All Patches has to fear, is fear itself!

Manufactured Fear

I will try to keep this post tempered such that it will not startle or scare Mr. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) should he read this, but I find the remarks that he made at last Saturdays 'manufactured bliss' health care rally offensive.

Kennedy warns health-care debate could turn violent

Kennedy is the only member of Rhode Island’s congressional delegation not to have hosted a public forum devoted to health-care legislation moving through Congress. Saturday’s event, hosted by the AARP, was open to the media, but attendance was limited to a select group that largely supports a health-care overhaul.

It appears as though Rep. Kennedy would like to explain away his absence from the debate, and his abdication of representing the people of his district because of the dangerous and perilous atmosphere.

opponents of Democrat-backed health-care legislation had gone too far. He cited, as an example, 10,000 signs distributed at a recent Washington protest that read, “Bury ObamaCare with Kennedy.”

First, let's make it clear that he apparently didn't get the talking points memo from Ms Pelosi. The ruling party has refused to even acknowledge that 10,000 people were in attendance, never mind being handed placards. Secondly, is he out of his mind? The poor man. Who ever told him this information does him a great disservice. By all first hand accounts the amount of 'offensive' protest signs was minuscule. If you canvas any of the video from that day you can see that well over 90% of the signs were large, homemade, personalized signs and slogans made by individuals. And, of the small amount of pre-made distributed to people who had no sign of their own, there were far more 'don't tread on me' and 'more Liberty and Life' signs than there were 'Bury Obamacare with Kennedy' signs.

It’s a terrible thing when people think that in order to get their point across they have to go to the edge of violent rhetoric and attack people personally,” Kennedy told the nurses, union officials and AARP members

Violent? What violence? He's not so vain to think they were talking about him, is he? Clearly the signs refer to his father who was already dead. By natural causes, no violence involved. Was he talking about the demanor of the people at the protest? Zero arrests, and not exactly an angry mob by any standard. Especially the standard used by liberals when they take to the streets and protest.

Do you see an angry mob? Hell, can you find a 'Bury Obamacare with Kennedy' sign? Here it is. I did spot one. Look how tiny they are!

It is obscene that the ruling party is so desperate to drown out any opposition because they fear a debate of ideas that they change the subject by using the politics of fear and the accusation of racism. The free market 'Tea Party' protests are the most peaceful protest (other than a candlelight vigil) that you could ever attend, but you can't or won't know that unless you attend because the 'State run Media' won't show them to you in any substantive fashion, and certainly not live. They want you to think that they are worse than the G-20 protests conducted by leftists, liberals, and anarchists.

I don't remember any of the Tea Party protest needing police in riot gear? I don't remember any tear gas being used at any of the Tea Party protests? I never heard any reports of sconic weapons being used at any of the Tea Party events?

Yet Rep Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi have the nerve to scream fire in a theater by getting choked up and emotional to dramatize for you the fear that you should feel about people who do not believe what they want to do to the health care system is the right thing!


If you can't kill the message (No to Obamacare), then kill the messengers (protesters).
Oh? I guess I shouldn't have said kill.
Puhleeeease

Where is Jack Bauer?

Well, if you are in New York City today, then be on the look out for him!

It is extremely difficult to not let the imagination run wild, but I feel like I might be in, or maybe I am missing a season finale episode of '24'.

If you turn on the news right now you will see reports of what appears to be a feverish investigation of a terror plot. It started several days ago, when a Colorado man who recently returned from Pakistan visited friends in New York City. On his departure and during his flight back to Colorado, Police and Federal investigators raided the homes of several contacts of this man from Colorado. It was reported that the raids were related to a terrorism investigation. The day after arriving back in Colrado Mr. Najibullah Zazi was taken in for questioning. He participated in two days of questioning.

Finally Mr. Zazi was arrested for lying to Federal Investigators. Not a really big charge in comparison to conspiracy to commit terrorism, but apparently they needed to get him off of the streets. One can only conjecture that the plot was unfolding, Mr Zazi was starting to crack maybe, and they could not let him tip off the rest of the cell.

Further conjecture might lead you to believe that the remaining cell members, now cut off from one of their key operatives, is in panic. Maybe they have decided to accelerate their plans before the Feds come rushing in.

And now, fast forward to today. The second day of government warnings to law enforcemnt and homeland security agencies.

Federal counterterrorism officials warned local police to patrol stadiums, hotels and entertainment complexes for suspicious activity

Meanwhile, right now, Limousines are strolling up 5th Avenue, delivering world leaders to the UN to either give or listen to speeches from other world leaders. And right now, President Obama is preparing to board Marine One, the helicopter that will deliver him to NYC where he will address the UN General assembly. There are lot of people with diplomatic immunity walking around the city of New York this week. Potential 'agents provocateur'?

Where is Jack Bauer right now?

Buh, Bing, Buh, Bing, Buh, Bing, Buh, Bing.........

The Existance Tax

I remember asking my Dad when I was very young "What is a meal tax?". There was a sign in the restaurant we were eating at that said "5% meal tax". He went on to explain what taxes were, and that the government didn't tax food, clothing or other essential elements that are required for us to exist. "Like the air?" I replied. "Yes, like oxygen. They would never tax the air you need to breathe".

Well, those were the 'good old days'. Over the weekend Mr Obama argued pretty hard and very ineffectively that his plan for an individual mandate for health insurance is not a tax. I'm sure the video is all over YouTube, but it's better to read his words. You don't hear the same arrogant brush offs and the condescension when you read his replies. You just get to read what he actually said.

Obama's Nontax Tax
-WSJ

Whether Mr Obama thinks it is a tax or not is irrelevant. It is a Tax. To me this is truly a landmark turning point in how government treats and views its citizens. It could be the end of the last concept you could point to and say we are/were in fact a free people. The idea that your very existence now requires you to pay a tax, and pay it every year is a monumental sea change. Now, I have always thought that the tax levied on you when you cease to exist, the death tax, was wrong and unjust as well as being heavy handed, but the new tax on your existence makes that argument trivial.

They do not point to it in the WSJ Op/Ed piece, but in some of the the video you can see and hear Mr Obama point to mandates for car insurance as a precedent for mandating health insurance. He's wrong. Mandates for car insurance do not violate the concept of not taxing the essential element of life that you need to exist. You don't have to buy a car. It's sort of the inverse argument of the meal tax. You can argue that the meal tax really is a tax on food, but the reasoning that you didn't have to choose to have a nice meal at a nice restaurant means it's not a tax on an essential.

Taxing your very existence is wrong, and it is unjust. It is the type tax that would make Thomas Paine jump up and scream and write another pamphlet. Taxing your existence is wrong because you do not get a choice!

Then again, they probably have some free counseling available to convince you that existing really is a choice.

Preaching to the choir

Rather than the fake town hall meetings that were scripted to the extent that they were nothing more than live infomercials, the administration has had the good sense to shed the pretense and only take their message to safe audiences.

For instance, yesterday the president gave a speech to the AFL-CIO convention. He called on them for their support. Their support? Other than pure "quid pro quo" politics the unions have no dog in the health care reform fight. They are being payed off by receiving the "leave my health care alone" provisions those silly teabaggers and deathers are screaming for. One of the ideas in the still being crafted reform is for 'gold plated' health plans to be taxed. Well guess what; unions have gold plated plans. So now the plan is to tax gold plated plans 'except' for unions. Most unions are big enough to be self -insured so they don't have to worry about competing with the government. They have a captive customer base. And now, they don't have to worry about being taxed for the gold plated insurance plan most of us will never be able to afford. In return all they have to do is support the plan that screws everybody else. Oh, and if you (union thugs) could club down any one who opposes the plan, and decides to be vocal about it? That would be great!

In another tabernacle like performance, today the president gave his stump speech to college students in College Park, Maryland. In what will be portrayed as a victorious speech given to cheers with demonstrated support on tonight's evening news, the president cake walked through his talking points. Incredibly he won over the college kids who are still on mommy and daddies insurance plan, and have not yet paid their first bill, with his peace and love, hope and change promotion! Wow! What an accomplishment!

Revisionist History

You have to get it on national television, and get the story out into the theaters before the masses can start asking questions and talking back!

A blog on the Washington Post has an interesting piece on Micheal Moore's new Movie.

44 The Obama Presidency

It's hard to believe that this guy is for real and that so many people believe what he says

the film spends quite a lot of time building up last fall's financial bailout as the ultimate showdown between Wall Street interests calling in their Washington chits and a vanguard of hardy populists in Congress standing in their way. Left unsaid is that a larger proportion of House Republicans than Democrats voted against the bailout --

I have not seen the movie, but I can already hear and visualize the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy diatribe that he will use to place blame for the melt down and the bailout. Apparently he does go after Sen Dodd for being cozy with the wall street fat cats, but we'll have to wait and see if anything other than friendly acquiescence is laid at his feet.

The article really gets interesting near the end when it talks about revising history.

when asked whether the film had glorified the anti-bailout position assumed by so many conservative Republicans, saying that what he had really set out to do was to reclaim the bailout critique for skeptics of capitalism, away from the anti-government types.

"I wanted to stop the revisionist version of how the bailout is remembered," he said. Republicans "are trying to ride some phony populist wave because they know there's anger brewing. Beneath the surface, history is full of people taking advantage of [populist anger] and taking this country to an extra reactionary place."

Which revisionist version? And yesterday President Obama got into the act as well. The timing could not be choreographed any better either. Moore's movie premiere last night was at the same AFL-CIO convention that the president is speaking at today. Like yesterdays speech that he gave to Wall Street, I am sure we will here the same message that puts the bloody knife into the hands of the Wall Street fat cats.

giving loans to those who they knew could never repay

Now, he's right, of course. But, by not giving you the whole story, or by not sharing the blame with bad govt policy, and lack of enforcement of existing regulations, he effectively revises history to place all of the blame on Wall Street and the Republicans.

Never mind that it was the Community Reinvestment Act signed into law by Jimmy Carter which was

designed to encourage commercial banks and savings associations to meet the needs of borrowers in all segments of their communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.^[1][2][3] Congress passed the Act in 1977 to reduce discriminatory credit practices against low-income neighborhoods, a practice known as redlining.

Never mind the  Financial Services Modernization Act signed into law by President Bill Clinton

which repealed part of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, opening up the market among bankingsecurities companies and insurance companies. The Glass-Steagall Act prohibited any one institution from acting as any combination of an investment bank, a commercial bank, and/or an insurance company. companies,

 Never mind that in September of 1999

the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.


Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

 In that same New York Times article, there were those who were already sounding the alarm.

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

I wonder if Barney Frank makes an appearance in Mr Moore's new movie?

What They Said About Fan and Fred

 Rep. Frank: I do think I do not want the same kind of focus on safety and soundness that we have in OCC [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] and OTS [Office of Thrift Supervision]. I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing. .

Obama predicts economic disaster in the near future.

Over the weekend in speeches to live crowds and on the web in his weekly address the administration used some statistics in order to advance their health care reform proposals that have devastating economic meaning.

a staggering new report from the Treasury Department indicating that under the status quo around half of all Americans under 65 will lose their health coverage at some point over the next ten years.

Holy crap! Half of the work force is going to loose their jobs! OMFG! Sell your stock! Buy gold! Buy guns! Horde water and rations!

OK, calm down. Let's step back once again and crunch the numbers. Let's see. The estimated age distribution is...
(2009 est.)

• 0-14 years: 20.2% (male 31,639,127/female 30,305,704)
• 15-64 years: 67% (male 102,665,043/female 103,129,321)
• 65 years and over: 12.8% (male 16,901,232/female 22,571,696)

With the US population approximately at 300 million people, that means 200 million are between the ages of 15 and 65. So the president is predicting that 100 million people will lose their health care presumably by loosing their job. Wow! That cannot be a good economic environment.

But wait. He goes on to say that 'of those that loose their insurance, roughly one third will not have insurance for a year or more'. Oh? So those people who lost their jobs and insurance will find a job and get their insurance back from their new employer. How do we know they won't use COBRA to cover their coverage gap? Either way, they get their insurance back through employment and that's good. But that one third who go for more than a year? My God! What happens to them! Do they ever get their insurance back? Don't leave us hanging! I mean that one third turns out to be like.......33.5 million people! Wait? 33.5 million people? That is less than the 50 million who don't have coverage? and if you stagger out the 33.5 million over ten years then the number is roughly 3.3 million people per year who will loose their job for more than a year and become health care challenged, even with the availability of COBRA. So that means we are talking about 1% of the population.

We already crunched the numbers on the 50 million people reportedly without health care.

Obamacare: Crunching the Numbers

Much ado about very little

The upshot of that exercise saw that basically all of the proposed reforms would potentially help about 4% of the population. OK, let's go ahead and add in this new 1% that the administration has dug up with their doom and gloom predictions of the economy. 5%, let's stipulate that these reforms could potentially help 5% of the population. It still begs the question...... Is it worth letting the government take control of 20% of the U.S> GDP in order to help 5% of the population, when 90% of people with insurance are perfectly happy with their insurance?


If medicaid is so great, just put these 12 15 million people on medicaid and leave the rest of us alone!

Who is lying? State run media or the international press?

In some reluctant reporting by state run media outlets, ABC new became indignant that it had been cited as a source proclaiming that the size of the protest in Washington DC on Saturday reached somewhere between 1 and 2 million people.

ABC News Was Misquoted on Crowd Size

ABC News Reported D.C. Rally Size in Tens of Thousands, Not 1M to 1.5M as Activist Said.

They really went out of their way to diminsh the numbers. Howerver, across the pond, the international media was also reporting numbers in the range of more than one million.

A million march to US Capitol to protest against 'Obama the socialist'

State run media outlets have been complicit with the administrations effort to down play and out right ignore the protests and opposition of workaday middle Americans to the administrations plans for Health Care Reform. In advance of the weekend protest White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, when asked, stated the administration was "unaware" of plans for a protest. Good thing Joe Wilson was not present, or once again he would not have been able to prevent blurting out "Liar!" once again.

If you watched the NBC news special where they had special access to the White House you saw them boast about how they carefully monitor the big 3 cable news outlets. You know they watch Fox News, so how could they possibly think it believable that the administration had no idea about the planned protest? Are they really that out of touch?

And in an even more overt attempt to claim probable deniability the president left Washington to give a stump speech on Health Care Reform.

I wonder if he saw the huge crowd of the estimated one million people from his window seat on the Marine One helicopter that shuttled him from and back to the white house that day?

Inspiring isn't it?

Nothing says "Never forget 9/11" like painting the wall of a house that's being built. Who knows? Maybe the house will go to some down on his luck illegal immigrant who is looking to join an Al-Queda cell?






Never Forget!

I saw this happen in real time as I was stirring sugar into my coffee at work. I will Never Forget!

Right, Wing-Nut!: Socialized Medicine, Simpsons-Style!

Right, Wing-Nut!: Socialized Medicine, Simpsons-Style!

I love this post!

It is true. Doctors are smart people. Smart people know how to make money. Why do the dumb people think that the smart people will continue to do good work for poorer wages?

Remember the bumbling terrorists in Scotland? The attempt to explode a bomb in a Glasgow airport? Yeah, they were doctors recruited from Pakistan, because of the shortage of doctors in the UK. Hmmmmm..... I wonder why there is a shortage of doctors in the UK?

Take this day of service and shove it!

On 9/11, day of mourning becomes day of service

Only in our new era of insanity, in our new upside down world would a solemn day like 9/11 be thought of a day of service. If the intent was to stop and think about joining the militray or maybe think of something you can do to show support for our military, then......O.K. But, that is the farthest thing from the bill's intent.

Why not bestow the day with the honor it deserves. A National Holiday. Close the banks. Close the schools, and close the federal offices.

What? We have too many holidays? We can't have more than 10? Then let's toss labor day over the side? Why do we celebrate corrupt greedy unions anyways? Instead of not doing labor, let's do service on that day!

The real insult is that the intent is not to make you remember the 9/11 tragedy, it is to make you forget it. By morphing the day from what should rightfully be a holiday, into a recruitment tool for the likes of ACORN, they begin the process of having it's origin fade away.

It's only one of many remarkable acts of newspeak we increasingly observe.

The past is alterable

The past only exists in the human mind. The human mind is infinitely malleable.

George Orwell, "1984"

I am not against a day of service. I like the idea very much. Just not on 9/11. In fact, I put my whole hearted support behind the MLK Day effort to establish that day as a day of service. It makes much more sense to have a day of service on a day of celebration. A day that is intended to celebrate the birth of someone who is considered a great champion of unity. Service on a day of mourning is well... inappropriate.

Obamacare: Crunching the Numbers

Much ado about very little

OK. Tonight is the big night where Obama tries to reset the conversation. We are going to hear about the rising costs and the 46 Million people who are uninsured, and that we need a major overhaul of our entire health care system. He'll probably leave out the "everybody needs to sacrifice" part this time.

Let's step back for a second and think about this. There are 300 Million people in the United States. 46 Million of them are uninsured. That is 15% of the population. It has been reported that 18% of the uninsured are already eligible for medicaid but have not signed up. So they don't really count. They already have insurance coverage available to them. These reforms change nothing for the 8 million uninsured, but could be insured. It has been reported that 30% of the uninsured could get insurance from work, but elect not to. The preponderance of the 14 million who could get insurance from their employer are young healthy individuals who have calculated their risk versus the cost and decided that they'll keep their money and pay as they go when they do need health care services. Not something I would recommend for my children. The young rarely worry about catastrophic care because they think they are indestructable. It is highly doubtful that the $950 penalty the government is planning to impose on uninsured individuals will change the calculation enough to make them fork over the thousands they keep by not joining their employers insurance plan. Then there are at least, I repeat at least 12 million illegal aliens in the United States. Reportedly there are between 12 and 24 million illegal aliens in the United States. Let's use the low ball number of 12 million. The government has admitted that illegal aliens are counted in that 46 million people uninsured statistic. The democrats have reassured Americans that illegal aliens will not be eligible for the public option.

So, when you crunch these numbers it turns out that we are looking at a major government take over of health care in the name of helping 4% of the population. The Obama administration and the left wing of the democratic party has determined that changing everyone's heath care to help 4% of the U.S. population is the right thing to do. We need to risk government rationing of health care to help 4%. We need to risk the government controlling our lives in the name of health care cost reduction so that we can help 4% of the population.

If medicaid is so great, just put these 12 million people on medicaid and leave the rest of us alone!

Health care reform is entitlement reform

I do not know how she does it, but she does it. And, she did it again! Today in statements given to the press after a closed door meeting with president Obama, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, made a declaration in support of the health care reforms working their way through the Congress that ...

"Health care reform is entitlement reform"

You're damn right it is! And, that is what has those astro-turf, tea party, tea bagging skeptics so freaked out! We get it! We know! If this bill is passed, it is the single greatest entitlement ever handed out in this county. But who will pay for it?!?!?!?

Once again Nancy Pelosi has gone out on the limb and stated that we can defy the laws of economics, and that these reforms can happen without any impact to everyday workaday Americans. She's done this before without challenge when she stated

"Cap on Cost, No Cap on Benefit"

She stated the party line which is "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan". Yes, that is what the law says. However, if you think the scenario all the way through, you will realize that you only get to keep your plan until your employer dumps you over the side and selects the cheaper, tax subsidized public option.

Once you are on the public option the government will control every aspect of your life.

• they will decide if you are worthy of a test or a treatment.
• they will dictate what you can and cannot eat in the name of cost savings . (Drinking beer, eating at White Castle's, and ordering a Pizza is prohibited if your are on the public plan).
  
• they will dictate what you can do in the name of cost savings (riding ATV's, hunting, owning guns, and skiing are dangerous activities that contribute to the increased costs of health care and are forbidden if you are on the public option plan).

yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. That stuff is not in the bill. But let me tell you you that there will be subsequent bills afterwards if this current reform bill gets passed. There is no such thing as free lunch, and the all you can eat buffet is never is agood as you thought it would be. The buffet will be great for the first wave that goes through the funnel. But, once the law of supply and demand catches up to the promises being made by this administratation........

The bills to cut back (read 'ration') on health care will fly out of congress much fater that this 'reform act' being blocked by those damn obstructionist, tea party, tea bagging, astro-turf protesters,

Be careful of what you wish for.