Health Care Reform

The Wall Street Journal is quoting John Cassidy from The New Yorker explaining what Obamacare really is and why Nancy Pelosi was willing to sacrifice the careers of several House members to get it passed:
Mr. Cassidy is more honest than the politicians whose dishonesty he supports. “The U.S. government is making a costly and open-ended [...]

20 years ago today

the Berlin Wall came down. It was an amazingly euphoric moment in time celebrating the end of Stasi driven tyranny of the East German Government over its people.
I remember Lech Walesa and Solidarity in Poland and just what an amazing year 1989 was for the world. Most of all, I [...]

health care

Nancy Pelosi has pulled out an armtwistinghardballnoholdsbarredrazorthinpartisan “victory” in passing a plan for the Government to take over all of our health care decisions. Notice the bipartisan nature of the opposition.
anyway, check out this very important Wall Street Journal editorial on the bill and what it means if it passes the Senate.
Let no one [...]

Los Angeles Times’ William Voegeli gets it

William Voegeli gets it and what he gets is in the title and the lede of yesterday’s Los Angeles Times column.

The Golden State isn’t worth it
Our high-benefit/high-tax model no longer works, especially compared with low-tax states like Texas.

here are the first two paragraphs, but please go read the rest.
In America’s federal system, some states, such [...]

He is winning everything in sight

look at him go. Here from Reason TV is the catalogue:

HT to Veronique de Rugy

this is also amazing

this is also amazing, but in a different way. surely at some point people will get really sick and tired of being hectored by someone who thinks they know better than everybody else. surely? Doesn’t he realize this country has a system of local school districts that run and pay for schools? [...]

acting like teenage kids

never forget that the crowd running the show in Washington truly deeply believes that they are smarter than you and care more than you do about things.
from Drudge here is exhibit A in the condescension lalapalooza:

Energy Secretary Chu: A teaching moment (AP)
When it comes to greenhouse-gas emissions, Energy Secretary Steven Chu sees Americans as unruly [...]

global warming

if there is something about which the world has been certain (at least certain far left precincts of the world), it is that global warming is occurring and that it is man caused. the proposed remedy has been to wreck our economies and teach people to be satisfied with a lesser standard of living.
what [...]

WSJ on Van Jones

Jennifer Rubin points to an important Wall Street Journal editorial on who Van Jones was and his important standing in the leftist community in this country.
the editorial makes two points very well and is well worth a read in its entirety.
1. that Van Jones was well known and celebrated in the far left precincts [...]

the departure of Van Jones

before the “Green Jobs Czar” who resigned in the middle of the night on Saturday/Sunday of Labor Day weekend disappears into the memory hole, take a moment to consider that his hiring was not accidental. His radical views did not “slip past” the White House vetters.
Here is Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett talking [...]

your congress at work

the lovely and gracious Congressman Pete Stark takes questions on economics and the deficit from Jan Helfeld. Hilarity ensues. Highly recommended viewing for congressional arrogance in action. the best part is at the very end so stick with it through the cross talk. Content warning for an inappropriate four letter vulgarity from [...]

pushing folks out the door at the NHS

The National Health Service in Britain is being criticized by “palliative care experts” (doctors who care for terminally ill patients) because of prematurely pushing patients out the door by withholding medicine and intravenous fluids while drugging them up.
In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim [...]

powerful stuff

Timmy Brister posted this video “Choosing Thomas” and like he says it is worth the next ten minutes of your time.

somewhat related, Randy Alcorn talks here about the absolute necessity for Christians to have a well developed theology of suffering to avoid falling into serious error when something like the events [...]

two videos on the Government’s role

first from Iain Murray a nice economic fisking of a you tube government health care video

and next an uplifting musical piece from allahpundit

What she said

I agree with what Jennifer Rubin says here. there are market based sensible approaches that can be taken to reform our health insurance/health care system in this country, but the left wingers in charge aren’t interested in any such thing.
So why doesn’t the Obama team or their allies look to some alternative ideas, including [...]

anatomy of a carve out

check this out. which hospital is this?
“A hospital that was recognized as a comprehensive cancer center or clinical cancer research center by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health as of April 20, 1983, that is located in a State which, as of December 19, 1989, was not operating a demonstration [...]

Carville can’t count

I don’t know because I don’t watch the show, but did anyone at CNN question Carville’s crazy cajun calumny?
Here’s Carville on CNN’s State of the Union today:
Put a bill out there, make them filibuster it. Make them be what they are — the party of no. Look, we spend — the truth of the matter [...]

a study in contrasts

this is interesting. our president wants to unite us all under a pragmatic banner listening to all points of view, except that he wants some people to quit talking and get out of the way.
all in the same speech. how long will it take before the bloom is completely off of this rose?
[...]

Paul Ryan in action

I watched an eight minute version of this video last night. here is an almost six minute version that Mary Katherine Ham posted. I agree with Mary Katherine that Paul Ryan and Katrina van den Heuvel need to take their health care debate on the road. Notice how Katrina disappears from the [...]

the market works

this story shows that the market works. until the incentives change the piracy problem off of Somalia will continue and will likely get worse.
here is the introduction.
The rough fishermen of the so-called Somali coast guard are unrepentant criminals, yes, but they’re more than that. They’re innovators. Where earlier sea bandits were satisfied to make [...]

condescension in action.

just wow. watch this if you haven’t seen it already. I have been hearing about it for a few days, but only just now watched it. this is much worse than when she told the General to call her “senator” instead of maam. I really hope the people in CA are [...]

another one down

First, watch this 3.5 minute video.
then keep in mind that the only person that a hypocrite is lying about is himself. He agrees that the standard is higher than his actions. He just tries to bluff his way into the world believing that he is meeting the standard.
Finally, Sanford’s lovely wife Jenny has [...]

the President on Iran

Andy McCarthy had a couple of posts on Monday seeking to understand why Barack Obama was so reluctant to criticize the sham Iranian elections, their results and the brutality of the regime in their aftermath.
I don’t know if he is right or not, but these two bits jumped out as being plausible.
The key to understanding [...]

more czars than the Romanovs

here is a helpful list of all of the executive branch offices meddling without congressional assistance directly into our lives. Almost all of these have been put in place in the last five months.
The wheels are off the wagon. I was going to sensibly advocate against this outrageous growth in government and [...]

moral decision making in America

Dr. Albert Mohler takes a look at President Obama’s declaration of June as gay, lesbian, transgendered, bisexual month. Along the way Dr. Mohler states his background assumption with regard to moral decision making by most people in this country:
Most Americans come to moral judgments by a complex and often confused process that combines moral [...]