IT’S MAGIC! Congressional leftists are finding all sorts of mainstream centrist and even (gasp) right of center issues to take up… as they scatter in all directions trying to distance themselves from a President and a Democratic party leadership who they see as leading them down a rocky road to destruction.

This magic transformation has come about, as predicted by yours truly, by the turn of the new year and the sudden recognition by some REALLY arrogant Democratic Congress critters who have had a really rude awakening, something else I predicted was on the way. Before anyone gets the idea that I’m making claims towards prescience, I’m not and it wasn’t really all that hard. Following the mood of the American people through news research you can get a pretty good idea of how things may go. Once the Virginia and New Jersey races were improbably won by Republicans in predominantly Democratically dominated areas the change in the temper of the electorate started to make itself known loud and clear. Then came Massachusetts and the Democrats were rocked to their core.

Tea Partiers Make Themselves Heard.

The Democrat leadership began to lose their iron grip on the membership, with Senators and Representatives being incessantly hammered by their constituents and any number of the millions of patriots who have been making themselves heard in no uncertain terms. The Obama, Reid and Pelosi brand of hope and change is not what we want and as AMERICANS we really resent having something crammed down our throats or sneaked behind our backs. We pushed back. We stopped the Obama juggernaut in its tracks, super majority not withstanding. We stopped the illegal and unconstitutional theft of our health care, though that battle isn’t over yet. There are other battles yet to fight, but as Conservative challenges have sprung up all over the nation the momentum has begun to change.  read more »

Obama's attempt this week to recast himself as some kind of budget-cutter is laughable if it weren't so cynical and calculated to fool people who are not paying attention.  I could try to analyze it, but Cato has done it well already.  Although I recommend reading the whole article in full, here's a good bit:

it’s only down in the fifth paragraph where the [New York] Times notes that “The estimated $250 billion in savings over 10 years would be less than 3 percent of the roughly $9 trillion in additional deficits the government is expected to accumulate over that time.”

The way this stuff is reported is downright criminal.  Author Jason Kuznicki points out:

Spending increases that were planned all along aren’t considered increases at all and do not make the news. Unplanned increases, those over and above the planned ones, are reported as though only the unplanned parts were increases. Large spending increases get extra praise for boldness. Reductions in the rate of spending growth are called “spending cuts.” Real though tiny cuts are described as draconian measures.  read more »

I had a meeting recently with a government official about a project I was set to work on.  He opened the meeting with "What makes you an expert?"  I was to prove to him, right then and there, why I was qualified to do this project because, he said, he was paying my salary.  As the discussion progressed, it became obvious that he had very little knowledge of my area of expertise--yet there he sat in judgment.

This little episode explains a lot about why Ronald Reagan said government is not the answer--government is the problem.  If Congress passes its health care take-over bill, this little scene will be replayed all over America countless times.

The first problem is that this man had absolutely no experience outside of government.  He really couldn't comprehend the value of the efficiencies I would bring to his organization from private enterprise and the free market.  Cabinet appointees in the Obama administration have a shockingly low amount of experience outside of government:

Yet by virtue of his government position this man felt he had the ability and the right to judge whether I am an expert in my field or not.   My field has certified me as an expert, but that wasn't good enough for him.  Imagine now that bureaucrat judging whether you need a certain medical procedure or not.  Doesn't matter whether your doctor--an acknowledged expert in his or her field--has said you need it.  It's the government's opinion that matters.  read more »

President Obama spoke to the Congress and the country about health care in a speech Wednesday night. The full text of the speech is available here. I have not witnessed previously any previous forty-eight minutes as crammed packed with lies, falsehoods, and prevarications. If this speech were made under oath it would be almost in its entirety perjurious.

Here are just some examples.

Obama begins by talking about health insurance and those that do not have it. He mentions that "these are middle-class Americans." Yet the ranks of the uninsured is not primarily middle class Americans. One third are not Americans at all. One third are not middle class but those poor enough to be eligible for Medicaid and the children's health insurance plan who do not enroll. 

He continues: "Some can’t get insurance on the job. Others are self-employed, and can’t afford it, since buying insurance on your own costs you three times as much as the coverage you get from your employer." What are we to make of this statement. Buying individual insurance does not cost three times as much as the cost of employer provided insurance. The key to the half-truth here is the you as 'costs you three times as much'. This really is a lie. The employer may not directly charge you for the health insurance the employer is paying for, but you are paying for it in lower wages. The insurance itself does not cost three times as much, in fact if you could buy a policy that provided you the coverage you wanted and allowed you to accept the risks you wanted you could pay substantially less than the employer does.   read more »

In anticipation of the humiliating defeat of their socialized medicine scheme, Democrats are feverishly working to get their legislation passed by cheating.

Their plan, known as “budget reconciliation,” works as follows: (1) have Senate committees expand Medicaid, cut Medicare, force individuals to buy and businesses to offer insurance, give subsidies to low-income people and tax credits to small businesses, levy new taxes, and do everything else Democrats wanted to do in their health care bill but knew would never pass; (2) lump it all into a budget reconciliation bill; and (3) pass it with 50 votes and no filibuster.

The bill would also contain language to support enactment of a health care overhaul, but because provisions unrelated to the budget cannot legally be included, the Senate parliamentarian will likely strike these from the bill.  According to the New York Times, which favors the reconciliation swindle, it is unclear whether two key elements will be allowed in the bill: the requirement that insurance companies accept all candidates and charge the same regardless of condition, and the creation of a government health insurance exchange.

The Times eggs Democrats on to declare that these two provisions, while irrelevant to the budget, “are so intertwined with other reforms that they are [necessary] for other provisions that do affect spending or revenues.”

If that ruse doesn’t work, the Times notes, then the process could “leave the reform package riddled with holes—perhaps providing subsidies to buy insurance on exchanges that do not exist, for example.”  In this eventuality, Democrats would pass a second bill, subject to filibuster, that fills in gaps where budget-irrelevant provisions were removed.  read more »

Thanks to the Obama administration’s new Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS), known as Cash-for-Clunkers, American taxpayers are now subsidizing car owners to do what they would have done eventually—scrap their old cars and buy new ones.

CARS is perversely profligate in numerous ways, among them the fact that car dealers must waste time filling out onerous paperwork to get reimbursed by the government and adding legal riders to contracts with car buyers regarding liability for rebates.  Mechanics must squander effort draining each car’s oil, then donning protective suits and carrying out a dangerous procedure involving pouring sodium silicate on the engines to make them “seize up” and cease to function.

This government-mandated engine genocide is a huge problem for auto parts sellers, who earn the bulk of their income reselling engines, motors, and transmissions—all of which must be intentionally damaged and made unsalable to comply with program rules.  Government inspectors will go around making sure engines have been properly desiccated, a precondition for dealers and car buyers to claim refunds.

More disturbingly, for those who can barely afford to buy a used car, the reduced supply of used engines will lead to increased, often prohibitive costs for used cars that, having been decommissioned by mechanics, cannot be resold to potential buyers.  That’s looking out for the little guy!

For those concerned about the “environmental impact” of the program, the plan unfortunately won’t help on that front, either.  According to the director of Columbia University’s Center for Climate Change Law, the energy required to produce a new car more than offsets any fuel savings from driving a used car for a few more years.  Without the program, car buyers would have ended up buying more fuel efficient vehicles anyway, because most vehicles are made to be more fuel efficient nowadays.  read more »