This video was taken on Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 at Rep. Jim Moran's (D-VA) Town Hall meeting on Obama Deathcare (Howard Dean was there too) held at South Lakes High School in Reston, VA.We're doomed. I like the dummy that says "School grounds have very different First Amendment rights." Why is that? I also liked the the overlay "Will love his FEMA camp."
Never has an administration who had more firepower at their disposal, been set to so totally fail in the next six to eight weeks. It is nearly a foregone conclusion. It is nearly unavoidable. And it defies all logic given the sizable majority the administration has in both houses of Congress.Since I was the first pundit to predict Obama's presidency (Dec 2006) it behooves me to tell you the course I believe the next few weeks will take and effectively halt the radical transformation that the left appeared unstoppable with only months ago.1. Health Care's long and painful death.Barring the existing possibility that the Democrats cram a reform bill down the throats of actively protesting Americans through an ultra-partisan process that would shut out conservatives and Republicans from even being allowed to contribute to the discussion, health care reform is dead. It actually died a good while back when the President decided to pivot and create a new issue that no one had been discussing--health insurance reform. The American people will want to know why we should spend $4 billion to cover everyone in America "efficiently," when we already do so with inefficiencies like people using the emergency room as their general practitioner for $2.5 billion. Deep thinkers on the issue want to know why the President hasn't entertained one item of tort reform--protecting his friends, the trial lawyers--yet is willing to claim that doctors are eager to lop off feet, tonsils, and foreskin just to make a buck.2. Cap & Trade will be the largest tax increase in American history.With the 2010 election cycle just around the corner, campaign ads are not far off from being drafted. With Cap & Trade still sitting in legislative limbo, with the President's own advisor--Warren Buffet--now opposing it openly on media, with the 9.12 project in the works in which the largest gathering of anti-tax Americans from the left, right, and middle will be coming to Washington DC on September 12, and with blue dogs getting absolutely hammered in their home districts supporting it, the chance of single-party ram through victory on the matter is not wise. Cap & Trade, if passed, will contribute to unemployment, Wall Street stop and starts, and ultimately reduced treasury revenues. It would serve as the single largest tax increase on the average American in all of American history. Even President Obama admitted as much, predicting that electric bill prices, in his words, would, "skyrocket." Those that have looked at the specifics tell us that the average utility bill in America will go from $167 to $307 per month, per family.3. Unemployment to remain high.Now several Washington organizations from left and right, and one of note consisting of both--the Congressional Budget Office, predicts that unemployment will not shrink from the predicted "Obama high" of 8%. Instead, nearly without fail, economists are predicting unemployment at or over 10% for up to the next 24 months. That is nearly 250% the increase in unemployment under Bush for nearly the duration of his two-term presidency. If people were working, higher taxes and possible new health care entitlements could be considered, but without them working it is political suicide for Democrats to even think of it.4. Obama's integrity tarnished in August.Not a great deal has been made of the whoppers that the President has been spewing while the Federal Government has been in recess, but it is worth noting that many more people than I had previously realized have notice the President "exaggerating" badly in his talks on health care. For instance confusing he actual $500 physicians get to amputate a foot as opposed to the $50,000 that he claimed they got. He has shown an utter disregard for the reputation of those he talks about, the "facts" he uses to make his argument, and is highly overly optimistic about the results of his policies. Long story short, at the beginning of the summer Americans mostly trusted him, his passion index was at +10, he heads into the fall at -14.5. A $3 trillion dollar budget.New spending for this and that sure added up. And that brings me to number 6.6. A coming middle class tax hike.They will hem and haw. There will be an official, and ever arrogant Robert Gibbs explanation from the White House Press room as to why they must to do this to be "good stewards" and to be a "responsible administration" that, "pays as it goes." But the truth is, in order to pay for everything they've promised and budgeted for, a tax is looming for small businesses and working families that President Obama promised would never come. And as an aside, he was going to break that promise all along. Because the minute the "Bush tax relief" runs out in 2010, middle class taxes would be going up in an "Obama administration." Hence fundamentally Obama's "not a single dime" pledge on the campaign trail was bollocks start to finish.Of course the President, the Democrats, the left, and Congressional leadership could surprise me. They could show up in September and endorse the Coburn health care bill in the U.S. Senate and swipe the credit for it. They could show up next week and fight with all their might to not allow the tax rates to skyrocket in 2010. They could decide to scrap Cap & Trade and re-think the use of public money for true job-based economic stimulation.But I'm not holding my breath, and I'd advise you against it as well.They've awakened the American worker, the American small-business owner, and the American voter.All three of which are now wondering aloud, "What on earth have we done?"
BO: Which would you rather have? ObamaCare® or the Swine Flu?
What's the first thing you do in a war? Disrupt communications. I see things like "The Fairness Doctrine," A "Diversity" Czar at the FCC, and now control of the Internet. Why would an administration need these types of control for it's country's own people if not to silence dissent? Who owns the networks in Cuba and Venezuela?Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.The new version would allow the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to "non-governmental" computer networks and do what's necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for "cybersecurity professionals," and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.
Another interesting point of this story... "Congress's ethics rules only require the Members to report their finances within broad ranges."Earlier this month the Chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee "amended" his 2007 financial disclosure form—to the tune of more than a half-million dollars in previously unreported assets and income. That number may be as high as $780,000, because Congress's ethics rules only require the Members to report their finances within broad ranges. This voyage of personal financial discovery brings Mr. Rangel's net worth for 2007 to somewhere between $1.028 million and $2.495 million, while his previous statement came in at $516,015 and $1.316 million.When you're a powerful Congressman and working diligently to increase tax rates to pay for President Obama's health-care plan, we suppose it's easy to lose track of one of your checking accounts. That would be the one at the federal credit union with a balance somewhere between $250,001 and maybe as high as $500,000. And when you're crunched for time and pulling together bills to pass in a rush, we guess, too, that you might overlook several other investment accounts, even if some of them are sizable, such as the ones Mr. Rangel missed at JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Oppenheimer and BlackRock.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, trying to ward off potentially sweeping federal emissions regulations, is pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to hold a rare public hearing on the scientific evidence for man-made climate change.Amazing! Finally someone with a set of balls to question these "experts"
The goal of the chamber, which represents 3 million large and small businesses, is to fend off potential emissions regulations by undercutting the scientific consensus over climate change. If the EPA denies the request, as expected, the chamber plans to take the fight to federal court.I hope they take it all the way to the Supreme Court. There is no consensus among the scientific community. This fact needs to be demonstrated the masses.
The EPA is having none of it, calling a hearing a "waste of time" and saying that a threatened lawsuit by the chamber would be "frivolous."What a surprise. No global warming = fewer EPA bureaucrats.
Rep. King is absolutely right. For whatever reason (a smokescreen to hide the healthcare debacle, or just to appease the "Blame America First" types, or continuation of the apology tour) the Obama administration is weakening our National Defense and broadcasting our intents and methods to our enemies... you know... the kind-hearted terrorists of Al-Qaida and Hamas. More reporters have had themselves waterboarded for ratings that actual terrorists.King on Holder: 'You wonder which side they’re on'A "furious" Rep. Peter King, the hawkish, maverick Long Island Republican, blasted a "disgraceful" Eric Holder for opening an investigation of CIA interrogators and chided his own party for what he described as a weak response to the move in an interview just now with POLITICO."It’s bulls***. It’s disgraceful. You wonder which side they’re on," he said of the attorney general's move, which he described as a "declaration of war against the CIA, and against common sense.""It’s a total breach of faith, and either the president is intentionally caving to the left wing of his party or he’s lost control of his administration," said King, the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Homeland Security and a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence.King, channeling both the sense of outrage and of political opportunity felt in parts of the GOP, defended in detail the interrogation practices — threats to kill a detainee's family, and or to kill a detainee with a power drill — detailed in a CIA inspector general report released yesterday."You're talking about threatening to kill a guy, threatening to attack his family, threatening to use an electric drill on him — but never doing it," King said. "You have that on the one hand — and on the other you have the [interrogator's] attempt to prevent thousands of Americans from being killed.""When Holder was talking about being 'shocked' [before the report's release], I thought they were going to have cutting guys' fingers off or something — or that they actually used the power drill," he said.Pressed on whether interrogators had actually broken the law, King said he didn't think the Geneva Convention "applies to terrorists," and that the line between permitted and outlawed interrogation policies in the Bush years was "a distinction without a difference.""Why is it OK to waterboard someone, which causes physical pain, but not threaten someone and not cause pain?" he asked, warning of a "chilling" effect on future CIA behavior."You will have thousands of lives that will be lost, and the blood will be on Eric Holder's hands," he said.King faulted his own party leaders for an insufficient response to yesterday's announcement."They’ve declared war on the CIA. We should resist and fight back as hard as we can," he said. "It should be a scorched earth policy. ... This isn't just another policy. This goes to the heart of our national defense. We should do whatever we have to do."
Amid all the controversies over medical care, no one seems to be asking a very basic question: Why does it take more than 1,000 pages of legislation to insure people who lack medical insurance?
Despite incessant repetition of the fact that millions of Americans do not have medical insurance, hardy souls who have actually read the mammoth medical care legislation being rushed through Congress have discovered all sorts of things there that have nothing whatever to do with insuring the uninsured-- and everything to do with taking medical decisions out of the hands of doctors and their patients, and transferring those decisions to Washington bureaucrats.
That's called "bait and switch" when an unscrupulous business advertises one thing and tries to sell you something else. When politicians do it, it is far more dangerous to far more people. Deception is not an incidental aspect of this medical care legislation, but is at the very heart of it. That such a massive change of the entire medical care system, from top to bottom, was attempted to be rushed through Congress before the August recess before anybody in or out of Congress had time to read it all-- should have told us from the outset that we were being played for fools. Despite President Obama's statements that he is not advocating a "single payer" system for medical care-- which is to say, a government monopoly of power over life and death decisions-- just a few years ago, he was telling a union audience that he was in favor of a "single payer" system. At that time, he pointed out that it was unlikely that such a system could be put in place all at once, that it might take a number of years to advance, step by step, to that goal.
n other words, Barack Obama fully understood the "entering wedge" political strategy that has allowed so many government programs to start off small, and apparently innocuous-- and then grow to gigantic size and scope over the years. If telling us that he is not for a single payer system will soothe us into going along, then it is perfectly understandable why he said it. But that is no reason for us to believe him.
As for those uninsured Americans who are supposedly the reason for all this sound and fury, there is remarkably little interest in why they are uninsured, despite the incessant repetition of the fact that they are.
Aug. 19 (Bloomberg) -- When the political winds shift -- when a party is voted out of power or a policy is panned by the public -- Washington turns to its favorite pastime: the blame game.
And so it is with President Barack Obama, who tripped on his sprint to the health-care-reform finish line. Voters, it seems, want to understand a little more about what ObamaCare will mean for them, what it will do to the doctor-patient relationship, and what it will cost future generations in higher taxes and, yes, rationed supply.
Rather than examine the public’s concerns, the plans’ inconsistencies or the sheer irresponsibility of trying to ram something this big and complicated through Congress without a small-scale trial, the Obama administration is pointing fingers. Lots of them. Most of the targets are just plain silly.
1. Conservative groups
When liberal activists, including trade unions, Acorn and MoveOn.org, protested against anything and everything President George W. Bush said or did, it was called grassroots democracy.
When conservative groups encourage supporters to attend town hall meetings and make their sentiments known to their congressmen, it’s un-American, disruptive and the work of right-wing extremists.
Madame Hypocrite
Where was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, when President George W. Bush was being compared toAdolf Hitler and the Nazis? She was a “fan of disrupters” in those days, as she told anti-war protesters at a January 2006 town hall meeting in San Francisco. Pelosi only developed a thin skin (too much plastic surgery?) when the Democrats took control of the executive and legislative branches of government.
The effort to blame right-wing groups is transparent. If my feedback on a recent column is indicative of the political persuasion and demographic distribution of the protesters, these are ordinary Americans energized by the debate, frustrated at not having a voice and motivated to exercise their right of free speech. Attempts to smear opponents and shut down debate are, well, un-American.
2. Insurance Companies
Garnering support for health-insurance reform by demonizing insurance companies is a cheap shot, albeit one that resonates with the public. After all, these are the faceless bureaucrats who deny or pay claims in a seemingly arbitrary manner and refuse or cancel coverage if you cost them too much money.
Stubborn Facts
Facts are stubborn things, this White House is quick to remind us. And in this case, the facts don’t support the vilification.
If insurance companies were gouging the public, the evidence would show up in one of two places, according to Graef Crystal, a compensation expert in Santa Rosa, California, and occasional Bloomberg News columnist: excessive executive pay or excessive returns to shareholders.
His analysis of five major health insurers shows just the opposite: below-market pay and below-market shareholder returns.
“There’s no case here for undue enrichment of shareholders” or over-compensating CEOs, Crystal finds.
Health care needs a major overhaul, but that’s no reason to make scapegoats out of insurance companies.
3. The Media
I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard Obama point the finger at the media at his town hall meeting last week in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Fishing Expedition
The president, defending the White House’s fishing expedition for “fishy” e-mails on health-insurance reform (suspended this week by popular demand), blamed the media for “distorting what’s taken place.”
Is this the same media that was in the pocket for candidate Obama and waltzed us through the honeymoon? If Bush had been as reliant on his teleprompter as Obama, or said “Cinco de Cuatro” when he meant “Cuatro de Mayo,” the press would have been all over him for being inept.
Sorry, Mr. President, you have no idea what it means for the media to distort what’s taken place. The long-gone Bush administration is getting more negative press than you are.
4. Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin, the recently retired governor of Alaska, 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate and Democrat’s favorite whipping boy (or girl), created a stir with a reference to death panels on Facebook. Palin said she didn’t want her parents or Down-Syndrome baby to “have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide” what kind of medical care should be allocated to these less productive members of society.
Blame the Democrats
This is the same Sarah Palin whose foreign policy experience was summed up during the campaign by her ability “to see Russia from land here in Alaska.” This is the same Sarah Palin credited with changing the terms of the debate? C’mon. That’s too laughable to address.
Besides, there’s a kernel of truth in what she said. Like all goods and services, medical care is a scarce resource that must be rationed. The only question is how: by the market (price) or by government mandate.
If government is doing the rationing, what exactly will bureaucrats use to determine who gets what care and who doesn’t?
Opposition to fast-track health-insurance reform is coming from Obama’s own party. Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota and one of six Finance Committee members involved in bipartisan negotiations, said on Fox News Sunday that the goal is to “get this right,” not meet some “specific timetable.”He said the Senate lacks enough votes to pass a bill with a public option. “To continue to chase that rabbit, I think, is just a wasted effort.”
There’s always room for one more -- the Democrats -- on Obama’s blame-game list.
(Caroline Baum, author of “Just What I Said,” is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)
Tim Evans (London, United Kingdom) from BigGovHealth on Vimeo.
Coming to a country near you.
You can work for change this summer. Defend President Obama's Healthcare Plan...for $400-$600/week. Join motivated staff around the country working to make change happen. You can make great friends and money along the way. Earn $4000-$6000 this summer.Now the left is paying people to turn out. My guess is because Americans are starting to wise up and are getting sick of the dems' tired rhetoric and massive spending.
If you’re a journalist, want to help people and want to tell the truth, what truth are you going to tell? Why, the truth you think helps people, of course!Click here to read an excellent article about the state of Journalism today by Barbara Oakley from Psychology Today.
Technically, that’s the truth.
But it’s very different than the truth.
We've put our economy, our security ... our very lives ... into the hands of a group of men and women who have shown no particular skill beyond their ability to please their constituents through the expenditure of money seized from the private sector. They produce nothing of value, nor do they demonstrate any particular skill other than pandering to voters. They loot from the productive to buy votes from the moocher class. If you had your entire financial future invested in stock in one business, how well would sleep at night knowing that Barack Obama, Barney Frank, Henry Waxman, Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters were running that business? Their very survivability depends on their ability to use force to achieve their goals.These are the people we are going to allow to completely change the nature of health care in America. Amazingly, some Americans still think that these people are actually working hard to figure out a way to deliver better health care to the American people at a lower cost. They're wrong. These DC political hacks are simply trying to control, not improve health care. Control means power, and power is the currency of Washington. If we expect anything but a complete disaster, we deserve what's coming.
"I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House."Their response: people are just trying to scare you. It's not really happening.
--Barack Obama