Author: McQ

“Your Taxes Won’t Go Up By A Single Dime”

Posted on by McQ

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 here. [pdf] Employer […]

 

“Choice and Competition” – But Not For Education

Posted on by McQ

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 […]

 

NY 23 – What Is Gingrich Smoking?

Posted on by McQ

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 […]

 

FOX v White House: The Results Are In

Posted on by McQ

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 […]

 

Fact Checking The Democrats – Private Health Insurance

Posted on by McQ

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 […]

 

If You Were A Democrat In Congress, What Would Your First Domestic Priority Be?

Posted on by McQ

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 […]

 

TARP Report – “We don’t even know where the money went”

Posted on by McQ

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 a […]

 

Bribing Doctors With Your Money

Posted on by McQ

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 […]

 

Obama Administration Votes To Restrict Free Speech (update)

Posted on by McQ

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 the […]

 

White House Wants Compliant Press

Posted on by 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 […]

 

Senate Health Care Bill Will Put 1/3 Of US On Welfare

Posted on by McQ

That’s a truly stunning number. 90 million will be on either SCHIP or Medicaid (not Medicare … Medicaid) if the Senate Finance version of health care becomes ObamaCare according to the Heritage Foundation: But of those 29 million with new insurance coverage, almost half (14 million), will get their coverage through the welfare programs Medicaid […]

 

Putin, Iran, Nuke Talks And First Strikes

Posted on by McQ

Vladimir “Pooty Poot” Putin, with the opportunity to either back the words of Russia’s president that sometimes sanctions are just necessary or the Foreign Minister’s words of yesterday, chose to back the FM’s: Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned major powers on Wednesday against intimidating Iran and said talk of sanctions against the Islamic Republic […]

 

“Why, Oh Why, Do Conservatives Hate America So?”

Posted on by McQ

The title is a quote from Eugene Robinson’s latest effort in which he indulges himself in another leftist “history began January, 20th, 2009” moment. His ire and the reason for his rhetorical question comes on the heels of the announcement that Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace prize and the derision by which […]

 

Are Islamic Radical Sensing Political Weakness

Posted on by McQ

It is all fine and good to have a discussion and even a debate about future strategy in Afghanistan. But probably not 6 months after you’ve announced your former strategy. For some reason, dithering has a tendency to be interpreted as a weakness, not a strength. In war, weaknesses are attacked and exploited. And that […]

 

CBO Says Baucus Bill Won’t Add To Debt – But It Will Leave 16 Million Uninsured

Posted on by McQ

The Washington Post’s “Capitol Briefing” breathlessly announces: A health-care reform bill drafted by the Senate Finance Committee would expand health coverage to nearly 30 million Americans who currently lack insurance and would meet President Obama’s goal of reducing the federal budget deficit by 2019, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday. The bill would cost […]

 

Phantom Jobs Support Fake Recovery?

Posted on by McQ

John Crudele alerts us to a GIGO (garbage-in-garbage-out) statistic the Labor Department uses and has used for a long time that provides erroneous data. Bad as it is in normal times, it is even worse in bad economic times: In 11 of the 12 months, the government adds massive numbers of jobs — sometimes more […]

 

The “Post-American” President?

Posted on by McQ

Elliot Abrams, with a sense of deja vu, reviews Carter era foreign policy as one of weakness and accommodation leading to disaster. He’s seeing some eerie similarities in the foreign policy the Obama administration seems to be fashioning. One begins to wonder how far we will drift into a new period of generalized disaster. In […]

 

McCain To “Remake” GOP?

Posted on by McQ

We’ve had the “Quote of the Day” and the “Headline of the Day“, now its time for the “Laugh of the Day”. It starts with McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt saying that it would be a catastrophe in 2012 if the GOP picked Sarah Palin as their candidate. My question is compared to what? John […]

 

Tom Friedman’s Selective History And Left-Wing Paranoia

Posted on by McQ

I don’t know how else to describe this from Thomas Friedman: I was in Israel interviewing Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin just before he was assassinated in 1995. We had a beer in his office. He needed one. I remember the ugly mood in Israel then – a mood in which extreme right-wing settlers and politicians […]

 

Democratic Self-Delusion

Posted on by McQ

I love quotes like this because it gives you a little hint about the level of the left’s self-delusion and intellectual bankruptcy. “A Primer on Reconciliation,” put together by Ken Strickland of NBC at First Read does a nice job of explaining the arcane process and some of the limits that will make it both […]

 

Democrats Kill Public Option In Senate

Posted on by McQ

Not that I’m complaining. Max Baucus’ Senate Finance Committee voted on Jay Rockefeller’s public option amendment. No joy for public option supporters: After five hours of debate, the Senate Finance Committee this afternoon voted down Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s proposal for a public option to compete with private insurers. Though a majority of the committee’s Democrats […]

 

Waxman-Markey: 397 New Regulations And 1,100 New Mandates

Posted on by McQ

This story slipped quietly under the radar last week as we had the UN speech, the Iran revelation and the G20. An examination of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade legislation finds it contains 397 new regulations and 1,100 new mandates. And you’ll be pleased to know it will simplify your life, make child birth pleasant and cost […]

 

Clinton: Obama’s Problem Is The VRWC

Posted on by McQ

Yes friends, after an apparent 8 year hiatus, the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy has again surfaced. Apparently it has been evident since January 20th of this year. We’re sure of that because we have the word of an expert: Bill Clinton says a vast, right-wing conspiracy that once targeted him is now focusing on President […]

 

Criminalizing “Choice”

Posted on by McQ

What were the twin goals President Obama’s reform given in his speech to a joint session of Congress? Oh, yeah, he wanted there to be “competition” so the consumer had a “choice”. That’s become a Democratic talking point now. But choice, apparently, doesn’t extend beyond the faux choice of the public option. If you choose […]

 

Why The UN Will Love Obama’s Speech (Update)

Posted on by McQ

It appears that today is the day for rather scathing assessments of President Obama in the British press. This one by Nile Gardiner. He points out that the third-world debating club, known as the UN, will certainly deliver a standing ovation to their favorite US president in a while. But, says Gardiner, we should understand […]

 

Obama OK, Democrats In Trouble

Posted on by McQ

Charlie Cook, one of the most respected of the political prognosticators, continues to sound the alarm for Congressional Democrats. Since August, Cook has been telling them they’re headed for electoral disaster in the 2010 midterms if they don’t change their ways. Most of the erosion of support has taken place among independents. Although the country […]

 

Is Obama In Over His Head?

Posted on by McQ

For those of us who predicted that, we may as well keep quiet because when we pointed out all the reasons Barack Obama wasn’t qualified for the presidency, we were waved off as people not understanding his exceptionalism. Barack Obama was the one guy who didn’t need the seasoning or experience most would deem critical […]