Saturday, September 26, 2009

Larwyn's Linx: America's Relativist-in-Chief

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email or reply via Twitter.

Nation

America's Relativist-in-Chief: AT (Joyce)
The Fall of the House of ACORN: Doc Zero
Schoolhouse Sharia: Investors

Anxious to cross “Vote for a black president” off the to-do list: Steyn
Death Panels By Proxy: Power Line
It's the trust factor, honey: AT (Shiver)

Baucus: too difficult to put health bill online: BlogProf
Go to jail -- go directly to jail: AT (Regan)
Gitmo guru plays fall guy as closure stalls: Aces

ObamaCare violators will face up to one year in jail: GWP
Dear Cicero: WashReb
"Our Time Has Come": Times

A referendum on Obama looms in VA: AT (Lifson)

Economy

Study: Regulation costs California economy half a trillion: Morrissey
Visualizing The Upcoming Treasury Funding Crisis: Zero Hedge
Democrats Are Jarred by Drop In Fundraising: Lane

Media

Rush on Leno: Hot Air
Michelle Malkin misspells Raaaaacist: RSM
Is the Left-Wing Hoping for Violence?: LegalIns

Lying about the public option with polls: LegalIns
America's Supermodel at the G-20: JWF
It isn't racism to call Leonard Pitts a despicable loon: BlogProf

When you need Bill Ayers to ghost-write your first book for you: RSM

Climate & Energy

On Climate: Fisking Paul Krugman: OpenMarket
Can Paul Krugman Read?: Planet Gore
Eh, which should you fear?: TAB

World

Bond: 'We Need A Little Less Talk, A Lot More Action': Corner
Afghans tell McChrystal: Kill the Enemy: Prairie
Death of Britain Watch, Part LXXII: Ace

President Pantywaist Restores Satellite States to Their Former Owner: GWP
This time he really means it: Power Line
In Afghanistan, let U.S. troops be warriors: Examiner

Congressional Research Service: Zelaya Ouster Was Legal: AT (Feldman)
An Undemocratic Tide in the Americas: Gingrich
Turks Breach Security Around Obama Limo: Asbarez

SciTech

Hosting your Windows 7 Launch Party: Microsoft (Vid)

Cornucopia

Twitteleh: MCJohnsonFilms
Obligatory SNL Beck Parody: Hot Air
GM Supports The Arts To Make Political Statements: GM's Place (NSFW)

Friday, September 25, 2009

Barack Obama's Shadow Government


Everyone knows that President Obama has surrounded himself with a league of unelected Czars.

Not so well known is the fact that these hidden, unaccountable bureaucrats are creating an immense set of regulations that could cost each American family thousands of dollars annually.

While cap-and-trade energy tax bills appear stalled in Congress, a shadow carbon tax regime is secretly emerging in the closed confines of the EPA.

But it is not the EPA director levying these massive new taxes; it is instead Obama's "White House Climate Czar", Carol Browner.

Browner has a checkered past. Even before the bizarre 2007 Supreme Court case that ruled the EPA had the authority to mandate 18,000 pages of greenhouse gas regulations, Clinton EPA Director Carol Browner had argued that the EPA could claim outrageous powers over the American people.

Mary Nichols, head of California's Air Resources Board, has confirmed that Browner led White House efforts to establish new auto emissions standards. For the first time, these standards drew their power from the EPA's supposed authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the 1970 Clean Air Act. Nichols stated that Browner did so in secret: "We put nothing in writing, ever."

Left to her own devices, Browner will soon graduate from vehicles to the EPA's entire 18,000-page blueprint for the whole U.S. economy. Everything that moves will come under the dictates of Browner's EPA bible: trucks, buses, planes, trains, ships, RVs, lawn mowers, and every other vehicle you can imagine.

Browner's EPA also intends to regulate many commercial buildings. Restaurants, schools and hospitals -- buildings that have commercial kitchens with gas burners -- will fall under the purview of Browner's regulations.

American taxpayers should be outraged. Not only are unelected EPA bureaucrats acting unilaterally, without Congressional approval, but the EPA itself is not being led by its duly confirmed administrator -- Lisa Jackson. Instead it is being directed by Carol Browner, the White House Climate Czar with a troubling history.

Why would Obama make Browner a "Czar"? So her powers could be made even more sweeping than through an an appointment -- and so she could avoid the accompanying Senate confirmation process. This confirmation would have been highly uncomfortable for Browner, because as recently as January she was one of 14 members of the "Socialist International Commission for a Sustainable World Society."

Browner's "Commission" openly seeks a "socialist world order of global governance". Because of her bizarre actions, she would have faced major opposition in a Senate confirmation vote.

Obama's czars are unaccountable, unelected lawmakers who seek to destroy the American economy in the pursuit of a "Sustainable World Society." All Americans -- Democrat, Republican and Independent -- must oppose a system that is antithetical to America's Constitution.


Based upon: A Secret White House Power Grab Is In Full Swing.

Good news: Putin really has embraced capitalism.


A secret Iranian nuclear weapons facility was revealed to the public yesterday thanks to a joint U.K., French and Israeli intelligence effort.

Word to the Mullahs: never buy an air defense system with coupons.



Microsoft Office plays detective in new novel


CNet reports that:

Microsoft Office plays detective in new novel


In "Crush," a crime thriller by chiropractor-turned-author Alan Jacobson, Microsoft's Office suite plays a central role in helping track down a serial killer.

All I can picture is this:



Larwyn's Linx: Who are the Branch Carbonians?

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email or reply via Twitter.

Nation

The Leader of the Free World: Doc Zero
Obama stifles dissent on health care reform: McConnell
HHS 1997 supports HMO Freedom of Speech: NewsBusters

White House moves to obscure ACORN, union ties: Ace
Dear Leader Cult Video School Sing-a-Long: Malkin
Obama and ACORN, a Love Story: PJM (de Russy)

GOP aides: ACORN misusing contributions: Breitbart
Beware of the Stalin lurking behind progressive hearts: Tapscott
President Cunningham: Lane

Economy

'Unexpectedly': the AP's new favorite word to describe economy: BlogProf
Great employment news! Fed payrolls rise 1.3%: Ace
Schiff Blasts Dodd and His Plan to Create Super Agency: ABN

Czar Watch: Testify before Congress or lose your funding: Malkin
Defense Cuts on the Way: Forbes
Excellent News: Obama Giving $400K to Khadafy Charity: JWF

WTF. Seriously. WTF.: GrumpyUnk

Media

FCC Czar wants parallel government broadcasting system: AT (Cary)
Ed Schultz on MSNBC: “Republicans Want to See You Dead": Greenroom
They walk among us: Parkway Rest Stop

Future of newspapers brings few to hearing: Times

Climate & Energy

Who are the Branch Carbonians?: Tapscott
Envirowackos Have An Issue With Your Delicate Posterior: STACLU
The Dog Ate My Global Warming Evidence: Ace

World

Hillary flunks out: PJM (Rubin)
Honduras, alone against the world: JWF
Killer rules of engagement: Prairie

War. What is it good for?: Classic Liberal
Gadhafi endorses Obama, and other U.N. lunacies: Examiner
Theories of Obama: Pundette

SciTech

A face-to-face meet for Twitterers: BizWk

Cornucopia

Drawing for the "O": Sarjex
From the (way) TMI files: RSM

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Bill Ayers' Bathroom Reading


Hide the hand towels.


I'm pretty sure it's published by the Sulzberger family. Which would explain a lot.

Maureen Dowd and Thomas Friedman, for instance.


This Can't Be Racism. Or Can It?


NYT, Sept. 19

Obama Asks Paterson to Quit New York Governor's Race

Gov. David A. Paterson defiantly vowed to run for election next year despite the White House‘s urging that he withdraw from the New York governor’s race.


Hat tip: Dan from New York.

PM Netanyahu's Address to The Nations


The highlights of PM Netanyahu’s Speech at the UN General Assembly:

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Nearly 62 years ago, the United Nations recognized the right of the Jews, an ancient people 3,500 years-old, to a state of their own in their ancestral homeland... The United Nations was founded after the carnage of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust. It was charged with preventing the recurrence of such horrendous events.

Nothing has undermined that central mission more than the systematic assault on the truth. Yesterday the President of Iran stood at this very podium, spewing his latest anti-Semitic rants. Just a few days earlier, he again claimed that the Holocaust is a lie.

Last month, I went to a villa in a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee. There, on January 20, 1942, after a hearty meal, senior Nazi officials met and decided how to exterminate the Jewish people. The detailed minutes of that meeting have been preserved by successive German governments. Here is a copy of those minutes, in which the Nazis issued precise instructions on how to carry out the extermination of the Jews. Is this a lie?

A day before I was in Wannsee, I was given in Berlin the original construction plans for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Those plans are signed by Hitler's deputy, Heinrich Himmler himself. Here is a copy of the plans for Auschwitz-Birkenau, where one million Jews were murdered. Is this too a lie?

This June, President Obama visited the Buchenwald concentration camp. Did President Obama pay tribute to a lie?

And what of the Auschwitz survivors whose arms still bear the tattooed numbers branded on them by the Nazis? Are those tattoos a lie? One-third of all Jews perished in the conflagration. Nearly every Jewish family was affected, including my own. My wife's grandparents, her father's two sisters and three brothers, and all the aunts, uncles and cousins were all murdered by the Nazis. Is that also a lie?

Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium. To those who refused to come here and to those who left this room in protest, I commend you. You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor to your countries.

But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency?

A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state.

What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations! Perhaps some of you think that this man and his odious regime threaten only the Jews. You're wrong.

History has shown us time and again that what starts with attacks on the Jews eventually ends up engulfing many others.

This Iranian regime is fueled by an extreme fundamentalism that burst onto the world scene three decades ago after lying dormant for centuries. In the past thirty years, this fanaticism has swept the globe with a murderous violence and cold-blooded impartiality in its choice of victims. It has callously slaughtered Moslems and Christians, Jews and Hindus, and many others. Though it is comprised of different offshoots, the adherents of this unforgiving creed seek to return humanity to medieval times.

Wherever they can, they impose a backward regimented society where women, minorities, gays or anyone not deemed to be a true believer is brutally subjugated. The struggle against this fanaticism does not pit faith against faith nor civilization against civilization.

It pits civilization against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death.

The primitivism of the 9th century ought to be no match for the progress of the 21st century. The allure of freedom, the power of technology, the reach of communications should surely win the day. Ultimately, the past cannot triumph over the future. And the future offers all nations magnificent bounties of hope. The pace of progress is growing exponentially.

It took us centuries to get from the printing press to the telephone, decades to get from the telephone to the personal computer, and only a few years to get from the personal computer to the internet.

What seemed impossible a few years ago is already outdated, and we can scarcely fathom the changes that are yet to come. We will crack the genetic code. We will cure the incurable. We will lengthen our lives. We will find a cheap alternative to fossil fuels and clean up the planet.

I am proud that my country Israel is at the forefront of these advances - by leading innovations in science and technology, medicine and biology, agriculture and water, energy and the environment. These innovations the world over offer humanity a sunlit future of unimagined promise.

But if the most primitive fanaticism can acquire the most deadly weapons, the march of history could be reversed for a time. And like the belated victory over the Nazis, the forces of progress and freedom will prevail only after an horrific toll of blood and fortune has been exacted from mankind. That is why the greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage between religious fanaticism and the weapons of mass destruction.

The most urgent challenge facing this body is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Are the member states of the United Nations up to that challenge? Will the international community confront a despotism that terrorizes its own people as they bravely stand up for freedom?

Will it take action against the dictators who stole an election in broad daylight and gunned down Iranian protesters who died in the streets choking in their own blood? Will the international community thwart the world's most pernicious sponsors and practitioners of terrorism?

Above all, will the international community stop the terrorist regime of Iran from developing atomic weapons, thereby endangering the peace of the entire world?

The people of Iran are courageously standing up to this regime. People of goodwill around the world stand with them, as do the thousands who have been protesting outside this hall. Will the United Nations stand by their side?

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The jury is still out on the United Nations, and recent signs are not encouraging. Rather than condemning the terrorists and their Iranian patrons, some here have condemned their victims. That is exactly what a recent UN report on Gaza did, falsely equating the terrorists with those they targeted.

For eight long years, Hamas fired from Gaza thousands of missiles, mortars and rockets on nearby Israeli cities. Year after year, as these missiles were deliberately hurled at our civilians, not a single UN resolution was passed condemning those criminal attacks. We heard nothing - absolutely nothing - from the UN Human Rights Council, a misnamed institution if there ever was one.

In 2005, hoping to advance peace, Israel unilaterally withdrew from every inch of Gaza. It dismantled 21 settlements and uprooted over 8,000 Israelis. We didn't get peace. Instead we got an Iranian backed terror base fifty miles from Tel Aviv. Life in Israeli towns and cities next to Gaza became a nightmare. You see, the Hamas rocket attacks not only continued, they increased tenfold. Again, the UN was silent.

Finally, after eight years of this unremitting assault, Israel was finally forced to respond. But how should we have responded? Well, there is only one example in history of thousands of rockets being fired on a country's civilian population. It happened when the Nazis rocketed British cities during World War II. During that war, the allies leveled German cities, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties. Israel chose to respond differently. Faced with an enemy committing a double war crime of firing on civilians while hiding behind civilians - Israel sought to conduct surgical strikes against the rocket launchers.

That was no easy task because the terrorists were firing missiles from homes and schools, using mosques as weapons depots and ferreting explosives in ambulances. Israel, by contrast, tried to minimize casualties by urging Palestinian civilians to vacate the targeted areas.

We dropped countless flyers over their homes, sent thousands of text messages and called thousands of cell phones asking people to leave. Never has a country gone to such extraordinary lengths to remove the enemy's civilian population from harm's way.

Yet faced with such a clear case of aggressor and victim, who did the UN Human Rights Council decide to condemn? Israel. A democracy legitimately defending itself against terror is morally hanged, drawn and quartered, and given an unfair trial to boot.

By these twisted standards, the UN Human Rights Council would have dragged Roosevelt and Churchill to the dock as war criminals. What a perversion of truth. What a perversion of justice.

Delegates of the United Nations,

Will you accept this farce?

Because if you do, the United Nations would revert to its darkest days, when the worst violators of human rights sat in judgment against the law-abiding democracies, when Zionism was equated with racism and when an automatic majority could declare that the earth is flat.

If this body does not reject this report, it would send a message to terrorists everywhere: Terror pays; if you launch your attacks from densely populated areas, you will win immunity. And in condemning Israel, this body would also deal a mortal blow to peace. Here's why.

When Israel left Gaza, many hoped that the missile attacks would stop. Others believed that at the very least, Israel would have international legitimacy to exercise its right of self-defense. What legitimacy? What self-defense?

The same UN that cheered Israel as it left Gaza and promised to back our right of self-defense now accuses us -my people, my country - of war crimes? And for what? For acting responsibly in self-defense. What a travesty!

Israel justly defended itself against terror. This biased and unjust report is a clear-cut test for all governments. Will you stand with Israel or will you stand with the terrorists?

We must know the answer to that question now. Now and not later. Because if Israel is again asked to take more risks for peace, we must know today that you will stand with us tomorrow. Only if we have the confidence that we can defend ourselves can we take further risks for peace.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

All of Israel wants peace.

Any time an Arab leader genuinely wanted peace with us, we made peace. We made peace with Egypt led by Anwar Sadat. We made peace with Jordan led by King Hussein. And if the Palestinians truly want peace, I and my government, and the people of Israel, will make peace. But we want a genuine peace, a defensible peace, a permanent peace. In 1947, this body voted to establish two states for two peoples - a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews accepted that resolution. The Arabs rejected it.

We ask the Palestinians to finally do what they have refused to do for 62 years: Say yes to a Jewish state. Just as we are asked to recognize a nation-state for the Palestinian people, the Palestinians must be asked to recognize the nation state of the Jewish people. The Jewish people are not foreign conquerors in the Land of Israel. This is the land of our forefathers.

Inscribed on the walls outside this building is the great Biblical vision of peace: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. They shall learn war no more." These words were spoken by the Jewish prophet Isaiah 2,800 years ago as he walked in my country, in my city, in the hills of Judea and in the streets of Jerusalem.

We are not strangers to this land. It is our homeland. As deeply connected as we are to this land, we recognize that the Palestinians also live there and want a home of their own. We want to live side by side with them, two free peoples living in peace, prosperity and dignity.

But we must have security. The Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves except those handful of powers that could endanger Israel.

That is why a Palestinian state must be effectively demilitarized. We don't want another Gaza, another Iranian backed terror base abutting Jerusalem and perched on the hills a few kilometers from Tel Aviv.

We want peace.

I believe such a peace can be achieved. But only if we roll back the forces of terror, led by Iran, that seek to destroy peace, eliminate Israel and overthrow the world order. The question facing the international community is whether it is prepared to confront those forces or accommodate them.

Over seventy years ago, Winston Churchill lamented what he called the "confirmed unteachability of mankind," the unfortunate habit of civilized societies to sleep until danger nearly overtakes them.

Churchill bemoaned what he called the "want of foresight, the unwillingness to act when action will be simple and effective, the lack of clear thinking, the confusion of counsel until emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong."

I speak here today in the hope that Churchill's assessment of the "unteachibility of mankind" is for once proven wrong.

I speak here today in the hope that we can learn from history -- that we can prevent danger in time.

In the spirit of the timeless words spoken to Joshua over 3,000 years ago, let us be strong and of good courage. Let us confront this peril, secure our future and, God willing, forge an enduring peace for generations to come.

Brilliant.


Hat tip: Dan from New York.

Exclusive: Barack Obama's LinkedIn Page


Some folks were really impressed with President Obama's speech at the U.N.. Our enterprising cub reporter -- Biff Spackle -- was able to snap a photo of Obama's LinkedIn home page the day after the speech.


NEA hack Yosi Sergeant is ticked because he got "de-linked" today by the President.

Larwyn's Linx: On health care reform, don't call it a takeover

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email or reply via Twitter.

Nation

Defending President McCain from Glenn Beck: Doc Zero
Sarah Palin takes Hong Kong: Ace
Think Stink: Radio Patriot

On health care reform, don't call it a takeover: IllinoisRev
Obama and ACORN: a love story: PJM (de Russy)
NEA propaganda call fallout: ProWis

Dems' Secret Plan to Ram Health Care Through: Foundry
Get Rid of the Mandate: LegalIns
Question ' the Day: Surber

Economy

The Constitutionality of Federal Funding: ProWis
After cash-for-clunkers, car sales hit all-time low: PJM
More to be spent in 2010 on welfare than for entire Iraq war: BlogProf

Is the AARP getting kickbacks from ObamaCare?: Malkin
Michigan tries to forcibly unionize -- private babysitters!: BlogProf
Oh, sing praises to our leader!: Aces

Media

FCC's Diversity Czar: 'White People' Need to be Forced to 'Step Down': NewsBusters
Liberty & Tyranny: Best-selling Author Mark Levin Wants You to Take Action: PJTV
Ahmedinejad, Iranians woo media: Timmerman

Climate & Energy

Obama Science Czar John Holdren in 1971: “New ice age” likely: Zombie
Why do EPA employees make more than the VP?: STACLU
I agree: birth control could save the planet: STACLU

World

Obama and the UN Lords: Dr. Sanity
Little Nice To Say About The U.S.: LegalIns
Bolton: Obama just put Israel on chopping block: McCarty

France throws a pie in Obama's face: Rubin
Stirring up Chaos in Honduras: Fausta
Obama takes the supplication of America to a disgusting new level: Power Line

Hillary Flunks Out: PJM (Rubin)
Schakowsky (D-IL) implicated in Turkish Spy affair: Marathon

SciTech

Breaking Science News!: Gormogons

Cornucopia

Earn big $$$ the NEA way!: IowaHawk
Fun Facts on Old Ironsides from the Days Before the US Navy's Ban on Alcohol aboard Ships: ForbesOnTech

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Open wide and say ahhhhhhhhh!


The health care battle is joined. The Democrats are threatening the use of a procedural gimmick to ram socialized medicine down taxpayers' throats without debate. They are threatening insurance companies like Humana with legal action for daring to speak out about massive cuts to Medicare.

And the White House was caught bribing artists to create state propaganda using taxpayer funds.

And the Democrat Party's public relations arm -- also known as the mainstream media -- is laying down covering fire. It began with a mid-summer New York Times op-ed (what else?) by Nicholas Kristof exclaiming the virtues of the Canadian health care system using the anecdotal experiences of one woman.

Of course, Kristof studiously ignored Canadian medical publications like the fascinating bestseller Management of MRI Wait Lists in Canada (Health Care Policy, 2009), the abstract for which reads: "Excessive wait times for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies are a major problem in the Canadian healthcare system."

And Kristof carefully omitted trivial matters like cancer survival rates. The United States is number one in the world -- for all of its citizens, insured or not. U.S. females have a 63% of living five years or more after a cancer diagnosis versus 56% of European women. Men have a larger advantage: 66% to 47%.

The average survival rate for all cancers is 60 percent in the United States compared to 55 percent in Canada. That five percent would mean the world to you if, heaven forbid, one of your parents -- or one of your children -- received that diagnosis.

We can gain valuable insights into the Democrats' plans for socialized medicine using Tom Daschle's book as a guide. Daschle, Obama's first choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services, authored Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis. The book was endorsed by Barack Obama.

The book proposes the establishment of a "board" to set standards for health care. This board would be modeled after the Federal Reserve and the SEC, overseeing every aspect of care for public health systems. Thus the board would automatically come to administer all health care in the country -- an unelected set of bureaucrats deciding every aspect of medical care.

Presumably Daschle recommends the Federal Reserve-SEC-Politburo-style central planning model, because it's functioned so smoothly during the current financial crisis.

On Page 179, Daschle writes, “The Federal Health Board (FHB) wouldn’t be a regulatory agency, but its recommendations would have teeth because all federal health programs would have to abide by them.” Although the FHB would have no official oversight of the two-thirds of health care delivered through the private sector, Daschle asserts that Congress could easily change that aspect of the Board: "[Congress] could... link the tax exclusion for health insurance to insurance that complies with the Board’s recommendation.”

In June, USA Today reported that Democrats plan to use just that approach. "The biggest tax break in America — tax-free health benefits from employers — could be scaled back to pay for President Obama's overhaul of the nation's health care system."

By doing so, Congress would utterly and completely destroy America's private-sector health care system because no health insurance program could survive if it were denied the tax deduction. And it would never be able to match the inherent pricing advantages of a publicly-funded plan.

Using this approach, the FHB would effectively control the operation and practices of every doctor, every nurse, every drug company, every hospital, every health insurance company, every third-party administrator, etc.

On page 199 Daschle helpfully describes who the "losers" would be in his centrally managed system: "Doctors and patients might resent any encroachment on their ability to choose certain treatments, even if they are expensive or ineffectual compared to alternatives. Some insurers might object to new rules that restrict their coverage decisions. And the health-care industry would have to reconsider its business plan."

Put simply, government bureaucrats would decide whether your parents or your children or you live or die. They'll use statistics and actuarial tables and computers in Washington, DC to figure out which treatments are most affordable, where in the queue you'll be placed and how rationing will work.

The book states that the FHB will force and end to the "technology arms race", which he asserts health care systems use "to attract aging baby boomers with the latest diagnostic imaging machines." These are, of course, the same machines that Daschle says "help(s) doctors estimate the spread of cancer or the extent of cardiac disease without surgery." (Page 125)

Daschle believes those tests often lead to treatment; and there's far too much of that going on. To prove his point, he spotlights a study of 828 angiograms in which a third were likely to benefit patients, 50% might or might not, and 14% were not likely to offer a benefit. Thus 86% of patients might benefit, but Daschle claims the approach is too wasteful: "When the test revealed a narrowing of the artery, however slight, cardiologists couldn’t resist doing something about it."

If it were your spouse or parent or child involved, wouldn't you want something done?

In other words, the Obama-Daschle plan proposes to have the Federal Health Board dictate to cardiologists -- and all other Doctors -- which treatments can be rationed to whom. I somehow doubt that Daschle and his cadre of FHB bureaucrats would ever be denied treatment, though.

Daschle also offers a stunning criticism of the current private sector health care system: "Many patients with insurance want any care that might do some good, and plenty of doctors will oblige them." (Page 122)

Anticipating a massive outcry over this Politburo-style approach, he recommends two legislative tactics for creating the Federal Health Board. First, the bill must be passed in the first year of Obama's presidency, when he is most popular. Second, the bill must omit any details of the program. It must be nebulous and vague: "[the] Federal Health Board should be charged with... filling in most of the details. This independent board would be insulated from political pressure.” By "political pressure", Democrats want to prevent our representative democracy from interfering with the Kremlin of Health Care.

By hiding the details of the program, the FHB will be unaccountable to the American people. Which is why the Democrat-Statists are always in a hurry. With the Stimulus bill that no one read. The massive, deficit-ballooning budget bill. The choking deficit spending that quadrupled 2008 levels. And socialized medicine. They want to rush that through before the American people even have a chance to read the bill. That's how much they care about you.

No, they care about power. Acquiring more power. And taking more of your liberty and more of your money to distribute to the unions and the community agitators.

Freddie Mac: bankrupt. Fannie Mae: bankrupt. Social Security: bankrupt. Medicare: bankrupt. Medicaid: bankrupt. The Postal Service: bankrupt. Amtrak: bankrupt.

This illustration is my depiction of our future health care system should the Statist-Democrats get their wish.


Related: The Obamacare Payoff to Unions. Image: Darleen Click. Based upon: Tony Blankley's "Daschle-Obama health care possibilities". Hat tip: Mark Levin.

Should I be concerned that this motivational poster is hanging on my daughter's wall?



Hat tip: Bern.

That eerie feeling that's been bugging you


Man, I've had this creepy feeling for sooooo long.

Whatcha mean?

I don't know, but it feels like something's been watching me for months! Ever since last November!

Oh, yeah, that figures.

Why?

Well, check it out...

Well, what the hell is it?

That?

That's the money you could have saved by voting Republican!