To Obama, A Lie Is Now The "Linchpin"

During his single-minded drive last year to secure passage of his signature health insurance plan, President Obama repeatedly and intensely defended the costs as fees or premiums, anything but a tax. According to the administration, from top to bottom, and specifically including the president, there are no taxes contained in the thousands of pages of Obamacare.

Now, though nothing has changed except the bill has become law by the barest of majorities, the administration is forced to defend Obamacare against lawsuits by nearly half the states. In a court of law, fenced in by the rules of law, the administration terms the penalties mandating those payments that are paid to insurance companies and private insurance pools rather than to any government as federal taxes. It is the first time in history that federal rulers have ordered consumers to buy a specific product from specific companies.

According to President Obama, speaking to a national audience on ABC's This Week, Obamacare "is not a tax increase."

According to The New York Times' reporting, when George Stephanopolous said the penalty appeared to fit the dictionary definition of a tax, Mr. Obama replied, “I absolutely reject that notion.”

The power of the president to order consumers to purchase specific products or services is apparently unlimited.

When Solicitor General Kagan, the administration's top lawyer, was pressed during confirmation hearings into her nomination as a Justice to the Supreme Court to name any product that under Obama's theory of the law lies outside the power of the president to order consumers' purchases, she was unable to name even one.

Of course, any government that can tell Chrysler's creditors to take a hike, that can order a foreign oil company to cough up $20 billion of shareholders' funds without so much as a hearing, a trial, or a scrap of legal authority, will certainly feel free to tell it's citizens where to buy insurance.

Or their gasoline.

Or their pancakes.

UPDATE: Randy Barnett at The Volokh Conspiracy tears the administration a new linchpin hole, pointing out that this would be the first time in history for a tax on non-action or a non-event.
Do you suppose Rahm Emanuel spends a portion of his time manufacturing crises?

To Politicians Everywhere: "See You in November"

This is not only pointed, but a very uplifting negative message.



Bye, bye!

Mr. Obama: You Broke it, You Own It

President Obama and his faithful servants in the house and senate have purchased the American health care system. The purchase price was 16% of the economy, in perpetuity. That price will be piled onto the tribute we already pay.

Just as Twinkies sell more each year because some purchases are subsidized by food stamps, so will more patients pile into lines seeking services.

Until, one day our doctors, nurses and other caregivers re-work the old Soviet joke: "They pretend to pay us; we pretend to work."

The pain, anxiety and sense of loss on the part of the patients will be the only lasting reality.

He bought it on credit. Ours

It's April 15th, Have You Deemed Your Taxes Paid Yet?

I have a great deal of free time today.

First, I deemed my census report completed.

Then, I deemed all my chores done.

Finally, I saved a great deal of money when I deemed my taxes paid.

Life in Pelosi-land really isn't as bad as I thought it would be, as long as we all play by the same rules.

If the Democratic party is really going to fall on its sword over this, they ought at least make sure it's sharp.

Obamacare Represents a "Serious Moral Problem"

Finally, way later than one would wish, Catholic Bishops have spoken out on Obamacare.They are blunt. It is "deeply disturbing," and the process being used by its Democrat enablers, including more than a few who call themselves Catholic, is equivalent to buying "a pig in a poke."

The Bishops point out that the offensive Senate changes are deliberate, leaving American bishops disappointed and puzzled over the bill's expansion of federal funding and the role of the federal government in the provision of abortion.

America's Catholic bishops have far more experience with the provision of health care than at least 520 of the 536 members of Congress and the President. When they turn their backs, it's bad.

They should have gone further and called for the excommunication of those politicians who hide behind their Catholicism on St. Patrick's Day but fashion nails for the cross of abortion in return for a few votes on election day.

Obamacare, "A Kidney Stone the Size of a Buick"

Coco Letterman, whom I'm certain is no relation to the TV-star pervert sharing the same last name, describes the current state of the health care effort over at QuincyNews.org

The bill that just won’t die just won’t pass, either. People have had easier times passing kidney stones the size of Buicks than democrats have had passing this bill.

That catches it alright. Democrats are straining, in horrible pain that they cannot relieve. Stopping doesn't help; pushing hurts even more but seems impossible to avoid.

This may be a case of a terminal stone, fatal foolishness.

Be a friend in need, send some lilies to a liberal while they're still conscious.

The Administration's Health Care Accelerator is Stuck Full Open

Watching the Obama administration's efforts to herd the congressional snakes into a loose formation on Obamacare makes me wonder whether the effort was engineered by Toyota.

In spite of all the warning signs at the side of the legislative highway, the three blowout elections, the retirements, the polls where two-thirds of voters say "Slow, rough road ahead," the President has pushed the pedal to the medal.

He is either going to spin his party off Deadman's Curve at 120mph or run them off the cliff that waits at the end of the road.

It's a wild ride, one more in keeping with an out of control compulsive or addictive personality than a rational leader.

President Obama, DUI.

"For the Children"

The rallying cry for the very most liberal causes of the past 20 years has been, "It's for the children."

Well, now it is. The $1.5 trillion tab for nationalization of the health care insurance industry is to be placed on the backs of the children.

As Ramesh Ponnuru put it so well in NRO

In the primaries, Obama distinguished himself from Clinton on health care by opposing an individual mandate. In the general election, he distinguished himself from McCain by opposing taxes on health benefits. So now he is trying to pass bills with both an individual mandate and taxes on health benefits — and his supporters are saying that Congress should go along because he won the election.

Politics has become a shell game, a con game soaking life from present and future generations.


Name one mandate that hasn't grown, one rule from Washington that hasn't become tighter.

Historical Juxtaposition? Dr. Hasan and the House

Entire schools of philosophy are devoted to the question of coincidence. Does it exist or not?

This week's strangest timing was the mass killing by a government doctor, a psychiatrist no less, of prospective patients at Ft. Hood the day before passage by the House of Representatives of a 2,000 page bill nationalizing the health care industry.

Historians of the future will note and wonder.

Of course, by then Obamacare will have killed far more Americans than the despicable Ft. Hood jihadist.

We are at war, but feign peace. We are broke, but feign wealth.

Obama Decides Bipartisanship is Unacceptable

In the 2,000 page health care monstrosity passed late Saturday night by the House of Representatives, only one section mustered bipartisan support. The Stupak amendment passed the House with a truly bipartisan, strong majority vote.

Unfortunately for those who believe still in democracy, President Obama has just announced that "because there are strong feelings on both sides," the bill needs more work.

Is this the way they do it in Chicago? Do strong feelings of the minority trump the bipartisan votes of the majority?

If so, perhaps we can get a "do-over" on the major bill, which passed on a nearly perfect party-line vote with only one-twentieth the margin of the Stupak amendment, over the "strong feelings" held by opponents of politicized health care?

Or, does the strength of the "strong feelings" argument depend on who's doing the feeling

Where's The Bill?

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly promised that she would publish the health industry takeover bill at least 72 hours prior to any vote.

She's scheduled a vote for Saturday.

Where's the bill?

No question about her haste. She needs her followers voting before they go home on recess and think too much about last Tuesday and the upsets last summer.

Obama: Doesn't Slice, Can't Dice

The biggest news out of the weekend of wall-to-wall coverage of the networks by the President is… what didn't happen.

No news, no noise, no post-show analysis, no extensive commentary the day after. The media "buzz" was on a level commensurate with an appearance by Mr. Obama on one network, not five.

Obviously, the administration has lost its audience.

It needs a change.

It needs Ron Popeil!

Mr. Popeil, you'll recall, practically invented the infomercial. He's widely regarded as able to sell proverbial ice cubes to Eskimos.

Even Ron's trademark phrases could be re-coined for the purpose.

Is Mr. Obama having a little difficulty synchronizing any of the five bills stalled in Congress with his dozens of contradictory promises to the American people? No problem, Mr. President, just

Set it and forget it!

Need a little something to seal the deal? Well, Ron can sway the day with

But wait! There's more!

Is the trillion dollar price tag still too heavy for any rational person to agree with? Ron says,

Now how much would you pay?

Just one little tiny, teensy-weensy problem.

If we have Ron, who needs Mr. Obama?

When in need, go with the real deal. Accept no substitute.

Who Are We to Believe, the President or George's Lying Dictionary?

In a discussion that centers on the meaning of the word "tax" President Obama tells us that relying on the definition listed by Merriam-Webster is "stretching." Instead, we should just accept his position: the dictionary is wrong, let's move on.

Here is the video. Below it is the transcript, which begins at about :52, courtesy of ABC News.



The argument between George Stephanopoulos and President Obama, over whether the requirement that every person in America must purchase government-approved insurance or pay a fine, has just begun.

The incoherence is in the original. I presume Mr. Obama's telepromtors had the day off.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That may be, but it's still a tax increase.

OBAMA: No. That's not true, George. The… ­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, is that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact that… right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase. People say to themselves, that is a fair way to make sure that if you hit my car, that I'm not covering all the costs.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But it may be fair, it may be good public policy...

OBAMA: No, but… but, George, you… you can't just make up that language and decide that that's called a tax increase. Any...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Here's the...

OBAMA: What… what… if I… if I say that right now your premiums are going to be going up by 5 or 8 or 10 percent next year and you say… well, that's not a tax increase; but, on the other hand, if I say that I don't want to have to pay for you not carrying coverage even after I give you tax credits that make it affordable, then...

STEPHANOPOULOS: I… I don't think I'm making it up. Merriam Webster's Dictionary: Tax…"a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes."

OBAMA: George, the fact that you looked up Merriam's Dictionary, the… definition of tax increase, indicates to me that you're stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise, you wouldn't have gone to the… dictionary to check on the definition. I mean what...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, no, but...

OBAMA: ...what you're saying is...

STEPHANOPOULOS: I wanted to check for myself. But your critics say it is a tax increase.

OBAMA: My critics say everything is a tax increase. My critics say that I'm taking over every sector of the economy. You know that.

It is eerily similar to the finger-wagging lecture by Bill Clinton, also over a definition, in his case the meaning of "is."

In this instance, George has armed himself against potential Presidential dissembling or overly aggressive wordsmithing by bring along one of the country's most respected dictionaries and quoting from its first listed meaning of the word in question.

Relying on the dictionary's definition is stretching, Mr. President?

Well, I suppose it depends on the meaning of the word dictionary...

Nothing to see here, folks, just move along...

Mr. President, Where's the Beef?

President Obama spoke to the assembled Congress and the nation for three-quarters of an hour tonight. He referred a dozen times to "my plan" for the overhaul of the health insurance industry. But there is no plan, no draft legislation, nothing but a speech full of vaporous promises.

His promises don't add up.

There is no beef, only straw in the shape of men.

Measure twice, cut once Mr. President

President Obama: "Good morning, doctor. What's it look like?"

Doctor: "Good morning, Mr. President. I'm afraid the news is not good. In fact, it's absolutely essential that we schedule the surgery for this morning. I've reserved the operating suite and a first class surgical team. They're ready to go now."

President Obama: "Now? Now? Right now?"

Doctor: "Yes, sir. In order to keep this from becoming life threatening, it's essential that we act immediately. Even the slightest delay could increase the risks unacceptably."

President Obama:"What about a review, calling in a specialist for a second opinion?"

Doctor: "Sorry, sir. No time. We need to cut, now. All your surgeons agree. Surgery is the only answer. Granted that the procedure is experimental, but we're comfortable with that. The team is expert. They've studied this for months and are very confident that they can do this."

President Obama: "And if we don't?"

Doctor: "Well, sir, we estimate that this surgery will become effective in 2013, by doing so it will prevent a complete collapse sometime after that."

President Obama: "You're telling me that I need surgery now, right this minute, that doesn't take effect for four years to prevent harm 'sometime after that' and that the procedure is an experiment and you guys have never done this before?"

Doctor: "Yes, sir, but it's a real crisis..."

President Obama, after a short but thoughtful pause: "Are you out of your friggin' mind, man?

"You want to put me under the knife, major surgery, right this minute, without a second opinion, without any preparation at all, in a procedure that won't even take effect for four years, to prevent possible damage even further down the road?

"You're nuts. Get out of here. You're a complete quack. Find me someone who knows something about medicine! Get…"

Afterward: New doctor: "Thank goodness the heart attack didn't kill him. His old doctors had no indication that he had a heart condition. If they had, I'm pretty certain they wouldn't have shocked his system as the did. If they had, it'd be malpractice."

If You're Ever Going to Die One Day…

If you're planning to die one day,
whether near or far, or

If you're ever going to be sick,

Sick enough for a doctor or a hospital, well, then

It's not too soon, so start now.

Get to know a politician, and

Get comfortable sucking up, now.

Because you can never tell when you might need a powerful politician,

say a Barney Frank, or

Chris Dodd, Henry Waxman or Charley Rangel, or even

Barack Obama if you get really, really, seriously sick.

Those will be the guys who will be able to help you

Get in to see the doctor, or

Get a hospital room, or even

Be approved for the procedure that could save your life but

Isn't approved.

Now, you'll never be as powerful

As the chairman of Goldman, or

The president of Fannie Mae, or

As smart as Tim Geithner or

As cuddly as Barney Frank, so

You better get going and

Start major sucking now,

And get used to being called a Sucker.

For in the end, having made the choice

Better bled than dead,

You'll find no choice was necessary,

The answer, you see,

Is both.

P T Barnum is in the building, and in the House and the Senate and the White House down the street.

First Obama Came for the Rich Insurance Guys

First, President Obama came for the rich insurance guys, but I'm not an insurance guy so I didn't say anything.

Then, he came for the wealthy investment bankers, but I'm not an investment banker so no big deal.

Then, he came for the struggling commercial bankers, but I'm not a commercial banker so I didn't say anything.

Then, he came for the busted car guys, but I'm not a car guy so I didn't care.

Then, he came for the inspector general of the federal Corporation for National and Community Service, but I'd never even heard of the guy so I didn't say anything.

Then, he came for the entire finance industry, but I don't have any money so I really didn't care.

But then, he came for the drug companies, the hospitals and the doctors.

Sweet Jesus, I'm a heart patient!

What am I going to do now?

Name one role—any one at all, just one, or more if you can!—that you'd be comfortable with Barack Obama filling in your doctor's office or your hospital while you or your child is a patient seeking treatment.

Bet you can't name just one...