Maggie's Farm

That was the O's comment in a meeting of balking Dems. Why the desperation?

I am following this story closely because I think these folks are freaking insane. They are in over their heads with no clue of what they are doing, no clue about what hospitals and my Doc friends do or how they do it to produce the treatment that the entire world envies. Some of the Dems seem to know it. And the rush makes no sense at all. Dems baffled by President's stance.

I think I said it yesterday: This is getting stranger and stranger.

Driving that train, high on cocaine,
Casey Jones is ready, watch your speed.
Trouble ahead, trouble behind,
And you know that notion just crossed my mind.

Says Powerline's Paul:

It is shocking that Obama would attempt to overhaul our health care system -- this vast and critical portion of our economy -- on such a short timetable and in such a haphazard fashion. The public senses the absurdity of his approach. It expects Obama to act like the careful, studious leader it voted for.

I trust my doctors. I do not trust the wisdom of my politicians. I want the pols kept away from my Docs: the same distance as from my pastors. I do not want Dear Leader deciding whether Gramps lives or dies. I will be Gramps, someday - God willing.

I will give the last word for today to NRO:

Obviously the Obamacare proposal is an abomination and Congress needs to throw it out and start from scratch. But whatever they come up with, the lesson for immigration is unchanged — in an era when we have massive transfers of taxpayer funds to the poor, whether through Medicaid or food stamps or public-education funding or whatever, you just can't keep importing more and more poor people. The libertarians will say the answer is to abolish all of these taxpayer-funded programs; but even if that's true, until we do abolish them, ongoing mass immigration is simply unjustifiable.

A good point about arrogance from Stossel:

They intend, as the New York Times puts it, "to reinvent the nation's health care system".

Let that sink in. A handful of people who probably never even ran a small business actually think they can reinvent the health care system.

Politicians and bureaucrats clearly have no idea how complicated markets are. Every day people make countless tradeoffs, in all areas of life, based on subjective value judgments and personal information as they delicately balance their interests, needs and wants. Who is in a better position than they to tailor those choices to best serve their purposes? Yet the politicians believe they can plan the medical market the way you plan a birthday party.

As Lowry says, these guys are reckless. Recklessness is always a bad thing, and few good things happen in pubs after midnight.

Am Thinker: Obamacare is a sick joke. A quote:

The World Health Organization ranked the United States No. 1 out of 191 countries for being responsive to patients' needs, including providing timely treatments and a choice of doctors. Among those currently insured, 84% are satisfied with their healthcare.

And here's something actually constructive: How to make health care reform bipartisan

And as Althouse says:

The Democrats have dumped a drastic, complicated health care bill on us and they are ramming it through before we can even figure it out. That's what matters, not the fact that the party out of power is squawking about it.

And at NRO:

Trying to impose Government Controlled Healthcare on a nation that doesn’t want it is significantly harder than running against a candidate for president who gets the nomination from the incumbent party whose leader had approval ratings in the mid to upper 20’s (and who’s base didn’t really like him).

And a repeat: How is abortion "healthcare'? It's about killing, isn't it? Not on my nickel. I refuse to pay for your abortion, or your tummy-tuck.

Why the heck do we have to spend so much energy trying to stop the government from doing stuff for us? We can tie our own shoes. As Sissy says, "Just leave us alone." We would rather figure it out for ourselves. We aren't morons.

Photo: I'll bet young readers do not know who that is

Tiger quotes Brooks on the Dem overreach on spending. It's freaking people out, and it is why the O is sinking fast in approval. People voted for Hope. That's pretty vague, and easily undone.

Not that the Repubs were much better. This from Willisms:

Not sustainable, dudes. We the people can only work so hard and, at some point, we will not want to bother. The only reason we work is for our families - and sometimes for the fun of it too.

John at Powerline speculates that journalists are dumber than the average bear. I think John overestimates the brains, curiosity, and skepticism of the average bear (tho maybe not of the average Powerline reader), but I do get the point: professional journalists are supposed to convey useful and accurate info for the rest of us, with enough of the inside baseball to help us understand the game that is being played.

Statistics, math and science tend to be among their weak points. It is easy to be a half-competent writer without understanding in depth what you are writing about. We prove that here, daily. However, we do try to link to those who might have a clue.

What worries me more is the power, ignorance, perfidy, and manipulativeness of politicians.

Via Drudge:

RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $2,531,600 FOR 'HAM, WATER ADDED, COOKED, FROZEN, SLICED, 2-LB'...
RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $1,191,200 FOR '2 POUND FROZEN HAM SLICED'...
RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $351,807 FOR 'REPLACE AND UPGRADE THE DUMBWAITER'...
RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $1,562,568 FOR 'MOZZARELLA CHEESE'...
RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $5,708,260 FOR 'PROCESS CHEESE'...
RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $16,784,272 FOR 'CANNED PORK'...
RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $1,444,100 FOR 'REPAIR DOOR BLDG 5112'...
RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $541,119 FOR 'INSTALL TRAFFIC SIGNAL'...

I would happily repair that door for half the price.

Neal Cavuto on Imus right now discusses the car salesman trick of "rushing a deal." "Don't let them leave the salesroom without signing." "Now or never," "A one-day-only deal" - all the tricks.

He discusses car sales tricks, and says that is what the O administration does with legislation. I tend to agree.

All the Dems voted Nay on a proposal for them, their families and staff to agree to join the Dem "public option." Including Bernie Sanders.

Enough said.

Insty:

MICKEY KAUS: Smug self-styled wonks will kill health care yet. “WaPo’s Ezra Klein decrees ‘rules’ for those who would use the CBO’s damning analysis ‘against the existing health-care reform proposals’–they ‘must,’ he says, endorse some combination of cost-cutting proposals from a list he provides. Huh? Even as mock hubris (and it’s hard to tell) this makes no sense. Who said opponents have to be for more cost-cutting? Why can’t Republicans say to Dems a) You said your plans would bend the cost curve down. Instead they increase costs. The status quo would be better than your plans. Vote no. b) You said your plans would bend the cost curve down. Instead they increase costs. Why should we believe anything else you say? … That isn’t what I would say, but it’s not an illogical or inappropriate response.” Plus, “Klein goes on, of course, to re-endorse the very treatment-restricting form of cost-cutting that is scaring people away from the Dem plans.”

Woops. I thought this was about my Vet bills, which far exceed my medical bills with the dogs, the wife's horses, etc. When will the government care about the health of my animals? I cannot get insurance for any of them.

We will tolerate no rationing of medical care for our beloved animals.

Amazingly, I hear Bob Beckel on Sean saying that nobody can afford their kids' regular medical check ups. WTH?Why should I take care of Bob Beckel's kids?

I will take care of his kids when he takes care of my cars.

Myron Magnet on The Obsolete New York Model at City Journal. One quote:

Struggling under the accumulated burden of eight decades of “progressive” government, we New Yorkers can serve as a warning to our fellow Americans as President Obama, following the New Deal playbook, seeks to use the current financial crisis to provide a new rationale and legitimacy for the gargantuan machinery of the federal government. Our economic ills, the president contends, require expanding the welfare state to include the majority of Americans not just in Medicare and Social Security but also in government-subsidized and -controlled health care and higher education—all paid for by an ever smaller percentage of the citizens, in the name of European-style redistributionist “fairness.” Logically, this plan is a non sequitur (in the process of turning, by constant repetition, into a Big Lie), since health care and education have nothing to do with the causes or cure of our present economic woes. But logic aside, consider New York’s government-controlled ser­vices and ask if they are worth taking to nationwide scale. Take a good look at the president’s tax plans, too, which will end up with many more Americans paying nothing and many fewer paying most of the bills. Once the tax eaters outnumber the taxpayers and can vote themselves an income, you have arrived at elective despotism.

From Front Page:

There are no resolutions currently before this year's Episcopal General Convention directly criticizing any government in the world, except two: Israel and the United States. Resolutions mention human rights abuses in the Philippines and strife in southern Sudan but decline to criticize governments there, though surely Sudan's Islamist regime, dripping with blood of millions of victims, might merit some disapproval. There is no criticism of any Muslim or communist dictatorship around the world, though Cuba's Marxist regime is portrayed by one resolution as the victim of U.S. sanctions. In contrast, about a half dozen statements for consideration before the General Convention are aimed at Israel.

No wonder nobody goes to Epsicopalian churches anymore. They aren't about God. They are about politics.

From Big Pharma gets Played in the WSJ:

Democrats remember the failure of HillaryCare, and they blame industry ads that alerted the public to the rationing and loss of choice that will accompany government health care. Their negotiations this time around are intended to buy business silence, at least long enough for Democrats to spring legislation into law before the companies have enough time to educate the public and defeat it.

Big Pharma and others have been played for suckers. We'd say these companies deserve what they get, except that the real victims of government health care will be American patients.

Related at IBD: Reading the fine print:

It didn't take long to run into an "uh-oh" moment when reading the House's "health care for all Americans" bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal.

That is what it is all about: everybody on the plantation. That makes it illegal for me to go out and buy my own medical insurance. How come nobody is mentioning that?

Nice pub to stop by after a morning riding over hill and dale. h/t, Theo. I wish we had their like here. Nice trimming of the thatch on top.

The only place I know of around here where you can tie your horse up and go in for breakfast or lunch is The Bedford Post in the prosperous horsey village of Bedford, NY. The area has linking riding trails everywhere. You can ride for many hours because the trail system has rights of way through both public and private lands.

Bedford was originally part of CT. Somehow, it got away. Given their property taxes, their Westchester County taxes, and their NYS taxes, I'll bet they regret it now. Here's the Bedford Post Inn and restaurants (good for breakfast, too expensive for dinner):

In the USA, Bedford passes as fairly antique -

A lightbulb just went off in my head.

Instead of paying doctors to treat patients, have the government pay doctors not to treat patients. For every patient who needs tests or treatments, pay the doc half of what those would have cost if he promises not to have them done.

It's so simple, really. All you have to do is to modernize that old-fashioned, no longer applicable Hippocratic Oath to bring it up to date (just like the Constitution). All waste and unnecessary costs will be eliminated, with the potential to cut medical costs almost in half.

But would the trial lawyers go for my plan?

The Englishman reminds us that yesterday was the anniversary of the Glorious Revolution.

We Americans do not think much about that 1688 event, but his link explains why we should. It was a precursor, of sorts, to the American Revolution.

The Columbia Encyclopedia says:

The Declaration of Rights and the Bill of Rights (1689) redefined the relationship between monarch and subjects and barred any future Catholic succession to the throne. The royal power to suspend and dispense with law was abolished, and the crown was forbidden to levy taxation or maintain a standing army in peacetime without parliamentary consent. The provisions of the Bill of Rights were, in effect, the conditions upon which the throne was offered to and accepted by William and Mary. These events were a milestone in the gradual process by which practical power shifted from the monarch to Parliament. The theoretical ascendancy of Parliament was never thereafter successfully challenged.

Image: William of Orange (William lll)

The O was remarkably obsequious to Russia. Why? Powerline.

No reason to be. The O seems to have a relentlessly apologetic, if not masochistic, reflex towards competing or adversarial powers. (Unless they are fellow-American Evil Repubs, of course.)

"Not in my name," please. He is looking for love in all the wrong places, in the wrong way. He does not appear to understand that other nations have the serious and often grim job of advancing their own interests.

That's the tough job we hired him to do for us, too.

Wise up, kid, and work for the wonderful country which pays your wages instead of working out your personal issues on the world stage.

 Ed: related, via Right Wing Prof:

Greetings great and mighty culture, I am the Obama leader of New America. I am a cultured, urbane, black man with a Muslim name and I carry no baggage.

Your culture is great and wonderful, your poets brilliant, I will now quote one I have never read. Your food wonderful, I will now mention a dish I have never eaten.

Our countries have had issues in the past and they were all the fault of the old America, run by old white men.

Your country has done no wrong and any history of atrocities or rapaciousness or repression was just a reaction to Western meddling

I apologize on behalf of the old white men who wronged you.

New America will not judge you, we will not pretend our free culture is better than your backward, tyranny.

We just want you to like me us.

It's John Calvin's 500th Birthday today (1509-1564). He was indeed one of the shapers of the Western world.

Marvin Olasky offers Three Cheers for John Calvin.

Here's a Calvin quote via Marginal Rev:

Whatever be the kind of tribulation with which we are afflicted, we should always consider the end of it to be, that we may be trained to despise the present, and thereby stimulated to aspire to the future life. For since God well knows how strongly we are inclined by nature to a slavish love of this world, in order to prevent us from clinging too strongly to it, he employs the fittest reason for calling us back, and shaking off our lethargy.

I hate, hate, hate anybody who would sponsor or support federal criminal legislation with language like this in it:

Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

Just consider what that could entail: in effect, it could make bad internet  manners a felony. Atlas has the story.

From a commenter on our abortion post yesterday:

That we live in a land in which one can go to prison for harming the egg of a piping plover yet enjoy a Constitutionally protected right to exterminate their unborn human child speaks only the unspeakable about our national legacy.

Plover eggs: Yum. (Kidding aside, I am all in favor of protecting the endangered Piping Plover.)

Via Protein:

Mr Gore admitted that it was difficult to persuade the public that the threat from climate change was as urgent as that from Hitler.

And via Tim Blair re Al Gore:

He’s getting rich from environmentalism, not just by being paid a whopping $US175,000 ($217,500) a speech but by using political pressure to force government policy in a direction that benefits his business interests.

Via Wilkinson:

I worry that today’s equivalent of Robert McNamara is Peter Orszag, who I fear is poised to do for our health care system what McNamara did for Vietnam.

Michael Jackson still dead, etc, at Outside the Beltway:

Ah . . . the public’s unquenchable thirst for knowledge.  It never ceases to amaze.

Via Wiz re the Repubs:

It is looking more so everyday that the Republican congressional leadership (pardon the oxymoron) is going to stand by and watch the place burn down.

It's the Rope-a-Dope strategery.

Via Ace:

"I sure hope [Sarah Palin's] family recovers from what she has done to them."

- Andrew Sullivan, independent roving ad-hoc obstetrician-at-large to Sarah Palin, and unofficial "gonzo geneologist" of Trig Palin

Via Marginal Rev:

The economy of sub-Saharan Africa—including Nigeria and South Africa—is smaller than the economy of New York City.

Iran executes 5 Kurd students for "political activities". (Video - not a postcard - of the group hanging)

From Bloomberg on government spending:

The California morass has Democrats in Washington trembling. The reason is simple. If Obama’s health-care plan passes, then we may well end up paying for it with federal slips of paper worth less than California’s. Obama has bet everything on passing health care this year. The publicity surrounding the California debt fiasco almost assures his resounding defeat.

It takes years and years to make a mess as terrible as the California debacle, but the recipe is simple. All that you need is two political parties that are always willing to offer easy government solutions for every need of the voters, but never willing to make the tough decisions necessary to finance the government largess that results. Voters will occasionally change their allegiance from one party to the other, but the bacchanal will continue regardless of the names on the office doors.

California has engaged in an orgy of spending, but, compared with our federal government, its legislators should feel chaste. The California deficit this year is now north of $26 billion. The U.S. federal deficit will be, according to the latest numbers, almost 70 times larger.

The federal picture is so bleak because the Obama administration is the most fiscally irresponsible in the history of the U.S. I would imagine that he would be the intergalactic champion as well, if we could gather the data on deficits on other worlds. Obama has taken George W. Bush’s inattention to deficits and elevated it to an art form.

From VDH on Our Chrysalis Stage, sounding like a number of our recent posts:

Obama has surrounded himself with legions of ‘fixers.’ Bright men and women who have Ivy League law degrees, business school credentials, PhDs in the social sciences, and academic pedigrees in science, humanities, and engineering. Quite impressive, these Platonic Guardians of the soon to be perfect state. But most of their careers in finance, government, business, and academia have been well paid jobs critiquing, administering, regulating, nuancing, writing about, and hectoring those who create things–builders, developers, industrialists, farmers, truckers, transportation execs, retailers, lenders and investors.

We are being run now by film critics not directors, book reviewers not writers, music  columnists, not musicians. And it is far easier to fault than to birth, nuance rather than build. The irony is that the muscular classes carry the regulating and talking classes on their backs. They don’t mind being whipped occasionally and even bridled, but like any good mule will suddenly stop and no longer move when they feel the rider either does not know where he is going, or is going to kill the mule with his switch, spurs, and yanking on the bit.

From a review of the book God is Back in The Washington Monthly:

Where once it was widely assumed that modernity and its handmaiden "secularization" would kill off religion, the reports of God’s death turn out to have been greatly exaggerated. Indeed, Micklethwait and Wooldridge assure us, "the very things that were supposed to destroy religion—democracy and markets, technology and reason—are apparently combining to make it stronger." Europe was wrong, and America right. Irreligion in Europe is the anomaly, and the "hot religion" (namely Evangelical Protestantism) of the United States is the future. "American-style religion" is very much here to stay, and on the whole that is a good thing—especially for business.

Back? I never knew He left. Maybe He was just vacationing in my neighborhood, where we ignorant bumpkins cling to God and our guns instead of investing our limited capacities for faith in the arrogant, incompetent bozos in government - most of whom, today, could never do much of anything in real life (except for Sarah Palin, who knows how to make a living fishing, and Mitt, who understands finance).

But is God good for business? I thought God was all about God's kingdom - the invisible kingdom, and not man's. Read the whole piece.