Highways in the not too distant future

under Obamacare, Kennedy would be told to "go home to take pain pills and die."

According to ABC, Mike Huckabee continued the debate over the Democrat healthcare bill 'Thursday morning when he told his radio audience that under Obamacare, Kennedy would be told to "go home to take pain pills and die."'

Huckabee is essentially right, except that politicians will be exempt from the rationing. The rest of us will be stuck with it.

How long until the Democrats and the media go ballistic over that remark. . . ?

Replace them all... vote them out in 2010

Here's some good news! Polling now shows that 57% of Americans would just as soon replace every single member of congress. If you just poll the independents our there that figure rises to 70%.

But isn't that what Al-Qaeda tried to do on 9/11 (an idea they stole from Tom Clancy's "Debt of Honor")? Well, let's do it the right way, with an election in 2010.

Obama: Risk taker

Bike-safety groups take President Obama head on after ride without helmet

Obamacare: the road for seniors

They renamed the death panels, but rest assured, there will be rationing to help keep down the costs of Obamacare, especially with Medicare. Any government program that seeks to take over healthcare for the masses must ration. When healthcare is free, demand will outstrip supply, that's basic economics. When we ration, we have less care, less quality; forget socialism, that is communism.

Here we see the road for seniors in Obamacare, it leads to a dark hole...

Hubris

This Prius cut me off in traffic, sort of speaks for itself.

My message to Rep. Waters: Leave Us Alone!

The people against this bill : "They don't have leadership" -Maxine Waters, Congressperson from CA.

Hey Representative Waters, I have news for you. We are 'individuals' and we speak for ourselves. We don't need or want leadership. We don't need elitists telling us how we think and what we want. And what we want is for congress to simply leave us alone!

Landrieu gets an ear full - the tides, they are changing

Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) held a townhall meeting in what should be the friendly locale of blue-collar Reserve, LA on Thursday afternoon. She was non-committal on HR 3200, expressing her preference for the Wyden-Bennett bill that has been introduced but will go nowhere under the current leadership. Based on the following quote, it seems that even the sympathetic Times-Picayune had a hard time ignoring the Astroturfing on the pro-Obamacare side.

Most of the questions were overwhelmingly in opposition to the general concept of "Obamacare," a pejorative label put on House Democratic plans for a health insurance overhaul. There were scores of other, less vocal attendees who sported stickers with messages like, "Health Care Now" and "We can't wait." Some were part of union organizing efforts. Others came with the encouragement of the White House's national field operation.

Reserve, you may recall, was the site of another townhall a little over a month ago — the one where a citizen informed a stunned Kathleen Sebelius that "it will be a cold day in hell before [Obama] socializes my country."

Word of Landrieu's return to Reserve hit the press less than 24 hours before meeting time. Despite that, an overflow crowd of up to 650 filled the meeting hall, with fire department officials denying admittance to arrivals after 1:35 p.m. Brief amateur video of Thursday's townhall here.

… Landrieu said she will not be influenced by the political calculus of being associated with President Barack Obama — who lost Louisiana badly and remains unpopular here — or her national party leaders.

"I have my eyes not on the president or the Congress. I have my eyes on the people," said Landrieu, … "This is not about Democrats or Republicans or President Obama. This is about listening to the people I represent and seeing if we can find a way to better coverage."…

The senator said: "Anything we do, we have to put people first and think about people before profits. But profits are a part of our system. This is a capitalist system." That drew enthusiastic applause and some loud comments referring to the president as a "socialist." …

Sen. Landrieu, who frames herself as a centrist, let her partisan stripes show a bit in response to a woman who attacked "government waste" and "deficit spending" and told the senator to fix it. The senator's response: "The last time the federal budget was balanced was as Bill Clinton left office." The boos — presumably directed at the Democratic former president — smothered the applause, if there was any. …

The loudest cheer of the afternoon came in response to the question about whether Landrieu would commit to vote against a bill "which does not specifically exclude taxpayer funded abortion."

"I do not support taxpayer funded abortion. I do support people's choice under the Constitution." That prompted a reaction that drowned out the rest of the senator's answer.

The next loudest cheers followed on a doctor's statement about the need for "tort reform" and a questioner who said, "We need to stop President Obama from getting cap-and-trade." The same man brandished a copy of the U.S. Constitution and said, "Where does the federal government get any right to stick its hands anywhere in the health care system."

Tough crowd, eh, Mary?

White House Sued Over Free Speech

The Office of the President and other White House officials are defendants in a free speech lawsuit filed by a prominent physician group, and a non-profit advocate for inner-city poor.

The White House has "unlawfully collected information on political speech," thereby illegally using the power of the White House to chill opposition to its plans for health care reform, according to the complaint filed in District Court for the District of Columbia, by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) and the Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE).

The lawsuit was prompted by the White House solicitation for the public to report any "fishy" comments to 'flag@whitehouse.gov'

.link..

Tort Reform Now!

Tort Reform should be at the top of the list of reforms! The Republicans have proposed legislation to address this, and it is being ignored by the Democrats.

Price Introduces Innovative Medical Liability Reform
Washington, D.C. – Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) issued the following statement after introducing the Health Care OverUse Reform Today Act (HealthCOURT Act), a comprehensive medical liability reform bill.

"In medicine, as in life, mistakes can be made. But unfortunately, our current system has forced many doctors to practice defensive medicine to shield themselves from the specter of outrageous malpractice damages, putting upward pressure on the cost of health care," said Rep. Price. "Accordingly, comprehensive medical liability reform has a key role to play in any attempt to decrease health care costs. The HealthCOURT Act addresses this by reforming the process for pursing medical malpractice cases and decreasing the impetus for care providers to practice defensive medicine."

"By creating a new legal structure that relies on the experience and expertise of medical professionals, physicians may focus on providing the proper care. Just as any successful health reform will be patient-centered, the HealthCOURT Act will ensure that physicians are focused on the needs of patients rather than the threat of predatory lawsuits."

NOTE: The HealthCOURT Act will: 1) Develop performance-based quality measures established by the Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement (PCPI) and physician specialty organizations; 2) Establish a best-practices affirmative defense set by qualified physician consensus-building organization (such as PCPI) and physician specialty organizations; 3) Create grants for State Health Courts for the resolution of disputes concerning injuries allegedly caused by health care providers; and 4) Give the Sense of Congress that insurers are liable if they make a decision that causes harm.

Little common ground

This explains why liberals prefer Carter and despise Reagan. And it also explains why conservatives and libertarians prefer Reagan, and know that Carter was ineffectual. Let the history of price control on oil in the 70s be a lesson for Obama on healthcare and the economy. He ought to reverse course right now and embrace free markets. If the Capital Gains %15 tax is frozen, and the Bush tax cuts are made permanent, a full recovery would ensue.

The motive of the liberal elites and the environmentalist activists is to stymy human progress because this progress implies purported harm to the environment and without checks on population growth could eventually become unsustainable over a very long time frame. But even so, what gives the elite the right to make that decision..?

The motive of the conservative or libertarian leader is to provide limited government, help people by giving them opportunities, not handouts, and by releasing the shackles of government regulation and mandates, but do not control them. Let individuals and the free market take care of itself. It works, let it.

I see little common ground between these two ideals.

"The last time liberals decided an industry was so important that the government needed to step in and contain costs was when they set their sights on the oil industry. Liberals in both the U.S. and Canada -- presidents Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter and Canadian P.M. Pierre Trudeau -- imposed price controls on oil.

As night leads to day, price controls led to reduced oil production, which led to oil shortages, skyrocketing prices for gasoline, rationing schemes and long angry lines at gas stations.

You may recall this era as 'the Carter years.'

Then, the white knight Ronald Reagan became president and immediately deregulated oil prices. The magic of the free market -- aka the "profit motive" -- produced surges in oil exploration and development, causing prices to plummet. Prices collapsed and remained low for the next 20 years, helping to fuel the greatest economic expansion in our nation's history.

You may recall this era as 'the Reagan years." -- Ann Coulter

Braveheart In Defiance Of The English Tyranny! BRAVO

Reagan - Yes we can - a true leader

Say no to Obama !

Kudos to Texas's Sam Bates, who put a field of weeds to good use:

An unusual sign of protest has sprung up in Lubbock County, but you'll have to take to the sky to see it. Once a year, Sam Bates plows over the weeds in a playa lake on his property, but this year, he left a little something behind. "I just had some free time," Bates said.

"This is a sign of frustration," Bates said. He tells NewsChannel 11 the reason behind the message is what's going on in Washington.

Bork Kennedy Care

Kennedy Care should be Borked just like Kennedy Borked Judge Bork. Kennedy's smear of Judge Bork on the US Senator floor:

"Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is — and is often the only — protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy...." 

Some important lessons from Ted Kennedy
PAjamas Media ^ | August 26 | Roger Kimball 
Posted on Wed Aug 26 2009 12:18:28 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time) by AJKauf

I am deeply grateful for the contribution that Ted Kennedy, who died last night, made to my education. Until Kennedy delivered his intemperate tirade against Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court in the summer of 1987, I hadn't known that a United States Senator could brazenly lie to his colleagues and the American people and get away with it. I'm not talking about little fibs, or broken promises, or private dissimulations: all that I took as standard operating procedure in a fallen world. No, Ted Kennedy raised — that is to say, he dramatically lowered — the standard by standing up on the floor of the Senate and emitting one lie after the next against one of the finest legal minds America has ever produced.

But of course, Ted Kennedy's most important lesson for the world involved Mary Jo Kopechne, the secretary he let drown in 1969 when he drove his car off a bridge at Chappaquiddick Island late at night after a party. Kennedy said he endeavored to rescue the girl. Maybe. But what we know he did was contact several aides to work out a story. He waited until after the police discovered the car and Kopechne's body the next morning before informing the police about the incident. He received a two-month suspended sentence for leaving the scene of an accident after causing an injury. Wikipedia calmly notes that "Questions remained about Kennedy's time line of events that night, about his actions after the accident, and the quality of the investigation and whether official deference was given to a powerful politician and family." Do you think, just possibly, that unusual deference was shown to Ted Kennedy?...

Recall election: Why not recall Obama now, why wait till 2012

Recall election: why wait until 2012

Recall Obama now! Why do we have to wait to fix all the things he is destroying in our economy.

Watch Out, Chevy Volt: Raser Technologies Shows Off 100 mpg Plug-in Hummer

BY ARIEL SCHWARTZWed Aug 26, 2009 at 3:30 PM

Chevrolet has received a lot of flack from the press recently for its questionable claim that the upcoming plug-in hybrid Volt gets 230 mpg with city driving. Now Raser Technologies, the company behind the plug in Hummer H3e, is taking on the Volt with claims that its massive vehicle easy gets over 100 mpg in "typical local daily driving". We assume that means city driving under ideal conditions (few stops and starts, minimal passengers and payload)...

Check out a video of the Hummer test drive here.

Rename Redux: Chappaquiddick Care

 
HEALTH BILL FROM THE GRAVE: DEMS RALLY AROUND KENNEDYCARE

Recovery? Real unemployment rate at 16%

Official: Real unemployment rate at 16%...

Joke Clown Commie

The PDF is available here. As before, for ink jet printers, the Avery product number is 18660; for laser printers, the Avery product number is 15660. Compliments of Henry.

Astroturfing Obamacare support in Bozeman, MT

Letter From Montana: Obama's Rocky Mountain Townhall

Posted By Mark Amagi on August 21, 2009

This  was sent to me by a friend in Bozeman , MT who  was there.

Hello All,

By now you have probably heard that President Obama came to  Montana last Friday. However, there are many  things that the major news has not covered. I  feel that since "Joe" and I live here and we were  at the airport on Friday I should share some  facts with you. Whatever you decide to do with  the information is up to you.

On Wednesday, August 5th it was  announced locally that the President would be  coming here. There are many groups here that are  against his healthcare and huge spending so  those groups began talking and deciding on what  they were going to do. The White House would not  release ANY details other than the  date.

On about Tuesday "Joe" found out  that they would be holding the "Town Hall" at  the airport. . . . Our airport is actually  located outside of Belgrade (tiny town) in a  very remote location. Nothing is around there.  They chose to use a hangar that is the most  remotely located hangar. You could not pick a  more remote location, and you can not get to it  easily. It is totally secluded from the  public.

FYI: We have many areas in Belgrade and Bozeman which could have held a large amount  of folks with sufficient parking (gymnasiums/auditoriums). All of which have  chairs and tables, and would not have to be  SHIPPED IN!! $$$$$

During the week, cargo by  the TONS was being shipped in constantly.  Airport employees could not believe how it just  kept coming. Though it was our President coming  several expressed how excessive it was,  especially during a recession.  $$$$$

Late Tuesday/early Wednesday the  12th,  they said that tickets would be  handed out on Thursday 9am at two locations and  the president would be arriving around 12:30  Friday.

Thursday morning about 600  tickets were passed out. However, 1500 were  printed at a Local printing shop per White House  request. Hmmmm……900 tickets just  DISAPPEARED.

This same morning someone called  into the radio from the local UPS branch and  said that THOUSANDS of Dollars of Lobster were  shipped in for Obama. Montana has some of the  best beef in the nation!!! And it would have  been really wonderful to help out the local  economy. Anyone heard of the Recession?? Just  think…with all of the traveling the White  House is doing. $$$$$ One can only imagine what  else we are paying for.

On Friday "Joe"  and I got out to the airport about 10:45am. The  groups that wanted to protest Obama's spending  and healthcare had gotten a permit to protest  and that area was roped off. But that was not to  be. A large bus carrying SEIU (Service Employees  International Union) members drove up onto the  area (illegal)and unloaded right there. It was  quite a commotion and there were specifically 2  SEIU men trying to make trouble and start a  fight. Police did get involved and arrested the  one man but they said they did not have the  manpower to remove the SEIU crowd.

The  SEIU crowd was very organized and young. About  99% were under the age of 30 and they were not  locals! They had bullhorns and PROFESSIONALLY  made signs. Some even wore preprinted T-shirts.  Oh, and Planned Parenthood folks were with  them…..professing abortion rights with their  T-shirts and preprinted signs.  (BTW, all  these folks did have a permit to protest in  ANOTHER area)

Those against  healthcare/spending moved away from the SEIU  crowd to avoid confrontation. They were orderly  and respectful. Even though SEIU kept coming  over and walking through, continuing to be very intimidating and aggressive at the direction of  the one SEIU man.

So we had Montana folks from ALL OVER the state with their  homemade signs and their DOGS with homemade  signs. We had cowboys, nurses, doctors you name  it. There was even a guy from Texas who had been  driving through. He found out about the  occasion, went to the store, made a sign, and  came to protest.

If you are wondering  about the press…..Well, all of the major  networks were over by that remote hangar I  mentioned. They were conveniently parked on the  other side of the buildings FAR away. None of  these crowds were even visible to them. I have  my doubts that they knew anything about the  crowds.

We did have some local news media  around us from this state and Idaho . Speaking  of the local media…they were invited. However,  all questions were to be turned into the White  House in advance of the event. Wouldn't want  anyone to have to think off the top of their  head.

It was very obvious that it was  meant to be totally controlled by the White  House. Everything was orchestrated down to the  last detail to make it appear that Montana is  just crazy for Obama and government healthcare.  Even those people that talked about their  insurance woes……..the White House called our  local HRDC (Human Resource and Development  Committee) and asked for names. Then the White  House asked those folks to come. Smoke and  mirrors…EVERYTHING was staged!!!!!!!!!!!

I am very dismayed about what I learned  about our current White House. The amount of  control and manipulation was unbelievable. I  felt I was not living in the United States of  America , more like the USSR !! I was physically  nauseous. "Joe" and I have been around when  Presidents or Heads of State visit. It has NEVER  been like this. I am truly very frightened for  our country. America needs your prayers and your  voices. If you care about our country please get  involved. Know the issues. And let Congress hear  your voices again and again!! If they are  willing to put forth so much effort to BULLY a  small town one can only imagine what is going on  in Washington DC . Scary!!

Put Cap-and-Tax bill on trail

The US Chamber of Commerce wants to put the science of global warming on trial. They want the EPA to hold a public hearing on the scientific evidence for man-made global warming. Businesses know how devastating this Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill will be. So before they let the Democrats get any further, they want to put the science on trial. Prove that this global warming is real and that the cap and tax bill will do something to change it.

Irony

Irony: 
If they name this Obamacare proposal after Kennedy, Death Panels start to look a bit like sunken cars at Chappaquiddick: Hey grandma, don't worry, I'm going for help...

Nuke It Now - No to Socialized Medicine - No to Tyranny

Obamacare: a disincentive to exercise?

'Obamacare will tax joggers to pay for cancer treatment for nonjoggers.'

Where is the jogging mandate in the bill?

 August 22, 2009 at 11:21 PM

Finnish researchers recently concluded that, if you wish to ward off lung or gastrointestinal cancer, you might want to spend your leisure time jogging instead of picking berries, mushroom gathering or fishing. In the study, published in late July on the Web site of the British Journal of Sports Medicine, scientists studied the health of a group of 2,560 middle-aged Finns over the course of about 17 years. The subjects, all men living in eastern Finland, kept diaries of their daily activities for a year and then went about them.

At the start of the study, none had cancer. By the end, 181 had died of the disease. 

Liberal Fascism alive and well in America

This is all unprecidented in my lifetime.

That's why I want to stop this march down the road to collectivism and tyranny!

Do

Liberal Fascism is not just a book anymore

G. Wesley Clark, MD
The fog is clearing, and the Progressive path is becoming clearer.

At his Liberal Fascism blog, author Jonah Goldberg starkly recapitulates the progress of the State under Obama:

Let's see. Off the top of my head, in the first six months of Obama's presidency we've seen corporatism and "state capitalism" run amok, in the government takeover of two car companies and numerous banks. Labor unions have become increasingly indistinguishable from the government and the party that controls it.Herbert Croly and the Progressives have once again been rehabilitated as founding fathers of the New Age. The entire liberal intellectual class is convinced that this the time for a new New Deal. Critics of statism are vilified by liberal elites as racists and fascists. (And those who refuse to get with the Gorian program are guilty of "treason against the planet"). When out of power, liberals lionized free speech and celebrated dissent as the highest form of patriotism. Now, they label dissent "un-American" and the president insists he doesn't want to hear a lot of talking from anyone who disagrees with him. While the stench of eugenics and euthanasia do not quite sting the nostrils yet, the odor is detectable and the liberal impulse for controlling the lives of others has been re-exposed.

The ideal of human liberty reached its zenith in only one country on earth:  the United States of America.  The American principle that each person is a free individual, not a part of a family, tribe, or state, is unique even among Western democracies.  Individual liberty has made us the most dynamic, inventive and powerful nation on the planet.

The people of whom the Constitution and Lincoln spoke are free men, with a revolutionary vision of the nature of humanity.  Only Americans have ever known it. We must not let that perish from the earth.

Cheney sets the record straight -- It is clear the Obama administration are acting like clildren

Former Vice President Dick Cheney gave The Weekly Standard a statement Monday night about the CIA documents and the coming Justice Department investigation.

The documents released Monday clearly demonstrate that the individuals subjected to Enhanced Interrogation Techniques provided the bulk of intelligence we gained about al Qaeda. This intelligence saved lives and prevented terrorist attacks. These detainees also, according to the documents, played a role in nearly every capture of al Qaeda members and associates since 2002. The activities of the CIA in carrying out the policies of the Bush Administration were directly responsible for defeating all efforts by al Qaeda to launch further mass casualty attacks against the United States. The people involved deserve our gratitude. They do not deserve to be the targets of political investigations or prosecutions. President Obama's decision to allow the Justice Department to investigate and possibly prosecute CIA personnel, and his decision to remove authority for interrogation from the CIA to the White House, serves as a reminder, if any were needed, of why so many Americans have doubts about this Administration's ability to be responsible for our nation's security.

Socialism sucks

Socialism sucks the life blood out of the free market.

And here is a graph showing the huge debts being incurred by Obama.

You can literally see the bloodletting.

According to Reuters:

The Obama administration will raise its 10-year budget deficit projection to approximately $9 trillion from $7.108 trillion in a report next week, a senior administration official told Reuters on Friday.

gunzip tries to graph what that means:


source: gunzip

Compare candidate Barack Obama:

October 14, 2008: "And when I'm president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely."

October 19, 2008: "And I want to go through the federal budget line by line, page by page, programs that don't work."

Now we know what "line by line" meant

official "I am sorry I voted for Obama" website

Now, there really is an official "I am sorry I voted for Obama" website.

Consider it a support group for the disillusioned.

Re: Health Trap

It is not completely a 'given' that government will take over of health care.

I like this option better:

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, has his own opinions about health care and expressed these in the Wall Street Journal.

______________________________________________________

Dude wrote:

The simple fact is that health care is extremely (under-statement) ill-timed. At some point (likely not in the near future) it is inevitable. Get used to it.

 

Debt as % of GDP

To be intellectually honest, let us examine more closely the huge debt mess that Bush left for Obama to clean up.

1960-2007 average (pre-Obama): 36.2%.

1960-2000 average (pre-Bush): 36.2%

2001-2007 average (Bush, pre-recession): 36.0%

Well what do you know?  Bush's average level of debt was a hair below average, at least up until the beginning of this recent recession.  At the end of 2007 it stood at 36.8% of GDP, pretty much where it had been for the previous several decades.

If you want to get really picky, Bush inherited a debt of 35.1% of GDP from Bill Clinton in 2000, and left Obama a debt of 40.8% of GDP in 2008 (per the CBO).  There you have it -- the smoking gun!  An extra 5.7% of GDP in federal debt held by the public.  But most of that came in 2008, a full year of recession.

Per Mr. Evans, President Bush should have spent a lot in 2008.  It's the only way to get out of a recession (or at least to replace the macroeconomic demand left undemanded by collapsing private spending).

In fact, Bush fought two recessions: one started almost the minute he was sworn into office in 2001, and a second started at the end of 2007, one full year after Democrats took over both houses of Congress.  So to be a good Keynesian, Bush should have spent like a drunken sailor in at least two of his eight years in office.  (Ironically, Bush actually ran a surplus in 2001, the year of the recession he inherited, one of the shortest and shallowest recessions in history.  That would make it a Keynesian-defying event, a virtual miracle.)

As it was, the deficit was $459 B in 2008, the largest in history up to that point in nominal dollars.

Now here is where it gets fun: Obama steps in.  The very first year under Obama, 2009, the deficit is expected to be about $1.84 trillion.  Here are some fun facts regarding Obama's budgets from 2009 through 2019.

• Obama's first-year deficit, the largest in history, is over four times bigger than George Bush's last deficit, which had been the largest in history up to then.
• Obama's first-year deficit is more than Bush's first seven deficits combined.
• The smallest deficit predicted under Obama's budget from 2009 through 2019 is $658 B, or 43% bigger than Bush's largest deficit, the largest in history up to then.
• Under Obama's budget, deficits exceeding one trillion dollars will occur in four years: 2009, 2010, 2018 and 2019.
• The 10-year cumulative deficit (2010-2019) under Obama's budget will be $9.3 trillion, or an average of almost one trillion per year, more than doubling what it would have been under the laws left by Bush.
• The debt held by the public in 2008, or that left by Bush for Obama, was 40.8% of GDP.  In just one year under Obama, after 2009, it will be 56.8%, or the largest since 1955.  By 2019 it will be 82.5%, the largest in our history except for the three years of 1945-47, the end of World War II.
• From 2000 to 2008, or the Bush years, the debt held by the public went from 35.1% of GDP to 40.8% -- a 5.7% of GDP increase.  By 2016, or a similar period under Obama's budgets, it is expected to reach 77.5% -- a 36.7% of GDP increase.
• Under Obama's budget, the debt held by the public will reach 82.4% of GDP in 2019.  That is more than double the average level since 1960 and more than double what Bush left in 2008.  (Recall that "since 1960" includes Nixon, Ford, Reagan and both Bushes.)

Contrast any of these fun facts about Obama to similar facts about Bush.  Bush kept debt fairly steady and near the post-1960 average.  The debt barely increased at all in his first seven years.  Only in his last year, the first year of this recession, did it go up much, and not all that much even then.

Maybe a picture would help.  The graph below is US Statistical Abstract data through 2007 (Table 452) and CBO data from 2008 to 2019 plotted over time.

If you are intellectually honest, and bother to look at government data easily available online, this is like shooting fish in a barrel.  Bush kept the debt level virtually flat, but Obama is making it virtually explode.  Bush kept the debt near levels it had hovered about for the previous several decades.  Obama is sending it to levels not seen for over 60 years, since paying off World War II costs.

There is simply no comparison between Obama and Bush.  Heck, there is no comparison between Obama and any other president in US history.  You have to be intellectually dishonest to blame Bush for "rampant uncontrolled spending" while praising Obama for responsible spending.

What the heck does Harvard teach?  (No offense to Thomas Lifson and Larrey Anderson.)

link

Randall Hoven can be contacted at randall.hoven@gmail.com or  via his web site, kulak.worldbreak.com.

Health Trap

Doesn't this:


...have an eerie resemblance to this:

Just food for thought.

quid pro quo?

Billionaire investor George Soros bought an $811 million stake in Petroleo Brasileiro SA in the second quarter, making the Brazilian state-controlled oil company his investment fund's largest holding.

There is another interesting aspect to this development. Could it be just a coincidence that Obama backer George Soros repositioned himself in Petrobras to get dividends just a few days before Obama committed $2 billion in loans and guarantees for Petrobras' offshore operations?

See Bloomberg Story: Soros Hedge Fund Bought Petrobras Stake Worth $811 Million

A shield from the tyranny of the majority -- at the hand of an intolerant society

In 1995, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commissions: "Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority.... It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the bill of rights, and of the first amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation—and their ideas from suppression—at the hand of an intolerant society."

Washington Times - Jon Voight: Is President Obama creating a civil war in our own country?

"There's a real question at stake now. Is President Obama creating a civil war in our own country?" Jon Voight tells Inside the Beltway.

"We are witnessing a slow, steady takeover of our true freedoms. We are becoming a socialist nation, and whoever can't see this is probably hoping it isn't true. If we permit Mr. Obama to take over all our industries, if we permit him to raise our taxes to support unconstitutional causes, then we will be in default. This great America will become a paralyzed nation."

Be outraged, Mr. Voight advises.

"Do not let the Obama administration fool you with all their cunning Alinsky methods. And if you don't know what that method is, I implore you to get the book 'Rules for Radicals,' by Saul Alinsky . Mr. Obama is very well trained in these methods," he continues, citing a television campaign critical of the Republican Party and contentious town-hall meetings about health care reform.

"The real truth is that the Obama administration is professional at bullying, as we have witnessed with ACORN at work during the presidential campaign. It seems to me they are sending down their bullies to create fist fights among average American citizens who don't want a government-run health care plan forced upon them," Mr. Voight says. "So I ask again. Is President Obama creating a civil war in our own country?"

Obama: everyone in Washington gets all wee-weed up

Teleprompter (TOTUS) must be on vacation this week.

Obama speaks at a health care forum yesterday:

2:53: The president laughs off suggestions that he's lost his mojo. "There's something about August going into September when everyone in Washington gets all wee-weed up," he says. "We're going to have to cut through a lot of … nonsense out there," he says.

What?  

Whole Foods

Subject: Whole Foods
To: john.mackey@wholefoods.com

Dear Mr. Mackey

I've never been to Whole Foods because I'm a conservative who usually tries to sway a course away from liberal establishments (or those places where mostly the left hangs out). Because of your recent article in the Wall Street Journal, I plan on making a visit to your store.

Thank you for some sense!

-- 

Liberals attack Whole Foods

Robin of Berkeley
As a leftist up until last year, I know what liberals are good at:  emotion and righteous indignation.  And they're experts at channeling that fury into concrete action.  So Moveon.org and other far left groups are e mailing and twittering and Facebooking like crazy to mobilize the troops into doing whatever they dictate.

Their tactics can be so cruel and chilling, that those of us with a conscience can be left hanging in the dust.  Meanwhile, a la Saul Alinsky, the Left isolates, demonizes and destroys their "enemies," that is anyone who disagrees with them.

Case in point:  The current boycott of Whole Foods because John Mackey, the CEO, has his own opinions about health care and expressed these in the Wall Street Journal.

The result: a nation wide, well publicized campaign of nasty phone calls and e mails to local stores.  Ironically, if you've ever been in a Whole Foods, you know that 99.9% of the employees are mega Obama fans....

Scientists say they have evidence that the powerful greenhouse gas methane is escaping from the Arctic sea-bed

Other than CO2, another gas that concerns the global warming alarmists is methane, which also occurs naturally. From the BBC via memeorandum: Methane seeps from Arctic sea-bed.  

Scientists say they have evidence that the powerful greenhouse gas methane is escaping from the Arctic sea-bed.

Researchers say this could be evidence of a predicted positive feedback effect of climate change.

As temperatures rise, the sea-bed grows warmer and frozen water crystals in the sediment break down, allowing methane trapped inside them to escape.

The research team found that more than 250 plumes of methane bubbles are rising from the sea-bed off Norway.

The joint British and German research team detected the bubbles using a type of sonar normally used to search for shoals of fish. Once detected, the bubbles were sampled and tested for methane at a range of depths.

Graham Westbrook, lead author and professor of geophysics at the University of Birmingham, said: "If this process becomes widespread along Arctic continental margins, tens of megatonnes of methane a year - equivalent to 5-10% of the total amount released globally by natural sources, could be released into the ocean."

This is in essence another source of naturally occurring greenhouse gas. This been happening for all of Earth's history. Curious minds want to know more about the true source of greenhouse gases, and the relationship and proportion between those naturally released and those produced by man's activities. Liberal journalists seem to be less curious, and seem more apt to blame man without true proof: a leap of unscientific proportions.

And this is the kicker in the article: "If this process becomes widespread along Arctic continental margins" -- What the heck does that mean? Are they somehow trying to blame mankind for this totally natural process? Again, these scientists, and worse yet, the journalists at the BBC, are jumping to conclusions that are not supported by the evidence, in an apparent attempt to frighten mankind to stop all industrial activity.  Go home journalists: it won't work. We see through your ruse.

Obama Meltdown

The author offers a remedy, but I say, let Obama melt down, it'll teach liberals a lesson: don't overreach in your overzealous attempt to hurt capitalism, the only tenant of a free and wealthy America, at all levels of individual worth.

1) Health Care. Health-care take overs and socialized medicine have terrified not just the right and conservatives, but the elderly of all persuasions who fear their shaky Medicare funds will be diverted to Obama's new plans. In short, they believe their care will be rationed and given to all sorts of new recipients. And they fear age will be a basis for meriting treatment.

It was an insane political move to demonize these town-hallers, when streaming video showed the participants scared and angry, but not violent, trying to get answers from smug politicos who either cell phoned away, ridiculed questioners in the manner of Barney Frank, or mocked their interrogators. ...

2)   The Spell is Broken. Cap-and-trade, the mega-deficits, the apology tours, and the sleaze of some appointments and congressional grandees (cf. Rangel, Dodd, Murtha, etc.) were stimulants, but not in themselves enough to awaken the somnolent American people from their collective trance. Yet health care was like a shot of adrenaline that jolted the patient out of his slumber. Suddenly hope and change no longer worked like the swinging watch and "you're getting sleepy" lingo. Voters are feeling they've been "had" and were mesmerized into being used for an extremist agenda. ...

3)   The Counter-attack is not working. The Obama shotgun has blasted all sorts of magnum loads—town-hall and tea-party critics were un-American, Nazis, tools of the insurance industry, dupes, and Astro-turfers. Now the religious argument is thrown out at the 11^th hour: those who doubt neo-socialist care are somehow un-Christian and uncaring. ...

The Therapy

1)   Cool the "this is our moment", "hope and change" rhetoric. Obama reminds me of what Wellington supposedly said of Napoleon's Old Guard at Waterloo "They came on in the same old way, and we sent them back in the same old way." Instead, he should quietly follow the 1995 triangulation model of Bill Clinton/Dick Morris.

Obama should concentrate on debt, debt, and more debt. He could freeze federal spending at 2% per annum, and get into the black in two-three years, given his income tax hikes. He could pacify the Left with, "I'd love to pursue our socialist agenda, but we are going broke and cannot right now."

Instead of cap-and-trade, he could allot a few feminist, green and gay ambassadorships that would not impact the federal treasury. Given the sudden silence on Iraq, the Left has demonstrated that their furor was always about power lost and hatred for George Bush in the White House, never much about principles or convictions. That Obama is in the White House is more important to most former critics of Bush than anything he does or says.

2)   Return to the "no more blue/red state" bipartisan tropes. Consider Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barney Frank as the real challenges, since the animosity that they engender can do far more damage to Barack Obama than Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and all of the Fox News cast put together. Voters are more comfortable with Blue Dogs than Barbara Boxer. Soon the tea-party anger is going to spill over and result in Boxer, Reid, etc. having reelection nightmares.

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Government - broke!

Federal Spending Deficit Explodes Nearly Eight Fold

Not good at all.

Christopher Alleva
With billionaire Warren Buffet sounding the alarm about the Federal Budget deficit, a retrospective look shows the unprecedented level of the deficit. 

The 2009 deficit is projected to be $1.977 trillion. This is almost 12 times more than the deficits in the 1980s,  45 times the deficits in 1990s and nearly 8 times more than than deficits in the 2000s. 



A multi-trillion dollar deficit is unsustainable and one of the most dangerous threats to the Country. The Obama Administration and Congress should shelve the Healthcare and Global Warming Bills and concentrate on the chronic economic problems that plague us.
Posted at 01:00 AM  | Permalink

Impromptu Obamanomics is getting scarier by the day

"Impromptu Obamanomics is getting scarier by the day. For all the president's touted intelligence, his un-teleprompted comments reveal a basic misunderstanding of capitalist principles."

Carol Baum, in an article at Bloomberg.com

The Declaration of Independence.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government.

Agreed!

tyranny...

What happens when those 'slow operations' get put on overdrive?

We shall see. Will Obama's policies succeed or fail?

"Experience hath shown, that even under the best forms of government those 
entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. " 
(Thomas Jefferson )

Food stamps and iPhones just don't mix

What's wrong with America? I can't even afford an iPhone because someday I want to send my kid to college. Yet I see this:

Neal, you gotta love this. I'm at Wal-Mart, in line behind a woman who is using food stamps while talking on her iPhone

Have they ever thought about priorities? How can talking on an iPhone be more important than food? There ought to be a law!  How about we just roll back socialism and 95% of federal government!! Yes I'm outraged!

So let's take a look at the math.

$640 Phone – $599 plus tax (~8%)

$60/mo Voice Plan – cheapest plan with unlimited nights and weekends

$40/mo MEdia Max 3000 Bundle – includes 3000 texts and unlimited MediaNet which I assume will work as the browse function on the iPhone

$8/mo Fees – lovely fees

So doing the math, and looking at a year of usage on this device, the total comes to (ATT rate plans):

$1936 

Obama killed the public option himself

Such a great speaker - NOT!

He talked us all out of the public option of health care with his stupid post office analogy.

What a complete and utter bozo!!!

----

Caroline Baum, writing at Bloomberg, points out that the accumulation of Barack Obama gaffes about health care have now reached a critical mass:

When Obama compared the post office to UPS and FedEx, he was clearly hoping to assuage voter concerns about a public health-care option undercutting and eliminating private insurance.

What he did instead was conjure up visions of long lines and interminable waits. Why do we need or want a health-care system that works like the post office?…

… "If the private insurance companies are providing a good bargain, and if the public option has to be self-sustaining — meaning taxpayers aren't subsidizing it, but it has to run on charging premiums and providing good services and a good network of doctors, just like any other private insurer would do — then I think private insurers should be able to compete."

Self-sustaining? The public option? What has Obama been doing during those daily 40-minute economic briefings coordinated by uber-economic-adviser, Larry Summers?

Capitalism Explained

Government programs aren't self-sustaining by definition. They're subsidized by the taxpayer. If they were self-financed, we'd be off the hook.