In addition to no longer having Bush to blame

Those who don't learn from the mistakes of other countries, or from history, as they say, are doomed to repeat them. Read, and watch the video, that makes the case for a potential "lost decade" for America, similar to the economic "lost decade" that Japan went through:

"As Randazzo explains, both the causes of and official responses to Japan's bubble and economic slump eerily anticipate exactly what the U.S. government is doing. Worse still, the Obama administration and Congress seem dead-set against the sorts of policies—across-the-board taxes on personal and business income, reductions in long-term and unsustainable government debt, and allowing damaged firms to go bankrupt—that would help revivify the American economy.
Is America on the verge of its own lost decade? Sadly, the government seems to be doing everything it can to make that happen."

http://reason.tv/video/show/810.html

Obama admits--sort of--you may lose your insurance

Well, it seems a good reporter willing to ask a revealing question (truth to power?) is not extinct in Washington. Meet Jake Tapper:

"But today the president clarified that promise. It seems he wasn’t saying “no one” will take away any American’s health insurance – he was saying the government wouldn’t.Which is not to say that the government wouldn’t create a situation where such a thing would happen."

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/06/what-does-the-presidents-promise-youll-be-able-to-keep-your-health-care-plan-period-really-mean.html

The glow-bama is fading among independents

From Wall Street Journal/NBC poll:

"Independent voters are the canaries in the coal mine of American politics, telling a leader whether the air is safe or starting to fill up with some toxic gases.
Bearing that in mind, President Barack Obama and his team ought to start worrying about the health of those canaries.
While the president remains broadly popular, his standing has eroded noticeably among political independents in recent weeks. That slide, among a set of citizens central to Mr. Obama's sizable victory in last year's election, means he has reached a politically hazardous juncture at the midpoint of his first, exceptionally hectic year."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124570175501838333.html

We Don’t Need Obama’s Big-Bang Health-Care Plan

From Larry Kudlow:

"It looks like President Obama’s big-bang health-care reform is going down to defeat. This is good. But my question is why do we need it at all? According to a recent ABC News/USA Today/Kaiser Family Foundation survey, 89 percent of Americans are satisfied with their health care. That could mean up to 250 million people are happy. So why is it that we need Obama’s big-bang health-care overhaul in the first place?
There’s more. According the U.S. Census Bureau, we don’t have 47 million folks who are truly uninsured. When you take college kids plus those earning $75,000 or more who chose not to sign up, that removes roughly 20 million people. Then take out about 10 million more who are not U.S. citizens, and 11 million who are eligible for SCHIP and Medicaid but have not signed up for some reason.So that really leaves only 10 million to 15 million people who are truly long-term uninsured."

Read the rest:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTEyNjZlZWYyNWQzMzliZDFmZDQ0N2JjMjkwYjE5Yjc=

Largest tax increase in history ruse over global warming

From the Competitive Enterprise Institute:

"House Democratic leaders plan to bring to the floor this week the Waxman-Markey energy-rationing bill, H. R. 2454. If enacted, Waxman-Markey would be the biggest tax increase in the history of the world and the biggest government intervention in people’s lives since the second World War, which is the last time that Americans needed ration coupons to buy gasoline, food, and other necessities. The energy price increases required by H. R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, are not a one-time event, but will go up steadily year after year until at least 2050."

Openness and transparency out the window for O

Yeah, "that's the ticket" all right--secret energy meetings under Bush, bad; secret energy meetings under Obama, not so much: "Obama Closes Doors on Openness":

"For a president who said he was going to bring unprecedented transparency to government, you would certainly expect more than the recycling of old Bush secrecy policies."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/202875

Golf during wars, bad economy--Bush bad, Obama not so much

The double standard has to be contemplated for the hypocrisy to be believed:

http://cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=49931

'Recovery's Missing Ingredient: New Jobs'

The Corner on National Review Online Veronique de Rugy:
Remember how the Obama adminstration promised that the $800 billion stimulus bill would create thousands of jobs? Well, according to this morning's Washington Post, it hasn't happened yet:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/21/AR2009062101859.html?hpid=topnews

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Polecat's off for the weekend

I'll have more posts on Monday. Take a little tour of the posts that you haven't read yet, while you're hear...and enjoy your weekend.

Obama turns out to be the real "unitary executive"

It goes on…Obama as the “Unitary Executive” that the libs castigated Bush for supposedly being, but what about high-handed, unlawful firing of the Inspector General that had uncovered massive waste and corrupt squandering of taxpayers money:

http://www.redstate.com/leon_h_wolf/2009/06/18/barack-obama-unitary-executive-theorist/

O would like to run against Bush for 4 years

Even David Broder takes notice that O's people are obsessed with using Bush as a foil, forever:
"Guess Who Wishes Bush Was Back":

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/19/AR2009061902329.html

"Irrational fear"...only ever applies to Bush, right?

On the upside down, through-the-looking-glass world of liberals, what’s “irrational” or “hateful”? Depends…on your leanings:
“Are you worried about the Obama administration’s fiscal policies, their efforts to impose socialized medicine on all America, their contempt for the rule of law (ask the supposedly “secured bondholders” at Chrysler about that), their efforts to make government bigger and more intrusive? I am. Does that make me “irrationally fearful”? Where, in Frank Rich’s cosmology, does rational, justified fear come in — apart, I mean, from anything that can be associated with George W. Bush?”:

http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimball/2009/06/18/announcing-the-save-frank-rich-society/2/

More "no economic clothes" reports

The emperor has no economic clothes. The same electorate whose approval ratings drove O-bot triumphalism, now…not so much:“Honeymoon Over” :
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docid=news-000003146528

“Public concerned about size of deficit…intervention in private sector":
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31407851/ns/politics-white_house/

What the f... is the Senate apologizing for slavery and Jim Crow

Unbelievable! Here's National Review's Roger Clegg:
"Sorry, Senate, but you’re not speaking on my behalf. Slavery and Jim Crow were evil, all right, but your resolution is divisive and evasive. It is divisive insofar as it forgets E pluribus unum and suggests that some Americans need to apologize to other Americans..."

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-senate%E2%80%99s-slavery-and-jim-crow-apology-from-whom-to-whom-and-why/

After bowing to Saudi king, O stiffs 911 victims in favor of Saudi royal family

From the Republican Trust:

But just days before his trip, he genuflected to the Saudi royals and subordinated American victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as though they were subjects as well. The Obama Justice Department argued that family members of the victims of the terror attacks should not be allowed to sue the Saudi royal family for helping finance al-Qaida. The lawsuit accuses the Saudi royals of financially backing al-Qaida through direct contributions and so-called charitable organizations set up to sponsor terrorism, according to documents insurance companies filed on behalf of victims and surviving family members of the attacks that killed 3,000 Americans.

The legal brief filed on behalf of Obama's solicitor general, Elena Kagan, stated that “the Supreme Court had historically looked to the executive branch to take the lead on such international matters because of ‘the potentially significant foreign relations consequences of subjecting another sovereign state to suit',” according to the New York Times.
But that is just what a bill President Clinton signed allows victims of terrorism to do. The “Flatow Amendment” to the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act was intended to provide relief for the families of terrorism by allowing legal pursuit of state sponsors of terrorism. This is the very definition of what the Saudi's have done by supporting al-Qaida.

Why Obama-care may be flatlining--J. Pethokoukis

The reason O-care is going down, irrespective of the voluminous case against, which I have made in columns and in this blog, is that representative democracy WORKS, just like it did to kill amnesty for illegals:

http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2009/06/22/why-obamacare-may-be-flatlining/

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics, Division of Health Care Legerdemain

Roger Kimball deconstructs the NYTimes propaganda polling meant to show the sheeple that everyone else is on the gov't health care bandwagon:
"There are currently some 1300 insurance carriers providing health care coverage in the U.S. The Obama administration wants to reduce that to one: the government. Would it cut costs? Possibly. We really don’t know. What we do know is that it would sharply erode the quality of health care in the United States."

http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimball/2009/06/21/lies-damned-lies-and-statistics-division-of-health-care-legerdemain/

Maybe those of us crying "the emporer has no clothes" are begining to persuade the sheeple to start believing their lying eyes:

“Expectations for President Obama’s stimulus package have diminished, with barely half of Americans now confident the $787 billion measure will boost the economy, and the rapid rise in optimism that followed the 2008 election has abated, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/22/AR2009062202000.html?hpid=topnews

ABC Self-Nationalizes For Obama

Way to uphold the detached, dispassionate, willing-to-take-on-all-holders-of-power, ABC. They apparently set out to do the bowing of Brian Williams, the fawning of CBS anchors, the "He's like God" adoration of Newsweek's Evan Thomas--one better, by actually helping pass legislation. How's that, liberals who Pavlovian-like chant "the media's all conservative, don't believe what you see and hear on the MSM:
"As much of the U.S. private sector, including health care providers, resists government takeovers, what a sorry sight to see ABC News leap forward to make itself a propaganda arm of the government."

http://ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=330306097960268

More hype and chump change--unemployment like Europe

"In the above chart, the US rate is higher than all countries except for France."

http://seekingalpha.com/article/144441-u-s-unemployment-rate-approaching-europe-s

The 'False Pretenses' of Obama's deficit budget

From Powerline (March): Barack Obama used to get very upset about federal budget deficits. Denouncing an "orgy of spending and enormous deficits," he turned to John McCain during their presidential debates last fall and said, "We have had, over the last eight years, the biggest increases in deficit spending and national debt in our history...Now we have a half-trillion deficit annually...and Sen. McCain voted for four out of five of those George Bush budgets."
That was then. Now, President Obama is asking lawmakers to vote for a budget with a deficit three times the size of the one that so disturbed candidate Obama just a few months ago. And Obama foresees, for years to come, deficits that dwarf those he felt so passionately about way, way back in 2008." (From Byron York)

"Alice Rivlin, Bill Clinton's budget director, agrees that the deficits contemplated by Obama's budget are unsustainable, and will require higher taxes--and not just on the "rich." Byron comments:
Of course, that's what McCain said during the campaign. And it's what the much-maligned Joe the Plumber said, too. Remember when he took so much flak for objecting to Obama's plan to raise taxes only on those Americans making more than $250,000 a year? Joe didn't make anything near that, the critics said, so why was he worrying?
The point was not that Joe made that much, or that anybody at McCain's rallies made that much -- the vast majority didn't. The point was that Obama was promising so many things that to pay for them he would eventually have to raise taxes on people making far less than $250,000. Look out, McCain warned -- someday he'll come after you.
And now that's where we appear to be headed."

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/03/023175.php

Stimulus about rewarding O's interest groups

From National Review blog:

Skewed Stimulus [Stephen Spruiell]
Veronique, add Christina Hoff Sommers's latest, "No Country for Burly Men," to the growing pile of evidence that the stimulus package had nothing to do with creating jobs and everything to do with stimulating the interest groups that helped Obama get elected. The salient facts Sommers highlights:
* Of the 5.7 million jobs Americans lost between December 2007 and May 2009, nearly 80 percent had been held by men.

* Last November, President Obama proposed a stimulus plan that emphasized "shovel-ready" infrastructure projects with lots of money going to sectors like construction and manufacturing.

* A consortium of feminist groups complained that the stimulus was skewed toward creating jobs for men and launched a lobbying effort to add more spending on sectors like health care and education where women predominate.

* Obama complied, so much so that the now-infamous Jan. 10th report on the stimulus (the one with the way-off projections of how the stimulus package would affect the unemployment rate) concluded that the stimulus bill "skews job creation somewhat towards women."

White House: don't take Obama Health Care Promises Literally

The hype and chump change goes on:
From Heritage via Volokh/Jim Lindgren:

"Less than 24 hours after Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner questioned the veracity of President Obama’s persistent claim that, under his health care proposals, “if you like your insurance package you can keep it”, the White House has begun to walk the President’s claim back. Turns out he didn’t really mean it.
According to the Associated Press, “White House officials suggest the president’s rhetoric shouldn’t be taken literally: What Obama really means is that government isn’t about to barge in and force people to change insurance.” How’s that for change you can believe in?"

http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=7273666970697605402

Thirty-four percent (34%) Strongly Disapprove Obama

Obama's approval index, "strong approval minus strong disapproval" from Rasmussen, is now in negative territory. Before you rationalize it away, that exact same formula has shown Obama with a positive rating since inauguration (Jan. +20 to 30, Feb +15 to 20, March +6 to 8, April same as March, May same as April, June +5 to minus 2):

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

What Do these First Six Months Mean?

A brilliant, as usual, analysis of Obama by VDHanson with this excerpt:

"It used to be cute to talk about how “Bush turned off the Europeans.” Perhaps. But beneath all the public demonstrations and burning effigies, the old guard knew that Bush, like Clinton, Bush, and Reagan (but not Carter), would be there should the Russians, Koreans, Chinese, the lunatic regimes in the Middle East, the Al Qaedists and the rest threaten Western interests.
I don’t see how they can assume such a thing any more."

http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/what-do-these-first-six-months-mean/

CNN’s Shocking Suck-Up to Iran’s Fascists

Here's how CNN continues to fulfill the conservative caricature, you know, as the "Communist News Network,"Clinton NN", "Crescent NN":

http://pajamasmedia.com/ronrosenbaum/2009/06/21/cnns-shocking-suck-up-to-irans-fascists/

Government action caused the economic crisis, not the free market.

Yet another accurate, truthful of how we got here, which I pointed out in a column myself, but Mr Randazzo just does it better:

"The core problem of the regulatory proposal is its view of the causes of the crisis. Everything is built on a belief that the market failed and that deregulation created a system of excessive risk and irresponsibility. Ironically, it was government action that created incentives for financial firms to be less risk adverse, not a lack of regulation. As Washington prepares to debate regulatory overhaul this summer, it is more important than ever to wrestle the myth of deregulation to the ground."

http://reason.com/news/show/134238.html

Control costs? Medicare, medicaid worse than private health

From Pacific Research Institute:
"Since 1970 — even without the prescription drug benefit — Medicare's costs have risen 34% more, per patient, than the combined costs of all health care in America apart from Medicare and Medicaid, the vast majority of which is purchased through the private sector."

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=480067

Information and counterarguments to single-payer health care

If you're just happening by, first note that if you scroll down a little ways, on the right side are topics/labels arranged alphabetically. Under health care system, you'll see at least 10 posts. Click on the label and you will have just those posts to view. Each one has a succinct point, with links to the supporting, or referencing article or opinion piece. Start there after you read this post. I guarantee you will find yourself informed and you'll find the arguments, as advanced by the proponents of the "single-payer" or gov't option to be quite lame, weak and unsupportable.

The opinion piece published in the Daily News by Ms. Lupe Green, contains data and arguments right out of the liberal think tanks and are all rebutted by other studies, or simple logic. The link you just saw goes to Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, biggovhealth.org, and has more than I could contain here on the case against single-payer. First, the cost, which is no doubt too high in America. The reasons are multiple and not unreasonable, and, the most important point, not going be fixed by single-payer, and, in fact, may/will become become worse (BTW, over a year ago, I wrote several meticulously sourced and supported News and Views on the health care debate--little has changed to affect those arguments and I'll add some excerpts from them tomorrow):

In addition to the per person cost, health care spending, as a percentage of our economy, is higher than other industrialized countries. The reasons are summarized as follows:

1) The system that incorporated health care insurance was a response to, yes, government intervention in salary caps after WWII. Employers couldn't offer monetary raises but could purchase health insurance as a perk to executives. Thus, the byzantine health insurance system for interjecting a third party for the most routine of health care became the norm. Before that, people paid much like they pay for auto repairs, which can, you all know, be expensive but folks figure out ways to pay. No one would think that interjecting an insurance company between the consumer and car repair shops would do anything but greatly increase the cost for anything needing repair, let alone the routine oil changes, tune-ups, etc. (Car insurance involvement in accident repair is different because there are many other expenses not unlike the need for, say catastrophic care insurance even if medical costs were paid with cash)

2) Likewise, much of the excess costs in the current system are the direct result of having to pay employees at insurance companies, employees at the clinics, etc in the course of paying for routine care. Eliminate the insurance company and let doctors post/advertise prices and you would see the costs drop dramatically, even for operations like knee surgery, and if consumers were informed of the ratings for medical providers like they are through consumer reports-type sources, the success/performance rate would be public. Single-payer will do nothing to fix any of this, and will simply use gov't bureaucrats to ration the limited health care resources (which are always limited but are more equitably and efficiently distributed by private citizens acquiring what they can pay for with their dollars) with the type of onerous, heavy-handed approach the government used for, say, fixing the financial system or owning car companies.

3) Another factor in the cost of American health care is the redundancies and overuse associated with tests and procedures performed for several reasons. First, doctors can be using the tests to inflate their compensation, since they are paid what amounts to a premium for additional tests beyond the most likely ones for the particular patient and diagnosis.

Secondly, but not less in impact, are the issues of preventative medicine, preventative of lawsuits. Doctors routinely over test so as to protect themselves from lawsuits if something occasionally goes wrong. Test are also over-used due to insurance companies mandating those procedures to also preventativelye defend from lawsuits. Capping malpractice awards, punitive not compensative, will and in fact has dramatically lowered insurance premiums as well as the overall cost of medical care, as proven in states, like Texas, that have put caps on awards.

4) Global costs per person in America are also higher because the costs for developing more advanced procedures and medicines accrue to the overall bill. Those procedures, tests and drugs are developed in America because there is, yes, profit for having a better drug, a better procedure, just like there is profit in developing and marketing a better piece of technology, computer, etc. Ultimately, if those things are ineffective or unneeded, the market, not the government, is the best arbiter of what remains available and used by doctors, pharmacies and consumers.

5) The costs of the poor, the uninsured are a part of the total bill but that will also not be changed by single-payer. I've seen studies that show that the supposed decreased spending by making preventative care mandatory, while marginally improving the health of those receiving it, does nothing to lower overall costs to the system.

Current government systems lacking

Take the current gov't run health care systems: Veterans care, medicare and medicaid. The VA has been lauded and excoriated for the job it does treating veterans. I've seen some great stories, but the horror stories are all too available from investigative reporters. Bottom line, there is little to emulate as being a potential improvement to non-veterans health care, by observing the VA. It exists to fulfill our obligation to veterans and the horror stories reveal only that government-run anything is at least as, actually more, likely to be inefficient, insensitive and abysmal as private health care. Extending government management to the rest of the system will only eliminate, not add, competition, and will thus only degrade the level of care elsewhere.

Medicare was started to apply a social security-type approach to senior health care. It relied on the same flawed logic and unrealistic financial scenarios as the SS system. Ultimately, the medicare costs have turned out to be 10 times what Americans were told they would be when the program was sold to Congress. Seniors are generally pleased, I believe, but it is an unsustainable system because it relies on non-seniors to foot the bill, where it could have been set up from the start to have workers set aside their own money in interest-bearing accounts to then spend as they see fit as seniors. That would have left the impoverished seniors to take care of and, judging by statistics I've seen, seniors are the richest demographic in America as a group, and we could all afford to have our contributions to Medicare go into our own accounts and grow interest, rather than the Ponzi scheme as currently configured.

Seniors using Medicare are a prime example of the socialization of health care: someone else pays for it; there's no need for concern for cost-effectiveness and limiting use of the system by the consumer; because the costs are born by the taxpayer, there's competition for those tax dollars and the only way to make the dollars stretch is to underpay the provider--which is just another way to make the rest of us pay when the providers raise the costs to everyone else.

Here's a fact bearing on the oft-stated line, by Obama, that you won't have leave your current plan if you don't want to. Regarding Medicare, similar things were said about seniors that had contractual heath care from their employers plans, that they would still have that and not be forced into Medicare. Well, that went the way of the dodo bird as employers, seeing a big reduction in health care costs for retirees, dumped their health care arrangements and mandated that they be enrolled in Medicare. No choice, and that is what will happen with the gov't/public option which will be, not competitive, but undercut the competition because it will not have to show a profit, but more importantly, will be competing with the benefit of taxpayer subsidies. So you will be paying taxes to destroy your ability to keep whatever health insurance you enjoy using now. Polling shows nearly 90 percent of people do like what they have--you will lose it when employers decide it costs them less to dump you into the gov't plan.

Medicaid is a system with the best of intentions and is a part of the reason the whole system is, in fact, going to hell as Democrats and other single-payer advocates attempt to extend the medicaid system, through the S-CHIP childrens coverage to ever-less-poor families, and ever-older children. You and I are the ones paying for it and it only illustrates that when the gov't-is-the-provider-folks get going, they ultimately will not stop until we are, practically, all getting services that we all, with an excessive helping of tax revenue from "the rich", end up paying the gov't to provide us our care.

Hence, my columns that have used the "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need" Marxist approach of the first colonists to illustrate the inevitable downfall of socialism--those able to provide more than they need resent and shirk their burden of providing for those benefiting from their labor. Anyone foolish enough to point to Medicaid as something to emulate are advocating extending a financially unsustainable system to the rest of us.

Here's a challenge, advanced by other conservative columnists: Let the gov't show how it can economize and make more efficient and spend less by applying whatever brilliant ideas Democrats have to the government programs already existing. If so much money could be saved--show us with the above programs. Instead, we get the absurdity of the O-Dems proposing, with straight faces, that we will reduce the excessive spending on health care in America by spending $1 trillion, $2 trillion or more. That the news reporters do not laugh the spokespeople off the podium for proposing such absurdities only shows how the MSN's has become nothing more than a part-to-full-time p.r. arm of the Obama/Democrat government.

The fallacy of 45 million uninsured

Regarding the canard of the "uninsured" used by Ms. Green and other single-payer advocates. This is another example of using a broad statistic to hide the truth. This 45 or so million "uninsured" Americans represents 15 percent of the population. Does any reasonable person think we should negatively impact the other 85 % to help the 15%? Of course not. Then, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis shows that the Obama/Kennedy plan, the "public" or gov't option insurance, will still only cover a fraction of those, at something like $60,000 per person per year. Sheer monetary madness, not unlike the analysis that found that the cost per private sector job from the stimulus would be hundreds of thousands of dollars, based on the stimulus plus debt per the projected jobs (meaning anybody's guess).

Then, analysis I've seen from Heritage.org, has a breakdown of the supposed 45 million uninsured. (Here is the actual Heritage study of the uninsured numbers. Mine are off around the margins but the larger points are accurate) Something like 10-15 million are young and choose not to spend the money on insurance (this makes the case that they choose to pay for what they need, don't usually need much and hence make a decision in their own interests to spend their money elsewhere--they could be persuaded to contribute to so-called catastrophic care insurance which would be in their interest to not face the prospect of huge bills for accidents or rare disease and they still wouldn't likely use it and that money would contribute to the system).

Then there are those without insurance because they are in between jobs and will have insurance with their new job. This makes the case for figuring out a way to make the insurance a personal expense, with policies free from gov't mandates, allowing for economical, basic health insurance for those in between jobs. That makes more of a case for the gov't getting out, not into, the health care business.

Then there are many millions that already qualify for existing gov't programs, without those programs even being expanded. Those people just haven't registered and aside from those that just don't know they qualify, others have their own reasons for avoiding gov't programs.

Then there are at least 10 million illegal aliens among that 45 million and they shouldn't be here, should be encouraged in every way possible to return to their countries and get in line like their countrymen to come here. Their jobs will, happily, be available for Americans or legal immigrants to take and if there is a little more competition by employers for hiring, that translates to better wages and benefits, like, say, employer provided health insurance or, wild ideal, employer provided medical savings accounts.

That leave somewhere between 5 and 10 million uninsured, based on analysis by Heritage Foundation, I think. Single payer people want us to turn the current health insurance/care applecart upside down, for 5-10 million uninsured, at a cost of a huge new gov't program and TRILLIONS of dollars that you, you Mr. or Mrs. or Ms. taxpayer or your children or grandchildren, will have to pay for the pleasure of bringing about misery like they have in other countries. (Or, if there are countries that are happy with their system, like France, for instance, that comes at the cost of about 3 different dedicated taxes and even then France runs annual deficits of $10-15 billion.)

http://www.heritage.org/Press/NewsReleases/nr082807a.cfm

Some other brief counter-arguments to Ms. Green's piece: Medical expenses are not the number one cause of bankruptcies and the sheer numbers of those are nowhere near the numbers that should be a driving factor for reform, according to analysis I've read, from either BigGovHealth.org, or Heritage.org. These two sites are replete with volumes of research on all aspects of the health care debate. Besides, nothing being proposed for single-payer will change the fact that people go into bankruptcy and, when medical expenses are involved, even if not the primary cause, those costs are still going to have to be paid by someone, and the level of health care expense, to the extent that it is too high, I've adressed above.

Single payer medical care wouldn't recapture any wasted money. To believe that is to deny the clear examples of massive gov't waste in every program, from Medicare to emergency/disaster response to military spending, etc. It's just wishfull, ideological thinking to think a state-run system will economize, except in that it will ration care. Again, let the feds show us how they can save money and reduce costs in the programs they already administer, and not just by paying providers even less of their fair compensation for services.

The bottom line is that 85 percent of us are insured, 90 percent of those are happy with what we get, and best way to reduce the premiums are outlined in above posts, and could be tested in states under our system of federalism which lets states be the laboratories. Unfortunately, what we see is the activist, liberal big gov't forces are part of the problem at the state level because even there, they insist on meddling and mandating with the requirements for health care so that individuals don't really have a choice for getting an economical policy. They have to purchase "boutique" policies forced by liberal do-gooders in gov't that think they know best how to care for everyone's health insurance. No, people are capable of making all kinds of decisions about what is in their best interest in a lot of areas, including their heath insurance, or their own health care dollars.

http://www.biggovhealth.org/
http://www.heritage.org/LeadershipForAmerica/health-care.cfm

In case you missed what the hubbub is about over the firing of the Inspector General, Gerald Walpin, who had uncovered vast amounts of mispent money by St Hope academy in Sacramento, run by big-time Obama supporter and NBA star, Kevin Johnson, forcing repayment of nearly a half million dollars, here is a very readable summary: (BTW, I've provided several other articles, filed under "Obama" if you want to catch up)

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/06/17/obamas-americrooks-and-cronies-scandal/

There couldn't possibly be a political seamy side to First Lady Michelle Obama, could there? Well, it turns out that she is involved in the IG-firing scandal in a tangential way, through her involvement with the corporate body that Inspector General Walpin technically worked for in his capacity of oversight that led to his uncovering, and forcing payment arrangements to return, hundreds of thousands of mispent dollars by an Obama guy, Sacramento mayor. Here's a summary of Mrs. O's involvement with links:

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/06/20/americrooks-watch-meddling-michelle-obama-to-keynote-volunteerism-conference/

What a real…American…leader had to say about the same situation in Poland—martial law, brutal repression, violence against its own citizens protesting for freedom:
“I want emphatically to state tonight that if the outrages in Poland do not cease, we cannot and will not conduct "business as usual'' with the perpetrators and those who aid and abet them. Make no mistake, their crime will cost them dearly in their future dealings with America and free peoples everywhere. I do not make this statement lightly or without serious reflection.”

Compared to this truly pathetic statement by Obama: “I do believe that something has happened in Iran where there is a questioning of the kinds of antagonistic postures towards the international community that have taken place in the past.”

From the greatest conservative satirist, Mark Steyn: “the president’s preferred rhetorical tic is to stake out the two sides and present himself as a dispassionate, disinterested soul of moderation...“I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal.” Very brave of you, I’m sure. But what about the Muslim women who choose not to cover themselves and wind up as the victims of honor killings in Germany and Scandinavia and Toronto and Dallas? Ah, but that would have required real courage, not audience flattery masquerading as such.”

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MDlhMmZmY2I1MjI0MTZlNDBhZmI3N2Y3ZDk2ZGZlYjA=&w=MA==

Seems the luster is fading, the bloom is falling from the Obama euphoria, per Gallup, who has O's approval falling to the lowest yet, 58%:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/121028/Obama-Job-Approval-Slips-58-First-Time.aspx

Despite the nearly seamless propaganda machine from Obama admin'n/news media pr arm of Obama admin'n over the near crisis/emergency requiring radical overhaul/overthrow of America's entire system...A funny thing happens when you ask actual people, as Pew did, and find out that 1) They overwhelmingly are not supportive of the radical approach, and 2) They are even less so inclined than they were when Hillary-care was the big gov't prescription for what supposedly ailed America's system:

Pew: "In early 1993 the sense of a health care crisis was far more widespread than it is today – a 55% majority in 1993 said they felt the health care system needed to be “completely rebuilt” compared with 41% today. Health care costs were also a broader problem in 1993 – 63% of Americans said paying for the cost of a major illness was a “major problem” for them, compared with 48% currently."

http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=1534

Iran and the Jews

Actually, in addition to the friendly relations Israel had with Iran: "Israel has normal relations and even alliances with a number of Muslim-majority countries – with Turkey, Albania, Azerbaijan, and some others. "

Iran and the Jews

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The Great Liberal Health-Care Freakout, Ctd.

"If anything, I found on most of these questions that the desire for change and support for reform was slightly stronger 16 years ago. . " People are similarly unhappy with the system but overwhelmingly satisfied with their own health care. Could it be that the media's obsession with making things look worse than they are, and advancing the case for their pet project--single payer--people just have a jaded view of the system:

The Great Liberal Health-Care Freakout, Ctd.

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The New Orwellianism

Victor Davis Hansen absolutely nails what is going on: "We use Orwell, Orwellian, and Orwellianism loosely a lot these days, but what is going on in the Obama administration is beginning to get a little creepy and resembles a lot of things Orwell wrote about in 1984.
When in, Soviet fashion, a critical overseer is dismissed as being "confused" and suffering mental problems in carrying out the law..."

The New Orwellianism

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Krauthammer’s Take

Dr K's incisive take on Obama and Iran, North Korea:

Krauthammer’s Take

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When the Government Runs Health Insurance - James C. Capretta - The Corner on National Review Online

You think you really want gov't run health care--you gotta be kidding:

When the Government Runs Health Insurance - James C. Capretta - The Corner on National Review Online

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What Obama Used to Think of Medicare Cuts

Obama is condemned by his own words to gross hypocrisy:
What Obama Used to Think of Medicare Cuts

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The case Against Class-Warfare Tax Policy

The case Against Class-Warfare Tax Policy

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Readers, especially political adversaries, should note that this blog offers no carte blanche for posting insulting, offensive or utterly disengenuous cheapshots directed at me. Therefore, the comment offered by Mr. Gray is offered here in excerpts I see fit to post, together with my response.

First, it needs to be established that any self-serving attempts by Mr. Gray to describe what Mr. Gray writes as attempting to point out my hypocricy is hypocritical itself. All of the mentally creative ways he has come up with to denigrate my life, assassinate my character, and lob cheap, low insults, is nothing more than intimidation to shut me up. It was the theme of his letter to the editor on March 26: if I don't have anything nice to say about Obama, I should just shut up.

All the convoluted bashing of my record and attempts to paint me as a hypocrite for being a war protester in my youth, but a supporter of the military and their mission as an adult does nothing but demean Mr. Gray. He would have had nothing bad to say about me if I hadn't written critically about the President, and all other elements of his arguments are irrelevant because my speaking uncomfortable truths about Obama is the only cause for the rest of his diatribes.

What Mr. Gray has been doing is, in fact, nothing but practicing the "politics of personal destruction" since he admits in his comment that he didn't even attempt to address the factual criticism of Obama I had written. It qualifies as nothing short of attempts at intimidation and written thuggery, bashing me with ad hominem (personal attacks as opposed to issue and intellectual arguments) brickbats. I do not have one single bone of dislike or disrespect for the person or character or record of Mr. Gray's life but will describe his type of debate (if it can be called such since he has yet to offer any counter-argument, or conflicting information to dispute my original criticisms of his apparent hero, Barack Obama) as beneath contempt.

Gray: "I expressed no intimidation towards Mr. Polson, I was simply pointing out the hypocrisy of Mr. Polson."

Me: Disproved, already.

Gray: "My letter addressed Mr. Polson's hypocrisy, not his "factual statements" in portraying himself "as a great supporter and admirer of veterans and their foreign campaigns. A position that was 180 degrees different than his position and ideas when protesting the Vietnam War"

Me: Any intellectually honest person would find nothing wrong with my changing my "position and ideas" but intellectual honesty is not what we are dealing with here, unfortunately

Gray: "He continues, "Many Americans, protesters included, honestly felt a sense of duty to protest then" and "to try and equate my peaceful protest with protesters that Mr. Gray encountered, was an unwarranted cheap shot and low blow." He makes it sound like his protest activities were as patriotic and good as someone enlisting in the military to support the war against the North Vietnamese. So I suppose that means that there were two types of protesters, good protesters like Mr. Polson and bad protesters like the ones I encountered.

Me: I did no such thing as equating protesting with military service and to suggest that is sheer dishonest manipulation of my words. Yes, there are different kinds of protest, peaceful excercise of the Constitutional right, and that done to subvert. We saw both kinds then, and both kinds over Iraq. I did engage in the former, not the latter. I can't begin to fathom the hate and vituperation that resides in Mr. Gray for anything I have written or done, but there it is on display.

Gray: "Mr. Poson continues,"Yes, I have written and believe that the protest movement against the Vietnam War was, intentionally or not, knowingly or not, an expression of useful idiot-ism in service to the communist enemies fighting us. I didn't know that then." It strains the bounds of credibility that Mr. Polson was so naive and innocent that he didn't know what the ramifications of his protest actions were.

Me: Who the hell are you to pass judgement on whether I'm lying about what I knew. Save it for someone who is a provable liar, like, oh, Barack Obama, but only when his lips are moving.

Gray:"But here is the real kicker. Mr. Polson then states, "So if I'm castigated for peaceful protestings after which I expressed my regret and became a supporter of America and our military." By these very words he proves that he knew that by his actions he was NOT suppoting America or the military. He says this again when he criticizes Sen. John Kerry "who did far more than I ever could have dreamed of, to undermine our military in Vietnam." This about a man who served in Vietnam and was awarded three Purple Hearts and the Silver Star.

Me: Again, I "proved" no...such...thing. Man, can't you read simple grammar? Swift boat vets disproved a lot of what Kerry's record was but I wouldn't have a bad thing to say if he hadn't encouraged our enemies by making false statements to Congress (a felony) about made-up atrocities by American soldiers. He associated with VVAW when they were plotting to kill a senator or something, AND HE DESCRIBED WHAT OUR TROOPS WERE DOING AS "TERRORIZING IRAQIS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT". Dispicable.

Gray: Mr. Polson then finishes with the absurd observation that "I have nothing to be ashamed of, Mr. gray, and could prove the amounts of money and other forms of support I give for our local, as well as national military." I would love for Mr. Polson to explain his personal monetary support for our local and national military. Taxes? Gift Cards?

Me: I don't owe you a freakin' thing in the way of accounting for what I've done. Talk about arrogance to think I have to prove such a thing to someone who would end up doing nothing but insult whatever I provided, as he has twisted everything else. All to draw attention away from the pathetic, apologetic, enemy-sympathizing, weak and Carter-esque performance on the international stage by his apparent hero, Obama. Enough of you. Go whine somewhere else, and look like the vindictative complainer that you are, Mr. Gray.

Bush Derangement Syndrome is never far from the media theme. Outrageous comparisons of Ahma-nuke-job to Bush, based, of course, on the false historical revision of Florida-as-stolen-election narrative. (For the record, the only near-theft was how media deflated Republican votes by calling Florida for Gore before polls closed, after which Gore withdrew concession and, in fact, did try to steal the election by stealing Florida:

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/06/outrage-cbs-meet-irans-george-w-bush.html

You can't believe how unions are behind so much of Calif. budget woes. That and the myth that taxes just can't get raised under current restrictions--somehow, somehow, California is taking in a ton more revenue in spite of Prop 13 and 2/3rds vote requirement.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTIzNWYxOTU5NzVmYjM1OGNmNjY4OGQ0ZjY0MzZhYWE=

Obama admin folks can't call terrorists, well, terrorists but a guy representing folks whose retirement money was put into bonds because they (the bonds) are secured? Well, someone could call him a terrorist:

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/06/13/video-obama-auto-team-called-shareholder-lawyer-a-terrorist/

LOPEZ: How will Obamacare “harm taxpayers”?

TANNER: Obamacare will be expensive. The Congressional Budget Office’s initial scoring of Ted Kennedy’s health-care bill shows it would cost at least $1 trillion over the next ten years. But that does not include either the cost of the bill’s planned expansion of Medicaid or interest costs. Inclusion of those provisions will raise the total cost to nearly $2 trillion. To pay for this, Americans should brace for massive tax increases — and not just on the wealthy. In fact, many of the tax increases being considered to pay for health reform — taxing employer-provided health benefits; soda and beer taxes; restricting or eliminating flexible-spending accounts and health-savings accounts; eliminating the deductibility of health expenses above 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income, etc. — fall heavily on the middle class.

LOPEZ: How will Obamacare harm health-care providers?

TANNER: Government programs like Medicare and Medicaid currently under-reimburse health-care providers. Most of those costs are shifted to private insurance. But a new government-run plan would be able to impose those low reimbursement across a much larger spectrum, while also making cost-shifting much harder. In addition, Obamacare envisions the use of government-sponsored comparative-effectiveness and cost-effectiveness research to interfere in treatment decisions.

"The Congressional Budget Office has just...concluded that it would result in roughly 23 million people losing the insurance they currently have. And that does not include the so-called public option."

TANNER: There is no doubt that health care needs reform. But if people believe that nothing could be worse than what we have today, they are mistaken. If we let the government take over the U.S. health-care system, it will become unimaginably worse.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTRjMDM4Y2ZkODIwYzY2ZjgzODJhMzUyYjgzYmU1ZDE=&w=MQ==

Our historically challenge Obama, saying whoppers Bush or McCain could never have gotten away with:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OGE1NGY2Y2I1MTExOTlkN2JjMzc0NTQ5YzUzZjYxNmQ=

Gov’t provided health care fails the test. Liberal arguments on infant mortality are a poor example when US cancer survival trumps:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MGUxMzViMTZjNjY5MDZkNmQzYTM0ZmViMTYxNmUxYjE=

Until you’ve seen Alfon-Zoe’s 3 minute youtube riff on Letterman/Palin/pathetic liberals, you haven’t seen the last word:

http://www.pjtv.com/video/ZoNation/AlfonZo_Rachel_Presents%3A_Letterman%2C_Palin_and_a_Topless_Drew_Barrymore/2026/7472/

Yes, the Holocaust Museum killer “would feel at home at Camp Casey, Cindy Sheehan's antiwar outpost in Crawford, Texas, and at the Daily Kos convention, rather than partaking in a National Review cruise with pro-Israeli war hawks Mark Steyn and Victor Davis Hanson…The inconvenient truth is that David Duke and James von Brunn currently share more in common with Markos Moulitsas and Arianna Huffington than with Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer. But the right wouldn't be so crass or foolish to try to blame the political left for the existence of - or motivation behind - haters like Mr. von Brunn.”:

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/15/the-left-cries-racist-in-a-crowded-country/?feat=home_headlines

Obama/Kennedy/Dodd/Democrat health care—trillion dollar pricetag, subsidies for $110,000 income family (“Free bubble-up and rainbow stew for all”) and “The result will be to drive doctors out of the profession and hospitals out of business, meaning fewer choices, higher real prices, and longer waits for care.”:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjA1ZTNlYWMyNzI1Y2E3MjgxMDQ0N2E5OThiNGRmNWY=

Obama's arrogant disingenuousness over "cuts" to Medicare that were bad when proposed by Newt Gingrinch, McCain but not now:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MGU4MTk5NzU3MjQzZjVlNDY5MmIxYTg0N2I1NjQ5ZmY=

From adoring media talking heads to American Jews to rank and file Democrats, the obsequiousness of those in thrall to O astounds: “Excuse my mastery of the obvious, but I have to believe the greatest obstacle to America's return to policy sanity is the electorate's cultish adoration of Barack Obama.”:

http://townhall.com/Columnists/DavidLimbaugh/2009/06/16/americas_fatal_attraction?page=full

The Inspector General firing: scandal, corruption, law-breaking--if only it were a Bush scandal with Republicans covering it up, the NY Times and the usual network and cable O-pologists would, well, pay attention:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Will-Democrats-cover-up-the-AmeriCorps-mess-48112457.html

Confirming that America is a center-right country, Gallup has once again found twice as many Americans are conservatives as liberals:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/120857/Conservatives-Single-Largest-Ideological-Group.aspx

Actual ultimate cost of Obama/Kennedy-care to taxpayers? Try 4 trillion-with-a-t due to expanding existing programs:

http://spectator.org/blog/2009/06/16/report-kennedy-bill-would-actu

From William Voegeli's "The wilderness years begin."

The danger liberalism poses to the American experiment comes from its disposition to deplete rather than replenish the capital required for self-government. Entitlement programs overextend not only financial but political capital. They proffer new "rights," goad people to demand and expand those rights aggressively, and disdain truth in advertising about the nature or scope of the new debts and obligations those rights will engender. The experiment in self-government requires the cultivation, against the grain of a democratic age, of the virtues of self-reliance, patience, sacrifice, and restraint.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/06/023809.php

The Wilderness Years begin:

http://claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1625/article_detail.asp

Here are the words of Tocqueville, as quoted by Professor Rahe in his book, and quoted by Mark Steyn in his review of the same book, referred to in the post below this (He observed a dynamic new country of independent, self-serving and self-providing citizens, who, nonethless, remarkably organized themselves to fulfill common needs--and predicted what would eventually threaten it all):

“I see an innumerable crowd of like and equal men who revolve on themselves without repose, procuring the small and vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls. “Over these is elevated an immense, tutelary power, which takes sole charge of assuring their enjoyment and of watching over their fate. It is absolute, attentive to detail, regular, provident, and gentle.

It would resemble the paternal power if, like that power, it had as its object to prepare men for manhood, but it seeks, to the contrary, to keep them irrevocably fixed in childhood … it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their needs, guides them in their principal affairs…

“The sovereign extends its arms about the society as a whole; it covers its surface with a network of petty regulations—complicated, minute, and uniform—through which even the most original minds and the most vigorous souls know not how to make their way… it does not break wills; it softens them, bends them, and directs them; rarely does it force one to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one’s acting on one’s own … it does not tyrannize, it gets in the way: it curtails, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupefies, and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

"Human dignity," writes Professor Rahe, "is bound up with taking responsibility for conducting one's own affairs." "We can be what once we were, or we can settle for a gradual, gentle descent into servitude."

Welcome to the twenty-first century.
“It does not tyrannize, it gets in the way.” The all-pervasive micro-regulatory state “enervates,” but nicely, gradually, so after a while you don’t even notice. And in exchange for liberty it offers security: the “right” to health care; the “right” to housing; the “right” to a job—although who needs that once you’ve got all the others?

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-state-despotic-4096

In his review of Rahe's book, "Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift...", Mark Steyn writes and quotes most ably, column titled "The state despotic, our gradual slide into servitude."

Here's a must-see youtube to illustrate how we'd be better off if only we'd done nothing--shown with pennies, yes pennies:

http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2009/06/if_only_we_had.html

How about those nonexistent jobs and how the media is swallowing the baloney about "saved or created jobs":

http://blog.heritage.org/2009/06/09/morning-bell-the-obama-jobs-gap/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124451592762396883.html

Even the AP is reporting on the charade: By now, according to earlier White House economic models, the nation's unemployment rate should be on the decline. The forecasts used to drum up support for the plan projected today's unemployment would be about 8 percent. Instead, it sits at 9.4 percent, the highest in more than 25 years.
Some analysts believe the White House still is not being realistic, that Obama will be lucky if any real job creation from his recovery effort is seen by the end of the year, let alone the employment explosion he predicts.
"I think these estimates are overly optimistic," said Arpitha Bykere, a senior analyst with RGE Monitor.

Whatever economic recovery is happening, or will happen, it won't, repeat won't, be due to the stimulus:

http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/09/american-recovery-reinvestment-act-roosevelt-opinions-contributors-depression.html

How and why the Democrat "gov't option" health plan will probably force you out of your currently-enjoyed insurance plan:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124467554761003983.html

Here's how Obama-care will destroy our health insurance system:

http://www.reason.com/news/show/134016.html

Obama's plan, intentionally or otherwise, to kill the American economy. What else would you call it when Microsoft says it will move jobs out of the U.S. if and when the Obama plans go into effect. "Obama tells American business to drop dead":

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aaaBdVMkjPnU

Yeah, "Mirandize" terror suspects/illegal enemy combatants instead of what has been done in every war we ever fought--kill, capture, detain, interrogate the heck out of them. If they are uniformed fighters--gee, I guess we could apply Geneva. Otherwise, maybe we should embed JAG lawyers too, so the terrorist scum can have that legal representation they've just been informed they have a right to. Madness! From the guy we aren't supposed to criticize over his commander-in-chief performance.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/06/miranda_rights_for_terrorists.asp

To briefly respond to the tired tactic of calling someone a "chickenhawk," as Mr. Merhoff so disgustingly did on June 10 in agreeing with Mr. Gray's broadside, which I deal with below:

Anyone throwing the insult, "chickenhawk," at me or anyone on the right side of the political divide, is doing nothing more or less than childish name calling that is substituting for adult, thoughtful, reasoning and polite, respectful debate. Such individuals are apparently incapable of forming such reasoned arguments and hence resort to childish name calling. The slanderous term became popular on the anti-Iraq war left when they thought they came upon yet another little bit of shorthand logic (or illogic, as it were) over the fact that decisions to send American military to war, and then to support their continued involvement in said war, were made by many who had never served in uniform.

Proving the hypocrisy is simple: Lincoln--no Army service (local militia with no combat); Roosevelt--no service; Reagan--no service; Clinton--no service. HINT: America's military is set up by the Constitution with civilian control and decision making. You can't have it both ways and ignore the non-military record of president's you like when they act as commander-in-chief, but then throw non-service in the faces of those supporting military actions you disagree with. Either deploying men and women to combat or into harm's way is authorized or it isn't; if it is legitimately authorized by Congress, AS THE IRAQ WAR WAS, you can either support it, or not, hope America prevails, or not, but make the argument, don't just insult and call names, Mr. Merhoff. And unless you're going to rehash the totally discredited liberal arguments of Bush's Texas Air National Guard service (facts: he started too late, and flew aircraft too old, to use in Vietnam; some pilots did die flying Air National Guard planes; and compared to Clinton, Bush was a hero) just stop with the transparent hypocrisy over epithets like "chickenhawk".

First, we had the letter of June 8, wherein Mr. Gray unleashed a broadside that unloaded every conceivable insult short of calling me a "chickenhawk," which cheap insult came in a later cheapshot by Mr. Merhoff. I have nothing but respect for those who served honorably, like Mr. Gray, but his protestations that I criticized President Obama on Memorial Day is simply a convenience for his outrage that I should take any occasion to speak ill of Obama (I have a previous letter to editor from Mr. Gray that takes a similar approach--insults upon brickbats that never, ever disprove a single fact in my columns, never formulate a single coherent counter-argument to my fact-based, informed critiques of Obama).

That is why I wrote for today's column that such opponents of my speaking out, in writing, are the real thugs and bullies, writing their diatribes for the sole purpose of intimidation--as evidenced by the above-mentioned failure to disprove a single, principled statement I make showing Obama for the duplicitous hypocrite he has turned out to be.

First, how low is it to throw my (admitted and regretted) involvement in Vietnam War Protests back in my face to attempt to discredit my support for America and her troops now? This comes from the liberal side of the aisle that for 8 years has told us, ad infinitum and ad nauseum, that "dissent is patriotic/highest form of patriotism" and such; I've seen many veterans and currently serving military state that they did or do what they do to secure the freedom for those protesting what they do, to have that freedom. Does Mr. Gray feel that those who protested, whether against Vietnam or Iraq, were exercising their patriotic right to, shall we say, "petition the government for redress of grievances" (in the Constitution somewhere)? Many Americans, protesters included, honestly felt a sense of duty to protest then, as many did against the Iraq war, but folks have the right to be wrong, too.

I never did anything in my youth to insult Vietnam vets, so to try to equate my peaceful protest with the protesters that Mr. Gray encountered that tried to get him and his fellow soldiers to shirk their duty is just, well, an unwarranted cheapshot and low blow. Yes, I have written and believe that the protest movement against the Vietnam war was, intentionally or not, knowingly or not, an expression of "useful idiot-ism" in service to the communist enemies fighting against us. I didn't know that then, though, and I'm sure many on the left would take issue with me if I documented the extent of complicity and manipulation directed by communist, anti-American actors behind the Vietnam protest movement. We could have won that war at several points long before the protest movement had begun to exert political pressure to abandon Vietnam. Gen. Patton said it best when he said that Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser--decisions in Washington, uninfluenced by those of us with long hair and signs, made the decisions that resulted in America's loss in Vietnam.

Particularly contributing to that loss were the Democrats in congress that refused to honor America's obligations to provide air support and supplies to South Vietnam after our military mostly withdrew (acts that were no longer done with mass protests since the draft had ended). Had we simply done that, the south would have been able to defend itself, and America would have "won." I didn't cause us to lose, the brave men and women in uniform didn't, Democrats in congress did.

So, if I'm to be castigated for peaceful protesting, after which I expressed my regret and became a supporter of America and our military, what should be said for someone like (now Senator) John Kerry, who did far more than I ever could have dreamed of, to undermine our military in Vietnam, with his lies told before Congress about atrocities (lies documented to have been fabricated for the charade called "Winter Soldier")? Did Mr. Gray express similar outrage and oppose Kerry for president? Or is his outrage selectively applied, as the saying goes, to those he disagrees with when he chooses to take sides. How about any outrage over, again, John Kerry for saying that we were just "terrorizing" civilians at night in Iraq.

As I wrote, nothing in Mr. Gray's missive disproved what I wrote that is simply on the record factually true about Obama on Memorial Day, May 25: His speeches are "replete with straw men arguments, fallacious reasoning and erroneous, revisionist history." His blatant dishonesty over Gitmo; criticizing, but continuing, military tribunals and other war on terror tools; and saying interrogations methods were illegal without backing it up with Justice Dept prosecutions--all stand as valid critiques of Obama that those, like Mr. Gray, on the left simply want to intimidate into oblivion.

I have nothing to be ashamed of, Mr. Gray, and could prove the amounts of money and other forms of support I give for our local, as well as national military, but I'll not stoop to the level of dignifying your letter in that way.

By the way, I had a student deferment until the lottery gave me too high a number to be drafted. So I didn't enlist; I wish I had, but I wish I had done a lot of things differently. I don't wish I hadn't written a single word exposing the lies, hypocrisy and hyper-leftwing-ism of Obama.

Obama's poll numbers coming "down to earth" and it can't come too soon, per Dick Morris and Rasmussen:
"According to a Rasmussen poll, more voters now trust Republicans more than Democrats to handle the economy, by a margin of 45-39. Scott Rasmussen notes that “this is the first time in over two years of polling that the GOP has held the advantage on this issue.” Last month, he had the Democrats holding a one-point lead, but they lost it in June’s polling."
"The old recession — that the public says was caused by Bush — shows signs of winding down. But the new recession and/or inflation — triggered by Obama’s massive deficits — is just now coming upon us. If Obama refuses to cut back on his spending/stimulus plans (despite convincing evidence that Americans are not spending the money), he has three options:a) He can raise taxes, which will trigger a deeper recession;b) He can print money, which will trigger huge inflation;c) He can pay more interest to borrow money, which will send the economy diving down again."

http://thehill.com/dick-morris/obamas-issues-crumbling-2009-06-09.html

Closing the door to freedom: Douglas Young, Professor of Political Science & History at Gainesville State College wrote:
"At 47, I lament how today's America is far less free than the country of my youth. Replacing it is not a 1984ish totalitarian dictatorship, but what Alexis de Tocqueville called the 'soft tyranny' of what Mark Levin sees as a 21st century 'nanny state'. We so feared a Stalin or Hitler that we ignored endless assaults on our liberty by idealistic home-grown statists and the seductive narcotic of ever more government goodies buying our acquiescence. What makes Americans' surrender to statism so shameful is that we freely chose this course in direct contravention of our founding principles."
"Meanwhile too many liberty-loving Americans are so ensconced in busy private lives that they neglect their public duties. But Jefferson warned that "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance". Never forget that we are the heirs of the most libertarian, God-fearing revolutionaries in history. So let us pay attention, think critically, speak up, and vote in every election."

http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2009/06/america_closing.html

Don't say you weren't warned when inflation and interest rates skyrocket (not unlike the way O said energy prices would):
"But as bad as the fiscal picture is, panic-driven monetary policies portend to have even more dire consequences. We can expect rapidly rising prices and much, much higher interest rates over the next four or five years, and a concomitant deleterious impact on output and employment not unlike the late 1970s."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124458888993599879.html#mod=todays_us_opinion

How soon before we have an "emporer has no (deficit and economic) clothes"? "Bad as the deficit was under Mr Bush, it will quadruple this year, from $459 billion in 2008 to $1.845 trillion, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Mr Obama vows to slash it in half within four years, but that will still leave it bigger than the deficits for which he once lashed Mr Bush…The CBO reckons the deficit will still be running at more than $1 trillion a year in 2019." (Economist)

http://rhetorican.com/2009/06/10/obamas-achilles-heel/

Must read by Thomas Sowell on the delusion that is "dealing with Iran through the UN" but is really "much ado about nothing." Or, the connection from concurrent sentencing, to lack of prosecution for property crimes in Britain, to how Obama has "been doing nothing to stop Iran from getting nuclear bombs, but it has been elaborate, multifaceted, and complexly nuanced nothing...Certainly doing nothing will not stop them — not even elaborate diplomatic nothing or even presidential international speech-making nothing."

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTJmZjc2ZGRiYTlhOWEzZDJhZmY3ZTNmOWJlZGMxOGY=

The flat-out scandal of unions giving nearly $24 million to Dems since 2000 and getting unearned/underserved ownership of car companies:
"In 2008 alone, the UAW gave $4,161,567 to the Democratic Party, including Barack Obama.In return, the UAW received 55 percent of Chrysler and 17.5 percent of GM, plus billions of dollars."

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32212

Here's what is so fraudulent about the cap and trade scheme: Only 0.1 degree centigrade change by 2100 assuming the best results:
"Even decades from now, the costs would still dwarf the benefits."
"If everything worked exactly according to plan, it would cost the economy trillions of dollars over the coming decades. Meanwhile, climatologist Chip Knappenberger — administrator of the World Climate Report, an avowedly global-warming-skeptical blog — uses standard climate models to show that the payoff would be to reduce global temperatures by about 0.1 degree Celsius by 2100. Sponsors of the legislation haven’t offered a competing analysis."
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZjA4YmFhZjc3NGZiNDM4ZTA2MTg2YjJmZTI2NjdhYjQ=

This is a must-read on the history of classlessness of Obama from the campaign to the British, to Israel:

"On Tuesday, the White House released a photograph of President Obama nonchalantly leaning back in his chair with his feet on the desk, the soles of his shoes clearly visible--as he spoke on the telephone with Benyamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel.
"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."

And so on.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/06/023779.php

Is Obama America's first Muslim President? Before you blow a partisan gasket, the question in meant in the same vein as the way Bill Clinton was called "America's first black President." Read a measured, studied pro and con:
"On the last point, Gaffney argues that the term "peace be upon them" is invoked by Muslims as a way of blessing deceased holy men: "According to Islam, that is what all three were - dead prophets. Of course, for Christians, Jesus is the living and immortal Son of God."
"Gaffney to the contrary notwithstanding, I don't believe that Obama might be Muslim. But in his Cairo speech Obama does appear to speak from somewhere inside a Muslim perspective."

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/06/023771.php

Yeah, that's the ticket, a 62-year old making a sex joke about a 14-year old (his pathetic denials mean less-than-nothing). Quit watching him many years ago, after recording and belly-laughing my way through skits for many years--he just turned into a cranky old guy whose writers fed him "jokes" that were only and ever at the expense of Republicans.

http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2009/06/letterman-on-palins-daughter.html

Among others, a gay conservative points out the feminist hypocracy:

http://www.gaypatriot.net/2009/06/10/why-arent-feminists-upset-with-david-letterman/

Lest we forget the disgusting Playboy piece about conservative women that they'd like to rape (no link to Playboy--and I wouldn't if I had one). Here's commentary

http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/2009/06/11/why-the-left-ridicules-women/

Polling by Rasmussen on the generic choice for Congress, which has been a Democrat leaning poll for as long as its been done, untill the last few months. Reps overtook Dems back in March and have held pretty steady. Lest anyone think the poll is gamed, go look at last November and see how his polling showed a result similar to the actual election. Gallup, I think, still has a Dem advantage but the Republican number has risen from 20% to about 26-27%; more importantly, the Democrat number has declined and independents have risen and the indie's are leaning against the Obama/Dem agenda form bailouts to cap-and-trade to government health plan.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/congressional_ballot/generic_congressional_ballot

For Obama to "boldly go", we have a humorous take on the analogy made by leftie NY Times Maureen Dowd to Star Trek. You'll like it if you can play it with your operating system (try different video quality settings and let it buffer and load), especially the riff about creating "mo-rons" through the destruction of matter. Can't top the whole rationale for why intellectuals like Spock/O can't be placed in the executive chair.

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-dowd-conundrum-why-vulcans-and-other-intellectuals-dont-belong-in-the-big-chair/

That one-man gaffe-machine, Joe Biden, never fails: "coming from the guy who President Obama tasked with implementing the stimulus plan: when reporters asked the VP to explain how the White House even came up with the 600,000 number, he asked for a pass, saying a question like that is "above his pay grade" and, "I'm sorry, I'm not an economist."

And then thinking a humongous multi-billion dollar train tunnel near his district was a car tunnel.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525673,00.html

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/09/biden-mistakenly-claims-hudson-tunnel-accomodate-cars/

While CBS/Evening news with Katie Couric has the lowest...ratings...evah, Fox beats the next 2, sometimes 3 competitors. Why? Charles Krauthammer explains: "Fox has done a great service to the American polity -- single-handedly breaking up the intellectual and ideological monopoly that for decades exerted hegemony (to use a favorite lefty cliché) over the broadcast media.

"I said some years ago that the genius of Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes was to have discovered a niche market in American broadcasting -- half the American people. The reason Fox News has thrived and grown is because it offers a vibrant and honest alternative to those who could not abide yet another day of the news delivered to them beneath layer after layer of often undisguised liberalism.


http://www.nypost.com/seven/06102009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/how_fox_news_opened_america_173419.htm

About that Holocaust Museum killer, were your media mouthpieces hewing to the liberal line that, together with the murder of the abortion doctor (a reprehensible act, btw, and the killer should fry--slowly) theme, we have a "right wing extremist violence (rwev) resurgence"? Well, if there are such folks, their death toll would have been dwarfed by the muslim terrorist if he had been able to kill all the soldiers he wanted to. One little problem with the rwev meme is that the museum killer doesn't turn out to have been a movement right winger. 9/11 conspiracy kook (leftie), Jew-hater (biggest Jew-haters are in the leftie/muslim alliance), a journalism degree (speaks for itself, if true). HE WAS JUST A MIXED-NUT-BAG that I only wish had been the killed and not the killer. (And that DC gun control--piece of work):

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/06/10/white-supremacist-kills-guard-at-holocaust-museum/

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-722-Conservative-Politics-Examiner~y2009m6d11-Holocaust-Museum-killer-von-Brunn-hated-Christians-linked-to-William-F-Buckley-foes

Did the media steal the election? Asked by PJTV's Bill Whittle on video, if you have a good connection and can pick the right video mode: "The cost of media bias"

http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=7273666970697605402

America's news media shamelessly in the tank, willing to engage in bald-faced 180 degree hypocritical back flips on just about any major issue.

"Now comes a more insidious, brave new self-imposed censorship of the Orwellian mode. It is not just the perennial embarrassment Chris Matthews describing his Obama ecstasy on camera, or even Newsweek’s Evan Thomas comparing his President to God, or even CNN execs being exposed trashing the US abroad at Davos, or whitewashing Saddam, but rather a more incremental new groupspeak in which basic words and ideas—from terrorism to war itself—have been reformulated according to political dictates.

http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=7273666970697605402

About Sotomayor, she's anti-business, in addition to everything else: "track record reveals an antagonism toward private industry". That'll be sure to guarantee America's future as the economic engine of the world.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NGQ3NjljODIyOWM1NGQzNzA2NjE5NzMzNzMwZmE5NWE

Why polecat?

pole'cat n. 1. creature of fierce, brave, fearless heart willing to go against opponents at a moments notice. 2. nickname of one Don Polson in grade school in Heyworth, Illinois, frequently used in a game of "red rover," as in "red rover, red rover, let polecat come over" upon which said polecat flung himself into the opposing line with abandon.