Archive for the ‘opinion/news’ Category

Somehow the daily caller has decided that republicans are on their heels:

If politics were war, Republicans would have just been lured from their walled city to chase a force they thought was retreating, only to find Democrats suddenly turning and attacking them head-on.

Even before the bill passed, President Obama had begun pounding the message that the new legislation would immediately benefit many Americans, and cast Republicans who opposed the bill as on the side of greedy insurers.

As the democrats celebrate their great victory against those feared republicans can we gain some perspective here.

There are 222 days to the midterm elections and Democrats have managed a mere 420 days or so into their term Democrats with a 70+ seat majority in the House and a 18 seat majority in the senate managed to get the administration healthcare bill passed. In fact they are still voting on modifications that might take several days or maybe even weeks more done.

They have also managed to energize not only the normal base of the republican party but get thousands of people who were otherwise uninterested in politics involved and networked. These people are meeting monthly and talking to friends. If democrats think they will not be talking about and voting on this in October they are deluding themselves.

This is a great victory? This is having the Republicans on the run? It sounds a lot like the following story of the last days of the Civil War from Shelby Foote’s Magnum Opus The Civil War a Narrative vol 3.

A squad of well-clad, well-fed bluecoats, for example, descended on a tattered, barefoot North Carolina private who had wandered off, lone and famished, in search of food. “Surrender, surrender! We’ve got you!” they cried as they closed in with leveled weapons. “Yes, you’ve got me,” the Tarheel scarecrow replied, dropping his rifle to raise his hands, “and a hell of a git you got.”

Unlike the tarheel vet the republican party is well supplied, well armed and raring for a fight in the fall. In fact the public wants the GOP to keep fighting

A CBS News poll released Wednesday finds that nearly two in three Americans want Republicans in Congress to continue to challenge parts of the health care reform bill.

Yeah that’s a great victory all right.

If the Democrats had any brains they would have passed this a year ago and managed to get republican votes, it would have been so easy it’s frightening. Instead they democrats and their allies in the media victory celebrate a Pyrrhic victory that will doom them in the fall.

The field guide continues its home stretch as we add Tim Mak to the mix:

David Frum isn’t all that popular with conservatives lately but since he sponsored a free beer party at CPAC he was king for a day.

Q: How transparent was the betrayal of the pro life cause by Bart “I’m a faithful Catholic, Really!” Stupak?

When Kathleen Parker isn’t willing to spin for you the game is over:

Stupak, too, knew that the executive order was merely political cover for him and his pro-life colleagues. He knew it because several members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops explained it to him, according to sources. The only way to prevent public funding for abortion was for his amendment to be added to the Senate bill.

Clearly, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the president didn’t want that. What they did want was the abortion funding that the Senate bill allowed.

Thus, the health care bill passed because of a mutually understood deception — a pretense masquerading as virtue. No wonder Stupak locked his doors and turned off his phones Sunday, according to several pro-life lobbyists who camped outside his office.

Maybe when he’s done in congress he can move to Fitchburg and run for the City Counsel.

Via Dan Collins (buy his book) Dennis the Peasant gets to the heart of the problem:

And because Obamacare incentivizes non-coverage by imposing employer fines for non-coverage that are far less than the cost of offering health insurance, there’s an excellent chance (in this economy of roughly 17%-18% actual unemployment) that companies will be dropping health benefits rather than adding them. Employers can afford to; they have highly skilled workers waiting in line to beg for a job with or without health insurance.

Remember it is a lot cheaper to pay the fine than to actually cover the employee, so who is going to have to pay that cost? Back to Dennis:

Next year you’re going to have to purchase the insurance yourself or pay a large fine and face the possibility of prosecution and imprisonment.

So the end result thousands of dollars spent by people on health insurance that will not be spent on other things, like vacations, or restaurants, or that x-box 360 or COLLEGE or the MORTGAGE. Since it is Dennis’ piece I’ll give him the last word:

Ignore the above at your own risk, Democrats. I’ve been dealing with people and their money on a professional basis for over 25 years. The fastest way to enrage the average American is to try to force them to reduce their standard of living. People will lie, cheat, steal, and kill to continue to live in the manner to which they are accustomed. That’s just the way it is. And that is the fatal flaw in The Plan… When it comes down to it, the political will to force the electorate to be poorer will not be there.

I wish I wrote that.