Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Government Health Care in Stealth Mode
One video is worth a thousand words (or, as in this column, about 730). The video in question, put together by a group called Verum Serum, shows public statements by three advocates of single-payer (government monopoly) health insurance explaining that a health care bill with a "government option" would move America toward a single-payer government health care system. You may not have heard of the first two, Rep. Jan Schakowsky and professor Jacob Hacker. But you have heard of the third, President Barack Obama. [snip]
Obama has never made his ultimate goal a secret; it's the same as Schakowsky's and Hacker's. The video shows him saying in October 2003, when he was running for the U.S. Senate, "I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer health care program." He adds, "We may not get there immediately," noting the Democrats must "take back" the White House and both houses of Congress -- a condition fulfilled last Jan. 20.
Campaigning for president in May 2007, he said, "But I don't think we're going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately." That seems to imply that his goal remains the same as it was in 2003. "There's going to be potentially some transition process -- I can envision a decade out, or 15 years out, or 20 years out, where we've got a much more portable system." Which of course government health insurance would be. You couldn't get away from it.
The president's defenders depict this video and others like it as a patchwork of irrelevant and misleading statements. They also cite Obama's oft-repeated pledges that any health care bill he would sign would let you keep the insurance you have. But they never address the point that you can't keep it if your employer stops offering it.
But, as Schakowsky says, "This is not a principled fight." Schakowsky, Hacker and Obama believe, out of idealism but also perhaps for crass political reasons, that America would be better off with a single-payer system like Canada's or Britain's.
But they realize that they're operating in a country where most voters don't agree. The video helps us understand how they're seeking to reach their single-payer goal through government-option stealth...
[Perhaps I should use the word 'stealth' instead of my frequent 'duped' - but is there really a difference? They're lying to us.]
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Re: Krauthammer's Take
With due mountains of respect to Dr. K, his suggested approach of "quietly and civilly raising questions," politely pointing out that the numbers don't add up, etc., is exactly how we have come to be stuck with the stimulus, the bailouts, and obscene trillions in budget deficits.
This is not a nice, ivory tower, Oxford debate.
This is gut-check time about whether we are going to maintain the bedrock American relationship between the citizen and the state. We are in the battle against ruthless, radical ideologues who have the media and the daunting numbers on their side. On our side, we have the further burden of wavering moderates and in-Washington-too-long types who define success as making a deal — any deal — that they think they can sell as a bipartisan compromise that staved off something extreme (but what in reality would be a sell-out that is 3/4 extreme, with Obama simply coming back in 2010 or 2011 to get the remaining 1/4 ... plus)... [snip]
I just don't get the detachment from the real world here. We're not talking trivia here. We're talking about what kind of country we're going to be from here on out. That's something worth getting whipped up about. If we're not whipped up, we lose. If we are whipped up and the Democrats try to use that fact as an excuse to ram this through, then they were going to ram it through anyway.
We are a heavy underdog. To prevail, the needle we have to thread is to convince enough Dems and RINOs that there will be electoral hell to pay if this monstrosity is enacted. That requires an authentic demonstration of fervor. It's unfortunate that some people will go overboard — as happens in any human endeavor — but that's no reason to treat this as if it were an academic exercise.
If that's the approach, the game — like the country as we know it — is lost.
[As distasteful as raucous confrontations are, I'm no longer sure there's an alternative. Consider,
.....1) how do you 'debate' those who lie to your face (as is occurring daily, from Obama on down, re: what the bills will & won't do and their cost), i.e., our politicians keep 'answering' our questions re: their plans with blatant lies - we can't afford to be seen as accepting them - and
..... 2) the Democrats have already conveyed their intent to force a bill through using the Reconciliation ploy to side-step the 2/3 majority needed for the associated expenditure - regardless of how unpopular all polls show their intentions to be.
..... The only realistic chance of preventing them from forcing this change upon a majority opposed to it is conveying that there will be consequences to their doing so. The first point made in this piece is legitimate: quietly being 'civil' about our opposition was interpreted as sufficient apathy to enact the insane but power-acquiring bailouts and stimulus bills. If tactics aren't changed, outcomes won't be either...]
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[Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice...]
image toon - 1st mny reps libs crpt = Read Oby's totus; no new taxes
POLL: Support for Congressional Health Care Reform Falls to New Low
Public support for the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats has fallen to a new low as just 42% of U.S. voters now favor the plan. That’s down five points from two weeks ago and down eight points from six weeks ago.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that opposition to the plan has increased to 53%, up nine points since late June.
Sixty-seven percent (67%) of those under 30 favor the plan [?!, what are they thinking? They'll pay the most and receive the least] while 56% of those over 65 are opposed.
Predictably, 69% of Democrats favor the plan, while 79% of Republicans oppose it.
Most notable, however, is the opposition among voters not affiliated with either party. Sixty-two percent (62%) of unaffiliated voters oppose the health care plan, and 51% are strongly opposed. This marks an uptick in strong opposition among unaffiliateds, while the number of strongly supportive Democrats is unchanged.
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Brit PM Warns America Against National Health Care
On Friday's Glenn Beck Program, FNC aired a pre-recorded interview between host Beck and a British member of the European Parliament, Daniel Hannan, who warned against the dangers of instituting a national health system in America because of the problems Britons must endure from their country's government-run monopoly, the National Health Service.
During an interview in which he recounted the long waits, the inability to go outside the system for faster treatment, and the system's discrimination against elderly patients, Hannan summed up his amazement that Americans would consider such a system:
"I find it incredible that a free people living in a country dedicated and founded in the cause of independence and freedom can seriously be thinking about adopting such a system in peacetime and massively expanding the role of the state when there's no need."
He also warned that once such a massive bureaucracy and voting bloc of government workers becomes entrenched, such a system would likely be impossible to get rid of...
[Read what government-run health 'care' means, from a member of the government that runs it. Recommended > ]
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Pelosi and Hoyer Were For Drowning Out Opposing Views Before They Were Against It
As reported Monday, a liberal advocacy group called Health Care for America Now published a playbook last Tuesday with the following instructions for its members to counter "the 'tea-bagger' protesters and right-wing activists" showing up at town hall meetings from coast to coast:
"Their side will be smaller but noisier. You must bring enough people to drown them out... "
Well, it turns out that Hoyer is listed at HCAN's website, along with roughly 200 other members of Congress, as supporting this organization:
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POLL: On Health Care, 53% Fear Government More Than Insurance Companies
When it comes to health care decisions, 51% of the nation’s voters fear the federal government more than private insurance companies.
Among those who have insurance, 53% fear the government more than insurance companies while 39% take the opposite view. Those without insurance fear the insurance companies more. [but if they don't have insurance, how can they - never mind.]
Adults under 30 fear the insurance companies more while those in their 40s are evenly divided. However, a solid majority of those over 40 fear the government more. [It's called experience.]
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Last point {today} re: health care: Caught a sound bite from Obama's town hall yesterday where he answered a question re: how the private insurance industry is to compete with a government entity that doesn't have to worry about making a profit, is subsidized, etc., to which he answered that he expects the private sector to be able to compete - and pointed to UPS and FedEx and added that it's the US 'Post Office that's having problems'.
Priceless - or would be, if anyone in the MSM pointed out his tacit admission of exactly why the government must be kept out of health care:
.
Feds Name 8th North Carolina Terror Suspect
Raleigh, N.C. — A 20-year-old U.S. citizen who traveled to Pakistan in 2008 "to engage in violent jihad" has been named as the eighth suspect in a North Carolina terrorism case, according to court documents released Monday.
Jude Kenan Mohammad is charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons in a foreign country, according to a newly unsealed indictment...
[GWOT]
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Holder Opts For a Witch Hunt
Attorney General Eric Holder report edly will appoint a special prosecutor to bring cases against low-level CIA officers and contractors who questioned post-9/11 terrorist suspects.
It's a move we'll likely regret. Not least because such cases may lead agents to be overly soft on future suspects, out of fear of prosecution. That could lead to missed chances to get potentially life-saving information...
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Drop the Investigation of CIA Interrogators
.
"We’re going to follow the evidence wherever it takes us, follow the law wherever that takes us.” So decreed Attorney General Eric Holder in April when asked whether government officials would face prosecution over coercive interrogation tactics used against terrorist detainees. After all, he elaborated, “no one is above the law.”
Tell that to the voters in Philadelphia who were threatened by nightstick-wielding Obama supporters from the New Black Panther Party. The Panthers got a pass even after they contemptuously ignored court process and even after the government already had prevailed in the case because of their default.
For the Obama/Holder Justice Department, other considerations outweighed following the evidence wherever it led. The Panthers who turned out to be above the law include Jerry Jackson, a credentialed Democratic-party poll-watcher who brays on MySpace about “Killing Crakkkas.” Thanks to Holder’s decision, Jackson is right back in business, having obtained new poll-watcher credentials just days after DOJ dismissed the case.
The CIA interrogators are having a rougher time with prosecutors than did the Black Panthers. They are retaining counsel and preparing for a lengthy investigation that likely will prove personally and professionally ruinous. The Los Angeles Times reported over the weekend that Holder is close to naming a prosecutor to probe whether the agency and its officers committed criminal misconduct.
The interrogators — whose use of harsh tactics resulted in the capture of leading jihadists, the disruption of mass-murder plots, and the saving of American lives — are in a different posture from that of Binyam Mohammed.
Mohammed was a leading jihadist who had been plotting some of those disrupted mass-murder attacks that were to take place in American cities. He was slated for prosecution by military commission. But it turned out that he was above the law, too...
[Sickening but necessary to be aware of > ]
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POLL: Americans See More Enemies Than Friends In Middle East
Americans remain skeptical of most of those countries eight years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks as one war in the region winds down and another one intensifies.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia fare best in the eyes of many Americans, while Iran continues to be viewed as America’s number one enemy in the region.
Of course, none of the Islamic countries comes close to the positive feelings most adults here have toward Israel.
Even as U.S. troops draw down in that country, 64% of U.S. voters say the war in Iraq is not over.
Forty percent (40%) of adults say Afghanistan is a U.S. enemy, as the Obama administration shifts more troops into the country to fight the revitalized radical Islamic Taliban there. Only 15% see Afghanistan as an ally and 39% as somewhere in between the two.
Voters oppose direct peace negotiations with the Taliban for now, and 83% expect the president will have to send more U.S. troops into Afghanistan in the next year or so.
Seventy percent (70%) of Americans say Israel is a U.S. ally, nearly twice the finding for Egypt, the most highly regarded Islamic country. Only eight percent (8%) of Americans say Israel is an enemy, and 16% put it somewhere in between.
Eighty-one percent (81%) of U.S. voters believe Palestinian leaders must recognize Israel’s right to exist as part of any Middle Eastern peace agreement.
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US senators press Obama on Arab peace role
President Barack Obama should press Arab leaders for "dramatic gestures" on behalf of Middle East peace, an overwhelming majority of US senators said in a letter made public on Monday.
"We would like to understand what steps you are urging Arab states to take and what your expectations are from Arab states in the coming weeks and months,"
more than 70 of the 100 senators said in the message to the president.
"We also hope that you will continue to press Arab leaders to consider dramatic gestures toward Israel"
The US lawmakers also urged Arab leaders to end the Arab League boycott of Israel, meet openly with Israeli officials, boost trade relations with Israel, issue visas to Israeli citizens and invite Israelis to take part in academic and professional conferences, as well as sporting events.
"We also believe that Arab states must immediately and permanently end official propaganda campaigns which demonize Israel and Jews,"
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More Obama PR will not a successful Mideast policy make
After running into a dead end in its efforts to jump-start Middle East peace talks, the Obama administration has signaled that it has evaluated the situation and understands that not all is well.
But instead of a course correction, senior administration officials have decided that what they need to do is to deploy their most effective weapon - the rhetorical brilliance of President Barack Obama - {wait for it} - ... on a recalcitrant state of Israel...
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VENEZUELA'S BRAIN DRAIN
When they first elected him in 1998, Venezuelans hoped that Hugo Chávez would be a healer. Instead, they got a tyrant who seizes private companies and farms and harasses political opponents.
Now after a decade of the so-called Bolivarian revolution, tens of thousands of disillusioned Venezuelan professionals have had enough. An estimated one million Venezuelans have moved away since Chávez took power, says Newsweek.
The exodus is sabotaging the country's future and no industry has been harder hit than Venezuela's oil sector: [snip]
Much of the same is happening in the Axis of Hugo, the states following Chávez. Leaders in Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua are rewriting their constitutions, intimidating the media and stoking class and ethnic conflicts.
The result? More flight:
- More than one in three Bolivians under 30 have plans to emigrate, up from 12 percent a decade ago.
- Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua have all fallen in the World Economic Forum's competitiveness index.
- Fitch Ratings, which analyzes credit risk, recently demoted Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador to junk status.
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UNTANGLING THE SPAGHETTI
What’s the end-game here? I suppose it’s conceivable that there are a few remaining suckers out there who still believe Barack Obama is the great post-partisan, fiscally responsible, pragmatic centrist he played so beguilingly just a year ago. The New York Times’ David Brooks stuck it out longer than most: Only a few backs, he was giddy with excitement over the President’s “education” “reforms” (whatever they were).
But now he says we’re in “the early stages of the liberal suicide march”. For a famously moderate moderate, Mr Brooks seems to have gone from irrational optimism over the Democrats’ victory to irrational optimism over the Democrats’ impending downfall without the intervening stage of rational pessimism.
The end-game is very obvious. If you expand the bureaucratic class and you expand the dependent class, you can put together a permanent electoral majority.
By “dependent”, I don’t mean merely welfare, although that’s a good illustration of the general principle. In political terms, a welfare check is a twofer: you’re assuring the votes both of the welfare recipient and of the vast bureaucracy required to manage his welfare.
But extend that principle further, to the point where government intrudes into everything: a vast population is receiving more from government (in the form of health care or education subventions) than it thinks it contributes, while another vast population is managing the ever expanding regulatory regime (a federal energy-efficiency code, a government health bureaucracy) and another vast population remains, nominally, in the private sector but, de facto, dependent on government patronage of one form or another.
Either way, what you get from government – whether in the form of a government paycheck, a government benefit or a government contract – is a central fact of your life....
[Q: How can we control a government a majority is dependent on? A: We can't.]
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Soaring deficit may defy forecasts
Stagnant unemployment, shrinking tax revenue and a struggling economy threaten to quadruple the size of last year's federal budget deficit, raising more questions about the timing of costly proposals to overhaul health care.
As the White House and Congressional Budget Office (CBO) prepare to release new deficit estimates this month, several economists say the news is likely to be as bad as or worse than forecasts.
"They have just a nightmare in terms of these health care bills, which do nothing but make things worse."
predicts former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin...
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71% Say Obama’s Policies Have Driven Up Deficit
Only five percent (5%) say the president’s policies have cut the deficit, and 10% say they have had no impact. Thirteen percent (13%) are not sure.
Not surprisingly, 88% of Republicans blame the president’s policies, compared to 52% of Democrats.
But 79% of voters not affiliated with either party agree.
Eighty-one percent (81%) of voters now say the bigger problem for the United States today is not voters’ unwillingness to pay enough in taxes but is instead the unwillingness of politicians to control government spending...
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Washington piles on the spending
This year, millions of Americans accepted a salary freeze or even a pay cut so they could keep their jobs. They ought to be asking why the federal government isn’t willing to make a similar sacrifice.
Even though faced with declining tax receipts and increased borrowing, lawmakers and President Barack Obama have ramped up federal spending — and not just temporary spending. They intend to make this year’s big increases permanent... [snip]
The pity is that a balanced budget could be within reach. If lawmakers would return to the level of spending they maintained throughout the 1980s and ’90s ($21,000 per household, adjusted for inflation), we could balance the budget by 2012 without raising taxes.
Doing this would require discipline, of course. That’s why lawmakers should pass a strong Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights. TABOR, as it’s known, would help curb spending by limiting the growth of federal spending to the inflation rate plus population growth. That would save taxpayers trillions of dollars in the years ahead.
In these difficult times, with everyone cutting back, Americans ought to expect their government to do so as well. With a Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights, our government can reduce spending, balance its budget and start encouraging growth again. It’s an idea that’s long overdue.
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DETROIT SCHOOLS ON THE BRINK: BANKRUPTCY MAY BE REQUIRED TO GAIN CONTROL OF COSTS
Detroit's public-school system, beset by massive deficits and widespread corruption, is on the brink of entering bankruptcy court. A decision on whether to file for protection under federal bankruptcy laws will be made by the end of summer. Such a filing would be unprecedented in the United States, says the Wall Street Journal.
In Detroit -- where U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan dubbed the school system a "national disgrace" this spring -- lawmakers and bankruptcy experts see few alternatives, given the deep financial challenges confronting the district and the state.
As with General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC, bankruptcy may not be the worst thing for Detroit's schools:
- A filing under Chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy Code, which covers public entities like school districts and municipalities, would allow the district to put major creditors such as textbook publishers, private bus operators and the local gas-and-electric utility in line for payment.
- It also would give Robert Bobb, Detroit Public Schools' emergency financial manager, broad latitude to tear up union contracts without protracted negotiations.
- However, a filing also could also hurt the district's debt rating and ability to float bonds.
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Black Panther case expands
Even if the liberal media continue to ignore it, the Justice Department's dismissal of a voter-intimidation case against members of the New Black Panther Party is a full-blown scandal. Fortunately, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is pursuing justice even though the Department of Justice is not.
As reported in our news pages last Friday, the commission has sent a strongly worded letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., effectively threatening to subpoena witnesses and documents if Justice does not provide better, more complete answers about its decision to dismiss the cases.
"We believe the Department's defense of its actions thus far undermines respect for rule of law," wrote the commission, "and raises other serious questions about the department's law enforcement decisions."
The case involves a nationally broadcast incident in which two Black Panthers in paramilitary garb, one of them wielding a nightstick, stood outside a Philadelphia polling place on Election Day in November. They were uttering racial epithets and otherwise discouraging voting.
Career attorneys at the Justice Department won a default judgment against both Black Panthers, plus a national Panther leader and the party as a whole -- but at the last minute, Obama appointees at Justice dismissed all the charges...
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FLASHBACKs >
- What is DOJ hiding in the New Black Panther case?
- Return of the Black Panther
- U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Demands Answers on Voter Intimidation Case Dismissal
MSNBC Anchor: ''Socialist' Is Becoming the New N-word'
Did you know that when you refer to someone as a socialist, you're really calling them the N-word? Such an astonishing hypothesis was offered by MSNBC's Carlos Watson Monday in a segment he refers to as "The 'C' Note."
Potentially even more shocking, after Watson offered this seemingly absurd opinion, Mort Zuckerman actually agreed with him ...
[How to tie dissent against socialism to racism. First: demonize your enemy...]
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Some logic and horse sense
I see where several intellectuals in Massachusetts want to form a committee to explore racial harmony following the recent arrest of a Harvard professor.
In an effort to enhance my public-spiritedness, I decided to organize my own committee to analyze how confrontations between supposed adults of all races can best be avoided. Here is what my committee determined by applying a complex blend of common horse sense and elementary logic.
If your home has been previously targeted by potential burglars, it's wise not to try breaking into it in full view of a neighbor who doesn't recognize you but cares enough to summon police.
When the responding officer arrives to investigate a possible burglary in progress, simply invite him inside. Then smile and offer thanks for his putting himself in a potentially threatening situation because he was trying to stop an intruder from ransacking your home.
Do not immediately judge the officer's arrival to protect you and your home as "profiling" just because he's of a different race.
Instead, offer him a beer...
[More, all at no cost to the taxpayer.]
Now where does my committee collect its grant?
[Figures. Scratch that last...]
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Trinkets that stick it to Obama start to sell
In the political paraphernalia department, "Yes, we can" is becoming "No, he can't."
Anti-Obama memorabilia -- from T-shirts to bumper stickers to buttons -- is increasingly emerging in the marketplace as the president's economic and health care policies polarize supporters and detractors.
While "Mama for Obama" was a popular slogan during the 2008 election cycle, that design has been retooled with angry and fickle disenchantment: "To the Mama for Obama -- thanks for the tax hike."
The "Audacity of Hope," the title of Mr. Obama's popular book, has been replaced by the "Audacity of Hype." 
Whereas we had the campaign of Obama centered around hope, now they're asking: 'How's that hopey-changey thing going?' "
The Cafepress.com store, a cultural barometer of sorts for political and social expression, offers about 3 million Obama products, she said, but now is up to about 1 million that are "anti-Obama-oriented," reflecting a "significant shift in the last couple of months than what was the trend a year ago."
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