TPM is one of those groups who thinks that the only reason why Obamacare has a bad rap is because they aren't pushing the message right. They say:
Last summer, members were caught unprepared and were faced with angry voters, loud protests and televised meetings that portrayed them in many cases as fumbling and unsure of how to talk about a bill that didn't actually exist yet.
Its kind of a blunt assessment from a blog that before blamed the chaos on Tea Party members yelling. Now they admit that congress critters didn't know what they were saying.
The Democrats actually put out a whole set of Talking Points for their lemmings... er.. congresspeople, to mimic. If you want to ask them a question, be prepared to hear a pre-recorded message.
Never let it be said that I won't publish the same crap the Democrats are pushing. Let's take one talking point, from 'four key points':
Is fully paid for – costs $940 billion over a decade. (Americans spend nearly $2.5 trillion each year on health care now and nearly two-thirds of the bill is paid for by reducing health care costs).
It is not fully paid for. The only way it could possibly be paid for is if they reduce medicare by $500 billion over ten years. Who believes that they would do that? They also pay for it by taxing anyone who doesn't get health care insurance.
There are a lot of clueless journalists out there. A lot of columnists who never get out of their home offices enough to talk to real people and find out what real people think.
But when those particular asshats work for the New York Times, they seem to take on a whole new dimension of asshattedness.
Frank Rich believes that the opposition that the president and congress has run into over the past week has nothing to do with health care. Frank wrote:
How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn’t recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht. The weapon of choice for vigilante violence at Congressional offices has been a brick hurled through a window. So far.
Let's put aside the fact that Tea Party members do not liken Obama to Hitler. As most of us know, there were LaRouche protesters who showed up at Tea Party rallies with [insert current president here] being compared to Hitler. They used to do it with Bush. Now they do it with Obama. Let's also forget for a moment that it was the left who came up with the term BushHitler.
The question is: how fucking offensive can you get in comparing 4 broken windows across a country of 300 million with the destruction of 7500 Jewish businesses, during a period where 200 synagogues were damaged or destroyed? The only thing missing from Frank Rich's comparison, outside of it being approximately 7496 windows short, is the fact that the Jewish people were being attacked for being Jewish. Whereas the democrats were apparently targeted for voting for a bill that was unpopular with the majority of the country.
Rich moves on:
No less curious is how disproportionate this red-hot anger is to its proximate cause
This just shows how clueless Rich is, that we 'shouldn't' be angry that our health care is being taken over by the government which should result in higher premiums and health care of a lower quality. Not to mention the loss of liberty: for the first time in the history of the US, the US government is requiring us to buy a private product. If losing my liberty isn't a good reason to be upset... what is?
Now let me make this clear, in case anyone is a little fuzzy on this. I believe in non-violent protest. There is no place for vandalism. But freaking out over the 4 broken windows in the entire US and making it sound like all hell is breaking loose is obscene. Frank didn't stop there:
If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play.
Frank is old. I'm not saying that to make light of his age. I'm saying that to point out that he's old enough to remember Bill Clinton pushing his health care bill. Back then, people like Frank Rich blamed opposition to the bill on Hillary Clinton's involvement. Not much has changed since then. They are still blaming opposition on everything except the bill itself.
Its like he literally can't figure out why anyone would be opposed to it. His brain can't handle the idea of people taking care of their own health insurance. He doesn't know why anyone would be opposed to more government intervention in our lives. That's how much of a democrat he is. Its what makes him almost dangerously dumb. And for the record, when I say that he's dangerously dumb, it doesn't mean that I want to shoot him or slash his tires. I do, however, hope that the New York Times continues its slow and eventual decline into bankruptcy.
Investor's .com came up with a list of 20 ways that the health care bill will take away our freedom. My 'favorite';
6. You must buy a policy that covers ambulatory patient services, emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment; prescription drugs; rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices; laboratory services; preventive and wellness services; chronic disease management; and pediatric services, including oral and vision care. You're a single guy without children? Tough, your policy must cover pediatric services. You're a woman who can't have children? Tough, your policy must cover maternity services. You're a teetotaler? Tough, your policy must cover substance abuse treatment. (Add your own violation of personal freedom here.) (Section 1302).
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former CBO director, explains the faulty math in the CBO's 'costs' of health care in the NY Times:
Gimmick No. 1 is the way the bill front-loads revenues and backloads spending. That is, the taxes and fees it calls for are set to begin immediately, but its new subsidies would be deferred so that the first 10 years of revenue would be used to pay for only 6 years of spending.
Even worse, some costs are left out entirely. To operate the new programs over the first 10 years, future Congresses would need to vote for $114 billion in additional annual spending. But this so-called discretionary spending is excluded from the Congressional Budget Office’s tabulation.
The worst part about it is that in Douglas' opinion, the CBO should have been more critical of the spending.
Speaking of spending, Social Security finally hit the point of no return... where outlays are more then revenue. We are now also running a Social Security deficit:
This year, the system will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes, an important threshold it was not expected to cross until at least 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
But we need to spend more on social programs. Right.
Ending one of the fiercest lobbying fights in Washington, Congress voted Thursday to force commercial banks out of the federal student loan market, cutting off billions of dollars in profits in a sweeping restructuring of financial-aid programs and redirecting most of the money to new education initiatives.
This is like taking the car keys away from the guy who is stumbling drunk and giving them to the guy who is passed out, and telling him, "Here... you look responsible!"
A week after the health care takeover was passed, Rasmussen did a poll. They found out the following:
One week after the House of Representatives passed the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats, 54% of the nation's likely voters still favor repealing the new law. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 42% oppose repeal.
The only people who didn't see that coming were hard core democrats.
As soon as I heard about Organizing For America, it reminded me of the old soviet groups that were formed to make sure that everyone in the communist party was on the same page. We can't have people, you know, thinking too much on their own. You need just the right amount of government pez-disepensed propaganda out there.
The online tool presents users with a radio show discussing political topics, to which supporters can listen live, and the phone number for that station, for when health care comes up. It also offers tips for callers and talking points on the issue.
On the plus side, it doesn't implant a chip directly into their brain. It just, uh, tells them, uh, what to say, and how to say it right. Uh huh.
Someone told me the other day that tort reform was in the health care bill, which literally made me say "What the fuck?", since I hadn't heard a damn thing about it.
So I researched it. And guess what... it never happened. From Politifact:
So, Democrats have not included medical malpractice limits in either the House or Senate version of the bills. Instead, the administration has said it will give some states $3 million grants to test new approaches for limiting lawsuits.
Where is the left getting their info from? Its like these factoids just spontaneously show up, and they repeat them verbatim.
The other day, a very liberal friend of mine was suggesting that I was paranoid for not trusting my government. (I wanted to point out to him that a couple of years ago, he was the one who didn't trust his government... but nevermind.) CNN just did a poll, and found out the following:
Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government's become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. Forty-four percent of those polled disagree.
Are you paranoid if the majority of Americans agree with you? Or are we all just tightly wound?
Twenty-five percent of people questioned in the poll say Congress should pass legislation similar to the bills passed by both chambers, with 48 percent saying lawmakers should work on an entirely new bill and a quarter saying Congress should stop all work on health care reform. CNN then goes on to point out that 'portions' of the bill are 'very popular'.
Its pretty simple. I like cheese. I love chocolate. I do not want cheese on my chocolate.
Similarly, the public likes some of the basic thoughts of the health care bill. But they really don't like what it all means as a package.
When I read this article by Thomas Friedman, it seemed pretty bizarre. He starts out by talking about how the government was charging for 911 phone calls, drags the Greatest Generation into his argument, and talks about how maybe Obama can't get health care passed because Republicans don't understand how he's trying to rebuild. He has the audacity to blame the current deficit on Republicans and suggests that the health care bill will REDUCE the deficit. He ends the commentary by suggesting that if "Obama fails" to pass his agenda, we all fail.
I thought it was a rambling and bizarre train of thought.
Then I read Eberts column a week later. At first, I zipped past him referencing Friendman, because he did it in one small aside. But his column is almost a repeat of exactly what Friedman said. I wonder if Ebert even knew he was doing it.
There's nothing that annoys me more then when something is pulled out of context to make it sound more inflammatory then what it already is. Particularly when someone says something controversial in the first place. Here's an example.
You probably found this quote somewhere recently:
"And I believe 2010 is it. All right? And we can do it with our vote. And we can get new faces in, whether it's my face or not, I pray to God that I see new faces. And if we don't see new faces, I'm cleaning my guns and getting ready for the big show. And I'm serious about that, and I bet you are, too."
"That's the beauty of this, folks. We can do it before it gets to guns," said Behney, in praise of the electoral process. "All right, our founders brought out the guns. When they showed up at Lexington and Concord, regular folks, farm boys, doctors, merchant men, and they said you ain't taking our stuff. They stood up to the most powerful army in the world, and they bought our freedom, literally with their blood. And we don't have to do that yet.
"I believe personally, we're at a crossroads. We have one last opportunity. And I believe 2010 is it. All right? And we can do it with our vote. And we can get new faces in, whether it's my face or not, I pray to God that I see new faces. And if we don't see new faces, I'm cleaning my guns and getting ready for the big show. And I'm serious about that, and I bet you are, too. But I know none of us want to go that far yet, and we can do it with our vote."
It reads a little differently that way, doesn't it? I mean, his whole focus is on the vote.
Look, I understand that its still a little inflammatory. But given that, why wasn't it quoted in full? Well, I think that the answer is obvious. The left has no interest in portraying Tea Party members accurately. Not when they've already drawn their cartoons.
"That's the beauty of this, folks. We can do it before it gets to guns," said Behney, in praise of the electoral process. "All right, our founders brought out the guns. When they showed up at Lexington and Concord, regular folks, farm boys, doctors, merchant men, and they said you ain't taking our stuff. They stood up to the most powerful army in the world, and they bought our freedom, literally with their blood. And we don't have to do that yet.
"I believe personally, we're at a crossroads. We have one last opportunity. And I believe 2010 is it. All right? And we can do it with our vote. And we can get new faces in, whether it's my face or not, I pray to God that I see new faces. And if we don't see new faces, I'm cleaning my guns and getting ready for the big show. And I'm serious about that, and I bet you are, too. But I know none of us want to go that far yet, and we can do it with our vote."
If you go to the White House, you'll find a link to both the Senate and House Republican plans.
Wait: I thought that they didn't have one? Huh. I guess that they not only do, but the Republicans had plans going back months into May and June. Weird how that happened to get ignored by the press, eh? Weirder still that the White House is linking to it today.
I took economics in college. I love my economics instructor, because he was not a capitalist by nature. However, he understood the capitalist system, and clearly illustrated the fundamentals of math behind economics.
With that in mind, I'm glad to see that the American public is becoming educated in Keynesian Economics, and even rejecting: Americans Reject Keynesian Economics
In fact, 59% think Keynes had it backwards and that increasing the deficit at this time would hurt the economy rather than help.
To help the economy, most Americans (56%) believe that cutting the deficit is the way to go.
But the laughter has been reduced by half in recent months: In the first six months of the Obama administration, briefings produced an average of 179 laughs per month. Over the past six months, the average has dropped down to 89.
The point of all of this? That the press may be getting tired of the same old excuses and 'aw shucks' 'did we do that?' attitude of the White House.
Gallup just recently gave congress a historic negative approval rating. According to this poll:
Congress' job approval rating from Americans fell six points in the past month, from 24% to 18% -- the lowest reading in more than a year. Nearly 8 in 10 (78%) now disapprove.
I want to feel sorry for the guy. Its true what he says. He wasn't ready for the criticism that he recieved when it was revealed that he was one of the scientists at the center of a global warming scandal. It must have been hard to have all of those people criticize him just because they felt that he... ... wait a minute.
In another, Jones and Mann discuss how they can pressure an academic journal not to accept the work of climate skeptics with whom they disagree. "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal," Mann writes.
"I will be emailing the journal to tell them I'm having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor," Jones replies.
So Jones tries to discredit other scientists, and he thinks its part of his job.
When someone tries to discredit Jones, they are... they are what?
In my opinion, they are trying to reveal the truth?
How is it that Obama knows so many bigoted people.
Remember Wright, the racist mayor? Or Reid, who 'complimented' Obama on his lack of a negro dialect? Or his VP Biden, who said that he was a "clean, articulate black man"?
How about Rahm Emmanuel? He said that Democrats were retarded. Retarded. Neat. Well, at least he apologized for it. Not to Democrats. To the people who have mental conditions that are not politically related. According to Poitico:
The Special Olympics is disputing the White House claim that its chairman, Tim Shriver, accepted Rahm Emanuel's apology for calling liberals "retarded."
