Voters Beginning To Blame Democrats About Recession
(Read all posts from McQ)
It was inevitable (the party in power always gets blamed – eventually), but that doesn’t mean I don’t like the fact that this perfect storm may crest precisely at the 2010 midterms (although you shouldn”t count out the possibility of Republicans completely blowing the opportunity):
Nearly two years into the recession, opinion about which political party...
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Harry Reid’s Version of the Health Care Monstrosity
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Over 2,000 pages (yeah, nothing can be hidden in there, can it?) the bill sets up at least 370.2 billion in new taxes over the next 10 years:
1. 40% excise tax on health coverage in excess of $8,500/$23,000 ($149.1 billion)
2. Employer W-2 reporting of value of health (negligible revenue effect)
3. Conform definition of medical expenses...
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Stimulus Funds Fat Tax Study
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This one is right out of the “you’ve got to be kidding me” category.
It seems that stimulus funds, you know that 787 billion bill without an “ounce” of pork in it, are funding a study at the University of Illinois (wow, there’s a surprise) to look at “the relationship between fat taxes and food consumption,...
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The Grey Lady Gets It Wrong – Again
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Editorializing yesterday, the New York Times says:
Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. took a bold and principled step on Friday toward repairing the damage wrought by former President George W. Bush with his decision to discard the nation’s well-established systems of civilian and military justice in the treatment of detainees captured in antiterrorist operations.
From that entirely...
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Why The GOP Remains A Minority
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About a week ago, amidst all the hoopla about the health care bill and then missed when the atrocity of Ft. Hood occurred, was this:
Even as a Senate global-warming bill remained in limbo with Democrats refusing to delay a committee vote until an economic analysis was completed, hopes rose for a potential bipartisan compromise.
The Senate,...
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Help Valor IT Reach Its Goal
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Folks I normally don’t ask for donations or money. But I’m making an exception today for one of the best organizations I know and for one of the best causes I know. The organization is Soldier’s Angels. The cause is their “Valor IT” fund raiser – now heading into its final...
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East Germany Is Gone – Boo Hoo
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You have to read this one to believe it. Bruni de la Motte, a child of the GDR, tells us how hard life has been for her since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The irony is that while she tries to convince of all that was good and wonderful about her former...
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About That AMA Endorsement
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Yesterday President Obama took time out of what one would presume was a busy day to tout the fact that the AMA and the AARP had endorsed the latest House version of health care reform.
But it appears that some of the rank and file are none too happy with the endorsement. In fact many...
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China Buying Oil Leases Off American Shore?
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That’s the word from Mark Tapscott at the Washington Examiner:
Gas prices here in the U.S. are creeping back up towards the $3-per-gallon mark even as news breaks today that China’s state-owned energy firm just closed a deal to buy interests in four development leases on the American Outer Continental Shelf (OTS) in the Gulf of...
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Ezra Klein’s Astonishing New Health Care Charts
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Or at least they seem to have astonished Klein. Here’s one as an example:
My goodness. As Klein says:
There is a simple explanation for why American health care costs so much more than health care in any other country: because we pay so much more for each unit of care.
Anyone – what’s missing...
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Stimulus Funds Used For Mapping Radioactive Rabbit Feces
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I‘m not kidding. So says none other than the New York Times:
A Week Mapping Radioactive Rabbit Feces With Detectors Mounted On A Helicopter Flying 50 Feet Over The Desert Scrub. … $300,000 In Federal Stimulus Money.” … “A government contractor at Hanford, in south-central Washington State, just spent a week mapping radioactive rabbit feces...
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“Your Taxes Won’t Go Up By A Single Dime”
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Wasn’t that the promise? Well Americans For Tax Reform have looked at the 1990 pages of the House monstrosity and found 13 taxes that will indeed raise yours by much more than a “dime” [HT: United Liberty]. Here are just three of them. You can take a look at the entire list...
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“Choice and Competition” – But Not For Education
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The White House tell us that the government public option in health care insurance reform will introduce “choice and competition” into the insurance market. But when it comes to education, which already “enjoys” a government monopoly, “choice and competition” are not at all something White House has any desire to introduce.
And, in fact, it...
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NY 23 – What Is Gingrich Smoking?
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Usually I’m in the camp that thinks Newt Gingrich is a pretty good political ideas man (and, frankly, believe that is the only role he should play in politics). But if you’ve been watching this Scozzafava/Hoffman dustup in NY-23, you have to wonder if someone dropped him on his head recently.
Here he is on...
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FOX v White House: The Results Are In
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Or at least the results since the Obama White House made FOX News the focus of its attempt at dictating which organizations should or shouldn’t be taken as serious “news” organizations:
But the White House’s stance also gave extra lift to the network at a time when it is on track to record its best ratings...
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Fact Checking The Democrats – Private Health Insurance
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Private health insurance companies have been demonized by the Democrats and the administration as modern day “robber barons” who are raking in obscene profits mostly by denying you coverage. But a simple fact checking dispels that sort of an attack as negative propaganda with no basis in reality:
Health insurance profit margins typically run about...
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If You Were A Democrat In Congress, What Would Your First Domestic Priority Be?
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Health care reform?
Cap-and-trade?
Or, perhaps, economic recovery and jobs?
On Thursday, Obama’s economic adviser Christina Romer told Congress the administration agrees with other analysts that the economy will grow in the third quarter, and beyond. Even so, she said, “unemployment is likely to remain at its severely elevated level,” and noted expectations that few jobs will be...
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TARP Report – “We don’t even know where the money went”
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So let’s give them health care too!
Sorry, couldn’t help myself. The quote in the title is from Democratic Representative Daniel Lipinski of IL. It’s a good preface to a Treasury Department Inspector General report issued today which was rather scathing. USA Today provides the “executive summary”:
A Treasury Department watchdog is warning that...
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Bribing Doctors With Your Money
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Of course this sort of political bribery isn’t necessarily unusual or confined to one party. It is just a particularly blatant example of the practice that is at the heart of the rot infecting our form of government:
The White House and Democratic leaders are offering doctors a deal: They’ll freeze cuts in Medicare payments...
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Obama Administration Votes To Restrict Free Speech (update)
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This is worrisome. I just featured a story in which Democrats have slipped a “hate speech” bill into the Defense Appropriations bill in a bid to further eroding our 1st Amendment protections. Now we find out that the Obama administration has supported a UN resolution that is also designed to restrict free speech:
Around...
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White House Wants Compliant Press
(Read all posts from McQ)
I‘m still wondering what the upside is for the White House in this fight it is picking with Fox News.
We’ve seen Anita Dunn, White House communication’s director take them on, obviously at the behest of and at least with the tacit agreement, one assumes, of the President. After all, he’s been known to complain...
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