Libertyblog

Perfect Timing

From Britain, home of socialized medicine: “A patient was left infertile after doctors operating on his testicle removed the wrong one.” (Via InstaPundit.)

A Predictable Study Result

Whatever positive feeling “diversity training” generates for minorities is balanced by resentment towards those whose presence is associated with it. (Via InstaPundit.)

Wherein David Brooks Mistakes His Ass for a Hat

The New York Times’s excuse for a conservative columnist blames the problems of big government on those who ... oppose big government. (Via InstaPundit.)

You Break It, You Buy It

I wrote on Wednesday:

People like to bitch about their health care providers and insurers. Under Obambicare, that will be Obambi.

Rich Lowry takes a more programmatic view:

One point I make in my column today is that Obama is going to have a stimulus problem on health-care, if it passes. He has vastly over-promised, and his claims will fairly rapidly be discredited. Premiums and costs won’t go down. Even the number of the uninsured won’t go down soon. This is one of the reasons it’s so foolhardy for Democrats to think the debate is going to get better for them after the bill passes. Because they’ve talked about how historic their legislation is, they will own the health care system and every discontent with it will be pinned on them. John Boehner has asked, “Where are the jobs?” since the stimulus passed. He’ll be able to do exactly the same thing here, asking, “Where are the premium and cost reductions?” The difference is that eventually the jobs will come back, whereas the magical reductions in premiums and costs are unlikely ever to materialize (in fact, the bill will send them in the opposite direction). That’s why I’m betting the bill will get less rather than more popular after passage (like the stimulus) and within six-to-twelve months liberal pundits will be explaining that people would really love the law if only it were even more sweeping and expensive (like they have with the stimulus).

Shocking

Obambi breaks promises:

It was a bold response to skyrocketing health insurance premiums. President Barack Obama would give federal authorities the power to block unreasonable rate hikes.

Yet when Democrats unveiled the final, incarnation of their health care bill this week, the proposal was nowhere to be found.

Ditto with several Republican ideas that Obama had said he wanted to include after a televised bipartisan summit last month, including a plan by Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma to send investigators disguised as patients to hospitals in search of waste, fraud and abuse.

And those “special deals” that Obama railed against and said he wanted to eliminate? With the exception of two of the most notorious -- extra Medicaid money for Nebraska and a carve-out for Florida seniors faced with losing certain extra Medicare benefits -- they are all still there.

Transparent, Competent Government?

Most folks would get an estimate before repairing their cars or remodeling their homes. Congress has a different approach for health care:

The Obama administration’s chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) notified Republican leaders Saturday that the “very tight time frame” and “complexity” of the Democrats’ health spending bill would prevent them from fully analyzing the costs and efficacy of the bill before the House voted on the legislation. The letter was in response to a request from House and Senate Republicans.

The Chief Actuary, Richard S. Foster, wrote: “In your letter, you requested that we provide the updated actuarial estimates in time for your review prior to the expected House debate and vote on this legislation on March 21,2010. I regret that my staff and I will not be able to prepare our analysis within this very tight time frame, due to the complexity of the legislation.”

(Via Drudge.)

More of a Grinch

Most Dems aspire to be Santa Claus. Obambi hasn’t paid attention:

It is a pity that Mr. Obama has been energized into a new state of belligerency and contempt for all those who do not blindly and subserviently follow his lead. To engage in something of a fantasy, it would be nice to think he would go back and study the Santa Claus story with an eye to understanding the narrative elements that account for its huge and enduring popularity. He could definitely learn from them.

The real Santa in children’s minds actually listens and asks them what they want. Santa and his elves may be “watching” but they don’t interfere to keep children from being bad. There’s the real drama in the story. To earn a just reward children learn from an early age that they must begin to take responsibility for their own actions. And finally, Santa, the gift-giver, comes only once a year. He’s not expected to be an every-day presence in our lives.

Nothing to See Here, Move Along!

Dems advised by their leadership not to explain their health care bill budget numbers. (Via InstaPundit.)

Sounds About Right

Pollster Frank Luntz says the Unabomber has a higher approval rating than this Congress. Let’s see, both have insane ideas, both lecture us because they know better how to run our lives, but the Unabomber was cheaper and his bombs detonated on schedule. (Via InstaPundit.)

Target Acquired

Obambi went to a church that preached against “middleclassness.” Therefore, this facet of the health care monstrosity should not surprise us:

The hardest hit won’t be those earning more than $250,000 a year—the group that he says needs to “pay their fair share.” Rather, it’s families whose combined annual income is around $100,000 who could be crushed under this plan.

These folks will be too “rich” to qualify for ObamaCare’s subsidies, but probably too poor to easily afford the pricey insurance that the president’s plan forces them to buy.

Many of these $100K families will be obliged to buy a policy costing an average of $14,700 for the mid-level, “silver” health plan, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates. After income taxes, they’ll be spending almost a quarter of their net income for health insurance.

Obambi will no doubt remedy that problem by offering more subsidies—and taking even more control.

“If You Don’t Tie Our Hands, We Will Keep Stealing.”

A Dem gaffe, which is to say a statement of truth.

Graham Trades for a Dead Horse

If he can’t sell us out on amnesty for illegals, he’ll sell us out on jihadists:

The White House is nearing a deal with a bipartisan group of senators to close the Guantanamo Bay prison and pave the way for more detainees to be tried before military commissions, a move that would reverse a signature Obama administration security policy.

The deal would put the alleged mastermind of the attacks of September 2001, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, his fellow plotters and other top terror suspects before revamped military commissions, rather than in civilian trials as the Obama administration had sought. These courts would offer defendants more rights than they had under the Bush administration, but fewer than they would be afforded in civilian court. …

The framework of the deal is being led in Congress by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Mr. Graham wants civilian courts to be reserved for low-level Al Qaeda operatives and terrorist financiers, a far smaller group than previously considered.

Civilian trials for jihadists were already dead, so Graham traded something for nothing. Idiot.

A Net Loser

Peggy Noonan:

And so it ends, with a health-care vote expected this weekend. I wonder at what point the administration will realize it wasn’t worth it—worth the discord, worth the diminution in popularity and prestige, worth the deepening of the great divide. What has been lost is so vivid, what has been gained so amorphous, blurry and likely illusory. Memo to future presidents: Never stake your entire survival on the painful passing of a bad bill. Never take the country down the road to Demon Pass.

The Bismarck Bribe

As noted in previous posts, dealmaking for Obambicare votes can involve matters either inside or outside the bill. The unveiling of the reconciliation bill today closes the window on the former, but not before one last outrage was performed:

A new element, included in the plan issued on Thursday, would give a specific right to the Bank of North Dakota to issue federally subsidized student loans, meaning that it would be the only lender remaining outside of the Education Department’s direct-lending system.

The Bank of North Dakota is a state-owned lender that Democratic aides described as representing the type of nonprofit entity they want to encourage. Critics of the loan bill suggested the provision was designed to win the support of a key Democrat, Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.

What has any of this to do with health care?

A Great Book Title

A while back I wondered how leading Dems, who have compared Tea Partiers to Klansmen and Nazis, would respond during a war-zone junket to a Tea Partier’s kid serving there and wondering what was up with that comparison. Now we have from Michael Graham: “That’s No Angry Mob, That’s My Mom: Team Obama’s Assault on Tea-Party, Talk-Radio Americans.”

A Clarifying Moment

Another Obambi-con finally realizes that he’s been played. (Via InstaPundit.)

The Back of the Envelope

How are we rejiggering a sixth of our economy? Daniel Foster:

Okay, so I am looking over the CBO letter, and the first thing that strikes me is this disclaimer [emphasis unknown]:

Although CBO completed a preliminary review of legislative language prior to its release, the agency has not thoroughly examined the reconciliation proposal to verify its consistency with the previous draft. This estimate is therefore preliminary, pending a review of the language of the reconciliation proposal, as well as further review and refinement of the budgetary projections.

This suggests that the CBO has been trying to score a moving target, with Democrats making frequent tweaks to whip votes and/or hit deficit targets. So the CBO isn’t sure they’ve scored the final bill — hence they are calling this a “preliminary estimate.”

Congress Daily’s Anna Edney reports that a final CBO score will come out Saturday or Sunday, a most unfortunate bit of imprecision considering the vote on the bill will occur on the latter.

If You Want Peace, Prepare for War

Logistics:

Hundreds of powerful US “bunker-buster” bombs are being shipped from California to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in preparation for a possible attack on Iran.

The Sunday Herald can reveal that the US government signed a contract in January to transport 10 ammunition containers to the island. According to a cargo manifest from the US navy, this included 387 “Blu” bombs used for blasting hardened or underground structures.

[...]

Crucially, the cargo includes 195 smart, guided, Blu-110 bombs and 192 massive 2000lb Blu-117 bombs.

Best Magazine Cover Ever?

Maybe.

A Quick Show of Hands

Does anyone really believe the health care bill, as ultimately executed by our government, will save money?

He Didn’t Kiss the Blarney Stone, ...

... but it might have hit him in the head:

Vice President Joe Biden asked for God’s blessing for the late mother of Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen during a White House celebration of St. Patrick’s Day — except the elderly lady is very much alive.

(Via Drudge.)

Decoding Obambi

Pressed to explain how the health care bill’s Louisiana Purchase wasn’t the sort of shady backroom crap Americans have come to loathe, the Messiah offered this:

It was said that there were billions — millions of dollars going to Louisiana, this was a special deal. Well, in fact, that provision, which I think should remain in, said that if a state has been affected by a natural catastrophe, that has created a special health care emergency in that state, they should get help. Louisiana, obviously, went through Katrina, and they're still trying to deal with the enormous challenges that were faced because of that. (CROSS TALK) OBAMA: That also — I’m giving you an example of one that I consider important. It also affects Hawaii, which went through an earthquake.

Breitbart notes that the last Hawaiian earthquake of any import was in 1975.

The two pages of the bill in question start with some general conditions about natural catastrophes, followed by a list of exclusions. The net effect of all this verbiage today is to limit aid to Louisiana. Obambi is claiming that some other state may someday meet that same set of conditions and avoid that same set of exclusions.

And monkeys may someday fly out of my ass. (Via Drudge.)