Fame:
As Jim Treacher says: If Kenneth Gladney was an Obama supporter, right now he'd be more famous than Rodney King.
Gotta love this "post-racial America": Democrat union heavies can beat up a black guy using racial epithets and leave him in a wheelchair unable to speak - and happily (unlike, say, a black professor being asked for picture ID) it's not "symbolic" of anything at all. Not a Sharpton in sight to speak up for him: Mr Gladney's only shot at fame is an entry in The Guinness Book Of Records under "Least Famous Black Hate-Crime Victim In America".
Online Rumors Aren't What Is Sinking ObamaCare
Ramesh asks a simple, clear question: Are we really to put our faith in Obama's contradictory claims that "the system is an unsustainable disaster, but you can keep your piece of it if you want"?.
I've wondered how the bill is going to simultaneously cover the uninsured, expand care, and cut costs all at once; put more succinctly, they're promising the new system will spend less money and more money at the same time.
The common theme is that the Obama administration is making multiple promises that are impossible to keep; the response is basically... "shut up, you domestic terrorist"?
Activists against Obamacare are "mob", Un-American, and paid Insurance-company shills, but it's perfectly okay when the Whitehouse makes backroom deals to get this:
The drug industry has authorized its lobbyists to spend as much as $150 million on television commercials supporting President Obama’s health care overhaul, beginning over the August Congressional recess, people briefed on the plans said Saturday.
The unusually large scale of the industry’s commitment to the cause helps explain some of a contentious back-and-forth playing out in recent days between the odd-couple allies over a deal that the White House struck with the industry in June to secure its support. The terms of the deal were not fully disclosed.
From the same link. Take a guess on which side is paying it's protesters about $11-16 and hour.
Just guess.
From the SEIU:
Opponents of reform are organizing counter-demonstrators to speak at this and several congressional town halls on the issue to defend the status quo. It is critical that our members with real, personal stories about the need for access to quality, affordable care come out in strong numbers to drown out their voices.
Someone better tell them that Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer find "Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American."
And one has to love how people against these government plans are "counter-demonstrators". What next calling people that dare to speak out against the state "counter revolutionary wreckers"?
By any other name...
Robert Wright notes that “we already ration health care; we just let the market do the rationing.” This is a true point made by the proponents of health care reform. But I’m not sure why it’s supposed to be so interesting. You could make this statement about any good:
“We already ration food; we just let the market do the rationing.”
“We already ration gasoline; we just let the market do the rationing.”
“We already ration cigarettes; we just let the market do the rationing.”
And indeed, this was an argument that was made in favor of socialism. (No, okay, I’m not calling you socialists!) And yet, most of us realize that there are huge differences between price rationing and government rationing, and that the latter is usually much worse for everyone. This is one of the things that most puzzles me about the health care debate: statements that would strike almost anyone as stupid in the context of any other good suddenly become dazzling insights when they’re applied to hip replacements and otitis media.
Yes for some reason HealthCare is special, unique from other services.
From the Prof
Also, the market doesn’t deny you a hip replacement or a pacemaker because someone in government thinks your political views are “un-American.” Given the cronyism and thuggery we’ve seen with the bailouts, etc., I’m not confident this would hold true under a government health program. And I’m absolutely certain there would be a special track for insiders and favorites.
Someone doesn't think he can trust congress or the President to be ethical.
Megan McArdlecontinues
But there is also a real difference between having something rationed by a process and having it rationed by a person. That is, in fact, why progressives are so fond of rules. They don't want to tell grandma to take morphine instead of getting a pacemaker. It's much nicer if you create a mathematical formula that makes some doctor tell grandma to take morphine instead of getting a pacemaker. Then the doctor can disclaim responsibility too, because after all, no one really has any agency here--we're all just in the grips of an impersonal force.
But this won't do. If you design a formula to deny granny a pacemaker, knowing that this is the intent of the formula, then you've killed granny just as surely as if you'd ordered the doctor to do it directly. That's the intuition behind the conservative resistance to switching from price rationing to fiat rationing. Using the government's coercive power to decide the price of something, or who ought to get it, is qualitatively different from the same outcome arising out of voluntary actions in the marketplace.
Anger... justified?
I am not, and would not, endorse criminal mob behavior. But exhibitions of anger and spirit when one is justifiably angry and spirited are entirely appropriate. Making clear to a pol who is trying to insult your intelligence that you don't appreciate it is entirely appropriate.
I just don't get the detachment from the real world here. We're not talking trivia here. We're talking about what kind of country we're going to be from here on out. That's something worth getting whipped up about. If we're not whipped up, we lose. If we are whipped up and the Democrats try to use that fact as an excuse to ram this through, then they were going to ram it through anyway.
We are a heavy underdog. To prevail, the needle we have to thread is to convince enough Dems and RINOs that there will be electoral hell to pay if this monstrosity is enacted. That requires an authentic demonstration of fervor. It's unfortunate that some people will go overboard — as happens in any human endeavor — but that's no reason to treat this as if it were an academic exercise. If that's the approach, the game — like the country as we know it — is lost.
At least there's some good news.
Rasmussen: Support For Health Care Reform Falling
I hate posting poll reports because given all the variables of sampling, the wording of questions and other elements, it's hard to tell what they mean but you can certainly see the trend of support for the whole enterprise eroding.
Obama didn't pick his August deadline out of thin air. He knew what this month would mean.
BTW-for those Democrats who say they want an 'honest and respectful debate'...bullshit. If Obama, Pelosi and Reid had their way, the bill would have been passed and signed by now with no chance of debate. If people are mad at what you are trying to do and how you tried to do it, too bad.
And the results:
opposition to the plan has increased to 53%, up nine points since late June.
More significantly, 44% of voters strongly oppose the health care reform effort versus 26% who strongly favor it. Intensity has been stronger among opponents of the plan since the debate began.
...As for the protesters at congressional town hall meetings, 49% believe they are genuinely expressing the views of their neighbors, while 37% think they’ve been put up to it by special interest groups and lobbyists.
"In related news, we have always been at war with Eastasia."
Obama Aug, 19 2008 “If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system,”
Obama Aug, 11 2009 "I have not said that I am a supporter of a single-payer system,"
Compare the two videos.
So who you gonna believe? The President or your lying eyes?
And the Dems wonder why the public is being so hostile and untrusting of them
Rand Simberg nails it: "Just how stupid does he think we are? And how clueless is he if he thinks that we can’t find this kind of thing on the Internet?"
Sure he's insulting your intelligence, but that doesn't mean you can't trust him to run your medical care.
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