The day’s top political news:
Nancy Pelosi on being unpopular: 'I don't care'
Pelosi’s attitude is showing again – is desperate trying to save face, but lacks an ability to do it.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is one of the most despised political figures in the country. Frankly, she doesn’t give a damn. ..she says. But the Polosi veracity is not comforting.
Last week’s Public Strategies Inc./POLITICO poll brought grim news for Pelosi, revealing that only a quarter of Americans trust the San Francisco Democrat — putting her in the basement with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio).
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25445.html
Gates caller says she didn’t cite race
The woman whose report of a possible house break-in led to the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. said she never mentioned race during her 911 call and is “personally devastated’’ by media accounts that suggest she placed the call because the men she observed on the porch were black, according to a lawyer acting as her spokeswoman.
The woman, identified in a police report on file in Cambridge District Court as 40-year-old Lucia Whalen, saw the backs of both men and did not know their race when she called 911, said Wendy J. Murphy, a Boston lawyer from New England School of Law. Whalen phoned police, Murphy said, because she was aware of recent break-ins in the area.
Gates himself is a racist – based on his own background – and was likely spring loaded to assume any police officer is a racist and will make only racist decisions. Gate’s reaction in this matter is very revealing indeed. So is Obama’s.
Chicago Reporter: “The L goes to Washington: White House becomes 51st Ward of Chicago”
The D.C. gathering could as easily have been in Daley's City Hall
“As I look around the room at the players assembled here -- including this scribe -- I'm thinking that with a few twists of fate, this all-Chicago gang could be huddling in Mayor Daley's City Hall.”
The Chicago Democrat machine the reporter describes, is the most corrupt political operation in America. Their bottom line is seizing more and more political power. America should be wary.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/sweet/1684568,CST-NWS-sweet26.article
Opinion:
Obama’s healthcare: a threat to us all
If you understand nothing else about Obama’s healthcare plan – no matter how it is finally designed – it contains a plan for euthanasia. The plan that will eventually have a government bureaucrat determining whether a patient is worth saving.
HMOs have long made judgments about how much longer patients will live (or should live) in deciding who can have what treatments. Under Obama’s government-run healthcare, a federal official will check on you every five years and determine whether you are eligible for care, or whether your age and outlook is such that you should just go ahead and die.
Forget it if you have dementia or even diabetes.
Handicapped people don’t get a good deal from Obama either.
Imagine bureaucrats determining health care decisions.
It get’s back to the true basic argument on this issue: a choice between quality healthcare, and Obama’s “healthcare on the cheap”. Forget quality care, forget your current relationship with your doctor.
Peggy Noonan, a former Reagan speech writer, gives us a good overview on the status of this debate.
Buddy
This is big, what’s happening. President Obama appears to have misstepped on a major initiative and defining issue. He has misjudged the nation’s mood, which itself is news: He rose from nothing to everything with the help of his fine-tuned antennae. Resistance to the Democratic health-care plans is in the air, showing up more now on YouTube than in the polls, but it will be in the polls soon enough. The president, in short, may be facing a real loss. This will be interesting in a number of ways and for a number of reasons, among them that we’ve never seen him publicly defeated before, because he hasn’t been. So we may be entering new territory, with new struggles shaped by new dynamics.
His news conference the other night was bad. He was filibustery and spinny and gave long and largely unfollowable answers that seemed aimed at limiting the number of questions asked and running out the clock. You don’t do that when you’re fully confident. Far more seriously, he didn’t seem to be telling the truth. We need to create a new national health-care program in order to cut down on government spending? Who would believe that? Would anybody?
The common wisdom the past week has been that whatever challenges health care faces, the president will at least get something because he has a Democratic House and Senate and they’re not going to let their guy die. He’ll get this or that, maybe not a new nationalized system but some things, and he’ll be able to declare some degree of victory.
And this makes sense. But after the news conference, I found myself wondering if he’d get anything.
I think the plan is being slowed and may well be stopped not by ideology, or even by philosophy in a strict sense, but by simple American common sense. I suspect voters, the past few weeks, have been giving themselves an internal Q-and-A that goes something like this:
Will whatever health care bill is produced by Congress increase the deficit? “Of course.” Will it mean tax increases? “Of course.” Will it mean new fees or fines? “Probably.” Can I afford it right now? “No, I’m already getting clobbered.” Will it make the marketplace freer and better? “Probably not.” Is our health care system in crisis? “Yeah, it has been for years.” Is it the most pressing crisis right now? “No, the economy is.” Will a health-care bill improve the economy? “I doubt it.”
The White House misread the national mood. The problem isn’t that they didn’t “bend the curve,” or didn’t sell it right. The problem is that the national mood has changed since the president was elected. Back then the mood was “change is for the good.” But that altered as the full implications of the financial crash seeped in. The crash gave everyone a diminished sense of their own margin for error. It gave them a diminished sense of their country’s margin for error. Americans are not in a chance-taking mood. They’re not in a spending mood, not after the unprecedented spending of the past year, from the end of the Bush era through the first six months of Obama. Here the Congressional Budget Office report that a health care bill would not save money but would instead cost more than a trillion dollars in the next decade was decisive. People say bureaucrats never do anything. The bureaucrats of CBO might have killed health care.
The day’s top blogs:
1.
Mrs. Obama's Patient-Dumping Scheme
St. Denis In Obama's Red Amerika
The First Lady helped create a notorious program that dumped poor patients on community hospitals, yet the national media ignore the story. Imagine if her husband were a Republican.
The University of Chicago Medical Center has received a good deal of justly opprobrious press over its policy of "redirecting" low-income patients to community hospitals while reserving its own beds for well-heeled patients requiring highly profitable procedures. Substantial coverage was given to a recent indictment of the program by the American College of Emergency Physicians. ACEP's president, Dr. Nick Jouriles, released a statement suggesting that the initiative comes "dangerously close to ‘patient dumping,' a practice made illegal by the Emergency Medical Labor and Treatment Act, and reflected an effort to ‘cherry pick' wealthy patients over poor."
Oddly absent from most of the unflattering press coverage of UCMC's patient-dumping scheme is any mention of the role our new First Lady played in devising the program. A laudable exception has been the Chicago Sun-Times, which reported last August that "Michelle Obama -- currently on unpaid leave from her $317,000-a-year job as a vice president of the prestigious hospital -- helped create the program."
(NOTE: Mrs. Obama has an advantage – she can fly under the radar of public attention and plot and scheme in the background. She can set the stage. She has likely learned the lesson taught by Hillary and the Clinton healthcare fiasco. Michelle will provide a moving target, but never underestimate her potential for involvement in her husband’s healthcare scams and schemes.)
On the rare occasions when other "news" media have bothered to connect the Urban Health Initiative to its glamorous creator, they have attempted to whitewash this tawdry program. Typical of such disingenuous coverage was a story in the Washington Post, which described it as "an innovative program to steer the patients to existing neighborhood clinics."
But no amount of journalistic lipstick can hide the reality that Mrs. Obama's initiative is a patient-dumping scheme. Such "cherry-picking," as Dr. Jouriles accurately describes it, was, at one time, fairly common. Prestigious institutions like the University of Chicago Medical Center routinely "dumped" Medicaid, uninsured and other unprofitable patients on less mercenary community hospitals. Many patients suffered needlessly, and more than a few actually died, as the result of this practice. So, in 1986, President Reagan signed the Emergency Medical Labor and Treatment Act (EMTALA) into law. EMTALA made such "redirection" illegal, but many high profile hospitals still chafed at being forced to treat poor patients. Enter Michelle Obama, UCMC's "Vice President for Community and External Affairs."
Mrs. Obama first hatched the UCMC program as the "South Side Health Collaborative," which featured a gang of "counselors" whose job it was to "advise" low-income patients that they would be better off at other hospitals and clinics. The program was so successful in getting rid of unwanted patients that she expanded it, gave it a new name, and hired none other than David Axelrod to sell the program to the public. According to the Sun-Times, "Obama's wife and Valerie Jarrett, an Obama friend and adviser who chairs the medical center's board, backed the Axelrod firm's hiring." Axelrod helped the future First Lady formulate a public relations campaign in which the "Urban Health Initiative" was represented as a boon to the community actuated by the purest of altruistic motives.
The resultant PR campaign was a study in Orwellian audacity. Chicago's inner city residents soon began hearing that UCMC's patient dumping program would "dramatically improve health care for thousands of South Side residents" and that the medical center was generously willing to provide "a ride on a shuttle bus to other centers." Likewise, the people who ran the community hospitals to which these unwanted patients were being shuttled began to read claims in local media to the effect that the Urban Health Initiative was good for them as well. Dr. Eric Whitaker, the Blagojevich crony who succeeded Mrs. Obama as Director of the program, repeatedly assured gullible reporters that the financial impact on these hospitals would be positive: "The initiative actually is improving their bottom lines." The CFOs of those hospitals were no doubt relieved to learn that treating Medicaid and uninsured patients is profitable.
But you just can't please some people. In one of the few frank passages of the Post article, we discover that many members of UCMC's medical staff believe the program is nothing more than an "attempt to ensure that the hospital retains only affluent patients with insurance." And another association of emergency physicians has joined ACEP in denouncing the Urban Health Initiative. The Chicago Tribune reports that Dr. Larry Weiss, president of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine is unhappy about UCMC's failure to consult its own ER physicians before initiating the program: "Not including emergency-room physicians ... would be analogous to changing the way surgery is performed in an operating room without involving any surgeons." Dr. Whitaker assures us, however, that such critics are merely "opposed to change."
Presumably, he would be similarly dismissive of Angela Adams, who brought her son to the medical center's ER after his lip had been partially torn off by a pit bull. As the Tribune puts it, "Instead of rushing Dontae into surgery ... the hospital's staff began pressing her about insurance." Unfortunately for Dontae, he was covered by Medicaid. So, all he got from the UCMC emergency department was a shot, some antibiotics, and instructions to "follow up with Cook County." Angela had to take her son across town to John Stroger Hospital, where he was immediately admitted for reconstructive surgery. Like doctors Jouriles and Weiss, Angela is having trouble seeing the community benefit of the Urban Health Initiative.
Meanwhile, the program's parents, Michelle Obama and David Axelrod, have moved to Washington. As the First Lady and the President's closest advisor, they wield enormous power. Indeed, they may be the most powerful people in the Obama Administration, aside from the President himself. If these two characters were willing to betray their Chicago neighbors -- the South Side's most vulnerable citizens -- with a disgraceful program like the Urban Health Initiative, what sort of mischief will they devise for the hapless denizens of flyover country?
Come to think of it, isn't ObamaCare being sold to us in pretty much the same way the Urban Health Initiative was sold to Chicago?
2.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/07/at_the_naacp_obama_removes_his.html
Obama Has Only His Plan to Blame
President Goes from “I won” to ‘I whine’
Washington, DC – Remember this? Apparently President Obama doesn’t. His plans for a government takeover of health care aren’t going as smoothly as he would hope, so he’s started playing the blame game.
First, the President claimed that “special interests” were stalling on health care reform. Not true. Now, he’s trying to blame Republicans. The Hill reports:
“President Obama sharply criticized Republicans on Tuesday for following a ‘familiar script’ to ‘block healthcare reform.’” (The Hill, 7/21/09)
Now that’s an interesting theory, but c’mon. Just look at the numbers: Democrats have a 77 seat majority in the House of Representatives and hold a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
(NOTE: Everyone should note the overwhelming domination of both Houses of Congress enjoyed by Democrats today. That domination means Democrats, as a party, can impose whatever they wish on the American public and confirm whatever nominees Obama may send them – no matter how bad the concepts, nominees, or positions may be. This sets a stage – making the 2010 election on in which partisan politics is basic. America needs more “R”s than “D”s if they are to stop or mitigate the threat of extremism faced today.)
Even House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) knows why health care has stalled.
“I want to make it very clear that there's progressives, Blue Dogs and everybody in between who have expressed concerns, and we're working on that.” (ABC News, 7/21/09)
And how can Republicans be to blame for an unpopular health care plan when they weren’t allowed any input on the bill? Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) makes it clear that if Americans don’t like a government-takeover of health care, it has only Democrat fingerprints on it.
“In the House of Representatives, meanwhile, we are explicitly told not to work with Republicans.” (Huffington Post, 6/18/09)
The truth is, the President’s plans for health care have stalled because of opposition from Democrats, not Republicans. You “won,” Mr. President. Blaming Republicans won’t work anymore.
3.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/765kishz.asp
Know-Nothing-in-Chief
There's no evidence Obama has even a sketchy grasp of economics.
Fred Barnes
Is President Obama an economic illiterate? Harsh as that sounds, there's growing evidence he understands little about economics and even less about economic growth or job creation. Yet, as we saw at last week's presidential press conference, he's undeterred from holding forth, with seeming confidence, on economic issues.
Obama professes to believe in free market economics. But no one expects his policies to reflect the unfettered capitalism of a Milton Friedman. That's too much to ask.
Demonstrating a passing acquaintance with free market ideas and how they might be used to fight the recession--that's not too much to ask. But the president talks as if free market solutions are nonexistent, and in his mind they may be.
Three weeks after taking office, he said only government "has the resources to jolt our economy back into life." He hasn't retreated, in words or policies, from that view.
At his press conference, Obama endorsed a surtax on families earning more than $1 million a year to pay for his health care initiative. This is no way to get the country out of a recession. Like them or not, millionaires are the folks whose investments create growth and jobs--which are, after all, exactly what the president is hoping for.
Another tax hike--especially on top of the increased taxes on individual income, capital gains, dividends, and inheritances that Obama intends to go into effect in 2011--is sure to impede investment. It's an anti-growth measure, as those with even a sketchy grasp of economics know. But Obama doesn't appear to.
The president also spoke favorably at the press conference of taxing "risky" ventures by Wall Street investors. It wasn't clear what risky investments he had in mind. Never mind. Reckless risk-taking is hardly a problem at the moment. It's the lack of any risk-taking at all by investors that's holding back the economy.
Obama said the funds raised through his risk tax would be available for bailouts of large financial institutions whose collapse might harm the economy. Fine, but there's a smarter, simpler, and tax-free way of dealing with outfits deemed "too big to fail." It consists of requiring deeper capital reserves as they grow in size. If that solution is known to the president, he hasn't let on.
Then there's the matter of corporate profits. You'd think Obama would love profits since they nurture a robust economy and job growth and are largely responsible for the rise in the stock market last week to its loftiest point since January. And strong profits may foreshadow an economic recovery. But the president's opinion of profits ranges from ambivalent to hostile.
He declared it "a good thing" that banks are profitable again, but he couldn't leave it at that. He went on to bemoan the absence of "change in behavior and practices" among bankers. As for the "record profits" of insurance companies, he had nothing but disdain. "What's the constraint on that?" he asked, as if those profits should indeed be constrained.
(NOTE: Obama comes to the White House as unprepared as any president in history. As that portion of his background and record his handlers will allow to become public, shows, Obama has never had any experience or training in management or administration. It seems clear he also has never spent much time learning about economics either.)
A good example of Obama's economic shallowness is his unrelenting defense of the $787 billion "stimulus."
Enacted in February, it has had minimal impact on the economy. Yet Obama has no second thoughts. He says he wouldn't change a thing about the stimulus. It has "already saved jobs and created new ones," he said at the press conference, neglecting to note that 2 million jobs--a net 2 million--have been lost since it was passed.
He seems oblivious to what the stimulus palpably lacks: incentives for private investment. These were a major reason (but not the only one) for Ronald Reagan's success in ending the deep recession in 1981-82. They also aided the rebound from the milder recession in 2001. In both cases, investment in the private sector led to job creation.
Obama, ignoring history, relied instead on government spending and small, one-time tax rebates (with no incentive power). Ideology may have played a role here. The stimulus was drafted by congressional Democrats, who loathe tax cuts. Obama could have insisted that tax incentives be added. He didn't. A fair conclusion: He simply doesn't understand the economic value of tax incentives.
"Tax cuts alone can't solve all of our economic problems," Obama said last winter. Nobody had said they could. This was a straw man. But tax incentives would surely have helped and might already have begun to stimulate the economy had Obama included them.
It's true that government can create jobs by funding infrastructure and other projects. But these are temporary jobs, and as we've been reminded again this year, it takes many months for government to get its act together and actually start hiring. The stimulus is nearly six months old and we're still waiting.
Nor does Obama understand the economics of business.
Our corporate tax rate of 35 percent is the second highest among the major economic democracies. To avoid paying it, companies don't repatriate their overseas profits. They do this to be competitive in the global economy. Slashing the 35 percent rate would allow them to bring profits home to invest here and remain competitive abroad. This solution isn't on Obama's radar.
On the contrary, Obama has proudly proclaimed an economically counterproductive approach to overseas profits. In his address to Congress in February, he announced: "We will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas." Profits earned abroad would be taxed at 35 percent (on top of taxes levied abroad!).
This makes no economic sense. Untaxed foreign profits allow companies to keep many jobs at home. Taxing those profits weakens global competitiveness. And the beneficiaries would be foreign firms that replace American companies and reap the profits Obama is eager to tax.
The Obama policy means the profits go away and tax revenues vanish. Does Obama understand this? There's no evidence he does.
Listen to Obama talk about making "clean energy the profitable kind of energy" and you reach the same conclusion:
When it comes to economics, he doesn't get it. His "cap and trade" policy would limit carbon emissions, drive up the costs of gasoline, electricity, and natural gas, and stifle the economy. Only then would green energy become profitable (maybe) and only so long as it continued to receive a massive government subsidy. You can't get much more uneconomic than that.
But maybe Obama can.
He wants to eliminate many deductions for upper middle class and wealthy taxpayers. He's eager to spur the growth of unions, though success here is likely to slow the rate of growth and increase the rate of unemployment.
He wants government to intervene more aggressively in the economy, a reliable job killer.
He's asked for authority to seize any financial institution deemed (by his administration) a "systemic risk" to the economy.
He thinks government can teach the private sector lessons in efficiency. That would be an historic first.
He believes his budget, which triples the national debt, "lays the foundation for a secure and lasting prosperity."
Whew! And this is just what Obama has proposed in the first six months of his presidency. Obamanomics pays lip service to a free market economy. But Obama hasn't a clue what makes it work.
There's no evidence Obama has even a sketchy grasp of economics!
Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
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