The Week In Review

Well, it certainly has been an interesting week in these United States hasn't it? It's been a week of racial tension, subterfuge and double talk about health care and having a beer at the "picnic table of peace" with the pres and the cop who loves the Red Sox and the prof who loves being arrested.

We've seen furious debate over health care reform...from Liberal Democrats versus the "Blue Dogs", a group of candidates hand picked by now Chief Of Staff Rahm Immanuel for their conservative tendencies. It seems he wanted to court the moderate and conservative Dems so badly that he wound up getting a group elected that may ultimately spell doom for his boss' health care " overhaul" plans. How about that bill too? It seems that it's length of more than 1,000 pages made it impossible for anyone in Congress to actually read it. Said Senator John Conyers (D) MI, of the behemoth bill this week,

“I love these members, they get up and say, ‘Read the bill!' What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?"

What good is reading the bill? Because that's your job you idiot. That's what we elect you to do and what we ultimately have taxes taken out of our paychecks to pay you for. The arrogance here is breathtaking. The utter lack of respect for his constituents and the rest of us is mind boggling. He may as well have said, "Do I have to do my entire job or can I just do the parts that enrich my financial portfolio?" Why read the bill? Because you are supposed to be safeguarding those of us who can't read or even understand this gargantuan piece of socialism. Think about it...it was written by lawyers after all. No one without a law degree could even get close to comprehending it and I suspect that more than a few lawyers would have hard time with it. On Monday, Barney Frank explained what most Americans already understand: the public plan will lead to single-payer, socialized medicine. In response to questions about the current House health care proposals, Frank said,

“I think if we get a good public option, it could lead to single-payer, and that’s the best way to reach single payer.”

Frank is right. A public plan would “demonstrate its power” and drown private competitors with rates subsidized by the taxpayers. The Lewin Group estimates that a subsidized public option could quickly drive over 119 million people out of the private insurance market. As the Wall Street Journal explains, it has never been a secret that the public plan connects naturally into a single-payer health care system:

Jacob Hacker, now a professor of political science at Berkeley, came up with the intellectual architecture for the public option when he was a graduate student in the 1990s. "Someone once said to me, 'This is a Trojan horse for single payer,' and I said, 'Well, it's not a Trojan horse, right? It's just right there,'" Mr. Hacker explained in a speech last year. "I'm telling you, we're going to get there, over time, slowly."

As Rush Limbaugh has pointed out so many times before, "You don't boil a frog all at once. If you throw him into hot water, he'll simply jump right back out. If, however, you drop him into cold water and then slowly raise the temperature, he'll be dead before he knows what's happening."

In other news, radio talk show host and Fox News rising star Glenn Beck called the president a "...racist with a deep seated hatred for white people or the white culture." He was instantly set upon by the left leaning press, called a hate monger with race issues of his own. That's right out of the Democrat play book though. When someone accuses them of lying, they simply point out what liars we all are. As if that non-admittal admittal means they're any better. Beck's case for his accusation was made on his radio program in a compelling and often heart stopping way. I won't say that I followed his line of reasoning except to say that if any case can be made against the president it is that he is a bigot at minimum with a deep seated mistrust of white people. So much for the post-racial candidate he appeared to be. Beck leveled this accusation after the president inserted himself into the Gates kerfuffle which ended with what is laughingly referred to as the "Beer Summit" now. It became a huge distraction to the president during the critical time when his health care bill might have made it to the floor for a vote had it not been for his insertion of himself into the fray. We learned something important through this little scandal though, "Being Barrack means never having to say you're sorry".

Even when you're wrong.

Elsewhere, up in the frozen tundra, Sarah Palin, former Veep nominee and the subject of Liberal scorn and Conservative fantasy, bade farewell to the citizens of Alaska saying that she would stay engaged and continue to work on their behalf but in the wider scope of public service. Speculation swirled about her future, would it be radio, television, a continued career in politics or a centerfold spread in Playboy? No one knows for sure yet. She's been very hush hush on details and very scathing in her assessment of the "main stream media", calling them out and reminding them that their profession should be a noble one of service to the public, not service to a political party. She's right on that score. They shamelessly carry water for the president and hang on his every word as if he were the Christ child about to speak his first syllables. There have been some chinks in the armor of late with the AP reporting some very disturbing facts about the true economic state of the union and Obama's poll numbers, which coincidentally have been dropping faster than Oprah's ability to resist a Twinkie. While CNN is reporting that the recession is over, AP had some sobering statistics on the rising debt and continued shrinkage of the job market. Sarah has been almost a constant news story at a time when she should be fading from our political view. The media hasn't let her fade though. They keep finding reasons for us to mistrust and despise her and they keep her on the front burner as often as they can.

The "Cash For Clunkers" program, initially slated to be only 1 billion dollars ran out of money in just under 6 days. Oddly, that money was supposed to last until mid October but for reasons unknown to bureaucratic dunderheads it disappeared faster than ...well...money in Washington. As of this note, an additional 2 billion dollars is being gathered to continue the program. It seems that nothing ever costs as much as they say it will and it never works like it's intended. Seems lots of folks trying to get the subsidy are being denied because the rules keep changing so quickly that car dealers can't keep up with it all. Lots of applications, precious few of them accepted. Honestly, who didn't think that Americans, when presented with the idea of snatching some stimulus money, wouldn't respond this quickly? Apparently the rocket scientists on Capitol Hill didn't and their emergency supplemental funding is proof. Oh, and speaking of stimulus money, it seems that the National Endowment of the Arts is using some of it's stimulus money for shall we say...less than pure endeavors. The NEA may be spending some of the money it received from the Recovery and Reinvestment Act to fund nude simulated-sex dances, Saturday night "pervert" revues and the airing of pornographic horror films at art houses in San Francisco, as first reported Thursday by FOXNews.com.

Now why am I not surprised?

I love this country. No where on earth could you have this kind of fun and all of it made possible with taxpayer dollars. Perv reviews and dwindling money and socialized medicine...OH MY!
If Nancy Pelosi is Dorothy and Barney Frank is the scarecrow (no brain)...that would make Beck the cowardly lion, John Conyers the tin man (no heart) and of course...Obama as the great and powerful wizard of Oz.

Pay no attention to that man behind the screen. That's just Rahm tightening the thumb screws on some pesky blue dogs.

We are certainly NOT in Kansas anymore Toto.