Garrett from FNC Pwns Obama

In one of the best exchanges I've seen yet between a member of the press and our president, Major Garrett from FNC (its his name, not his rank) asks Obama what took him so long to respond to the events in Iran.

Watch Obama as he tries not to get upset at the question.

Obama's infomercial failed to attract an audience

We all know that before the Health Care infomercial ran, Diane Sawyer told us that it wasn't going to be an infomercial. According to the MRC:

When asked whether ABC should include guests from the health care industry, Sawyer, who appeared via phone, said such voices would be featured and again swore, "And I think a lot of people haven't understand fully that this is going to be a room full of widely diverse ideas in which people who actually experience the reality of front-line health care are going to get a chance to pose their challenging questions to the President."
That's what Diane said beforehand.

This is what she did during the show. She introduced the head of Aetna, an insurance agent, and 'gave' him this opportunity to be 'heard'.

“If I could, I’m going to bring in Ron Williams from Aetna, CEO of Aetna, and if I can reverse the order a little bit Mr. President, I’d like to ask a question of him and then let you comment on his answer,” Sawyer said. “Mr. Williams, Aetna, to take one, an insurance company. We hear people all over the country people see their premiums going up 119 percent in the last several years. They see the profits of the insurance companies, the billions and billions of dollars, even in a lean year. They see profits in the billions of dollars. Is the President right – that you need to be kept honest?”

That was the chance that the insurance industry was given to speak. They were asked if its right that the president needs to keep them honest. To Diane Sawyer's credit, she didn't ask him if he still beats his wife.

Jake Tapper, who seems to be the only person at ABC who still has his balls, co-wrote this article the next day:

President Obama struggled to explain today whether his health care reform proposals would force normal Americans to make sacrifices that wealthier, more powerful people -- like the president himself -- wouldn't face.

Dr. Orrin Devinsky was the man who challenged the president. According to ABC, he told the president that 'elites' often create universal health care proposals safe in the knowledge that they would be above any restrictions or rationing caused by their programs and regulations. The good doctor asked:

if he would be willing to promise that he wouldn't seek such extraordinary help for his wife or daughters if they became sick and the public plan he's proposing limited the tests or treatment they can get.

As noted before, the president, sans teleprompter, struggled to answer. But he refused to make any such pledge.

How did this go over with the public? That's hard to tell, since most did not tune into the broadcast. According to Live Feed:

The one-hour ABC News special "Primetime: Questions for the President: Prescription for America" (4.7 million viewers, 1.1 preliminary adults 18-49 rating) had the fewest viewers in the 10 p.m. hour "The Philanthropist" debut and a repeat of "CSI: NY" on CBS). The special tied some 8 p.m. comedy repeats as the lowest-rated program on a major broadcast network.

I think its fitting that the president was beat out by another program about someone who gives away money.

I'm heartened that my Republicans complained about this infomercial beforehand. This, according to "The Note":

The letter to ABC News, signed by 40 members of the newly formed “Media Fairness Caucus,” accuses ABC of “providing in-kind free advertising for President Obama.”

In defense of ABC news, co-ordinating questions that the president wants to be asked seems to be normal with the Obama WH.

One last note; Insurance companies are being hit by the Democrats for a practice that is known as rescission. Its cutting the coverage of an insured person typically after they've incurred major medical expenses.
I hate insurance companies, and I'm loathe to defend them. However, in this case, its worth noting why the insurance companies cut the coverage. Its after they find out that the insured person has been less then complete in filling out their medical history when they applied.
Again, I hate defending insurance companies. But when I filled out my medical history, I tried to make sure I was up front as possible about everything.

Huffington Post officially hops into Obama's pocket

The next time you read the Huffington Post, remember their 'journalism' ethics.
The Obama administration wanted a question asked by the Huffington post on Iran. So they literally asked them to find a 'good' question ahead of time.

This is how it played out at the WH Press Conference:

THE PRESIDENT: Nico, I know that you, and all across the Internet, we've been seeing a lot of reports coming directly out of Iran. I know that there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. Do you have a question?

Q Yes, I did, I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian. We solicited questions last night from people who are still courageous enough to be communicating online, and one of them wanted to ask you this: Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad? And if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn't that a betrayal of what the demonstrators there are working towards?

Naturally, the rest of the press watched that exchange and their antenna went up.

Its considered unethical in journalism to ask the question that a politician actually asked you to pose. But the Huffington Post dove in anyway, and confirmed that they are a propaganda arm of this administration.

Politico noticed:

According to POLITICO's Carol Lee, The Huffington Post reporter was brought out of lower press by deputy press secretary Josh Earnest and placed just inside the barricade for reporters a few minutes before the start of the press conference.

Which makes sense. Josh would have talked to him right beforehand to see if he was on board.

According to AP, the White House confirmed that they had spoken to the Huffington Post:

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said there was nothing inappropriate in how an administration official phoned the Huffington Posts' Nico Pitney and suggested President Barack Obama might take a question from him if he came prepared with one submitted to the reporter from someone inside Iran.

Ap also noted that:

Obama replied with a familiar response, that it was too soon to know.

This was great reporting on Politico's part. They really called out Obama on his inability to add anything to the debate with a softball question that was preplanned. Kudos to the staff at Politico for trying to keep their fellow press honest. There is a lot of ass-kissing going on between the press and this White House. I'm heartened by the courage of Politico who, no doubt, is getting yelled at by a White House press toady at this very moment.

A few articles on health care that I'm looking at

Look at the giddiness of the Dems in announcing health care in this article on Politico. Its downright spooky how anxious they are to take over such a large segment of the society and turn it into a bureaucracy.

Then read this article at AP (via Yahoo) on how the Democrats strong armed yet another industry:

The pharmaceutical industry agreed Saturday to spend $80 billion over the next decade improving drug benefits for seniors on Medicare and defraying the cost of President Barack Obama's health care legislation, capping secretive negotiations involving key lawmakers and the White House.

What that means is that since Barack can't actually afford to give old people all of the drugs they need, he asked drug companies to offer a price break to Medicare. That price break, of course, will be passed over to consumers. It is, in effect, an invisible tax.
Here is another scary part of that article:

While none of the changes in the prescription drug program would directly lower government costs, several officials also said the industry agreed to measures that would give the Treasury more money under federal health programs. In particular, officials said drug companies would likely wind up paying pay higher rebates for certain drugs under Medicaid, the program that provides health care for the poor.

Note: the whole purpose of the government taking over health care was to make it cheaper. Remember?

This dichotomy is kinda reflected in a recent Pew poll:

Relatively few Americans believe the country as a whole is spending the right amount on health care at this point, but there is no consensus on what the problem is. Just as many Americans say we are spending too much on health care (38%) as too little (40%).

Here is another interesting tidbit for me:

People with no more than a high school education (47%) or some college (42%) are far more likely than are college graduates (31%) to favor a complete rebuilding of the health care system.

Go figure. Smarter people don't want to lose the best health care in the world, whereas dumb people want the government to control it.
Anyway, the important thing is that the government is coming for your health care. Obama wants it. Bad. And he's not going to stop until he controls it.

More transparency

The White House is blocking access to its visitor logs:

The Obama administration is fighting to block access to names of visitors to the White House, taking up the Bush administration argument that a president doesn't have to reveal who comes calling to influence policy decisions.

I think its fascinating that MSNBC is, in effect, blaming Bush for Obama's position. I don't remember them ever blaming Clinton for Bush taking the same position as Clinton. But maybe that's me.

I'M one of those people resisting Universal Health Care

In a recent article on Bloomberg, the writer talks about how Universal Health Care is a hard topic for volunteers to pitch. This is the author's take on the topic:

Obama is pursuing a goal that has eluded presidents of both parties for the past 60 years. He is counting on volunteers such as McArdle to help him marshal public support to overcome resistance to some aspects of his plan from hospitals, doctors and companies such as Louisville, Kentucky-based Humana Inc., the second-largest U.S. provider of government-backed health benefits.

I read through the article and noticed one thing: the writer never talked about the real opposition to health care... people like me. Its not just high powered companies that are resisting Universal Health Care. So I wrote back. I think my letter is good enough that I want to share it:

In a recent article, you wrote:
"He is counting on volunteers such as McArdle to help him marshal public support to overcome resistance to some aspects of his plan from hospitals, doctors and companies such as Louisville, Kentucky-based Humana Inc., the second-largest U.S. provider of government-backed health benefits."

You forgot to mention that the real problem; that they are trying to overcome resistance from people like myself. I know that the government will only make health care more expensive, that it will add another layer of bureaucracy to getting healthy, and that its impossible to reach the stated goals of Obama's plan. Already, the two central goals (that it will make health care affordable to everyone and be available to everyone who is not covered) have been exposed as fallacies. The current plan being floated will add 1.6 Trillion of debt and only cover 1/3rd of the uninsured.

I ask that the next time you write an article on the resistance towards universal health care, you talk to ordinary people like myself. I've been against the idea since Hillary pitched it the first time around. This president has only shown an ability to put us further into debt while creating more dependence on the government, and more pork.

I've talked to many people who support universal health care. The problem is always the same. They can't answer how adding $600 Billion (the original figure for launching universal health care) or $1 Trillion (the revised figure) or $1.6 Trillion (today's figure) is going to make health care cheaper for everyone.
I hope that you'll start asking that question too.

Skylights for a state-run liquor warehouse

That's one of many projects that the stimulus/pork program is paying for.
Does it sound ridiculous? Over-the-top?
Heck... how much do you think it would cost to put skylights into a warehouse?
$2.2 Million Dollars
The excuse? Its part of an energy saving program.
Let's do a cost-benefit analysis on that. How long do you think it would take to save 2.2 million in lighting and heating costs in a warehouse by adding skylights? More importantly: does anyone realize that light & heat are the two things that you're supposed to keep liquor away from?
But nevermind all of that. Someone thought it would be a good project, and someone is going to make 2.2 Million off of it.

This is just one of a hundred items that Senator Coburn, a Republican from OK, listed off as wasteful spending, according to this article from Yahoo.
The aritcle takes pains to explain that Coburn is a one of the most 'fiscally conservative' senators, and uses the famed term 'others' to hide that some people like pork projects:

The list by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., includes projects others would identify as ideal for creating jobs and benefiting generations of Americans: skateboard parks, streetscapes, upgrades of park facilities, bike trails and parking garages.

Yes, other people do identify those projects as ideal for creating jobs: senators. The rest of us know better. Creating a park is a great thing, but its not the best way to create jobs. Once the park is made, there is no extra benifit from the park that creates jobs.

Anyway, I know that, unfortunately, nothing will happen from this. Because the people who support Barack will forgive any pork he creates, and any wasteful spending that goes on. Including, but not restricted to:

...a $3.4 million Florida Department of Transportation project for an "eco-passage" - an underground wildlife road crossing for turtles and other wildlife in Lake Jackson, Florida...

Yes, you read that right.
That uber valuable stimulus package is paying for a way for turtles to avoid getting run over on a highway, by creating a $3.4 million dollar tunnel for them. Bizarre.

The Two Faces Of Barack

On one hand, Barack is doing everything he can to reduce our debt:

President Barack Obama sought on Tuesday to show he was serious about improving the U.S. budget picture as he called on Congress to pass new limits on tax cuts and spending programs to avoid adding to deficits.

On the other hand, he's gotta borrow a bunch of money indefinitely for his health care debacle:

President Barack Obama on Tuesday proposed budget rules that would allow Congress to borrow tens of billions of dollars and put the nation deeper in debt to jump-start the administration's emerging health care overhaul.

Yeah? Who didn't see this one coming?
I've been predicting this for like... a year.

It would carve out about $2.5 trillion worth of exemptions for Obama's priorities over the next decade. His health care reform plan also would get a green light to run big deficits in its early years. But over a decade, Congress would have to come up with money to cover those early year deficits.

Okay. So Barack's health care plan to save us billions starts with putting us into even more debt.

C'mon everyone. You're not that stupid.

The moment when your goverment officially took over a private business

Freedom is rarely lost in one big sweeping motion. It generally takes time, and a public who is asleep at the wheel.
Take this article from The Hill:

Rep Barney Frank (D-Mass.) won a stay of execution on Thursday for a General Motors plant in his district that the automaker had announced it would close.

No other lawmaker has managed to halt the GM ax. As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Frank oversees the government's bailout program, known as TARP. Frank's staff said the lawmaker spokes with GM CEO Fritz Henderson on Wednesday and convinced him to keep the Norton, Mass. plant open for at least 14 months.

Understand?

Barney Frank is now in the auto business. Now the government has officially interfered with what they are doing, and are dictating the terms of their business. That will work out just fine... don't you think?

Obama's threat to us: he's just getting started

Does that mean that $2 Trillion in debt in one year isn't enough for him?
Ugh.

And speaking of favorable press coverage

James Delingpole of the Telegraph savages the American press for their coverage of Obama:

Congratulations. Your presidential regime has managed to secure the most supine, slobbering, spineless, unquestioning media coverage since Enver Hoxha's Albania.

James... I'm not sure how you feel. Could you make yourself more clear?
:)

Obama's press coverage, the numbers

Somehow, I missed the release of this study of the media by the Center for Media and Public Affairs. It covers Obama in the first part of the administration.
Here is the highlight:

During his first 50 days in office, the three broadcast network evening news shows devoted 1021 stories lasting 27 hours 44 minutes to Barack Obama’s presidency. The daily average of seven stories and over 11 minutes of airtime represents about half of the entire newscasts. By contrast, at this point in their presidencies George W. Bush had received 7 hours 42 minutes and Bill Clinton garnered 15 hours 2 minutes of coverage, for a combined total airtime five hours less than Mr. Obama’s.

Yeah. We knew that.

Mr. Obama has received not only more press but also better press than his immediate predecessors. On the ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news, fifty-eight percent of all evaluations of the president and his policies have been favorable, and 42 percent were unfavorable. CMPA’s previous studies of network news found that George W. Bush received only 33 percent positive evaluations by sources and reporters during the first 50 days of his administration in 2001, and Bill Clinton received only 44 percent positive evaluations during his first ten weeks (70 days) in office in 1993.

I wonder if that type of coverage has any effect on his favorability ratings?
Here's a chart of Bill Clinton's favorability ratings over time.

Clinton's favorability rating dragged down to 45 percent by May 10th... a little over his first 100 days in office. Which eerily parallels his media coverage in the first 70 days.

That made me curious as to how Bush's favorabilty ratings were after 80 or so days. The theorey being that favorability ratings would lag behind coverage. I wondered if Bush's approval rating seemed to be as affected by the media coverage. But that doesn't seem to be the case. His approval rating hovered around 53 percent on May 7th. So yeah. Thus another neat theory bites the dust due to actual facts and statistics.

Pravda: Capitalism on wane

We all knew. Its nice for them to tell us.
For those of you who don't know... Pravda is the newspaper that was best known as the mouthpiece for Russia:

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

Yes. I can't argue with that.

Donate to Obama, get Ambassadorship

Okay... so its not quite that easy. But close.
Bloomberg has a story about a guy who raised a bunch of cash for Obama. Guess where he's going?

Susman, 71, a retired Citigroup Inc. senior investment banker, raised between $200,000 and $500,000 for President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and another $300,000 for his inauguration. On Wednesday, Obama nominated Susman to the post formally known as the Court of St. James.

Yes, just like every other crooked politician, Obama is appointing guys who gave him cash. So we're clear, its not just one guy.
Bloomberg lists off 3 others:

-- John Roos, chief executive officer of the Palo Alto, California-based law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, to Japan. He raised more than $500,000 for Obama.

-- Charles Rivkin, chief executive officer of Wildbrain Inc., to France. Rivkin collected more than $500,000 for Obama’s campaign and $300,000 for his inauguration.

-- Laurie Fulton, a partner with Williams & Connolly LLP, to Denmark. Fulton, 59, raised $100,000 to $200,000.

My hats off to Bloomberg for doing the research on this story. Not a lot of people are covering what Obama has done wrong. But that's for my next post.

UPDATE:

Someone pointed out to me the section in the article where they talked about Republican Tim Roemer, and how 'fair' his appointment was supposed to be. This is how Tim Roemer earned his seat at Obama's table:

Roemer campaigned for Obama in 11 states throughout the year. He said he's heard the rumors that he's being considered, but up until now, he's been "entirely focused and consumed" on the campaign.

So no... he didn't just do great deeds.

Ex president Clinton copping a feel on a starlet

Fran Drescher was accompanying Bill Clinton on the stage of the Life Ball charity event (oh man, the jokes are already writing themselves). As they made their way off stage, Bill lent a helping hand.
Someone on a BBS actually tried defending Bill by saying that his hand was on the small of her back. I've dated my share of women. The small of their back has never been between their hips.

Wouldn't it be weird if Obama opened up a "Dentention Center"?

Especially after he closed Gitmo?

I know. I'm being stupid now. Right....?
This was the headline from the New York Times article:

Obama Is Said to Consider Preventive Detention Plan

Buuuut, he'd still have trials. Right?

President Obama told human rights advocates at the White House on Wednesday that he was mulling the need for a “preventive detention” system that would establish a legal basis for the United States to incarcerate terrorism suspects who are deemed a threat to national security but cannot be tried, two participants in the private session said.

So Obama was talking to these human rights groups about the need for somewhere that you could put terrorism suspects who couldn't be tried. Like... Gitmo?

My favorite part of the story is that he was telling this to Human Rights advocates, who were presumably the biggest Obama supporters in the world. I would have loved to have seen their faces when the told them that he needed somewhere to put terrorism suspects without trials.
I kinda picture it like a scene from a poker match, where they just realized that they'd been bluffed.
Anyway, I have no doubt that they will somehow blame it on Bush.

Cheney's more popular then ever

While everyone is talking about Cheney's speech today, and while the talking heads are telling you that Cheney might be alienating people with his outspokenness, its important to know how Cheney is doing in the polls.

He's up 8 percent from the time he was in office.

House covers up for Pelosi

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been accusing the CIA of lying to her about waterboarding.

Naturally, this is a serious charge, and the Republicans in the House decided it was worth looking into.
Of course, as soon as they suggested it, every single democrat in the house blocked it.

According to Brietbart:
The House voted 252-172 to block the measure that would have created a bipartisan congressional panel. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, sponsored the resolution.
Note that the Democrats didn't even want to look into the matter. How lame is that?

Let's be clear on this. If the Democratic members of the House really believed Pelosi, they would be insisting that we investigate why the CIA lied to her.
This is nothing short of a very scared bunch of Democrats trying to protect their power, and trying to hide the truth.

Happier Than I Thought?

According to a recent study by the Pew research foundation, the secret to happiness is being old, male, and Republican.

Which would suggest that the secret to being unhappy is to be a young female democrat. But I digress.

The interesting thing is to read the comments on the LiveScience website that reports this. There are people there who are arguing that the survey isn't technically correct, but it says that because Republicans lie more. Which, to me, indicates something about the person who has come to that conclusion.

Anyway, I had a bad February and March, so my year has not been great. But when I stopped to think about it, I guess I really am happier then I "should" be. I have a positive outlook on things. I don't wait on other people to take care of me. I believe, for the most part, in myself.
I am a Republican.

Old News, on Cheney / Haliburton

This is actually from 2004, but its really important to make sure that everyone knows this.
Cheney has often been linked to Haliburton. FactCheck did a report on the link to see if Kerry's claims were true. In an ad for Kerry:
It says, "As vice president, Dick Cheney received $2 million from Halliburton. Halliburton got billions in no bid contracts in Iraq. Dick Cheney got $2 million. What did we get?"
Fact check investigated it.
Here is a partial list of what they found:
A Halliburton pay statement dated Jan 2, 2001 shows just under $147,579 was paid that day as "elect defrl payou," meaning payout of salary from the company's Elective Deferral Plan. That was salary Cheney had earned in 1999, but which he had chosen previously to receive in five installments spread over five years.
Read the whole thing, because its too complex to sum up here.
But let me hit on the key points. Cheney took a deferred payment plan when he quit Halliburton. Its a way for him to spread his payments over several years to reduce his taxes. That payment wouldn't change based on Halliburton's profits.
Cheney's stock options were a different matter. He assigned them to be paid to charity.

Another words, no matter what happened to Halliburton, Cheney couldn't have personally profited from it.
So the next time that someone tells you that Cheney was shelling for Halliburton, read the Fact Check, then school them on the truth.