You'll Feel A "Pinch" When The Needle Goes In. That's Called The "Point".

Missing The Point On Health Care Reform

If health care passes, but then gets repealed, the President wins. If health care passes, and Democrat Senators don’t get reelected, the President wins. If health care passes, and the House switches to Republican, the President wins. If more Americans are without health care, the President wins.

And Barack Obama thinks that when he wins, America wins. He IS the new America. He is wrong, but don’t anyone tell him that. Not that he’s listening anyway.

This bill is as empty as the President himself. It is meaningless, at this point. Everyone hates it and not because that’s what happens when big bills get passed. Everyone hates this bill because it’s the worst sort of American politics: selling out to special interests, increasing the scope and influence of government, individual mandates, covering the wrong procedures, increasing taxes, cutting care. It’s all in there. It’s vile. And still, all these “historic” provisions are meaningless because they’re all expendable. [...]

This health care bill will be a Democratic soul-killing, empty, symbolic victory and be the perfect symbolic show for the perfect symbolic President. He can say, “I won.”

And that’s the point of this bill.

Don't worry though, when they're through draining your wallet... they'll give you a cookie and some juice. But if you need to see a doctor... unfortunately there'll be bit a of wait.

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I'm Sure Andrew Sullivan's Mea Culpa Will Be Coming Forthwith If It Turns Out To Be Insurance Fraud... Not...

AP sources: Probe eyes census worker's insurance

Investigators trying to solve the mystery of a census taker found hanging from a tree with the word "fed" scrawled on his chest are examining whether he manipulated the scene in order to conceal a suicide and make a life insurance claim possible for his son, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press.

The dead man's son, Josh Sparkman, said in an interview with the AP that he found paperwork for the private life insurance policy among the personal files of his father, Bill Sparkman, but wasn't sure of the amount or when it was taken out. He said authorities have told him nothing about the case and haven't produced a death certificate, which is usually needed to make an insurance claim.

Two law enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case, said investigators were trying to determine whether Bill Sparkman committed suicide but altered the scene to make it look like a homicide, allowing his son to collect.

What!?! It doesn't appear to be crazy Southern populist terrorism, whipped up by the GOP and its Fox and talk radio cohorts you say? Who could of guessed? Check the strap on your CPAP mask Andy - it's on too tight again.

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Heeeeee's Outta There!

I was wrong. Having Obama as prez is way more fun that stodgy ol' McCain.

Van Jones Resigns As White House Advisor

Buh bye...

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Van Jones: Mainstream... in San Fran...

How'd they vet this guy? Did they just throw a rock in Berkeley and say "Hey you! Wanna be "Green Commissar"?

• Van Jones & Mumia
• Van Jones & Kanye
• Van Jones & The Truthers (no it's not a Motown cover band)
• Van Jones & White Polluters

Via Gabe at ASHQ

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Uh Oh Canada's Health Care Monopoly

Canadian gub'mint healthcare: precarious...

The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says this country's health-care system is sick and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it.

Dr. Anne Doig says patients are getting less than optimal care and she adds that physicians from across the country - who will gather in Saskatoon on Sunday for their annual meeting - recognize that changes must be made.

"We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize," Doing said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

Now, the Canadian doctors aren't calling for an end to their "universal" - but not readily available and crumbling - health care system, but the changes proposed bring them closer to our way. We should take note of that. One other thing, BigDog (blogging at RightWingSparkle) warns us not to get complacent just because it seems we've won a couple of victories in this fight against statism.

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Obama: Straining, Stressing, & Piercing

Obama turns out to be brilliant at becoming, not being, president

If he wins it, will be a victory not worth having. It will have cost too much. It has lessened the thing an admired president must have from the people, and that is trust. [...]

The president seemed like a man long celebrated as being very good at politics—the swift rise, the astute reading of a varied electorate—who is finding out day by day that he isn't actually all that good at it. In this sense he does seem reminiscent of Jimmy Carter, who was brilliant at becoming president but not being president. (Actually a lot of them are like that these days.)

Also, something odd. When Mr. Obama stays above the fray, above the nitty-gritty of specifics, when he confines his comments on health care to broad terms, he more and more seems . . . pretty slippery. In the town hall he seemed aware of this, and he tried to be very specific about the need for this aspect of a plan, and the history behind that proposal. And yet he seemed even more slippery. When he took refuge in the small pieces of his argument, he lost the major threads; when he addressed the major threads, he seemed almost to be conceding that the specifics don't hold.

When you seem slippery both in the abstract and the particular, you are in trouble.

Good column by Peggy Noonan. It would be better if she hadn't spent so much time beguiled with Obama during the campaign, but I guess she called it as she saw it. At least she's admitting it ain't panning out.

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Hey! Wait A Minute Mr. Postman President!

Whose side is he on here? Oh well, when the Obamessiah's right, he's right...

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Dr. Obama

Via The Common Sense Zone

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Ne pas être malade le dimanche...

My favorite quote: "You're young, you have time..." Sorta gives a clear picture of where things would end up, doesn't it?

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Our Government

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It's Time To Get Your Move On

Katrina Victims Face Eviction From Federal Housing

Nearly four years after hurricanes Katrina and Rita left a million Americans homeless, the government is threatening to throw thousands of storm survivors out of temporary federal housing.

A FEMA official told a House panel Friday that the government will send Katrina survivors still living in temporary housing eviction notices starting June 1 and try to connect them to agencies that can help them. But he also said it would be "some period of time," meaning months, before the evictions actually would begin.

The $5.6 billion housing assistance program that provided temporary trailers and hotel rooms to victims was supposed to end in 2007. But the deadline was extended by two years to May 1 of this year to help the more than 5,000 individuals and families still struggling to rebuild their lives. (At its peak, 143,000 households along the Gulf Coast were located in temporary housing units.)

But the Obama administration says they have to go by the end of the month or face eviction.

I'm sorry, but if you haven't gotten your act together after four years then you've just been sitting on your ass. Pack it up, move on, and accept the fact that you may not be able to live where you want too. The Nanny State's teat is dry.

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The Only Enemy They Recognize Is You

The Obama administration isn't worried about Iran, North Korea, or Islamic Supremacists, but people who "reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority" scare the poop out of them. Our Canadian friend Alice sends us a reminder.

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Don't Say You Weren't Warned...

The dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe. - Tom Wolfe (Referencing French Socialist Jean-François Revel)

The Far Right Is On The March Again: The Rise Of Fascism In Austria

In Austria's recent general election, nearly 30 per cent of voters backed extremist right-wing parties. Live visits the birthplace of Hitler to investigate how Fascism is once again threatening to erupt across Europe. [...]

Last September, Austria’s far right gained massive political influence in an election that saw the FPO along with another far right party – Alliance For The Future (BZO) – gain 29 per cent of the vote, the same share as Austria’s main party, the Social Democrats. The election stirred up terrifying memories of the rise of the Nazi Party in the Thirties.

And just as the Nazis gained power on the back of extreme nationalism and virulent anti-Semitism, the recent unprecedented gains in Austria were made on a platform of fear about immigration and the perceived threat of Islam. FPO leader Heinz Christian Strache, for example, described women in Islamic dress as ‘female ninjas’.

Emboldened by the new power in parliament, neo-Nazi thugs have desecrated Muslim graves. Recently, in Hitler’s home town of Braunau, a swastika flag was publicly unveiled.

The FPO wants to legalise Nazi symbols, while its firebrand leader has been accused of having links to far right extremists.

After the FPO’s election victory, Nick Griffin, leader of the British Nationalist Party (BNP), sent a personal message to Strache.

‘We in Britain are impressed to see that you have been able to combine principled nationalism with electoral success. We are sure that this gives you a good springboard for the European elections and we hope very much that we will be able to join you in a successful nationalist block in Brussels next year.’

The message followed on from a secret meeting last May in which a high-ranking FPO politician paid a visit to London for a meeting with Griffin.

The relationship between the FPO and the BNP becomes more worrying as I learn of the strong links between Austria’s political party and hard-line Nazis.

No matter how happy go lucky and multi-culti Europe seems, they're only ever one or two bad experiences away from grabbing their Darth Vader helmets and cleaning house... Book your boxcar back to Istanbul and Morocco now, before the rush...

Previously: It Doesn't Take Much To Push Europe Down That Slippery Slope..., Everything Old Is New Again, To The Right Old Chaps! Tally Ho!

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Memory Refresher

It's good to remind ourselves from time to time exactly what we had in mind when we started this Great Experiment:






No ask yourself how we're doing lately?

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Venezuela Is Now Officially A Dictatorship

Chavez Wins Referendum to Eliminate Term Limits

President Hugo Chavez won a referendum to eliminate term limits Sunday, paving the way for him to run again in 2012 — and beyond — and push through his vision of a socialist Venezuela.

I certainly hope the Venezuelan people enjoyed this election because it's probably the last legitimate one they'll have for a long, long time. The country is now the personal fiefdom of a communist thug.

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Judd Gregg Stays In The Senate

Republican Sen. Judd Gregg withdrew his nomination as President Barack Obama's commerce secretary Thursday, citing "irresolvable conflicts" over the administration's stimulus bill and the upcoming 2010 census.

I'm not sure exactly why it took him so long to figure out he wouldn't fit in with the B. Hussein Obama administration, but I think he's made the right choice.

UPDATE: Newt Gingrich just opined that one reason the census was being moved into the hands of Rahm Emanuel - which helped bring about Gregg's departure - is that "left wing groups got very worried that having a conservative Republican in charge of the census would actually lead to an accurate count..."

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Should We be SURPRISED? Hardly...

Democrats Break Promise To Post Stimulus Bill Online For 48-Hour Public Airing

“The American people have a right to know what’s in this bill,” Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind) told HUMAN EVENTS after the press conference. “Every member of Congress -- Republicans and Democrats -- voted to post this bill on the internet for 48 hours, 48 hours ago. We’ll see if the Democrats keep their word.”

Actually -- as of 5:15 pm, the Democrats had broken their word. The stimulus bill -- which we still haven’t seen -- will be released late tonight and will be brought up on the House floor at 9 am tomorrow.

The following statement was released by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer at 4:57 p.m.:

"The House is scheduled to meet at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow and is expected to proceed directly to consideration of the American Recovery and Reinvestment conference report. The conference report text will be filed this evening, giving members enough time to review the conference report before voting on it tomorrow afternoon."

Maybe gun control for liberals is a good idea. If they did carry guns, they'd just be constantly shooting themselves in the foot.

Good remark from House Republican Whip Eric Cantor: “Those in favor of speed over commonsense may just be afraid of letting the People know what they are ramming through.”

You can review the back and forth versions of the bill at Read The Stimulus, but the Dems aren't giving you 48 hours to finish.

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This Is Not A Bad Idea...

Brett Joshpe - writing at Big Hollywood - advocates putting an item back in the "stimulus" bill:

Until Republicans acted this week, the Senate was actually prepared to bestow hundreds of millions of dollars of stimulation for Hollywood. The “Hollywood clause” would have given movie studios special tax breaks and enabled them to depreciate the costs of production equipment at a quicker rate. Perhaps, however, Congress should consider reinserting that provision. Doing so would give us the perfect excuse to impose the types of compensation controls on the movie industry that President Obama is now demanding of other industries who receive federal help.

Unlike the greedy Wall Street executives though, who have torpedoed our economy by allowing federal bureaucrats to bludgeon them into making bad loans, Hollywood would surely understand the merit of pay caps. After all, it would enable the entertainment world to fulfill its pledge “to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.” (Cut for laughter and gagging and take two!)

Of course Ashton and Demi, and Cameron Diaz, and Julia Roberts, et. al. would have no problem agreeing to cap their salaries at $500,000 - or even lower if it would help The One! They would do that right? Right? Hey Ashton, just remember that if you take my money - then I get to come on the set and direct...

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It's Painful To Watch...

Robert Gibbs is totally in over his head. He makes Scott McClellan look positively savvy.

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Dash Dachle's Hopes?

Hugh Hewitt says no:

My two cents on the latest confirmation dance is sure to disappoint my most partisan listeners: Tom Daschle should be confirmed quickly because (1) his biggest error it looks to me to be the sort of error that a former senior elected official used to riding around in government cars could easily make, while the others look like the screw-ups that a suddenly wealthy former senator could easily make, (2) he wouldn't have endangered his political career and ambitions for this amount of money given the huge income he had coming in, and (3) we absolutely have to fix the confirmation mess or more and more people will flee public service at the highest levels. Partisans tell me that giving passes to Secretary Geithner and now Daschle will never matter down the road when future GOP nominees run into trouble. Perhaps not. But a double dose of restraint when presented with the opportunity to slice and dice a nominee make the GOP's policy objections much more potent, and no matter how much you disagree with him --and I worked pretty hard for John Thune, twice, because I disagreed with Daschle a lot-- he is a good man and a smart one, and I'd rather have a center-left pro running DHS who will at least be open to the arguments of the big medical groups/hospitals/insurers than an ideologue from the university world.

I disagree. The less we expect from "wealthy" politicians who've gotten "used" to riding around in government cars, the less we get. We've already got a head of the IRS who willfully - sorry, "forgot" - to pay his taxes. What else are we prepared to put up with?

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