Publius

At a campaign rally, I mean a health-care stump speech, in Ohio today, Obama trod out a poor victim of evil insurance companies. "Obama planned to visit Strongsville, Ohio, home of cancer patient Natoma Canfield, who wrote the president she gave up her health insurance after it rose to $8,500 a year. Obama repeatedly has cited that letter from a self-employed cleaning worker who lives in the Cleveland suburb to illustrate the urgency of the massive overhaul." And what would happen to this woman under Obamacare? $8,500 is where the 40% excise tax on "cadillac insurance plans" kicks in. So Democrats in Congress are demonizing this woman for spending "too much". While the excise tax supposedly is to be levied against insurance companies, given their slim profits the only way insurance companies could afford the tax is to pass it on to their customers. So this poor woman's insurance would not have been $8,500, but instead $11,900. That would sure help her ...

Over the past several months, the same independent voters who swept Barack Obama into office have been increasingly turning away from him. The tide of opposition has risen to the point that Massachusetts elected Republican Scott Brown to fill a seat held by liberal Kennedy's for over 50 years -- based on Brown's platform of stopping the Obama agenda. Obama was elected because he told voters that he was a new kind of politician; that he would reach across the aisle and work with both Democrats and Republicans; that he would negotiate a health care bill in public on CSPAN; that he wouldn't raise taxes on the middle class "by one dime"; that lobbyists for special interests would be exposed and have no say in his administration. And, that he wasn't George Bush. But Obama is exactly the same kind of politician; he has helped lock Republicans out of every step of the process in every one of his major initiatives, his lip service about a "health care summit...

In 2005, MoveOn.org and many other leftists vigorously opposed the use of a procedural gimmick by Republicans then in control of the Senate, to approve one of Bush's judicial nominations. As reported here in 2005: MoveOn.org says of the "nuclear option": Their plan is to throw out 200 years of checks and balances in the Senate, by silencing the minority party for the first time in American history. It's a maneuver so outrageous that even Republicans call it the "nuclear option." It will take 51 senators to defeat them, and the vote is probably less than a month away. If Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist can twist enough arms to get 51 votes in support of Cheney's ruling, the minority party will be completely silenced for the first time ever. Note the key claim: "the minority party will be completely silenced for the first time ever." In 2005, when they opposed what the Senate was acting on, MoveOn.org cherished the time-honored filibuster, as g...

You may have noticed Socialist Democrats, so-called "Progressives", using the term "tea-baggers" to refer to the grass-roots protests against the massive government intervention in our economy led by Obama, Pelosi and Reid. The actual name these protesters have taken on is "Tea Party" - as in, the Boston Tea Party. "Tea-bagger" is quite a different thing. According to WikiPedia, "Teabagging is a slang term for the act of a man placing his scrotum in the mouth[1] or on or around the face (including the top of the head) of another person, often in a repeated in-and-out motion as in irrumatio. The practice resembles dipping a tea bag into a cup of tea." This kind of base insult is unprecedented in our nation's political discourse. This is the hateful disdain progressives feel for people exercising their rights to petition, to assemble, and to speak. This is the bile that Democrats are spewing against anyone who opposes their Glorious L...

The out-of-control Congress on a runaway mission to implement so-called "health-care reform" at any cost has over the past few weeks demonstrated a complete disregard for the Constitution. In particular, the concepts of equal protection under the law and federalism are being completely run over by the Obama-Pelosi-Reid cabal. First, everyone knows about the Cornhusker Kickback - special deals whereby Nebraska gets a free ride on Medicaid increased which will be paid by the Federal Government. Every other state in the nation, however, gets no such deal. The Cornhusker Kickback was a cynical payoff to get Ben Nelson's vote for the Senate bill. Yet many state Attorneys General have stood up to say this provision is unconstitutional. Second, just announced today: A senior Democratic official speaking on background told Fox News that the threshold for exemption would be raised from $23,000 to $24,000 per family but would remain the same at $8,500 for singles with high-value pl...

Whenever socialists want to attack a business enterprise they don't like, all they have to do is Go Large. Make it Big. Big Oil. Big Coal. Big Insurance. Big Pharma. To a Democrat socialist, putting "Big" in front of anything is tantamount to declaring that object an evil of such magnitude that nobody would dare to disagree with them on it. (A variation of the argument from intimidation). This is a Big Pile of ****, because they certainly don't seem to object to Big Government. Only Big business is evil, Big Government is ... well, something else. This tells you everything you need to know about the Democrat/socialist philosophy: Big companies get big and stay big by providing - through mutually beneficial, voluntary trade - what their customers want. To a socialist, this is evil. Big Government gets big and stays big by mercilessly taxing its citizens, generally against their will, for the benefit of special interests, in order to buy votes. To a socialist, this is g...

It's happening already - politicians such as Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi are taking the credit for your hard work. The past two years have been a very hard time for many. We are now seeing some economic growth and growth of perhaps 4-5% is projected for next year (let's hope it's true). And guess who is taking credit for it? Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi. Yet the government cannot create wealth. If the government taxes you to spend money to build a bridge and employ some people, it does so at the expense of the job creation that would have resulted had you been free to spend your own money. The difference is whether you get to act in freedom, or whether the central planner's in Washington's Politburo acts on your behalf - in a distinct lack of freedom. Barry and Nancy are saying "Look at this bridge we built!" while encouraging you not to look at the hundreds of thousands of homes that were NOT built because of radically increased taxes and debt. For eac...

From FoxNews : The Obama administration is pushing back against calls to halt or delay closing the Guantanamo Bay prison in light of the failed Christmas Day terror attack, suggesting that shutting down the prison will undermine terrorist recruitment in the very network that claimed responsibility for last week's plot. Obama is absolutely right about this. If we do exactly what the terrorists want us to do , they will all go home and we will be safe!

In a year when the Federal Government has already spent $1.4T more than it has - adding $20,000 in federal debt obligations to each American family -- Obama and his insane Congress want to double-down on the spending. Except it's not doubling, it's increasing far more than that. Hillary Clinton promised to pay $100B to "developing countries to offset the costs of adapting to climate change": http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2351880 This is nothing less than a transfer payment to the 3rd-world, at a time when we can least afford it. When Federal deficits of $1T per year or more are projected through the next ten years , Obama and his cronies are throwing more and more fuel on the fire. So the Democrats have now taken their philosophy of nakedly buying votes with taxpayer money, and are exporting it overseas. $100B is $1,500 per family. Since this wasn't included in any of Obama's budgets, this is on top of the $300,000 national debt per family we ...

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/03/obamas-olympic-failure-highlights-limits-international-appeal/ Aside from the question of why the President of the most powerful nation on earth, who should be focusing on winning two wars, removing obstacles to renewed economic growth, and a myriad of foreign policy problems spent time to go to Copenhagen to give a sales pitch for the Olympics, the result -- which has surprised leftist cheerleaders of Obama -- was that he failed. The Fox article above says "perhaps his international star power has limits", but misses the point. Well of course his star power has limits. And the limit is that many in the world hate America because of her ideas, because of what she represents. Hatred for America preceded George Bush and as Obama is perhaps now starting to realize, it exists after George Bush too. The rest of the world cheers Obama when he denigrates and insults America, when he supplicates himself to the likes of Abbas, Ghadafi, Chavez...

Many Democrats, and now Jimmy Carter, have claimed that opposition to Obama's government takeover of the US health care system are "racist" or "motivated by racism": http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/16/carter-racism-claim-draws-widespread-criticism/ This is complete and utter nonsense, Carter, and you know it. Yes there are some racists out there. Who cares? When hundreds of thousands of people descend on Washington DC to protest Obama's socialized medicine proposals, it's about socialism, stupid! The real story here should be, why does anyone still pay attention to anything Jimmy Carter says, when he is widely held as the worst modern president? Why does the media continue to feature Carter prominently? Why do they seek his input and advice on economic issues when under Carter we had double-digit inflation, double-digit interest rates, and shrinkage of real income across the nation? Because he's a socialist and the media is biased, maybe? The...

The socialist left has set up a massive straw man in the health care debate. It is, in short: "Opponents of Obama's health-care (wait, no, health-insurance) plan want to maintain the status-quo." This of course is a straw man and a great lie. There are clearly problems with the health care system, or more precisely, with the way that costs are growing out of whack. Nobody says the current setup is ideal. There is legitimate disagreement, however, about whether Yet Another Government Welfare Program is the way to go. Obama says "we need a government insurance plan to keep the private insurers honest". Even assuming that insurance companies were being dishonest (which is clearly the intention of Obama's phrasing), why not open the insurance field to MORE competition by allowing insurers to operate across state lines? That is one solution to the issue of limited competition in insurance and one which does not require a massive new federal bureaucracy and entit...

Paul Krugman always gets my blood boiling, because he is so self-righteous and yet so wrong. He writes in the pages of the New York Times, and talks about how he loves the proles and democracy - but unlike virtually every other media outlet, the New York Times has no reader comment feature. What Krugman really likes, is to pontificate to the masses from atop his ivory tower, and not have to listen to anyone tell him he's wrong. And how wrong he is. In a recent New York Times op-ed (1), Krugman writes: Washington, it seems, is still ruled by Reaganism — by an ideology that says government intervention is always bad, and leaving the private sector to its own devices is always good. First off, Krugman like other Socialists just can't get over Ronald Reagan. They are still campaigning against him even though he's been dead for years. Earth to Krugman: Obama is the President now. Blaming Reagan for today's crises is even more daft than blaming Bush. " Let’s talk for a m...

Barack Obama just launched a sleazy attack on many of the companies that make it possible for most Americans to have and pay for life-saving medical care - insurance companies. While this is the now well-defined scapegoat, they are still trotting out some tired straw man arguments too. 1. Health insurance companies are the problem! After talking about "health care" reform for years, Barack has found his scapegoat - insurance companies. Now the pitch is "health insurance reform". Never mind the thousands of pages of government regulation of insurance companies, the idea of insurance companies as 1800's-style robber barons oppressing the medical proletariat may be fashionable, but it's total bunk. Few industries are regulated as heavily as medicine and insurance. Barack's new solution, to make it illegal for insurance companies to cancel plans for any reason, will obviously cause a rise in premiums - just as the regulations forbidding companies from filter...

Congresswoman Diana DeGette of Colorado recently held an "online, interactive town hall". That's fancy talk for a "telephone conference call". While I of course applaud the idea of elected representatives putting themselves in the middle of the crowd to hear their ideas, this particular one was fishy. First, to participate, you had to fill out a form on DeGette's web site. Then, they would tell you five minutes before the event whether you were invited to the event. If invited, they would give you a call with the teleconference number. Then, they would offer certain participants the right to ask a question. Some "town hall". This is more like an infomercial. Clearly DeGette's crew was screening participants in order to avoid tough questions. They then further screened questions. Nothing would be asked of DeGette that wasn't doubly screened and allowed. This all amounts to Diana DeGette covering her ears and shouting "la la la la la la...

One should not be surprised, that President Obama has been shown to be a liar. This is because Democrats cannot be elected President in this country without lying. Polls and surveys show that the country is consistently conservative, right-of-center, what have you. The majority of Americans do not want government run health care or any other form of liberal nanny-state. Bill Clinton campaigned as a "New Democrat", and was elected overwhelmingly by voters who wanted to punish George Bush Sr for his own lie - raising taxes after promising not to. But the key part is, he campaigned as a centrist. Of course, that was a lie. The moment he got into office, thinking he was secure with a Democrat-controlled Congress, Clinton began pushing a big-government liberal agenda, starting with the nationalization of health care. There was an immediate and violent rejection of this plan, ending in the election of the first Republican-controlled Congress in 50 years. Bbeing the kind of politici...

I know what you're thinking. You're saying to yourself, "Of course Moveon.org lies, Publius, everyone knows tihs." Well, this is a particularly vicious lie. In a recent email sent out to Moveon.org members, Moveon.org elites including "Noah" had this to say about plans by the US Chamber of Commerce to oppose further acceleration of government intervention in the economy: The right-wing lobbyists at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will spend $100 million to defeat Obama's plans for health care and a clean energy economy. They call it their "most important project" in nearly 100 years. 1 Your local Chamber of Commerce represents small businesses, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is different—it represents the interests of mega-corporations, especially Big Oil and Coal. -- "Biggest corporate attack on Obama yet", Sat Jun 13 2009 So Moveon.org is trying to paint the US Chamber of Commerce as a "right-wing arm of Big Oil and Coal"....

Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader, all of a sudden is concerned about what happens to the detainees currently housed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/Story?id=7633754&page=3 Virginia Sen. Jim Webb -- whose state would likely host detainees if they were to be tried in the American criminal justice system instead of on Cuba -- said Sunday on "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" that he would not support bringing detainees stateside. "I think Guantanamo has become the great Rorschach test of how we feel about international terrorism. We should at the right time close Guantanamo, but I don't think that it should be closed in terms of transferring people here," he said. So, "we need to close Guantanamo but not if we, um, have to send these people anywhere else". Way to contradict yourself in the same sentence, Jim Webb. This is the single largest display of stupidity I've seen this year. Thus after years of united Demo...

Having just returned from a week-long trip to Mexico (Baja), it was instructive to note the devastation caused by the recent reckless fearmongering by the media, the Mexican government, and -- not to be left out of any opportunities to mislead the American public -- the US Government. Schools closed. Sporting events canceled. Restaurants and other public venues forced to shut down. Vacationers and business travelers by the hundreds of thousands cancel flights and hotels. You'd think it's the end of the world. By the way the media is still talking, it is the end of the world. But aside from the sparse tourist density, it was largely business-as-usual in Mexico, if you don't count the corpses piled waist-high in the streets. Oh, sorry, that's "Shawn of the Dead". No, seriously, it was business as usual, as much as it could be. Our flight, full with 140-150 people when we originally booked it, only had 40 souls aboard. The Mexican tourist industry, already hurtin...

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/03/30/clinton-administration-stopped-using-war-terror-term/ THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- The phrase "global war on terror" is finished, at least as far as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is concerned. Obama and his cabinet now have their heads firmly in the sand and are ignoring the fact that we are at war across the globe with radical Islam. Pretending the war doesn't exist won't make it go away. A shift to political correctness by not using the term "war" doesn't mean bin Laden and his ilk want to kill us any less. There is a reason terrorist leaders around the world hoped for Obama's election - they now know the heat is off, and who knows what manner of appeasement is on the table. Obama and Clinton hope to buy peace by "being nice". This is now a consistent policy, with absolutely zero response to the planned launch of a North Korean ICBM that can reach Hawaii, with no ...