ObamaCare: First, Do Some Harm — Then, Exploit the Crisis
“First, do no harm” has been the guiding philosophy for the medical profession since Hippocrates. It still dominates medical science, technology, and clinical practice. That is why I trust my doctor to do his or her best for me, and that is why at times I have changed doctors when I thought they fell short of that standard.
That is why the cost of developing one medication to FDA standards is about a billion dollars. Entire technical professions have grown up over the past century, dedicated to finding and developing new medical molecules with remarkable sophistication. They are constantly testing thousands of promising drugs, digging into life’s basic biochemical pathways, and finding ways to make precise changes in body chemistry to save lives. We benefit from that extraordinary science every time we take an aspirin.
It’s an amazing success story, and by far most people in it are personally admirable and dedicated. Needless to say, our pop media understands nothing about it. Sheer ignorance is a big reason the media and political elites can’t think straight about medical care. They just don’t understand even the basics. There are no scientists, no engineers, and few physicians in Congress.
We live in an amazingly arrogant age, at least in politics and the more self-indulgent fields of academia.
Obama is a product of the non-scientific academic world, where Marxist pseudo-philosophy is popular, as long as the colleges themselves can live off the fat of the (capitalist) land. Our academics are revolutionaries who never take a personal risk, just like our Democrats. That’s why the philosophy behind Obama’s Marxoid takeover of our health care seems to be:
Who cares if we do harm? We’ll fix it later! If it’s politically convenient! Whatever we do cannot hurt the apparatchiks, the ruling elite, who will have their own medical system.
Congress and federal bureaucrats will keep their current insurance plans. Academics will keep their tenure and their soft lifestyle at the expense of taxpayers. It’ll be a two-layered system straight out of Soviet Moscow: the nomenklatura versus the workers.
ObamaCare is really, really cheap compared to that one billion dollars for testing a single drug. The cost of testing and developing HR 3200, the current and ever-changing plan for ObamaCare, is zero dollars — because no testing and development has ever been done on more than 1,000 complicated pages. The bill has been thrown together in back-room deals between lobbyists and staffers in Congress. It’s like a hugely complex computer program that’s never been tested to see if it will run.
How likely is it to work? It won’t, which is why there will be tens of thousands of pages of regulations. And if it runs, how likely is it to make one-sixth of the U.S. economy cheaper and better, as Obama claims?
This is the ultimate snake oil.
ObamaCare is a really sweet deal – if you believe in abysmal ignorance and wild guesswork as a basis for turning over control of a half-trillion-dollar-per-year medical system to a Central Committee of Wise Heads. No sane real-world organization could work this way. But power has its perks, and one of them is to dictate a revolution in the United States without ever trying to understand its consequences.
If Obama were running a drug company he would be criminally liable for fraud. Morally he is no different from a drug maker who skips all the testing, peddling thalidomide around 1960, when 10 to 20 thousand people died from a poorly tested drug.
“Fearmonger-in-chief: Pass my crappy bill or people will die”
..just about sums up this pantload’s message.
*yawn*
Science fiction hour! This is just more of Actuary in Chief, Barack O’Bullsh*t’s socialist economic voodoo.
O’Bullsh*t “I have a gift, Harry” thinks he’s some kind of Jedi knight who can just wave his hand and make us believe these are not the droids we want. But, the force is with us, not him.
Nobody believes O’Bullsh*t when he states matter-of-factly that it will not add a dime to taxes or the deficit. Has there EVER been ANY government program that didn’t cost more than originally advertised, or that didn’t morph into an unending, ever expanding federal make work black hole?
With it’s new & improved lens, we should focus the Hubble space telescope on the White House to witness the birth of this new black hole.
~ The Infidel Alliance
P.S. – Will the program also cover America’s 7 million….er, I mean 5 million….er, I mean 2 million Muslims? (what’s the actual number, President O’Bullsh*t?)
Most of the early responses to his speech have been positive, at least those in the print media. I am interested to hear how it plays with the “people”, ordinary citizens like me.
It mostly came off as a theatrical move by a politician most intent on saving his own “bacon”. As Jennifer Rubin and others have pointed out here, this is a cold man. While he may talk about his mother dying of cancer, where was he? Not by her side.
Stylistically, someone on his team needs to tell him how silly he looks using two teleprompters, looking side to side as if he were watching Melanie Oudin at the US Open. I don’t like it when the President looks stupid, even this one.
Obama does not understand health care nor how to fix it. I’m not convinced he even cares. He has turned this into all about him. Is it ever going to be about more than that?
I loved it when the president said we shouldn’t be catching breast or prostate cancer…it’s contagious?!
Mr Lewis,
Thank you for this opinion piece. I note in particular this:
“Obama is a product of the non scientific academic world, where marxist psuedo philosophy is popular as long as the colleges themselves can live off the fat of the capitalist land. Our academics are revolutionaries who never take a personal risk, just like our Democrats.”
This statement lasers in on the leftist academic swamp and what it produces. Taxpayers need to start standing up and challenging tenure and other shiboleths of supposed academic freedom. The Ward Churchills should have freedom of speech, but not taxpayer support to fund their advancement of obviously discredited and incorrect political and economic philosopy. Academia in our country produces too many graduates whose entire life philosophy is founded on the defective and discredited thinking of Marx, Engels and their progeny.
Their are a number of Marxist visiters to this media forum who advocate the adoption of a nationalized healthcare system to replace one that is satisfactory to 80% of its subscribers. They don’t care about the mountain of evidence that shows other socialized systems denying care or providing crappy care. They are advocates for government control of 17% of our economy in spite of evidence that it won’t save a dime. They want a fellowship of the miserable. They openly and repeatedly advocate against the principals of freedom of choice and liberty.
When people like Vivo, Now and Then, Jharp, BC, and Moho ignore evidence that what they advocate for won’t work, and will do more harm than good, they mimic exactly their psuedo marxist academic masters. As Goy, a frequent commentator here suggests, these people are adolescent in their thinking.
Mr Lewis, thank you for exposing the weakness in Obamacare and the intellctual flimsyness of those who advocate for it like it’s some sort of new religion.
Mr. Lewis just zeroed in on the key difference between the United States of America and the rest of the world. Regards Britain he writes, “Ordinary citizens have been frightened into submission.”
Americans do not scare that easy. They do not buckle with fear, bow, kneel down in front of, worship or kiss the rear end of anyone; much less the likes of Barrack Hussein Obama.
Mr. Obama’s aggressive, threating, intimidating, “You will do it my way or else..” way of doing business has been on full center stage display during the Obamacare reform fiasco.
It succeeded in doing nothing more than piss the American people off. He will be dismissed at the end of his term; as will those in Congress that refused to hear and respect the voices of the Americans that elected them.
The health-care debate has opened a window into the mind of Obama, showing us the shallow thought processes that pass for intelligence in Washington. His demonization of doctors is a disgrace to the office and an affront to the medical community who strive to alleviate suffering every day. His contempt for his fellow citizens who disagree with him demonstrates his lack of emotional maturity. And the sycophants who surround him frame this debate not in terms of how it benefits Americans, but whether or not it’s a “win for Obama”.
As a country, we have failed our duty to elect the very best people possible, instead being forced to settle for the lesser of two evils. We stand on the precipice of socialism, an idealogy that is responsible for the death and repression of countless millions worldwide, but is passed off as just another harmless belief system with no bad attributes. Our capitalistic way of life, which has done more to elevate the human condition than any other, is under attack by intellectually challenged elites whose understanding of history is superficial at best and dangerously twisted at worst. True, you can look at anything anyway you wish, but with that freedom comes the responsibility to make sure that you get it right.
Today’s politicians don’t care for accuracy or truth, just votes and power. Want a better government that is truly responsive to the needs of America? We can have it, but it’ll requrire work to make sure that we don’t have to settle for shallow shells of citizens but instead choose intelligent, mature people for the very important business of running America.
This post wont be allowed to pass moderation, but what the heck.
Joe Wilson just guaranteed passage of the health Care Bill, in one form or another. He pulled the rug out from Republican leadership, and placed the government of United States on par with YouTube videos of third world countries where their equivalent of congress and senate engage in childish acts of disrespect and ignorance.
There is a train wreck heading Joe Wilson’s way, instead of republicans and democrats debating merit / demerit of the bill itself, there will be band aids offered to smooth over the insult to protocols and decorum of Legislative and executive offices. And this is not in the best interest of the nation.
Joe will pay a price for his actions, but our nation will bear the brunt of damage.
Unfortunately, it did impress some. I have a “friend” – a liberal from MA, who loves Kennedy and has totally erased the memory of Mary Jo, who is all renewed with trust for the One. He said that Republican response was lame and focused on Government interference and after all “Obama said absolutely no government control”.
There you have it. Obama said no government control so there will be no government control.
OAS (Obama Adjustment Syndrome) in full swing. Deny and reinterpret so as to maintain adulation of the One.
Like I always say. This President is a gifted speaker, but he will not be remembered so much by what he says, but more by what he does. His legacy is now firmly in the hands of health care destiny. However, so is the congress. From the do nothing “no” congress, we all know, they now have an opportunity to change it, or keep it the same, a reputation only a few of them really want to maintain. One thing I like, he articualted the positions of both extremes in the debate. Which demonstrated one thing every can appreciate. This President listens, which will serve him well during the remaining years he has in office.
These are the words James Lewis used here:
“Marxist pseudo-philosophy
Our academics are revolutionaries
Obama’s Marxoid takeover
straight out of Soviet Moscow:
the nomenklatura versus the workers
Central Committee of Wise Heads
amazing coup d’etat
state euthanasia
if he prescribes a dose of poison
physician-caused disease: “iatrogenic.”
Napoleon complex
can’t compete with a messiah.
Marxist scapegoating”
Where did Lewis go to school?
Obviously not Kansas, most probably Moscow, Nizhnegorodskaya State Medical Academy, or Auschwitz.
“First, do some harm. Then, exploit the crisis.” Yeah, he wrote that too.
“Morally he is no different from a drug maker who skips all the testing, peddling thalidomide around 1960, when 10 to 20 thousand people died from a poorly tested drug.”
“the philosophy behind Obama’s Marxoid takeover of our health care”
“Patients with terminal illnesses are being made to die prematurely under an NHS scheme to help end their lives, leading doctors have warned.”
“Obama must raise taxes to prevent dollar devaluation if the O-Care bill passes.”
Four, count them four, out and out lies. You are a disgrace to journalism.
And are hurting the debate and our country.
Actually, “progressives” have no problem with the idea that a (grossly inefficient) government-run healthcare system will end up costing lives.
After all, one of the basic dogmas of modern progressivism is that There Are Too Many People On Earth And They Are A Threat To Holy Mother Gaia. Other than their own “perfect” selves, most progressives would be happy to dispense with the majority of the human race (as long as there was some coolie at Starbucks to get them a latte’).
To a true “progressive”, the only thing that is a serious threat to their Goddess is the “carbon footprint” of the average Ameerican. The Godzilla-sized “footprint” of under-developed countries that don’t have the ability to use cleaner energy (like nuclear, which the progressives don’t want us using either) is something they’d rather not talk about.
Since we Americans are such a “threat”, it only makes sense (in their Malthusian worldview) to reduce the number of us to a “manageable” figure.
Controlling (and rationing) our healthcare is a good way to do this while pretending to have clean hands at the same time.
As for The One actually reading a medical case-outcome study, don’t worry. He is too busy… re-reading His two autobiographies. Which are, of course, the only books that really matter.
clear ether
eon
“Joe Wilson just guaranteed passage of the health Care Bill, in one form or another. He pulled the rug out from Republican leadership, and placed the government of United States on par with YouTube videos of third world countries where their equivalent of congress and senate engage in childish acts of disrespect and ignorance.
There is a train wreck heading Joe Wilson’s way, instead of republicans and democrats debating merit / demerit of the bill itself, there will be band aids offered to smooth over the insult to protocols and decorum of Legislative and executive offices. And this is not in the best interest of the nation.
Joe will pay a price for his actions, but our nation will bear the brunt of damage.”
I’ve been hearing this, but don’t understand it at all. Why should anyone change their mind on health care because of Joe Wilson? This is too serious for such games and trivia–that’s why none of the Democrats’ demagogic tricks are working here. Who, exactly, will be willing to be forced onto a government health care plan because Joe Wilson broke protocol during a Presidential address to Congress (the same protocol Obama himself broke, in that very speech–calling his opponents liars). This claim seems more like part of Obama’s and the Democrats’ Hail Mary, and should be disregarded and/or ridiculed.
It’s like a hugely complex computer program that’s never been tested to see if it will run.
I am confident in my forecast that ObamaCare will work exactly as well as the “SkyNet” programs in the ‘Terminator’ movie series. The minute “SkyNet” went operational, it f*cked everything up. The same thing will happen with ObamaCare.
The history of medicine is full of over-confident doctors who ended up killing their patients. We have a special word for physician-caused disease: “iatrogenic.”
Most “grand-scale” politics is iatrogenic.
Speaking as someone who knows Greek, Latin, German, French and English, I think “iatrogenic” is the best word in any of those languages. I learned it in the early 1990′s and it has been my favorite word ever since. Knowing the concept behind it always makes me pause when I see a “problem” and think, “Is the problem really just the way I am perceiving this and not something inherent in the situation itself?”. If the Left did that en masse, 90% of their daily screeching would die down.
Alex,
Joe Wilson should have shut his yap. He was out of line to say what he said when he said it. He apologized, as he should have.
Still waiting to hear an apology from the Speaker of the House. Not holding my breath.
Wilson’s outburst won’t effect the outcome one way or the other. That’s my bet.
“Mr. Obama is both ignorant and superstitious about the reality of modern medicine.”
Barack Obama is overall a poorly educated man. He took advantage of Harvard University’s affirmative action grading system. This is almost certainly the reason Obama’s handlers do not release his grades. It is also too late for him to get his act together while he remains president. He simply does not have the time.
#8 Alex
Gosh, Alex, put your helmet on and reload will you? Have you forgotten that Sen. Harry “Real Estate is my game” Reid called George W. Bush a liar in the halls of the Senate. But not bravely to Bush’s face as Wilson did to Obama. Oh no. Reid made the charge safely in front of TV cameras. Bush was nowhere near.
In addition Bush was Booed by the Dems prior to his inauguration. Alex, how ’bout a little fair and balanced here, hhmmm?
Re: 8. alex:
Joe Wilson provided the only sanity in the place last night; plus gave the world a window into what Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden really look like.. both of their faces shriveled up tighter than a bull’s butt in fly season..
Of course you may have a good point in that, right away “screw us harder, bullet lips Mickey Cain” jumped right in there to help poor old Obama out… heh.. heh…
Contrary to the claim in the third paragraph, there are several scientists in Congress, among them Roscoe Bartlett (R-Maryland) and Russ Holt (D-New Jersey).
I can not believe the Honorable Representative from South Carolina stood up and called Obama a liar when Obama said illegals would not be covered under Teds health care plan.
That was a great comment!
Obama is a liar!
Now the congressman has apologized.
Why apologize for telling the truth?
He reminds me of the Russian Politburo that kept on clapping after Joseph Stalin sat down.
Those that didn’t clap disappeared.
Obama and his Gang are not interested in health care; they are interested in changing the governing infrastructure of the US to insert a socialist infrastructure.
Obama’s speech, like his Cairo speech (and all his other speeches) is filled with his trademark triad of strategies of persuasion: First, Misinform; second, emotionally manipulate using fear and hope; third, accuse you of bias if you don’t agree. This triad is Basic Obama.
Obama’s claims that ‘illegals won’t be covered’ is contradicted by the bill, which provides no means of enforcing such a prohibition. It actually forbids restrictions on non-citizens.
Second, Obama says that ‘you can keep your private insurance’. But the STRUCTURE of the bill ensures that this will become impossible. Companies must enrol employees in the public health plan, or pay taxes up to 8% extra. Obviusly, the employer will not want this tax increase and will insist that his employees switch to the public plan.
Note that this act DOES increase taxes, contrary to Obama’s statements. And as costs rise, taxes will rise.
Why does Congress get to opt out and the rest of the unwashed citizens are not allowed such an option?
Oh, and on p 95, ACORN and Americorps, two of Obama’s civilian ‘armies’ will be hired to sign up people for the government plan.
What about Obamas’s Hope and Fear tactics? He’s insisting that this is a crisis when 80% are satisfied. He insists that His Plan will prevent cancer (huh? Cancer is not a virus!). He manipulates the numbers, informing us that 47% are without insurance, totally ignoring that at least half don’t WANT insurance because it’s cheaper to pay direct. Now, his latest speech is down to 30%; he’s dropped either the illegals or the elderly. But he still ignores that the majority have CHOSEN no insurance plan even though they could afford one.
His insults, his constant ‘Blame Bush/Others’ are meant to gather people around him – not to argue the points of the Bill.
This is not about health care. Not a word about tort reform, insurance crossing state lines, and the freedom to have private health care..with no penalties if you reject a public option.
Obama’s public option can’t survive without a massive movt of subscribers from the private to the public..and even then, it moves into deficit and restriction of services. Just like every other public health care system. Why does Obama think a US public system would be any different?
All politicians sell illusions. This one is just very good at it, which is how he has managed to swindle trillions out of a dupe Congress in just a few short months. The guy was right. He was lying through his eyeballs all night long. He can’t pay for this. We can’t pay for this. Nobody can pay for this. Hey, we all want to believe that honey comes out of the rocks, milk flows down the streets, and there will be an army of highly-trained and benevolent doctors and nurses there for us, from cradle to grave, working for free. That, last night, was a lecture from a gifted Marxist professor who somehow got himself elected to the highest office in the world. These are dangerous, dangerous times.
DROOL FROM THE FOOL!
Adam, are you really that stupid to think the protocol being broken was the use of the word liar? You people are actually apologizing for Wilson? Disgusting. You want to know why public discource has foundered, why the country is bereft of new ideas and intellectuals? Look in the mirror.
#20
Well, sure, three make a party. Perhaps four would be even better. For me, I just wish we had fewer lawyers in Congress.
#12
I count four truths and two lies…the two are the commenter’s not the article writer’s.
Joe Wilson is the person in the room that is sane. Obama is lying. Last time it was 47 million now it is 30 million. What is it, then? Why reform the whole system when Obama is only trying to save 30 million that would cost us trillions? Obama and Congress is setting up an totalitarian regime.
obama lied. what else is new.
who thinks he cares about anyone but himself. THE PUBLIC HAS BEEN shouting WE DON”T WANT IT. yet this ignorant person persists. he is talking to the american public as if he was in front of a group of his union supporters at a community organising drive.
he insulted and blamed those opposed to his vision of marxist utopia (they are in the magority). this guy is an arrogant pompus a@@hole.PERIOD.
and then to hear people like o’riely defend him makes me want to vomit. he sounds more like juane williams everyday ..even juane sees the failures in the potus.
doing nothing with health care would be better then the government doing something.
yes the trolls will jump on my last comment, they will say “BUT PEOPLE WILL DIE” …yes and when the government takes over a whole lot more will die.PERIOD.
the leftists/domocrats/marxists all looking for a free lunch. INTERESTING HOW YOU ONLY NEED TO PAY FOR THAT FREE LUNCH WITH YOUR INTERGATY. ..something they have no problem doing, they weren’t using it anyway.
The Democrat Party is a criminal enterprise.
James Lewis words:
“ObamaCare is a really sweet deal – if you believe in abysmal ignorance and wild guesswork as a basis for turning over control of a half-trillion-dollar-per-year medical system to a Central Committee of Wise Heads. No sane real-world organization could work this way. But power has its perks, and one of them is to dictate a revolution in the United States without ever trying to understand its consequences.
If Obama were running a drug company he would be criminally liable for fraud. Morally he is no different from a drug maker who skips all the testing, peddling thalidomide around 1960, when 10 to 20 thousand people died from a poorly tested drug.”
James Lewis, scientist, that’s some harsh criticism for Barack Obama, communtiy organizer.
Amazingly, the criticism is all true.
Only a true snake oil salesman with such a cavalier attitude for facts could go from 44 million uninsured Americans to 30 million without skipping a beat. Did he grab the 44 million figure out of the air. Or pull it out of Nancy Palosi’s hindquarters? I don’t know.
Does he explain the descrepency? I didn’t hear him. Did you?
Tort reform? That’s what he thinks is a concept that should be carefully tested on a local basis because if it’s not a good idea, we can’t afford to waste time and money on it; or infect the whole country with it. With lawyers one of Barack’s biggest special interest groups, tort reform has about as much a chance passing as Barack has of passing a lie detector test last night while giving his big speech.
But revolutionizing health care, a sixth of the economy, that requires no testing.
To the The Annointed One, gambling one sixth of the economy on a concept that’s never been shown to be workable on any scale, now that’s proper and prudent, the scientific method.
We wouldn’t give our children a vaccine without testing it. But Obmama is willing to possibly innoculate the entire country with a healthcare virus that may take years to find an antidote capable of undoing the damage that’s been done.
Just shoot from the hip, Obama. ObamaCare could score a bullseye.
More likely, though, it’ll gravely wound the best health care system ever devised. Yes, with all its faults, the best ever devised. Who’s so dissatisfied with the health care they receive that they think the whole system needs to be scrapped?
For that matter, Obama, Stimulus One was pretty much the same kind of shot in the dark. Created by financial lightweights and political heavyweights.
Obama, you called the surge a failure months after it worked. I call Stimulus One a failure becaues it was put together by power hungry, money grubbing people; a bunch of greedy jerks. Do they want what’s best for the American people. Me thinks they’re too busy stuffing their pockets with stimulus money.
The lawmakers that do Obama’s bidding certainly do want what’s best for themselves, ten new Lear jets, but hold the ObamaCare.
And let’s not forget about getting goverment control of the means of production.
Isn’t that straight out of the Saul Alinsky playbook? Well, you got your greedy mits on most of the car companies, and the banks. Saul would be proud. The American people should be seething.
Then there’s something that really got my goat.
Just so no one would doubt your ethical standards, you hired the ethnocentrist, Sonia Sotomayor who thinks one culture of people is vastly superior to the white male.
Never before in the last 100 years has such an out and out racist been nominated for anything so lofty, except maybe Robert Byrd to the senate. But at least he now disavows his racism. Sotomayor repeats it any time anybody asks her about it.
Obama, you also hired an attorney general who not only says white males are cowards when it comes to matters of race (including our fighting men in Iraq), but you dropped the open and shut case against the Black Panthers prancing around a polling place in Philly, dressed in fatigue fighting garb, armed with who knows what, ( you saw the billyclubs) telling voters they’ll get their bells rung if they don’t vote for Barack.
Then Eric Holder, attorney general, dropped the case with no apparent reason. All I can surmise is that he didn’t want to lose the voter intimidator’s vote.
Let’s face it, the Barack White House is in shambles.
Letting thugs walk. Hiring tax cheats and worse. Giving taxpayer money away by the billions, 90% going to minorities in the form of whispered reparations. Calling cops arresting their friends ignorant racists. Stuffing bills with earmarks when in the primary Barack lied that there would be no earmarks in his administration.
But theres’s something else. Every move President Barack Obama has made has been designed to spread the wealth to his friends.
Designed to turn this country into some Euro,socialst, state, complete with apologies for America’s war mongering graciously made to every two bit tyrant he runs into on foreign soil.
Didn’t Barack Obama swear to protect, preserve and defend this country against all enemies foreign and domestic?
Than what was an an avowed commununist doing czarring up the FCC? Then Barack said he didn’t endorse the creeps communist beliefs. How about some real words, Barack, like, “I reject them”? Unless, of course, you don’t.
Speaking of self described Communists, what was Barack doing palling around with unrepetent domestic terrorist, Ayres and wife, going to all those small intimate, Jew bashing dinners.
Another prolific dinner partner was close Obama ally, Rashid Khalidi, former member of the PLO when it was a terrorist organization calling for the liquidation of all things Jewish, including Israel. Why do America Jews vote for someone who breaks bread with maggots who want to wipe out their relatives in Israel. Good question.
America, every move Barack has made since January 20 has been intended to defame, deface and disrespect the ideals on which this country was founded.
Offering aid and sanctuary to the oppressed.
Equal opportunity.
No one being above the law.
Justice for all.
The right to life.
The right to liberty.
The right to own property.
The profit motive.
The belief in private enterprise.
The persuit of happiness; persuing the American Dream.
The one value he’s pushed has been to spread the wealth one, which isn’t part of American tradition. It’s, as you know, a bedrock of Communism.
America not only had an airtight case against the Panthers for voter intimidation.
America has an airtight case against Barack Obama for failing to defend the constitution.
If the militia marched into the oval office and removed Barack in handcuffs today, September 10, 2009, it wouldn’t be happening a day too soon.
If Barack is a true, admitted, Saul Alinsky, communist shacking up the white house, the place, I dare say, needs a complete fumigation.
I used to think Barack was going to be that great American politician from Chicago, our first black President.
Now I fear Obama is just another bum from the neighborhood, one who delights in joining Bill Ayers on the cover of a Chicago magazine, stomping not just on the American flag, but on the American dream.
But not bravely to Bush’s face as Wilson did to Obama.
Wilson should just say he was taking Obama’s advice to “get in their faces”.
Conservatives keep bagging on the European model even though Europeans in even their poorest countries live longer than Americans. You can never pull someone who would really switch to American coverage unless you pull some cranky old guy from the UK. You people are such hypocrites. If you really think the insurance companies are looking out for your best interest you aren’t paying attention. I would bet everyone of you has had a beef with the insurance companies in the past that made you irate. At the present you are conveniently forgetting this and just going with your party line. Well guess what there are a lot of young people like me who are running out of coverage. We are the future and we don’t like the republican party because they oppose things in our best interst.
Re #18
http://www.mererhetoric.com/archives/11275877.html
The scientific and medical ignorance of Obama and Congress assures the complete failure of health care reform.
Ha…ha…ha…ha…
Obama gave his usual lecture.
4. Papa Swamp:
“I loved it when the president said we shouldn’t be catching breast or prostate cancer…it’s contagious?!”
Another prime example of the spinning ignorance of the right wing – “catch” as in “detect” as in “did you catch it early?” If conservatives spent as much time thinking of solutions as they did thinking up lies, we’d all be better off.
Great article, spot on..
How come no one is asking the President appologize???
“Our” President is disgusting… I do not think he is ignorant, he is intentionally destroying the Country. And he is proud of it. What is really sickening are his followers…
No lack of certified wackos today:
5. Samizdat
19. Where Idiots Dare
Wait . . . there’s more coming!
16. Samizdat:
“He apologized, as he should have.’
Sorry not good enough. If Van Jones’ apology was not enough, neither is JW’s.
21. Seriously:
“Well guess what(?) there are a lot of young people like me who are running out of coverage. We are the future and we don’t like the republican party because they oppose things in our best interest.”
Republicans don’t like to hear this. They are the people-haters. The term ‘compassionate conservative’ fell on its face because it’s an oximoron. They will have to jump on the health care wagon or they will be relegated to oblivion. Look at the news, all they do these days is scream, whine and curse. They need to grow up.
I don’t consider Obama a gifted speaker. Without a pre-written (and not by him) speech, which he reads from a teleprompter, he is inarticulate, verbally hamstrung and unable to provide facts or reason.
Obama is a gifted PERFORMER, an actor, a manipulator. Not a gifted speech-writer or speaker, not a Churchill or Cicero.
This Health Bill is not about health care but about inserting a socialist government infrastructure into a non-socialist republic. That’s also why there are so many contradictions, anamolies and lies without and referring to the Bill. It’s a Trojan Horse, a cover, for the real agenda.
Now and Then – could you explain your comparison between Wilson’s statement (you’re lying)and apology; and Van Jones’ assertions about 9-11, accusations of white poisoning of minorities, and so on..and his apology? I’m afraid I don’t see that there is any equivalence in behaviour.
NOW AND THEN:Watch Me not apologize. Yuur Messiah got his start turning tricks for a slumlord, servicing his every need, going up and down back and forth to make sure he got every drop of that filthy lucre. You’ll get no apology. Now, like I said before, go back to your basement and resume cutting yourself to relive all those childhood traumas that made you into the weakling that you are.
Wow — I’ve seen some pretty dopey and factless “articles” on PJM, but this one really goes the extra mile. Where did you do your “research” — someplace with neon Bud, Coors and KENO signs on the windows? The bottom line is that healthcare costs are out of control and the US has easily the worst heath care for the money of all the industrialized countries, but the Republican “approach” so far to Obamas proposed solution has been to lie, distort, and put their collective hands over their ears and yell “I can’t hear you!”. Way to be part of the solution.
Also where exactly was that loudmouth moron, Joe Wilson the South Carolina Rep., when Bush was lying his butt off over and over about Iraq? Doing his “research” as well? Gawd, what useless shmucks, the lot of you….
the democrat party is a criminal enterprize
President Obama’s arrogance came through with shining red Communist shades last night; he said nothing new. As of this moment, President Obama is in campaign mode–again–to push his Socialist Health-Care Fiat with yet another tired speech on the subject. The people have rejected ObamaCare, but Obama simply does not want to deal with it! His enormous ego & swollen narcissism will not let the terrible ObamaCare die as it should. I believe he demonstrated how WEAK Obama is on the subject as his non-existent leadership is on display. Keep campaigning against Americans President Obama. It will lead you into further chaos of your own party.
I understand the comments, but also see this from the outside as well as Inside. I live in China and have been following on BBC and International news channels from Japan and other nations as well as US domestic news sources. Whatever momentum opposition to the bill had, were swept aside by a single comment and gesture.
CNN it is the lead story, as well as Yahoo, and pretty much every other news channel on domestic and International sites. Instead of talking about the many shortcomings of the health care “bill” and its contents, which they should be doing, they are discussing this act violating protocols and decorum of US government proceedings.
Republicans HAVE REASON to stop this dead in its tracks and dissect it, which is what should have occurred with pretty much every bill passed the last 20 years. I am in complete agreement with this, it is conglomeration of bad ideas that once enacted will be very difficult to remove.
Perception is reality in Politics, this seems to be forgotten. The perception now is opposition to the health care bill, and to an extent the office of president of the United States is personal, not business. That has taken the wind out of opposition, and will result in a health care bill crafted that is not in the best interest of the United States.
Lets wait a few weeks and see what happens; Blue dog opposition to the bill was galvanized by Joe Wilson, they will circle wagons around office of President. Republicans will be busy dealing with perception that personal attack and vindictiveness is their reality.
As a result we will see a bad bill become law.
Here they aaaare:
27. myna
30. rachel peepers
Somebody left the door open at the loony bin.
Great journalism as usual Mr. Lewis.
——————————————————————————–
I wish that Joe Wilson would have received a standing ovation.
No apologies were necessary.
Memo to Ethel Fenig’s statement at American Thinker “Wilson has already issued a public statement apologizing for his rudeness. It is the least he could do”.
Go to hell Ethel this is America. When a communist tyrant spouts lies like Obama and you find it offensive when a patriot could no longer sit through it we are in trouble.
Can anyone dispute that there was nothing new in the President’s speech? And that the terrain remains the same: the Democrats somehow need to convince a majority of Americans that 1) the “crisis” in health is so deep that they must incur the risks involved in a new system, many of the details of which are still obscure, run by the government, which screws everything up; 2) that the public option is not a trojan horse sneaking in single payer, even though we’ve seen most leading Democrats admit that it is; 3) that costs will be cut by a vastly expanded government program; 4) there will be no rationing by “commissions”; 5) I’m sure I’ve left out a few things (illegal immigrants, abortion…). Failing that, they need to either 1) convince a majority of Americans that insurance companies are so evil they must be wiped off the face of the earth; or, 2) convince a lot of Democrats to vote themselves into early retirement.
Meanwhile, all conservatives still have to do is point out that public option inexorably leads to the bankrupting of private insurance which leaves us with single payer which means the government making decisions not only about individuals’ life and death but ultimately about which treatments will be favored, which drugs invested in, how doctors will be trained, etc., etc. I think our chances are still pretty good, even though the game is far from over.
The wacko list is getting too long and red.
Too bad, wackiness cannot be cured.
So, to summarize what the Blessed One has stated to Congress and the people;
“Listen to me; I know what’s best for you; Trust me and my serfs to provide for your every need; Just sit back and enjoy the ride”.
WAAAHAHAHAHAHA!
#39 ““He apologized, as he should have.’Sorry not good enough. If Van Jones’ apology was not enough, neither is JW’”s.
Get this crap off off our website. This nonsense should not be published on PJM.
Mr. Wilson was being a patriot for calling a lying tryant in Congress. God bless him.
No apology is necessary nor will suffice from Van Jones since he hates white people making him a flaming racist and he’s also a self avowed communist making him a criminal. Yes a criminal since he wants to subvert our Constitution.
We should continue to prosecute Van Jones.
ACORN is next.
Alex (#46), according to Drudge, Nancy Pelosi does not have votes to pass ObamaCare; as usual, she was bluffing. The Democrats are in disarray because of President Obama. This bill will not pass unless many Blue Dogs want to lose their jobs. In fact, many Democrats may still lose their jobs due to Porkulus, Cap & Trade, & Obama’s budget. They are not safe at all. President Obama is making the tinderbox worse with his arrogance.
If Obama’s speech was effective, he would not be campaigning again now. He is going to give another speech later today on the same subject. Obama is desperate. The bill is doomed.
41. ETAB:
AGREED …he is a poor speaker. all those who give him the benefit of the doubt are intellectually challenged (that is politically correct speak for IDIOTS).
I understand why senior potiticians and diplomats don’t want to appear like a rabid loon. BUT THEY NOW RUN THE RISK OF BEING TRAMPED BY THESE MAXRIST GOONS in the interest of their image. ONE CANNOT COMPROMISE ONESELF TO CORRECTNESS. and that is what the conservatives in politics today have done.
obama has horrible and incorrect diction to go with his terrible grammar. WELCOME TO CHICAGO. are you proud to be american now b!tch !
A clever and eloquently delivered speech given by a master of spin selling. To say that this man is poorly educated doesn’t give him credit for what he’s good at.
Now actually making his purported vision a reality that magically funds itself and takes care of everyone…that’s going to be tricky.
He addressed the objections much to the glee of his supporters, and dismay of his detractors, given that the detractors don’t have the articulate spokesman (yet) to counter him.
My bet is he gets something through, and when it morphs into what his doubters all fear it will, then you can guess the rest.
Origins of 21st century totalitarianism coming to a theatre near you.
In “A Concise history of the Russian Revolution” Richard Pipes makes the point that when a person, or group, accepts an idea, it is said that they are under the influence of that idea.
So, how would it look for Agent Zero and his zombies to actually come up with something that reflects what health care professional recommend. It would mean they are under the influence of others. Which is anathema to them, because they are beholden to no one (or so they purport).
Antonio Gramsci, wherever he is now, must look at
these pieces of work and say, “People are paying
a high price for maximizing autonomy.” Because
it is easier to be graded against what a person has done with their time, rather than what never
changes.
Obamacare, if BHO and his ignorant syncophantic clowns push it through, will finally lead to a series of events that will make 1861-65 look like a walk in the park. That may, lamentably, be a good thing.
52. steve:
Mr. Wilson was being a patriot for calling a lying tryant in Congress. God bless him.
ACORN is next.
~~~~
Rep. Wilson truly is a patriot – I’m concerned for his well being as patriots aren’t allowed in congress by this administration.
ACORN has 11 workers formally charged with voter fraud in FL. (one even signed up Paul Newman.)
conservatives …those who really stand for individual rights and freedoms.
what is it that the leftist/spocialists stand for ??
do they stand for redistribution of wealth ?? is that an ideal ??
do they stand for the rights of some over others ?? is that an ideal ??
do they stand for victimhood (like affirmative action) ??
why do they say they are the ones who stand for equality then defend all that is un-equal ??
if I were to judge them by their actions I would think they are schizofrenic. their words are never connected to their actions.
thank you for the response Sebastian.
Legislation gets passed when legislators get what they want in return. The cost for passing this bad bill just went down to bargain basement prices, instead of last weeks premium.
Democrats are in trouble only as long as the president is in low numbers. Its a long time till the election, Rahm will twist their arms and bust balls to get them on board, lest they lose access to President and Democratic party to raise funds on their behalf come next election. President Obama can turn his fortunes around very quickly; economy picks up, war on terror takes a turn for the better or worse, foreign policy achievements, any number of events can occur between now and next congressional election.
Obama is in permanent campaign mode, all presidents are, 24/7, its part of the job. Democrats were in disarray, agreed. But Joe gave them a common opponent to unite against and confront. That is his gift to the Democratic party, which is usually more like herding cats.
If Demo consultants are worth their overinflated cost they are developing advert packages right now portraying Republicans as angry vindictive and attacking for personal justification instead of the nation’s well being.
Joe Wilson will become the face of Republican party. That may sit well with 15% core that will vote in dead conservative instead of live moderate, but that wont get people elected or stop a bad bill in its tracks.
BC- could you substantiate your view that the US has ‘the worst health care for the money’? If this is the case, then why do so many people from other countries go to the US for treatment?
Are you confusing the health of those who do not seek treatent (illegals) in the statistics? As you know, the WHO has stopped ranking health care in nations because of the complexity of the task. After all, their data base included such impossible-to-evaluate criteria as ‘fairness in financial contribution’, ‘overall goal attainment’. How do you rank these?
Does your evaluative criteria include the costs of tort? Or just actual medical care? Do you think that tort is a cause of high costs and ought to be reformed?
Do you think that the inability to move insurance plans from job to job, or across state lines increases costs?
Do you think that the numbers of uninsured, who choose not to be insured, changes the data base – for these people, who do not contribute to the health oosts, are still counted in the statistics.
Could you explain?
6. Kaput!:
Americans do not bow, kneel down in front of, worship or kiss the rear end of anyone; much less the likes of Barrack Hussein Obama.
~~~
Keith Olberman does.
Oh, yeah, he’s another one of those american in name only who hate this country. (so why doens’t he leave? can’t find a better place to go?)
I liked what Joe Wilson said – his outburst was my reaction exactly to almost everything Obama stated in that smug punk-ass way of his. My hunch is in the days to come it will become the rallying cry by the majority of the Americansn that listened to that speech and did not believe a word of it.
“Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society created decades of welfare pathology among the poor it was supposed to help. FDR’s New Deal is believed to have lengthened the suffering of the Great Depression by almost a decade. Grand politics all.”
Yeah, all they gave us was Social Security and Medicare. But if blogs like this were around then, we coulda blown them outa the water.
21. Nobama 2012: “I can not believe the Honorable Representative from South Carolina stood up and called Obama a liar when Obama said illegals would not be covered under Teds health care plan.
That was a great comment!
Obama is a liar!
Now the congressman has apologized.
Why apologize for telling the truth?”
You misunderstand. This was unprecedented- in the history of America, never before has a sitting president been called a liar on the floor of Congress during a speech by a member of congress.
Joe Wilson was compelled to apologize not just for his outburst, but rather for disgracing the halls of congress, for disrespecting the president during a speech, and for embarrassing the entirety of Congress with his childish behavior.
And last night, the American public who watched the speech saw exactly what the GOP leadership has devolved into: teabaggers in nice suits. A bunch of lost, stupid, directionless little children throwing temper tantrums and engaging in name-calling because their lack of real leadership, lack of real ideas, and lack of real intelligence has pinned them all to the wall.
They thought they could sabotage the Obama presidency with mindless opposition and obstruction, but they completely underestimated public support for health care reform, and they completely overestimated their ability to play the role of the rabid, ruthless opposition without facing a backlash.
Now, in September, the teabaggers have all gone home, but the public support and the political will for health care reform remains (http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/09/poll.obama.speech/index.html).
The GOP, by openly and consistently choosing to consistently engage in obstruction rather of compromise, has shown its cards way too early and has now relegated itself to the sidelines, powerless and limited to throwing temper tantrums as it sees its fortunes continue to sink.
And as idiots like Joe Wilson continue to lash out, Americans will continue to run from the GOP in droves as they realize that not only do the Republicans have no real answer to the health care crisis (http://thinkprogress.org/2009/09/09/broun-constituent-suggestion/), but furthermore their ultimate goal is not reform, but rather to hijack the political process to create anarchy and disorder in the hopes that chaos will provide a platform for the GOP to slither back into power.
At about the same time that Americans begin to understand that the GOP is keen to let the health care crisis continue as a craven political strategy, a bill will appear that has the support of the president, Congressional majorities, as well as a majority of Americans.
And it will pass. And we will have folks like Joe Wilson and Sarah Palin to thank. Without their public displays of backwoods ignorance and bigoted disrespect, the rank partisanship and hypocrisy of the GOP would never have been made so transparent to the American voter.
DALE:Speaking of slithering into power…you’re aware that your Messiah got his start in politics turning tricks for a slumlord? Well it is unprecedented… lots of scum have got into congress and a few into the presidency…but a cork boy for a slumlord?
51. Cybergeezer:
So, to summarize what the Blessed One has stated to Congress and the people;
“Listen to me; I know what’s best for you; Trust me and my serfs to provide for your every need; Just sit back and enjoy the ride”.
You forgot one . . . “Go shopping!”
The “health care reform” bill contains much much much more than “health care”.. Many things that will hurt us tremendously. Charlie Rangel put in wording about taxes and how we will be “punished” for even innocent mistakes..crap!! He’s the biggest offender..but has rec., no “punishment”
It is WRONG that the American public is subjected to a health care plan that the congress, Pres., etc refuse to use. They need to be held accountable . why are they not required to do as they legislate?
Wow, listening to Obama and his crap about what insurances will and will not do is mind boggling…this is communism. I agree there needs to be some change in medical care…medical care costs.. not insurance..communism
We are told we need to respect the president, why? He has no respect for the American public.
46. alex:
I understand the comments, but also see this from the outside as well as Inside. I live in China and have
CNN it is the lead story, as well as Yahoo, and pretty much every other news channel on domestic and International sites.
~~~~
Here’s where you are missing the point. The slant on International news agencies coverage is irrelevant. CNN and Yahoo are various stages of left-liberal. (MSNBC has the rep of being the furthest left.) THIS IS AN EXUCSE for them to NOT ask real questions. The questions never would have been asked, even if Rep. Wilson hadn’t called obeymugabe a liar- which he is.
p.s. the MSM has done nothing BUT prop up this obeymugabe healthcare plan despite which the numbers are tanking – THAT should tell you something.
THE TROLLS ARE OUT TODAY! More shrill and desperate than ever. We have them on the ropes. They are losing the battle of public opinion and the battle of ideas. Do not stop. Do not stop abusing them, show NO RESPECT for their Messiah! These are the FILTH that stabbed our troops in the back when they were being killed by the hundred in Iraq.These are the parasites, this is moveon.org and all of their fellow travelers. I repeat: GIVE THEM AND THEIR STREET TRICK OF A MESSIAH NO RESPECT.
The Left must really be desperate if they think Joe Wilson’s outburst will carry the day for Obamacare. They must think everyone is obsessed with “what Republicans have become” as they are. Maybe on some minor issues, or when deciding which of two candidates is more acceptable or telegenic that kind of perception plays a role–but when you’re afraid that the “public option” is going to squeeze out your perfectly adequate employer health coverage and make you dependent upon the government? When things cut that close to the bone, Joe Wilson (or for that matter, “200 years of Senate protocol,” blah, blah)is very far down on your list of priorities
65 -
Dream on Dale, Wilson represented the thoughts of far more Americans last night than did Obama. The fact that he said it is a mistake, that’s all, like Rangel and his taxes. Just a little mistake, not something that will help your agenda, and not something worthy of the BS you’re drooling out unless you’re realy desperate to change the subject.
In addition, there have been several very good proposals by republicans over the past several years, but for some reason the democrats ignored and sidelined all of them in spite of the fact that several democrats admitted that one of them would solve almost all of the problems we now hear about.
Of course, you know nothing about any of those things since that wasn’t on your list of talking points at the time. You were busy with the pictures of Bush as Hitler and calling anyone who thought Muslims were responsible for 9/11 fools. Perhaps instead of ignoring everything not on list of regurgitate for the day, you could try what you always ignored in your textbooks and “as an exercise for the reader” actually find out what has been proposed. As of now, you’re just pretending that your guys’ lousy speech and creepy manner last night are outweighed by someone actually saying what the vast majority of Americans were thinking.
I know it’s in your rule book and all, but putting a positive spin on your own failures has ceased to work. Obama blew it last no matter what sort of effrontery you claim a minor outburst was. Democrats booed and chanted at Bush speeches to joint sessions which is an organized affront to the office of the president as compared to an emotional outburst by a single individual. People remember these things even if you’ve been trained to ignore the facts, the majority of the population doesn’t ignore the facts just because they don’t fit with your desired outcome or faux reality.
Enjoy your fantasy because it’s ending soon
Dale, the CNN poll is scientifically invalid; that’s because it didn’t poll the public but only select quorum; only those who watched Obama’s speech on CNN. Since the majority were Democrats, then this an invalid population sample.
No, the Tea Party protests are not ‘astroturf’ but are genuine everyday Americans – and everyday Americans aren’t always dressed in jeans and sweatshirts but also include those who work from 9-5 and wear suits. So, your attempt to denigrate and smear American dissent is rubbish.
Certainly, I think that Mr. Wilson was wrong to shout out, during a speech, against the Speaker. However, it is equally reprehensible for a Speaker, in this case, the President, to lie to Congress. And he did, repeatedly. What do you feel about Obama’s lies to Congress?
As for name-calling, I find it odd that you ignore the Democratic name-calling, which includes the term that you use (tea-baggers), as well as ‘mob, unAmerican, rabble, nazi’ etc. Why do you ignore this?
There is no crisis in health care. Over 80% of Americans are satisfied. If there were a crisis, then, this would show up in the data base. The opposite shows up. Furthermore, if there were a crisis, then, the siuation ought to be fixed immediately. But, heh, Obama’s plan doesn’t kick in until 2013, after his ‘re-election’ and before any disastrous results emerge..but in the meantime, his plan is to get the illegal vote (yes) and the hispanic and black vote on is side. With the help of ACORN..did you know they are hired to sign up people?
What do you think of the integrity and principles of such an action? And, what do you think of the integrity and principles of Obama – with his attacks against doctors (cutting off limbs for money, taking out tonsils for money)?
What do you think of the fake numbers of uninsured? Where Obama includes the 20 million financiall well-off who CHOOSE not to buy insurance?
What do you think of the integrity of Obama who insists that his bill be passed without reading and debating it? Isn’t this an act, by Obama, of contempt for Congress?
What do you think of making companies pay tax unless they use the public insurance? Won’t that disable private insurance?
What about tort reform? Why doesn’t Obama address this massive cost? Heh – is it because those lawyers are on his side?
The GOP wants tort reform; they want policies across state lines. They don’t want the govt to move in and set up a govt bureaucracy. And neither do most Americans.
There is no health care crisis and the agenda of Obama and his gang, is to insert a socialist infrastructure into the republic.
66. billslayer: “a cork boy for a slumlord?”
I see your slumlord’s cork boy and I raise you a coke-addicted male cheerleader.
bibio44, Social Security is going way of the dodo ~8 years.
Medicare, according to Sir Vagueness, will be losing $500 billion over the next ten years. Yeah, medicare is in sound shape. No worries..
ETAB #73 cooment – well written.
thank you for the response Ked5
Agreed i get more an international flavor, but it really doesn’t matter This event will favor moderates and then move to the left. Numbers reflect what happened yesterday. The trend will move to favor some form of this health care bill now.
Its only been a day…when the DNC spin machine does their thing this will pay off for them, there is no way around it. I may live in China, but these events always unfold the same. Politics is a dirty business.
Billslayer; i served in US military, have you? its my experience chicken hawks are usually those that scream the loudest.
sallie – (68)
“We are told we need to respect the president, why? He has no respect for the American public.”
If you’ll recall, he didn’t salute the flag at many of his rallies and speeches until it became a campaign issue, and slandered those who wore an American flag pin. Given his lack of respect for all things American from the flag to the citizens, I’d say he deserves no respect whatsoever.
This guy is the perfect reflection of the party of slavery. Not only does he want to make slaves of us, but he wants us to applaud him for enslaving us.
Regards
I kind of felt bad for Joe Wilson. Like Mrs. Palin, he will find out the hard way “what happens in a town hall meetin in S. Carolina, stays in a town hall meetin.” America has little time for loony fringe types on a the national scale. Poor Mr. Wilson thought maybe this type of behavior might work in the halls of congress, jez like bak home, but he forgot that even his own leadership, those that have been around alot longer than him, are not amused. Schoolboy behavior only works really well, when your in school A word of advice for Mr Wilson during the rest of his time in washington, if he wants any friends? take advice from the one he heckled as a liar…and buy a dog.
Yeah, all they gave us was Social Security and Medicare. But if blogs like this were around then, we coulda blown them outa the water.
And all Ponzi gave us was the Ponzi Scheme. It’s the same thing, early ‘investors’ being paid off by later ‘investors’. Works until it doesn’t. Whoever is telling you otherwise is part of the scheme or ignorant.
#64
“Conservatives keep bagging on the European model even though Europeans in even their poorest countries live longer than Americans.”
Oh, sheesh, this bollocks argument again.
You really think using a gross statistic with dozens of uncontrolled variables is meaningful?
Fact: “Mean Life Expectancy at Birth” stats include all causes of death many of which (most of which under age 40) have nothing whatsoever to do with healthcare. The principal factors are infant mortality (zero to do with h/c, and overreported in the US); and the appalling homicide rate among minority males under 35. At age 40, US life expectancy is just as great as Europeans’. At age 60, it’s longer than every other country save Sweden. For European-Americans, life expectancy even at birth is higher than all nations except Sweden and Japan.
When it comes to outcomes across the broad spectrum of treatable conditions (cancer, heart disease, diabetes etc etc, not to mention quality-of-life matters such as orthopedics) there is no nation in the world can touch us.
————–
Libtroll: are you actually claiming it was a “lie” to point out that British doctors have accused the NHS of denying osteoporosis treatments?
As I was saying, #64, Biblio. Now we know there is at least one person in the U.S. who does not know that the two golden eggs of socialism in the U.S., Social Security and Medicare, are turning into lead weights.
Even the Wapo knows it:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/12/AR2009051200252.html
Remember, Medicare is forced on people when they turn 65. And it is not free.
65. Dale.
“Without their public displays of backwoods ignorance and bigoted disrespect…”
Does Big City ignorance and bigoted disrespect exist?
What a pathetic way to run a great republic! As for the troll-tards? Obama could poop on their heads and they’d be delighted to call it serendipity. They just want to believe! In something.
Treat the Leftists here as a thermometer, giving us the temperature of their movement/cult–do they sound confident or desperate? What do you think they are hearing back at HQ?
8, 9, 10, 11, 12. Five trolls in a row. Something tells me that there weren’t five separate carbon-based units.
/Esoteric Star Trek OS reference
83. Fred Beloit: “As I was saying, #64, Biblio. Now we know there is at least one person in the U.S. who does not know that the two golden eggs of socialism in the U.S., Social Security and Medicare, are turning into lead weights.”
Hey, Freddy, you won’t get any argument from me. Social Security and Medicare? I say kill ‘em both! Who’s gonna complain except a few old geezers — and the Death Panels will take care of them!
And the salmon run is over. What am I going to do with all these worms?
I just sent a donation to Joe Wilson’s re-election campaign. I don’t know much about the Congressman, but he did work in the Reagan administration, and his head must be spinning by now. I am sorry about the disruptive nature of his outburst, and the lack of respect for the office of the President that it showed. His immediate apologies reflect this to be his own sentiment as well.
Perhaps his frustration was due in part to the fact that the White House has not consulted with the GOP on healthcare since April of this year. As Senator Jim DeMint said in a recent tele-townhall meeting which I ‘attended’: “We can’t get any of our proposals on the table, period.” There are many great alternative ideas in Congress, despite what the press and Dem. leaders say.
My bad I know, but I was glad that Wilson called the President on at least one of his blatant misstatements; frustration is mounting in the country as too many of these falsehoods and contentions are never publicly challenged by anyone with a broad readership or viewership. The masses are being spoonfed one position– don’t they think we’re smart enough to hear all positions and decide for ourselves?
Those of us who have been peacefully protesting the actions of this administration have been repeatedly dismissed. When people can’t be heard, and only one position is tolerated by the White House and the press, enormous frustation will out, even in an address to the Joint Houses. IMHO
The obvious question is being completely overlooked, especially by the Vivos Jharps etc. you guys won so why even bother with us mouth-breathers. The President, with huge majorities in Congress, spends an awful lot of time berating opposition he doesn’t really need, IF, that is, this wasn’t more about politics than problem solving.
Dems won. They have the power and votes to force the solution. Wouldn’t it follow that the sincere belief in their plan compels them to pass it and doesn’t honest leadership require it?
They painted themselves into a very inconvenient corner that pits there ideology against their own self interest – - and they have the gall to ask for political cover from the same people they demonize as heartless obstructionists. Pretty amazing. Hubris knows no bounds.
I welcome the passage of a no GOP/strictly Democrat healthcare reform bill. Too bad they lack the sincere belief in their plan, leadership, and nads to go for it. If they did, it would be done already. They won. Exert your power cowards.
89. Calvin Ball: “What am I going to do with all these worms?”
Seek medical treatment at once! And in the future, try to improve your hygiene.
90. girlsgonegop: “I just sent a donation to Joe Wilson’s re-election campaign. I don’t know much about the Congressman, but he did work in the Reagan administration, and his head must be spinning by now.”
Let me know how much you donated. I’ll send triple that amount to Rob Wilson, the Marine vet who is runing against him next year. Rob has already raised over $100,000 in the last 24 hours.
Alex 60
“If Demo consultants are worth their overinflated cost they are developing advert packages right now portraying Republicans as angry vindictive and attacking for personal justification instead of the nation’s well being. Joe Wilson will become the face of Republican party. That may sit well with 15% core that will vote in dead conservative instead of live moderate, but that wont get people elected or stop a bad bill in its tracks.”
Alex, the POTUS, the Dems and the media have been doing just that for months to anyone who opposes them. It’s blown up in their faces. In any event, all people have to do is look at the video of Democrats hooting, jeering and cat-calling Bush en masse during his SOTU addresses, or booing Bush at the inauguration, and the response to the Dems harping on this one person will blow up in their faces again. It’s a double down on stupid for the Dems to continue to do this, especially when they are in fact lying about illegals not getting free subsidies to begin with.
Dale (65)
Well, perhaps it should be done more often. Why do you put decorum over substance? Is proper procedure more important than the wellbeing of the citizenry? Perhaps this is why you prefer compromise over principle?
If you’re in the minority and the majority is trying to ram bad law down your throat, threatening the security of the nation and the wellfare of its people, then perhaps the only tactic available is to be obstructionist.
Make no mistake here, I’ll say it clearly: compromise simply for compromise sake is not acceptable. To compromise with the Democrat’s proposed plan is to compromise with Satan: you end up in Hell no matter what. In this case there can be no compromise because nothing about the Democrat health-care plan – not to mention its energy plan, its economic plan, or its monetary plan – is acceptable.
Calvin Ball (87):
As repetative and non-responsive as they are, there’s a significant probability that they’re not carbon-based. It wouldn’t be that hard to write a PERL script to generate that stuff.
communitiy organiser = communist organiser
the democrat party is a criminal enterprise.
you or I or Joe the plumber would be behind bars if we did what these clowns are doing.
93. Dale
I thank Rob Wilson for his service to our country.
I thank Joe Wilson for calling out a powerful liar, also a service to our country.
96. Paul of Alexandria: “8, 9, 10, 11, 12. Five trolls in a row.”
So few trolls, so many a-holes….
Hey libtrolls, got something for you, and it’s… free! Enjoy, and you’re welcome!
http://www.americanrantnetwork.com/videos/scottyd/videos/11-6-08_obama_supporters.wmv
91
I welcome the passage of a no GOP/strictly Democrat healthcare reform bill. Too bad they lack the sincere belief in their plan, leadership, and nads to go for it. If they did, it would be done already. They won. Exert your power cowards.
I’m with you. Were I to find myself in a situation where I could reverse the damage SS and Medicare will do to my generation (X), I would do it over the Left’s caterwauling in a heartbeat. But, that’s because I actually believe in what I think is best (i.e., let the market sort it out and leave the politicians to argue over where to put stop signs, which is about all they’re good for).
46.alex:a hundred joe wilsons couldn’t help obamacare now.
77. alex:
Its only been a day…when the DNC spin machine does their thing this will pay off for them, there is no way around it.
~~~
I doubt it. I live in a rather liberal American city in a blue state. I have seen local/state politics drool over statewide ballot measures which they spend MILLIONS of dollars pushing – all their “polls” tell them it will pass spectacularly – only to have an epic fail come voting day. I have also seen them do end-runs around their constiuents and wonder why they subsequently got voted out (and citizen initiatives to overturn the legislature). Frightfully, several of the more corrupt state politicians are now working for the most corrupt administration in history.
this is a case of the pretty people are patting each other on the back telling them how wonderful they are – but their constituents are scared to death and threatening them that they will NOT be going back to DC if they vote for it. Most of the polls released are quite skewed in their samples and thus have no veracity – but they make nice (for libs) rah-rah copy.
“101. venividivici:
91
I welcome the passage of a no GOP/strictly Democrat healthcare reform bill. Too bad they lack the sincere belief in their plan, leadership, and nads to go for it. If they did, it would be done already. They won. Exert your power cowards.
I’m with you. Were I to find myself in a situation where I could reverse the damage SS and Medicare will do to my generation (X), I would do it over the Left’s caterwauling in a heartbeat. But, that’s because I actually believe in what I think is best (i.e., let the market sort it out and leave the politicians to argue over where to put stop signs, which is about all they’re good for).
Sep 10, 2009 – 11:53 am”
Yes, a major health care bill passed only by Democratic votes would provide this country with a great moment of clarification; its failure to pass (or even ever get completely written) would be equally clarifying. The Democrats must now put up or shut up–either they really believe they are saving the country from ruin, and are ready to take the hit for it, if it comes to that, or they haven’t, for a long time, been about anything more than scapegoating the rich, Republicans and Christians.
Meanwhile, the highly articulate and organized conservative opposition will continue to make life very difficult for them, no matter what happens.
89. Calvin Ball:
THE TROLLS ARE OUT TODAY!
And the salmon run is over. What am I going to do with all these worms?
~~~~
crab bait? bury them in your garden? plants love worms – just as much as they love carbon dioxide (they need it for photosynthesis).
Flying under the radar during this “healthcare” debate is the approval of regulatory “czar” Cass the ass Sunstein. This mental midget is the most dangerous of all the czars, precisely because hes NOT a Van Jones, hes a quiet low key type. Cass the Ass is a beleiver in the “rights” of animals to sue humans(Cass the Ass, please let me know when Clyde the Orangatang wants to “testify” in court.) He also beleives in forced organ donation. This IDIOT IS LIKELY TO BE THE ONESCUMS NEXT USSC CHOICE.This guy makes Sotomayor look more like Barb Mikulski rather than Maxine Walters(ugh!). Cass the asses book is called “nudge”. WONDER WHY-the view is we are a herd of sheep and they are the sheppards. Well Cass the Ass-this sheep is a ram with horns(sharp ones)
98. girlsgonegop:
“I thank Rob Wilson for his service to our country.
I thank Joe Wilson for calling out a powerful liar, also a service to our country.”
And I thank Republican Sen. John McCain for stating that Wilson’s outburst was “totally disrespectful”: “He should apologize immediately.” I also thank Republican Rep. Jeff Flake, who said that, “I thought that was unfortunate. [Obama's] the president. He deserves more respect than that.”
Upholding the honor of the presidency, even if you do not agree with the fellow holding the office, as well as showing a modicum of respect to a fellow American, even if you disagree with him, is also a service to our country.
Apparently, “maturity” and “decency” are exclusively liberal values now.
There you go, Paul (96). That one’s carbonaceous. Pan Troglodytes, it would appear. Likes to fling fecal matter.
This is your future on liberalism:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR71GnQ4CU4
It’s becoming clear now–Joe Wilson and his “unprecedented” show of disrespect is all the Democrats have now. Good luck with that! Plenty of people will be willing to be herded into governmentcare because Joe Wilson was disrespectiful.
“Those who have really done the most to spread these ideas, the real bearers of constructivist rationalism and socialism, are, however, not these distinguished scientists. They rather tend to be the so-called ‘intellectuals’ that I have elsewhere unkindly called professional ‘second-hand dealers in ideas’: teachers, journalists and ‘media representatives’ who, having absorbed rumours in the corridors of science, appoint themselves as representatives of modern thought, as persons superior in knowledge and moral virtue to any who retain a high regard for traditional values, as persons whose very duty it is to offer new ideas to the public—and who must, in order to make their wares seem novel, deride whatever is conventional.”
– F.A. Hayek, “The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism”
32 Seriously
“I’m young & running out of coverage; we’re young and the future”, so obviously someone should pay for us.Of course! Why would/should you make any effort to provide for yourself?
You are just like all the other fools who support “The Enemy of The State” lobama.
Remember, Agent Zero has to be right. And the only way for him to be right is for him to decide what meanings words have, regardless of what the conventional definition is.
For, isn’t a secure dictator a contradiction in terms?
The scientific and medical ignorance of Obama and Congress…
You mean the President who recently told the woman whose aged mother had arrhythmia that, perhaps, mom would have been better off taking a pain pill ?
Or the POTUS who has intimated surgeons can get $50-60,000 for lopping off a diabetic’s foot ? (the surgeon is paid around $1000 for the procedure, less under Medicare)
As for Congress, I’ve long thought it a farce that said Critters are constantly holding hearings into things they appear to barely understand, collectively & individually, climate change, vaccines, myriad topics.
#110, onthow, thanks for the quotation from Friedrich.
It may be the only commonsensical writing I chance to see all day, besides Lewis’ article of course
The Illustrated Road to Serfdom
First this –
65. Dale.
“And last night, the American public who watched the speech saw exactly what the GOP leadership has devolved into: teabaggers in nice suits. A bunch of lost, stupid, directionless little children throwing temper tantrums and engaging in name-calling because their lack of real leadership, lack of real ideas, and lack of real intelligence has pinned them all to the wall.”
Then this –
107. Dale.
“Upholding the honor of the presidency, even if you do not agree with the fellow holding the office, as well as showing a modicum of respect to a fellow American, even if you disagree with him, is also a service to our country.”
“…showing a modicum of respect to a fellow American…”
Are you contradicting yourself?
Will you apologize (as Joe Wilson did to the President) to the “GOP leadership” that “has devolved into teabaggers in nice suits”? Will you apologize (as Joe Wilson did to the President) to gays and others who engage in recreational “teabagging”?
Does Obama wear “nice suits”?
First this –
65. Dale.
“And last night, the American public who watched the speech saw exactly what the GOP leadership has devolved into: teabaggers in nice suits. A bunch of lost, stupid, directionless little children throwing temper tantrums and engaging in name-calling because their lack of real leadership, lack of real ideas, and lack of real intelligence has pinned them all to the wall.”
Then this –
107. Dale.
“Upholding the honor of the presidency, even if you do not agree with the fellow holding the office, as well as showing a modicum of respect to a fellow American, even if you disagree with him, is also a service to our country.”
“…showing a modicum of respect to a fellow American…”
Are you contradicting yourself?
Will you apologize (as Joe Wilson did to the President) to the “GOP leadership” that has “ has devolved into “teabaggers in nice suits”? Will you apologize (as Joe Wilson did to the President) to gays and others who engage in recreational “teabagging”?
Does Obama wear “nice suits”?
DALE:Sure, just one problem with your proposition,Bush isn’t president but the corkboy is.
ALEX:Thanks for your service, but alas I did not serve. They wouldn’t take me because of…a preexisting condition. No kidding. Basically the left half of my body was mangled in a motorcycle wreck. Now, to clarify for you, I will not discontinue my abuse of the trolls. They come here to disrupt conversations, and I punch back twice as hard. I will not stop. Nor will ANY sort of dung thrown my way dissuade me. The Messiah got his start in politics turing tricks for a slumlord. I will not stop saying it because it’s true. Disrespect where disrespect is due. Iconoclasm was very effective against Bush, and now it’s being turned on Barry. Again, thanks for your service.
114. tanstaafl
great link ..followed it back to the source
http://mises.org/
I woulda swored he said he was going to restore science to its rightful place, wherever that is.
Dale – you haven’t answered my questions that I posed to you in #73.
Also, you state that ‘maturity’ and ‘decency’ are exlusively liberal. Could you explain why you conclude that Obama’s insistence that Congress (aka The People) pass legislation without reading or debating it, is a sign of ‘maturity and decency’?
And why Democrats calling the Tea Parties, whose members are made up of all parties and independens, such names as ‘mob’, ‘tea-baggers’ ..is a sign of liberal maturity and decency’?
And, calling the people at the Town Halls – ‘unAmerican, astroturf, mobs, nazis etc..is a sign of liberal maturity and decency?
Do you think that Obama’s lies about health care, i.e., that 47 million (which suggests these people want it but can’t get it); that it’s in ‘crisis’; that doctors lob off legs and tonsils just for the income…that it won’t cost anymore..etc..Could you explain why these lies are a sign of ‘maturity and decency?
Oh – and why Obama’s constant blaming everything on Bush- is a sign of ‘maturity and decency? By the way, didn’t the liberals behave in rather outrageous ways during the Bush era? Did they suddenly move into ‘maturity and decency’?
Oh, and what about the stimulus? What about its really being a pork-package? Maturity and decency to insist that it be passed without reading eh? And it hasn’t done a thing for the economy. Except increase the deficit.
Did you ever stop to think that Obama’s Health Care is NOT about health care? After all, even though he says ‘it’s a crisis’ it doesn’t come into play for four years. Hmm. After he’s been ‘re-elected’ by those grateful illegals, and others on the no-work,get-it-all, mode of life in Democratic USA.
So, I’ll suggest that Obama’s Health Care has zilch to do with health care and has TWO real agendas: One is to restruccture the US Republic into a socialist statist nation, and divest the people of their Constitutional powers.
Two is to use as a basic electon campaign platform..for the RESULTS..the deficits, the refusal of services, the downgrading of care..will only be felt AFTER Obama’s re-election.
That’s what it’s really all about – and that’s why the bill is so unreal, complex, contradictory. Because its REAL agendas aren’t written in the bill. Heh. Clever.
121. ETAB
..engaging the trolls is pointless. like you show with your argument (which I must say is very good). you will not change their ideology. they are true believers.
they are the ones who will be the jailers in the gulag. they will be the ones to inform on you to the secret police. they want what you worked for ..they think they are entittled. they think they are better then you. they are the enemy. they are ugle dishonest people ..they are morally bankrupt.
I have to agree with the liberals posting on this site about
one thing – President Obama is certainly entitled to the
same level of respect liberals showed George W. Bush during
his eight years in office.
Conservatives were incessantly lectured thru Bush’s term
that criticism of the President, especially in wartime,
was the truest form of patriotism. What was good for Bush
is perfectly fine for Obama.
I plan on being extremely ‘patriotic’ thru the next 3 1/2 years.
KDW at 123,
Amen, dissent used to be the highest form of patriotism for the CodePinkers,marxists,anarchists,malcontents and other societal misfits exercising their 1st Amendment right to speak and assemble.
What say ye now? The shoe is on the other foot. What goes around, comes around.
I intend to exercise my right to speak and assemble. Get used to it.
@100. fireyourguns,
This parody gave me giggle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9SPdh4Nzy4
Why the need for healthcare reform?
Federal Governments unfunded liabilities = 53 trillion dollars
Unfunded liabilities = People, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid
Healthcare industry = 2.5 trillion annually
Potential Revenue to Federal Government = 2.5 trillion dollars
Plan… Get the money, keep about 30% by eliminating unfunded liabilities sooner.
Budget problem solved!
Alternative plan, abolish the Federal Reserve.
124. Sammy’s Date:
“Amen, dissent used to be the highest form of patriotism for the CodePinkers,marxists,anarchists,malcontents and other societal misfits exercising their 1st Amendment right to speak and assemble.”
Ah, but you see, that’s your problem. You didn’t like those people you mentioned expressing their opinion. They were undermining the president. They hated our troops. They were unpatriotic. They weren’t “real” Americans. You just said yourself they were “malcontents and other societal misfits.”
So, your opinion, however grotesquely you choose to express it, don’t mean jack squat. I’ll forgive for I know you are but a boy (or a buttboy, one of the two).
If you liked that, you’re gonna love this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRwQHynBmpM
62. ked5:
“Keith Olberman
Oh, yeah, he’s another one of those american(sic) in name only who hate this country. (so why doens’t(sic) he leave? can’t find a better place to go?)”
I don’t think he hates his country, he wants to get rid of the wacko nuisances.
65. Dale:
“Joe Wilson was compelled to apologize not just for his outburst, but rather for disgracing the halls of congress, for disrespecting the president during a speech, and for embarrassing the entirety of Congress with his childish behavior.”
Reminds you of the Iraqi shoe thrower.
70. billslayer: certified wacko
87. Calvin Ball: certified wacko, I’m just celebrating!
96. Paul of Alexandria:
“As repetative(sic) and non-responsive as they are”
U r right, I do not respond to wackos, just tease them. Wait your turn.
107. Dale
LOLZ. You are amusing. So let me understand you while I am still interested in trying.
“Upholding the honor of the presidency, even if you do not agree with the fellow holding the office . . . is also a service to our country.”
Yep. I saw a lot of liberals who positively exhausted themselves with ‘mature’ and ‘decent’ behavior while President Bush was in office. Our country got serviced by them all right. I remember Harry Reid actually apologizing for calling Pres. Bush a loser, but wouldn’t do so for calling him a liar. Oh that’s different you say, Reid said those things to the press in the hallway, not to the President’s face. You’re right– it’s much classier to create the “Bush Lied, People Died” meme than to call a President on a boldfaced lie he’s telling 30 million Americans and the entire Congress. Also, YouTube is helpful if you are having trouble recalling the various times Pres. Bush was booed by the Dems. in Congress during major addresses. Lots of respectful service there.
” . . . showing a modicum of respect to a fellow American, even if you disagree with him, is also a service to our country.”
Uh, Dale. Sarah Palin and her family anyone? Really? Wanda Sykes rooting for kidney failure for Limbaugh, which President Obama found chuckle-worthy? Cheney as Darth Vader, oh I could go on. Relevant to Rep. Wilson’s outburst may be the fact that immediately preceding it President Obama had in sum, been calling opponents of his plan liars, chief among them Sarah Palin. Perhaps thereafter hearing the great lie about illegals not being covered, simply caused Wilson’s head to explode. As I said above, this is a risk run when the President will not debate or discuss with those of opposing views. We are a country founded on debate, not dictate.
For the record, I find all of this behavior contrary to our traditions and not particularly helpful or dignified. Rep. Wilson apologized immediately for his comments, as stated above. This is more than any liberal ever did after spewing constant hate and disrespect, I mean ‘maturity’ and ‘decency,’ at our former President. And one more thing Dale, I never once heard President Bush denigrate or whine about his opponents. Or tell other Americans to ignore them. Ever. In fact, he valued debate as one of the privileges which sets our country apart. Now that is class, and service to our country.
Thanks for your back and forth today. You seem a little angry though.
Hi again Booblio. Just so you have a better grounding in your overall education, here is what the POTUS actually did say (in translation, because deceit and mendacity always need translation):
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/09/10/obamas-health-care-speech-in-plain-english/
What do you expect from Obama who has never held a job except “welfare” working for the government.
It is time that everyone vote EVERY INCUMBENT out of office. It is amazing we let the likes of Ted Kennedy, Chris Dodd etc to spend decades in Washington.
We have got to stop the “Bribe” money they call “Campain Donations”. We had a vivid demonstration of the “Bribes” when Chris Dodd, under orders from Obama, wrote in the Tarp Funds Bill that AIG Executives would get their bonus for running the company into bankruptcy. What is our “Wonderful” Justice Department doing about that. The Foxes are guarding the hen house.
there is hope for health care yet if the common sense decribed here gets out into the mainstream media.
Oh that’s right , the state media won’t allow that.
This of course begs the question, “what is the real goal here?”
Thanks for a nice article. although I’m not holding my breath, I hope it does some good.
Scott Holleran recognized this “First do some Harm” dynamic ten years ago:
BHO believes he’s in charge right at the tipping point engineered by his predecessors. The health care market – and then the health care insurance market – have been systematically corrupted by government meddling since at least as far back as 1965. At every step along the way, we have seen an overweening federal government legislating in an area where it has no Constitutional authority. At every stage, the problem has been made worse by the government and at every worsening, the government claims to be the only entity capable of solving the problem.
How long before reasonable people of every political stripe begin to see that this relentless encroachment by government bureaucrats into our lives is NOT making things any better?
That suggestion is just as valid today as it was ten years ago.