stage in the voyage, we may still have a chance to make a fresh start. This means detaching ourselves from the infant who has been born, cutting ourselves free before the ties that have already begun to bind us to our child have become irresistible. Instead of going forward and putting all our effort into making the best of the situation, we can still say no, and start again from the beginning.' "

And THAT is the sort of thing that passes for "mainstream thought" among "progressives", and in the Obamanation these days.

May God have mercy upon us for allowing these things to come to pass!

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Today's Obamacare "We had to kill the patient to save him" moment

Brought to you by none other than Joe "Hey, I'm Only A Heartbeat Away From Being President" Biden:

“ 'And folks look, AARP knows and the people working here today know, the president knows, and I know, that the status quo is simply not acceptable,' Biden said at the event on Thursday in Alexandria, Va. 'It’s totally unacceptable. And it’s completely unsustainable. Even if we wanted to keep it the way we have it. It can’t do it financially.'

'We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation,' Biden said.

'Well, people when I say that look at me and say, "What are you talking about? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?" Biden said. 'The answer is yes, I’m telling you.' "

Who preps this guy for public appearances?

Professor Irwin Corey?

What the reality of Obamacare's 'public option' will ultimately mean to you

And, as we well know, the "public option" means that eventually there will be NO option BUT the "public option", despite what the Obamanation and their Useful Idiot gang wants you to believe.

'Thinking Clearly about Income Equality'

Cato's Will Wilkinson has produced a well thought out monograph that deals with the faulty logic "progressives" use to justify their wrong headed solutions represented by their "Share the Wealth" meme.

Executive Summary:

"Recent discussions of economic inequality,marked by a lack of clarity and care, have confused the public about the meaning and moral significance of rising income inequality. Income statistics paint a misleading picture of real standards of living and real economic inequality.

Several strands of evidence about real standards of living suggest a very different picture of the trends in economic inequality. In any case, the dispersion of incomes at any given time has, at best, a tenuous connection to human welfare or social justice. The pattern of incomes is affected by both morally desirable and undesirable mechanisms. When injustice or wrongdoing increases income inequality, the problem is the original malign cause, not the resulting inequality.

Many thinkers mistake national populations for 'society' and thereby obscure the real story about the effects of trade and immigration on welfare,equality, and justice. There is little evidence that high levels of income inequality lead down a slippery slope to the destruction of democracy and rule by the rich.The unequal political voice of the poor can be addressed only through policies that actually work to fight poverty and improve education.

Income inequality is a dangerous distraction from the real problems: poverty, lack of economic opportunity, and systemic injustice."

Other excerpts:

"If we care about the welfare of the least privileged members of our society, a focus on equality of 'voice' may actually be counterproductive."

"Our goal is to make sure that people have meaningful opportunities to make the most of their lives. At best, income inequality is a distraction."

"It is not okay for intellectuals and policymakers to waste time and energy worrying that some people have done too well. It doesn’t help.

Nor does it help to encourage people to concentrate on differences in income, or to resent them. Demoralization and resentment are not what people need. "

Indeed.

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Based on her Senate testimony, which cartoon character does Sotomayor most resemble?

John Hinderaker:

"Thus, Sotomayor's characterization of the context of her 'wise Latina' remark is the opposite of the truth. She wasn't 'agreeing with the sentiment that Justice O'Connor was attempting to convey,' as she told Senator Leahy. Rather, she staked out a position in opposition to O'Connor's. In her speech she expressly disagreed with O'Connor's view, as Sotomayor put it, 'that both men and women were equally capable of being wise and fair judges.'

I've been on the fence as to whether Senators should vote to confirm Sonia Sotomayor, but this rather breathtaking dishonesty provides strong grounds to vote against her confirmation."

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Glenn Reynolds, on how Obamacare will stifle medical progress

From the Washington Examiner, via WSJ:

"The normal critique of socialized medicine is to point out that people have to wait a long time for . . . treatments in places like Britain. And that's certainly a valid critique . . . .

The key point, though, is that these treatments didn't just come out of the blue. They were developed by drug companies and device makers who thought they had a good market for things that would make people feel better.

But under a national healthcare plan, the "market" will consist of whatever the bureaucrats are willing to buy. That means treatment for politically stylish diseases will get some money, but otherwise the main concern will be cost-control. More treatments, to bureaucrats, mean more costs . . . .

It's ironic that the same Democrats who were pushing the medical prospects for stem-cell research during the last election are now pushing a program that will make such progress far less likely."

I wouldn't necessarily term it ironic, Professor. I think it may be typical "progressive" short-sightedness in pursuit of a cherished agenda item.

Or maybe it's just flat-out ignorance.

Either way, it would not be out of character for these types, would it?

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