Monday, July 27, 2009

Why Obamacare Is Sinking

It's all about him. Health care is his signature reform. And he knows that if he produces nothing, he forfeits the mystique that both propelled him to the presidency and has sustained him through a difficult first six months. Which is why
Obama's red lines are constantly shifting. Universal coverage? Maybe not. No middle-class tax hit? Well, perhaps, but only if they don't "primarily" bear the burden. Because it's about him, Obama is quite prepared to sign anything as long as it is titled "health-care reform." This is not about politics? Then why is it, to take but the most egregious example, that in this grand health-care debate we hear not a word about one of the worst sources of waste in American medicine: the insane cost and arbitrary rewards of our malpractice system? When a neurosurgeon pays $200,000 a year for malpractice insurance before he even turns on the light in his office or hires his first nurse, who do you think pays? Patients, in higher doctor fees to cover the insurance. And with jackpot justice that awards one claimant zillions while others get nothing -- and one-third of everything goes to the lawyers -- where do you think that money comes from? The insurance companies, which then pass it on to you in higher premiums.
Obama's slight of hand rhetoric continues but Americans are finally starting to wake up.

More from Krauthammer here

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Medical Care Confusion

None of the people who are trying to rush government-run medical care through Congress before we have time to think about it are pointing to Medicare, Medicaid or veterans' hospitals as shining examples of how wonderful we can expect government medical care to be when it becomes "universal." As for those uninsured Americans we keep hearing about, there is remarkably little interest in why they don't have insurance. It cannot be poverty, for the poor can automatically get Medicaid.
To add to this, what about the people that are here illegally or the people that switch jobs who may be temporarily uninsured that by default, become part of this 47 million?

More from Thomas Sowell here

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

A Short Course in Brain Surgery



It's coming here, only what border can we cross to get care?

Hope and Change?

Watch Steven Crowder try the Canadian Health care system. Yes he's a comedian. But it's really not funny what happens.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Bend over... here it comes.


Congressional plans to fund a massive health-care overhaul could have a job-killing effect on New York, creating a tax rate of nearly 60 percent for the state's top earners and possibly pressuring small-business owners to shed workers.

The non-partisan think-tank calculated the average local tax rate in New York State at 1.7 percent, and combined it with the 8.97 percent that high-bracket state taxpayers will shell out in 2011, when the health care plan is set to take effect. Tack on the 39.6 percent federal tax rate, 2.9 percent for Medicare and 5.4 percent for the health care "surtax," and the figure is 56.92 percent for the Empire State.
Good one, Dem congress and Obama. Let's punish the productive. It won't be the Conservative Tea-Parties storming the White House... it'll be the Unemployed. (Here's a Hint: The productive hire people to do work.)

Higher taxes on productives = unemployed.
Unemployed = No taxes coming in.
No taxes coming in = Higher taxes on the productive....
and the cycle repeats until there is only the unemployed.
The productives have either gone on the Government dole, or moved to another country, or become outlaws (patriots).

NY Post article here. Check out the graphic... it's truly scary.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Who's minding the Store?



Truly pathetic, but most of all... frightening. This is the kind of oversight and transparency promised by the Obama administration?

"In terms of who's responsible for investigating...I'm sorry, can you repeat the question?" pssst... it's the Inspector General... oh.. wait... that's YOU!!!!!

This is our money they're talking about and they don't have a clue? They know. They just dont want to tell us because we'd throw them all in jail.

Also, look at the nearly empty room in this video compared to whenever they have hearings on baseball steroid usage.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Congress Needs A "Read-The-Bill" Bill



Honesty: Lawmakers voted on the stimulus and global warming bills without having read either. Eventually they'll vote on health care legislation that could fund unrelated items. Time to end this systemic fraud.

The stimulus bill, signed into law less than a month after Barack Obama took office, reached 1,434 pages and will eventually cost the nation more than $1 trillion.

Waxman-Markey, the global warming bill, passed the House last month after Democrats added a 309-page amendment at 3 a.m. the morning before the vote, bringing that package of nonsense up to 1,200 or so pages.

The next piece of deception up for legislative consideration is the $1.6 trillion health care bill, a Washington lightweight at a mere 615 pages. The Boston Globe reports that it contains a provision for funding walking paths, bike paths, streetlights, gym equipment and farmers' markets.
More poop coming out the pipe, people...
From IBD.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Carlin on Environmentalism



Pure Genius.

Global Warming a Cult?



Found this in the Comments Section in an article about the GreenPeace idiots who flew a large banner on Mount Rushmore. It's one of those things that makes you go hmmmmm.....
Woody July 8th, 2009 - 5:29 pm

Have you ever noticed how global warming alarmists exhibit all the characteristics of those normally belonging to religious cults? (The numbered quotes below are from the American Family Foundation’s list of cult characteristics: http://www.prem-rawat-talk.org/forum/uploads/CultCharacteristics.htm)

1. “The group is focused on a living leader [e.g. The "Goracle" or the "One"] to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.”

2. “The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.”

i. It is assumed (and expected) that you already accept man-made global warming as fact; after all, “the debate is over.”

3. “The group is preoccupied with making money.”

i. Al Gore, climatologists, green groups, General Electric, and the federal government (to name a few) are heavily invested in the business of global warming.

ii. For example, General Electric stands to make billions if Cap and Trade is enacted.

4. “Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.”

i. Questioning the theory of man-made global warming is tantamount to denying the holocaust (so don’t do it, you flat-earther, you!).

5. “Mind-numbing techniques are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).”

i. Have you attended a university and/or watched mainstream media (e.g. MSNBC) lately?

ii. Again, we are told that “the debate [over global warming] is over.” That’s funny; I don’t remember there being a debate.

6. “The leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think, act, and feel.”

i. The mantra is “green” is good, and everything else is an abomination.

7. “The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members (for example: the leader is considered the Messiah or an avatar; the group and/or the leader has a special mission to save humanity).”

i. Those who live “green” lifestyles are saving the planet; everyone else is killing it.

ii. Recently, “[Nancy] Pelosi linked global warming to environmental justice, saying the right to a clean environment is also a human right” (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hLcZ2jQ4mu4rd7XlB3hetiVn1qbAD98F32AG0).

8. “The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society.”

i. Those who do not support “green” ideas, products, laws, etc. are heretics.

9. “The group’s leader is not accountable to any authorities.”

i. The Goracle flies to environmental speaking engagements in Gulf Stream jets while we, the commoners, are supposed to ride bikes to work and use one-ply toilet paper.

10. “The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group (for example: collecting money for bogus charities).”

i. Obama believes the government should bankrupt the coal industry (through Cap and Trade legislation) even though most of our electricity comes from coal.

ii. The First World uses official development aid as tool to influence energy policy in the developing world by funding “green” energy projects (e.g. solar panels and wind farms) while refusing to fund “non-green,” cheaper, more reliable, energy sources (e.g. coal and natural gas).

11. “The leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them.”

i. “What?! You’re not driving a hybrid?”

ii. If CO2 is a pollutant, then if you are exhaling, you are polluting. According to this logic, merely by existing, all humans are destroying the planet (Never mind the fact that volcanoes release far more CO2 each year than the entire human population combined). Therefore, it is extremely selfish to have children. In fact, any increase in the human population is bad. Human beings are a nothing more than a malignant growth on this planet.

12. “Members’ subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group.”

i. Obama (5/16/08): “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times.”

I could keep going, but you probably get the idea.
Thanks, Woody. I couldn't have said it any better myself. Now if you could actually get one of the sheep to actually read this.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Independence Day

From Glenn Beck
Hello America,

Here it is, another Fourth of July. Traditionally, this is a day to gather with friends, maybe fire up the barbeque and play with kids until the sun sets and the fireworks start. But in thinking back on the meaning behind this day, we must never forget that our nation was baptized in the blaze of a very different kind of "fireworks." Yes, this is a day of rest and relaxation, as well it should be, but this year…I'd like to ask you a favor. At some point during the day, I hope you'll take time to think and reflect on what it is we're truly celebrating on the 4th of July -- our Independence Day. Of course the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4th, 1776 but it's so much more than that. On this day, 233 short years ago, a small group of men dedicated themselves to a higher purpose, an ideal they believed in so greatly, they signed their name to its expression and in doing so put their very lives at risk.

Never has a simple act of signing one's name carried such weight, such a profound commitment. By signing the Declaration of Independence, 56 men stood in direct defiance of the British government. They became marked men, and willingly so. As I was doing some research on the significance of July 4th, I came across some interesting facts about these men. Today as we all enjoy the freedom our forefathers guaranteed us, join me in honoring the extraordinary sacrifice of 56 extraordinary Americans.

Of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence:

Five were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes burned to the ground. Two lost sons serving in the Revolutionary Army, and two more had sons captured. Nine fought and died in the Revolutionary War.If you ever feel like your lone voice can never be heard, that the political system isn't set up for "regular" Americans to change the course of history, remember: The signers were flesh and blood, mortal men with a divinely-inspired aim.

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists, eleven were merchants, and nine were farmers and large plantation owners. They were well educated, smart enough to know that by signing the Declaration of Independence, they were signing their own death warrants. They did it anyway, and God bless them for it.

As we enjoy our liberty on this 4th of July, or any day of any month, we must never take that liberty for granted. Too many have given too much. In the words of the Signers themselves, "For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

Their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor -- I think that's a price paid worth a few minutes of reflection, don't you? But let's not be solemn in that reflection. I say rejoice and share this information with your friends and family, especially your kids. The Signers asked for nothing in return for their pledge, but I say that we show our thanks with a pledge of our own: To remember, to be grateful, and to carry on in their spirit. America is the greatest country this world has ever and will ever know, and it will stay that way so long as "we the people" remember that just like in 1776.

It's US that surrounds them, and we'll never back down.

Happy Independence Day, and God bless America.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

U.S. Will Suffer So Dems Can 'Save the Planet'

By Jay Ambrose

The recently passed House bill on global warming is a 1,500-page political sucker punch that could give family finances a bloody nose and ultimately flatten the economy while proponents pretend it will save the planet.

In and of itself, it won't do an inch of good. Assume if you want that all the talk of unperturbed greenhouse gases finally frying us is true and that the bill would slowly reduce carbon emissions in the United States to roughly the level of 100 years ago. The impact of holding down an increase in world temperatures by the end of this century would still be something utterly unnoticeable.

That's right, all the current sound and fury would signify nothing unless the rest of the world joined in, especially China and India, which probably won't do any such thing. As we all know, those two countries are growing like crazy, but still remain fundamentally poor and will stay poor if they should sign on to really, truly serious efforts to phase out fossil fuels before markets and entrepreneurs come up with efficient, cost-effective alternatives beyond the capacity of central planners to devise.

Of course, the House bill is not really, truly serious. Although disastrous consequences can be discerned deep in its long-term intentions, political observers have noted that the Democrats played all kinds of games so that very little that is either nasty or meaningful transpires until the 2010 elections are past and that, even then, carbon emissions from coal burning could continue to increase for a decade before decreasing.

Before long, however, the Senate will have its say, and no one is sure whether it will soften things up more (further aggravating environmental groups already peeved), toughen things up (further imperiling the general welfare) or simply pass this time around. If it does do something, there is one thing you can count on: We will have cap-and-trade, which is to say, we the people will suffer.

Cap-and-trade refers to a system with emission limits that allows industries to barter with each other about who emits how much. Advocates refer to it as free enterprise, but there is nothing free about it - it would be a government-mandated, bureaucratic monstrosity. It hasn't worked to solve much of anything in Europe, and economist William Nordhaus of Yale fears it could cost trillions more to implement than whatever warming damage it might prevent.

The main reason for the thing is that most of those discussing it do not call it a "tax," which is a word voters do not like. A straightforward carbon tax would be preferable to cap-and-trade many on both the left and right believe, but there's that ugly, awful word. The obvious truth is that cap-and-trade is in effect a tax, and depending on how it is carried out, could be a very steep one for industries that would pass the cost on to consumers. Utility bills could go up by thousands of dollars in constant dollars for a family of four as the decades pass, some analysts believe.

Meanwhile, rescue for an economy increasingly squeezed by the politics of warming alarmism is supposed to come in the form of "green jobs," only it won't. Various researchers are figuring out that we could lose more manufacturing and other jobs than we would gain, and that many of these green jobs as currently outlined would be non-productive and subsidized.

The capper of cap-and-trade is that the globe hasn't been warming lately and, according to one study, may undergo more cooling for another decade or more. Despite all the talk about sure-enough, catastrophic, human-induced warming, the number of doubting Thomases in the sciences is growing, as are some interesting ideas of relatively inexpensive means of saving ourselves if reliable evidence develops that the worst possibilities are almost certainly true.

Congress, spare us.
Real Clear Politics original OpEd here.