Breitbart.tv » Top Obama Aide Blasts Fox News While Ducking MSNBC Question

The headline kinda speaks for itself.

Breitbart.tv » Top Obama Aide Blasts Fox News While Ducking MSNBC Question

Cash for Clunkers: $24,000 per vehicle

There was a study done on Edmunds.com on the Cash For Clunkers program. According to CNN, what they found is that a lot of the people who bought into the program were going to buy cars anyway.
By figuring out what it cost for people who were not going to buy a car, but were probably swayed by the program, Edmunds figured out the actual cost of every new car bought (that wouldn't have been) at about $24,000.

CBO: Public plan premiums will be more expensive then the 'health exchange' premiums by private insurers

Thanks again to the Politico for reporting this:

The public insurance option would typically charge higher premiums than private plans available in the exchange, according to the Congressional Budget Office analysis of the House bill.

Again, completely predictable. The government plans to take over the insurance... and it costs more.

What are health insurance profits?

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you AP for actually fact checking this:

Health insurance profit margins typically run about 6 percent, give or take a point or two. That's anemic compared with other forms of insurance and a broad array of industries, even some beleaguered ones.

Who woulda thought?
Oh yeah... Republicans, who have been pointing this out for a month now.

My president, the asshat

Explaining that unlike Democrats, Republicans do what they are told to do...


Mr. President: no one had to tell me to call you an asshat.
I figured that out on my own.

Barney Frank admits trying to increase the role of government in everything

This video, from Real Clear Politics, needs to be seen to be believed.

What if Bush had done that?

Politico has a great article titled:
What if Bush had done that?

Its a good read. Here's a short section.

A four-hour stop in New Orleans, on his way to a $3 million fundraiser.

Snubbing the Dalai Lama.

Signing off on a secret deal with drug makers.

Freezing out a TV network.

Doing more fundraisers than the last president. More golf, too.

Liveblogging; I'm going through bill H.R. 3962

Bill H.R. 3962 is the latest health care bill introduced to congress.

You can download it at that link. Its 1,990 pages of regulations.

I'll be going through it over the next few days. Forgive me for not printing this one out, since it would literally take 4 REAMS OF PAPER to print it. Just to give you an idea of how much paper that is... my toner cartridge is good for about 3,000 pages.
2/3rds of my toner cartridge would be used if I printed the full thing.

If you're reading it with me, the first few pages are the table of contents.
Up until page 16, its page after page of definitions that they are using for the sake of the bill.

I'm now on the first page of actual bill, which is entitled:
SEC. 101. NATIONAL HIGH-RISK POOL PROGRAM.

This is a pool that would be established Jan. 1st, 2010; or about two months from now.
I presume that this is to placate the people on the left who were complaining that the health care bill wasn't even going to cover anyone for two years.

Van Jones Resigns!!!

Fox News has a copy of the resignation.
Since its a WH document, I presume I can quote it in full:

"I am resigning my post at the Council on Environmental Quality, effective today.

On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide.

I have been inundated with calls - from across the political spectrum - urging me to "stay and fight."

But I came here to fight for others, not for myself. I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future.

It has been a great honor to serve my country and my President in this capacity. I thank everyone who has offered support and encouragement. I am proud to have been able to make a contribution to the clean energy future. I will continue to do so, in the months and years ahead."

Lies and distortions?
Yeah. Right.
It seems as though the real reason that Van Jones is resigning is because his balls are so big that they take up too much valuable space in the White House.

Obama-related Ad Company gets contract for Health Care PR push

This isn't too surprising... is it?
Bloomburg.com should get some kind of Pulitzer for covering this story. Why hasn't anyone else picked up on this?

Two firms that received $343.3 million to handle advertising for Barack Obama’s White House run last year have profited from his top priority as president by taking on his push for health-care overhaul.

One of those companies is David Axelrod's old company.
I'd call this a kickback, but that would be redundant to suggest that a Chicago Democrat was arranging for their own kickback.

To make this even more funny, Obama was completely hypocritical when he accused insurance companies of funding the 'opposition'.

“In some cases what we’ve seen is also funding in opposition by some other insurance companies to any kind of reform proposals.”

$343 Million is being spent to sell us on Universal Health Care, and Obama is complaining that the insurance companies are spending too much money to defeat it? What a jackass.

Newsweek: 'Socialism Is the Best Medicine'

Okay, so we always knew that Newsweek felt that way. But this time they said it out loud.

Most Americans have heard horror stories of long waits for health-care services in other countries. But according to a study by the Commonwealth Fund, Americans wait longer to see primary-care physicians than patients in Britain, Germany, Australia, or New Zealand all countries with strong public-health systems.

How did they come to the conclusion that socialist health care is better then other countries? Oh, that's simple. They quoted a study from the Commonwealth Fund.

From their 'about us' section of their website:

The Commonwealth Fund is a private foundation that aims to promote a high performing health care system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly for society's most vulnerable, including low-income people, the uninsured, minority Americans, young children, and elderly adults.

The Fund carries out this mandate by supporting independent research on health care issues and making grants to improve health care practice and policy. An international program in health policy is designed to stimulate innovative policies and practices in the United States and other industrialized countries.

Did anyone expect them to come up with any other conclusion?

The Joker Artist is a Chicagoan

When I first saw this poster, I thought it was awesome! I still do.

I know that some people don't get the social commentary. They don't get why someone would compare the joker to someone who believes in socialism. But to people like me, its not that the joker = socialism.
The joker was someone who pronounced himself to be something that he wasn't. He kept insisting that he was an agent of anarchy, but all along, he had a plan. Remember how he tried convincing the district attorney that he had little to do with the death of Rachael? How he tried to use fear against the people of Gotham to get them to kill each other?

Anyway, someone did their homework and found out who did the original poster. According to the Los Angelos Times, the original artist is Firas Alkhateeb from the University Of Illinois. It appears that Firas isn't a Republican, but just a guy who was bothered by the celebrity worship of Obama. So he created the following cover of Time.

Apparently, someone photoshopped out the Time Logo and kept the original image... adding the "Socialism" tagline.

Firas kept quiet about the whole thing, even though he's not the guy who called Obama a socialist. Seems that he was a little worried about the Obama fanatics going a little nuts. Which is a valid fear.

I'm pretty impressed with what Firas did on many levels. But mostly because he took on a cultural icon in Chicago. As a person who lives here, I can only compliment him on his courage.

What does the country care about the most?

In January of 2009, the Pew Research Center asked the American public what their main policy priorities were. The results might surprise you, given what the administration is spending its time on.

Here are the priorities, as given then:
Economy
Jobs
Terrorism
Social Security
Education
Energy
Medicare
Health Care
Deficit Reduction


The list goes on.
I put it here to remind people that Medicare and Health Care were not the top things on the list. And they were right next to 'deficit reduction' in the priorities of the people.

5 Health Care Freedoms you'll Lose

From CNN Money:

1. Freedom to choose what's in your plan

The bills in both houses require that Americans purchase insurance through "qualified" plans offered by health-care "exchanges" that would be set up in each state. The rub is that the plans can't really compete based on what they offer. The reason: The federal government will impose a minimum list of benefits that each plan is required to offer.

I've talked about this before.

Anytime the government is able to give specific details on the way a business is run, its disaster.

I hate everything about this bill. Please read CNNs article.

Obama's Town Hall was literally bussed in at New Hampshire

According to the White House, the people who oppose his health care program are pre-fabricated protests, and not real.
Yet, in New Hampshire, a lot of the people supporting his plan were bussed in.

Don't believe me?
Go watch this video, and listen to the reporter. At around 40 seconds in, she says that 'busloads' of 'supporters' arrived.
Thanks to WMUR in New Hampshire for reporting that.

Tampa Bay incident, accorrding to HuffPo

I'm just adding a permanant link to my blog so that I can find this story when I need it again.
This is about a town meeting in Tampa Bay, and how the protesters were confronted by union goons who threw them out of the town hall meeting.
Pay close attention to the guy with the video camera, recording everyone. You'll note that HuffPo blames the protesters for the escalating violence. But its clear to anyone who follows the links to the Tampa Tribune that Randy Arthur was violated by the 'pro health care' thugs.

Obama as Hitler... not

Here's a blogger who runs down the source of a 'protestor' with a Hitler poster.
It turns out that the 'protestor' is more likely a universal health care fan, rather then a foe. Go figure.

11 yo reporter interviews Obama; -inset joke here-

The full story is here.

Possible punch lines:
"No, this time it wasn't Matt Lauer."
"For the first time, hard questions"
"Reporter, unlike president, doesn't know how to use a teleprompter"

The possibilities are endless...

There is the deficit, and then the Deficit

Almost a decade ago I took an accounting class. I own my own business. I realized that I was horrible at keeping records, and I wanted to become better at it.

I hated accounting. So much of it seemed common sense to me. But there were a few aspects of the class that really resonated with me: like the concept of running a deficit.

I had taken a basic economics class previously, when I earned by Bachelor's degree. I was familiar with the idea of how the government ran a deficit, and how dangerous it was. The accounting class reiterated the problems of running a deficit, and how many businesses would try to hide the deficit with accounting tricks.

I knew - at the time - that the biggest company is the US that hides the true cost of their deficit is the US government.

I've tried explaining this to a lot of people. The hardest part to explain is how - in the years that we were running a 'surplus' - there was no surplus. The debt continued to go up. Yet, its been reported everywhere that there was a surplus and economists will tell you that our country ran a surplus.
But anyone who took economics or accounting knows this is a lie. You can't run a surplus and have your debt increase.

Anyway, when someone forwarded me this old article by USA Today, it was heartening to me. It explains what you need to know about the 'real' federal deficit. Keep in mind, this is from August of '04:

The set the government doesn't talk about is the audited financial statement produced by the government's accountants following standard accounting rules. It reports a more ominous financial picture: a $760 billion deficit for 2005. If Social Security and Medicare were included — as the board that sets accounting rules is considering — the federal deficit would have been $3.5 trillion.

The reason for this disparity is because the government doesn't include all of their liabilities on the books. The USA Today article explains it very well, and I don't want to impinge on their copyright... but I wish that everyone would read it.

G550s, the only way to fly

Everyone dreams about winning the lotto.
The last time I did, I wondered how much money it would cost to buy a personal jet. I kept going to different websites until I found the jet of choice: A Gulfstream 550.

Of course, the problem was that I couldn't afford it. Beyond the cost of initial aquisition ($65 million), the jets are pretty costly to keep. Most websites put the yearly upkeep at anywhere from $1 to $2 million to own a jet like that.

So I shelved my dream for now.

But most recently, I found out that if you really want a personal jet that you can share with friends, you can always become a member of congress:

Last year, lawmakers excoriated the CEOs of the Big Three automakers for traveling to Washington, D.C., by private jet to attend a hearing about a possible bailout of their companies.

But apparently Congress is not philosophically averse to private air travel: At the end of July, the House approved nearly $200 million for the Air Force to buy three elite Gulfstream jets for ferrying top government officials and Members of Congress.

I love irony.