Democrat Myths on Health Care Reform: Republicans Have Offered No Alternatives

It's a whole lot easier to disregard your opponent's arguments when you mislabel them. Take this Democrat Myth: Republicans are the "Party of 'No'" and only want to stop Obamacare. They have no plan of their own."

Facts are inconvenient things.

Rep. Tom Price, the Georgia Republican who heads the House GOP Study Committee, came to President Obama's speech Wednesday night itching to make a point. Price, who also happens to be an orthopedic surgeon, has often heard the president accuse Republicans of criticizing Democratic health care proposals while having no plans of their own. He expected Obama to do the same Wednesday night.

"We knew the president would at some point say something like, 'and the other side has no ideas,' " Price says. So Price and his Republican colleagues brought with them copies of the more than 30 health care reform bills they have proposed in the House this year.

Obama didn't directly accuse Republicans of not having a plan. But he did say he would welcome "serious" health care proposals. "My door is always open," Obama said.

That's when Price held up the sheaf of papers he was carrying -- a copy of H.R. 3400, the Empowering Patients First Act, which Price and the Republican Study Committee proposed in July. Other GOP lawmakers held up their own bills. Some raised a list of all the health care bills -- there are more than 30 -- proposed by members of the Study Committee.

Why use the props? "To say in a quiet and respectful way, 'Here are our ideas,' " Price says. "To say to the president, 'You're not being honest with the American people when you say that there haven't been ideas put forward, and that you've listened to them, because you haven't.' "

What Democrats really mean is, "Republicans have no plan we will even consider. And since we're the majority, we can lie about what they're doing with impunity."

Conspiracy Theories on the Left Are Always Sane; Those on the Right? Not So Much

Jonah Goldberg makes an important distinction between Birthers and Truthers.

(I)t seems to me the “birther” hypothesis is vastly more plausible than the “truther” hypothesis. Politicians lie to advance their careers. You can look it up. Whole governments rarely orchestrate incredibly complex acts of physics, logistics, and mass murder all the while pinning guilt on others (who boast that they acted alone).

For the record, I don't believe either conspiracy theory, and neither do most Americans. But I've stated before that Barack Obama does have something he doesn't want us to know about his birth certificate and/or educational records. My suspicion is that he was a lackluster student who most likely wrote some radical papers and he doesn't want anyone to use the words he wrote as a 22-year-old against him now (and who can blame him?).

The astonishing part is how many on the Left, rather than blasting the Truthers (and Van Jones) as embarrassing nutjobs of the Democratic Party, has tried to defend Trutherism as a mainstream idea.

In July, the popular left-wing website FiredogLake couldn’t let go of the birther bit. One post — titled “The Republican Party is the Birther Party, and it’s dragging them down” — made much of the fact that 28 percent of Republicans, according to one poll, do not believe that Obama is a natural-born citizen. This week, the site’s founder, Jane Hamsher, was disgusted that Jones was “thrown under the bus,” even though he subscribed to trutherism, a view that “35 (percent) of Democrats believed as of 2007.”

I noted the weirdness of Hamsher's defense here. But worse than the weird defenses from moonbat bloggers is the way the press has decided to ignore Jones's resignation all together.

But mostly, the mainstream press changed the subject to how the Right is paranoid and vaguely unpatriotic for opposing Obama’s speech to schools Tuesday, despite the fact that most conservatives and Republicans didn’t protest the speech once the Department of Education’s controversially politicized lesson plans were withdrawn.

Van Jones's resignation was timed to get the least press and it succeeded, not because there was nothing to report, but because it's just so much easier to move to the next "Republican hysteria." Part of that is because of the car crash mentality of the media, but it's hard not to realize that Jones was an embarrassment to Teh One's administration, and that isn't newsworthy at all.

Obama's Speech Thread

Yorkshire has the thread at CSPT. Go participate!

John Stossel Moves to Fox

I have somewhat mixed emotions about John Stossel's announcement that he's leaving ABC for Fox.

On the one hand, it sounds like Fox is giving him the sort of creative control that journalists crave (and ABC can't or won't give him).

I plan to do a one hour prime time show every week on FBN, the Fox Business Channel, and contribute to various existing programs on Fox News Channel...

I’m still considering what I will do with my own show, one hour each week. Economics certainly. Exercises in understanding libertarianism. My “take” on the issues of the day.

But there's the other part of me that says when conservatives cede the airwaves to liberals--such as leaving a liberal network for a conservative one--it decreases the knowledge and diversity available to all. Conservatives watch Fox. Liberals watch MSNBC and the networks. And now, Stossel's work will be seen by fewer liberals, presenting fewer opportunities to confront those on the fence with the facts.

That's not how Stossel's departure is being spun by liberal nutters.

Every homeless pigeon has a home somewhere. Thus, John Stossel joins his clones at Fox. How nice. Too bad that the other side of the political aisle never takes care of its mouthpieces. Nooo, we are supposed to sink or swim in the cold waves of the free market, while the free market acolytes are tucked into safe beds at conservative think tanks and Fox News and Washington Times. I have never quite understood that.

Notice the assumption that Fox News, conservative think tanks and the Washington Times only hire like-minded journalists, but that other organizations do not. Of course, the truth is that most journalists are liberals, not conservatives, and most news organizations lean to the left. But that's an inconvenient truth for the liberal nutters.

The other statement Echidne makes, that Fox News, conservative think tanks and the Washington Times are uniquely unaffected by the free market. I suppose it's too painful to realize that the free market loves conservatives, not liberals, and that the problem liberals have in the free market is that people reject their ideas. It's not Fox News' fault liberals can't take competition.

Shocker: Democrats Condemn Behavior They Themselves Participated In

It's deja vu all over again. Democrats are up in arms that Joe Wilson called President Obama a liar but didn't have a problem with Harry Reid calling President Bush a lair or heckling GWB during his State of the Union address.

The outrage is precious, and now the destruction of Joe Wilson has begun (see here, here and here). There is a certain irony, of course, to outrage over caffeine, when Teh One used cocaine. But consistency isn't their strong suit.

Wilson has set up a donation page to defend himself, which seems a little seedy. But given the excitement of Democrats to subsidize Wilson's opponent, I say hit the link for Wilson. Or, better yet, get a free "I'm with Joe Wilson" T-shirt. Wear it proudly.

Tomorrow's Talking Points: The Spin on Obama's Speech

The speech was mostly boiler plate, but President Obama endorsed an individual mandate to buy health insurance. No word on how he expects to enforce it, but we've we've already been given the price tag.

Expect liberals to be screaming bloody murder because a Congressman was disrespectful to the POTUS. Being rude to his face is permissible. Telling the truth is not.

Obama unleashed the dogs to go after Obamacare opponents. Expect lots of "you lie" B.S. from Dems on the issue, particularly where abortion funding and coverage of illegal immigrants is concerned. Hint: tax money is not "private funds."

The moonbats will be touting this CNN poll showing huge increases in support for Obamacare. But only among Democrats, who were the ones typically watching Obama's speech. Everybody who was watching So You Think You Can Dance--which was probably a larger audience--hasn't changed their minds. And the people who have had a Road to Damascus moment with Obamacare are likely to quickly convert back to skepticism and outright disapproval once Democrats have to explain how we're paying for this.

Dems still lack the votes to pass any legislation, but expect Pelosi and Reid to step up the pressure on Blue Dogs to fall in line.

And if all else fails, spend a lot more time talking about this nobody. It sucks not having GWB to kick around anymore, don't it?

LibTalkers Blame Conservatives for California Fires, Coming Terrorism

From The Radio Equalizer:

Faced with sinking poll numbers and an administration seemingly in disarray over a number of political missteps, those who carry water for Obama now find themselves in a tricky position.

That has our liberal talk radio and blogospheric friends cooking a new smear strategy: to accuse conservatives of plotting and even carrying out acts of terrorism.

It's never the Dems fault when nobody likes their proposals.

Obama's Health Care Speech

Obama: 'If you misrepresent what's in the plan, we will call you out'

But who will call out Obama?

I'm all for honesty in advertising, and that includes the POTUS.

This Really Is a Low Blow...

Anti-secrecy groups unhappy with Obama:
Report compares use of executive privilege to Bush's

Advocates for more open government who had hoped that the Obama administration would be less secretive than its predecessor say it is continuing to use executive privilege to block lawsuits over allegations of past abuses in the fight against terrorism.

A new report from OpenTheGovernment.org, a coalition of anti-secrecy groups, criticized the Obama administration's interpretation of the so-called "state secrets privilege." Under it, the Justice Department has argued that courts must dismiss national security cases challenging wiretapping and the transport of suspected terrorists to CIA and foreign jails, where they claim they were tortured.

It's ok, though. The MSM will ignore any criticism of Teh One.

Thomas Friedman Laments the Fact that We Aren't a Communist Dictatorship

I'll admit that I lampoon liberals as mindless automatons hellbent on dragging the rest of us into their form of slavery, but it's rare for them to openly admit their admiration for communism and dictatorships.

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century. It is not an accident that China is committed to overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power. China’s leaders understand that in a world of exploding populations and rising emerging-market middle classes, demand for clean power and energy efficiency is going to soar. Beijing wants to make sure that it owns that industry and is ordering the policies to do that, including boosting gasoline prices, from the top down.

Our one-party democracy is worse.

Ah, yes, those pesky drawbacks of autocracy, such as oppression, forced abortions, persecution and death. But those aren't nearly as important as forcing your worldview on everybody else in your country. I mean, having an active debate on things like global warming and what kind of health care you want in your country is so undesirable. Better to just have the elites rule your peasants.

And it's not just that Friedman goes on to lie about Republicans.

With a few notable exceptions, the Republican Party is standing, arms folded and saying “no.”

This is patently untrue, given that Republicans did offer a plan more than two months ago. But then, since President Obama hasn't wanted to meet with Republicans since April, there may be a good excuse for Democrats not knowing about Republican interest in health care reform.

It would be one thing if this were just the usual liberal hyperbole, but as Jonah Goldberg notes, this line of thinking has dangerous consequences.

I cannot begin to tell you how this is exactly the argument that was made by American fans of Mussolini in the 1920s. It is exactly the argument that was made in defense of Stalin and Lenin before him (it's the argument that idiotic, dictator-envying leftists make in defense of Castro and Chavez today). It was the argument made by George Bernard Shaw who yearned for a strong progressive autocracy under a Mussolini, a Hitler or a Stalin (he wasn't picky in this regard). This is the argument for an "economic dictatorship" pushed by Stuart Chase and the New Dealers. It's the dream of Herbert Croly and a great many of the Progressives.

Idiots need to be smacked around every time the spew this stupidity.

Media Bias? What Media Bias?

Unmentionable: Best-Selling Conservative Books and the Networks that Ignore Them

The Culture and Media Institute analyzed how ABC, CBS and NBC covered those 25 hardcover nonfiction best-sellers, and found that the networks gave liberal books and authors dramatically more (and more favorable) coverage than their conservative counterparts. Of the 11 conservative authors on the list, just four received any coverage on the networks.

On the other hand, the networks covered 11 out of 14 liberal authors. Of the three not covered, one was not an author in the conventional sense – it was President Obama, and the “book” was his January 20 inauguration speech.

Why would the liberal media give free advertising to adversaries?

Propagandizing the Arts?

Government uses arts to address political issues
The King always got to tell the artist what he would paint. Obama is just more open about it.

Cass Sunstein: People Should Have to Donate Organs

It's one thing to encourage organ donation. It's another to advocate taking people's organs if they haven't explicitly said not to do so.

Cass Sunstein, President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), has advocated a policy under which the government would “presume” someone has consented to having his or her organs removed for transplantation into someone else when they die unless that person has explicitly indicated that his or her organs should not be taken.

Under such a policy, hospitals would harvest organs from people who never gave permission for this to be done.

I can't imagine how family members would feel having their loved one's organs harvested without their consent. This policy seems to violate a variety of religious prohibitions as well as just common decency.

And then there's the fact that the plan could discourage the hiring of poor and minority workers.

Well, We Finally Have a Dollar Amount for Obamacare

$3,800.

Americans would be fined up to $3,800 for failing to buy health insurance under a plan that circulated in Congress on Tuesday as divisions among Democrats undercut President Barack Obama's effort to regain traction on his health care overhaul.

Hugh Hewitt is suggesting that insurers will begin offering a barebones policy for families that costs $3,801. This makes sense to me, since the fine creates a floor under which no insurer would underwrite a policy.

Nice to Know Democrats Have Always Been the Civilized Party

When GHWB spoke to schoolchildren, Democrats in Congress investigated

(W)hen President George H.W. Bush delivered a similar speech on October 1, 1991, from Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington DC, the controversy was just beginning. Democrats, then the majority party in Congress, not only denounced Bush's speech -- they also ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate its production and later summoned top Bush administration officials to Capitol Hill for an extensive hearing on the issue...

The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president's political benefit. "The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props," the Post reported...

Democrats did not stop with words. Rep. William Ford, then chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate the cost and legality of Bush's appearance. On October 17, 1991, Ford summoned then-Education Secretary Lamar Alexander and other top Bush administration officials to testify at a hearing devoted to the speech. "The hearing this morning is to really examine the expenditure of $26,750 of the Department of Education funds to produce and televise an appearance by President Bush at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, DC," Ford began. "As the chairman of the committee charged with the authorization and implementation of education programs, I am very much interested in the justification, rationale for giving the White House scarce education funds to produce a media event."

Double standard? What double standard?

Yet Another Reason Congress Is Supposed to Vet the President's Cabinet

Van Jones did not fill out White House questionnaire

An administration official said special advisers to the president, or czars, are not required to fill out the questionnaire that runs 7 pages and contains 63 questions...

Among the varied topics covered in the questionnaire: history as a lobbyist or other "legislative agent", tax liens, bankruptcies, spousal employment, potential conflicts of interest, domestic help, internet "handles" and Facebook pages, and traffic fines in excess of $50.

Question 61 reads as follows: "Have you had any association with any person, group or business venture that could be used - even unfairly - to impugn or attack your character and qualifications for government service?"

This administration doesn't want to know who is advising the president because then, they couldn't claim racism as the motivation for criticism.

Andrew Breitbart points to the ugly truth that MSM journalists didn't cover this story because their own biases prevent them from doing their jobs. This is a disservice to everyone.

Jobless Recovery

There was a time when liberals were deeply concerned about a jobless recovery.

The latest employment numbers were released today and the news is not good, 93,000 jobs lost in August. We learned from the FED yesterday that the jobless recovery is real. Additionally, the NY Federal Reserve Bank released a study showing that many of the lost jobs will never return.

The pResident (sic) can technically claim the economy is improving but that does nothing to help the 9 million Americans currently unemployed.

But that was soooo 2003. In 2009, we are faced with a real jobless recovery, and unemployment stands at 9.7%, higher than at any time in the last quarter century.

The large companies are gradually recovering as a result of major cost-cutting, inventory reduction, and a lean-and-mean return to profitability and high productivity. So the payroll survey registered a 216,000 job loss, the smallest drop in over a year.

However, the household survey, which picks up small, owner-operated, LLC/S-Corp-type businesses, registered a devastating 392,000 job loss, which follows losses of 155,000 and 374,000 in the prior two months. This is the source of the unemployment-rate jump, as 466,000 newly unemployed were scored in the report.

Companies are always slow to rehire once they start laying off. Typically, they will offer overtime to current employees first, then hire part-timers and contractors and finally full-time workers. So, those 6.9 million unemployed (not counting those not currently looking) will have a long wait to find a full-time job.

Uncle Sam has borrowed $388 billion in the second quarter and is scheduled to borrow $406 billion in the third quarter and nearly $500 billion in the fourth. In order to provide $152 billion in so-called fiscal stimulus, the government is draining close to $800 billion from the private-sector savings supply — $800 billion that will not be invested in new-business enterprises, including small businesses.

Borrowing from Peter to redistribute to Paul is not fiscal stimulus. It’s a fiscal depressant. Small businesses are having enough trouble getting their hands on credit. And now they can’t find enough capital for new start-ups. The government prospers, but the small-business sector sinks.

Then there are all the tax and regulatory threats related to health-care and energy reform. Until Mr. Obama retreats from his plan for a government takeover of the health-care sector, and a cap-and-trade program that will cripple the energy sector, the cost of hiring the new job will continue to rise.

The threat of higher payroll taxes and energy costs is more than enough to deter new hiring. Taxes on upper-end investors are going to rise, too, and there may be a health-care surtax on top of that. And don’t forget that small businesses pay the top personal tax rate, which is going up. Oh, and how about the recent minimum-wage hike? Yet another business cost.

President Obama has promised to sock it to "the rich," but "the rich" includes an awful lot of small business owners: the doughnut shop operators, hair dressers, lawn mowing services, Subway franchises, auto shops anod others, who will be most affected by tax hikes and by health care taxes. That means these businesses either go bust or stop hiring people.

But all of this was evident before last November, when many people were enamored with socking it to the rich. Little did they realize that they were those rich people.

More Van Jones

Probably the funniest thing about Van Jones's resignation is watching leftwings defend Van Jones by way of the truther movement.

Now he's been thrown under the bus by the White House for signing his name to a petition expressing something that 35% of all Democrats believed as of 2007 -- that George Bush knew in advance about the attacks of 9/11.

It seems to me that when a poll shows some significant portion of Republicans are birthers, it's just more proof of their racism, but 35% of Democrats being truthers just means trutherism is, well, true. That sounds like the very definition of a double standard.

But don't let the nuttiness stop there. We have Carl Pope spreading the blame to a whole host of liberal interest groups.

But on Saturday night, Van resigned, and this morning I was sick at heart. Collectively we -- the environmental community, progressives, and the Obama administration -- blew this, and we let our cause, our president, and Van Jones down.

This was a lynch mob and, when it started forming a month ago, we didn't take it seriously enough. When I saw the first Glenn Beck piece on Van Jones and the Apollo Alliance as the new vast left-wing conspiracy, I could not take it seriously. Silence enabled Fox to keep pushing. The statements for which Jones apologized -- the reference to the right as "assholes" and saying that Bush was talking "like a crack-head" were such ordinary political discourse -- think Rahm Emmanuel, think Dick Cheney saying "fuck yourself" to Senator Leahy, think Tom Friedman dubbing Bush "the addict-in-chief" -- that I didn't understand why an apology was necessary; I assumed it would blow over.

It's hard to read the pieces coming from the Left without realizing they haven't a clue about what the problem with Van Jones is. It's not that Van Jones called Republicans assholes. It's not just that he thinks George Bush knew about 9/11 beforehand and did nothing to stop it. It's that Van Jones is emblematic of the utter contempt of the left for Republicans in general and conservatives in particular. This isn't about mere politics. It's about the audacious nastiness that Obama's advisors have for Americans who supported their president after a vicious terrorist attack and how publicly they dislike the rest of us. But you won't hear that from the Van Jones apologists.

Infant Mortality and Obamacare

Interesting article discussing the high infant mortality rate. The reason? Hint: It's not our health care system.

No one denies the problem. Our infant mortality rate is double that of Japan or Sweden. But we live different lives, on average, than people in those places. We suffer more obesity (about 10 times as much as the Japanese), and we have more births to teenagers (seven times more than the Swedes). Nearly 40 percent of American babies are born to unwed mothers.

Factors like these are linked to low birth weight in babies, which is a dangerous thing. In a 2007 study for the National Bureau of Economic Research, economists June O'Neill and Dave O'Neill noted that "a multitude of behaviors unrelated to the health care system such as substance abuse, smoking and obesity" are connected "to the low birth weight and preterm births that underlie the infant death syndrome."

You won't hear about obesity or teenage pregnancy or even a high premature birth rate as the reason for America's high infant mortality rate from Obamacare supporters. That's because Obamacare won't help that rate. Instead, you'll hear how shameful our infant mortality rate is and how prenatal care would help. But that's not really true, either.

The truth is, we have a lot of tiny, premature babies, and because we consider them live births, we also record their deaths. This isn't true in some other countries. If a baby is born very prematurely, the baby isn't recorded as a live birth until it advances to a certain weight. So, if the baby dies within a day or two of birth, the baby is recorded as a stillbirth.

That, of course, is a statistical sleight of hand, designed only to help bureaucrats who keep track of such things. The real problem is that having the Best Health Care in the World won't help our infant mortality rate if the behavior of individuals doesn't change.

Another One Under the Bus: Van Jones Resigns

I've been out of town for the last day or so, so I just found out that communist Van Jones has resigned as "Green Czar" for President Barack Obama.

"On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me," Jones, special adviser for green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in a statement announcing his resignation just after midnight Sunday. "They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide."

He continued: "I have been inundated with calls -- from across the political spectrum -- urging me to 'stay and fight.' But I came here to fight for others, not for myself. I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future."

Of course, what Jones is upset about is the fact that his words and actions have caused enormous controversy once Glenn Beck exposed his past and present on the Glenn Beck Show on Fox News.

Liberals are trying to dismiss Beck's evidence with a mixture of "That was so long ago" and "So what?"

Jones never denied his past affiliation with the radical left. In the '90s, he was involved with the group Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), which sympathized with Maoist-inspired peasant movements throughout the world and was organized to protest police brutality.

Jones, however, left radical politics and made the decision to work within the system, rather than try to overthrow it. For Beck, however, Jones' past statements were evidence that Obama is secretly marshaling a cadre of lieutenants pushing an agenda that is "radical, revolutionary and in some cases Marxist." (Meanwhile, in reality, Obama is backing away from even including a public health insurance option as part of health care reform. How that squares with Obama's Marxist agenda Beck has yet to explain.)...

It also emerged that Jones had signed a "truther" petition back in 2004. Truthers insist that there are unanswered questions about what U.S. officials knew about the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks before they occurred and want further investigations. Truthers are the left-wing version of birthers, people who believe that Obama was born in Kenya, is not a citizen and his presidency is illegitimate.

There's nothing inherently left-wing about 9/11 conspiracy theorists or right-wing about birthers; rather, they tend to fall on opposite ideological extremes because of mistrust of the president in question, be he Bush or Obama. But the birther movement includes prominent Republicans, including members of Congress, while connection to the truther movement can help cost a relatively obscure administration official his job.

It's pathetic when the only defense for an administration official is that the politicians on your side weren't vocal enough in their batshittery of the previous administration.

Of course, you wouldn't have known anything about Van Jones, his trutherism, his communist connections or his disparaging remarks about Republicans had you only watched or listened to the MSM. It was a story not covered by the New York Times, the Washington Post, ABC, NBC or CBS. Because being the nutjob Jones is isn't radical to them, so there's no news to it. The nut is Glenn Beck for pointing out the radicals President Obama has in his administration. From Le-gal In-sur-rec-tion:

The mainstream media finally is covering this story. Not as news, but as history. The unfortunate and misguided exposure of Van Jones' love affair with 9/11 Truthers and various and sundry pejoratives.

That's what happens when one ignores a hot story for ideological purposes. The MSM is treating the Van Jones Affair as just another historical example of the vast right-wing conspiracy, without the slightest note that the MSM was dragged kicking and screaming into covering the story when Jones' resignation made it impossible to ignore.

Hot Air explains how Van Jones's resignation reflects badly on Barack Obama on soooo many levels. But it is funny watching those sweet, salty tears from the moonbats crying about it.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Transsexual prisoner wins move to women's jail.

A transsexual prisoner serving life for manslaughter and attempted rape committed while she was a man has won a high court battle to be transferred to a women's jail...

The judge said the refusal was a violation of her human rights. He said: "I declare her continued detention in a male prison is in breach of her rights under Article 8 [right to private and family life] under the European Convention on Human Rights."

Yeah, the Economy Is Better

Unemployment hits 26-year high.

I work with people who weren't even born the last time unemployment was at 9.7%.

Radicals in the Obama Administration: Vindication for Glenn Beck?

Glenn Beck has been vilified for calling President Barack Obama a racist with a "deep-seated antipathy for white people." In fact, Eric Boehlert practically had a coronary because Fox News hasn't canned Beck for the statement.

In Boehlert's view, the fact that Truther Van Jones, who is leading the group bent on crushing Beck--and also is "Green Czar" for the Obama administration--has managed to get many advertisers to forego commercials on Beck's highly rated program means that Fox News should either fire Beck or make him apologize.

At Fox News, that smear has been flushed down the memory hole, and all that's left to do is play victim...

But here's what I don't get: Why doesn't Beck go on TV every day and simply defend his "racist" claim? Why doesn't Beck stand up for the racist remark and stake his reputation on it? Because right now, the pathetic, squishy approach he's taking where he limply lashes back while pretending the ad boycott sprang from some mysterious place -- where Beck plays the victim and pretends he never made the "racist" smear -- is just too lame for words.

The host has never apologized, so it seems logical that he stands behind the claim. (And that's what he claimed one month ago.) And if he stands behind it, why doesn't he set aside a few minutes on each program to detail how Obama is a racist? Why doesn't he educate his viewers.

In fact, just after the controversy exploded, Beck took time on his highly rated radio show to explain why he said President Obama was a racist:

and here:

It's hard to argue that Beck didn't explain himself. But more to the point, Beck has moved on to doing a little journalism, you know, what the MSM is supposed to do, and discovering who Van Jones actually is. Rumor has it that Obama may toss Jones under the bus, but one has to ask if the fact that Obama picked Jones is proof of Beck's charges?

Humor from The Onion

President Obama's Address to Schoolchildren

President Obama's planned address to schoolchildren is getting quite a bit of coverage today, which is probably good for Democrats, since it takes the focus off their failed Obamacare plans.

But that doesn't mean this is good for Americans. For the record, I don't have a problem with the POTUS giving a televised speech to schoolchildren on the importance of getting a good education. But I do have a problem with the curriculum that is meant to accompany the speech.

Obama will challenge American students to work hard, set educational goals and take responsibility for their educational success, according to a letter sent last week to school principals by Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

"He will also call for a shared responsibility and commitment on the part of students, parents and educators to ensure that every child in every school receives the best education possible so they can compete in the global economy for good jobs and live rewarding and productive lives as American citizens," Duncan wrote.

The letter encourages teachers to use the speech as a classroom tool, asking students to discuss such things as "Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?" and "What is President Obama inspiring you to do?"

Michelle Malkin posts on alternatives to Obama's speech.

Shorter Glenn Greenwald:

Adults admiring and serving a president is a cult of personality, while indoctrinating minors is no big deal.

Obama Flip-Flops on the Public Option Again

In a reverse of a reverse, President Obama is signalling a willingness to toss the public option under the bus and liberals be damned.

Aides to President Barack Obama are putting the final touches on a new strategy to help Democrats recover from a brutal August recess by specifying what Obama wants to see in a compromise health care deal and directly confronting other trouble spots, West Wing officials tell POLITICO.

The POTUS's strategy is, what else? To give a speech.

President Barack Obama will address a joint session of Congress on health care reform in prime time on Wednesday, Sept. 9, a senior official tells POLITICO.

Unfortunately for Teh One, every time he opens his mouth, his approval numbers drop. More blah blah isn't going to help with this one.

Naturally, the nutroots are enraged that Obama would flip again on this issue, just after they'd brought him back in line.

This makes perfect sense because his problem is that he's been kow-towing to the left so much that he's lost the country, what with all the war crimes investigations, the tax hikes for the rich, the crackdown on the banks, the repeal of "don't ask don't tell" and the thumbing of his nose at the Republicans every chance he gets. Not to mention the plans for full withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan by 2012 and his full blown assault on the health care industry and insistence on a Canadian style health care system. You'd think Obama would have been far, far more cautious so as not to give the Republican freakshow any possible path to demonize them as "far left." It's not like they could just make stuff up and a lot of people in America would believe it, right?

I'm thoroughly convinced that the Left in this country inhabit an alternate universe, since that's the only way to explain B.S. like the above paragraph. Republicans have zero control in Congress, yet liberals seem to be unable to admit that their problem is them, not us. They have a very liberal wing trying to ram through legislation (without reading it, no less), and a percentage of moderates who are dependent on appearing more like Republicans to their constituents back home than like minions of Nancy Pelosi. Top this with a president who is determined to palm the blame for his failures off on others, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Interesting insights from Hot Air:

Bill Clinton didn’t spend six months hawking her records before publicly scolding Sister Souljah on the campaign trail. Barack Obama has spent the last six months, and two years of presidential campaigning before that, pushing the idea of a government-run health plan as a way to supposedly keep the private sector “honest.” Obama can pivot and triangulate all he wants, but the net effect will make him look more dishonest and vacillating, not moderate. He lost moderate months ago with the introduction of ObamaCare and cap-and-trade.

By not offering a bill of his own early on, Obama lost the high ground. He can't gain it back by smacking around his base now, and once he's lost his base, he'll be hard pressed to convince them to come back.

Blind Compassion

A friend of mine posted a link to this column by Nicholas Kristof, saying that another tragedy of our medical system is that it causes divorce.

The logic is somewhat twisted. The number one reason people get divorced, so this logic goes, is because of money issues. And supporters of socialized medicine say that medical bills are the number one money issue people have (the truth is that infidelity, communication breakdown and abuse (physical, emotional or psychological) cause more divorces than financial pressures). Anyway, if, as they argue, that medical bills are the biggest cause of money woes in a marriage and money problems is the main reason people get divorced, if we socialized medicine, we would have fewer divorces because people wouldn't have the same money problems. I don't buy that argument, but the linked column makes an even worse one.

Kristof recounts the woes of "M," a woman married to a man who had started displaying symptoms of dementia. The doctors explained that as the disease progressed, her husband would eventually need to be institutionalized. "M" was told that the costs would be devastating but there was a solution: divorce him.

“I was blown away,” M. told me. But, she said, the hospital staff members explained that they had seen it all before, many times. If M.’s husband required long-term care, the costs would be catastrophic even for a middle-class family with savings.

Eventually, after the expenses whittled away their combined assets, her husband could go on Medicaid — but by then their children’s nest egg would be gone, along with her 401(k) plan. She would face a bleak retirement with neither her husband nor her savings.

We faced similar concerns regarding my father. He was a thrifty man and had put away some money for a rainy day (or our inheritance). As the cost for his caregivers rose, his savings were eroded. We never had to deal with selling his home and possessions or even depleting his savings, but my siblings and I did have to think about how we would afford his care if and when those things were gone.

The part that struck me about the argument made was the sort of thing that drives liberals (like my friend) nuts: these people wanted to defraud the Medicaid system so "M" could keep her 401(k), an inheritance from a first husband, and her house.

Liberals like to play this victim game: find a sympathetic face to exploit make a political point you favor. It can be a a child, a grieving mother, or even a death. No matter how tasteless the display may be, liberals think it shows compassion to use people's personal tragedies to bludgeon opposition to their policies.

Currently, my friend thinks it is heartless that I would point out the advocacy of Medicaid fraud, or that you save for retirement precisely to pay for the expenses at the end of your life. For him, and others who think this way, this anecdote simply shows another evil consequence of our health care system, and to question this behavior is heartless and wrong.

Kristof goes on to cite this study, which argues that 18,000 people die every year because they lack insurance. But as I pointed out here, the study lumps in chronic illnesses such as high blood pressure and diabetes (which are very treatable) with arguably deadly conditions (cancer, for instance). And the study also argues that pap smears and mammograms are unavailable to those without insurance (a thoroughly false claim).

These sorts of sleight-of-hand tricks draw in many well-meaning people, just like my friend. But in the end, it's not compassionate to encourage Medicaid fraud and it's not truthful to state that nearly 20,000 people die annually because we don't have socialized medicine.

Yet Another Story You Won't See in the Ted Kennedy Biographies: He Offered to Help Our Enemies for Political Gain

Ted Kennedy's Soviet Gambit.

In a nutshell: Ted Kennedy made an appeal to Soviet dictator Yuri Andropov to help defeat Ronald Reagan's re-election bid in 1984. He offered to help the Soviets with their propaganda if the Soviets helped the Democrats win in November. As astonishing as that statement is on its face, the details are worse, including coaching the Soviets on how to best answer questions about their "problems with nuclear disarmament," and setting up phony interviews with American journalists.

Then he offered to make it possible for Andropov to sit down for a few interviews on American television. "A direct appeal ... to the American people will, without a doubt, attract a great deal of attention and interest in the country. ... If the proposal is recognized as worthy, then Kennedy and his friends will bring about suitable steps to have representatives of the largest television companies in the USA contact Y.V. Andropov for an invitation to Moscow for the interviews. ... The senator underlined the importance that this initiative should be seen as coming from the American side."

Kennedy would make certain the networks gave Andropov air time--and that they rigged the arrangement to look like honest journalism.

How could anyone question the veracity of this after Kennedy's behavior at Chappaquiddick?

Thanks to Chuck Serio for the tip.

Big Brother Is Archiving You

White House Seeks to Capture and Archive Citizens’ Comments on its Facebook, YouTube, MySpace Sites

Anyone who posts comments on the White House’s Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter pages will have their statements captured and permanently archived by the federal government, according to a plan that the White House is now seeking a contractor to carry out.

Good to know before I send that snarky comment about Obama's latest snake oil.

It Would Be News If He'd Meant It

Obama's lobbyist curbs are political, watchdog told

A former Treasury official has told the watchdog for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout program that President Obama's promise to restrict lobbyist access to the bailout was made purely for political reasons.

Months after the administration's pledge, the lobbyist rules haven't been implemented and Neel Kashkari, the one-time czar of the agency's Troubled Asset Relief Program, told the office of the special inspector general for TARP that the pledge to craft safeguards against lobbyist influence was a defensive move.

No one actually believed him.

Short-Lived Permanent Democratic Majority?

It's still early to predict the demise of the Permanent Democratic Majority, but the latest polling data doesn't look good for Dems.

Some of the most prominent and respected handicappers can now envision an election in which Democrats suffer double-digit losses in the House — not enough to provide the 40 seats necessary to return the GOP to power but enough to put them within striking distance.

But that's not the worst of it. Democrat pollster Nate Silverman of FiveThirtyEight.com told attendees of Nutroots Nation that Republicans could gain between 20 and 50 seats in 2010.

“A lot of Democratic freshmen and sophomores will be running in a much tougher environment than in 2006 and 2008 and some will adapt to it, but a lot of others will inevitably freak out and end up losing,” Silver told POLITICO. “Complacency is another factor: We have volunteers who worked really hard in 2006 and in 2008 for Obama but it’s less compelling [for them] to preserve the majority.”

The opposition party typically picks up seats in off-term elections, which probably will keep liberals from panicking too soon. But with President Obama's poll numbers plummeting, many voters seem to be having buyer's remorse about the Permanent Democratic Majority they bought. It's not like they weren't warned about what Democrats running everything would mean, but still.

On a related note, I wonder if Silverman has thought about updating this post from yesterday, given that Obama's favorables have fallen within Silverman's "danger range" for losing in 2012?

Manufactured Consent

Democrats have accused opponents of Obamacare of being "astroturf," but if you want to see what astroturf looks like, check out this post.

The behavior of the pro-Obamacare thugs is outrageous. People were forced to give their names and addresses to enter and hear their own representatives speak. The names were then used on a petition supporting Obamacare. Talk about a bait and switch. I imagine many of the people there would have been surprised to hear that the cost of admission was to support a government program that they were wanting to gather information about.

Note the positioning of the photographers for the event. I saw this kind of staging firsthand in 1984 when Vice Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro came to my university to speak. Staffers positioned those with pro-Mondale signs right up by the stage. The rabble--that is, normal students--were forced to the back where their signs would go unnoticed by the photogs. It's sad to note that little has changed in 25 years and Democrats are still lying about who attends their events.

Why Obama Won't Release His College and Law School Papers

He's afraid he'll be expected to explain himself like GOP Virginia governor candidate Robert F. McDonnell.

At age 34, two years before his first election and two decades before he would run for governor of Virginia, Robert F. McDonnell submitted a master's thesis to the evangelical school he was attending in Virginia Beach in which he described working women and feminists as "detrimental" to the family. He said government policy should favor married couples over "cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators." He described as "illogical" a 1972 Supreme Court decision legalizing the use of contraception by unmarried couples...

In his run for governor, McDonnell, 55, makes little mention of his conservative beliefs and has said throughout his campaign that he should be judged by what he has done in office, including efforts to lower taxes, stiffen criminal penalties and reform mental health laws. He reiterated that position Saturday in a statement responding to questions about his thesis.

"Virginians will judge me on my 18-year record as a legislator and Attorney General and the specific plans I have laid out for our future -- not on a decades-old academic paper I wrote as a student during the Reagan era and haven't thought about in years."

McDonnell added: "Like everybody, my views on many issues have changed as I have gotten older." He said that his views on family policy were best represented by his 1995 welfare reform legislation and that he "worked to include child day care in the bill so women would have greater freedom to work." What he wrote in the thesis on women in the workplace, he said, "was simply an academic exercise and clearly does not reflect my views."

He needn't worry. The press won't even hold Teh One accountable for the things he said during the campaign. Why would they ask him about radical views from law school?

Kook Fringe Protest Unsurprisingly Draws Few Attendees

But read this article, and you'll be inclined to think that (a) Rick Perry is responsible for secessionist kooks and (b) this group is a huge part of the GOP.

Back in April, Perry flirted with the idea of secession when he told reporters after a Tax Day tea party event: “There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve [the Union]. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that.”

Even for a governor who frequently plays to the more extreme elements in the Texas GOP, it was a gobsmackingly ‘out there’ remark. But it certainly did wonders for the secession crowd—long a totally marginal and ridiculed group with about as much chance of capturing the mainstream imagination as the LaRouche cult.

The turnout for the rally wasn’t huge—200 would be a generous estimate—but it was enough to show how much Perry has helped galvanize and embolden the right wing “hate America” fringe. After all, the governor of the second most populous state in the nation had suggested that secession was a possible solution to federal over-reach. Republican political leaders have helped bring “death panels” and the Obama birth certificate nonsense into acceptable discourse; Perry’s contribution has been bringing secession into the mix.

Perry's remark that "who knew" what might come of politicians ignoring the will of the people is neither "gobsmackingly 'out there'" nor was it an endorsement of secession. When Perry noted that Texas supposedly retained the right to secede, he was stating a view quite common here, not issuing a rally cry to secessionists.

But that's not how such words have been portrayed by the hysterical left. I can still recall when talk of secession was cool to the left. Certainly not "gobsmackingly 'out there.'" But I guess that was soooo 2004.

No Terrorist for Oil?

Lockerbie Bomber Set Free for Oil

Gordon Brown’s government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards.

I wonder if Obama will find it "disturbing."

Torture Works

How a Detainee Became an Asset

It was through waterboarding.

Great points from Allahpundit:

In another universe it’d be a narrative-shatterer but in this one it’s noise, for the simple reason that nothing — nothing — will dent the absolutism of the anti-”torture” side. Any fair-minded supporter of enhanced interrogation would concede that it’s morally problematic, that the info extracted may be unreliable, that it’s susceptible to abuse; opponents concede nothing, up to and including (or especially) the fact that sometimes it might just work. They can’t. If they did, they’d have to join the rest of us in honestly struggling with whether the ends of possibly saving innocent lives is justified by the means of inflicting suffering on someone in custody. And given how most Americans would resolve that dilemma — and how Obama’s interrogation team will surely resolve it if, god forbid, the situation ever presents itself — that’s not something they have any incentive to do.

Torture works. Sometimes. And sometimes interrogation techniques that aren't torture work. The trick is figuring out how far you have to go to get information that is useful and still be able to sleep at night. But as Allahpundit notes, this is not a dilemma liberals have; they are safe and secure in their philosophy, not because it makes them safe, but because there are people who struggle with this problem and sometimes do unpleasant things to prisoners to get information that makes us all safe.

Stolen from Chuck

Liberal Boogeymen

Robert Stacy McCain has a nice piece in the American Spectator discussing the liberal need for "boogeymen" to explain any rejection of liberals or liberal ideas.

All this watchdogging indicates a paranoid tendency among soi-disant "progressives," a fear that has its source in their own ideology. To the liberal True Believer, "rugged individualism" is not a lifestyle nor an attitude, but rather a false myth propagated by Republicans for political purposes. The liberal cannot admit that ballets and operas would exist without taxpayer support from the National Endowment of the Arts, nor that a family could provide for its health-care needs without government subsidies and bureaucratic superintendence.

Therefore, it never occurs to liberals that their political antagonists are capable of independent thought and action in the field of communications. If Mark Levin, Michael Reagan, Glenn Reynolds and Ann Coulter say similar things about any particular phenomenon -- e.g., the media's absurdly hagiographic tributes to Ted Kennedy -- this can only reflect a purposeful coordination of effort. Somewhere, there must be some right-wing Gepetto pulling the strings...

Instead of considering the role of individual responsibility, the liberal habitually attributes all human misery to nebulous forces of evil -- greed, discrimination, "Corporate America" and so forth -- which serve as ready-made scapegoats in liberal demonology. Occasionally, when these reliable bogeymen lose their power to terrify the gullible, liberals will conjure up new demons -- global warming, suburban sprawl, Halliburton -- representing the evils from which liberals courageously offer to rescue the helpless citizenry.

The refocus of blame from individuals for their behavior to "society" (or some segment thereof) is liberal gold and very attractive. We've heard the siren call of victimhood on a variety of fronts: poverty, homelessness, illiteracy, unemployment, drug abuse, teen pregnancy and so on. In every case, the individual is not a victim of his own bad choices, but a victim of some evil Other.

No doubt, there are individuals who are poor through no fault of their own. But much of poverty is attributable to behaviors that the individual can control (dropping out of school, for instance, or becoming pregnant). It is the failure to recognize the power individuals should and do hold over their own lives that allows liberals to blame anyone and everyone for "societal" ills than the person who is that ill.

Looking Down on Dixie

Interesting piece defending Southerners against Northern snobbery and ignorance. Suzie explains why Northern pride over the Civil War is misplaced.

Some people don’t understand the extent of slavery in the North, or how white Northerners benefited from Southern slavery, even after it had been abolished in their own region. Some think opposing slavery was the same as supporting equal rights and opportunities for African Americans. Perhaps they think that economics played no part in abolition in the North. If so, they should read this.

Righteous Northerners could have invaded, liberated all enslaved people, invited them north and then let the South secede. Or, they could have refused to buy anything from the South, or transport its goods, until slavery ended. But that would have hurt their industries, which needed the South’s resources, made cheaper by the forced labor of slaves. To some degree, it parallels the situation today in which a lot of people hate to hear about bad labor conditions, including human trafficking (i.e., slavery), but not all of them are willing to part with cheap goods.

As a white Northerner, if you want to feel superior because of slavery, check the complicity of your family. (If you want to know about my family: My parents were Yankees who moved to Texas for my father’s job a year before I was born.

Slavery was a national disgrace, not a regional one. Black people in the North were hardly treated as equals. They were frequently little more than slaves. To look down on Southerners as racists and idiots is both foolish and unproductive.

Why Isn't Health Care a Right?

Kate Southwood asks that question in this HuffPo puff piece.

The Norwegian health care system is not the best in the world. It was ranked 11th by the World Health Organization in its last poll conducted in 2000. The current American health care system came in 37th. Not only that, WHO found that America pays more, lots more, than any other country: "The U.S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance."

So if America is already spending more on health care than anyone else and if America's health care technology is second-to-none, why isn't health care a fundamental right?

Liberals think health care is a right. More to the point, they think the best health care is a right, regardless of cost. This is different from anyone's thinking about any other issue. Does everyone have "a right" to the best food? No. When we talk about food kitchens or church pantries, we think of food that keeps people from starving, not the best food in the world.

What about housing? Should "a right" to housing include having a huge house with A/C, heating and all the comforts of modern life? It's one thing for Habitat for Humanity to want to build houses like that people, but we don't consider a "right to shelter" to mean a right to 3,00 square feet and ceramic tile.

The problem with this "health care as right" mantra is cost. We simply can't afford for every person in America to have the same level of health care. Exra Klein is right: we do ration.

We ration health care the way we ration other goods: We make it too expensive for everyone to afford.

We don't seem to think it's wrong to use this system for food; if you can afford steak or seafood, you can buy it. If you can't, you buy chicken or hamburger. Nobody's screaming that we need to provide the poor with tilapia on a weekly basis, because we accept that those with more money have more choices. Food pantries usually give clients inexpensive foods: dry milk, canned goods, beans, rice.

But this standard is somehow wrong when we talk about health care. Regardless of what people say, when the doctor comes to them and says, "You have 'X,'" people want to be told that they have the most effective options available for next to nothing. They don't usually admit this, but most people know what they think any given procedure, such as an X-ray, sonogram, or brain surgery, is worth. And that's what they think they should get to pay. It doesn't really matter if that's the real cost of the procedure; this is based on "fairness."

But we know that a "fair price" isn't what most of the procedures we want cost. They can cost much, much more. Liberals will tell you this is just because greedy CEOs want bigger bonuses. But the reality is that the costs of medicine are affected by the markets just like anything else. And if the government gets involved and tells doctors and hospitals and pharmaceutical companies how much they can charge, then that maximum is going to be what will be charged. And since we all don't have money trees growing in the backyard, when the government runs out of cash for medicine, there will be rationing, and that rationing will still be based on what we can afford.

Look, even liberals acknowledge that the rich will always get better health care than the rest of us. The problem is that they want the rest of us to get some minimum care without the ability to have more based on our individual incomes. I'm sorry the uninsured aren't getting optimum care, are going without procedures or medicines or foregoing tests because they find them expensive. But you don't get to complain to the grocer that steak is too expensive and you have a right to it, either.

To answer Southwood's question, health care isn't a right because we can't afford to give everyone the health care they demand for the price they want, and no one wants the stripped down model.

Alexander Muse makes the same point.

Another Suggestion for Health Care Reform (Without Obamacare)

Here. And it doesn't even talk about tort reform, so Democrats shouldn't be scared of it.

Oldie but a Goodie, Still Describes 'Em Accurately

Ted Kennedy Loved Telling and Hearing Chappaquiddick Jokes

You have to understand. Kennedy loved humor, and, as Ed Klein tells it, couldn't wait to hear the latest Chappaquiddick joke. From Jules Crittenden:

How the late senator loved to hear and tell Chappaquiddick jokes, and was always eager to know if anyone had heard any new ones. Not that Kennedy lacked remorse, Klein quickly added, seeming to intuit that my jaw and perhaps those of other listeners had just hit the floorboards. I gather it was a self-deprecating maneuver on Kennedy’s part, exercised with the famous Kennedy charm, though it sounds like one of those “I guess you had to have been there” things.

Bet you won't see liberals quoting that bit about Kennedy in their nauseating eulogies. But Mary Jo Kopechne couldn't be reached for comment.

As Advertisers Shun Glenn Beck...

Viewers flock to his show.

An advertising boycott against Fox News host Glenn Beck has succeeded in keeping most major sponsors from running commercials on his show even as the controversial commentator's viewership has grown.

Beck attracted 2.81 million viewers Monday, his third-largest audience since his show launched on Fox News in January, according to Nielsen Media Research data provided by the network.

If Fox News doesn't drop Beck, and hopefully, they won't, advertisers will come back.

There's No Such Thing As a Free Lunch, Including Cash for Clunkers

Some Surprised by "Clunker" Tax

But many of those cashing in on the clunkers program are surprised when they get to the treasurer's office windows. That's because the government's rebate of up to $4500 dollars for every clunker is taxable.

"They didn't realize that would be taxable. A lot of people don't realize that. So they're not happy and kind of surprised when they find that out," (Minnehaha County Treasurer Pam) Nelson said.

They didn't think the money was free, did they?

Ted Kennedy Dies

R.I.P.

The classy reaction.

Put aside your ideological differences for an appropriate moment and mark this passing with solemnity.

There is a time and place for political analysis and criticism. Not now.

Yes, there will be a nauseating excess of MSM hagiographies and lionizations — and crass calls to pass the health care takeover to memorialize his death.

That’s no excuse to demonstrate the same lack of restraint in the other direction. Not now.

And the not so classy reaction (in the comments) to the classy reaction:

Next she’ll be “reporting” on what type of “cadillac” coffin he has at his funeral and how that is damning to the health care issue somehow.

His body is still warm and she’s already starting this shit.

That bitch is using oxygen that could be being absorbed by people with souls.

Which leads me to say Mary Jo Kopechne couldn't be reached for comment.

But cheer up! Ted Kennedy made us Americans. Who knew? I thought I was an American before then.

Oh, and Rush was right that Dems won't let a good death go to waste without using it for political purposes.

And those awful, uncouth Republicans. Thank goodness liberals were so civilized when Ronald Reagan died.

Tax Cuts = Taking Over 10% of the Economy

That's the argument made here.

This afternoon in his town hall, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said he is “unalterably opposed” to using the budget reconciliation process to pass health care reform. “It would be a drastic change in the way that the United States Senate does business.” Fox News’ Shep Smith fact-checked McCain’s claim immediately upon the conclusion of the town hall. “The truth is Republicans used this in 2001, 2003, and 2005 to pass then-President George Bush’s tax cuts,”

I hardly think taking over a large section of the economy compares to tax cuts.

Maybe We Should Have Taken Detainees to the Local Haunted House Instead

Since much of the supposed torture sounds like stuff I've seen (or heard) at Cutting Edge Haunted House.

Threats of torture, threats of execution of spouses and children, threats to rape, threats, threats, threats...

So, now torture is yelling at someone? And making threats? You need more for a domestic violence claim, usually. Now we're classifying threatening someone as torture?

Stolen from Dana: John Stossel Reports on Health Care in Canada

Misdirection: Holder to Appoint Prosecutor to Investigate CIA Terrorist Investigations

It seems like only yesterday President Obama said that he wasn't going to prosecute CIA investigators from the GWB Era. Oh, but that was soooo January.

Now, with his poll numbers dropping like a rock and Americans rejecting Obamacare, it's time for the misdirection: investigate the CIA.

Holder's decision could complicate the Justice Department's relationship with the White House, where President Obama has repeatedly expressed a desire to move forward from the national security controversies of the Bush administration. Deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton told reporters Monday that the president had complete faith in Holder and that the decision whether to launch an investigation was the attorney general's sole prerogative.

Don't believe for an instant that Teh One isn't behind the sudden urge to prosecute Bush-era investigators. Obama needs red meat for the rabid left, and since he agrees with renditions, and continues the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, throwing over the Central Intelligence Agency probably seems like a no-brainer (perfect for this president). But don't think any of this is as important as the public option in health care. This is simply an attempt to take the heat off the administration while they ram through the public option behind taxpayers' backs.

Don't expect the CIA to roll over, though. It has good grounds to fight any prosecutions.

Deficit to hit $9 Trillion in 10 Years

We can't afford it.

Is Obamacare Constitutional?

Some say no.

UPDATE: More food for thought here.

796 Is the New 16,000

Remember how the stimulus bill was going to "create or save" 600,000 jobs by the end of August? For New Hampshire, that would have meant 16,000 new jobs. How many have they "created or saved"?

796.2

That’s how many jobs measured in full time equivalents were paid for with stimulus dollars as of the end of June. Just about all of them, 700, are government workers who otherwise would have been laid off.

In other words, more taxpayer-paid-for employees got to keep their jobs because...taxpayers paid additional funds for them.

Yeah, that stimulus bill is workin' good!

Of Course They Want to Change the Rules

Senator Ted Kennedy, recognizing that he could die any time and that, politically, it would cause Democrats to lose their super-majority, is asking Massachusetts' Democrat governor Deval Patrick and Democrat-controlled legislature to change the rules of succession for his seat to keep it safely in Democrats' hands.

In his letter, which was obtained by the Globe, Kennedy said that he backs the current succession law, enacted in 2004, which gives voters the power to fill a US Senate vacancy. But he said the state and country need two Massachusetts senators...

Under the 2004 law, if Kennedy were to die or step down, voters would select his successor in a special election to be held within five months of the vacancy.

The law was enacted to prevent then Republican governor Mitt Romney from appointing a Republican to replace Kennedy. But now that a Democrat holds that position, it's imperative that Massachusetts have two senators every. single. minute.

Hypocrisy? Nah.

It's Democrisy.

Thanks to Chuck Serio for the tip.

White House E-Mail Address Was Used to Collect Info on People

Via Red State, we find out that the White House was collecting info on people at the flag@whitehouse.gov site.

Hilariously, Greg Sargent tries to compare this to Senator John Cornyn, who allows people to voluntarily give their own information to his office.

Can someone be more obtuse?

Let's say this s-l-o-w-l-y for those who are having a hard time keeping up. There's a big difference between giving your own information to a political website and giving someone else's information to a government website. And given this administration's penchant for retribution, it's not paranoid to dislike someone giving the Obama police your info.

Embracing the Culture of Death

Jim Towey discusses the way the federal government has embraced the Culture of Death through an end-of-life planning document called "Your Life, Your Choices."

"Your Life, Your Choices" presents end-of-life choices in a way aimed at steering users toward predetermined conclusions, much like a political "push poll." For example, a worksheet on page 21 lists various scenarios and asks users to then decide whether their own life would be "not worth living."

The circumstances listed include ones common among the elderly and disabled: living in a nursing home, being in a wheelchair and not being able to "shake the blues." There is a section which provocatively asks, "Have you ever heard anyone say, 'If I'm a vegetable, pull the plug'?" There also are guilt-inducing scenarios such as "I can no longer contribute to my family's well being," "I am a severe financial burden on my family" and that the vet's situation "causes severe emotional burden for my family."

I know of no one (although, I'm sure there are people out there) who want to be burdens to their families or suck up all their kids' inheritance in long and costly nursing home stays. But most of us might think one thing about end-of-life choices at 40 and an entirely different one at 70. While thinking about how you want your life to end is a good idea, temporary depression or a disability shouldn't push someone into accepting choices to end their lives so they "aren't a burden."

Easier to Call Your Adversary Crazy Than Understand the Debate

This article does a good job of bringing together all the leftwing disinformation regarding Republicans in one place. Namely,

1. Republicans are racist.

2. Republicans all think Barack Obama is a Muslim/racist/not eligible to be president.

3. Republicans lie about health care reform and "death panels" because they are both stupid and evil liars.

4. Republicans are evil money-grubbers in the pocket of corporations.

5. Republicans don't care about the poor.

This is, unfortunately, not an uncommon phenomenon, but that doesn't make it any less outrageous or disgusting. Consider this section on why racist Republicans didn't want Obama as president.

The election of Obama – a black man with an anti-conservative message – as a successor to George W. Bush has scrambled the core American right's view of their country. In their gut, they saw the US as a white-skinned, right-wing nation forever shaped like Sarah Palin.

When this image was repudiated by a majority of Americans in a massive landslide, it simply didn't compute. How could this have happened? How could the cry of "Drill, baby, drill" have been beaten by a supposedly big government black guy? So a streak that has always been there in the American right's world-view – to deny reality, and argue against a demonic phantasm of their own creation – has swollen. Now it is all they can see.

See, Republicans didn't oppose Obama because the policies he proposed sounded harmful to the American economy and an affront to American independence (not to mention his hopelessly naive and dangerous foreign policy). It was because they are white and he is black. Who could have missed it?

Then there's this:

This trend has reached its apotheosis this summer with the Republican Party now claiming en masse that Obama wants to set up "death panels" to euthanise the old and disabled. Yes: Sarah Palin really has claimed – with a straight face – that Barack Obama wants to kill her baby.

Barack Obama has championed the idea of expert panels to determine "best practices" and help control costs for health care. It's not paranoid for a person with a disabled child to be concerned that "controlling health care costs" and regulating which treatments and procedures will be covered will end up in health care rationing. Those with special needs children know better than anyone what it's like to argue and wrestle to get the best care for one's child. The idea that an impersonal government bureaucrat will have the final say is something we should be concerned about. It's not like this doesn't happen in other countries.

But then, there's this:

You have to admire the audacity of the right. Here's what's actually happening. The US is the only major industrialised country that does not provide regular healthcare to all its citizens. Instead, they are required to provide for themselves – and 50 million people can't afford the insurance. As a result, 18,000 US citizens die every year needlessly, because they can't access the care they require. That's equivalent to six 9/11s, every year, year on year. Yet the Republicans have accused the Democrats who are trying to stop all this death by extending healthcare of being "killers" – and they have successfully managed to put them on the defensive.

This paragraph is so packed with lies and disinformation as to be breathtaking. There's nothing wrong with adults taking care of their own health care needs, as opposed to some government entity doing it. Individuals know better what will work for them, and governmental one-size-fits-all plans won't fit all.

And then there's that bizarre 50 million figure, one not used by anyone anywhere. Where did the author get it? Probably from his fertile imagination, right next to the "they think America is white-skinned and that's why they didn't want a black man as president" fantasy. The figure that usually gets bandied about is 46 million, and even that includes a lot of people who are here illegally (10 million), people who make enough to buy their own care (about 20 million) as well as people who aren't eligible for government medical programs and can't get insurance through other channels.

Besides the fallacious 50 million number, there's the 18 million number this author uses. Where does that come from? I found this site which uses the 18 million figure from the Institute of Medicine. But that figure doesn't just include people who died because a disease was not diagnosed until it was too late to treat. They are including people with chronic conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes. These people argue that preventative screening such as mammography and pap smears are not available to the uninsured, but that's not true. Free or low cost pap smears are available at local county health departments and at women's clinics (such as Planned Parenthood). And low cost or free mammograms are available as well.

Demonizing your political opponents, calling them crazy, smearing them as uneducated and racist are all part of the playbook of the Left. Unfortunately, too many people are buying these arguments.

UPDATE: At least Johann Hari has a more nuanced take than Amanda Marcotte, who thinks it's all just white people afraid a black president is going to use health care reform to steal from white people to give to black people. H/T: Chuck Serio.

The nutty white people grasp that non-white Americans are more likely to be uninsured than white Americans. Put this information into a paranoid brain that believes in a zero sum game and what you get is this conclusion: In order to pay for more non-white people to get health care, some white people are going to have to die to save money. And that’s why they’re scared. But if they weren’t so f*cking racist, they wouldn’t be scared.

This is about the dumbest (and most racist) thing I've seen lately. But then, I haven't been over to Pandagon in a couple of weeks.

Don't Oppose Obamacare...

Or Democrats will investigate you.

House Democrats are probing the nation’s largest insurance companies
for lavish spending, demanding reams of compensation data and schedules of retreats and conferences.

Letters sent to 52 insurance companies by Democratic leaders demand extensive documents for an examination of ‘extensive compensation and other business practices in the health insurance industry.” The letters set a deadline of Sept. 14 for the documents...

By Sept. 4, the firms are supposed to supply detailed compensation data for board members and top executives, as well as a “table listing all conferences, retreats, or other events held outside company facilities from January 1, 2007, to the present that were paid for, reimbursed, or subsidized in whole or in part by your company.”

For employees or officers making $500,000 or more, the committee wants information on salary, bonus, options and pension.

And by Sept. 14, the firms are supposed to provide copies of reports from compensation consultants, plus board drafts of compensation plans and information about market share.

The only reasons Democrats would be making these demands is (a) to blackmail health insurance companies into going along with Obamacare or (b) smearing the same companies as greedy, evil bastages in haughty statements for the adoring media.

This government doesn't miss a trick on intimidation.