Obamacare

Peter Wehner nicely sums up what the Republican Party's political agenda should be vis a vis the coming November elections.

However, he overlooks one important factor.  We now see that on almost every metric, the passage of Obamacare not only failed to improve the Democrat's prospects this Fall, but wounded them further with most voters.  That is, except for one particular group, the Democrat base.  Obamacare appears to have given the Democrat loyalists something to unify and fight for in the coming elections.**

Both the Republican and Democrat bases are small electorally, but critically important in any election. They are the cadre on the ground, getting out the vote, organizing the precincts, and seeding the campaign coffers.  Before Obamacare, the Republicans had a near perfect scenario: large majorities of Americans motivated to toss out the Democrats this Fall and a depressed and befuddled Democrat base.  Obamacare has changed that dynamic, giving the Democrat's a cause celebre to rally around.

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I'm Sorry, That Promise Has Expired

Jim Geraughty has had a signature line for the last couple of years: "All of Obama's promises come with an expiration date. All of them."  Yesterday, he compiled a complete list of the President's expired promises. Of particular note: 18 promises issued and expired within the President's first 100 days! But read the whole thing. Simply stunning.

Dawn of the New Age

Click "National Healthcare" for all posts in this series.

Good for business? Bring down costs? Ehrm, apparently not. Jennifer Rubin informs us that it took just a few days for National Healthcare to suck $4.5 billion out from the bottom lines of just three American companies.

But the Dems can fix that. Henry Waxman forthrightly announces a plan to shoot the messengers.

The New York Times scoops everyone yesterday with the shocking discovery that National Healthcare " ... may be as much of a burden to some state budgets as it is a boon to uninsured consumers." Except Philip Klein warned of precisely this problem back in July of last year. Hey, NYT, keep up the good work! I'm sure all those readers will come back some day.

Crime Wave

If you falsely accuse someone of a felony, that is slander and libel and actionable under the law.  If you do so as part of a conspiracy to infringe constitutional rights, that is itself a felony.  And if you do so as part of a deliberate political pr campaign to savage your opponents and cover up your own abuse of Congressional majorities to take over 1/6th of the American economy, then that is pornography. The "firestorm" of violence in the wake of passage of National Healthcare has not come from the Right, but the Left, and not from the fringe, but from the most mainstream actors in the national media and the Democratic Party.  They have perpetrated a crime wave of cynical politics on the Nation, and one that is both irresponsible and grossly negligent of their duties to protect the public safety.  If shouting "fire" in a crowded movie theater is illegal, then so too is shouting "threats of violence" during a national debate on a controversial public issue. All of these people should be rounded up and incarcerated for the public good. Unfortunately, under our system of laws, we will have to wait for the public flogging coming in November.

We Shall Go to Korea?

Breaking news: "A South Korean navy ship sank off the west coast near its maritime border with North Korea, officials said Saturday, prompting President Lee Myung-bak to convene a late-night meeting of security-related ministers. The 1,500-ton ship "Cheonan" went down around 9:45 p.m. near a South Korean island in the Yellow Sea, and 58 of the 104 crew members on board have been rescued so far, navy officials said." If in fact North Korea sank this ship, then renewed conflict -or at least "heightened tensions" as they say in the diplomatic trade - appears likely. Unfortunately, the Norks are now a nuclear power, meaning we may be close to the first true international nuclear crisis since the Cuban Missile Crisis of the 60's.  That such a situation may be upon us is testament to the bumbling neglect of North Korea's nuclear development program by no less than three Presidents, Clinton, Bush, and Obama. This might also be a vivid pre-qual to what will be bound to happen should the current Administration allow Iran to go nuclear, leading to a much more violent and bloody conclusion than the Norks could hope to engender.

Obama: What, Me Worry?

The President responded yesterday to those of the GOP who are promising to campaign this Fall on repealing the recently passed National Healthcare bill.  In essence, he says "Bring It On!" As I recall, that line didn't work out too well for President Bush.

Dawn of the New Age

Click the label 'National Healthcare' for all posts in this series.

Is this Healthcare reform or socialism? Before passage, the New York Times said it was Healthcare reform and Glenn Beck said socialism. After passage, the Times reaches across the aisle to Mr. Beck, and declares the essential rationale to be income redistribution. James Taranto quotes the Times' James Leonhardt as "praising ObamaCare as 'the federal government's biggest attack on economic inequality since inequality began rising more than three decades ago' "

Fast food will still be fast, unless you have to read a menu. Mike Riggs informs us what our Betters in Washington tucked into Healthcare.

If they can't get straight what's in the bill, Mary Katharine Ham wonders how they can run 1/6th of the American economy. Apparently, our President misstated the bill's coverages during the signing ceremony.

Dawn of the New Age

Click the label "National Healthcare" for all posts in this series.
 
President Obama crowed: "Starting this year, insurance companies will be banned forever from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions." Not so, says the AP and Daniel Foster:

Full protection for children would not come until 2014, said Kate Cyrul, a spokeswoman for the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, another panel that authored the legislation. That's the same year when insurance companies could no longer deny coverage to any person on account of health problems

It appears a 2,700 page bill was not quite big enough for Congress to save the children this year, inasmuch as it was already too big for the President to actually read it before it passed.

Dawn of the New Age

Beginning herewith, a new series.  Our great and good friend, Ms. Speaker Pelosi, told us last week that passing National Healthcare would be a good thing, because then people "can find out what is in it."

Passage happened Sunday, and lo and behold, details about what's in the bill are coming out.  Most would think that such details would best be reviewed by Congresspersons and voters before the bill is signed into law, but hey, that's only going to happen in a perfect world.  And the Dems haven't promised perfection, only Utopia.

So in this series, we will offer hot-off-the presses details as and when they come available. Click the Label "National Healthcare" for all posts in this series.

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Democrats Trumphant!

The media is all a-ga-ga over the Democrat's triumph over the forces of evil to pass National Healthcare on Sunday night.

Quite a triumph. Beginning with a super majority in the House, the Democrats could scrape up only a bare 5 vote majority for passage, through a combination of used-car hot box techniques and old fashioned Chicago style threats, graft, and corruption.  And even then, to secure the final votes Speaker Pelosi had to flush time honored House rules for crafting responsible legislation down the toilet, misrepresent the legal impact of a Presidential signing statement, and bury the vote in the media darkness of a weekend.

Big whoop. In other Democratic Party news, November is drawing nigh.