Jeffrey Lord, Spectator.org

 

QALY, Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research, HR 3200. Blah blah blah. Let's add the fizz to this baby.

 

So. Who will tell Michael J. Fox he needs to die?

 

Which health care mouse out there will have the guts to bell the cat who is one of the most famous Parkinson's Disease sufferers in America? Who is going to tell him that the treatments that are associated with Parkinson's -- drugs like Sinemet, Symmetrel, Eldepryl, Parlodel, Permax, Mirapex, Requip, and surgery with the quaint name "deep brain stimulation" -- are just no longer possible for Fox because, well, Mike, your QALY just isn't up to snuff, babe. You have Parkinson's. You boozed (according to you). As a result, the government has decided treatment for you, Mike, lacks "appropriateness." The "outcome and effectiveness" of treating you -- which is to say the worth of your 47-year old life -- just isn't worth it for the rest of us.

 

Sorry Mike. Say Goodbye to Hollywood. Close your Parkinson's Foundation (waste of scarce resources, to wax Singeresque). Just go home to the wife and kids, cut off these expensive meds and please die. Quietly. And for heaven's sake, get yourself buried in private. We don't want any of this Michael Jackson type-hoopla disrupting our favorite programs. We have lives to get on with.

 

A bit harsh?

 

Heck, we haven't begun to shake this cocktail. There's more to mix.

 

You see, the philosophy behind ObamaCare, as promoted just a week ago in the New York Times Sunday Magazine by Professor Singer, is the hard cold necessity Obama sees for government to ration health care for people like, well, Michael J. Fox. As Mr. Singer says: "Health care is a scarce resource, and all scarce resources are rationed in one way or another." And quite obviously, with Mike Fox's QALY being what it is (and Singer is a big proponent of using QALY to judge the worth of a life), the time to cut his treatment off was... yesterday. Actually, a lot of yesterdays ago. Read article.

 

JB Williams, Canada Free Press.com

 

How did Bill O’Reilly secure the only Fox softball interview with then presidential candidate Barack Obama and why is he telling tall tales and outright lies on behalf of Obama today?

 

You might recall that O’Reilly also attacked the “Swiftboat Vets” who exposed John Kerry’s blatant lies during his 2004 bid for the White House. This is not O’Reilly’s first dance in the leftist spin machine.

 

The “no spin zone” is officially part of the Obama spin machine regarding Obama’s overt lack of Constitutional standing to be Commander-in-Chief. Continuing his barrage on those crazy “birthers” who have done the investigative homework that every US news room still refuses to do, Bill O’Reilly made an amazing statement in his July 29, 2009 broadcast.

 

Responding to increasing viewer anger over O’Reilly’s overt cover-up of the Obama “birther” issue, O’Reilly says his crack investigators fully investigated Obama’s birth status and concluded with certainty that Obama was indeed born in Hawaii a “natural born citizen” in full compliance with Article II—Section I of the US Constitution. WOW… That’s quite a statement of absolute knowing!

 

With his standard elitist O’Reilly snicker, as if he knows a secret nobody else knows, Bill O’Reilly told his viewers that he knows with absolute certainty, based upon his staffs investigation of the matter, that Obama is 100% legit and that those “birthers” are extreme right-wing crackpots that make “real” republicans look bad.

 

But there are more than a few minor problems with Bill O’Reilly’s claim....

 

Since everyone on earth knows that Barack Obama has spent a million bucks in legal fees to keep ALL birth, college, adoption and passport records under lock and key, what files did O’Reilly’s investigators investigate? Bill admits that ALL related records remain unavailable for investigation, but still claims to know facts he can’t possibly know without access to those secret files… Why? Read article.

 

Laurie Roth, NWV.com

 

When you talk of style and substance of this administration it is a government of numerous czars. It reflects a worldview of socialism, internationalism and communism. It demonizes individual and corporate freedom while bypassing government accountability through and with congress in many cases.

 

Let’s see now. Here are just some of the numerous extensions of Obama’s control hammer………WHO ARE ACCOUNTABLE ONLY TO HIM. GO HERE TO VIEW THE LIST OF OBAMA'S CZARS

 

The Editors, NRo.com

 

The Senate Gang of Six may make some marginal improvements to health-care legislation, such as the elimination of a government-run “public plan” and of the tax increase on high-earners. The downside of these changes is that they may help Obamacare to pass with bipartisan applause for the supposed reasonableness of the Senate negotiators. Conservatives should not be fooled and should not stand down. Even without the public option and the surtax, Obamacare would cause a huge, hard-to-reverse reduction in the quality and affordability of health care — and would represent a setback to free markets and conservatism, as well.

 

The public option is certainly a weakness of the current House Democrats’ bill, one that could destroy the private-insurance market over time. But the rest of the bill takes the same federal-government-knows-best approach. It uses mandates on employers and individuals to force tens of millions of Americans to buy the level of insurance coverage the federal government demands. For those who cannot afford this level, it offers subsidies in the form of a new entitlement. And it increases the federal role in telling doctors and hospitals what constitutes appropriate medical practice. Read article.

 

Prairie Pundit.Blogspot.com

 

Barack Obama's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan announced a new US campaign to try to stem the flow of foreign funds to the Taliban, money believed to be running into hundreds of millions of dollars a year, mainly from the Gulf Arab states.

Richard Holbrooke, the former Balkan peace enforcer appointed by the White House to lead a new US policy on Afghanistan and place greater emphasis on Pakistan, said most of the money fuelling the insurgency came from supporters abroad, including in western Europe, and exceeded the Taliban's earnings from the opium and heroin trade.

 

The Taliban were the beneficiaries of "massive amounts of money from outside Afghanistan", Holbrooke said.

 

He declined to put a figure on the external funds, but the opium poppy trade and heroin refining operations are estimated to net the Taliban at least $400m (£244m) every year. Read article.

 

Ben Cerruti, NMJ.us

 

Recently Barack Obama said "Wall Street took unnecessary excessive risks and almost our entire economy into depression". It is unfortunate that he knows so little about economics and the fact that what happened on Wall Street was the effect rather than the cause of the economic tsunami. In fact, if not ignorant he certainly is disingenuous since the Wall Street to which he is referring happens to be the entity that markets the debt issued by the Treasury. Firms like Goldman-Sachs are in essence an arm of the Treasury. The fox in the chicken coop.

 

In regard to the economic crisis that occurred on Wall Street, its cause was initiated when the Fed placed an excessive amount of money into the economy to address the recession that started just prior to the George W. Bush presidency and extended to ease the economic blow of 9/11. This inordinate amount of money deposited into our banking system had to be loaned out since that is how banks make money. The ability to easily sell the loans removed the liability of foreclosure and the result was the accelerated development of creative loans to meet the demand.

 

Barack Obama knows that Goldman Sachs and their ilk are essential accomplices in the management of federal debt. It is unfortunate but true that the Fed over many decades has aided and abetted the fiscal dalliances of the legislative and executive branches of our government by trying to micro-manage the money supply. This has allowed Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs to become too necessary to fail. Barack Obama is now criticizing that in which he is a willing and contributing participant.

 

In my view, our President is either ignorant or disingenuous or both. In any event he appears to me to be a very good prevaricator. It stands to reason that our economic future cannot be based on false premises. It is obvious to me that Barack Obama believes like Karl Marx that "the end justifies the means". He is on the road to Socialism/Marxism regardless of the economic consequence. Read article.

 

Brandon Crocker, Spectator.org

 

A few months ago Imprimis, the monthly publication put out by Hillsdale College, printed an edited version of an address given at Hillsdale by Mark Steyn. Steyn's piece, entitled "Live Free or Die," is remarkable, as is typical for his work. Not to compare myself to the great Steyn, but it reminded me of something I wrote for the libertarian publication The Freeman way back in 1993, entitled "A Nation of Children."

 

Back then we were facing some of the same assaults to the free market and individual liberty that confront us today. Hillary Clinton was leading the charge for government provided "universal health care" and President Bill Clinton and members of his inner circle, such as economist Robert Reich, had resurrected talk of government guiding the workings of the market through "industrial policy" and advocated the placing additional mandates on employers.

 

The fact that we are arguing many of these same issues now, 16 years later, points to the fact that those of us who believe that protecting individual liberty is the primary role of the government, came out, to a significant degree, victorious in those previous battles. "Hillary Care" went down to defeat, industrial policy did not take off, and though we lost the argument on increasing the minimum wage and other employer mandates, we did win on achieving meaningful welfare reform.

 

On the flip side, however, our renewal of many of these same debates reflects the fact that we did not win the ideological war. Read article.

 

Randall Hoven, American Thinker.com

 

 

Provided below, in a "Harper's Index" type of format, is the progress made under President Obama so far. In some cases, data from other time periods are given to provide context.

 

 

The 2008 deficit under Bush, the largest in history at the time: $459 B. CBO's estimate of Obama's 2009 deficit: $1,845 B.

 

 

The total cumulative deficit in Bush's first seven years (2001-2007): $1.5 trillion. CBO's estimate of Obama's first seven deficits (2009-2015): $7.1 trillion.

 

 

Average federal debt held by the public from 1980 through 2000: 40.1% of GDP. In 2008: 40.8%. Predicted for 2012: 70.1%. Predicted for 2019: 82.4%.

 

 CBO's predicted cumulative 2010-2019 deficit under laws prior to Obama's budget: $4.4 trillion. Under Obama's budget: $9.3 trillion. Read article.

 

Tony Blankley, Rasmussen Reports.com

 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whatever her other capacities, demonstrated last week that she is a master at the poetic art of haiku -- the Japanese poem form that encapsulates in three or fewer lines of 17 or fewer syllables a larger thought or image.

 

Regarding the Democratic health care bill, she crafted the following haiku to assure the Blue Dog Democrats that they can tell their voters:

 

"(It) will mean a cap on your costs,

 

"but no cap on your benefits."

 

In just two lines of fewer than 17 syllables, the speaker has encapsulated the illogic inherent in the Democratic health care bills. It is a compound proposition that is always untrue for all possible combinations of the true value of its components. Under the Democratic bill, benefits would go up forever, but miraculously, the costs of those ever-increasing benefits never would go up even a cent -- even if our republic lasts for a thousand years.

 

This is a miracle to match the Lord's provision of loaves and fishes. Read article.

 

Mark Davis, Political Mavens.com

 

"This isn’t about me,” President Barack Obama famously announced as support for his massive government takeover of health care began to falter.

 

Oh, but it is.

 

It is about him because it is his vision that has given us a so-called stimulus of staggering size and dubious value. It is his instincts that guide him to sacrifice the American economy on the altar of climatological junk science. It was his wish to run General Motors.

 

As with other issues, the cost to taxpayers is an annoying side issue that he and his administration simply do not want to be bothered with. Their attitude is a wave-off: How can you pester us with those trifles when we’re trying to do something titanic here?

 

And “titanic” is a fitting adjective, since much of what makes the American health care system the envy of the world is about to be dashed against the jagged iceberg of socialized medicine.

 

There is something darkly comical about these people seeking to comfort us by telling us we may keep our current health plan and our current doctors if we wish. Pardon me if I do not ooze gratitude when government chooses in its mighty benevolence to let me keep something that is a basic right. Read article.

 

Thomas Sowell, Townhall.com

 

After many a disappointment with someone, and especially after a disaster, we may be able to look back at numerous clues that should have warned us that the person we trusted did not deserve our trust.

 

Obama is heading this country toward disaster on many fronts, including a nuclear Iran, which has every prospect of being an irretrievable disaster of almost unimaginable magnitude. We cannot put that genie back in the bottle-- and neither can generations yet unborn. They may yet curse us all for leaving them hostages to nuclear terror.

 

Conceivably, Israel can spare us that fate by taking out the Iranian nuclear facilities, instead of relying on Obama's ability to talk the Iranians out of going nuclear.

 

What the Israelis cannot spare us, however, are our own internal problems, of which the current flap over President Obama's injecting himself into a local police issue is just a small sign of a very big danger.

 

Group identity politics has poisoned many other countries, including at various times Kenya, Czechoslovakia, Fiji, Guyana, Canada, Nigeria, India, and Rwanda. In some countries the polarization has gone as far as mass expulsions or civil war.

 

The desire of many Americans for a "post-racial" society is well-founded, though the belief that Barack Obama would move in that direction was extremely ill-advised, given the history of his actions and associations. Read article.

 

 

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