Mass Media loosing it.

The bulk of the media is doing its best to ignore the ACORN story.

Go to the link to hear what the NYT et al, literally don't want you to know.

Glen Reynolds: So how will the NYT, and other big-media outfits that have ignored the ACORN scandals so far, explain this to their readers? The same way they explained Van Jones’ resignation, I guess . . . .

A review of Obama's speech.

Powerline I think has the most detailed analysis of the speech, so here's a few quotations from it.

One striking aspect of the speech was that Obama kept talking about the "plan" that he "announced" tonight--but there is no plan; not in writing, anyway.

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Here are some excerpts from the speech that I thought were noteworthy:

Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics.

Then, a few minutes later:

Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing. Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most. And more will die as a result.

By far the biggest scaremonger on this issue has been Obama himself.

Well the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed.

I'm not sure whether Obama and his handlers understand how this sort of talk grates on those of us who are not liberal Democrats (a large majority of the country). Debating public policy issues is not "bickering." Disagreeing with a proposal to radically change one of the largest sectors of our economy is not a "game." This kind of gratuitous insult--something we never heard from President Bush, for example--is one of the reasons why many consider Obama to be mean-spirited.

I assume most people noticed how, in tonight's speech, Obama's assurance that we will not lose our present insurance coverage has been scaled back. This was after thousands of critics pointed out that under the Democrats' proposals, many people (more than 100 million according to some estimates) will in fact lose the insurance coverage they now have.

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Consider the analogy to life insurance: could a dying, 90-year-old person expect an insurance company to issue him a million dollar life insurance policy? Maybe, but it would cost close to a million dollars. Why can life insurance companies sell policies at rates that people consider reasonable? Only because they are insuring against premature death, and the insured has been paying premiums for many years, during most of which time there was little risk of his dying. The same principle applies, pretty closely, to health insurance.

Some of people's concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Such a charge would be laughable if it weren't so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.

No, it isn't. The Democrats' bill doesn't call the agencies it sets up "death panels," it says they will decide on "best practices." But any socialized medicine scheme saves money by rationing care. Who gets shorted, the politically powerful? No, of course not; the elderly and those who are otherwise helpless. In the United Kingdom, the death panel goes by the Orwellian acronym "NICE."

As Steven Green says in his much breifer but more colorful "drunkblog" of the speech:

5:32PM Correction: Preventative care does save lives, but it costs more money, not less. Nothing costs less than a dead patient. Don’t forget that. Ever.

Give his account a read too.

Back to Powerline

In fact, Obama and Congressional Democrats have zero interest in increasing choice and competition. If they did, there is an easy solution. There are over 1,000 health insurance companies in the United States; why do you think it is that in Alabama, one company has 90 percent of the business? It is because there are major legal obstacles to insurance companies operating across state lines. State legislatures, and lots of the companies, like it this way. Competition is hard. But if Obama really wanted to expand "choice and competition" in health care, all he would have to do is go along with the Republican proposal to allow health insurance companies to sell on a national basis. Like, say, computer companies, beer companies, automobile companies, law firms, and pretty much everyone else. The Democrats' refusal to allow existing health insurance companies to compete against each other nationwide, more than anything else, puts the lie to their nonsense about "choice and competition."

Now, I have no interest in putting insurance companies out of business.

Really? We've all seen the YouTube video where Obama says that under his plan, private health insurance will be driven into extinction over a period of ten to twenty years. Has he changed his mind? When? Why? Does President Obama fail to understand the ubiquity of YouTube? Does he not understand that many millions of Americans consider him a liar when he says things like this?

Emphasis added. And its interesting that such a "tech savy" and "skilled communicator" forgets that his past statements can be called up and directly contrasted with what he's saying now. How stupid does he think we are?

Is it churlish to point out that profits are not overhead? It might be if this were just a slip of the tongue on the stump. But this was a speech that was carefully crafted by Obama and his top advisers. They really do not know the first thing about business or economics. So why should we put them in charge of our economy?

I want to speak directly to America's seniors for a moment, because Medicare is another issue that's been subjected to demagoguery and distortion during the course of this debate.

Actually, the administration has said that around half the cost of the plan, $500 billion, would be paid for by cuts in Medicare. So it isn't exactly "demagoguery and distortion" to suggest that there might be cuts in Medicare.

And some wonder why there's a lack of trust in the intentions and competence of government.

But wait! If we can identify hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud in Medicare and Medicaid and we know how to eliminate it, why haven't we done so already? Why don't we do so--right now!--regardless of the administration's highly controversial health care bill?

There is no possible answer to these questions. The Obama plan--whatever it is, once reduced to writing--depends for most of its financing on the bare assertion that we are currently wasting hundreds of billions of dollars, and that we will stop wasting that money only if taxpayers knuckle under to Obamacare.

So the takeaway message is "Shut up" Stop pointing out the flaws in the "Plan" stop questioning the government, stop "bickering" Just Shut up.

Where have we heard that before?

Aaaaannnnnndd - under the bus.

Van Jones, resigned.

This is another "I told you so" for the White House's critics. Huh, guess Obama wasn't above putting radicals on his staff. Oh and the excitable overly-dramatic Glen Beck was right about this.

And talk about timing the release for burial.

According to Chuck Todd of MSNBC just now on Twitter, “Van Jones has resigned. Release just went out after midnight eastern.”

And another "tweet"

As Andy Levy Of Fox News’ Red Eye show notes on Twitter, “Won’t it be weird when people who don’t get their news from the internet or FNC have no idea who the guy who resigned is?”

More "pesky math"

Glen Reynolds has that unemployment chart. The one that shows the Whitehouses projections versus... reality.

Note how badly wrong the White House’s pre-stimulus projections were. Remember this when you hear their healthcare projections . . . .

That's what I don't get. Even if you support everything the WH and Congress claim about healthcare, why do you believe them? Why do you trust that things will actually go the way they promise?

Meanwhile people that aren't stary-eyed with faith in government not a certain... pattern.

Who could have warned us that a man who served seven years in the state legislature and three years in the Senate would not have been prepared for the toughest executive position in the Free World? We did. Repeatedly. So did John McCain, and for that matter, so did Hillary Clinton.

"Oooh. Van Jones, alright! So, Van Jones. We were so delighted to be able to recruit him into the White House. -

-We were watching him, uh, really, he's not that old, for as long as he's been active out in Oakland. And all the creative ideas he has. And so now, we have captured that. And we have all that energy in the White House."

Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs on Van Jones.

And what creative ideas does Mr. Jones have?

A self-proclaimed Communist. A vulgar Marxist twice over. A supporter of cold-blooded cop killer Mumia Abu Jamal. A 9/11 Truther . A racist hater, whose hatred extends to the United States. And insofar as his current job is concerned, we have a man who sees the "green jobs" con as a tool for overthrowing capitalism. We have, in short, the complete left-wing nightmare package.

Don't you feel better that Obama's expanded all those czars. Remember the promises of transparancy?

Hopechange! Read it all. This is a story the mass media won't cover (itself a story).

Well at least Jones doesn't advocate mandatory sterlilizations of undesirables, unlike some of Obama's staff.

Some other thoughts.

The problems with Van “change the system” Jones are not just his serial slurs against much of American society (“an apartheid regime”) as we know it (e.g., capitalism, the coal industry, American farming, the white population, the Bush administration (for causing 9/11), the Republican “***holes”, etc. — but that he simply cannot tell the truth about his own history, in disavowing almost everything he has said, written, or signed in the recent past. (His involvement with the 9/11 “Bush did it” lunacy has a heritage beyond just his written endorsement).
Worse still, by its own admission, the Obama administration seems to have monitored Jones and selected him for his czardom precisely because of, not despite, his flamboyant past.

Going Galt.... on education?

At least for a day.

Obama wants to address the nation's youth.

Hmmm.....

Students could discuss their responses to the following questions:
What do you think the President wants us to do?

Does the speech make you want to do anything?

Steven Green's response:

Now my son is young enough that he won’t be subjected to the President’s smiling face, dulcet tones, and calls to action. He won’t be pressured by his teachers or peers to go along or get with the program.

Your kids might not be so lucky.

In impossible times, the only way to be a responsible parent is to do the irresponsible thing. If my son were in a public school…

I’d call him in sick next Tuesday. I’d keep him home. I suggest you do so. I urge you to do so. If pressed, be honest about your reasons — but be reasonable about presenting them. Otherwise, don’t offer an explanation. Make it a silent protest.

Steven Green's not the only one that advises you to do something.

Rights?

The whole problem with healthcare being a "right"

There is no automatic “right” to goods or services that must be produced by another — that would be state-sanctioned theft or slavery.

The article goes into what it actually means to ration. It's similar to the issue of what censorship auctally is. In that the key is ability or inability of goverment to exercise force on invididuals.