Stop! Enough, already! You're all making my head hurt. Yes, there's a lot which can be said about Tuesday's elections, to include diametrically opposed things about the same election results, depending on who you are and how you want to spin those results. For example, the White House is sad, doesn't care, is scared, dismisses, is encouraged by, sees things this way, doesn't see things that way -- and all at once, if you believe all the "interpretations" and spin and blather.

What it all means to me, and I do hope I'm right about this, is that these off-year elections are a culmination of a long simmering disaffection with establishment Republicans in general and Republicans in Name Only (RINOs) in particular, which has been given even more impetus by the TEA Party and 9/12 grassroots movements which have been growing since last Spring's Tax Day TEA Party protests. If the nationwide TEA Party protests on April 15 and July 4, 2009, didn't give the Republican establishment and RINOs enough of a heads up, surely the massive march on Washington and protest at the Capitol building of hundreds of thousands, perhaps over a million, TEA Party and 9/12 protesters on September 12th surely should have. And if even all that didn't, then look to Virginia's and New Jersey's elections and their crushing victories for real Republican conservative candidates.

All liberals, in and out of the lamestream media and entertainment industries, and all Democrats and, so far, most of the Republican establishment, and RINOs alike, have acted like if they just ignore or make fun of the TEA Partiers and 9/12ers and frustrated town hallers long enough, the angry I-want-my-government-and-freedoms-back protesters will simply run out of steam and just go away. Well, hellooooo? Not hardly. Ain't gonna happen.

Add it up. Long-term, simmering conservative dissatisfaction with Republicans acting too much like Democrats and losing in 2006 (benchmark), then losing even bigger in 2008 (benchmark), to hundreds of thousands all across the country protesting on April 15th (benchmark), to hundreds of thousands more protesting on July 4th (benchmark), to many hundreds of thousands more protesting on September 12th (benchmark), to as recently as this Thursday when an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 more, again from all across the country, in the middle of a workweek, showed up to protest at the Capitol Building -- again -- based on a call from a single conservative, Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, and with only a few day's notice! I'd say "benchmark" again. That's not a sign of going, as in going away. That's a sign of growing, as in growing enough to say, "We're here to stay and will not be denied."

I'm beginning to wonder how many times and in how many different ways we have to write things large and small for the Republican establishment and RINOs to finally see the handwriting on the wall: Conservatives are fine, and real moderate Republicans are okay, but RINOs are not! RINOs are an endangered species!

Case in point: Many liberals and much of the left-wing media are describing the NY-23 district election as a "split" in the Republican Party because a "moderate" Republican candidate was forced to withdraw because some national level Republicans and Conservatives supported the Conservative candidate. Well, yes, although the national Republican establishment did support the "moderate" Republican (that is, until they didn't), some nationally known Republicans and Conservatives did support the Conservative candidate. But they did not do so against a "moderate" Republican candidate, for there was no "moderate" Republican candidate in the race.

[I've got to hurry and fire this one off, so all of you know I made my predictions well in advance of today's election trends, much less the results. Otherwise, I don't get credit for being smart enough to be right, which I do so love when it happens.]

Today, even the liberal lamestream media are watching three elections as possible bellwethers for 2010, the two gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, and the District 23 race in upstate New York.

My predictions:

In the purple state of Virginia, which Obama carried in 2008 by a comfortable margin, I think the Republican candidate will not only win but will win by double digits, despite Obama having come here twice to support the Democratic candidate. In fact, I think it will be a Republican sweep across all races -- gubernatorial, attorney general and state delegates. Of course, if the Republican wins, Team Obama will blame the loss on a weak Democratic candidate, which even the president's star power could not help, who didn't run a good campaign. In fact, anticipating that outcome itself, the White House has already started distancing itself from the Democratic candidate. And also, of course, should the Democrat win, then that will be BECAUSE of Obama's star power in helping out. Team Obama likes to have its cake and eat it too, whenever possible.

In the deep blue liberal state of New Jersey, an even more telling race, I think the Republican candidate will narrowly defeat the incumbent Democrat, despite Obama having visited there three times in recent weeks in support of the Democrat. This loss, if it occurs, would be harder for Team Obama to "explain" (read: spin), but I'm sure they will try, and with their normal straight faces, too, looking right into the camera and lying. The fact is the incumbent Democrat Corsine is simply not very well liked around his state and I don't think Obama's coattails are long enough to offset that.

(Gee, I wonder how many millions in taxpayer dollars have been spent flying that big old Air Force One jumbo jet around to New Joysey and good ole Virginny so many times? Oh well, we all know by now that Obama doesn't mind spending other people's money.)

And in the upstate New York District 23 race, I think the Conservative Hoffman is poised to defeat the Democrat, even after the Republican in name only (RINO) candidate got almost a million dollars of Republican contribution money from the GOP, then dropped out of the race, and then swung her support to the Democrat! (Uh-huh, see, told ya, real birds of a feather, can't always tell a book by its cover, and all that. Talk about biting the hand that fed ya! Egg on the faces of the GOP leadership and some Republican former party stars who backed her -- big time! And, by the way, no more money from me to the GOP unless and until they show they know how to spend it better than wasting $900,000 of it on a RINO who then "turns" on the party.)

In other words, I'm predicting Democrat losses across all three races, and that should send several signals to both Republicans and Democrats.

To Republicans:

a. Stop worrying about making "the tent" so big by recruiting and supporting Democrat-lites and just get back to core conservative principles. It's nice to act so that everybody likes you, but in fact, no matter what you do, everybody isn't always going to like you. So, be who you are and you will at least be more able to count on those who do act like they like you, because they probably really do.

b. Stop "playing nice" just because the Democrats and other liberals shriek that you are the "Party of No," that you are obstructionists, or every time one of you says something they don't like or which they think they can make something out of. Be happy warriors, smile and then pin their ears back with logic and facts, two areas in which liberals are traditionally deficit. (I've long said that one main difference between liberals and conservatives is that liberals feel and conservative think.) In other words, don't take any crap. Each and every time a liberal makes a false charge or claim, jump on it, challenge it and show how it's false. Don't miss any. Instead of letting them dictate that you are the "Party of No," make them into the "Party of Liars." Instead of letting them bully you into "playing nice," less you be criticized for something real or imagined, make them paranoid about being challenged on any and every thing they say and do which is the least bit questionable. Attack, attack, attack.

c. If the TEA Party and 9/12 demonstrations and protests had not already given you a big enough clue (and the NY-23 RINO candidate pick indicates at least some of you certainly missed it, or at least badly misread it), they are nationwide, genuine grassroots, CONSERVATIVE (almost Federalist) movements. They are comprised of Republicans, moderate and disaffected (Obama voter's remorse) Democrats, Independents and Libertarians, as well as many people who have never had any party affiliation before, and almost all of them are folks who've never "organized," demonstrated or protested before, either. However, they are doing so now because they are disaffected with both political parties, they are either scared or angry, or both, about where they see Obama and the Democrat Congress taking the country, they are frustrated they are not being listened to, and they are not going away any time soon. In fact, they are becoming more and more organized and growing. But I think the TEA Partiers and 9/12ers have grassroots organized so far because they had to, because no one was representing or listening to their viewpoints and concerns. And I also think many of them are "looking for a home," an already existing organization which they feel will truly represent them and do something about their issues. We don't need a third major political party in this country. That could lead to more and more "splinter" parties and then we'd be in the same boat as many European and other countries around the world in having to always form often messy and unstable "coalition" governments. But, poll after poll still show that this is a center-right nation, and if Republicans can exhibit a real return to core conservative values and can capture the passion, and allegiance, of these grassroots protesters, "the tent" will not only be big enough but they will have channeled an energy across the country which cannot -- which will not -- be denied, or defeated.

To Democrats:

a. You have already badly overreached -- and, amazingly, you continue to do so. It's almost as if there's something in your drinking water and/or you just can't help yourselves. Okay, you elected the first black president and have control of both houses of Congress, so you have some reason to be euphoric but not enough permanent power to act stupidly elitist and continue to get away with it. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, but then no power is permanent, either. Unless there really IS some secret and nefarious vast left-wing conspiracy, some pernicious "progressive" plan to permanently takeover the federal government and suspend future elections, you had better stop, or at least slow down, your unconstitutional overreach and arrogant abuse of authority. A day of reckoning is coming.

b. You ignore -- decry, deride and dismiss -- the TEA Partiers and 9/12ers at your own peril. The Democrat Party is the one which most often complains (sometimes accurately and sometimes falsely) about this or that faction of the electorate being "disenfranchised," usually by some wicked conservatives and/or Republicans (not always the same thing nowadays). You incessantly portray your party as the one which cares the most for the most "victim" groups, yet you hypocritically refuse to recognize that the TEA Partiers and 9/12ers are themselves feeling disenfranchised and victimized, in large part by you. They are not going away just because you pretend they are not there, or that they don't matter. In fact, that attitude by both political parties in not addressing their concerns is what got them fired up and grassroots organizing in the first place, most of them for the first time in their lives. And they are growing and becoming more and more organized every day.

c. The outcomes of today's elections, as well as what I've said about the TEA Party and 9/12 movements, should send a strong message of caution, if not to your arrogant and out-of-touch party leadership, at least to you Blue Dog, or moderate, Democrats, because 2010 is coming and you will be judged more closely than you might think by what you do, who and what you support and how you vote between now and then. Tenga cuidado, Senors, Senoras y Senoritas. Tenga cuidado.

1. ObamaCare alternatives?
Oh, I dunno, maybe some of the things the Republicans of the so-called "Party of No" have been proposing but which the Democrats have been ignoring, like:
Interstate insurance competition, medical savings accounts, tax free insurance or credits, tort reform, fee for service, rewarding outcomes, medical malpractice reform, prohibiting coverage denials based on preexisting conditions, guaranteeing portability, electronic prescriptions and medical records, streamlining billing codes and practices, price and quality transparency, pay-for-performance measures, one-stop primary-care “medical homes,” chronic disease management initiatives, tax equity for health insurance purchases, increased incentives for health savings accounts, or creating the ability to purchase insurance or form risk pools across state lines.
Our health care system and health insurance do need reform. Everyone agrees on that, But it's already the best in the world and just needs some tuning up, not a whole new and untested model of car. Especially when the federal government tends not to turn out Ferraris but Edsels, thank you very much.

2. Cap and Trade, Cap and Tax, Crap and Tax - what's the difference?
Once again, class: Everyone wants to ensure our kids grow up in a clean environment. Some just want to bankrupt us while doing it, and some of us would prefer a more logical approach. For the second group, The Heritage Foundation has some figures and charts that provide a helpful look at the immense costs associated with the Waxman-Markey cap-and-tax plan to forcibly cap carbon. According to the new report, “The Economic Consequences of Waxman-Markey: An Analysis of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009," recently released:
a. Cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) losses are $9.4 trillion between 2012 and 2035;
b. Single-year GDP losses reach $400 billion by 2025 and will ultimately exceed $700 billion;
c. Net job losses approach 1.9 million in 2012 and could approach 2.5 million by 2035. Manufacturing loses would be 1.4 million jobs in 2035;
d. The annual cost of emissions permits to energy users will be at least $100 billion by 2012 and could exceed $390 billion by 2035;
e. A typical family of four will pay, on average, an additional $829 each year for energy-based utility costs; and
f. Gasoline prices will rise by 58 percent ($1.38 more per gallon) and average household electric rates will increase by 90 percent.
So, Waxman-Markey's Crap and Tax Plan does sound like a PLAN, but not a very GOOD plan.

 

 

 

 

First, let's be clear, there is as yet no one, single ObamaCare "plan" for us to consider or discuss. Instead, there is HR 3200, America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, the bill narrowly passed by the House of Representatives; there is another version, The Affordable Health Choices Act, reported out of the Senate HELP (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) Committee; and there are at least three other versions of some kind of health care and/or health insurance reform legislation, in various stages of development, discussion, debate and deliberation currently being circulated around the Congress.

So, what you have heard referred to as "ObamaCare" (or health care reform, subsequently changed by Team Obama to health insurance reform and maybe by now "Teddy KennedyCare") by the president who says we are in still another emergency and must once again hurry up and act, by most (but not all, by a long shot) Democrats who support it, by Republicans who almost unanimously object to it, and by angry town hallers who have heaped questions about it on their hapless, and sometimes hypocritical and hubristic, congressional representatives (at least the 1/3 who deigned to even meet with their constituents during the August congressional recess) is, at this point, some general themes and claims of what Obama and the Democrat Congress say should or should not be included.

(Maybe -- hopefully -- Obama will put a finer point on exactly what he thinks it should consist of (as he should have done when debate about it first started) when he addresses the specially convened for that purpose and TV prime-time (again) Joint Session of Congress on this Wednesday evening, September 9th.) 
 
But, while we await that, yet another "historic" address by the Silver Tongued One, let's look at some of those claims and themes.

1. Cutting $500 billion from Medicare will not hurt care or cut benefits for seniors.
This claim by Democrats, in addition to being another socialist redistributionist example of robbing Peter to pay Paul, just flies in the face of logic. How can you take that much money from a system which works pretty well but which almost everyone says is already going broke, which is already covering more and more seniors daily, and say that will not result in less money to provide benefits to more seniors, which of course must diminish the amount and quality of care provided to all who are in the program? That is, unless the Democrats have just figured out how to squeeze water from rocks and they're just not telling the rest of us.

2. Spending $1 to $1.6 trillion -- maybe even $2 trillion -- will save money.
How many of you, in gong over your own personal or family checkbooks or running your own small businesses, actually save money by spending money? The closest you can come to that, in running your business, for example, is to make a capital investment (spend) on new equipment, technologies, etc., which will increase your production capacity and therefore enhance your bottom line (saving you money by "paying for itself" over time). Otherwise, you're like my significant other, who will tell me with glee how much she "saved" by shopping a 60% sale at which she bought some stuff she didn't really need -- but it was such a good price! -- and who fails (more likely just flat refuses) to see my point when I tell her how she could have saved 100%.  

3. Spending $1 to $1.6 trillion -- maybe even $2 trillion -- will not increase the deficit.
I'm sorry, but at heart I'm just a simple Southern boy with a non-Ivy League education and, to me, debt is debt, whether you call it something fancier sounding, like a deficit, or not. To my somewhat unsophisticated view, deficit is just another way of saying longer term, and usually much larger -- and with Obama and this Congress, scary larger -- debt. And you don't reduce debt by spending still more, especially when the debt on the debt (the interest) is a pretty big debt all on its own. And if any of you Democrats know how to spend that much and not increase the deficit, I wish you would help me to pay down my credit card balance 'cause it seems to me that the more I charge on it, the more the credit card company tells me I'm in debt to them.

4. If you like your plan, you can keep it.
Except that within a few years of any Democrat version of ObamaCare being in effect, every insurance plan design for everyone will be dictated by the federal government design requirements, so you may not want to keep any of the plans which are available by then.

5. You can buy any insurance plan from any insurer you want.
Except that you can only buy the government designed, government approved plans. That's like saying you can buy any car you want, but the auto manufacturers all have the same designs and models and can only build and sell those models.

6. This is not a government takeover of the health care sector.
Uh-huh, like firing GM's CEO and giving more than half interest in the bankrupted company to the union which ran it into the ground in the first place was not a takeover, or refusing to let banks which were ready to repay their government loans get out from under government control by repaying them was not sustaining a takeover, i.e., exerting control. Sure. You betcha.

7. There will not be any rationing.
Let's see, our health care system is too expensive and is "broken," we need to take action for a massive overhaul immediately, we need to add 47 million uninsured and underinsured people to the system, no one has talked about how many more doctors and nurses will be needed because of that increase in people covered, much less how we're going to produce those additional doctors and nurses at all, or by when, much less in a timely manner, and there won't be any need to ration health care? Hello? Hmmm, more people added to the rolls and provided health care, plus not adding more doctors or nurses to provide that health care, equals providing more with either less or at least the same resources -- which means rationing. Or, let's put it this way, you and two other people are trekking across the desert and each of you has a half canteen of water. What do you do to ensure you have enough water to last until you get to the next oasis? Right, you ration the resources you have among all those who need it.

8. Campaign promises were explicitly made by the president that he would not cut any deals with “the drug companies.”
Yet he did exactly that in closed door, back room deals in return for Big Pharma spending millions in ads to prop up the sagging ObamaCare "plan" over the summer.

9. Abortion is not a covered benefit.
Democrats say this, despite the fact that the Democratic House pro-life leaders admit that it covers abortion, more than 20 Democrats have told their leadership in writing that they will not vote for any bill that covers abortion, and Republican amendments specifically prohibiting abortion being a covered benefit have been summarily dismissed and denied by Democrat congressional leadership. If, as claimed, it's not intended to be a covered benefit anyway, why not add an amendment specifically saying so?

10. Seniors will not be steered in the direction of dying to save money.
But most of the public knows that the most expense in health care is in the last six months of life, logically making seniors think Obama’s promises sound hollow because, as it turns out, and not surprisingly, they do not want the government making the decision about when that last six months starts, much less made by some cost-saving bureaucrat deciding who should start that last six months by deciding who does or does not get needed health care. So, no "death panels" per se, folks. Just a distant, federal government bureaucracy which will "cost-manage" to the same result.

11. The president is against a single payer system and ending employer provided health care.
So, all those videos of the president saying that he is for a single payer system and for ending employer provided health care, both as a candidate and as president are -- what? Just “misleading”?

12. Your employer may decide to put you in a government designed plan.
Because, that way, your employer will be taxed less than it costs to give you your insurance. Your employer will save money by putting you in the government-run Health Information Exchange -- but then you may be effectively "locked in" and can never leave!

13. The legislation's purpose is to insure the uninsured and accomplish “insurance reform.”
So what openly started out as the massively needed massive overhaul of our entire "broken" health CARE system later changed to only health INSURANCE reform and is just to ensure that the uninsured are insured and to only ensure "insurance reform" now? Uhhhhh-huh. What's that Will Shakespeare once said? Oh, yeah. "A federal government control power grab by any other name would smell as sweet." Or something like that. 
 
14. President Obama promised no mandates in his health plan.
But current versions have an individual mandate (which requires you to get health insurance whether you want it or not) and an employer mandate (which requires your employer to provide you coverage whether he or she wants to or not, or whether you would rather get more pay instead).

15. Families earning less than $250,000 will not see their taxes increase.
But if you don't buy health insurance and you earn more than $19,000 a year, you will be taxed 2.5 percent of your total income. And the no tax increase pledge for families earning $250,000 or less does not apply, of course, to ObamaCare.

16. There won't be any waiting lines.
First, there are waiting lines now. Go to almost any hospital ER, especially on a weekend, and see how quickly you are seen, unless you are bleeding all over the floor or have severe chest pains. But an additional 47 million will be added to the “free” health care system (which more people will use more "freely" because, you know, it's "free"), yet you won't find yourself waiting to see a doctor? Oh, please!

17. Obama says you can keep your own physician.
However, if a physician opts not to sign on to a government-run option and the government-run plan is what you're stuck with, you will lose your doctor. It's as simple as that. And recent polls show that a majority of doctors say they will not accept government plan patients.

18. There is no specific language in any of the current bills specifically prohibiting covering illegal immigrants.
Yet the president keeps talking about providing coverage for the 47 million uninsured, a figure which, although grossly inaccurate in and of itself, for one thing because it includes about 10 million LEGAL immigrants here on visas, etc., does also include millions of ILLEGAL immigrants. Again, similar to Republican amendments specifically prohibiting abortion coverage, amendments specifically excluding illegal immigrants and offered by Republicans have been steadfastly rebuffed by the Democrat congressional leadership. Some Democrats flatly deny that ObamaCare will cover illegal immigrants but, if that is really so, why not put expressly prohibitive language in the legislation saying so?  

19. Those who oppose Obama’s reform belong to the Republican "Party of No," are for the status quo, favor various special interest groups, and don't have anything else to offer.
However, Republicans have put forward at least FOUR major, much cheaper, less intrusive and less complicated proposals to lower the cost of health care, only to be actively ignored by the Democrat leadership, including President Obama, and by the so-called national “news” media.

20. Congressional Democrats will have the same option to use ObamaCare that their constituents will have.
This is just disingenuous, which is a nice word for not telling the whole truth. Some variation of this response is normally given by Democrat representatives when confronted at town hall meetings by angry constituents wanting to know that if what their Democrat representatives are proposing with ObamaCare is so good and necessary, will those same representatives commit to changing to ObamaCare from the cadillac, five-star health plan they now have, usually the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) [which is a system of "managed competition" through which employee health benefits are provided to full-time permanent civilian employees and qualified retirees of the US Government and under which the employer (that would be the US government, with the use of your tax dollars) pays an amount equal to 72 percent of the average plan premium for self-only or family coverage (not to exceed 75 percent of the premium for the selected plan), and the employee (that would be the member of Congress) pays the rest, i.e., 25 to 28 percent]. Not bad, huh? But that response purposefully begs the question anyway. Of course, a member of Congress could select ObamaCare, in whatever form, if any at all, that it finally takes. But that's far different from committing to doing that, instead of keeping the gold-plated, mostly government funded plan you already have and can even keep after you retire -- and which is not even available to most of your constituents (plus continuing to receive the highest annual salary you received, for life).

21. Tort reform and consumer-patients being able to "shop" for health care insurance across state lines would do more, and more quickly, than anything else to lower health care and health insurance costs. 
But, while being able to shop for health insurance like we can now do for other types of insurance may make it into even some Democrat versions of the health care/insurance reform legislation, it's highly doubtful tort reform to reduce frivolous or exorbitant doctor and/or hospital medical malpractice law suits will. As Democrat Howard Dean, former DNC Chairman, recently admitted at a town hall meeting: "When you're trying to change so much about something, you're going to make enemies and you have to be careful about how many enemies you make, or you won't get anything done, and the trial lawyers are a (special interest) group which Democrats just don't want to take on." Or words to that effect.

Well, Howie, you finally said something for a change that I think was not only completely honest but with which I totally agree -- trial lawyers are a mainstay constituency of the Democrat Party which no Democrats want to "take on" -- not even to help all those un- and under-insured folks suffering along with our "broken" health care system out there.

It's a shame, really. Democrats, maybe even with a little "bipartisan" help (and therefore political "cover") from Republicans, could do so much to help so many if they just really meant what they said, instead of actually trying to do something totally different. It's just that Democrats want to use healthscare for a huge government power grab more than they really want to do anything else.

The car that is our health care/insurance system is the best in the world but is too expensive to run now and does need some fine tuning. But the Democrats want to either completely overhaul it or throw it on the junk heap and replace it with a whole new model which may but probably won't work any better, or maybe not as well. That's like getting a small hole in your best-fittin' blue jeans and just throwing them away and getting a new pair, instead of neatly just patching that hole. Wasteful, rash and foolish.

But, let's see how the Silver Tongued One spins some of this, all of this, any of this later tonight, shall we?

So entitled Ben Smith and Nia-Malika Henderson their recent TeamPOLITICO article over Van Jones' demise as Obama's so-called "green jobs czar." The article was generally okay, with examples of how the Obama White House and "lefties" in general had misjudged various things during the summer, not the least of which, apparently, was FNC's Glenn Beck's ability to kick up a stink over Obama's czars in general and Jones in particular.

However, in one of what might charitably be called POLITICO's occasional "bending over backwards to be fair" efforts, which sometimes bleed into simply being ever-so-sly Obama promoters (as when POLITICO.com's head honcho Mike Allen twice referred during the campaign to Candidate Obama doing this or that at the "Western White House" in Hawaii -- uh, can't have any kind of White House, Mikey, unless you're already the prez) or apologists for this White House and its current primary occupant, the article's authors said something I just didn't want to let pass, so I told them so.

Dear (supposedly objective) TeamPOLITICO:

"Actually the answer is simpler than that...

Van Jones founded an organization that decided to go after Beck personally by attempting to silence Beck and making a big deal about it in the national media. The choice of Jones is retaliation pure and simple. It's hardball politics and this is how its [sic] played."

No, TeamPOLITICO, it's even simpler than that...

If you're going to play apologist for the Obama White House, at least get your chronology straight. Look up the actual dates when Beck started talking and asking legitimate questions about all of Obama's czars and then when Color of Change called for its boycott of Beck.

Beck was already well into "exposing" some of Obama's czars (I think including Jones, but for your own "hardball politics" example, that doesn't really matter) when Color of Change announced its boycott of Beck sponsors in a rather obvious left-wing effort to silence Beck.

So much for freedom of speech, huh? So, it wasn't Beck who "picked on" Jones in retaliation for Color of Change's boycott; it was Color of Change which attempted to retaliate against Beck with its boycott for Beck's "outing" of Jones and others.

But Beck wouldn't be silenced and his audience, and other sponsors, not only rallied to him for it but also grew. Talk about a lefty idea which backfired!

That was the end of my comment to TeamPOLITICO about their bias.

But, encouragingly, it seems like Color of Change's thuggish tactic was just another in a string of lefty misjudgments lately. You know, like Democrat "Congressionals" calling town hallers "un-American," "too well dressed to be serious," "Astroturf," and "a mob," as well as two-thirds of Congressionals not even conducting town hall meetings with their constituents at all during the summer recess and many of the one-third who did either appearing only before specially selected, closed groups of constituents (in "gated" communities), conducting so-called "conference call town halls" rather than meeting face-to-face with their constituents, or, as one Democrat Congressional recently put it, that she was not going to give those people an audience, that she respected herself and her office more than that. Hey, Miz Democrat Congressional, that's not respecting yourself OR your office. That's just plain DISrespecting your constituents. Who do you think you are, and who do you think put you where you are? Those people are your constituents, you work for them. And if they voted you in, they can vote you out. And to say something like that is either the height of arrogance at worse or not even being a useful idiot at best.

2010 -- throw all the bums and crooks and self-servers out! Elect people who are of the people rather than above the people, who want to serve rather than rule, and who want to serve us rather than themselves.

 

The White House's claim this month that 46 million Americans lack health insurance is false because that number includes almost 10 million people who are not “Americans” but are in fact citizens of foreign countries who happen to be present in the United States, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

Add to that, that 11 - 13 million (nobody knows for sure) of the alleged 46 million are illegal immigrants who shouldn't be provided health insurance anyway, and you are left with perhaps 23 - 25 million so-called uninsured.

Reduce that by the number of households making over $75,000 per year (about 22 million) who can afford health insurance, and you have a remaining "uninsured" of 1 - 3 million. With a current population of about 300 million, 3 million is  .01 percent of the population.

Furthermore, the U.S. Census Bureau's 2006 American Community Survey found that there were 69,606,117 Americans in the 18 - 34-year-old demographic. If only half of this demographic chooses, wisely or unwisely, not to want health insurance because they are for the most part young and healthy, that's about another 35 million.

So, starting with a claim of 46 million, subtracting 10 million legal visitors equals 36 million; subtracting 12 million (average of 11 - 13 million) illegal immigrants equals 24 million; subtracting 22 million who can afford their own health insurance equals 2 million; subtracting 35 million who think they're too young and healthy to need health insurance equals........MINUS 33 million?! So, who's cooking the books, stretching the statistics, falsifying the figures, nullifying the numbers, altering the arithmetic, manipulating the math? And why?   

Now, there are doubtless Americans who, through no real fault of their own, cannot afford adequate health insurance and who should be helped. Undoubtedly, even .01 percent of the population who can't afford health insurance is still a lot of people. And undoubtedly, health care costs in general are too high and require moderating.

Then too, individual stories of the single, out-of-work mom or homeless person who suffers a catastrophic illness and can't afford medical treatment can be found and highlighted to make a point. But, as much as they tug at our heartstrings and anger us for the injustice, they are thankfully the exceptions rather than the rule, and no system as large as our health care system can ever be perfect. And it is often the involvement and control of local, state and/or HMO bureaucrats who only make things worse anyway. And now we want that on the federal level, administered by even more distant federal bureaucrats?

It's both ironic and hubristically hypocritical that President Obama and Congressional Democrats, as well as their liberal mainstream media handmaidens, so often say that Republicans and conservatives in general are "fearmongering" about this or that, while they "fearmonger" about hurrying to pass their massive nonstimulating stimulus plan, their massive "porky" budget, their massive automaker bailouts-bankruptcies-makeovers-takeovers, and now their massive hurry-up (again) health care reform.

So, instead of Obama and Congressional Democrats using false figures to "fearmonger" us into throwing at least another trillion dollars of our tax money (where DOES it stop?; WHEN does it stop?) into fixing what admittedly is a problem, perhaps we should first:

(a) determine what is the real number of uninsured who actually, legally and deservedly need help

(b) listen, debate and find out what's really wrong with the alternatives being offered by the so-called "Party of No" (or more accurately, the "Party of Not Listened To") Republicans

(c) attempt getting a handle on the runaway fraud and waste of millions of taxpayer dollars in the current, and already going bankrupt, MEDICARE and MEDICAID programs

(d) institute some realistic tort reform which will still allow victims of medical malpractice adequate but not exorbitant redress but without bankrupting doctors with medical malpractice insurance rates and career-ending lawsuits.

Oh, I know, I know, any, much less all, of that would be a lot of work and would take some time (something Obama and his Democrat Congress obviously don't like to do -- they don't even like taking the time to read what they vote on and sign). And it would cause deliberate and perhaps even deliberative action. And some favored special interest group supporters (like trial lawyers, for example) would have to be confronted, maybe even somewhat "disappointed."

Besides, gee-whiz, what a pain in the you-know-what to take the time and effort to do the job right, instead of just hurrying -- once again -- to simply throw still more taxpayer money at a complex set of problems and then claiming you've made it all better, huh? And done it all within your first 200 days, too! How ..... umm, ah ..... hmmm ..... "historic." Just remember, please, disasters can also be "historic."

The U.S. Supreme Court recently said it wouldn't hear an appeal from former Congressman William Jefferson (D-LA) to throw out most of the criminal charges against him. This sets the stage for Jefferson's trial in Alexandria, VA, on political corruption charges in which he is accused of demanding and sometimes receiving payments from businesses seeking his help to land lucrative contracts in Western Africa.

It's a good decision, but my question is, why does it take so long to bring somebody who was found with an unexplainable $80,000 or so of cold cash in his freezer (couldn't resist the pun) to justice?

I just wish the justice were swifter, to make more of a point and to serve as more of an immediate example.

Now, on to Barney Frank (D-MA) for duplicity in the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; Charlie Rangel (D-NY) for multiple tax problems; John Murtha (D-PA) for inside deals for himself and his son on government contracts; Chris Dodd (D-CT) for duplicity in the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, his sweetheart mortgage deal with Countrywide, and for lying about the AIG bonuses, first saying he knew nothing about them but then having to admit he not only knew about them but changed legislative language at the behest of Team Obama to facilitate their payment; Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for lying about the CIA lying to her and for lying to the American people to make political points and then trying to cover her backside by lying about her lying (need a bigger shovel, Nancy?); Joe Biden (D-DE) for his latest slip of the lip in compromising classified information on the VP's secret (not anymore!) security bunker after a couple of drinks at a dinner party; multiple Obama administration officials and appointees for various "lax tax" troubles; and, last but not least, Harry Reid (D-NV) for the million dollar sweetheart land deal he made in Nevada about a year ago - and for just generally being an obstreperous old curmudgeon and sourpuss. Although that last is probably not a felony, just a misdemeanor.

Then too, there's Barack Obama (D-IL) and his pre-election sweetheart mortgage deal with now convicted federal felon Tony Rezko on Obama's Chicago mansion, his illegal campaign contributions, his ties to the previously convicted and now (again) multiple federally investigated ACORN organization, his still questionable natural born citizenship qualification to even become president, his unconstitutional act in firing GM's CEO, and his trying to unduly influence and dictate terms to a federal bankruptcy judge.

Gee, seems like the Democrat controlled House and the Democrat controlled Senate ethics committees, as well as our Democratic Attorney General Eric "Americans are cowards about race" Holder, had better get BUSY!

But don't hold your breath. Not only the courts but especially the Democrats seem to move really slowly on such matters - when it affects other Democrats, that is. If all those listed were Republicans, you can be sure the Democrats would be in full-throated, hot pursuit.