ObamaCare fails before it starts. Why?

ObamaCare, all 2800 hundred pages of it, was rammed through Congress on March 18th. To convince moderate Democrats to support the bill, Obama – aided by Bill Clinton – told the waverers that failure to pass a bill was worse for them than passing it despite polls showing the majority of the public disapproved.

Here is the part of their strategy that baffles me. The main parts of ObamaCare don’t go into effect for several years. I mean the parts that were supposed to appeal to the Democrats’ natural constituency: the people for whom government is the supplier of rent payments and food stamps. There are as many uninsured people out there today as there were before March 18th. Obama, Reid and Pelosi did this, of course, so that they could have the Congressional Budget Office make the spurious claim that insuring 30 million more people and increasing the number of things that insurers are required to cover would not cost any money, in fact it would reduce the deficit!

Here's Brad Ellsworth of Indiana:

In addition to meeting my pro-life principles, the plan reduces costs, improves access to affordable insurance options, covers pre-existing conditions, and does not add one penny to the deficit.

The problem is that while no one in Congress read the bill, the people who have to follow the law – insurers and employers – did. And they are not waiting; they are getting ahead of the mandates that Congress passed. Insurers are dropping policies that no longer make economic sense under ObamaCare. Employers, like McDonald’s and Boeing are reacting; one saying that unless it receives waivers from complying with the law it will drop coverage on most of its employees and the other raising the deductibles and co-pays for its employees.

From Big Government:

“McDonald’s and 29 other firms have received waivers from a requirement to up the minimum benefit covered by insurance, making it possible for their employees to continue to buy low-cost coverage. But thousands of other workers are not exempted and will not be able to afford the government’s idea of good insurance.

The AP Reports:

Citing health care law, Boeing pares employee plan.

In a letter mailed to employees late last week, Boeing said deductibles and copayments are going up significantly for some 90,000 nonunion workers.

So instead of becoming more popular as Harry Reid predicted, ObamaCare is becoming even more toxic as people learn that their insurance is going to be more expensive or that their insurer is dropping them altogether.

What were these “wizards of smart” thinking? Sycophants in the press have told us that not only is Obama “a sort of a God” but that he is the most intelligent being to ever occupy the Oval Office. Surely Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are not political neophytes. How could they have thought that passing a wildly unpopular bill with all of the pain and none of the gain frontloaded was a smart political move? Why did they believe that people whose business relied on coping with government mandates would sit idly by and allow themselves to be destroyed?

There a movie about self-destructive people like this made about 20 years ago: "Thelma and Louise."  Obama just drove the car he's always talking about into the Grand Canyon.   Me, I'm having a Slurpee.

American Christians are more supportive of Israel than American Jews

The Problem With J Street makes the point that American Jews are far to the Left of Americans in general. The support that Americans believe we owe Israel is not a function of the "Jewish Lobby" but comes from American support of democracy and Christian support of a Jewish homeland.

American Jews mostly track well to the left of general American public opinion on Israel, just as American Jews by and large are more liberal than their fellow citizens on many other public policy questions.

But if J Street is right, it is also irrelevant. Non-Jewish Americans aren’t listening to AIPAC because they are prepared to give “the Jews” whatever they want when it comes to Israel policy. Still less do they worry that defying AIPAC will bring down the awesome power of “the Jews” on their heads. They listen to AIPAC because they believe it is a reliable advocate for the approach to the issue they want American policy to take. A sturdy majority of non-Jewish Americans support Israel for reasons that have nothing, repeat nothing, to do with the generally more liberal and nuanced views of American Jews.

BELTWAY ADVENTURE

This is one of Iowahawk's best; laughing-out-loud funny.

WELCOME TO ADVENTURE! WOULD YOU LIKE INSTRUCTIONS?


>YES


YOU ARE SOMEWHERE IN BELTWAY FOREST, WHERE SOME HAVE FOUND TREASURES OF GOLD ALTHOUGH SOME HAVE ENTERED AND NEVER BEEN SEEN AGAIN. MAGIC IS SAID TO WORK IN THE FOREST. I WILL BE YOUR EYES AND HANDS. DIRECT ME WITH SIMPLE COMMANDS.


YOU ARE IN AN OVAL OFFICE. THERE IS SNOW OUTSIDE. YOU ARE BEHIND A DESK. ON DESK THERE IS A BUST OF CHURCHILL.


YOU HAVE A CONGRESS.


YOU HAVE A SENATE.


YOU HAVE A MEDIA.


YOU HAVE A TELEPROMPTER.


YOU HAVE A MILITARY.


YOU HAVE A BIG JET.


YOU HAVE $3 TRILLION OF GOLD.


YOU HAVE 82% APPROVAL HEALTH.


THERE IS 7.2% UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE FOREST.


YOU HAVE A RACE CARD.


YOU HAVE INAUGURAL PARTY LEFTOVERS.


WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?


>EAT LEFTOVERS


>RETURN BUST

Read the rest.

Health Care Reform Blamed for Huge Hike in Premiums

Bending the cost curve? How about breaking the back of the consumer!

When the bozos who came to Washington to run our lives write 2500 page bills that take over our health care, you know what's going to happen.

The state [Connecticut] has given Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield the go ahead to raise premiums by as much as 47 percent for some members, and says health care reform is the reason why.

The new rates took effect Oct. 1, and include increases from 19 percent all the way to 47 percent depending on the individual, the Hartford Courant reported.

Sullivan responded to Blumenthal saying the new rates included "very rich benefits" mandated by federal law.

"There is not one person in the state of Connecticut who will see an increase in their current premiums based on what the department approved for Anthem and Aetna," Sullivan said in a release. "The rates that were filed and approved reflect the current cost to deliver care and the impact of more comprehensive benefit designs required under the federal healthcare reform law. If the attorney general wants to complain to someone, he should complain to Congress."

Anyone with an ounce of brains know that if you increase the features and benefits on anything, the costs go up. Anyone who has even bought a car, a computer or even a pair of shoes knows that. But Obama, Pelosi, Reed and all the talking heads in the media parroted the lie that you could insure more people and insure against more things while reducing the cost. There is a term for that used by Rush Limbaugh: "mind numbed robots."

Bicycle skill

Amazing (click on the link)

This is one of the most powerful people in Washington explaining mammograms and colonoscopies.

Lowell, you should  be ashamed.  He's from your state.

Why are Democrats who abuse their spouses not the subject of press exposure?

We really don't have to answer that question, do we?

Guy Benson at Townhall.com:

Since you've apparently taken such a keen interest in one Congressional candidate's possibly messy divorce, I thought I'd tip you off about another Congressional candidate's documented messy divorce. In Ohio's sixth Congressional District, recently uncovered court documents reveal that Rep. Charlie Wilson, a Democrat [Party Affiliation Redacted], repeatedly abused his ex-wife during their 27-year marriage. I know that you're aware of this race, John, because you wrote about it last week. Yet, like virtually all of your colleagues in the mainstream media, you've managed to overlook this story--which broke two days ago.

What's really interesting about the spousal abuse allegations against Congressman Wilson, John, is that they're fully chronicled in unsealed files--and all the documentation you'd need to verify this possibly game-changing development is conveniently provided by the source that originally reported the story. As a reporter, I'm sure you'd agree this represents substantially more persuasive sourcing than quotes from a political candidate's opponent about scuttlebutt he's supposedly heard from nameless third parties regarding nasty details of a sealed file he hasn't seen.

I just thought I'd give you a heads-up about the Wilson story because you still have time to "break" this "scoop" in the mainstream media. I'm a good guy like that.

Liberal "discretion."

Via Glenn Reynolds:  From Power Line.

“Here in Minnesota, we are experiencing a remarkable instance of how discreet liberals can be when it comes to a candidate’s personal life. Mark Dayton is running for Governor of this state, and his history of mental illness and substance abuse is hiding in plain sight–he has freely acknowledged these problems to almost-complete strangers, yet Minnesota’s reporters and editors have carefully avoided confusing the voters with information that might not reflect well on a Democrat. Somehow one senses a pattern here.”

Sort of like the media's determination to hide John Edwards' cheating on his cancer stricken wife until ... and even past the time ... the pictures were all over the tabloids.

Five myths about Sarah Palin

There are more than 5, but these are a good start.

Belt Tightening in Hard Times is for Little People: Pelosi spent over $2.1 Million on Travel.

Via the Washington Examiner

Previous documents received by the non-profit watchdog group revealed that Pelosi's travel "cost the United States Air Force $2,100,744.59 over a two-year period — $101,429.14 of which was for in-flight expenses, including food and alcohol," according to Judicial Watch.

When Queen Nancy flies, her booze is first class:

"For example, purchases for one Pelosi-led congressional delegation traveling from Washington, DC, through Tel Aviv, Israel to Baghdad, Iraq May 15-20, 2008 included: Johnny Walker Red scotch, Grey Goose vodka, E&J brandy, Bailey’s Irish Crème, Maker’s Mark whiskey, Courvoisier cognac, Bacardi Light rum, Jim Beam whiskey, Beefeater gin, Dewar’s scotch, Bombay Sapphire gin, Jack Daniels whiskey, Corona beer and several bottles of wine."




“Pelosi’s abusive use of military aircraft demonstrates a shocking lack of regard for the American taxpayer and the men and women who serve in the U.S. Air Force. Speaker Pelosi may have a frequent flyer record for taxpayer-financed luxury jet travel,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton

Pelosi's GOP opponent is John Dennis if you want to donate.

March of the Emperors

H/T Vanderleun

"...keeping the spirits clean around us." Were the spirits also articulate?

That's all part of Michelle's outlook.   On the same plane with being proud of her country for the first time in her adult life ... after Barack was nominated.

O'Donnell's not a witch.  Is Michelle one?

How the Media Created the Tea Party

Nature abhors a vacuum.

Where a void exists, something will come in to fill it. The news media is supposed to act as the intermediary between the people and the government; to question, to bring facts and issues to the fore. When it failed so publicly and so spectacularly during the last election, it created a void which was filled by others. Those “others” included talk radio, a single media outlet – Fox News - bloggers and the internet where Glenn Reynolds’ “Army of Davids” toiled. And this combination of voices, acting as an alternative media, created the Tea Party.

Why is Fox News a big and growing hit on TV while other broadcast news services are losing viewers? They provide a voice to people on the middle and right side of the political spectrum while all of the others do a fine job of articulating the left. They fill a void that was created by the failure of NBC, CBS & ABC to provide a venue for anyone right of center. In fact, much of the media – and that includes organs like the NY Times and MSNBC – has made a conscious decision to appeal to their skewed demographic (minority, urban liberal, faculty lounge) leaving the vast middle and conservative part of the population up for anyone who wants to pay attention to their issues and concerns. Newsweek, which openly announced this shift several years ago, just sold for one dollar ($1).

The Tea Party is really a phenomenon of this decision on the part of the liberal media and its political allies in both parties. Don’t get me wrong, the media has always been liberal, but their liberalism had been tempered. But they simply could not resist the temptation to become the cheerleaders for the first affirmative action president. To paraphrase Christine O’Donnell: “he was them!”

They went so far overboard that they left a very large vacuum. In the past, that vacuum may have been filled with something quite different. But a confluence of events, technology, personality and ideology came together. What it birthed was something rarely seen, a spontaneous uprising of people who have other, better, things to do – most of the time – than spend their time demonstrating in the streets. They have jobs to go to, kids to take to school, homes to clean and meals to fix. Organizing for a demonstration was the work of young singles, students and faculty with nothing else to occupy their time. It was the kind of activity that appealed to bearded Marxists rather than suburban matrons or office workers. So when the Tea Party people actually took to the street or town squares no one in the media could believe they were real. They were accused of being “Astroturf” – fakes paid for by shadowy forces. They were then ridiculed and called by sexually deviant names by smirking faces in the media. The next step was the old doomsday weapon of the left – calling them racist. That bomb went off like a North Korean nuke – it ended up a fizzle. And because that accusation has now been shown to have lost its potency, the Left is now partially disarmed; and it’s all its own doing. The Tea Party people have demonstrated that they can have a dramatic impact on elections. Even if some of the candidates endorsed by the Tea Party people don’t win, they have already knocked off a number of Republican RINOs who won’t be coming back to Washington and have scared the pants off of many Democrats who believed they had a lifetime job in congress.

It’s all because the media, like a love struck teenybopper, fell in love and decided to run off with Barack Obama. It left a vacuum that others filled. It’s too late to move back home. To carry the analogy one step further, they are carrying Obama’s love child and it’s too late for an abortion. They have it; they will nurture it and grow up with it. Meanwhile others have moved into its room at home.

Are these reporters or palace guards?

Asking Rahm Emanuel tough questions is not what the Chicago media is going to tolerate.  Some of the thugs in the media threaten to deck a reporter who persists in askin Emanuel tough questions.

In the video you see them physically move to shield Emmanuel from Kelly’s questioning, as though their backs alone would deflect the questions. Kelly is berated and shoved by mainstream media journalists, but the scene stealer is when CBS2’s Jay Levine (who has not responded to my requests for comment) screams at Kelly, “Let him finish or I’m gonna deck you!”

After challenging Emanuel on-camera about questions on his residency and the failed $800 billion stimulus he spearheaded as White House Chief of Staff, CBS2’s reporter Jay Levine told Kelly he was going “to deck him”[...] ABC7 political reporter Charles Thomas told Kelly to “go away.” “This is the problem. Journalists have lost their objectivity,” said Kelly. “How can we rely on them to report the facts? People have lost faith in the media and with the actions of reporters like these, it’s not hard to see why.”

Just Admit it, Newspapers: You're Scared of Muslims

Not onlyare images of Mohammad verboten in the "brave" "free" press, but the noticable ABSENCE of the image of Mohammad is deleted because the members of the news media shit their pants in fear of offending Muslims.

Obama just threw Congress under the bus.

Obama’s interview in the NY Times Magazine is being described as a retrospective on his first two years in office. In it he talks about being seen as a “tax-and-spend” liberal and explains his failure to understand that there are no “shovel ready projects.”

And now you know why the politician who mostly votes “present” when it comes time to make controversial decisions continues in to blame others. Because ObamaCare – thanks to the Obama propaganda machine – is going to rapidly morph into Pelosi-Reed-Care. And the stimulus bill with its Not-Quite-Shovel-Ready-Jobs-Bill is going to be transformed into the Runaway-Democrats-In-Congress spending fiasco. He has already hinted that he wished that he had talked the Democrats in Congress into compromising with Republicans.

During the last two years, Obama has been the cheerleader-in-chief for the Crazy-Left Democrats in Congress; or that’s what the narrative the MFM if going to be creating as the revisionist history of the last two years.

Think it can’t happen? Watch how his grandmother became the “typical white woman” and how Jeremiah Wright, his “spiritual mentor,” was transformed for the man he could not disown to the man he had to disown.

The Obama camp and the media know that they have to revive the Obama coalition before the 2012 elections to achieve their vision of the America they want to be born. And if the shrunken band of Democrats on Congress have to be made the scapegoats, well, that’s what scapegoats are for.

Obama: There's no such thing as shovel ready jobs.

From the NY Slimes (referring to an interview that he gave to Peter Baker): 

In the magazine article, Mr. Obama reflects on his presidency, admitting that he let himself look too much like “the same old tax-and-spend Democrat,” realized too late that “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects” and perhaps should have “let the Republicans insist on the tax cuts” in the stimulus.

Sue in Frederick, MD comments: 

The $800,000B stimulus package was sold, repeatedly, as money that would provide private sector "shovel-ready jobs" to rebuild roads, bridges and "infrastucture". That morphed into "jobs created or saved" across the board in public and private. Morphing again into "saved jobs of teachers, police and firefighters" and "creating" new public sector jobs. Now after 20 months we need another stimulus to repair roads and bridges and to create construction jobs because there really is no such thing as "shovel-ready". Is it any wonder that the economy is floundering?

I told you that. 
Sue knows it. 
The question is: did Team Obama know it? 
If not, they were dumber than rocks. 
If yes, they lied. 
Pick one.

Here is what I said on June 12th. 

Note that most of the “stimulus” money has gone to public employees with the result that the public sector has actually grown while employment in the private sector has risen to devastating heights. This is not an accident. The concept of “shovel ready” public works projects has been long forgotten and was a bad joke even as it was being sold to the American public as the rationale for the various stimulus packages. In the modern bureaucratic world, there are virtually no “shovel ready” jobs that have not been funded years ago.

The rest of that post (Obama: Alien or Incompetent. Krauthammer vs. Rabinowitz.) is worth reading because none of it is dated, or has been proved incorrect.

The good news is that it's apparently not racist to call Obama arrogant anymore.

Jonah Goldberg in an LA Times op-ed on Obama's ego: 

There's an irony to occupying the Oval Office. When presidents think they're bigger than the job they hold, they shrink in office. When they think they're smaller than the honor they've been temporarily bestowed, they grow into it. Obama has done nothing but shrink.

Last week, the president of the United States attacked Karl Rove by name — twice! — in a speech. He recently begged a crowd of black supporters not to "make me look bad" by staying home from the polls. In an interview with Rolling Stone, he scolded young voters that if they don't vote, it will be proof they "weren't serious in the first place."

It never dawns on him that were it not for the unseriousness of those voters, he might still be a one-term junior senator from Illinois.

"You know, I actually believe my own [bull]," Obama told the author of "Renegade," Richard Wolffe.

Exactly. And that why he's gotten into this mess.

It's all about him.

Is it possible to find a way of punishing the people who were taken in by this ego-blimp?

New evidence that gunshots were fired at Kent State before the Guardsmen fired.

From the Washington Times:

The tape captures one voice saying: "They got somebody," and a few seconds later, male voices shout: "Kill him!" Kill him!" There is then the sound of a .38 caliber revolver shot, followed by a female voice: "Whack that [expletive]!" Three more handgun shots ring out at about five-second intervals, and soon thereafter - in just 13 tragic seconds - 29 of the 77 guardsmen fire a total of 67 rifle shots that are to help seal the fate of the non-communist people of Indochina.

Two Politicians in One: Joe Manchin