President Obama’s new tack on the campaign trail is to get people to forget the last year and a half and try to scare the voters by saying, “Remember who got us into this mess and who is getting us out of it.”  Is that supposed to rally the voters to the Democrats jamming budget busting program after budget busting program down their throats?  Let me make two points to any voter to whom that strategy may give pause.

1. George W. Bush isn’t running for office
2. According to the Bureau of Economic Statistics, the recession started in December of 2007.  Who was in control of Congress for a full year by December of 2007?  That’s right, the Democrats.

So if you want to punish those who were in charge when the recession hit, with Bush gone, that leaves the Democrats.  Fire away.

In an article titled, “An Article of Faith,” Charles M. Blow of the New York Times explains about Obama and Health Care.  I am glad he took the time to set down the statist’s case.  It much easier to expose them when they step into the sunlight.

“The Apostles of Anger {that’s us} in their echo chamber of fallacies have branded him the enemy. This has now become an article of faith. Obama isn’t just the enemy of small government and national solvency. He’s the enemy of liberty.”

Enemy, noun, persons that are hostile to one another.

Sounds like Mr. Blow is onto something there.  Let’s see poll after poll has the American people opposed to ObamaCare by around 55% to 60%.  President Obama shows his hostility to the American people by saying he doesn’t care what they think, he, President Obama, knows what’s best for them and will ram this thing through by gimmicks such as reconciliation rather than the normal approval process.  Yes, I guess that makes him an enemy, but it was accomplished through his own actions, not by talk radio or Fox News.

Liberty, noun, freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control.

Again, it looks like Mr. Blow nails it.  We have the government under ObamaCare telling us we have to buy insurance or pay a tax or go to jail for non-payment of taxes.  Sounds pretty arbitrary and despotic to me.  So President Obama has decided to act in a way that makes us his enemy.  I guess Mr. Blow is trying to say we are to be faulted for recognizing it?

“This underscores the current fight for the soul of this country. It’s not just a tug of war between left and right. It’s a struggle between the mind and the heart, between evidence and emotions, between reason and anger, between what we know and what we believe.”

Uh-oh, here it comes folks the statist is about to point out how stupid we are for not going along like sheep to slaughter.  Notice the word order first it’s left then right.  If you follow that order Mr. Blow is trying to say that the left stands for the mind, the evidence, reason and what we know, while the right stands for heart, emotions, anger, and beliefs.  I am sure Mr. Blow will now use his superior intellect to explain this all to us knuckle dragging troglodytes.

“This conflict was captured in a tit-for-tat between Obama and Rush Limbaugh. In an interview with CBS this week, Obama complained about the “vitriol” coming from the likes of Limbaugh: ‘I think the vast majority of Americans know that we’re trying hard, that I want what’s best for the country.’

“Limbaugh shot back on Friday, “I and most Americans do not believe President Obama is trying to do what’s best for the country.”

That’s pretty weak.  So despite 55% to 60% of the American people, for months on end, saying or should I say screaming NO! this is not what we want, Mr. Obama is saying as if to a small child, “There, there now, take your medicine, I know what’s best for you.”  Where Mr. Limbaugh is humble  enough not to claim god-like omniscience that he knows what people think, just that based on his observations of the polls, what he believes they think.  It sounds like Mr. Blow is making a case for Mr. Obama being the most arrogant president in our history.  Please continue.

“And there it was. Obama’s language focused on what people “know,” or should know. He seems to find comfort in the empirical nature of knowledge. It’s logical. Limbaugh’s language focused on what he thinks people “believe.” Beliefs are a more complicated blend of facts, or lies, and faith. And, they can exist beyond the realm of the rational.”

Really?  Is Mr. Blow serious?  Does he believe this or does he know this?  Of what knowledge are you speaking Mr. Blow, in which President Obama takes warm comfort?  Is it the empirical knowledge that estimates of what Medicare would cost when it was passed turned out to be understated by 700%?  Is it the empirical knowledge that the model for ObamaCare up in Massachusetts has not stopped costs from increasing and health care is being rationed?  Of course, when Mr. Blow speaks of the right and their beliefs he has to work “lies” into the formula of the “complicated blend of facts, lies and faith.”

“According to another Quinnipiac poll released last week, Republicans were far more likely than Democrats to say that they follow public affairs most of the time. But how? They listen to people like Limbaugh, and they’re more likely than others to watch Fox News.”

Let me call your Quinnipiac poll and raise you one.  In its daily poll on the president Rasmussen finds that while 53% of likely voters disapprove of the job President Obama is doing, 55% of the media write favorable articles about him and that is on a downward trend!  So if people want the truth, who should they turn to for their news, the New York Times perhaps?  I think your article just answered that question.

“But invectives are not information. For example, a poll released on Wednesday by the Pew Research Center found that most Republicans say that they still don’t understand how the new health care reform will affect them and their family.”

Republicans still don’t understand???  Nobody understands it, Mr. Blow, because nobody read it before it passed Congress.  At over 2,500 pages, if you did nothing else but read the bill in the seventy two hours it was posted in the internet, it is not likely you could have read it.  No sleeping, no eating, no lavatory breaks, just three straight days of reading it and you would be hard pressed to get all the way through.  Since you are such a fan of empirical evidence, when major companies announced billions in write-offs because of the bill and the legal requirement to so report, Congressman Henry Waxman appeared shocked and called for hearings.  When Congressman Anthony Weiner said the IRS would not be checking on whether or not you had health insurance, he couldn’t explain why the law funds 16,000 more IRS agents.  This circus is only starting my friend.

And so, my fellow imbeciles, Mr. Blow has spoken with a scathingly inept defense of all things Obama, making the case for a strong turnout at the Tea Parties on April 15 at the very same time. If you want to know the news watch Fox, if you believe you want to house train your dog, get the New York Times.

In their pledge of openness and transparency in government the House of Representatives takes some pride in putting the health care bill online for 72 hours before voting on it.  Sounds like a good step, no?  Well… that is until you to the math.  If the bill they are voting on is 2,500 pages long you would only have 1.7 minutes to read each page provided you did not eat, sleep, rest your eyes, use the restroom for three straight days!

We have Nancy Pelosi’s famous cry for support, “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it”.  Turn one-sixth of the economy over to the government, first, then find out what’s behind door number 1, door number 2, or door number 3.  If you remember from that game show, what was behind one of the doors was a real stinker.  The problem here is we got all three doors.

AT&T reports that they are writing off $1 billion to pay for compliance with the new health care bill.  Guess where they are going to get that $1 billion?  That’s right watch your phone bill.  You are going to be paying for this health care monster in places you never imagined.  Caterpillar announced they were writing off $100 million, John Deere $150 million, and AK Steel $31 million.  So look for more expensive roads, farm equipment (food), and more expensive cars.  This is from companies that have figured this out in less than a week.  It will take time for thousands of other companies to tally up the cost.

Henry Waxman to the Rescue

But don’t worry folks, Congressman Henry Waxman is riding to the rescue:

Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California and chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, said he would hold a hearing next month to investigate the effects of the law on big companies. He asked the chief executives of Caterpillar, Deere & Company and Verizon for financial data to document the projected impact of the law on their companies, and he asked them to explain their accounting methods.

“The new law is designed to expand coverage and bring down costs,” Mr. Waxman said, adding that he would be concerned if it drove up costs.

I’m sorry to have to say this, but he has to be the dumbest man in the House of Representatives.  Members of the House are supposed to REPRESENT  the people.  The people have been screaming their opposition to this for months.  Obama dared his opposition to campaign on repealing his prized piece of…er, work.  Here’s news for you Mr. President, according to a Rasmussen poll 55% of Americans favor repealing this monstrosity.

But let me get back to Mr. Waxman, who is surprised that health care costs could actually increase.  Listen to the American people:

Most voters still believe cost is the biggest problem with health care in America today, but most also think passage of the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats will drive costs even higher.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 54% rate cost as the biggest problem, a finding that has been consistent for months.

If Mr. Waxman got his head out of the sand or wherever else he conveniently parks it, and out into the fresh air, he might have realized that he is among the very few who actually believe this was going to lower costs, because there is nothing in this bill that addresses costs.  It’s all about tweaking reimbursements to health care providers, which will accomplish nothing but drive doctors and other providers out of business, ration health, and expand government control.  Oh, but wait, that is the Democrats plan.

The Silver Lining

But there is a silver lining.  Communist dictator Fidel Castro loves it! 

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on Thursday declared passage of American health care reform “a miracle” and a major victory for Obama’s presidency

Bill O’Reilly, do you still think President Obama is not  a socialist?

Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak stood next to Greta Van Susteren on her program last night with several small stacks of paper.  Each one of those stacks represented an existing federal law that banned using public money for abortion.  He said anyone of them, pick one, is acceptable to him to get him to vote for the Senate version of the health care bill.  He said President Obama signed a law, just ten weeks ago that had similar language.  He was baffled as to why he could not get an answer from the President or his committee chairman, Henry Waxman, why they would not just continue existing federal law.  Let me put forth my hypothesis.

The Real Healthcare Objective

President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the rest of the statists have as their goal one, national health care provider, and that is the federal government.  I know that the “public option” has been in and out of the bill, and that the stated plan is for private insurers to continue to provide heath care insurance, but here is what I see as the real game plan:

1. Do whatever it takes to cajole health insurance companies to sign on or at least shut up.
2. Make sure that individuals do not take control over their health care purchasing decisions through high deductable plans and Health Savings Accounts.  Keep the 3rd party payer as the primary choice, which will allow health care costs to continue to rise.
3. Put in a federal oversight panel to make sure health insurance providers do not make “excessive” profits.  In other words, price controls.
4. With steps 2 and 3 in place health insurance providers will eventually leave the business or go bankrupt.  The federal government will have no choice but to step in so that all Americans continue to be covered.
5. Eventually, the federal government is the last man standing and the de facto public option, or should I say, public mandate is in place. Voila.

The Stupak Problem

If the scenario unfolds as I have described, then the only way to pay for an abortion is through your federal health care insurance provider.  If the language Mr. Stupak wants is in the bill, abortions will be near impossible and Roe v. Wade will be dead.  Do you think President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, NOW, or other pro-abortion groups are going to stand for that?  Not a chance.

So the Democrats have to find a way to either hoodwink Stupak into voting for the bill without the language he wants or find a way to peel off the 29 or so other Democrats who agree with Stupak.  Watch closely what happens.

Can anyone offer us a deal to give us cash if replace our Congressional Clunkers?  How about the health insurance companies?  They’d probably kick in, since they are Congress’ new whipping boy.  Oil companies, coal companies?  They get bashed every time Congress screws up and bans nuclear power, offshore drilling, ANWR, and coal as the price of oil climbs.  Banks who didn’t take TARP money?  Well Congress wants to set their salaries now.

Congressional Mileage

How much liberty per dollar are we getting for the money guzzling Congressmen and Senators who pull down $169,300 per year (more for committee chairs, and Speaker Pelosi who weighs in at $217,400)?  And this doesn’t begin to count their expense budgets, gold plated health care, etc.  I’m sure we could get much better mileage from a smaller government and a Congress that only meets half a year.  I’m willing to bet that the longer Congress stays in session the more trouble they get us into, while consolidating their power and feathering their own nests.

Here’s the Plan

Let’s set up a fund.  We’ll let Goldman Sachs run it, as they seem to know how to turn a buck. Anyone can contribute to the fund, no limits. For every Congressman who voted for the Stimulus, Cap and Trade, and the Health Care disaster and is run out of office, the fund will pay out a percentage of the fund to everyone who registered and voted.  The percentage will be calculated as the percentage of these clunkers who are retired out of Congress.

Think about it.  If you are a voter who really, really believes that the Stimulus, Cap and Trade, and the government takeover of our health care system is a good thing, you will vote to re-elect the members of Congress who voted the same way.  However if you don’t, then perhaps you need a little personal stimulus to cross party lines, or set aside ideology, and vote the bums out.  It might even help improve voter turnout.  And why not?  If ACORN can get illegal aliens and dead people to vote for their candidates, we need a way to fight back.

What do you think?

Another massive piece of legislation passes the House of Representatives dubbed Cap and Trade, with 300 new pages added at 3AM on the day of the vote.  Now, I like to read and if you give me a real page turner I hate to put it down, but I am hard pressed to remember ever knocking off a 300 page book in one day.  When I was in telecommunications and becoming a subject matter expert on access tariffs, I had to get up and walk around or get a cup of coffee after every ten pages just to clear my head.  So a piece of legalese that is over 1,000 pages would probably take me a month to slog through.

But this is not about me.  Go ask how many Representatives (Salary $174,000 per year) actually read what they were voting on and see what kind of answers you get back.  If you keep asking, “No, but did you read it?” it will be great fun to see the squirming and hear the double talk.  This morning on Fox News Carol Browner, Obama’s energy czar, was asked if she read the bill.  She responded that she was very familiar with it.  She was asked again if she read it, and she said she read vast portions of it.  The host responded, “So you didn’t read it?”  To that remark Ms. Browner took umbrage, “That’s not fair!…” she began.

Don’t They Get It

With a major piece of legislation that can destroy our liberties and burden us and our children with the cost  for years, these overpaid, narcissistic, arrogant employees of ours, don’t even read what they are voting on.  Let’s take Ms. Browner for example, accepting that she is not in Congress and therefore didn’t vote on the bill.  Even if she read 99.9% of the bill, what if the 0.1% of the bill that she didn’t read said, “ignore all of the preceding material, and raise Congress’ salaries 10%.”  If anyone has ever been told to read the fine print on a contract or got snagged because you didn’t, you know that if you didn’t read all of it, you don’t know what you just voted on.  Even Henry Waxman, one of the sponsors of the bill admits, he didn’t read it.

Brevity is the Key

When I was studying computer science I learned that perfection in a program was not reached when there was nothing more to put it, but when there was nothing more to take out.  The beauty of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution is that they can be read in their entirety on your lunch break.  I believe the legislation that created the Interstate Highway System in the Eisenhower Administration ran 29 pages.  This created a massive public works project like we have never seen before, in just 29 pages.  Why are these people in Washington if not to represent us?  Drafting a bill that runs over 1,000 pages is to pack it with favors for special interests that will then help those who approved it get re-elected.  It is all about power.  Getting it, keeping it, expanding it, all at our expense.

Tea Party anyone?

Democrats Lining Up to Vote for Cap and Trade

The tide is turning against the case for man-made global warming.  An article in today’s Wall Street Journal has the following:

“Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as “deniers.” The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.” — The Climate Change Climate Change, WSJ, June 26, 2009

So if the case for controlling CO2 emissions is gaining skeptics, what would a reasonable person do?  They would probably pause and listen to see if they should alter their position based on this new information.  What do the statists do?  Double their efforts to jam this gargantuan tax bill through Congress, again without reading it because it’s too big, before the American people find out just how monumentally stupid it is.

Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman, and Ed Markey are the lead lemmings jumping into the sea and expecting all of us to follow.  You see, if they can slam this thing in they will have enormously increased their power and make it very difficult to unwind this monstrosity.  Their disdain for what is right for this country and what is best for the American people is truly astounding.  Their arrogance and sense of empowerment knows no limits.

Scientists Speak Out

Far from Al Gore’s pejorative and dismissive label of “deniers”, some real scientists weigh in:

“The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. — 13 times the number who authored the U.N.’s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world’s first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak “frankly” of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming “the worst scientific scandal in history.” Norway’s Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the “new religion.” A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton’s Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists’ open letter.)”  — The Climate Change Climate Change, WSJ, June 26, 2009

Can you feel your liberties slipping away as those in power do what they want rather than representing us.  Sounds like it’s about time for a tea party.

We are about to get steamrolled by the largest energy tax increase in history and once again, it will be without anyone reading the 900+ page bill.  When Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee insisted that the bill be read into the minutes of the committee, the Democrats hired a speed reader to read the bill. Speed Reader Reads the Energy Bill

After enduring about a minute of the yammering, the Republicans cried uncle, and everyone had a good laugh, about the whole thing.  Once again the joke’s on us.  The government will take away more of our liberties and it’s loads of good fun.  Let’s re-elect them all to see what a rollicking good time we can have next.

On Glenn Beck’s show this evening he pointed out that the bill that created the Interstate Highway system in the 1950s was twenty-nine (29) pages and that they were 6″x9″ pages, not even 8 1/2″ x 11″.  So we have another massive piece of legislation, no doubt chock full of goodies for the special interest groups (what else would require 900+ pages), that no one will read before voting on it; no one will understand what is in it, except some low level bureaucrats; and once again, we will be handed the tab.

What kind of representative government is this if no one represents us?  They only represent themselves and how they can stay in power to pick up their six figure checks and perks and parlay that into millions more if they should leave office.  It almost makes you want to take a shower after watching the news.

He looked nervous.  He curled up the corners of his two hole cards, aces.  He eased them back down on the table and scanned the other players.  Nancy Pelosi had a stack of chips totaling $25 billion and he wanted all of them.  No, he needed all of them.  Desperately.  The other three, all Japanese, sat expressionless behind their dark glasses.  At every hand all they said was “Call”.   No raise.  No drama.  Very cool.  Very dangerous.

He looks again at the four cards on the table.  Nothing to help him there.  He needs another ace. He needs the ace he calls the Volt. Pelosi turns to him. “So, what’s your plan?”  He swallows hard, trying hard not to show it and says, “All in,” and pushes his remaining chips into the center of the table.  The dealer burns another card and then peels off the “river.” And we’ll be right back for the final outcome of tonight’s game.

GM on the Precipice

That must be how Rick Wagoner feels.  It seems he’s betting everything on the Chevy Volt. If he draws that ace, he’s a hero.  If not, he’s history.  So what are his chances?

If that’s all he’s got, they’re pretty long odds.  The Volt is not due to hit the showroom floor until 2010, and at a whopping $40,000 per copy.  Not a bad price for a Cadillac, but for an untested electric car with a 40 mile range?  That’s a tough sell.  Even at that, the $40,000 might not be profitable, just break even.  But, there will be a tax credit of $7,500 to help take the sting out of it.

Without Bankruptcy

Without a major revamping of their cost structure that can probably only be achieved through the bankruptcy courts, GM is still carrying $2,000 per vehicle in labor costs that its competition doesn’t have.  And what about those three players to his right in the dark glasses, do you think they are standing pat?  Although very low key, it is reported that Toyota, Nissan and Mitsubishi are all planning to introduce electric cars in the same time frame.  If they do that and they also have the $2,000 per vehicle edge, it will be very bad for GM and any bailout will go down the drain.

The other factor is the way the Japanese do strategic planning.  They typically do not look to just the next quarter.  They are known for developing 50 and 100 year plans.  That is not a typo.  So if they introduce a vehicle they will do it for the long haul.  Believe it or not the Toyota Prius has been on the market for seven years already.  The Japanese are not afraid to introduce a pretty good model and then continuously improve it and if they believe the direction is right, they are willing to wait for the results.  The Big Three, on the other hand tend to have a shorter planning horizon.  Witness Ford’s announcement that it intended to build 250,000 hybrids and then did a market survey when gasoline was about $2.30 per gallon, and decided that they should not go forward.  When gas prices took off they were caught flatfooted while Toyota was selling Priuses at a premium and they couldn’t make them fast enough.

New Administration, New Congress, New Energy Policy

Then there is the energy issue.  Putting more and more electric cars on the road is a good idea and a way toward energy independence.  However, the new administration and the incoming Democratic Congress want to kill the coal industry.  Coal currently generates 49% of our country’s electricity and when it comes to coal reserves, the U.S. is to coal what Saudi Arabia is to oil.  But the new incoming chairman of the House Energy committee, Henry Waxman of Beverly Hills, California, is more determined than ever to implement a green agenda and kill coal.

So what do you replace the coal with?  Oil? Gas? Nuclear?  On the campaign trail, I heard Barack Obama and Joe Biden mumble some things about nuclear being okay, but it was hardly a ringing endorsement.  Do they think for a minute that wind or solar are anywhere near replacing coal?  So, they actually plan to reduce our electric generating capacity by 49% and then not only replace it but grow it to be able to handle all these electric cars.  Where’s that plan?

If you don’t have enough electricity, you can’t charge up your electric cars.  If good old supply and demand does its usual thing, the price of electricity should skyrocket and I can tell you first hand that in New York, it’s not cheap right now.  If electricity skyrockets, whatever manufacturing is left in New York and other rust belt areas will be pulling up stakes left and right and heading south.  If that population follows the jobs, does that mean more votes for the red states and a shift in Congressional seats as well?

The Democrats better re-think that plan if they want to stay in power.