....from those who lead the most active, healthy lifestyles to those who lead the most unhealthy, uninsured lifestyles. The New York Post:
Health-care "reform," that is, aims to shift costs and benefits of health insurance from some groups to others. And the losers are turning out to be less docile than politicians had hoped.
All the leading proposals involve massive redistribution from people with healthy lifestyles to those who take more risks.
As the Congressional Budget Office explained, "Premiums in the new insurance exchanges would tend to be higher than the average premiums in the current-law individual market . . . because the new policies would have to cover pre-existing medical conditions and could not deny coverage to people with high expected costs for health care."
So where's the incentive to stay healthy? Might as well stock up on bacon and cheese, because some poor sucker who jogs two miles a day to stay in shape is gonna pay for your bypass anyway!
And if you have employer-provider insurance? Don't worry, you're boned as well:
There would also be redistribution from people with employer-paid insurance (particularly in risky jobs with high premiums) to those who would be induced to shun such benefits in order to qualify for taxpayer subsidies.
Why opt in to your employer's plan if the government's can wind up being a tad cheaper for you come April 15th? And why should your employer offer benefits at all, if they can save money by dumping you onto the government plan?
Did you mock Joe the Plumber when he cried foul on Obama's attempt to "spread" his wealth? Bet you didn't realize then that just having health insurance made you "wealthy", and now you're gonna have to pay more for less. But don't complain, you selfish, unpatriotic bastard!
Sure, everyone loves socialism - until they're told that they are the rich that need to be soaked...
Monday, October 12, 2009
Democrats: Destroying The Black Community
While I often rant about Jewish loyalty to the Democratic party - even at a time where it's leader is a clear anti-Semite - I really should question black's loyalties to their party as well. After all, look at the cities and states that have full-fledged, lifetime Democratic leadership - from Detroit to Newark - and you'll find places where the lot of the black man has not improved one whit.
So I thought that this little nugget about the federally-mandated rise in the minimum wage - forced through and trumpeted by Democrats nationwide - was especially relevant:
Congress raised the minimum wage again in July, a direct slam at low-skilled and young workers. The black teen jobless rate has since climbed to 50.4% from 39.2% in two months. Congress is also moving ahead with a mountain of new mandates, from mandatory paid leave to the House's health-care payroll surtax of 5.4%. All of these policy changes give pause to employers as they contemplate the cost of new hires....
That's two months, folks. How will the African-American community survive through four years of what will be a Democratic-inspired economic holocaust visited on their population? Are they willing to keep voting loyally for the Democrats on the promise that "once we drive you into poverty, we'll redistribute some income from whatever rich are still left so you can survive on a day to day basis"?
The Democrats have kept blacks on their political plantation for a quarter-century by fear; by telling them that the other guys hate them, and are hood-wearing, noose-carrying racists by night who would surely starve them if they just had a little more power...and then they turn around, of course, and continue to starve the black man by engaging in economic illiteracy such as the minimum wage fiasco. Not to mention such nonsense as teaching "ebonics", urging softer treatment of the criminals who prey on the black community, and the nonstop reminder that they are just victims, victims, victims....
So the Jews and blacks apparently will go down together, ironically, their allegiance to political liberalism being held as more important than their survival. Unless they wake up from their long slumber, and give a try to the other guy...
And while we're on the topic of minimum wage, two points that I'd like to reiterate - first, on how Congress has just wreaked wanton destruction on America's young workers:
Minimum wage jobs are entry level positions. They are the first rung on young workers career ladder, where they learn essential career skills such as self-discipline, accepting direction from a boss, and interacting productively with customers and co-workers. Minimum wage positions provide on-the-job training in career skills. As minimum wage workers gain these skills they become more productive and earn raises – two-thirds of minimum wage workers earn a raise within a year.
Cutting off the bottom rung of this career ladder means that teenage workers delay acquiring these skills. This hurts their earnings and employment prospects for up to a decade later. If Congress hopes to change teenage workers employment prospects it should stop pricing them out of their jobs.
And here's a economic model that small business owners are facing more and more every day; for those members of Congress that think small businesses grow their money on trees, and that it is ripe fruit for the picking(or at least regulating), try this economic conundrum on for size:
Small business - profits $100K/year
4 employees, minimum wage $5-/hr (I'm rounding a bit), 10 hours a day
New government mandated wage $7-/hr.
Extra cost $80-/day, $480/wk (assuming six days), $24,960-year
Profit declines to $75K/yr (incidentally, government revenues decline as a result of lower taxable income, but that's only a side disaster)
Does the business owner:
-take his loss, maybe sell his home, pull a kid out of college, put off buying new equipment/car (that'll help the economy, Nancy!), or reduce his standard of living?
-raise his prices and hope he doesn't lose customers, thus further harming his business?
Or
-Does he fire one of his workers, recovering $22K of $25K lost?
And this is all before health care taxes and energy taxes come into play...how will the black community survive this assault from the Democrats?
Or am I racist just for asking?
So I thought that this little nugget about the federally-mandated rise in the minimum wage - forced through and trumpeted by Democrats nationwide - was especially relevant:
Congress raised the minimum wage again in July, a direct slam at low-skilled and young workers. The black teen jobless rate has since climbed to 50.4% from 39.2% in two months. Congress is also moving ahead with a mountain of new mandates, from mandatory paid leave to the House's health-care payroll surtax of 5.4%. All of these policy changes give pause to employers as they contemplate the cost of new hires....
That's two months, folks. How will the African-American community survive through four years of what will be a Democratic-inspired economic holocaust visited on their population? Are they willing to keep voting loyally for the Democrats on the promise that "once we drive you into poverty, we'll redistribute some income from whatever rich are still left so you can survive on a day to day basis"?
The Democrats have kept blacks on their political plantation for a quarter-century by fear; by telling them that the other guys hate them, and are hood-wearing, noose-carrying racists by night who would surely starve them if they just had a little more power...and then they turn around, of course, and continue to starve the black man by engaging in economic illiteracy such as the minimum wage fiasco. Not to mention such nonsense as teaching "ebonics", urging softer treatment of the criminals who prey on the black community, and the nonstop reminder that they are just victims, victims, victims....
So the Jews and blacks apparently will go down together, ironically, their allegiance to political liberalism being held as more important than their survival. Unless they wake up from their long slumber, and give a try to the other guy...
And while we're on the topic of minimum wage, two points that I'd like to reiterate - first, on how Congress has just wreaked wanton destruction on America's young workers:
Minimum wage jobs are entry level positions. They are the first rung on young workers career ladder, where they learn essential career skills such as self-discipline, accepting direction from a boss, and interacting productively with customers and co-workers. Minimum wage positions provide on-the-job training in career skills. As minimum wage workers gain these skills they become more productive and earn raises – two-thirds of minimum wage workers earn a raise within a year.
Cutting off the bottom rung of this career ladder means that teenage workers delay acquiring these skills. This hurts their earnings and employment prospects for up to a decade later. If Congress hopes to change teenage workers employment prospects it should stop pricing them out of their jobs.
And here's a economic model that small business owners are facing more and more every day; for those members of Congress that think small businesses grow their money on trees, and that it is ripe fruit for the picking(or at least regulating), try this economic conundrum on for size:
Small business - profits $100K/year
4 employees, minimum wage $5-/hr (I'm rounding a bit), 10 hours a day
New government mandated wage $7-/hr.
Extra cost $80-/day, $480/wk (assuming six days), $24,960-year
Profit declines to $75K/yr (incidentally, government revenues decline as a result of lower taxable income, but that's only a side disaster)
Does the business owner:
-take his loss, maybe sell his home, pull a kid out of college, put off buying new equipment/car (that'll help the economy, Nancy!), or reduce his standard of living?
-raise his prices and hope he doesn't lose customers, thus further harming his business?
Or
-Does he fire one of his workers, recovering $22K of $25K lost?
And this is all before health care taxes and energy taxes come into play...how will the black community survive this assault from the Democrats?
Or am I racist just for asking?
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Trippi Frets Over Ignoble Nobel...
Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist, said that if the job market remained sour, he expected to see the Nobel medallion featured prominently in GOP attack ads with such lines as: "He got a Nobel Prize. What did you get? A pink slip.""
Either the economy is going, and this won't matter, or this will be another tool in the Republicans' arsenal to accuse the president of not doing enough," Trippi said.
"Maybe if he won the Nobel Prize for economic recovery and created hundreds of thousands of new jobs, this would be a good thing for him politically," Trippi said.
Maybe. And maybe fireworks will shoot out of my ass.
Maybe I'm wrong, though. Remember, this is the same crew that gave the hapless Paul Krugman ("Congress needs to undo the sins of February, and approve another big round of aid to state governments. We don’t have to call it a stimulus...") a Nobel prize for economics...and if it's all about intent and not about results, maybe two stimuli with a combined price of close to $2 trillion will be enough to award Obama that second prize - say, right as he's running for re-election.
Let's see if Baracky, as he preens before the crowd while accepting his $1 million cash prize, remembers who his ultimate judges are...
Either the economy is going, and this won't matter, or this will be another tool in the Republicans' arsenal to accuse the president of not doing enough," Trippi said.
"Maybe if he won the Nobel Prize for economic recovery and created hundreds of thousands of new jobs, this would be a good thing for him politically," Trippi said.
Maybe. And maybe fireworks will shoot out of my ass.
Maybe I'm wrong, though. Remember, this is the same crew that gave the hapless Paul Krugman ("Congress needs to undo the sins of February, and approve another big round of aid to state governments. We don’t have to call it a stimulus...") a Nobel prize for economics...and if it's all about intent and not about results, maybe two stimuli with a combined price of close to $2 trillion will be enough to award Obama that second prize - say, right as he's running for re-election.
Let's see if Baracky, as he preens before the crowd while accepting his $1 million cash prize, remembers who his ultimate judges are...
Sunday Propaganda
When you read this headline, what does it make you think?
Solar power outshining Colorado's gas industry
Well, it made me think that people in Colorado are turning off the gas and turning on solar power, to such an extent that it's hurting the natural gas industry. What systems has Colorado's power distributors developed, I wondered as I clicked, that has cheapened the notoriously expensive alternative-energy option?
Well, it turns out they don't have a new system, but a new partner - the federal government - which is helping alternative energy concerns survive (not thrive, as the headline would mislead you to believe) by simply destroying the competition, Soprano-style:
As La Plata County in southwestern Colorado looks to shift to cleaner sources of energy, solar is becoming the power source of choice even though it still produces only a small fraction of the region's electricity. It's being nudged along by tax credits and rebates, a growing concern about the gases heating up the planet, and the region's plentiful sunshine.
The natural gas industry, which produces more gas here than nearly every other county in Colorado, has been relegated to the shadows.
Tougher state environmental regulations and lower natural gas prices have slowed many new drilling permits. As a result, production — and the jobs that come with it — have leveled off.
With the county and city drawing up plans to reduce the emissions blamed for global warming and Congress weighing the first mandatory limits, the industry once again finds itself on the losing side of the debate.
In a nutshell: the fact that solar power is an option at all ("a small fraction", indeed) is due to the fact the government, both local and federal, are handcuffing the state's gas industry. The headline could equally read as follows:
Limits on energy production leave Colorado's future under a cloud
...but that wouldn't help the president, or the Democrat's radical energy agenda, would it?
I guess the AP/Yahoo see this type of thuggery as something to yahoo! about...except when the time comes, of course, when the government sees fit to choose winners and losers on the Internet...
And just imagine what will happen when the government takes over health care, and your plan becomes a loser, according to the government....
Don't worry! When the cost of your plan doubles so that the ER can be crowded with illegal immigrants, AP/Yahoo will be sure to provide you with propaganda such as..
Health Care Plan a Boon To Undocumented Visitors
UPDATE: in a similar vein, Paul Krugman advises using different words to describe unpopular governance, in a piece aptly titled The Uneducated American:
Congress needs to undo the sins of February, and approve another big round of aid to state governments. We don’t have to call it a stimulus...
Solar power outshining Colorado's gas industry
Well, it made me think that people in Colorado are turning off the gas and turning on solar power, to such an extent that it's hurting the natural gas industry. What systems has Colorado's power distributors developed, I wondered as I clicked, that has cheapened the notoriously expensive alternative-energy option?
Well, it turns out they don't have a new system, but a new partner - the federal government - which is helping alternative energy concerns survive (not thrive, as the headline would mislead you to believe) by simply destroying the competition, Soprano-style:
As La Plata County in southwestern Colorado looks to shift to cleaner sources of energy, solar is becoming the power source of choice even though it still produces only a small fraction of the region's electricity. It's being nudged along by tax credits and rebates, a growing concern about the gases heating up the planet, and the region's plentiful sunshine.
The natural gas industry, which produces more gas here than nearly every other county in Colorado, has been relegated to the shadows.
Tougher state environmental regulations and lower natural gas prices have slowed many new drilling permits. As a result, production — and the jobs that come with it — have leveled off.
With the county and city drawing up plans to reduce the emissions blamed for global warming and Congress weighing the first mandatory limits, the industry once again finds itself on the losing side of the debate.
In a nutshell: the fact that solar power is an option at all ("a small fraction", indeed) is due to the fact the government, both local and federal, are handcuffing the state's gas industry. The headline could equally read as follows:
Limits on energy production leave Colorado's future under a cloud
...but that wouldn't help the president, or the Democrat's radical energy agenda, would it?
I guess the AP/Yahoo see this type of thuggery as something to yahoo! about...except when the time comes, of course, when the government sees fit to choose winners and losers on the Internet...
And just imagine what will happen when the government takes over health care, and your plan becomes a loser, according to the government....
Don't worry! When the cost of your plan doubles so that the ER can be crowded with illegal immigrants, AP/Yahoo will be sure to provide you with propaganda such as..
Health Care Plan a Boon To Undocumented Visitors
UPDATE: in a similar vein, Paul Krugman advises using different words to describe unpopular governance, in a piece aptly titled The Uneducated American:
Congress needs to undo the sins of February, and approve another big round of aid to state governments. We don’t have to call it a stimulus...
Better Buy A New Dead-Bolt Lock - It's Census Time!
Although the Census Bureau has had second thoughts about having ACORN run the census - due more in fact to the muckraking of two twenty-something shock journalists than any smarts of their own - even a partial list of groups that will be partnering with the government on the Census project is enough to send chills down a man's spine:
AFL-CIO
American Federation of Government Employees
AFSCME
American Federation of Teachers
Coalition of Labor Union Women
Coalition of Black Trade Unionists
Community Action Partnership
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
Labor Council for the Latin American Advancement
League of Women Voters of the United States
National Black Justice Coalition
National Council of La Raza
National Education Association
Pride at Work
Rainbow Push Coalition
Service Employees International Union
Southern Coalition for Social Justice
United Workers
The AFL-CIO, the Rainbow Coalition, La Raza, the Teamsters, and especially the SEIU are all groups that can accurately be labeled as "thugs", based on the range of activity they've been involved in since Obama started his campaign. The rest of these organizations can primarily be labeled as "intellectual terrorists" - groups that hold radical ideas and are willing to destroy you personally and professionally, in public, should you dare buck their program.
Seems like Obama is trying to terrorize Americans into telling him what he wants to know. Or short of that, he's counting on this hateful partisan alliance to twist the information in a way that will provide a permanent Democratic majority for a generation.
It's gonna be a wacky 2010....
AFL-CIO
American Federation of Government Employees
AFSCME
American Federation of Teachers
Coalition of Labor Union Women
Coalition of Black Trade Unionists
Community Action Partnership
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
Labor Council for the Latin American Advancement
League of Women Voters of the United States
National Black Justice Coalition
National Council of La Raza
National Education Association
Pride at Work
Rainbow Push Coalition
Service Employees International Union
Southern Coalition for Social Justice
United Workers
The AFL-CIO, the Rainbow Coalition, La Raza, the Teamsters, and especially the SEIU are all groups that can accurately be labeled as "thugs", based on the range of activity they've been involved in since Obama started his campaign. The rest of these organizations can primarily be labeled as "intellectual terrorists" - groups that hold radical ideas and are willing to destroy you personally and professionally, in public, should you dare buck their program.
Seems like Obama is trying to terrorize Americans into telling him what he wants to know. Or short of that, he's counting on this hateful partisan alliance to twist the information in a way that will provide a permanent Democratic majority for a generation.
It's gonna be a wacky 2010....
Saturday, October 10, 2009
BBC: Climate Change Skeptics?
If so, that would make them worse than Hitler, as we have been told over and over again by the liberal commentariat. And yet...
This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.
But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.
And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.
So what on Earth is going on?
It's all "bollocks", as you folks on the far side of the pond would say. Perhaps, though, someone ought to clue in Nobel Laureate and World President Barack Obama, before he completely eliminates the production-side of the US economy with carbon taxes more likely to destroy jobs than save the environment....
This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.
But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.
And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.
So what on Earth is going on?
It's all "bollocks", as you folks on the far side of the pond would say. Perhaps, though, someone ought to clue in Nobel Laureate and World President Barack Obama, before he completely eliminates the production-side of the US economy with carbon taxes more likely to destroy jobs than save the environment....
Friday, October 09, 2009
Obama's Nobel Accomplishments...
....as deliniated by Jennifer Rubin:
Well, it’s not like he hasn’t done anything, right? He’s introduced a new era of hostility in U.S.-Israeli relations. He’s been rebuffed by all the parties in the region and been forced to retreat on his innovative gambit (i.e., alienating Israel and fanning Palestinian rejectionism over the folly of a freeze on every bubba’s apartment in East Jerusalem.). He concealed a secret Iranian nuclear site and spent a year kowtowing to the Great Leader, helping a brutal regime establish its legitimacy. He backed a raving anti-Semite and lunatic in Honduras, bringing that country to the brink of war. And of course on Afghanistan he’s done what the international community loves most of all — dither.
But his finest accomplishment, as Charles Krauthammer brilliantly details here, has been to humble America and usher in a new era of American un-exceptionalism and decline.
Now that’s something for these people to celebrate!
Well, what does the Nobel committee love more than an anti-American? An anti-Semite, of course. And with Barack Obama they got two for the price of one. How could they resist?
Well, it’s not like he hasn’t done anything, right? He’s introduced a new era of hostility in U.S.-Israeli relations. He’s been rebuffed by all the parties in the region and been forced to retreat on his innovative gambit (i.e., alienating Israel and fanning Palestinian rejectionism over the folly of a freeze on every bubba’s apartment in East Jerusalem.). He concealed a secret Iranian nuclear site and spent a year kowtowing to the Great Leader, helping a brutal regime establish its legitimacy. He backed a raving anti-Semite and lunatic in Honduras, bringing that country to the brink of war. And of course on Afghanistan he’s done what the international community loves most of all — dither.
But his finest accomplishment, as Charles Krauthammer brilliantly details here, has been to humble America and usher in a new era of American un-exceptionalism and decline.
Now that’s something for these people to celebrate!
Well, what does the Nobel committee love more than an anti-American? An anti-Semite, of course. And with Barack Obama they got two for the price of one. How could they resist?
Barack Obama Wins The Nobel Peace Prize!
How perfectly appropriate. Now he shares company with Jimmy Carter, Yassar Arafat, and a worldwide variety of other American-haters (think Harold Pinter) who have done more to enhance the possibility of war than bring about any kind of lasting peace.
John Miller:
Obama isn't the first American president to win the Nobel Peace Prize, but he's the first to win it without having accomplished anything.
....Obama's award is simply the projection of wishful thinking.
Just as Sarkozy said. Obama pines for a world without nukes, while two of the world's most despotic regimes build atomic weapons while he lifts not a finger to stop them. Which is why gave him the award, after all - he's done the most to reduce American power (the real danger to world peace) than any other politician in world history, save the Emperor Hirohito.
I guess he is the world's prom king, after all. But is he ours? The left and the media will positively swoon, feeling their love has been validated. They'll use it as an excuse to push his radical agenda. The president's poll numbers will get a momentary bump as well.
But remember how the world's unadulterated hatred of George W. Bush helped, in the end, push him back into America's arms? Let's see what the unadulterated love of the world does for Barack Obama...because a lot of that love has been coming from ugly places...
UPDATE: Even the AP is a bit thrown off...although I am sure their tone will change:
The awarding of the Nobel Peace Price to President Barack Obama landed with a shock on darkened, still-asleep Washington. He won! For what?
The award could be as much about issuing a slap at Obama's predecessor, former President George W. Bush, as about lauding Obama....
UPDATE II: More on the Obama-Arafat connection (thanks to the Nobel committee):
What do Barack Obama and Yassir Arafat have in common? They both hung out with anti-Semites who think Israel should be pushed into the sea.
UPDATE III: How many other Nobel Prize winners have refused to meet with the Dali Lama in deference to communist China? Just asking....
UPDATE IV: Is it all about Bush?
When Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Prize in 2002, the chairman of the Nobel Prize committee, a leftist Norwegian politician named Gunnar Berge, told the media in announcing Carter’s prize that “it should be interpreted as a criticism of the line that the current [Bush] administration has taken” in the war on terrorism, and particularly Iraq. “It’s a kick in the leg to all that follow the same line as the United States."
UPDATE V: Jennifer Rubin, of course, adds some perspective:
...the Nobel Prize Committee has cleared the decks for next year. Can’t you see it? “To Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — for coming to the negotiating table!” You laugh. Wait a year.
John Miller:
Obama isn't the first American president to win the Nobel Peace Prize, but he's the first to win it without having accomplished anything.
....Obama's award is simply the projection of wishful thinking.
Just as Sarkozy said. Obama pines for a world without nukes, while two of the world's most despotic regimes build atomic weapons while he lifts not a finger to stop them. Which is why gave him the award, after all - he's done the most to reduce American power (the real danger to world peace) than any other politician in world history, save the Emperor Hirohito.
I guess he is the world's prom king, after all. But is he ours? The left and the media will positively swoon, feeling their love has been validated. They'll use it as an excuse to push his radical agenda. The president's poll numbers will get a momentary bump as well.
But remember how the world's unadulterated hatred of George W. Bush helped, in the end, push him back into America's arms? Let's see what the unadulterated love of the world does for Barack Obama...because a lot of that love has been coming from ugly places...
UPDATE: Even the AP is a bit thrown off...although I am sure their tone will change:
The awarding of the Nobel Peace Price to President Barack Obama landed with a shock on darkened, still-asleep Washington. He won! For what?
The award could be as much about issuing a slap at Obama's predecessor, former President George W. Bush, as about lauding Obama....
UPDATE II: More on the Obama-Arafat connection (thanks to the Nobel committee):
What do Barack Obama and Yassir Arafat have in common? They both hung out with anti-Semites who think Israel should be pushed into the sea.
UPDATE III: How many other Nobel Prize winners have refused to meet with the Dali Lama in deference to communist China? Just asking....
UPDATE IV: Is it all about Bush?
When Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Prize in 2002, the chairman of the Nobel Prize committee, a leftist Norwegian politician named Gunnar Berge, told the media in announcing Carter’s prize that “it should be interpreted as a criticism of the line that the current [Bush] administration has taken” in the war on terrorism, and particularly Iraq. “It’s a kick in the leg to all that follow the same line as the United States."
UPDATE V: Jennifer Rubin, of course, adds some perspective:
...the Nobel Prize Committee has cleared the decks for next year. Can’t you see it? “To Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — for coming to the negotiating table!” You laugh. Wait a year.
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Enviornmentalists: Lying, Cheating, Bastards!
Hey, don't blame me, I'm only reporting the findings from a Canadian psychological study - and since we are about to emulate their medical system, you'd better show some respect!
Anyway - what did we learn today? Apparently, that people buy "green" in order to excuse even more vile and foul interpersonal behavior:
Psychologists in Canada have revealed new research suggesting that people who become eco-conscious "green consumers" are "more likely to steal and lie" than others.
"Those lyin’, cheatin’ green consumers," begins the statement from the university. "Buying products that claim to be made with low environmental impact can set up 'moral credentials' in people’s minds that give license to selfish or questionable behavior."
From the study:
In line with the halo associated with green consumerism, people act more altruistically after mere exposure to green than conventional products. However, people act less altruistically and are more likely to cheat and steal after purchasing green products as opposed to conventional products... purchasing green products may produce the counterintuitive effect of licensing asocial and unethical behaviors by establishing moral credentials. Thus, green products do not necessarily make us better people.
So the next time you meet a greenie, keep one hand on your wallet. If you should shake their hands, count your fingers when you're done.
Keep this in mind the next time you hear Michelle Obama talk about eating organic, or the president talk about how we must "sacrifice" in order to "green" our economy.
Makes you wonder what they're really up to...
UPDATE: Case in point - Democratic Congressman, with a big hard-on for carbon taxes, drives a monster Yukon. But hey - he's working to save the enviornment by day! (while destroying it by night!)
Anyway - what did we learn today? Apparently, that people buy "green" in order to excuse even more vile and foul interpersonal behavior:
Psychologists in Canada have revealed new research suggesting that people who become eco-conscious "green consumers" are "more likely to steal and lie" than others.
"Those lyin’, cheatin’ green consumers," begins the statement from the university. "Buying products that claim to be made with low environmental impact can set up 'moral credentials' in people’s minds that give license to selfish or questionable behavior."
From the study:
In line with the halo associated with green consumerism, people act more altruistically after mere exposure to green than conventional products. However, people act less altruistically and are more likely to cheat and steal after purchasing green products as opposed to conventional products... purchasing green products may produce the counterintuitive effect of licensing asocial and unethical behaviors by establishing moral credentials. Thus, green products do not necessarily make us better people.
So the next time you meet a greenie, keep one hand on your wallet. If you should shake their hands, count your fingers when you're done.
Keep this in mind the next time you hear Michelle Obama talk about eating organic, or the president talk about how we must "sacrifice" in order to "green" our economy.
Makes you wonder what they're really up to...
UPDATE: Case in point - Democratic Congressman, with a big hard-on for carbon taxes, drives a monster Yukon. But hey - he's working to save the enviornment by day! (while destroying it by night!)
Barack Obama: The Prom King
From the very funny I Hate The Media, we get a story about ABC's Claire Shipman, and her thoughts about the American people (right wing nuts) and Barack Obama (sigh...). From her blog:
“It would have been great had he come home (from Copenhagen) a
winner,” Shipman wrote. “Great for all of us. But maybe not so much for him. Why? Because then he would have then really irked his critics.”
“[Obama’s critics] already secretly and not so secretly peeved that he’s been voted the world’s prom king. Another victory would have just started a wave of dangerous, uncontrollable seething.”
So Shipman sees the world as "us" - meaning, I suppose, the mainstream media and the entertainment industry - and "them", meaning everyone else in the United States who does not toe to their line. Who are also apparently dangerous and uncontrollable. And who suffer from:
.... ballooning and poisonous envy....
And we are supposed to trust this woman's news judgement?
More on this whore of the Democratic party - here she is trying to create racial animosity about Barack Obama where none exists. Over here Shipman lies to the American people as she calls Rahm Emanuel as "centrist." And here's a classic from 2002, where she morally equates a young Israeli girl slaughtered by terrorists (on her way to buyt groceries) with her murder.
And that's not the end of Shipman's rabid hatred of all things conservative, or even moderate. Click here to see her getting Arnuhld quite pissed off over firefighting resources.
But wait - there's more! Click here to see her claiming that Judge Sotomayer is not a liberal, but a "centrist" (again). And here we see her weeping over the 10th anniversary of the death of JFK Jr., but casually forgetting many other key anniversaries that are not as politically convenient for liberals....
Coming from the network that gave Barack Obama an hour of primetime airtime to pitch his nationalization of health care, it is not surprising that one of their top journalists has a fervent hatred of the rest of America, and that she continues to be given major exposure by ABC.
The only question remaining is...who will take ABC seriously anymore? You think about that, while Claire fantasizes about f*cking the prom king....
“It would have been great had he come home (from Copenhagen) a
winner,” Shipman wrote. “Great for all of us. But maybe not so much for him. Why? Because then he would have then really irked his critics.”“[Obama’s critics] already secretly and not so secretly peeved that he’s been voted the world’s prom king. Another victory would have just started a wave of dangerous, uncontrollable seething.”
So Shipman sees the world as "us" - meaning, I suppose, the mainstream media and the entertainment industry - and "them", meaning everyone else in the United States who does not toe to their line. Who are also apparently dangerous and uncontrollable. And who suffer from:
.... ballooning and poisonous envy....
And we are supposed to trust this woman's news judgement?
More on this whore of the Democratic party - here she is trying to create racial animosity about Barack Obama where none exists. Over here Shipman lies to the American people as she calls Rahm Emanuel as "centrist." And here's a classic from 2002, where she morally equates a young Israeli girl slaughtered by terrorists (on her way to buyt groceries) with her murder.
And that's not the end of Shipman's rabid hatred of all things conservative, or even moderate. Click here to see her getting Arnuhld quite pissed off over firefighting resources.
But wait - there's more! Click here to see her claiming that Judge Sotomayer is not a liberal, but a "centrist" (again). And here we see her weeping over the 10th anniversary of the death of JFK Jr., but casually forgetting many other key anniversaries that are not as politically convenient for liberals....
Coming from the network that gave Barack Obama an hour of primetime airtime to pitch his nationalization of health care, it is not surprising that one of their top journalists has a fervent hatred of the rest of America, and that she continues to be given major exposure by ABC.
The only question remaining is...who will take ABC seriously anymore? You think about that, while Claire fantasizes about f*cking the prom king....
Spongebob Squarepants as "the prom king" in the episode "The Chaperone"
AP Furiously Pimps For ObamaCare
This bullsh*t started yesterday, when the AP declared:
The fever has broken. The patient is out of intensive care. But if you're President Barack Obama, you can't stop pacing the waiting room. Health care overhaul is still in guarded condition.
The latest Associated Press-GfK poll has found that opposition to Obama's health care remake dropped dramatically in just a matter of weeks.
The public is split 40-40 on supporting or opposing the health care legislation, the poll found. An even split is welcome news for Democrats, a sharp improvement from September, when 49 percent of Americans said they opposed the congressional proposals and just 34 percent supported them.
A 40-40-20 split is celebrated as a "dramatic" turn in opinion? In other words, at least 60% of all Americans are either still opposed or not sure, and the AP decides this poll is worth celebrating? Not suprising, of course, is that AP polls apparently swing the most favorably to Obama and his agenda; not unlike those New York Times polls last year that found Obama defeating McCain by 17 points... [SEE POLL UPDATE BELOW]
And did you know Obama's supporters really are the "silent majority", unlike those pesky tens of thousands of people who showed up this summer to protest his policies? So the AP claims:
Obama supporters have been mobilizing across the country as well, tapping into the unprecedented network his presidential campaign built last year.
And their proof?
At a coffee shop outside Columbus, Ohio, recently, about 20 pro-Obama volunteers phoned through long lists of local Democratic voters, asking them to press members of Congress to support the president's plan.
20 volunteers! Wow! That's like, 1/100th of the angry people usually left outside of a filled-up town hall meeting.
Now how about some baldfaced lies? The AP has that too:
...people have been drawn to the tea party protests largely organized by FreedomWorks, founded by former GOP House Leader Dick Armey.
Utterly, completely, false. But the truth - that the massive grassroots of the right have risen unbidden by any nefarious political figure - would make false the article's claims of an Obama "majority".
One more curious statement:
"We realized that we need to have Obama's back," said Peter Kovarik, an adjunct biology professor at Columbus State University and OFA volunteer who said his job didn't provide health insurance.
Really? A progressive university not providing health care? Seems like a bit of a stretch, even for an adjunct professor. The AP didn't bother to check, though - can't have the facts interfere with the storyline!
Amazingly, it doesn't end here...they applaud the $829 billion cost of this bill over ten years (and what about twenty? no info on that, but Michelle has some ideas about the real cost) as they claim that Democrats can"breathe a sigh of relief" as they will be able to get away with looting the future...
What's in it for the AP? A bailout? Or just the opportunity for its reporters and editors to save face the next time they are being lambasted by Eurotrash at a big-city cocktail party for living in such a cruel, hidebound nation?
It's nothing more than propoganda for the president and his party. Will the Senate Republicans see this media onslaught and take it as a genuine expression of opinion shift, rather than media astroturf? Rumor has it they are getting wobbly already...
Should they vote to nationalize healthcare as well, and complete the "back of the hand" that Congress has given to the cries of the American people, it is likely you will never see a Republican majority again, either. They will go the way of the Whigs, and the Left will rule unrivaled, until that long-discussed but never-materialized third-party comes upon Washington with a vengence....
UPDATE: And how about those polls?
QUINNIPIAC POLL: Americans oppose ObamaCare 47-40.
PEW POLL: 47% Oppose ObamaCare, 34% Favor.
Wonder why the AP didn't mention these polls? Didn't fit the storyline? Now that's good news reporting!
The fever has broken. The patient is out of intensive care. But if you're President Barack Obama, you can't stop pacing the waiting room. Health care overhaul is still in guarded condition.
The latest Associated Press-GfK poll has found that opposition to Obama's health care remake dropped dramatically in just a matter of weeks.
The public is split 40-40 on supporting or opposing the health care legislation, the poll found. An even split is welcome news for Democrats, a sharp improvement from September, when 49 percent of Americans said they opposed the congressional proposals and just 34 percent supported them.
A 40-40-20 split is celebrated as a "dramatic" turn in opinion? In other words, at least 60% of all Americans are either still opposed or not sure, and the AP decides this poll is worth celebrating? Not suprising, of course, is that AP polls apparently swing the most favorably to Obama and his agenda; not unlike those New York Times polls last year that found Obama defeating McCain by 17 points... [SEE POLL UPDATE BELOW]
And did you know Obama's supporters really are the "silent majority", unlike those pesky tens of thousands of people who showed up this summer to protest his policies? So the AP claims:
Obama supporters have been mobilizing across the country as well, tapping into the unprecedented network his presidential campaign built last year.
And their proof?
At a coffee shop outside Columbus, Ohio, recently, about 20 pro-Obama volunteers phoned through long lists of local Democratic voters, asking them to press members of Congress to support the president's plan.
20 volunteers! Wow! That's like, 1/100th of the angry people usually left outside of a filled-up town hall meeting.
Now how about some baldfaced lies? The AP has that too:
...people have been drawn to the tea party protests largely organized by FreedomWorks, founded by former GOP House Leader Dick Armey.
Utterly, completely, false. But the truth - that the massive grassroots of the right have risen unbidden by any nefarious political figure - would make false the article's claims of an Obama "majority".
One more curious statement:
"We realized that we need to have Obama's back," said Peter Kovarik, an adjunct biology professor at Columbus State University and OFA volunteer who said his job didn't provide health insurance.
Really? A progressive university not providing health care? Seems like a bit of a stretch, even for an adjunct professor. The AP didn't bother to check, though - can't have the facts interfere with the storyline!
Amazingly, it doesn't end here...they applaud the $829 billion cost of this bill over ten years (and what about twenty? no info on that, but Michelle has some ideas about the real cost) as they claim that Democrats can"breathe a sigh of relief" as they will be able to get away with looting the future...
What's in it for the AP? A bailout? Or just the opportunity for its reporters and editors to save face the next time they are being lambasted by Eurotrash at a big-city cocktail party for living in such a cruel, hidebound nation?
It's nothing more than propoganda for the president and his party. Will the Senate Republicans see this media onslaught and take it as a genuine expression of opinion shift, rather than media astroturf? Rumor has it they are getting wobbly already...
Should they vote to nationalize healthcare as well, and complete the "back of the hand" that Congress has given to the cries of the American people, it is likely you will never see a Republican majority again, either. They will go the way of the Whigs, and the Left will rule unrivaled, until that long-discussed but never-materialized third-party comes upon Washington with a vengence....
UPDATE: And how about those polls?
QUINNIPIAC POLL: Americans oppose ObamaCare 47-40.
PEW POLL: 47% Oppose ObamaCare, 34% Favor.
Wonder why the AP didn't mention these polls? Didn't fit the storyline? Now that's good news reporting!
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Obama Presents...The Backdoor Death Panel
Those pesky senior citizens, sucking up such a large majority of the nation's health care resources when they're just gonna die soon anyway! We need them to start dying sooner rather than later in order to make socialized medicine work!
Well, looks like Obama and the Democrats have figured out a way to do that. Just eliminate the treatments and the doctors that the elderly need the most! Then they can't blame any "death panels" for their untimely demise, it'll just be a "resource shortage" caused by those greedy doctors...yeah, that's the ticket....
Alas - I am serious:
From Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus’s health-care bill to changes the Administration is pushing in Medicare, Democrats are systematically attacking specific medical fields like cardiology and oncology. With almost no scrutiny, they’re trying to engineer a “cheaper” system so that government can afford to buy health care for all—even if the price is fewer and less innovative ways of extending and improving lives. [...]
The 2010 rules, which will be finalized next month, visit an 11% overall cut on cardiology and 19% on radiation oncology. They’re targets only because of cost: Two-thirds of morbidity or mortality among Medicare patients owes to cancer or heart disease.
Again - eliminate the seniors by eliminating their medical care. Folks, there is a death panel right now - it's called Congress, and the panel is being run by Max Baucus. They are deciding right now who will live and who will die - writing their own book of life, if you will - over the next twenty years.
And Barack Obama is out there, pimping his death panel to the American people as just a group of concerned lawmakers trying to help reform the system. Right. But what the presidential pimp is selling you, and what you'll eventually get, will be something different entirely. It's like the way a call-girl service will advertise slim exotic beauties, but deliver an aged, pock-marked whore....not that I would know anything about that, of course....
The Onion has Obama's number:
"Once again, let me be perfectly clear," Obama continued. "Seniors, rest easy knowing that I will never, under any circumstance, sign a bill that doesn't give you the option of being murdered by my administration in a manner of your choosing. I promise you that."
Obama also accused his opponents of using scare tactics to score political points, manipulating seniors' fears with misinformation about their upcoming state-mandated deaths.
"Folks' concerns over my plan are all based on bogus claims that we intend to set up death panels to kill off senior citizens," Obama said. "Well, that is preposterous. A death panel is only one of many ways we can exterminate the elderly. Under my plan, they can be beaten or poisoned to death. They can be murdered by the Marines or the Air National Guard. They can die fast or they can die slow. They can even be drowned in their own bathtubs."
Following the speech, White House sources said they expected full party support for the proposal. However, some far-left-leaning Democrats have openly criticized the president for backing down from his initial policy of death panels, arguing that a system offering multiple execution options completely undermines their ideal of a single, universal senior-killing policy.
"The president has watered down a perfectly reasonable plan in hopes of placating the opposition," Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) said...
The Republican reaction was even more sternly worded.
"Seniors!" House minority leader John Boehner (R-OH) said. "Run for your lives!
That about nails it....wonder if CNN will be fact-checking The Onion now as well....
Well, looks like Obama and the Democrats have figured out a way to do that. Just eliminate the treatments and the doctors that the elderly need the most! Then they can't blame any "death panels" for their untimely demise, it'll just be a "resource shortage" caused by those greedy doctors...yeah, that's the ticket....
Alas - I am serious:
From Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus’s health-care bill to changes the Administration is pushing in Medicare, Democrats are systematically attacking specific medical fields like cardiology and oncology. With almost no scrutiny, they’re trying to engineer a “cheaper” system so that government can afford to buy health care for all—even if the price is fewer and less innovative ways of extending and improving lives. [...]
The 2010 rules, which will be finalized next month, visit an 11% overall cut on cardiology and 19% on radiation oncology. They’re targets only because of cost: Two-thirds of morbidity or mortality among Medicare patients owes to cancer or heart disease.
Again - eliminate the seniors by eliminating their medical care. Folks, there is a death panel right now - it's called Congress, and the panel is being run by Max Baucus. They are deciding right now who will live and who will die - writing their own book of life, if you will - over the next twenty years.
And Barack Obama is out there, pimping his death panel to the American people as just a group of concerned lawmakers trying to help reform the system. Right. But what the presidential pimp is selling you, and what you'll eventually get, will be something different entirely. It's like the way a call-girl service will advertise slim exotic beauties, but deliver an aged, pock-marked whore....not that I would know anything about that, of course....
The Onion has Obama's number:
"Once again, let me be perfectly clear," Obama continued. "Seniors, rest easy knowing that I will never, under any circumstance, sign a bill that doesn't give you the option of being murdered by my administration in a manner of your choosing. I promise you that."
Obama also accused his opponents of using scare tactics to score political points, manipulating seniors' fears with misinformation about their upcoming state-mandated deaths.
"Folks' concerns over my plan are all based on bogus claims that we intend to set up death panels to kill off senior citizens," Obama said. "Well, that is preposterous. A death panel is only one of many ways we can exterminate the elderly. Under my plan, they can be beaten or poisoned to death. They can be murdered by the Marines or the Air National Guard. They can die fast or they can die slow. They can even be drowned in their own bathtubs."
Following the speech, White House sources said they expected full party support for the proposal. However, some far-left-leaning Democrats have openly criticized the president for backing down from his initial policy of death panels, arguing that a system offering multiple execution options completely undermines their ideal of a single, universal senior-killing policy.
"The president has watered down a perfectly reasonable plan in hopes of placating the opposition," Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) said...
The Republican reaction was even more sternly worded.
"Seniors!" House minority leader John Boehner (R-OH) said. "Run for your lives!
That about nails it....wonder if CNN will be fact-checking The Onion now as well....
Bill Ayers: I Wrote Obama's "Autobiography"
The question is, of course, whether to believe him or not. Here's the conversation Bill Ayers had with blogress Anne Leary of Back Yard Conservative, as related by the Examiner:
Ayers was in Washington, he told her, for a conference on education.
“That's what I do, education,” he said. “You shouldn't believe everything you hear about me... You know nothing about me.”
To which she responded, “I said, I know plenty--I'm from Chicago, a conservative blogger, and I'll post this.”
But he didn’t scowl, and didn’t run off as he has been known to do. Instead, unprompted, he blurted out: “I wrote ‘Dreams From My Father… Michelle asked me to.” Then he added “And if you can prove it we can split the royalties.”
Anne responded, “Stop pulling my leg!”
But he repeated insistently, “I wrote it, the wording was similar [to Ayers’ other writing.]”
Anne responded, “I believe you probably heavily edited it.”
Ayers stated firmly, “I wrote it.”
Anne ended the conversation by saying “why would I believe you? You're a liar.”
Interesting that Ayer's account matches the story Jack Cashill has been peddling for some time. But is Ayers just trying to discredit a conservative blogger with false information, or was he bursting at the seams to tell somebody - anybody - the truth, that this book - hailed by liberals and the media as proof of Obama's divine being and underlying genius - was written by him?
And by telling a conservative blogger, does he achieve getting this untold secret off his chest while at the same time giving the president and the media deniability, as neither one of them would feel compelled to such a story coming from "the Right"?
And if Ayers is telling the truth - then what? Nothing, I suppose, except frantic articles by Paul Krugman and Roger Cohen explaining that it doesn't matter that Obama had his "autobiography" written for him by a terrorist; he's still an intellectual giant, despite the casual piece of roadside forgery....
Me? I believe Ayers, and not because Ayers is a believable figure. He's not, he's ten pounds of sh*t in a five pound bag. But the story fits the behavior we have seen from Obama since Inauguration day - he likes to talk about doing things, but he does not actually like to do things. Stimulus? Health care reform? Carbon emissions? All outsourced, while the president flies to Copenhagen to talk. About himself.
This is a president who does not like to work. Who has never really worked a day in his life, unless you consider organizing and speechifying to be work. And maybe some consider it to be, although it is not work the way most of America understand it.
Which is why Obama understands very little about his fellow Americans. As someone who considers work to be giving campaign speeches, and who has spent his whole adult life doling out other people's monies (in the State Senate, on Foundation boards, in Congress), he cannot understand the middle class's attachment to their money, which they have worked so hard for. Thus the utter disconnect between Obama's liberal perscriptives and the nation's ideals as a whole.
So does it seem likely that Obama outsourced his autobiography to his buddy Ayers, as it was too much work for him? Hell, yeah, based on his past and current history. Who can be bothered with work when there are speeches to give and taxes to raise?
How ironic that Bill Ayers should have more credibility (on this issue) than Barack Obama....
Ayers was in Washington, he told her, for a conference on education.
“That's what I do, education,” he said. “You shouldn't believe everything you hear about me... You know nothing about me.”
To which she responded, “I said, I know plenty--I'm from Chicago, a conservative blogger, and I'll post this.”
But he didn’t scowl, and didn’t run off as he has been known to do. Instead, unprompted, he blurted out: “I wrote ‘Dreams From My Father… Michelle asked me to.” Then he added “And if you can prove it we can split the royalties.”
Anne responded, “Stop pulling my leg!”
But he repeated insistently, “I wrote it, the wording was similar [to Ayers’ other writing.]”
Anne responded, “I believe you probably heavily edited it.”
Ayers stated firmly, “I wrote it.”
Anne ended the conversation by saying “why would I believe you? You're a liar.”
Interesting that Ayer's account matches the story Jack Cashill has been peddling for some time. But is Ayers just trying to discredit a conservative blogger with false information, or was he bursting at the seams to tell somebody - anybody - the truth, that this book - hailed by liberals and the media as proof of Obama's divine being and underlying genius - was written by him?
And by telling a conservative blogger, does he achieve getting this untold secret off his chest while at the same time giving the president and the media deniability, as neither one of them would feel compelled to such a story coming from "the Right"?
And if Ayers is telling the truth - then what? Nothing, I suppose, except frantic articles by Paul Krugman and Roger Cohen explaining that it doesn't matter that Obama had his "autobiography" written for him by a terrorist; he's still an intellectual giant, despite the casual piece of roadside forgery....
Me? I believe Ayers, and not because Ayers is a believable figure. He's not, he's ten pounds of sh*t in a five pound bag. But the story fits the behavior we have seen from Obama since Inauguration day - he likes to talk about doing things, but he does not actually like to do things. Stimulus? Health care reform? Carbon emissions? All outsourced, while the president flies to Copenhagen to talk. About himself.
This is a president who does not like to work. Who has never really worked a day in his life, unless you consider organizing and speechifying to be work. And maybe some consider it to be, although it is not work the way most of America understand it.
Which is why Obama understands very little about his fellow Americans. As someone who considers work to be giving campaign speeches, and who has spent his whole adult life doling out other people's monies (in the State Senate, on Foundation boards, in Congress), he cannot understand the middle class's attachment to their money, which they have worked so hard for. Thus the utter disconnect between Obama's liberal perscriptives and the nation's ideals as a whole.
So does it seem likely that Obama outsourced his autobiography to his buddy Ayers, as it was too much work for him? Hell, yeah, based on his past and current history. Who can be bothered with work when there are speeches to give and taxes to raise?
How ironic that Bill Ayers should have more credibility (on this issue) than Barack Obama....
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Health Care Reform, Done Right
Picked this up via Contentions - Jeffery Anderson of the Weekly Standard comes up with a health care reform proposal that costs "only" $34 billion (but still only 5% of the cost of the Baucus Plan) and becomes deficit-neutral over twenty years. The basics:
1. Leave employer-provided insurance as it is and give individuals a $2,500 tax credit to equalize tax treatment for individuals who buy their own insurance.
2. Allow individuals to buy insurance across state lines.
3. Extend COBRA for up to 30 months, allowing people to keep their insurance if they leave a job.
4. Remove government regulations limiting insurers from offering premium breaks for healthy lifestyle choices.
5. Enact real malpractice reform (limit punitive damages to $250,000 and all noneconomic damages to $750,000).
6. Provide help to encourage insurance pools for the hard to insure
The results:
Ten-year totals: $15 billion in increased spending in Year-1, gradually declining to $0 in Year-10; average of $34.5 billion per year in tax cuts — all for the uninsured or self-insured.
Here's how it compares to the Democrat's plan after ten years:
Baucus Bill
Spending Increases $856 billion
Tax Increases $354 billion
Tax Cuts $2 billion
Increased Fines $47 billion
% Americans Insured 95%
"Small Bill"
Spending increases $75 billion
Tax increases $0
Tax Cuts $345 billion
Increased fines $0
% of Americans insured 95%
Over twenty years the "Small Bill" becomes revenue neutral, while the Baucus Plan puts us in a $2.9 trillion dollar hole.
Where are the Congressional/Senate Republicans on all this? Grab this plan and plaster it all over the airwaves; show Americans how you can get it done for 1/20 the cost and without handing over health care to the bureaucrats in Washington. Offer an alternative, watch the public response, and then see the Democrats try to pass a bill that thwarts the will of the people, and exposes their underlying purpose here: Not to reform health care, but to nationalize it, and bring a huge chunk of the economy under Washington's control.
It would be the last bill this majority ever passes....
1. Leave employer-provided insurance as it is and give individuals a $2,500 tax credit to equalize tax treatment for individuals who buy their own insurance.
2. Allow individuals to buy insurance across state lines.
3. Extend COBRA for up to 30 months, allowing people to keep their insurance if they leave a job.
4. Remove government regulations limiting insurers from offering premium breaks for healthy lifestyle choices.
5. Enact real malpractice reform (limit punitive damages to $250,000 and all noneconomic damages to $750,000).
6. Provide help to encourage insurance pools for the hard to insure
The results:
Ten-year totals: $15 billion in increased spending in Year-1, gradually declining to $0 in Year-10; average of $34.5 billion per year in tax cuts — all for the uninsured or self-insured.
Here's how it compares to the Democrat's plan after ten years:
Baucus Bill
Spending Increases $856 billion
Tax Increases $354 billion
Tax Cuts $2 billion
Increased Fines $47 billion
% Americans Insured 95%
"Small Bill"
Spending increases $75 billion
Tax increases $0
Tax Cuts $345 billion
Increased fines $0
% of Americans insured 95%
Over twenty years the "Small Bill" becomes revenue neutral, while the Baucus Plan puts us in a $2.9 trillion dollar hole.
Where are the Congressional/Senate Republicans on all this? Grab this plan and plaster it all over the airwaves; show Americans how you can get it done for 1/20 the cost and without handing over health care to the bureaucrats in Washington. Offer an alternative, watch the public response, and then see the Democrats try to pass a bill that thwarts the will of the people, and exposes their underlying purpose here: Not to reform health care, but to nationalize it, and bring a huge chunk of the economy under Washington's control.
It would be the last bill this majority ever passes....
Obama Defunds Iranian Rights Group
C'mon...coming from a guy who is willing to spit on the Dali Lama in order to curry favor with Chinese Communists, the fact that he is pulling all funding from a group dedicated to exposing torture and assassination inside of Iran should not come as a surprise:
...just as the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center was ramping up to investigate abuses of protesters after this summer’s disputed presidential election, the group received word that - for the first time since it was formed - its federal funding request had been denied.
“If there is one time that I expected to get funding, this was it,’’ said Rene Redman, the group’s executive director, who had asked for $2.7 million in funding for the next two years. “I was surprised, because the world was watching human rights violations right there on television.’’
Many see the sudden, unexplained cutoff of funding as a shift by the Obama administration away from high-profile democracy promotion in Iran, which had become a signature issue for President Bush. But the timing has alarmed some on Capitol Hill.
“The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center is at the forefront of pioneering and vitally important work,’’ said Senator Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, in a statement yesterday. “It is disturbing that the State Department would cut off funding at precisely the moment when these brave investigations are needed most.’’
How many lives is Obama willing to sacrifice in order to fulfill his own vainglorious ambitions? How many Jews must be killed, how many young Iranians must be tortured, how many small nations must be put to chaos, before the cost becomes too high?
Or is there no bill too large - be it another Holocaust or another trillion tacked on to the deficit - to derail the goals of the Barack Obama?
Just how dangerous is our president to the world, and to ourselves? I think we haven't even scratched the tip of that iceberg yet....
...just as the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center was ramping up to investigate abuses of protesters after this summer’s disputed presidential election, the group received word that - for the first time since it was formed - its federal funding request had been denied.
“If there is one time that I expected to get funding, this was it,’’ said Rene Redman, the group’s executive director, who had asked for $2.7 million in funding for the next two years. “I was surprised, because the world was watching human rights violations right there on television.’’
Many see the sudden, unexplained cutoff of funding as a shift by the Obama administration away from high-profile democracy promotion in Iran, which had become a signature issue for President Bush. But the timing has alarmed some on Capitol Hill.
“The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center is at the forefront of pioneering and vitally important work,’’ said Senator Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, in a statement yesterday. “It is disturbing that the State Department would cut off funding at precisely the moment when these brave investigations are needed most.’’
How many lives is Obama willing to sacrifice in order to fulfill his own vainglorious ambitions? How many Jews must be killed, how many young Iranians must be tortured, how many small nations must be put to chaos, before the cost becomes too high?
Or is there no bill too large - be it another Holocaust or another trillion tacked on to the deficit - to derail the goals of the Barack Obama?
Just how dangerous is our president to the world, and to ourselves? I think we haven't even scratched the tip of that iceberg yet....
Obama's "Doctors", and Contempt for America
I don't know who this is more humiliating for, President Obama or the hundred plus "Doctors for Obama" who showed up to be used as props:
In a heavy-handed attempt at reviving support for health-care reform, the White House orchestrated a massive photo op to buttress its claim that front-line physicians support Obama.
A sea of 150 white-coated doctors, all enthusiastically supportive of the president and representing all 50 states, looked as if they were at a costume party as they posed in the Rose Garden before hearing Obama's pitch for the Democratic overhaul bills moving through Congress.
A sea of 150 white-coated doctors, all enthusiastically supportive of the president and representing all 50 states, looked as if they were at a costume party as they posed in the Rose Garden before hearing Obama's pitch for the Democratic overhaul bills moving through Congress. The physicians, all invited guests, were told to bring their white lab coats to make sure that TV cameras captured the image.
But some docs apparently forgot, failing to meet the White House dress code by showing up in business suits or dresses.
So the White House rustled up white coats for them and handed them to the suited physicians who had taken seats in the sun-splashed lawn area.
But some docs apparently forgot, failing to meet the White House dress code by showing up in business suits or dresses.
So the White House rustled up white coats for them and handed them to the suited physicians who had taken seats in the sun-splashed lawn area.
Apparently this group was made up of Doctors for Obama, so I guess they felt little shame personally. Did they disgrace their profession by attempting to create an illusion that ObamaCare has much more support in the medical community than is currently indicated? More like sabotaged, I suppose, because nothing will destroy the American medical community than making it an arm of a government-run bureaucracy.
Bill Whittle rightfully mocks this heavy-handed attempt at propaganda:
...by having them wear white lab coats, you see, he is making sure we realize they are doctors.
But I remain confused. Couldn’t they also be lab technicians? Perhaps they need to wear that reflector thing on their foreheads. Damn it, no — Dentists wear those too, and no one would be persuaded to give up their current insurance just because a hundred and fifty dentists wearing white lab coats and reflectors nod in agreement. What they should have had was stethoscopes around their necks! That would have gotten this bill passed!
And so it goes. Yet another speech, with props appropriate for a fourth grade show and tell, to sell the rubes on something they seem unwilling to want to buy. And another appeal to oratory in place of substance...
I think this display shows us how contemptuous Obama is of the intelligence of the American people. Why else would he think he could swing the 53 to 33 percent negative polling not with facts, or costs, but...with a "puppet show"? And I think the eventual bill will reflect that contempt, as it winds up to be yet another liberal grab-bag rather than anything that actually helps the American people.
But fear not! As soon as Obama finishes destroying health care, he's gonna roll out the "Cap 'n Trade Players", who will do a song and dance explaining to you why paying an extra $1700 a year for energy will actually save you money! If that doesn't make sense, maybe the kickline of smoking chimneys can help clarify it for you, you amoral bastard...
Monday, October 05, 2009
Obama Crawls To China
Gee, that "reset" button and scrapping of our missile defense shield did such a good job bringing Russia to heel, didn't it? Well, let it never be said that Barack Obama lets a simple thing like failure dissuade him from his preferred bargaining position: on his knees, as a supplicant. Because it seems as if he's taking the same approach with communist China:
In an attempt to gain favor with China, the United States pressured Tibetan representatives to postpone a meeting between the Dalai Lama and President Obama until after Obama's summit with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, scheduled for next month...For the first time since 1991, the Tibetan spiritual leader will visit Washington this week and not meet with the president.
To me, the Dalai Lama seems to be one of a handful of people in the world whom actually have the genuine aura of a "holy man". Nice that Barack Obama would turn his back on him, in order to curry favor with the godless commies. Well, we are talking to about a guy who worshipped for twenty years at the feet of the Reverend of Hate, Jeremiah Wright, so I suppose we shouldn't hold high expectations as far as the president recognizing actual sanctity. Maybe if he actually went to church every now and again (he hasn't been spotted in one since Inauguration)...
Here's the strategy:
The U.S. decision to postpone the meeting appears to be part of a strategy to improve ties with China that also includes soft-pedaling criticism of China's human rights and financial policies as well as backing efforts to elevate China's position in international institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund. Obama administration officials have termed the new policy "strategic reassurance"....
And how has Barack been repaid for turning his back on tortured dissidents and slapping the face of a holy man?
China vows to stand by isolated North Korea
China pledged to strengthen bonds with isolated North Korea, nudging it to improve its economy...The relationship between the world's third-biggest economy and its impoverished, isolated neighbor sets apart Beijing's approach to Pyongyang from the harder line long favoured by Washington, Tokyo and other regional capitals.
Other governments have pushed China to use its crucial energy and food supplies to the North to press Pyongyang to curb nuclear weapons development. Beijing has ...said repeatedly that sanctions will not work and that only renewed negotiations can bring progress.
Again, Obama has ceded the moral and strategic high ground to those who do not share our moral clarity or strategic concerns, and again these nations have repaid us with the back of the their hands as they move forward, now unimpeded, with their own - less pleasant - agendas.
Will Obama respond with anger , or at least warnings, that his goodwill will only stretch so far? Or will he respond like a beaten dog, crawling back again and again, only lower and lower each time, whimpering in fear of the callused hand, and willing to do anything to avoid it?
Let's put it this way - if I was Obama's tailor, I'd be putting extra padding in those pants...
In an attempt to gain favor with China, the United States pressured Tibetan representatives to postpone a meeting between the Dalai Lama and President Obama until after Obama's summit with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, scheduled for next month...For the first time since 1991, the Tibetan spiritual leader will visit Washington this week and not meet with the president.
To me, the Dalai Lama seems to be one of a handful of people in the world whom actually have the genuine aura of a "holy man". Nice that Barack Obama would turn his back on him, in order to curry favor with the godless commies. Well, we are talking to about a guy who worshipped for twenty years at the feet of the Reverend of Hate, Jeremiah Wright, so I suppose we shouldn't hold high expectations as far as the president recognizing actual sanctity. Maybe if he actually went to church every now and again (he hasn't been spotted in one since Inauguration)...
Here's the strategy:
The U.S. decision to postpone the meeting appears to be part of a strategy to improve ties with China that also includes soft-pedaling criticism of China's human rights and financial policies as well as backing efforts to elevate China's position in international institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund. Obama administration officials have termed the new policy "strategic reassurance"....
And how has Barack been repaid for turning his back on tortured dissidents and slapping the face of a holy man?
China vows to stand by isolated North Korea
China pledged to strengthen bonds with isolated North Korea, nudging it to improve its economy...The relationship between the world's third-biggest economy and its impoverished, isolated neighbor sets apart Beijing's approach to Pyongyang from the harder line long favoured by Washington, Tokyo and other regional capitals.
Other governments have pushed China to use its crucial energy and food supplies to the North to press Pyongyang to curb nuclear weapons development. Beijing has ...said repeatedly that sanctions will not work and that only renewed negotiations can bring progress.
Again, Obama has ceded the moral and strategic high ground to those who do not share our moral clarity or strategic concerns, and again these nations have repaid us with the back of the their hands as they move forward, now unimpeded, with their own - less pleasant - agendas.
Will Obama respond with anger , or at least warnings, that his goodwill will only stretch so far? Or will he respond like a beaten dog, crawling back again and again, only lower and lower each time, whimpering in fear of the callused hand, and willing to do anything to avoid it?
Let's put it this way - if I was Obama's tailor, I'd be putting extra padding in those pants...
Sunday, October 04, 2009
The Difference Between Barack Obama and God
What - you thought they were one and the same, some type of holy duopoly? The abuse comes from France, no less, in the form of a "top ten" list - Letterman, eat your (heart) out:
10) God asks for just 10% of your money.
9) God only asks to be worshipped once a week.
8) You can't pray to God in a public school.
7) God's plan to save mankind is actually written down for people to read.
6) God doesn't use a teleprompter.
5) God would never pick Joe Biden for anything.
4) When you meet God, the last thing you notice is His ears.
3) God doesn't fake Spanish.
2)God doesn't need $787B to create 4 million jobs.
1) The Lord giveth. Mr. Obama taketh away.
Via the fabulous French blog E-Nough!, who informs us of the one thing they do have in common - no birth certificate...
10) God asks for just 10% of your money.
9) God only asks to be worshipped once a week.
8) You can't pray to God in a public school.
7) God's plan to save mankind is actually written down for people to read.
6) God doesn't use a teleprompter.
5) God would never pick Joe Biden for anything.
4) When you meet God, the last thing you notice is His ears.
3) God doesn't fake Spanish.
2)God doesn't need $787B to create 4 million jobs.
1) The Lord giveth. Mr. Obama taketh away.
Via the fabulous French blog E-Nough!, who informs us of the one thing they do have in common - no birth certificate...
Obama doubles down on Honduran anti-Semite
Why has Obama invested so much energy in re-instating Manuel Zelaya to the throne in Honduras? He was removed from office in accord with that nation's constitution after trying to create a Chavez-style strongman role for himself as the permanent ruler of the Honduran people. Yet Obama has insisted that he be re-installed as president, overturning the legal process and ignoring the overwhelming animosity towards Zelaya from the tiny nation's population.
Well, what would Obama have in common with Zelaya, besides the "yes we can" refrain? Well, Zelaya himself has made the following charge:
From his refuge inside the Brazilian embassy in Honduras, Zelaya proclaimed in an interview with the Miami Herald that Israeli mercenaries were torturing him with high-frequency radiation. The fugitive ex-president also complained of a sore throat caused by the toxic gas being piped into the embassy by nefarious secret agents.
Interesting accusation - if you were wearing a tinfoil hat in the basement of the insane asylum. Concerning, from a man being pushed by the president of the United States to be given the reigns of power in a nation racked by years of corruption and civil unrest.
But let's hear more on the subject, from Zelaya's chief propagandist, David Romero Ellner:
“There are times when I ask myself if Hitler was or not correct in finishing with that race with the famous Holocaust. If there are people that do damage in this country, they are Jewish, the Israelis. I want to name, this afternoon here in Radio Globo, by name and last name, who are the two officers of the Jewish army who are working with the Armed Forces of our country and who are in charge of carrying out all these conspiracy activities and undercover actions and everything else that is happening to the President of the Republic.
“After what I have learned, I ask myself why, why didn’t we let Hitler carry out his historic mission. Forgive me for the grotesque expression. But I ask myself after I have realized this and many other things. I believe it should have been fair and valid to let Hitler finish his historic vision…”
So Zelaya's right hand-man bemoans the fact that every last Jew was not wiped off the face of the earth. And Obama is working overtime to overthrow all international norms to make sure these two psychos regain control of Honduras, after the good people of that nation rejected them.
What is Barack Obama's sick fascination with anti-Semites? His love for Hugo Chavez, the first of the South American Jew-haters, is well known. His ability to shrug off the rhetoric of the Holocaust-denying, new Holocaust-dreaming Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is absolutely amazing. His honoring of Mary Robinson - architect of the hateful Durbin conference - with a Presidential Medal of Freedom is simply disgusting. And of course let's not forget Barack Obama's 20 year love affair with his mentor, Reverend Wright, who was a Chicago anti-Semite par excellence.
Based on this pattern, I guess it is no surprise that Obama would be supporting the Jew-hating tag team of Zelaya and Ellner, despite the democratic process that ejected them. Hey - they are socialists, they hate Americans, and they want to wipe the Jews off the face of the earth.
When you come right down to it - they think just like Barack Obama does.
And yet we turn our heads and pretend not to notice...
My rabbi gave a sermon on Yom Kippur that involved begging the congregation not to believe that Barack Obama hated Jews - no, she said, he actually loves us, and is trying to create peace, and needs our support.
Stupid b*tch is to her congregation what the Pied Piper was to the children of Hamelin...
Well, what would Obama have in common with Zelaya, besides the "yes we can" refrain? Well, Zelaya himself has made the following charge:
From his refuge inside the Brazilian embassy in Honduras, Zelaya proclaimed in an interview with the Miami Herald that Israeli mercenaries were torturing him with high-frequency radiation. The fugitive ex-president also complained of a sore throat caused by the toxic gas being piped into the embassy by nefarious secret agents.
Interesting accusation - if you were wearing a tinfoil hat in the basement of the insane asylum. Concerning, from a man being pushed by the president of the United States to be given the reigns of power in a nation racked by years of corruption and civil unrest.
But let's hear more on the subject, from Zelaya's chief propagandist, David Romero Ellner:
“There are times when I ask myself if Hitler was or not correct in finishing with that race with the famous Holocaust. If there are people that do damage in this country, they are Jewish, the Israelis. I want to name, this afternoon here in Radio Globo, by name and last name, who are the two officers of the Jewish army who are working with the Armed Forces of our country and who are in charge of carrying out all these conspiracy activities and undercover actions and everything else that is happening to the President of the Republic.
“After what I have learned, I ask myself why, why didn’t we let Hitler carry out his historic mission. Forgive me for the grotesque expression. But I ask myself after I have realized this and many other things. I believe it should have been fair and valid to let Hitler finish his historic vision…”
So Zelaya's right hand-man bemoans the fact that every last Jew was not wiped off the face of the earth. And Obama is working overtime to overthrow all international norms to make sure these two psychos regain control of Honduras, after the good people of that nation rejected them.
What is Barack Obama's sick fascination with anti-Semites? His love for Hugo Chavez, the first of the South American Jew-haters, is well known. His ability to shrug off the rhetoric of the Holocaust-denying, new Holocaust-dreaming Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is absolutely amazing. His honoring of Mary Robinson - architect of the hateful Durbin conference - with a Presidential Medal of Freedom is simply disgusting. And of course let's not forget Barack Obama's 20 year love affair with his mentor, Reverend Wright, who was a Chicago anti-Semite par excellence.
Based on this pattern, I guess it is no surprise that Obama would be supporting the Jew-hating tag team of Zelaya and Ellner, despite the democratic process that ejected them. Hey - they are socialists, they hate Americans, and they want to wipe the Jews off the face of the earth.
When you come right down to it - they think just like Barack Obama does.
And yet we turn our heads and pretend not to notice...
My rabbi gave a sermon on Yom Kippur that involved begging the congregation not to believe that Barack Obama hated Jews - no, she said, he actually loves us, and is trying to create peace, and needs our support.
Stupid b*tch is to her congregation what the Pied Piper was to the children of Hamelin...
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Self-Hating Jew?
While I would like to see this story sourced a little bit better, it certainly does explain a lot:
A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots.
A close-up of the document reveals he was previously known as Sabourjian – a Jewish name meaning cloth weaver.
The short note scrawled on the card suggests his family changed its name to Ahmadinejad when they converted to embrace Islam after his birth.
The Sabourjians traditionally hail from Aradan, Mr Ahmadinejad's birthplace, and the name derives from "weaver of the Sabour", the name for the Jewish Tallit shawl in Persia. The name is even on the list of reserved names for Iranian Jews compiled by Iran's Ministry of the Interior.
Experts last night suggested Mr Ahmadinejad's track record for hate-filled attacks on Jews could be an overcompensation to hide his past....
And it creates a perfect circle of imperfect allies in the farce that is the current round of talks with the Iranian state.. Ahmadinejad's anti-Israeli lunatic rants - brought on by a desperate attempt to separate himself from his heritage - are likely no different than the anti-Israeli lunatic rants that Barack Obama heard for twenty years while worshipping at the feet of the the Reverend of Hate, Jeremiah Wright. So it would seem natural to Obama to feel a certain kinship with Ahmadinejad; and that he would believe they have "much to discuss".
And American Jews - who support Obama by a greater margin than any other group save African Americans - are also ashamed of Israel, as they feel that nation's aggressive stance towards its tormentors tarnishes their own liberal "bona fides" in this country. So the last thing they would do is urge a strike on Iran, and the first thing they would do is support talks with Ahmadinejad - after all, he is as embarrassed by the state of Israel as they are.
Throw into the mix a cadre of presidential advisers and State Department hacks that have been "Arabists" since their college days, and you complete a bizarre circle of people who feel that Israel has it coming, and if we can't talk the Iranians out of nuking the place, well, then...the Jews just brought it on themselves anyway(with their intolerant habit of fighting back), and maybe with them out of the way, we can clean up this messy region and just deal with a single Islamic ruler, who will obviously heel to us since we understand him so well.
So we have come down to this. Israel is threatened to be destroyed by a self-loathing Islamic Jew and a weak American president, with the tactic support of most of the American Jewish community.
Sound crazy? So did the idea that an Austrian postcard painter could one day rule Germany and engineer a Holocaust...
A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots.
A close-up of the document reveals he was previously known as Sabourjian – a Jewish name meaning cloth weaver.
The short note scrawled on the card suggests his family changed its name to Ahmadinejad when they converted to embrace Islam after his birth.
The Sabourjians traditionally hail from Aradan, Mr Ahmadinejad's birthplace, and the name derives from "weaver of the Sabour", the name for the Jewish Tallit shawl in Persia. The name is even on the list of reserved names for Iranian Jews compiled by Iran's Ministry of the Interior.
Experts last night suggested Mr Ahmadinejad's track record for hate-filled attacks on Jews could be an overcompensation to hide his past....
And it creates a perfect circle of imperfect allies in the farce that is the current round of talks with the Iranian state.. Ahmadinejad's anti-Israeli lunatic rants - brought on by a desperate attempt to separate himself from his heritage - are likely no different than the anti-Israeli lunatic rants that Barack Obama heard for twenty years while worshipping at the feet of the the Reverend of Hate, Jeremiah Wright. So it would seem natural to Obama to feel a certain kinship with Ahmadinejad; and that he would believe they have "much to discuss".
And American Jews - who support Obama by a greater margin than any other group save African Americans - are also ashamed of Israel, as they feel that nation's aggressive stance towards its tormentors tarnishes their own liberal "bona fides" in this country. So the last thing they would do is urge a strike on Iran, and the first thing they would do is support talks with Ahmadinejad - after all, he is as embarrassed by the state of Israel as they are.
Throw into the mix a cadre of presidential advisers and State Department hacks that have been "Arabists" since their college days, and you complete a bizarre circle of people who feel that Israel has it coming, and if we can't talk the Iranians out of nuking the place, well, then...the Jews just brought it on themselves anyway(with their intolerant habit of fighting back), and maybe with them out of the way, we can clean up this messy region and just deal with a single Islamic ruler, who will obviously heel to us since we understand him so well.
So we have come down to this. Israel is threatened to be destroyed by a self-loathing Islamic Jew and a weak American president, with the tactic support of most of the American Jewish community.
Sound crazy? So did the idea that an Austrian postcard painter could one day rule Germany and engineer a Holocaust...
Friday, October 02, 2009
Top 10 Reasons Chicago Didn't Get the Olympics
Heard on The Corner:
10. Dead people can't vote at IOC meetings
9. Obama distracted by 25 min meeting with Gen. McChrystal
8. Who cares if Obama couldn't talk the IOC into Chicago? He'll be able to talk Iran out of nukes.
7. The impediment is Israel still building settlements.
6. Obviously no president would have been able to acomplish it.
5. We've been quite clear and said all along that we didn't want the Olympics.
4. This isn't about the number of Olympics "lost", it's about the number of Olympics "saved" or "created".
3. Clearly not enough wise Latina judges on the committee
2. Because the IOC is racist.
1. It's George Bush's fault.
And man oh man, you have got to love the stupefied response of this CNN anchor at the news that Chicago was the first city eliminated by the IOC..."Chicago is out? Chicago is out?"
Guess he thought that The One and his wife would not take his & her airplane trips to Copenhagen unless it was a slam-dunk. Guess again...
CNN, you've been punk'd. So have we all....
10. Dead people can't vote at IOC meetings
9. Obama distracted by 25 min meeting with Gen. McChrystal
8. Who cares if Obama couldn't talk the IOC into Chicago? He'll be able to talk Iran out of nukes.
7. The impediment is Israel still building settlements.
6. Obviously no president would have been able to acomplish it.
5. We've been quite clear and said all along that we didn't want the Olympics.
4. This isn't about the number of Olympics "lost", it's about the number of Olympics "saved" or "created".
3. Clearly not enough wise Latina judges on the committee
2. Because the IOC is racist.
1. It's George Bush's fault.
And man oh man, you have got to love the stupefied response of this CNN anchor at the news that Chicago was the first city eliminated by the IOC..."Chicago is out? Chicago is out?"
Guess he thought that The One and his wife would not take his & her airplane trips to Copenhagen unless it was a slam-dunk. Guess again...
CNN, you've been punk'd. So have we all....
New Jersey's Economy Expected to Recover...in 2017
...and that, my friends, is an admittedly optimistic scenario as put forth by a team of Rutgers economists:
A sobering report from two Rutgers economists. Jim Hughes and Joseph Seneca say it could take 2017 before employment returns to pre-recession levels. “We’re not trying to be overly dramatic here — we might even be considered optimistic,” Hughes, who is dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers, told the Star-Ledger. “It’s not going to be an easy slog from here.”
New Jersey must add at least 25,000 jobs a year — higher than the average in the past. With the business climate in New Jersey considered among the worst in the nation, the likelihood of adding 25,000 jobs a year is not realistic.
Jon Corzine reacts at last night's gubernatorial debate:
When the panelists asked him about high unemployment, he responded weakly with a verbal shrug, noting that unemployment was also high in other states...He also concocted some strange tale involving jobs coming into New Jersey over the George Washington Bridge...
Garden State Patriot has more on Corzine's strange disconnect from reality last night:
Governor Corzine’s chutzpah knows no bounds. If you listened to the Governor tonight it was like being in a bizarro world: Up is down, right is left, black is white. In the past decade public sector jobs have risen while private sector jobs have been lost, yet he touts a record of reducing government workers? He claims to have cut property taxes and protected rebates when property taxes have gone up and scores of hard-working New Jerseyans (some now out of work I might add) learned this summer that their Homestead rebates were being stripped away from them. He had the gall to say, in reference to Chris Daggett’s plan, that it would be wrong to raise taxes in a recession – when he just raised taxes in a recession by a BILLION dollars!
Well, with enough money and enough bald-face lying, maybe he can still win. What a classic elitist, though - Corzine seems to believe he can continue to hold office without even appearing to give a whit about the concerns of the average middle-class resident...almost as if it is our duty to elect him, as he is so obviously our moral and intellectual better.
And why should such a man be bothered with such trifles as the middle-class, anyway? They are there to serve him, after all, and supply capital for his own little redistribution of wealth within the state of New Jersey...
A sobering report from two Rutgers economists. Jim Hughes and Joseph Seneca say it could take 2017 before employment returns to pre-recession levels. “We’re not trying to be overly dramatic here — we might even be considered optimistic,” Hughes, who is dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers, told the Star-Ledger. “It’s not going to be an easy slog from here.”
New Jersey must add at least 25,000 jobs a year — higher than the average in the past. With the business climate in New Jersey considered among the worst in the nation, the likelihood of adding 25,000 jobs a year is not realistic.
Jon Corzine reacts at last night's gubernatorial debate:
When the panelists asked him about high unemployment, he responded weakly with a verbal shrug, noting that unemployment was also high in other states...He also concocted some strange tale involving jobs coming into New Jersey over the George Washington Bridge...
Garden State Patriot has more on Corzine's strange disconnect from reality last night:
Governor Corzine’s chutzpah knows no bounds. If you listened to the Governor tonight it was like being in a bizarro world: Up is down, right is left, black is white. In the past decade public sector jobs have risen while private sector jobs have been lost, yet he touts a record of reducing government workers? He claims to have cut property taxes and protected rebates when property taxes have gone up and scores of hard-working New Jerseyans (some now out of work I might add) learned this summer that their Homestead rebates were being stripped away from them. He had the gall to say, in reference to Chris Daggett’s plan, that it would be wrong to raise taxes in a recession – when he just raised taxes in a recession by a BILLION dollars!
Well, with enough money and enough bald-face lying, maybe he can still win. What a classic elitist, though - Corzine seems to believe he can continue to hold office without even appearing to give a whit about the concerns of the average middle-class resident...almost as if it is our duty to elect him, as he is so obviously our moral and intellectual better.
And why should such a man be bothered with such trifles as the middle-class, anyway? They are there to serve him, after all, and supply capital for his own little redistribution of wealth within the state of New Jersey...
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Was Cash For Clunkers a Success? Ask a Saturn Dealer...
An entire 37 days after "Cash for Clunkers" ends, Saturn shuts down:
General Motors is closing its Saturn business, ending the once-ballyhooed effort to build "a different kind of car company," as the implosion of auto sales that started last year continues to ravage the industry.
The decision Wednesday to abandon Saturn came after negotiations broke down to sell the brand to Penske Automotive.
The setback follows a massive bailout effort in which the government sought to rescue the industry with aid for GM, Chrysler, suppliers and financing companies, as well as the "Cash for Clunkers" incentive program.
I owned (well, leased) two Saturns - inexpensive, fuel-efficient cars that never failed to start up (even during three frigid Chicago winters), and never needed to be brought in for repairs.
Exactly the type of car the president keeps telling us is all America needs, right? So much so that he invested over $50 billion in taxpayer dollars into GM, Saturn's parent company, and another $3 billion into this summer's "cash for clunkers" program.
So how'd that work out? Ask the 350 Saturn dealerships that will close shortly, and the 13,000 employees that are about to be added to the unemployment line. Remember that, when whatever unemployment figure that is released tomorrow is touted as an "improvement".
Unfortunately, if any of these unemployed workers should need a car, and wishes to buy a cheap used automobile, well, he's sh*t out of luck there too. Blame "Cash for Clunkers" again:
....since the start of this year, a combination of tight supplies of both new and used vehicles and higher demand from a frugal public have pushed average used-car prices to the highest levels in years, industry watchers say.
Not to brag, but I predicted this negative effect on poorer and younger drivers back in the beginning of August.
And for those Democrats who touted this deranged government handout as a benefit to the environment, well - here's some more spittle in Nancy Pelosi's eye:
What kinds of used vehicles are selling? All kinds, but particularly "gas guzzlers," says Katharine Kenny , vice president of investor relations for CarMax ...
What really bugs the hell out of me is this - couldn't Saturn have gone bankrupt all by itself, even without us investing billions of dollars into it? What an incredible waste of cash, and of the human capital expended to manufacture it.
But that's what happens in a government-run economy. Favorites get paid, good projects die on the vine, and politicians keep seizing and spending other's people money with no conception of the labor it takes to create it.
Lunatic economics. That's what you get when the inmates are running the asylum...
General Motors is closing its Saturn business, ending the once-ballyhooed effort to build "a different kind of car company," as the implosion of auto sales that started last year continues to ravage the industry.
The decision Wednesday to abandon Saturn came after negotiations broke down to sell the brand to Penske Automotive.
The setback follows a massive bailout effort in which the government sought to rescue the industry with aid for GM, Chrysler, suppliers and financing companies, as well as the "Cash for Clunkers" incentive program.
I owned (well, leased) two Saturns - inexpensive, fuel-efficient cars that never failed to start up (even during three frigid Chicago winters), and never needed to be brought in for repairs.
Exactly the type of car the president keeps telling us is all America needs, right? So much so that he invested over $50 billion in taxpayer dollars into GM, Saturn's parent company, and another $3 billion into this summer's "cash for clunkers" program.
So how'd that work out? Ask the 350 Saturn dealerships that will close shortly, and the 13,000 employees that are about to be added to the unemployment line. Remember that, when whatever unemployment figure that is released tomorrow is touted as an "improvement".
Unfortunately, if any of these unemployed workers should need a car, and wishes to buy a cheap used automobile, well, he's sh*t out of luck there too. Blame "Cash for Clunkers" again:
....since the start of this year, a combination of tight supplies of both new and used vehicles and higher demand from a frugal public have pushed average used-car prices to the highest levels in years, industry watchers say.
Not to brag, but I predicted this negative effect on poorer and younger drivers back in the beginning of August.
And for those Democrats who touted this deranged government handout as a benefit to the environment, well - here's some more spittle in Nancy Pelosi's eye:
What kinds of used vehicles are selling? All kinds, but particularly "gas guzzlers," says Katharine Kenny , vice president of investor relations for CarMax ...
What really bugs the hell out of me is this - couldn't Saturn have gone bankrupt all by itself, even without us investing billions of dollars into it? What an incredible waste of cash, and of the human capital expended to manufacture it.
But that's what happens in a government-run economy. Favorites get paid, good projects die on the vine, and politicians keep seizing and spending other's people money with no conception of the labor it takes to create it.
Lunatic economics. That's what you get when the inmates are running the asylum...
A World Without America
It's something that our enemies have been dreaming about for years. It's what the European Left has been screaming for since the Eighties. It's been the staple of every stump speech by every tin-pot dictator in the hemisphere who as offered up America as the sole reason for the calamities suffered by his subjects.
And now, Barack Obama is giving the world what it has clamored for. Jennifer Rubin is making a different point, but her words apply nevertheless:
One senses that Obama’s agenda and events on the world stage are all spinning out of control.
Iran and Afghanistan policies are adrift while the president chases to catch up to unanticipated disclosures (from his own military and from Iran), foreign leaders push forward to assert themselves, and congressional leaders pull this way and that on everything from Afghanistan troop levels and funding to gasoline sanctions for Iran. The president mulls and meets, while others wrestle with breaking developments. The space usually occupied by a forceful commander in chief seems empty–and, as with all vacuums, will be filled by others.
On the domestic agenda, are we closer to a health-care reform bill than we were when Congress left for vacation in August? It doesn’t seem that way. Cap-and-trade? It doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. And we’ll get new unemployment numbers on Friday, followed to be sure by some head-shaking and sympathetic words from the White House press room. But Obama will be in Geneva.
Who’s in charge here? Certainly not the president....
What will this administration have wrought? Well, nature abhors a vacuum, as the cliche goes. Iran will soon have nukes, and a historic opportunity to ally the Arab nations with Israel to fight Iran will instead become a nuclear arms race among every oil-producing sheikdom in the Middle East. Russia will re-build its empire, financing the re-conquest of past vassal states with energy money, as they fill the security vacuum and bring other oil-producing nations into their tight embrace. The Chavezes and Ahmadinejads of the world will tighten their grip on power as democracy becomes less and less common across the globe. The dark shadow of terrorism will rise again, unchecked. And Israel, with no one left to defend her, will die, but not without a horrific fight. How many will perish in that holocaust?
And with the engine of the American economy sputtering and coughing, as it is now forced to power national health care and various other entitlements dreamed up daily by the president, all of the world's economies will suffer as this nation's once-great spending power vanishes under a mound of debt worthy of a third-world nation. And without American cash and investment, it is likely many of the European economies, fragile to start, will collapse under the weight of their own social welfare systems. Unless, of course, they admit millions of additional Muslim immigrants to re-populate the continent, which while possibly helpful, will definitely lead to a EU ruled by Shari'a law.
And you wonder why Obama is so much more popular outside of America than he is here? He is giving them exactly what they want, the elimination of this nation from the world stage. But like a whiny kid fed a strict diet of chocolate and candy, the world will awake one day and look in the mirror, and not like what it sees....
It'll be too late. And the potential of a free world led by America and awash in wealth and commerce will be replaced by a world in chains, poverty and fear, with no great shining city on the hill to look towards for inspiration, and hope...
And now, Barack Obama is giving the world what it has clamored for. Jennifer Rubin is making a different point, but her words apply nevertheless:
One senses that Obama’s agenda and events on the world stage are all spinning out of control.
Iran and Afghanistan policies are adrift while the president chases to catch up to unanticipated disclosures (from his own military and from Iran), foreign leaders push forward to assert themselves, and congressional leaders pull this way and that on everything from Afghanistan troop levels and funding to gasoline sanctions for Iran. The president mulls and meets, while others wrestle with breaking developments. The space usually occupied by a forceful commander in chief seems empty–and, as with all vacuums, will be filled by others.
On the domestic agenda, are we closer to a health-care reform bill than we were when Congress left for vacation in August? It doesn’t seem that way. Cap-and-trade? It doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. And we’ll get new unemployment numbers on Friday, followed to be sure by some head-shaking and sympathetic words from the White House press room. But Obama will be in Geneva.
Who’s in charge here? Certainly not the president....
What will this administration have wrought? Well, nature abhors a vacuum, as the cliche goes. Iran will soon have nukes, and a historic opportunity to ally the Arab nations with Israel to fight Iran will instead become a nuclear arms race among every oil-producing sheikdom in the Middle East. Russia will re-build its empire, financing the re-conquest of past vassal states with energy money, as they fill the security vacuum and bring other oil-producing nations into their tight embrace. The Chavezes and Ahmadinejads of the world will tighten their grip on power as democracy becomes less and less common across the globe. The dark shadow of terrorism will rise again, unchecked. And Israel, with no one left to defend her, will die, but not without a horrific fight. How many will perish in that holocaust?
And with the engine of the American economy sputtering and coughing, as it is now forced to power national health care and various other entitlements dreamed up daily by the president, all of the world's economies will suffer as this nation's once-great spending power vanishes under a mound of debt worthy of a third-world nation. And without American cash and investment, it is likely many of the European economies, fragile to start, will collapse under the weight of their own social welfare systems. Unless, of course, they admit millions of additional Muslim immigrants to re-populate the continent, which while possibly helpful, will definitely lead to a EU ruled by Shari'a law.
And you wonder why Obama is so much more popular outside of America than he is here? He is giving them exactly what they want, the elimination of this nation from the world stage. But like a whiny kid fed a strict diet of chocolate and candy, the world will awake one day and look in the mirror, and not like what it sees....
It'll be too late. And the potential of a free world led by America and awash in wealth and commerce will be replaced by a world in chains, poverty and fear, with no great shining city on the hill to look towards for inspiration, and hope...
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