Yeah, that pretty well sums it up

Obama's health care plan will be written by a committee whose head says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it, signed by a president who smokes, funded by a treasury chief who did not pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that is trillions of dollars in debt. What possibly could go wrong?"

Anonymous

Further evidence of the left discontent

From the Huffington Post, again. This time Bill Maher.

New Rule: If America can't get its act together, it must lose the bald eagle as our symbol and replace it with the YouTube video of the puppy that can't get up. As long as we're pathetic, we might as well act like it's cute. I don't care about the president's birth certificate, I do want to know what happened to "Yes we can." Can we get out of Iraq? No. Afghanistan? No. Fix health care? No. Close Gitmo? No. Cap-and-trade carbon emissions? No. The Obamas have been in Washington for ten months and it seems like the only thing they've gotten is a dog.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/new-rule-if-america-cant_b_299383.html

The left is turning on their man

The following is an introduction to the lead article from the Huffington Post today which dictates liberal thought on the internet. Looks from here that the left is getting upset with their homeboy.

No matter how much he might disdain the George W. Bush presidency, especially when it comes to misuse of executive branch power, Barack Obama may be a "self-entangling giant" who is going down the same perilous path argues no less an initial Obama sympathizer than journalist-historian Garry Wills in the Oct. 8 New York Review of Books.

Is Article 1,Section 2 important?

The controversial tax that both Obama and Baucus would impose on people who do not buy health insurance appears to be a "direct tax" on persons that is unlawful under Article 1, Section 2, of the Constitution, which requires that "direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States ... according to their Numbers . .. ."
In addition, Art. 1, Sec. 9, says: "No capitation, or other direct Tax, shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken ... ."
The only exception to the constitutional prohibition against unapportioned direct taxes is for the federal income tax, which was authorized by the 16th Amendment — but the direct tax on the uninsured is not an income tax.

Read the entire article here.

Obamacare fine print

Powerline sends us the following fine print analysis from pages 80-81 of the dems Obamacare legislation:

"Beginning in 2015, payment [under Medicare] would be reduced by five percent if an aggregation of the physician's resource use is at or above the 90th percentile of national utilization." Thus, in any year in which a particular doctor's average per-patient Medicare costs are in the top 10 percent in the nation, the feds will cut the doctor's payments by 5 percent."

The Washington Times explains the consequences of this death panels by proxy:

if a doctor authorizes expensive care, no matter how successfully, the government will punish him by scrimping on what already is a low reimbursement rate for treating Medicare patients. The incentive, therefore, is for the doctor always to provide less care for his patients for fear of having his payments docked. And because no doctor will know who falls in the top 10 percent until year's end, or what total average costs will break the 10 percent threshold, the pressure will be intense to withhold care, and withhold care again, and then withhold it some more. Or at least to prescribe cheaper care, no matter how much less effective, in order to avoid the penalties.

This is certainly a form of rationing. And the editors of the Times don't exaggerate when they say that, while there are no formal death panels, the Democrats' bill will give us the functional equivalent, except that the accountants who serve as the "proxy" panel won't know whose deaths they are causing.

Obama Care

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a handwritten note Thursday from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Tom Barthold confirming the penalty for failing to pay the up to $1,900 fee for not buying health insurance.

Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail or a $25,000 penalty, Barthold wrote on JCT letterhead. He signed it "Sincerely, Thomas A. Barthold."

This is great. In order to prevent someone from trying to get heath care for free, Obama would throw you in jail and give you free health care.

You just wouldn't understand

A proposal by Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., that would have required the Senate Finance Committee to post the final language of the $900 billion health care reform bill, as well as a Congressional Budget Office cost analysis, on the committee’s website for 72 hours prior to a vote was rejected 12-11.

Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., was the only Democrat to side with Bunning. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-MO, who is not a member of the Finance Committee, said she also supported Bunning’s proposal.

Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., himself admitted that “This probably sounds a little crazy to some people that we are voting on something before we have seen legislative language.” Indeed.

Baucus’ excuse - that it would take his committee staff two weeks to post the bill online – sounds a little crazy too. Finance Committee members are the only ones who vote based on the “plain English” version of a bill, not the legally-binding language.

One big scam

Imagine if there were no reliable records of global surface temperature. Raucous policy debates such as cap-and-trade would have no scientific basis, Al Gore would at this point be little more than a historical footnote, and President Obama would not be spending this U.N. session talking up a (likely unattainable) international climate deal in Copenhagen in December.

Steel yourself for the new reality, because the data needed to verify the gloom-and-doom warming forecasts have disappeared.

Read the whole thing here. Good summary of why BestView is convinced anthropogenic global warming is a crock.

Get your winter coats out

From today's Investors Business Daily. Read it all.

In a speech last week at the U.N.'s World Climate Conference in Geneva, Professor Mojib Latif of Germany's Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University, one of the world's foremost climate modelers and a lead author for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change acknowledged that the Earth has been cooling and is likely to continue that trend for the next couple of decades. Al Gore, call your office.

Latif has been looking into the influence of cyclical changes to ocean currents and temperatures in the Atlantic, a feature known as the North American Oscillation. When he factored these natural fluctuations into his global climate model, Professor Latif found the results brought the allegedly endless rise in global temperatures to a screeching halt.

Latif conceded the planet has not warmed for nearly a decade and that we are likely entering "one or even two decades during which temperatures cool." Latif still believes in a warming trend and thinks it will resume. But he at least acknowledges the empirical evidence of cooling, that there are factors at work here other than your SUV, and that doom will not occur the day after tomorrow.

Obama Wrestling with Himself

Here is Obama in March on Afghanistan:

"If the Afghan government falls to the Taliban or allows al-Qaeda to go unchallenged," he said then, "that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can." Afghanistan, he continued, "is inextricably linked to the future of its neighbor, Pakistan," where al-Qaeda and the Taliban now aim at seizing control of a state that possesses nuclear weapons. Moreover, Mr. Obama said, "a return to Taliban rule would condemn their country to brutal governance . . . and the denial of basic human rights to the Afghan people -- especially women and girls."

"To succeed, we and our friends and allies must reverse the Taliban's gains, and promote a more capable and accountable Afghan government," Mr. Obama concluded. As Gen. McChrystal's report makes very clear, keeping faith with that goal will require more troops, more resources and years of patience. Yet to break with it would both dishonor and endanger this country. As the president put it, "the world cannot afford the price that will come due if Afghanistan slides back into chaos."

Now, he is searching for a strategy. We have a serious case of amateur hour in the White House, but we knew that last November.

What if it quacks like a duck?

The president, appearing on ABC News on Sunday morning, discussed his proposal to require everyone to have health insurance that meets government approval:

For us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it's saying is...that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore.

Right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance,. Nobody considers that a tax increase.

You just can't make up that language and decide that that's called a tax increase.

Memo to President Barack Obama: It's a tax. Obama insisted this weekend on national television that requiring people to carry health insurance -- and fining them if they don't -- isn't the same thing as a tax increase. But the language of Democratic bills to revamp the nation's health care system doesn't quibble. Both the House bill and the Senate Finance Committee proposal clearly state that the fines would be a tax.

No one needs to buy auto insurance to own a car. The insurance is required to drive the vehicle on public roads. A correct example is homeowner's insurance. It is not required if you pay cash for the property. If you borrow the purchase funds the lender has the right to demand insurance for his property. Not the same set of facts.Obama is obfuscationg with his auto insurance analogy. The purpose of mandatory auto insurance is to make sure the owner or operator of the vehicle while driving on a public roadway is financially responsabile for any damages he causes to someone else on a public roadway. Not to insure himself or his property, that is an add-on. What Obama is attempting to do is analagous to a Manhattanite with a valid drivers license being required to buy auto insurance even though he does not own a car. For the public good to help lower car insurance premiums for everyone else. Of course it is a tax, a fine would require a legal proceeding to have it imposed. So much for the value of a Harvard law degree.

Interesting thought: if Obama followed his own logic about being financially responsible for one's self instead of being a public charge, he would abolish welfare.

The lad is good at exposing liberals

James E. O’Keefe III, the 25-year-old video provocateur whose hidden camera galvanized Congress this week against the advocacy group Acorn in earlier efforts got a woman at Planned Parenthood to agree to target his contribution to abortions of black babies. The You Tube recording is here. His taste in associates, Hannah Giles, is not bad either. She is what they call hot, I suppose.

Huh?

Obama and his liberal sycophants proclaim that the reason we must have health insurance reform is because the health insurance companies are evil and have been ripping us off for years. That might be a reasonable position if these same people were not crafting legislation that mandates everyone buy an insurance policy from these same companies......and if you don't they will fine you. They have lost me somewhere.

We have an ethics epidemic

Yet another member of the black caucus is having problems with the House of Representatives Ethics Committee. I suspect racism. Read it all here.

The House ethics panel said Thursday that it is investigating Rep. Maxine Waters, a California Democrat who came under scrutiny for allegedly helping a bank with which she had ties secure a meeting with Treasury Department officials about obtaining bailout funds.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that Ms. Waters allegedly helped OneUnited Bank of Boston get a meeting with Treasury officials to negotiate a $12 million bailout. On Thursday, the ethics panel acknowledged for the first time that it is investigating her.

Sidney Williams, Ms. Waters's husband, was on the bank's board of directors until last year.

The congresswoman's 2008 disclosure report filed in May showed that Mr. Williams had at least $350,000 in investments in the bank. Ms. Waters serves on the financial-services committee that oversees financial institutions.

Show us the names

The House has just voted to 345-75, to cut off all federal funding to ACORN -- using a procedural trick to force a vote on an amendment.

The overwhelming majority of Democrats voted with all Republicans to ram through the measure, which follows the Senate's passage of an amendment barring HUD from funding the community group, which specializes in social services, housing preservation and foreclosure mitigation.

The "Defund ACORN Act," introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) would bar the federal government from doing business with the group, citing several voter registration fraud investigations. But it would also go much farther, prohibiting "any organization that shares directors, employees, or independent contractors" with ACORN from receiving federal cash.

Now we need to see the names of those who voted for child prostitution, tax evasion, and false imprisonment.

Just Wondering

The efforts of our esteemed legislators to extend health insurance to everyone will require mandates that we all buy a policy. This means that young people just getting started in life will have to go get themselves some health insurance which they currently don't want or need. Well, that is not a decision our government is willing to let them make. As things stand now, they have to choose a policy from among those available in their state which tells the insurance companies what must be covered by policies sold in that state. This is why insurance costs more in New Jersey where they have to offer psychiatric care, abortions, and other things one might not need coverage for.

Here is the question. If a 25 year old male is compelled to buy a policy, will he be required to get one which has maternity benefits he doesn't want or need? Or, will the state allow him to buy a policy that costs a whole lot less than one a 25 year old female would have to buy a much more expensive policy to get Ob-Gyn and pregnancy coverage? BestView bets the male will get the weinie.

Just Wondering

By what constitutional passage is the Federal Government allowed to compel us to buy anything under penalty of criminal fines? The Bauchus helath care plan says if I don't buy health insurance, I can be fined $3,800. I know the STATE can fine me if I drive a car on roads, but does that logic extend to the FEDERAL government if I simply breathe air?

Neal Boortz has it figured out

So .. here is what Jimmy Carter, Bill Moyers, Hank Johnson, much of the Washington and New York press corps, Newsweek Magazine and the brilliant thinkers on the American left would have you believe of Americans right now:

• We would be more than willing to welcome cap-and-trade with open arms, even if we paid a thousand dollars or more extra every year for our energy use, if Barack Obama were only white.
• We would be dancing in the streets celebrating the dawning of government control of our health care if only Barack Obama were white.
• It would be just dandy if government bureaucrats rationed health care for our parents, as long as the president is white.
• We would jump at the chance of the government owning ALL of the auto manufacturing companies .. not just General Motors ... if the president just didn't have dark skin.
• We would applaud those ACORN workers giving tax avoidance advice to a pimp and his prostitute if the workers hadn't been black.
• Most Americans - even ones that don't pay income taxes now - would be more than willing to give 70% of everything they earn to the federal government when asked ... so long as they are asked by a white president.
• We would have been thrilled, I tell you ... THRILLED to have all of those Islamic goons being held at Guantanamo be not only released, but sent to be school resource officers at our local government schools, if only a white president put that plan in motion.
• It would be OK if a white president stood back and allowed Iran to build its coveted nukes ... we're only unhappy about that because a black president is doing it.
• Deficits? We don't care about deficits! Make our children and grand children and great grand children pay through the nose for our president's spending habits ... just so long as the president isn't black.
• Government pork? Like we actually care? Look ... you folks in Washington can spend all the money you want - how about more studies of the mating habits of Polish Zlotnika pigs? - just make sure it's not a black president who signs the spending bill into law.
• We wouldn't care if all illegal aliens were counted twice in the next Census ... just so long as the president isn't black.
• Those Black Panther thugs who threatened voters in Philly? The ONLY reason we're upset that they were given a pass is because Barack Obama is black.
• Every single member of the president's cabinet could be a tax cheat as far as we're concerned ... just so long as the president is white.
• Forced unionization? Bring it on! We love card check! We love the idea of union goons threatening and intimidating workers to sign a card saying they want to belong to a union! What we don't like is that a black president is pushing this idea.
• Single-party talks with that Gargoyle that runs North Korea? It's about time we legitimized that little pipsqueak. We're only mildly upset here because the person who is doing that happens to be black.
• More regulation of the finance sector? We could care less! For all we care you can nationalize the banks and decree that only the government can make home loans .. .and you can even apportion those home loans on the basis of race if you want to ... just so long as the president is white!
• Minimum wage? Like we care about that? Raise it to $15 an hour if you want! Just give us our white president back.
• Read it all here
  

Protest Now Redefined

Previously, protest was patriotic and the highest form of citizenship. Now it is the greatest form of racism.

20 Things the Media Will Not Report

From Free Frank Warner

While Democrats rule, if these news stories occur, don’t expect to see them on any front page:

* The failure of Congress leaders to pay their taxes.

* Congress leaders accepting illegal campaign contributions.

* White House pressuring scientists to exaggerate global warming findings.

* White House claiming health care costs are going down when they are going up.

* White House claiming the deficit is not increasing when it is.

* The FBI wiretapping of Americans for purely political reasons.

* The firing of federal inspector generals for purely political reasons.

* The firing of U.S. attorneys for purely political reasons.

* The distorting of NSA, CIA, FBI or Homeland Security intelligence to serve a predetermined conclusion.

* The abuse of detainees by U.S. soldiers and contractors (unless Congress decides to surrender Afghanistan).

* Congress leaders accepting kickbacks from General Motors or Chrysler officials in exchange for laws giving GM or Chrysler an unfair advantage over other automakers.

* The continued paying of Congress leaders by officials of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in exchange for favorable regulations.

* The refusal by the Justice Department to prosecute Democrats who discourage non-Democrats from voting.

* The refusal by the Justice Department to prosecute Democrats who encourage voting by dead, fictitious or otherwise unqualified people.

* Subjecting Soldiers, Marines, Airmen and Sailors to poor health care at military hospitals.

* The failure of “stimulus” spending to create the jobs the administration projected.

* New health care regulations discouraging the number of breakthroughs in drugs and medical procedures.

* The relaxing of banking regulations after the White House and Congress promised tighter banking regulations.

* The failure of alternative energy sources to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

* A Democratic burglary of a Republican campaign headquarters.

Amazing

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate voted 83-7 to ban Acorn from getting funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Here are the seven senators who voted to continue supporting Acorn despite its practice--now documented in at least three of its offices--of giving law-evasion advice to people running prostitution businesses:

• Roland Burris (Ill.)

• Bob Casey (Pa.)

• Dick Durbin (Ill.)

• Kirsten Gillebrand (N.Y.)

• Pat Leahy (Vt.)

• Bernie Sanders (Vt.)

• Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.)

Obama's new web site

There is a new Web site at HealthReform.gov, a product of the Department of Health and Human Services. Here is how it is presented in the invitation to contact them:

The Obama administration wants to hear your ideas about health reform.

Contact Us: Share Your Thoughts and Ideas

We want to hear what you think about health reform.

• Share your story and send in ideas about why we need health reform this year

• Show your support for President Obama's commitment to health reform.

Maybe they don't want to hear my ideas.

Yes, Virginia, he lied.

Obama in his speech claimed that his plan will 1) extend coverage to all; 2) force insurance companies to cover “at no extra charge” routine check ups and screening tests like mammograms and colonoscopies; 3) place limits on how much people can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses; 4) forbid yearly or lifetime caps on coverage — and 5) spend less than we are currently spending! You are beyond stupid if you buy that, dare we say it, lie.

Sowell on Health Care

As usual, you need to read Thomas Sowell to understand how Obamacare will affect us all. This is a snippet. Read the rest here.

To tell us, with a straight face, that he can insure millions more people without adding to the already skyrocketing deficit is world-class chutzpah and an insult to anyone’s intelligence. To do so after an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office has already showed this to be impossible reveals the depths of moral bankruptcy behind the glittering words.

Did we really need CBO experts to tell us that there is no free lunch? Some people probably did, and the true believers in the Obama cult may still believe the president, instead of believing either common sense or budget experts.

Joe Wilson's Apology Speech

From John Feehery.
Madam Speaker,

I am sorry that I offended you, Madam Speaker, in any way, shape or form.

I am sorry I called the president a liar on the House floor last week.

I am sorry that the president called Sarah Palin a liar on the floor last week.

I was confused about the Democrats’ real position when it comes to illegal aliens and healthcare. They call Republicans bigots when we say we don’t want illegal aliens to get healthcare, and then when we say that they support giving illegal aliens healthcare, they say that they don’t and then call us liars.

I am sorry to be so confused about your position on illegal aliens getting healthcare in this country.

I am sorry that I was so frustrated that the president said his plan wouldn’t add a dime to the deficit. I am sorry because the CBO has said that the Democrats’ plan would add more than a trillion dollars to the deficit.

I guess the president has another plan that I haven’t seen yet. I am sorry that I haven’t seen it.

I am also sorry when I got angry when the president said that he planned on being the last president to deal with healthcare reform. I must admit that I didn’t know what he meant by that. Did he mean that the bill that passes the Congress this year is going to be so good that no other Congress will ever have to deal with it again? Or does he mean that the end of days is coming, and that after he is done being president, none of us will have to see a doctor, because you don’t need a doctor on Judgment Day?

I am sorry that I am from South Carolina. It really isn’t my fault that I am from South Carolina, but if that offends you in any way, I am sorry.

I am sorry that I speak with a Southern accent. That is how my mother raised me, but if that offends you, I am sorry.

I am sorry I am against the government takeover of the healthcare industry, the automobile industry, the financial-services industry, the energy sector, the fast-food industry and just about any other industry out there. I am sorry about that, but I won’t budge.

I am sorry that Charlie Rangel doesn’t pay his taxes but still is the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, which, of course, is in charge of imposing taxes on the rest of America.

I am very sorry that my first couple of apologies weren’t good enough and that we have to waste time on the House floor seeing if you can get me to apologize one more time.

I am sorry that some might reach the conclusion that the Speaker of the House is making me say that I am sorry again so that my opponent might raise even more money for the next election.

I am sorry that my opponent still doesn’t have much of a chance to beat me, because President Obama just isn’t very popular in my district with more than half of my constituents.

I am sorry if that offends you in any way.

I am mostly sorry that I blurted out on the House floor something that most of my Republican colleagues and more than a few of my Democratic colleagues were thinking.

I think the devil made me do it.

Obama Redux

Obama is giving another health care speech tonight. This is like a salesman that you've shut the door on, who rings the bell again for another try.

Just wondering

California extracts more than half of its income taxes from a fraction of 1% of its citizens. That leaves BestView with the question of whether those wealthy tax payers are bigger idiots for staying there than the politicians who devised such a structure?

On this same subject, what state with a large and powerful labor presence is not in fiscal trouble? I am thinking California, Michigan, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Nevada, and Massachusetts. Florida joins them for other reasons.

Charlie Rangle

A recent Washington Post editorial called for the black chairman of the tax writing Ways and Means Committee to resign his chairmanship. This was based on multiple financial transgressions including tax evasion. Read it here. The following is a letter to the Washington Post concerning this situation and Best View could not agree more.

What am I to think? I hear and read the many comments and speeches of people like Vann Jones, a black man, who is so obviously against the America I know and love. I see our black Attorney General refuse to prosecute the Black Panthers who stood at doors of the polling booths on Election Day slapping night sticks into their hand in a threatening manner. I heard Barack Obama as a candidate say that when elected he would distribute the wealth, and then proceed to do so after the election. I hear some black politicians such as Maxine Waters making what to me are outlandish statements, such as wanting to Nationalize our country. I see so many of them, such as back Congresswoman Diane Watson, praising the likes of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, et al. I see their most important civic (Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakan, Jesse Jackson) and religious leaders (oh boy, Rev Wright!) spewing what to me is insane and or anti-American rhetoric. In fact, I rarely if ever, hear a black leader on TV in a serious discussion without making what to me is offensive comments. I hear a black governor blame a white racist media for his low polls and he suggested that our President will be the next victim ("You can see it coming", he adds.) And these are just what speedily come to mind as I type without thought.

Today it is Charlie Rangel who's spouting off. What is gnawing at me the most as all of these things parade in front of my eyes seemingly on a daily basis is the mindset of the black community. If all of these leaders think in this manner, and I don't see any media accepted voices on the other side, are we not in trouble? Just taking Congressman Rangel at his word, shouldn't there be some real worries about the thought process within this community? Just listen to this part:

"Why do black people have to bargain for what is theirs? Why do we have to wait for the right to vote? Why can't we get what God has given us? And that is the right to live as human beings and not negotiate with white southerners and not court the votes. Just do the right thing," Rangel said.

Hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants come here every year of all color from India, China and all parts east and west. Most become successful citizens.

Yet the black community stagnates. Why? Don't they have the same opportunities as these newcomers?

These questions have been stirring within me. Don't call me racist, Charlie. Look in the mirror.

Obama kid talk

Obama will address students in our government schools on September 8. This has prompted considerable angst among many parents who are not sure they want the President speaking about subjects better left to themselves. It will be interesting to see how many parents decide to keep their children home that day. One reason was an initial "assignment" in which Obama would ask our children to write letters to themselves about how they could help Obama. Evidently, the outcry has prompted the Department of Education to drop this part of the speech.

More common sense from Cobern

Congressional leaders have been using apocalyptic rhetoric about angry "mobs," "un-American" protestors and "evil-mongers" at town halls because they know that voter concerns about spending may not only derail the "public option" in health-care reform but could turn into a referendum on our real problems—our crushing burden of government and the politicians who defend the status quo. For the sake of future generations, such a referendum couldn't come soon enough.

Read it all here.

Obama will cave

Who thinks Obama will resist his leftist coherts on fighting to win in Afghanistan? Not me.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) last week called for a timetable to pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan — the same tactic he and other war opponents used to build congressional support for forcing an end to the Iraq war.

But Obama officials — including National Security Adviser James Jones and Defense Secretary Robert Gates — know the problem is much bigger than Feingold and timetables. They anticipate a growing number of anti-war liberals will call, with increasing force, for an end to the conflict when lawmakers return. Cost could become an issue, too. With deficits high, there will be heavy pressure on Obama to find savings somewhere in 2010 — and war critics see Afghanistan as a good place to start.