Posts Tagged ‘obamacare’

Answer: Because nobody actually knows what the count is

Posted: March 19, 2010 by datechguy in Uncategorized
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Question: DaTechGuy, why aren’t you talking about the various whip counts.

All of the whip counts are guesses, they have been all over the map. You have a better chance of getting your entire bracket correct in March Madness than to get an accurate whip count.

I still don’t think it is going to pass. Until the vote actually takes place that can’t be confirmed, so I’m not going to play guessing games with numbers. However I will point to Robert Stacy McCain’s American spectator article comparing this push to the end of Animal House:

Even then, Scott Brown was driving his Dodge truck through the snow en route to the Jan. 19 Senate victory that most political observers at the time believed was the final death-blow to this unpopular legislation. Could there be a more decisive electoral verdict than for a Republican to be elected in liberal Massachusetts on a promise to stop the health-care bill?

Well, the voters be damned.

He concludes thusly:

At this point, however, the arguments for passage resemble another Animal House scene, with Obama in the role of Otter when he announces, “I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part.” It remains to be seen whether House Democrats will supply Bluto’s famous answer: “We’re just the guys to do it.”

It’s an amazing thing to watch people walk off a cliff while insisting that they will fall up.

Who knew that Sen Blutarski was still in Congress?

Eugene Robinson just let the cat out of the bag without realizing it.

Posted: March 19, 2010 by datechguy in elections, opinion/news
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…on Morning Joe at 8:06 a.m.

“Our long national nightmare as commentator’s is nearly over”

The argument is being made that this has to be passed to save the Obama administration. It can’t be allowed to fail etc etc etc… Robert Stacy McCain gave a hint to what I’m thinking in the Spectator:

“They’re obviously not doing this for policy reasons,” one GOP operative who worked on the Brown campaign said last night. “This is political, but nobody can figure out the politics of it.”

Administration arm-twisters are reportedly telling House Democrats that the bill, once passed, will magically overcome the unpopularity that has hitherto plagued it, and that by November voters will forget the extraordinary machinations by which Pelosi accelerated her legislative Deathmobile up to “ramming speed.”

Allow me to explain the politics of it:

It has become totally impossible for even the Mainstream Media to portray this administration as anything resembling a success. The president has failed on GITMO, failed on Don’t ask don’t tell, failed on Cap and Trade it has played the political game like a bunch of; dare I say it, Bush league players. The smartest guy in the room can’t nail two boards together to build legislation. He is so desperate that he consented to a FOX interview which was an unmitigated disaster.

The White House is channeling Count Rostov from Tolstoy’s War and Peace: “Why they’re shooting at me, Me, whom everyone loves!“.

This is the thing that the White House finds intolerable. Nothing else matters. We have a narcissist in the White House who has for his entire career been told how special he is. He is the poster child of our esteem culture.

If this bill passes the story on every MSM outlet will be about the Obama victory, about how the White House succeeded, about how the president still has it. About the president’s place in history. It will be as if it was January of 2009 all over again. The media desperately wants to write this story, the media who went all in on “Fluffy Hussein” as my brother calls him wants to believe that all that glittered was in fact Gold. The last few months have challenged their assumption not only of the administration but of themselves. It HAS to be expunged by victory.

This vote isn’t about healthcare, it isn’t about polls, it isn’t about the midterms, it is about an insecure man who wants the media to say nice things about him again and an insecure media that wants to be able to say them with a straight face.

Morning Joe and Meat on Friday…

Posted: March 19, 2010 by datechguy in catholic, opinion/news
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Geogre Carlin used to make a Joke about meat on Friday that ended:

I bet somebody is still in hell on a meat rap

As I’ve mentioned before Carlin and Catholics ignored (and tend to still ignore) the 2nd part of the rule that says you are supposed to substitute some other sacrifice if you drop the meat restriction on Fridays.

That is what I thought of when I saw the report on Morning Joe about the CBO numbers. They reported the base numbers and left out a few things:

Although CBO completed a preliminary review of legislative language prior to its release, the agency has not thoroughly examined the reconciliation proposal to verify its consistency with the previous draft. This estimate is therefore preliminary, pending a review of the language of the reconciliation proposal, as well as further review and refinement of the budgetary projections.

Even better via the same national review article is this link from Congress Daily:

Final cbo scores to replace preliminary just released expected Friday or Saturday, a leadership aide says

So the actual numbers will be released during the dead zone of news, where it will be buried as Glenn Reynolds says “perhaps after the vote“.

Will Morning Joe correct or mention this before the show ends? Considering they just repeated the uninformed “nuns” spin again without caveat (why am I not surprised that Margaret Carlson is celebrating on the air?) I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.

Update: I should give Carlson a shout out on one thing. She did point out that the conventional wisdom that he doesn’t stay if the votes aren’t there didn’t apply in his two trips to Copenhagen.

Let me introduce you to real Nuns…

Posted: March 19, 2010 by datechguy in catholic, opinion/news
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…you know, ones that take church teaching seriously:

Recent statements from groups like Network, the Catholic Health Association and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) directly oppose the Catholic Church’s position on critical issues of health care reform.

The Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, the second conference of Major Superiors of Women Religious in the United States, believes the Bishops’ position is the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church.

Protection of life and freedom of conscience are central to morally responsible judgment. We join the bishops in seeking ethically sound legislation.

Via the American papist who also notices some math issues concerning the only Catholics the MSM like as does OSV:

Network’s letter, about health care reform, was signed by a few dozen people, and despite what Network said, they do not come anywhere near representing 59,000 American sisters.

The letter had 55 signatories, some individuals, some groups of three to five persons. One endorser signed twice.

There are 793 religious communities in the United States.

The math is clear. Network is far off the mark

In the words of the Curt Jester:

The numbers don’t really matter. After all nuns who lie about the numbers they represent would never lie about the bill not supporting funding of abortion.

I do find it rather odd the people using the the phony numbers of nuns think this is an argument in favor of the bill. So most Americans being against the bill doesn’t matter, but somehow this does?

For reasons that don’t have to be explained, memeorandum doesn’t find this worth reporting, nor I suspect doesn’t the MSM. At least when I report you know that I have a bias. The MSM will show this the same due diligence that they gave the John Edwards story when it actually mattered.

Adrienne said it best on Wednesday:

We could use a St. Patrick right about now to drive the snakes out of Washington…

Yup that’s about it.

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