Wednesday, September 30, 2009

"To create a truly monumental disaster, you need people with high IQs."

From the brilliant Thomas Sowell: "The Brainy Bunch" (via NRO):

"Many people, including some conservatives, have been very impressed with how brainy the president and his advisers are. But that is not quite as reassuring as it might seem.It was, after all, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s brilliant “brains trust” whose policies are now increasingly recognized as having prolonged the Great Depression of the 1930s, rather than ending it. The U.S. emerged from the Great Depression only when the Second World War put an end to many New Deal policies."....

"Brainy folks were also present in Lyndon Johnson’s administration — especially in the Pentagon, where Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s brilliant “whiz kids” tried to micro-manage the Vietnam war, with disastrous results.There is usually only a limited amount of damage that can be done by dull or stupid people. For creating a truly monumental disaster, you need people with high IQs."...

"Make no mistake about it, Adolf Hitler was brilliant. His underlying beliefs may have been half-baked and his hatreds overwhelming, but he was a political genius when it came to carrying out his plans based on those beliefs and hatreds....

"Someone recently pointed out how much Barack Obama’s style and strategies resemble those of Latin American charismatic despots — the takeover of industries by demagogues who never ran a business, the rousing rhetoric of resentment addressed to the masses, and the personal cult of the leader promoted by the media. Do we want to become the world’s largest banana republic?

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. © 2009 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

Read the whole article: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MjVmMzc1MjVmYjdkNzcxNzExNTE4NzljMzBmZmMzNjI=

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Raw truth from VDH on GITMO

Raw post of the truth: "Bush Is Still Doing It . . . [Victor Davis Hanson]
"Bush did it" is now apparently the reason we can't close Guantanamo within a year. From the Washington Post:
[Gregory] Craig said Thursday that some of his early assumptions were based on miscalculations, in part because Bush administration officials and senior Republicans in Congress had spoken publicly about closing the facility. "I thought there was, in fact, and I may have been wrong, a broad consensus about the importance to our national security objectives to close Guantanamo and how keeping Guantanamo open actually did damage to our national security objectives," he said.
I'm trying to follow the logic and timeline here: Bush faces bad/worse choices to stop another 9/11, opens Guantanamo. Most agree with the decision, including the likes of Eric Holder. Then as time passes, the terrorist threat here at home seems to wane as partisan politics wax. So Guantanamo suddenly becomes an issue to tar Bush as some sort of anti-civil liberties zealot. Under pressure, Bush agrees the facility has become an albatross, promises to close it, and begins slowly and gradually not to accept more detainees and to release a few. No matter — Obama energizes his campaign by claiming the fact that Guantanamo is still open is proof of a conservative anti-constitutional assault, and loudly and repeatedly promises to close it by January 2010. By September 2009, Obama sees that he can't do that so rapidly without risking U.S. security, given the sort who are still in Guantanamo. Now, in explanation of this broken promise, his Guantanamo czar claims that Obama cannot fulfill his vow apparently because Bush (out of office for nine months) and Co. were not supportive enough of the wide Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, and the Democratic administration.
Surreal.

Mr. President, you lied, misled prevaricated...

"You Mislead! Fact-checking Obama." By Michael F. Cannon and Ramesh Ponnuru (NRO)

Here are the first of 20 "misstatements" by Obama in his speech. Go to the link to read the full truth that refutes him, and the rest of the corrections:

"1. “Buying insurance on your own costs you three times as much as the coverage you get from your employer.” ...

"2. “There are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage.”...

"3.“And every day, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage.”...

"4. “One man from Illinois lost his coverage in the middle of chemotherapy. . . . They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it.”...

"5. “Another woman from Texas was about to get a double mastectomy when her insurance company canceled her policy because she forgot to declare a case of acne.”...

"6. Rising costs are “why so many employers . . . are forcing their employees to pay more for insurance.” ...

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjJmNjY4MjA2ZmNkZWNmZDU2ZmY1NTUwZmMzNmIxMjE=

Conform..or be obliterated (is resistance futile?)

(via Instapundit) BREAKING NEWS: National Endowment for the Arts Renamed National Endowment for Propaganda. Stay Tuned. “This is Only the Beginning.” “There is a German word for what we are witnessing at the NEA and elsewhere in the Obama administration’s effort to push its agenda. It is Gleichschaltung. It means two things: first, bringing all aspects of life into conformity with a given political line. And second, as a prerequisite for realizing that goal, the obliteration or at least marginalization of all opposition.”

That would be obliteration/marginalization ... or just shut down your little business cause liberals don't want to have to see anti-Obama thoughts (see next post below).

O-bot political brownshirts strike again...

as they get a small-time vendor kicked from a mall in Tennessee. So much for their respect for free expression, free speech, free pursuit of a business.

Liberals...don't...want...people...they...disagree...with...to...be...free! Whether it's planning to shut down radio hosts they despise and disagree with, or whining (yes, that's whining and complaining to get your infantile way) to mommy or daddy (the mall managers) to get the kid you don't like kicked out:

No more business for "Nobama" salesman
By Brad HicksPress Staff Writermailto:Writerbhicks@johnsoncitypress.com

"Dan Fuchs said business was just starting to pick up at his kiosk in the Mall at Johnson City.

"Fuchs’ business, the Graphic Edge, printed slogans and pictures on items such as coffee cups, bumper stickers and T-shirts. He said more than half of his business came from the sale of anti-Obama merchandise. Bumper stickers with slogans such as “SOS: Stop Obama’s Socialism,” “Nobama,” and “Chicago got the party, but the country got the hangover” were displayed around the small stand.

"Now it appears Fuchs is out of business at the mall, but mall officials say this decision was not based upon political views. ...

Read the rest of the article and if you really think it "was not based upon political views" I've got a health care plan for you that gives lots of stuff to lots more people but still will cost less:

http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/News/article.php?ID=71327

Horror stories pile up: Canadians go to U.S. ...

because private care is not legal everywhere, and, as described in LA Times article below, the "single-payer" Canadian system, when functioning normally, well, it...just...sucks:

"In Canada, a move toward a private healthcare option"

"In British Columbia, private clinics and surgical centers are capitalizing on patients who might otherwise pay for faster treatment in the U.S. The courts will consider their legality next month."

By Kim Murphy September 27, 2009

"Reporting from Vancouver, Canada - When the pain in Christina Woodkey's legs became so severe that she could no long hike or cross-country ski, she went to her local health clinic. The Calgary, Canada, resident was told she'd need to see a hip specialist. Because the problem was not life-threatening, however, she'd have to wait about a year.

"So wait she did.

"In January, the hip doctor told her that a narrowing of the spine was compressing her nerves and causing the pain. She needed a back specialist. The appointment was set for Sept. 30. "When I was given that date, I asked when could I expect to have surgery," said Woodkey, 72. "They said it would be a year and a half after I had seen this doctor.

"So this month, she drove across the border into Montana and got the $50,000 surgery done in two days.

"I don't have insurance. We're not allowed to have private health insurance in Canada," Woodkey said. "It's not going to be easy to come up with the money. But I'm happy to say the pain is almost all gone."

Read the rest, unless you prefer ignorance about how much better Americans have it:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-healthcare-canada27-2009sep27,0,5111855.story

Monday, September 28, 2009

No war protesters at the usual corner last Sat

Curiously, something was missing last Saturday, from the corner of Oak and Main Streets, never missing for literally years, between 11 and noon: the weekly contingent of anti-war/Bush protesters. Ahhh, that's the ticket--no Bush, no devoted opposition to war. How utterly revealing of what the core motivation of these folks really has been:

(From Powerline): "What Happened to the Antiwar Movement? August 18, 2009 Posted by John at 7:53 AM

"Byron York goes looking for it, without success. Now that George Bush is no longer President, opposing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has dropped to dead last on the priorities of American leftists, like those who gathered for "netroots nation" last week. It is telling that only a few cranks, like Cindy Sheehan, haven't gotten the message that, now that Barack Obama is President, war is OK. We can all ponder, I guess, what this tells us about the Left."

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/08/024313.php

Is resistance to destroyed liberty futile?

Irrefutable description of the strategy/tactics of the liberal/left to shove gov't health care down our throats (Via Charles Kessler):

"Here, in outline, is the liberal M.O.: Take a very good thing, like quality health care. Turn it into a right, which only centralized government can claim to provide equally and affordably and--the biggest whopper--excellently to all. Refer as little as possible to the plain logic that such a right implies a corresponding duty; that the duty to pay for this new right's provision must fall on someone; and that the rich, always defined as someone with greater income than you, cannot possibly pay for it all by themselves. Ignore even more fervently that this right, held as a social entitlement, implies a duty to accept only as much and as good health care as society (i.e., government) allows or, ideally, as can be given equally to everyone. Having advertised such care as effectively free to every user, because the duty to pay is separated as much as possible from the right to enjoy the benefit, profess amazement that usage soars, thereby multiplying costs and degrading the quality of care. Blame Republicans for insufficient funding and thus for the painful necessity to increase taxes and cut benefits in order to protect the right to universal health care, which is now a program. Run against those hard-hearted Republicans, and win...."

Charles Kesler is of course the editor of the Claremont Review of Books (subscribe here) and professor of government at Claremont College.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/08/024312.php

Is resistance to destroyed liberty futile (cont'd)?

How liberalism/statism works to overcome resistance, pt 2 (courtesy Keller):

"To overcome the contradictions of Big Government, liberals cheerfully offer Bigger G
overnment. Consider the present case. Medicare and Medicaid are going broke. Doctor Obama prescribes a brand new, expensive health care program, which the Democrats cannot figure out how to fund, to cure the ills of the existing system. A third deficit-laden program to save two already verging on bankruptcy? The reality is that massive middle-class tax increases lie just over the horizon, along with draconian cuts in benefits, which will come partly disguised by long waiting lists, rationing of care, and shrinking investment in new drugs and technologies. Obama is betting that the socialist ethic of solidarity, of shared pain, can be made to prevail over democratic outrage at broken promises, shoddy services, and diminished liberty."

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/08/024312.php

Some astronomical costs of cap and trade

(via Powerline): Cap and Trade: Measuring the Disaster August 11, 2009 Posted by John at 4:45 PM

"The Heritage Foundation has released a new economic analysis of Waxman-Markey, the cap and trade bill that is dead--we hope--at least for this year. The results aren't pretty. Heritage finds that Waxman Markey would, by 2035:
* Increase gas prices 58% above the increases included in the baseline forecast.* Increase electricity prices by 90%.
* Raise energy costs for an average family of four by $1,241 per year.
* Cause the average family of four to pay $4,609 more per year, including increased taxes.* Reduce GDP by an aggregate amount of $9.4 trillion.
* Increase the national debt by an additional $12,803 per person.
This chart illustrates the projected increases in energy costs; click to enlarge: (go to link to see charts) http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/08/024249.php

Teen unemployment/min-wage/small biz woes

The economic ignorance behind minimum wage laws, particularly as they affect teenage, entry level workers, combines with the utter cluelessness of O/Democrats about the necessity of making it easier for small business (which is the biggest generator of new jobs/jobs for teens) via tax cuts. Result? :

“The unemployment rate for young Americans has exploded to 52.2 percent — a post-World War II high, according to the Labor Dept. — meaning millions of Americans are staring at the likelihood that their lifetime earning potential will be diminished and, combined with the predicted slow economic recovery, their transition into productive members of society could be put on hold for an extended period of time. . . . A study from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, a government database, said the damage to a new career by a recession can last 15 years. And if young Americans are not working and becoming productive members of society, they are less likely to make major purchases — from cars to homes — thus putting the US economy further behind the eight ball. Angrisani said he believes that Obama’s economic team, led by Larry Summers, has a blind spot for small business because no senior member of the team — dominated by academics and veterans of big business — has ever started and grown a business.”

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/the_dead_end_kids_AnwaWNOGqsXMuIlGONNX1K

Cap and trade propaganda from Paul Krugman

Here is the entire post from Jim Manzi of National Review Online. In the process of deconstructing and disproving Mr. Krugman's defense, and intellectually disengenuous case, regarding the expenses of "cap and trade," Manzi illustrates the fraudulent nature of the entire issue:

"Paul Krugman. Pot. Kettle. Black. [Jim Manzi]

"Paul Krugman has argued in his most recent New York Times column that opponents of the Waxman-Markey energy and environment bill (a.k.a. the “cap-and-trade” bill) are dishonest when they argue that it would be expensive to implement. He starts with wisecracks about climate change-deniers; in what I assume is a first for Professor Krugman, he cites the behavior of a corporation as positive evidence for the moral worth of his position; and he quotes Joe Romm’s blog complaining that opponents of cap-and-trade are constantly changing their analysis in order to support pre-determined conclusions – which for anybody involved in this debate qualifies as the only really good laugh line in the piece.

"When Professor Krugman eventually gets around to addressing substance, here is his argument:

"[T]he best available economic analyses suggest that even deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions would impose only modest costs on the average family. Earlier this month, the Congressional Budget Office released an analysis of the effects of Waxman-Markey, concluding that in 2020 the bill would cost the average family only $160 a year, or 0.2 percent of income. That’s roughly the cost of a postage stamp a day.

"By 2050, when the emissions limit would be much tighter, the burden would rise to 1.2 percent of income. But the budget office also predicts that real G.D.P. will be about two-and-a-half times larger in 2050 than it is today, so that G.D.P. per person will rise by about 80 percent. The cost of climate protection would barely make a dent in that growth. And all of this, of course, ignores the benefits of limiting global warming.

"Professor Krugman starts here by repeating the already-hackneyed political talking point that over the next decade Waxman-Markey is projected to have the same cost as “a postage stamp a day.” He then, to his credit, proceeds to consider its projected costs by 2050, which is crucial because emissions mitigation would need to be sustained for many, many decades in order to achieve its desired climate effects. He waves his hand at a projected cost of about 1% of income. But 1% of U.S. income is an enormous amount of money. Suppose I proposed some government program, and told you that it would cost “only” $150 billion per year, every year, for more than a hundred years, and then told you that this was no big deal because it’s only about 1% of the economy? I mean, it would “barely make a dent.” His argument is absurd.

"Of course, if there were a persuasive case that it would create benefits that would more than offset this cost, it would be rational to support it. What is his argument about the benefits? “And all of this, of course, ignores the benefits of limiting global warming.” That’s it? Professor Krugman has a Nobel Prize in economics – he’s got to be able to do better than that. Why doesn’t he make any attempt to justify the costs? As I’ve argued at length, even using assumptions that are extremely favorable to the bill, the expected costs of Waxman-Markey are at least ten times larger than the expected benefits to U.S. taxpayers.

"Professor Krugman then concludes his column with seven paragraphs that chastise his ideological opponents for lacking fair-mindedness and intellectual rigor."

Sunday, September 27, 2009

About that "myth" that Calif regs hurt jobs

Study: Regulation costs California economy almost $500 billion posted at 5:20 pm on September 25, 2009 by Ed Morrissey (Hot Air blog)

"Conservatives and liberals often square off over the proper level of government regulation, but most people agree that some level of oversight is necessary to defend against fraud, waste, and abuse. But at what level does the regulation itself become waste and abuse, this time by bureaucrats rather than stakeholders in the markets? Two researchers at California State University Sacramento may not have the answer to that question, but certainly can argue that California has long since passed the threshold (emphases mine):

"This study measures and reports the cost of regulation to small business in the State of California. It uses original analyses and a general equilibrium framework to identify and measure the cost of regulation as measured by the loss of economic output to the State’s gross product, after controlling for variables known to influence output. It also measures second order costs resulting from regulatory activity by studying the total impact – direct, indirect, and induced. The study finds that the total cost of regulation to the State of California is $492.994 billion which is almost five times the State’s general fund budget, and almost a third of the State’s gross product. The cost of regulation results in an employment loss of 3.8 million jobs which is a tenth of the State’s population. Since small business constitute 99.2% of all employer businesses in California, and all of non-employer business, the regulatory cost is borne almost completely by small business. The total cost of regulation was $134,122.48 per small business in California in 2007, labor income not created or lost was $4,359.55 per small business, indirect business taxes not generated or lost were $57,260.15 per small business, and finally roughly one job lost per small business....

Use the embedded link and here's the HotAir article: http://hotair.com/archives/2009/09/25/study-regulation-costs-california-economy-almost-500-billion/

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Obama the spineless when it comes to Iran

"...In other words, when President Obama addressed the General Assembly and Security Council he already knew that Iran was ignoring international standards, and its latest violations endangered international peace and security more than ever before. And yet he deliberately refused to put Iran on the agenda of the Council summit — the same Council that he claimed bore responsibility for responding to such threats.

"President Obama knew that if the magnitude of the Iranian threat were revealed yesterday, the emptiness of his resolution would have been embarrassingly obvious and his cover blown. In public, at the highest levels of the U.N, he heralded generalities as significant. In private, he was petitioning lower levels of the U.N. to act on startling specifics of the Iranian threat.

"Why did the president not present this same evidence to the Security Council, the body with “the authority and the responsibility to respond”? Why did he not challenge world leaders to deal with the same Iranian threat that he privately was pressing upon U.N. bureaucrats?

"There is only one possible answer: President Obama does not have the political will to do what it takes to prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb."

— Anne Bayefsky is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and executive director of Human Rights Voices.

O proved wrong on keeping what you have...

and that seniors won't bear burden of cuts:

(from NRO): Krauthammer on the CBO saying that Medicare Advantage would be cut under current health-care legislation:

"The president has said: “If you like what you have, you keep it.” The problem is that, as you said, a quarter of seniors have this [Medicare Advantage] instead of the regular Medicare, and they like it.

"A lot of them are poor, and the reason that they like it is it is a trade-off. There is a little bit of a restriction on who your doctor can be. However, you get benefits that the poor … can't otherwise purchase it.

"So the president has said on television on Sunday, it will make no difference if they take it [Medicare Advantage] away. Once again the CBO — impartial — rides in and shoots an arrow right through Obama's promise.

"It says that if you have Medicare advantage and it's abolished you will lose half of the benefits. So you are not going to keep what you have.

"That's the original sin of the Obama [health-care] proposal. At the beginning, it said you're going to get a free lunch. We're going to expand the coverage at no cost. You cannot do it. Somebody has to pay, and here it is going to be seniors.

Pass Obamacare, become magnet for Mexicans

I guess the Mexicans aren't too worried that Obamacare won't be available to them:

Of Course They Would [Mark Krikorian]

"A third of Mexicans would migrate to U.S.: survey." That's 35 million "willing workers" — what's not to like?

Creepy songs to Obama by kids ok w/sup't

Inconvenient Truths [Mark Krikorian] via NRO:

Over at NRO's Media Blog, they have the response from the superintendent of schools in the town in Jersey where the kids were taped singing hosannahs to The One. His complaint, as with the ACORN videos, is that the event shouldn't have been recorded and distributed, not the content of what happened. That reminds me of something John Connally said on 60 Minutes once. Mike Wallace was grilling him about something, and read back to Connally something he'd said at an event and Connally response was classic: "I never said that, and if you have it on tape, you shouldn't have." (I saw it as a kid, but don't have the reference; maybe in 1980 when he was running for president?)

Obamacare: taxes, fines, will reduce care

"Bad Medicine--ObamaCare is hazardous to your health." (Wall Street Journal)"

"...But the bill would start off by imposing annual fees of $6.7 billion on health insurance companies, $4 billion on medical device producers, $2.3 billion on drug manufacturers and $750 million on clinical laboratories, all of which would surely be passed on to consumers in higher prices. The insurance companies' $6.7 billion fees alone would come to some 60% of the industry's after tax earnings.

"And then American families who do not have health insurance--the people the Democrats claim they're trying to help--would be assessed finds of between $750 to $1,900 a year. All this reflects Congress's simple objective: government rather than individual control of our health care.
***
But America's health care is not doing badly. Indeed a National Center for Policy Analysis study from last March shows how much better we are doing than countries like Canada, Britain, and other European nations that have government health care control:

"Breast-cancer mortality is 52% higher in Germany and 88% higher in Britain than in the U.S.
Prostate-cancer mortality is 457% higher in Norway and 604% higher in Britain than in the U.S.
Eighty-nine percent of middle-aged women in the U.S. have had a mammogram, compared with 72% in Canada.

"Fifty-four percent of men in the U.S. have had a prostate-specific antigen test, compared with 16% of Canadian men.

"As for the availability of health care, another study shows that 74% of those in the U.S. meet for scheduled doctors appointments within four weeks, while only 42% of British and 40% of Canadians do. Only 10% of Americans wait longer than two months, while 33% of Brits and 42% of Canadians wait that long.

"On average, doctors in a survey say neurosurgery should be performed within 5.8 weeks, but in Canada it takes about 31 weeks. And orthopedic surgery should be within 11 weeks, but in Canada it takes 37 weeks. So it is pretty clear that government health-insurance monopoly is dangerously inefficient. ..."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204488304574433343630176378.html

ACORN scandal? Reid: What ACORN scandal?

Sep. 25, 2009 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal EDITORIAL: Reid blocks ACORN probe Tracking abuse by political allies could be 'distracting'

"It's become increasingly clear that ACORN may have manipulated tens of thousands of ballots in last year's federal election -- an area where Congress has clear oversight responsibilities -- yet Harry Reid won't lift a finger," said NRSC spokesman Brian Walsh. "It's hard to see his latest roadblock as anything but another example of Harry Reid protecting his liberal allies in Washington while remaining out of touch with his constituents in Nevada."

The rest is a must read:
http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/reid-blocks-acorn-probe-61438132.html

Media double standard coverage on protests

Via Don Surber:

"In Pittsburgh — as at every economic summit in the last 20 years — rocks are thrown and the riot police have to come out. The LOS ANGELES TIMES reported:

"Today, the demonstrators seemed happy. At least, as happy as an antiabortion, antiwar, anti-government, anti-consumerism, anti-seemingly-everything crowd can be.

"But when it became very clear that the cops were not going to let the crowd anywhere near the convention center, things went bad.

"The protesters started throwing rocks at police and police cars, and dragging trash containers into the middle of the street to block traffic. No surprise, the police fired canisters of pepper spray, white smoke and some rubber bullets into the crowds."

(DS): "And some in the press laughed it off. The same Fourth Estate that was wringing its hands over the harsh words of those tea-bagging pooopy pantsers takes violence by the left in stride."

Headlined McCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS: “What’s a global economic summit without protests?”
PITTSBURGH — As leaders of the world’s most developed nations inched closer to consensus here Thursday on how best to restrict compensation packages for financial executives, masked protesters and police in armored vehicles clashed in what’s become a familiar ritual at such meetings.

"In a chaotic scene near downtown Pittsburgh, police in riot gear quashed an unauthorized march by an estimated 2,000 protesters, some clad in black and carrying posters with anarchist symbols. Police responded with tear gas and arrests. However, the streets around the meeting site were well secured and generally peaceful.

"Generally peaceful is defined as hoodlums in black masks hurling rocks at the police. To McClatchy Newspapers reporters, it is now perfectly acceptable to throw rocks at police and the like as a political protest. But if a right-winger dares to say something untoward about Obama, well that is a racist cry for assassination, isn’t it?

Reported McCLATCHY: “There’s no denying Obama’s race plays a role in protests.”
It is not a double standard on the part of some in the media; it is outright distortion.

http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/2009/09/25/10155/

In case you forgot...gov't created housing mess

September 25th, 2009 Yes, Washington did help cause the financial crisis
Posted by: James Pethokoukis

"There are, to be sure, lots of villains to blame for America’s financial crisis: regulators, Wall Street executives, credit ratings agencies, Alan Greenspan.

"But the one baddie Washington doesn’t want to touch is, well, Washington. Its crime: pushing federal policies that favored ever-increasing home ownership, particularly from the mid-1990s on, and thus helping spawn the housing bubble at the center of the devastating meltdown. (We’ll focus on its legacy of financial bailouts another time.)

"The sheer scope of the bipartisan, federal pro-housing undertaking is mind-boggling.
As Jeffrey Miron, a Harvard University economist, noted in testimony this week to the House Financial Services Committee, a list of past and ongoing efforts would include the Federal Housing Administration, Federal Home Loan Banks, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Community Reinvestment Act, the deductibility of mortgage interest, the tax-favored treatment of capital gains on housing, the HOPE for Homeowners Act and the $8000 homebuyer tax credit...

"Even former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker conceded this week to the same committee that government housing efforts, in the form of Fannie and Freddie, were a “factor” in the crisis."...

http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2009/09/25/yes-washington-did-help-cause-the-financial-crisis/

Believe journalists or your own lying eyes

Via Newsmax:

"Poll: 89% Say Media Helped Elect, Promote Obama
Thursday, September 24, 2009 12:57 PMBy: Dan Weil

"It’s not just conservatives who accuse the media of showing a liberal bias.

"A new survey from the Sacred Heart University Polling Institute shows that 89.3 percent of Americans believe the national media played a sizable role in helping to elect President Obama.
And 69.9 percent of respondents view the national news media as intent on promoting the Obama presidency...

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/obama_media_election_poll/2009/09/24/264298.html

I knew this w/out even watching the news

TIGERHAWK ON THE MEDIA’S VARIABLE TREATMENT OF PROTESTS AND VIOLENCE:

"A few clowns shout at a “tea party” and the media starts worrying about the resurgent Klan, but the left literally attacks the police at the G20 protests and nobody says anything.

"There are two possible explanations for this different approach of the media to edgy demonstrators of the left and right.

"First, the mainstream media are completely in the tank for the Democrats, and want to help them push the talking point that the tea-partiers are both extremists and typical Republicans (neither of which is generally true).

"Second, the left benefits from the soft bigotry of low expectations: People expect leftists to act like thugs at these gatherings as they have for 40 years, so when they do again it is the same-old same-old."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5izJGY1GNeNYgNG6q1N0bsXCVfBeAD9ATURNO0

DP: I couldn't say it better (via Instapundit). Go to the above linked news story on the left wing rioters. You will see them repeatedly described as "protesters" or "anarchists" but never once "leftists" or "left wing".

Friday, September 25, 2009

No temp data exists--emperor...no clothes

In matters scientific, if the data either is not produced, can't be produced, etc, for other scientists to conduct "peer review", it is simply not considered credible, settled science. So, the entire issue of supposed "global warming/climate change" is predicated on actual temperatures from actual thermometers recorded, analyzed, and stored for future review. We now know they don't exist, at least as can be proved by producing them for other scientists to examine:

"Roger Pielke Jr., an esteemed professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado, then requested the raw data from Jones. Jones responded:
"Since the 1980s, we have merged the data we have received into existing series or begun new ones, so it is impossible to say if all stations within a particular country or if all of an individual record should be freely available. Data storage availability in the 1980s meant that we were not able to keep the multiple sources for some sites, only the station series after adjustment for homogeneity issues. We, therefore, do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (i.e., quality controlled and homogenized) data."

"The statement about “data storage” is balderdash. They got the records from somewhere. The files went onto a computer. All of the original data could easily fit on the 9-inch tape drives common in the mid-1980s. I had all of the world’s surface barometric pressure data on one such tape in 1979.

"If we are to believe Jones’s note to the younger Pielke, CRU adjusted the original data and then lost or destroyed them over twenty years ago. The letter to Warwick Hughes may have been an outright lie. After all, Peter Webster received some of the data this year. So the question remains: What was destroyed or lost, when was it destroyed or lost, and why?

"All of this is much more than an academic spat. It now appears likely that the U.S. Senate will drop cap-and-trade climate legislation from its docket this fall — whereupon the Obama Environmental Protection Agency is going to step in and issue regulations on carbon-dioxide emissions. Unlike a law, which can’t be challenged on a scientific basis, a regulation can. If there are no data, there’s no science. U.S. taxpayers deserve to know the answer to the question posed above."

Read the whole article: "The Dog Ate Global Warming" by Patrick J. Michaels is a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTBiMTRlMDQxNzEyMmRhZjU3ZmYzODI5MGY4ZWI5OWM=&w=MA==

Transparency on labor $: Bush, yes; O, no!

From Hot Air blog, we have this: "Barack Obama ran for office on a promise of increased transparency. Instead, he has had his Labor Depatrtment move in the exact opposite direction to provide political cover for unions and their ties to political organizing groups like ACORN — groups that also work to elect Democrats. We should demand that Solis stop dismantling these transparency regulations and for Obama to fulfill this campaign promise. Be sure to read it all."

Here's yet another big story that the MSM could have dug up and informed us about (too bad they're only really interested in digging "dirt" if it makes Republicans look bad), from the same Big Government that broke the ACORN/child prostitution/tax cheat story:

"Even before U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis was sworn in, Big Labor insiders like AFL-CIO lawyer and Obama appointee Deborah Greenfield were busily dismantling useful union financial disclosures produced by former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. It’s another Big Government – Big Labor partnership aimed at keeping individual workers, whom they claim to represent, in the dark.

"Why the hurry? Perhaps Union Bosses wanted to prevent the Virginia GOP and inquisitive people like Patrick Semmens from visiting DOL’s UnionReports.gov website that clearly reveals the Big Labor-ACORN collusion. Semmens discovered that teachers’ union bosses gave about $500,000 to the same Brooklyn ACORN office exposed on BigGovernment.com. Both the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) awarded ACORN service contracts.

"That’s right; union bosses gave teachers’ forced union dues to the same ACORN that appeared to have no problem facilitating child prostitution. No wonder Solis’ Big Labor friends want to shutdown financial disclosure!"

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/09/24/white-house-tries-erasing-acorn-ties-to-big-labor/

Sound the alarm...Raise hue and cry, pt 4

I'm sure, sadly, that liberals and gov't health care proponents will simply have nothing critical to say about the full, ultimately armed, power of the state, in the hands of the left, imposing restrictions, prohibitions against an American company exercising its First Amendment Constitutional right to communicate with its constituents and customers.

Come on, wake up and smell the dank stench of statist intimidation. It begs the analogy to the complaint voiced in Germany about how they came for one group after another, without people rising up to stop it, until there was no one left to defend the remaining believers in freedom. In this case, its just the stifling of dissent and free speech...just.

Here is the masterful description of what is going on, delivered by Sen. Mitch McConnel:

"Obama is stifling dissent on health care reform" By: Sen. Mitch McConnell

""Let's review: at the instigation of the Chairman of the Finance Committee, the author of the health care legislation now working its way through Congress, the Executive Branch, through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has launched an investigation into Humana for explaining to seniors how this legislation might affect their coverage.

"One more time: a private health care provider told its elderly clients how health care legislation might affect their lives. And now the federal government is putting its full weight into investigating that company at the request of the senator who wrote the legislation in question.

"And we now find out that the concerns that this company was raising to its clients were perfectly legitimate, according to the director of the CBO.

"This is so clearly an outrage it's hard to believe anyone thought it would go unnoticed. For explaining to seniors how legislation might affect them, the federal government has now issued a gag order on that company, and any other company that communicates with clients on the issue, telling them to shut up -- or else.

"This is precisely the kind of thing Americans are worried about with the administration's health care plan. They're worried that handing government the reins over their health care will lead to just this kind of intimidation. They're worried that government agencies which were created to enforce violations even-handedly will instead be used against those who voice a different point of view. ...

Read the rest: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/OpEd-Contributor/Obama-is-stifling-dissent-on-health-care-reform-8284199-60678057.html

Thursday, September 24, 2009

How will media handle real, actual violent...

protesters. As compared to, say, the feigned, manufactured umbrage conveyed in most of the coverage and commentary (by MSM) over the turnout by (now numbering in the millions of) regular citizens intently objecting to growing government, deficits, control and taxes. Consider that the objects of MSM cynicism not only haven't damaged anything, but have left universally clean protest sites, and, unfortunately for the MSM meme, have been more often on the receiving end of personal violence than inflicting it (as posted below somewhere).

PITTSBURGH – Police fired canisters of pepper spray and smoke and rubber bullets at marchers protesting the Group of 20 summit Thursday after anarchists responded to calls to disperse by rolling trash bins, throwing rocks and breaking windows.
Pittsburgh Police Chief Nate Harper said 17 to 19 protesters were arrested, and Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said swift police decisions resulted in minimal property damage. Officials said there were no reports of injuries. ...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090925/ap_on_re_us/g20_summit_protests

It's starting to look like left-wing fiasco

Thursday, September 24, 2009 (Open the links for the additional, source articles) Is President Obama Leading Congressional Democrats Over A Political Cliff Posted by: Hugh Hewitt at 9:07 AM

"Yesterday's U.N. speech was an appalling exercise in appeasement and the most critical speech of Israel ever delivered by a sitting United States president to an international body. Rich Lowry noted correctly that "President Obama yesterday did his best impression of a high-school soph omore participating in his first Model UN meeting, retailing pious clich?s he learned from his pony-tailed social studies teacher." It will long be remembered as perhaps the worst display of American weakness on the U.N. stage. As that fiasco unfolded, Senate Democrats were struggling to disguise the all-out assault on seniors and the middle class that Obamacare has become.

"The president's popularity has been falling again, and Democrats in Congress got stunning news on the generic ballot question.Which all adds up to the conclusion in Michael Barone's Washington Examiner column this morning --the Democrats are asking America to kick them back into the minority. Michael doesn't call that result "likely" at this point, just a growing possibility. As the hard left character of the president's foreign and domestic policy initiatives unfolds and as the scandals continue to pile up --NEA and ACORN are just the early entries on that ledger-- the Obama Administration is looking more and more like a weaker, farther left version of the Carter years...."

http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog/g/4ab6767b-b426-4217-b28c-3b804cfb27b0

Paying work, fair booth delaying blog posts

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

The first actual, literal blood on Obama's hands

Everything about the reaction of O's admin to the attempt by a "Chavezista/Castroista" to manipulate his way into dictatorship in Honduras, smacks of, not just sympathy but, actual antagonism to constitutional self-governance. Honduran law very simply mandates one term; for any elected leader to even utter a verbal or printed word of aspiration to a second term, is a self-inflicted removal-from-office. Zalaya went way beyond that and was deemed to have violated the constitution; the order from Honduran supreme court to the military was not, by definition, a "military coup."

The disregard/contempt/propagandizing in favor of leftist, revolutionary takeover forces, by Obama's folks has brought about the current situation: Zalaya rallying his supporters from a Brazilian embassy.

We now have (the first of assuredly more) a dead body that would/should have never have been part of any conflict over such a clear-cut case of a dictator/Chavez wannabe being put out to pasture.

" One dead in Honduras clash, world pressure grows" and you see how even the headline portrays the conventional take on who should be "pressured."

"TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) – A man was shot and killed in a clash between police and supporters of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, as international pressure mounted on the de facto government to allow the leftist back into power.
It was the first reported death in political violence since Zelaya, forced into exile by a June 28 coup, slipped back into Honduras this week and took refuge in the Brazilian Embassy."

Me: notice they use the term "de facto government" to de-legitamize the clear constitutional process that was established, mind you, to prevent the type of banana-republic dictator that, if in the service of a rightwing (or as perceived) politician, would prompt, not support from an American president, but protests over how America props up lackeys.

Yes, Obama, your intervention has killed someone!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090923/wl_nm/us_honduras_5

I have no choice but to despise Obama at UN

I'll let Peter Wehner, at Commentary, fill out the picture of what boils...my...blood:
"Obama’s UN Speech, Dissected"

"In the UN speech earlier today, President Obama once again succumbed to what has become almost a clinical addiction: criticizing the United States in front of an international audience.

"In the latest stop on his American Apology Tour, Obama aimed his fire at America on the issue of global warming (“the days when America dragged its feet on this issue are over”) and democracy (“in the past America has too often been selective in its promotion of democracy”). And Obama, after humbly declaring at the outset of his speech that “I am well aware of the expectations that accompany my presidency around the world . . . they are also rooted in hope—the hope that real change is possible, and the hope that America will be a leader in bringing about such change,” went on to say this:

"I took office at a time when many around the world had come to view America with skepticism and distrust. Part of this was due to misperceptions and misinformation about my country. Part of this was due to opposition to specific policies, and a belief that on certain critical issues, America has acted unilaterally, without regard for the interests of others. This has fed an almost reflexive anti-Americanism, which too often has served as an excuse for our collective inaction.

"Where oh where to begin? How about by pointing out that America did not act unilaterally in Iraq or anywhere else during the Bush presidency. For example, and for the record, more than 35 countries gave crucial support...

"Perhaps Mr. Obama will come to understand that there is a problem when the president of the United States—an “inestimable jewel,” Lincoln called her—has harsher things to say about his own country than he does about many of the worst regimes on Earth. It is all quite disturbing, and to have to say this about an American president almost makes me sick."

Just open the link and read the outrageous rest: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/wehner/102841

Sound the alarm...raise hue and cry, pt. 3

Nearly every act, every word, coming from Obama, drives a stake deeper into destroying the entire national and world order built on the principles of freedom, self-rule and peace-through-strength. Here are thoughts from "Hillsdale College Professor Paul Rahe writes to comment on the Obama administration's announced abandoment last week of the so-called Third Site of missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. ...

"Professor Rahe argues that it also suggests Obama's peculiar animus against friends of the United States, if not the United States itself:

"Barack Obama has a history of belittling his adversaries in just such a fashion. In April, 2008, he was caught on tape during a debate with Hillary Clinton, rubbing his hand across the right side of his face and extending his middle finger in an obscene gesture that many in the audience could see it but she could not, and when this provoked laughter on the part of his supporters he responded with a knowing smile.

"Later, after accepting his party's nomination, he did precisely the same thing during a debate with John McCain; and, after Sarah Palin remarked at the Republican National Convention that the only difference between a pit bull and a soccer mom was lipstick, he observed at a rally that a pig with lipstick is still a pig. Again, many in the audience caught the dig and they, too, were rewarded with a knowing smile. Obama is, in fact, a master of the insulting gesture. There is no other construction that one can put on his conduct towards Gordon Brown...

" His tone is nearly always moderate but what he hints at and what he intimates by way of body language often convey the opposite Witness his warm embrace of Hugo Chavez. Behind the thin veneer of politeness, there is, I suspect, something ugly lurking. In the first of the autobiographies that he claims to have written, Barack Obama frequently speaks of himself as being in the grips of rage....

"We now know -- thanks to events in the Honduras -- the meaning of Obama's gesture with respect to the Venezuelan dictator, and I would suggest that we must regard in a similar light the timing of Obama's announcement of his administration's shift in policy regarding missile-defense in Europe. For it can hardly be an accident that he chose the seventieth anniversary of the Soviet Union's invasion of Poland as the occasion...

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/09/024565.php

Sound the alarm..raise hue and cry, pt. 2

Anyone wondering what "astroturf" (the artificial, manufactured appearance of a popular protest typified by the faux outrage by ACORN paid hacks, at executive salaries, with more reporters than "protesters" in their bus) looks like, here it is, from the Washington Times:

"Health reformers targeting 'enemies'...Protest events tightly scripted"

"The plan for a series of grass-roots demonstrations Tuesday to promote President Obama's health care agenda calls for tightly scripted events and an "escalation" of efforts against "enemies" of reform.

"Organizers insist there is no comparison to rowdy summer town hall meetings and recent "tea party" protests that have challenged White House policies. But Health Care for America Now (HCAN), which is backed by a coalition of labor unions and liberal groups including ACORN and MoveOn.org, organized the protests to target insurance companies and drafted the plan, which describes the demonstrations as part of its "insurance enemies project."

"The document, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, details specific talking points, tactics, props and strategies to stage the protests. It lists goals that include action that "mobilizes our base by animating existing anger about private insurers."

"The HCAN field plan dictates that each protest will include a minimum of 30 participants, target only health care insurers CIGNA, WellPoint and United Health Care and showcase what it calls "victims," or people who have either lost insurance, can't afford it or were denied coverage because of pre-existing medical conditions.

""We built a campaign to win health care reform and that is exactly what we are working on," said HCAN national spokeswoman Jacki Schechner, who authenticated the documents. But she asserted: "There is nothing top-down about this."

Get it?! "nothing top-down about this."

Read the rest: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/19/obamas-overhaul-backers-targeting-enemies/

Sound the alarm...raise hue and cry pt. 1

Disproving any delusions that Obama/Dems don't want utter and complete control of America's economy, ala fascism (look up the definition, but ignore ones that focus on military dictatorship, as opposed to state control of the private sector), we have a House bill to do just that--control every aspect of the financial sector of America: (via Hugh Hewitt)

"The primary purpose for writing is to raise alarms about the administrations efforts to enact the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) (H.R. 3126). This is another effort by Obama to take control of a significant portion of the economy. This bill not only covers banks but also tax preparers, credit card companies, title insurers, mortgage companies, financial advisors, data processors of financial information, credit bureaus, and any other activity that the agency defines as a financial activity to be covered by the act! ...

"If enacted, the CFPA would severely harm financial providers and consumers. The agency would be controlled by five appointees, one of whom is head of the national bank regulator. There is no real check or balance on the others (Warren is likely to be the Chairman). The agency would have sole authority to make and interpret regulations under existing consumer finance and fair lending laws. The agency would have broad examination and information gather authority. The CFPA would ban mandatory arbitration clauses. ...

Read the rest, and be afraid, be very afraid: http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog/g/709c911e-ef66-4ead-a803-acea7876f592

Yeah, we who don't obey pc crap...just brats

Here is how the WSJ reported it: "When it comes to greenhouse-gas emissions, Energy Secretary Steven Chu sees Americans as unruly teenagers and the Administration as the parent that will have to teach them a few lessons.

"Speaking on the sidelines of a smart grid conference in Washington, Dr. Chu said he didn’t think average folks had the know-how or will to to change their behavior enough to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

"“The American public…just like your teenage kids, aren’t acting in a way that they should act,” Dr. Chu said. “The American public has to really understand in their core how important this issue is.”...

(HotAir goes on): "Chu talks about American citizens as if they cannot be trusted to make their own choices and the need to parent us rather than govern us with our consent. Most of us have already had parents and don’t see the need to have our elected officials take their place.

"And if this is the attitude of the Obama administration on energy policy, just imagine what the attitude will be when they take charge of our health-care system.

"This is nothing more than a slightly more honest look at the attitude of the Left when it comes to governance. It’s all about paternalism and condescension, and the belief that a group of elites should be appointed to rule over the unwashed and unschooled masses for their own good. That has never been consonant with the American experience, which allows the individual to make his own choices and live with the consequences. Chu gives us a good look at the liberal soul, and most Americans will not like what they see."

To liberal statists, unless you buy into all their paradigms, you're either ignorant, impudent, maliciously uncooperative or whatever...but not, repeat not, free to do as you please.

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/09/22/obama-cabinet-official-americans-are-children/

Obama deceptively minimized his ACORN ties

Here's most of the short but incisive WSJ piece: "Acorn Who? Obama heads for the high grass."
"Mr. Obama took great pains to act as if he barely knew about Acorn. In fact, his association goes back almost 20 years. In 1991, he took time off from his law firm to run a voter-registration drive for Project Vote, an Acorn partner that was soon fully absorbed under the Acorn umbrella. The drive registered 135,000 voters and was considered a major factor in the upset victory of Democrat Carol Moseley Braun over incumbent Democratic Senator Alan Dixon in the 1992 Democratic Senate primary.

"Mr. Obama's success made him a hot commodity on the community organizing circuit. He became a top trainer at Acorn's Chicago conferences. In 1995, he became Acorn's attorney, participating in a landmark case to force the state of Illinois to implement the federal Motor Voter Law. That law's loose voter registration requirements would later be exploited by Acorn employees in an effort to flood voter rolls with fake names.

"In 1996, Mr. Obama filled out a questionnaire listing key supporters for his campaign for the Illinois Senate. He put Acorn first (it was not an alphabetical list). In the U.S. Senate, Mr. Obama became the leading critic of Voter ID laws, whose overturn was a top Acorn priority. In 2007, in a speech to Acorn's leaders prior to their political arm's endorsement of his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama was effusive: "I've been fighting alongside of Acorn on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote in Illinois, Acorn was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work."

"But the Obama campaign didn't appear eager to discuss the candidate's ties to Acorn. Its press operation vividly denied Mr. Obama had been an Acorn trainer until the New York Times uncovered records demonstrating that he had been. The Obama campaign also gave Citizens Consulting, Inc., an Acorn subsidiary, $832,000 for get-out-the-vote activities in key primary states. In filings with the Federal Election Commission, the Obama campaign listed the payments as "staging, sound, lighting," only correcting the filings after the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review revealed their true nature.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204488304574427041636360388.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

When CBS can find 5 of O's promises dead...

As they do in this article:

"Sept. 21, 2009 "Five Health Care Promises Obama Won't Keep"
"The President Could Be Close to Achieving Health Care Reform, but Not with All of his Campaign Promises:

"1. No Individual Mandate During the 2008 Democratic primary, Mr. Obama and then-Sen. Hillary Clinton both shared the goal of health care reform. By Mr. Obama's own admission, the biggest difference between the two candidates was that Clinton supported a mandate for all Americans to acquire health care. ...

"2. Complete Transparency Candidate Obama promised that health care deliberations with Congress and special interests would be transparent to the extreme. ...The president, members of Congress from both parties and special interest groups have indeed all participated in negotiations, but those conversations have not been broadcast. Instead, the president has announced deals with groups like the pharmaceutical industry and the insurance industry after they were worked out in backroom deals.

"3. Enable the Government to Directly Negotiate Drug Prices In the Jan. 31, 2008 debate, Mr. Obama said, "If a drug company -- if the drug companies or a member of Congress who's carrying water for the drug companies wants to argue that we should not negotiate for the cheapest available price on drugs, then I want them to make that argument in front of the American people." It turns out, however, Mr. Obama reneged on this promise in a secretive way."...

"4. Allow Drug Importation During the campaign, Mr. Obama said his plan (PDF) would "Allow consumers to import safe drugs from other countries" because "some companies are exploiting Americans by dramatically overcharging U.S. consumers." As noted above, the Obama administration secretly conceded to forgo the importation of cheaper drugs in its deal with the pharmaceutical industry. ...

"5. Lower Premiums by $2,500 for a Family of Four ..."

Read the whole article if you want to see how the deception of Obama takes various tactics and forms regarding these 5 promises: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/21/politics/main5326987.shtml

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

The numbers on the uninsured not so high

Remember, Obama has used the 46+ million right up until he quit, in favor of the 30 million number he used in BIG SPEECCH. Since no reporters force them to provide a basis for any of their numbers, and they don't offer them, we'll let those who've studied it do so:

Hennessey breaks this group of nearly 46 million into five categories. The first, consisting of about 6.5 million, actually is insured. According to Hennessey, they are enrolled in Medicaid or S-CHIP but didn't tell the census taker. This is called the "Medicaid undercount."

"The second group, about 4.5 million, consists of people who are eligible for Medicaid or S-CHIP but have not enrolled. If they need care, the hospital or clinic generally enrolls them. In other words, they do not (as Obama claims) go bankrupt or without treatment. In any case, it would be ridiculous to overhaul our healthcare system to provide insurance to people who are already eligible for government assistance but have failed to avail themselves of it.

"The third group, about 9.5 million, is comprised of non-citizens. Hennessey notes that people will disagree about what portion of this group should receive government subsidized health insurance. In my view, none should. ...

"The fourth group, another 10 million, earns an income more than three times the poverty line. As such, they can afford to buy medical insurance. Taxpayers should not be required to buy it for them.

"This leaves about 15.5 million (one-third of Obama's 46 million) who actually are uninsured, cannot become insured simply by enrolling in a free program, are U.S. citizens, and cannot easily afford to purchase insurance. About 5 million members of this cohort are childless adults. ...

"Obama knows he needs a big number of "uninsured" to even get in the vicinity of selling what he has in mind to a skeptical public. But the big number he has selected would not get him in the vicinity if the public better understood who it consists of.

JOHN adds: "Many young, single people make a perfectly rational decision not to buy health insurance. Accidents are the biggest threat to their health; car accidents are covered by automobile insurance and work-related accidents are covered by workmen's comp. The chance of a young person contracting a catastrophic disease (leukemia, say) is remote, and people aren't stupid: they know that if they contract such a disease they will be treated whether they can pay or not. ...

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/08/024280.php

50 years of socialism--dogs better off in NHS

From Powerline's John Hinderacker:

"After fifty years of socialism, Cuba's economy has regressed to the point where its government is now encouraging farmers to plow with oxen. Government-owned oxen. Cuba gets 100,000 barrels of oil a day from Venezuela, for free, but still can't afford to run its small supply of tractors (also government-owned).

"I am thankful for the revolution," 52-year-old [Zenaida Leon] said. "But we don't get boots, tools, irrigation that works."

"Socialism is the most inept, most destructive system of organization ever devised by mankind. Why would we even consider turning our health care system over to its discredited principles?

"What's the medical equivalent of plowing with oxen? Maybe someday our grandchildren will wait in line to be bled by leeches or have their teeth extracted with pliers.

"UPDATE: The point is reinforced by Theodore Dalrymple, a British doctor, in the Wall Street Journal. He compares human health care (socialized) with veterinary health care (free market) in Great Britain:

"In the last few years, I have had the opportunity to compare the human and veterinary health services of Great Britain, and on the whole it is better to be a dog."

Here's the link to the WSJ article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204908604574334282143887974.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

And some excerpts: "As a British dog, you get to choose (through an intermediary, I admit) your veterinarian. If you don’t like him, you can pick up your leash and go elsewhere, that very day if necessary. Any vet will see you straight away, there is no delay in such investigations as you may need, and treatment is immediate. There are no waiting lists for dogs, no operations postponed because something more important has come up, no appalling stories of dogs being made to wait for years because other dogs—or hamsters—come first.

"The conditions in which you receive your treatment are much more pleasant than British humans have to endure. For one thing, there is no bureaucracy to be negotiated with the skill of a white-water canoeist; above all, the atmosphere is different. There is no tension, no feeling that one more patient will bring the whole system to the point of collapse, and all the staff go off with nervous breakdowns. In the waiting rooms, a perfect calm reigns; the patients’ relatives are not on the verge of hysteria, and do not suspect that the system is cheating their loved one, for economic reasons, of the treatment which he needs. They are not terrified that someone is getting more out of the system than they. ...

"The latter is the fear that also haunts Americans, at least those Americans who think of justice as equality in actual, tangible benefits. That is the ideological driving force of health-care reform in America....

"The Case for ACORN as a Criminal Enterprise"

By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

"It now looks very much like there was a lot more truth to the criticisms about ACORN—the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now—than its leadership, its allies on Capitol Hill and its supporters in the media were willing to acknowledge...

"The journalists, James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, posed as a prostitute and her pimp asking ACORN for help in obtaining a mortgage so they could purchase a building they could use in their sex business, which included a number of under-age girls brought to the United States from overseas as sex workers.

"The ACORN personnel cheerfully obliged, suggesting ways to defraud the bank, avoid tax payments by misstating income, and disguise the true nature of their activities. They were even advised to classify several of the under-age girls as "dependents" so the pair would qualify for the federal child tax credit. In one office an ACORN official even told Giles to classify her occupation as a "free lancer" and to bury any cash her business generated in the backyard...

"A report issued last summer by the Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, according to Sunday's Washington Times, "presented evidence that ACORN had engaged in criminal misconduct."

"Among the findings, the report said, ACORN:
Engaged in tax evasion, obstruction of justice and aiding and abetting a cover-up of nearly $1 million embezzled by Dale Rathke, brother of group founder Wade Rathke;

Committed investment fraud, depriving the public of the right to "honest services," and engaging in a racketeering enterprise affecting interstate commerce;

Conspired to defraud the United States by using taxpayer dollars for partisan political activities;
Submitted false filings to the Internal Revenue Service, and the U.S. Department of Labor
; and,

Violated the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act....
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/peter-roff/2009/09/21/the-case-for-acorn-as-a-criminal-enterprise.html

2010=1994

GALLUP: Majority believe government is doing too much. “The last time the number of people who believe government is doing too much hit 57 percent was in October 1994, shortly before voters threw Democrats out of power in both the House and Senate.” (via Instapundit)

ACORN tutorial: seeking America's destruction

"Sowing the seeds of destruction" ACORN's shady tactics made headlines last week. But their shocking radicalism is nothing new.
By GINGER ADAMS OTIS and TIM PERONE

"Just how nutty is ACORN? Very, say longtime watchers of the extreme leftwing group that sprouted out of a radical 60s anti-government movement.
For decades ACORN has presented itself as a grassroots network dedicated to improving the lives of the poor.
But there's more to ACORN than its do-gooder veneer.
Just ask the banks, corporations and politicians who've been the target of ACORN's shameless shenanigans over the past 40 years.
Here's how the tiny seed of 1960s radicalism blossomed into a well-funded, national organization with political connections reaching all the way to the White House:

"THE BEGINNING
*ACORN is rooted in extreme far-left activism that wants to shut down the US government by overwhelming it with demands for welfare benefits and other forms of assistance.
"They don't like the American system of government, and would love for it to be overthrown," said ACORN expert Matthew Vadum, a senior editor at the conservative Capital Research Center in D.C.
"The whole goal is to transform America into a socialist country, or some form of socialist democracy. This group is dangerous."
*Founder Wade Rathke was a student at Williams College in 1969 and a member of the leftist Students for a New Democracy group when he dropped out to protest the Vietnam War full-time.
*Rathke began working for fiery activist George Wiley, a black radical who started the National Welfare Reform Organization in 1969. NWRO was created to help poor people sign up for more welfare benefits, with the goal of clogging and eventually grinding down US government systems....

Read the rest for a glimpse into the radical group that Obama is sympatico with, and openly invited to help him "transform" America through "change":

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/sowing_the_seeds_of_destruction_rhxjpV4D6z3WEgITKiPxrL/0

Remember when protest was patriotic?

Here are some excerpts from "Glenn Harlan Reynolds: Remember when protest was patriotic?":

""Protest is patriotic!" "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism!"
These battle-cries were heard often, in a simpler America of long ago -- that is, before last November. Back then, protests -- even if they were organized by the usual leftist apparatchik-groups like ANSWER or ACORN -- were seen - at least in the media - as proof of popular discontent.

"When handfuls of Code Pink ladies disrupted congressional hearings or speeches by Bush administration officials, it was taken as evidence that the administration's policies were unpopular, and that the thinking parts of the populace were rising up in true democratic fashion. Even disruptive tactics aimed at blocking President Bush's Social Security reform program were merely seen as evidence of boisterous high spirits and robust, wide-open debate...

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls the "Tea Party" protesters Nazis, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman --forgetting the events above -- claims that left-leaning groups never engaged in disruptive tactics against Social Security reform, and various other administration-supporting pundits are trying to spin the whole thing as a deadly move toward "mob rule" and – somewhat contradictorily -- as a phony "astroturf" movement.

"Remember: When lefties do it, it's called "community organizing." When conservatives and libertarians do it, it's "astroturf."But some people are noticing the truth. As Mickey Kaus notes, "If an 'astroturfing' campaign gets real people to show up at events stating their real views, isn't it ... community organizing?" Why yes, yes it is...

"Rather than demonizing today's protesters, perhaps they might want to reflect on how flimflams and thuggishness have managed to squander Obama's political capital in a few short months, and ponder what they might do to regain the trust of the millions of Americans who are no longer inclined to give the Obama administration the benefit of the doubt."

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Sunday_Reflections/Remember-when-protest-was-patriotic-52767517.html

The liberal/intellectual/political thugs, bullies

"Strangers to dissent, liberals try to stifle it" By: Michael Barone

"It is an interesting phenomenon that the response of the left half of our political spectrum to criticism and argument is often to try to shut it down. Thus President Obama in his Sept. 9 speech to a joint session of Congress told us to stop "bickering," as if principled objections to major changes in public policy were just childish obstinacy, and chastised his critics for telling "lies," employing "scare tactics" and playing "games." Unlike his predecessor, he sought to use the prestige of his office to shut criticism down....

"I would submit that the president's call for an end to "bickering" and the charges of racism by some of his supporters are the natural reflex of people who are not used to hearing people disagree with them and who are determined to shut them up.

"This comes naturally to liberals educated in our great colleges and universities, so many of which have speech codes whose primary aim is to prevent the expression of certain conservative ideas and which are commonly deployed for that purpose. (For examples see the Web site of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which defends students of all political stripes.) Once the haven of free inquiry and expression, academia has become a swamp of stifling political correctness.

"Similarly, the "mainstream media" -- the old-line broadcast networks, the New York Times, etc. -- presents a politically correct picture of the world. The result is that liberals can live in a cocoon, an America in which seldom is heard a discouraging word...

""Mainstream media" tries to help. In the past few weeks, we have seen textbook examples of how MSM has ignored news stories that reflected badly on the administration for which it has such warm feelings. It ignored the videos in which White House "green jobs czar" proclaimed himself a "communist" and the "truther" petition he signed charging that George W. Bush may have allowed the Sept. 11 attacks.

"It ignored the videos released on Andrew Breitbart's biggovernment.com showing Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now employees offering to help a supposed pimp and prostitute evade taxes and employ 13- to 15-year-old prostitutes. It downplayed last spring's Tea Parties..."

Read the rest: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Strangers-to-dissent_-liberals-try-to-stifle-it-8265165-59787902.html

What would news media/lib-Dems say...

If a President McCain were playing golf, making jokes and cracking wise, rubbing elbows with the rich at some exclusive resort, and meanwhile, insulting his critics and telling them to just...shut...up.

Folks, it doesn't take much imagination, does it? Just replay some of what we saw for the last 8 years. But when it's not a conservative Republican, but the political second-coming of the annointed one, Barack Hussein Obama, the sound of outrage, the deafening crescendo of charges of being out-of-touch and aloof to the suffering of Americans and the hardships of our men and women in uniform and harms way...shhh...listen...what's that sound? Yes, crickets...leaves rustling...wind...not a peep.

I wouldn't expect those in O's camp to object to anything he does or says. But the networks, cable, dead-tree-fish-wrappers conveying what they deign to consider appropriate news...they should be pounding Obama and every one of his hacks and mouthpieces, and exposing...exposing...oh, yeah, exposing the type of stuff that Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, Brietbart/Big Gov et al, are breaking. ACORN, health bill lies, illegal funneling of gov't money to "artistes" to serve Dear Leader and his policies.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Yeah, it breaks laws--I hope for prosecutions

Monday, September 21, 2009 (from Jude blogging at Hugh Hewitt)

"New NEA Revelations Show Either Conspiracy Or IgnorancePosted by: Jude at 8:45 AM
This whole administration really needs to stop campaigning and start governing within the boundaries set for government within our society. I've posted about the corruption and co-opting of the NEA for propaganda purposes here and here. Today, via Big Hollywood, the story is breaking wide open, with the full transcript and audio of the call being made available. (Skip to Roger Kimball's incredible take-down if you're in a hurry.) The transcript is devastating. With the help of a single whistle-blower, film-maker Patrick Courrielche, Andrew Breitbart strikes again!

"It's another story Big Media might easily have pursued and cracked, but chose to ignore. It's another story that reflects badly on the Obama administration, go figure. It ties back to ACORN, but it doesn't involve anything as salacious as underage prostitution. Nor does it involve low-level employees who, it might, might be argued, were confused or didn't know any better.What this involves is White House employees actively recruiting artists to push Obama's "aggressive agenda", using the NEA and its funding as a both a carrot and a conduit. At the top of their list for promotional propaganda, right about the time the Town Halls were having an effect? Health Care.

"These people don't play by the rules because they believe they are right and the rest of us be damned. Or, they may not even know they're not supposed to be doing this stuff and just think they're running the high school now, so there. I think we have to assume it's a mixture of both motivations. ..."
Roger Kimball sums the horrifying truth up:

"Today, Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com posts the transcript of an August 10 conference call between Yosi Sergant, then director of communication at the NEA, Buffy Wicks, from the deliciously named Office of Public Engagement at the White House, and a score of artists and activists.

"It is an amazing document, breathtaking and alarming by turns. I knew that the Obama administration was moving fast to socialize the United States. I had no idea that its efforts at enforcing conformity through propaganda had reached such an advanced stage.
Here are a few snippets from that conference, stitched together to bring out the gist of various points (though I have not tidied up the diction).
Mike Skolnick, a filmmaker who now serves as “political director” for Russell Simmons, the vegan proselytizer and hip-hop entrepreneur, started the ball rolling. “I have been asked,” he said:

"… by folks in the White House and folks in the NEA [to follow up on] the role that we artists and thinkers and tastemakers and marketers and visionaries played during the campaign for the president and also during the his first 200 some odd days of his presidency. … I’m hoping that through this group … we can … get involved in things that we’re passionate about as we did during the campaign … to support some of the president’s initiatives … and push the president and push his administration."

"Why was Mr. Skolnick asked by “folks in the White House” to help get artists to “support the president’s initiatives” and “push his administration”? ...

Read the whole column:
http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimball/2009/09/21/breaking-news-national-endowment-for-the-arts-renamed-national-endowment-for-propaganda-stay-tuned-this-is-only-the-beginning/
What is going on here?

Economists, conservatives were right that the stimulus would have no positive effects

I've just finished going through some stacks of articles from earlier this year. Folks, many economists and conservatives wrote over and over for months, while the so-called stimulus was being debated and jammed through Congress, that the stimulus would not help the economy.

They were right! We were told (and sold a bill of goods) that unemployment would remain under 8 percent if the stimulus passed. Many ideas were presented by Republicans and conservatives on how to help the economy without deficit-busting, gov't larded pork spending.

We've been told now that it worked as planned (Biden), but now we have Obama himself telling us high unemployment will be with us for another year! Since actual conditions have consistently turned out worse than O's people have told us, will they ever admit to any failure of their policies? Not likely.

All economic downturns eventually bounce back up, but this recovery is not likely to be robust (4-6 percent increases in GDP) with the high tax, high regulatory, high deficit burden put on it by the O-dems. I hope I'm wrong, but we on the right were dead-on when we applied the learned lessons of how the New Deal didn't help (it delayed recovery by 7 years, according to UCLA researchers), and how ineffective gov't stimulus has been whenever it's been tried, compared to the Kennedy/Reagan tax reduction policies that really did boost their respective economies.

I hate for the harm to people and our country that occurs when the economy sucks, but it is not rocket science that the gov't cannot make prosperity--only when people, businesses, companies and corporations have more money--when taxes take less--only then does prosperity spread.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

From talk shows: Obama clueless on ACORN

If you haven't been to Instapundit, here is the jaw-dropping "news" from one of O's appearances:

OBAMA: ACORN scandals? There are ACORN scandals? “I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money.”

UPDATE: Reader Paul Jackson writes:

Let me be the first, and only probably, to liken Obama’s not knowing that ACORN receives a “whole lot” of federal money, to George H.W. Bush not knowing what a UPC scanner was. I realize he’s got a “whole lot” on his plate, but jeez don’t you think he should have expected an ACORN question or two. Also reminds me of the “above my pay scale” answer regarding when life begins. Now that he’s president, some of these issues just don’t have room in the Obama hard-drive anymore. Maybe if he wasn’t going on 5 Sunday shows, and Letterman, and chairing that UN thing, he might be a little more well versed in wtf is going on.
Dem or Rep, nothing looks stupider than the president not being “up” on current events.

Indeed. Plus, TigerHawk comments:

In a “meaning of ‘is’ is” moment, President Obama asks us to believe that he “didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money.” No doubt he also did not know that ACORN was getting a wad of moola, a tin of lucre, a dollop of dough, bread to come and go on, a whole lot of benjamins, or a goodly pile of legal tender. But he apparently did know — we only know this because of his absurd parsing — that the federal government was funding ACORN to some degree.
The president really needs to speak less legalistically in ordinary conversation, because people do not like people who sound like lawyers. Learn not thy lessons from Bill Clinton, Mr. President!
Indeed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Various readers point out that the problem with the Bush scanner story is that, unlike Obama’s self-proclaimed ignorance of ACORN, the Bush scanner story isn’t true.
Posted at 1:48 pm by Glenn Reynolds

Everything you could want to know on ACORN

Me: Before you swallow the relatively sanitized MSM coverage of ACORN that has for over a year sought to provide protective cover for this near-gangster organization and its hand-in-glove relationship with Dems and Obama, read this compendium:

"A quick guide to The Examiner on ACORN" By: Kevin MooneyCommentary Staff Writer09/18/09 5:52 PM EDT

The Washington Examiner on ACORN: (Below are excerpts--go to full article for headline summary of coverage)

Reports:

February 25, 2009: ACORN gets double-dips of pork in stimulus and omnibus spending bills.

April 19, 2009: ACORN is closely connected with The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), according to U.S. Labor Department disclosure forms.

April 22, 2009: ACORN deletes references to SEIU affiliations from its web site after The Examiner exposes the connections.

May 6, 2009: Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) reverses his earlier position to open an investigation into ACORN.

May 7, 2009: Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) pushes his pro-ACORN amendment as new charges are filed in Nevada and Pennsylvania.

May 13, 2009: Only four House Democrats oppose an amendment from Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) that would allow ACORN to receive funding under the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act. ...

Editorials:

April 23, 2009: Top recipients of federal bailout money like Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup should stop funding corrupt organizations like ACORN.

May 24, 2009: Rep. Barney Frank and other Democrats continue to rationalize support for ACORN, despite new indictments. ...

Beltway Confidential:
Sept. 1, 2009: ACORN quick to collect federal funds, but slow to pay taxes.
Sept. 11, 2009: Census Bureau terminates relationship with ACORN.
Sept. 12, 2009: Who is Hannah Giles?
Sept. 12, 2009: Why is ACORN giving tax advice? It began with H&R Block.
Sept. 12, 2009: In ACORN scandal, Maryland may prosecute...the journalists who revealed it.
Sept. 12, 2009: Maryland still promoting ACORN for housing help. ...

Special Reports:

May 5, 2009: ACORN has received $53 million in federal funding since 1994 and remains eligible for $8 billion more

May 19, 2009: ACORN’s Citizens Consulting Inc. (CCI) affiliate appears to be in control of the organization’s financial transactions, which are recorded on tax documents.

July 7, 2009: ACORN has a long history of aggressive tactics that reaches back to the 1960s. ...

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/A-quick-guide-to-The-Examiner-on-ACORN-59786247.html