August 13, 2009
A FACTOR OF THIRTY
Pres Obama said
this during a health care speech:
If
a family care physician works with his or her patient to help
them lose weight, modify diet, monitors whether they're taking
their medications in a timely fashion, they might get
reimbursed a pittance. But if that same diabetic ends up
getting their foot amputated, that's $30,000, $40,000, $50,000
-- immediately the surgeon is reimbursed. Well, why not make
sure that we're also reimbursing the care that prevents the
amputation, right? That will save us money.
Apparently Medicare only
reimburses around $1000 for an amputation, not $30,000.
I want to take something Krauthammer said tonight on Special Report and run with it a little. He said:
Well, when the president is off, in talking about the fee for an amputation, by a factor of at least thirty, he's got trouble and it makes people worry about all his other so-called facts. Remember, he's been selling here a free lunch; he says the way I'm going to solve the problem is prevention. We're gonna put a lot of money in prevention and it's gonna save a lot of money overall.
Krauthammer then goes on to discuss a CBO letter quoting studies that said that preventative medicine actually costs more in the long run, since you're screening far more people who won't end up with whatever disease you're looking for. The CBO says that all those pittances added up for everyone to get screened for diabetes end up costing more than the couple of feet you have to amputate.
But I want to run in a different direction. Krauthammer got me going. The president keeps saying that we're going to save money through preventative medicine. But he thinks he's comparing "a pittance" to $30,000. So yeah, that makes it sound like we'll save a ton of money if we can get doctors to prevent having to amputate feet. Think of how many people we could get in for a simple preventative appointment with their doctor for $30,000! But if it really costs between $500 and $1000 for an amputation, then that's far fewer preventative appointments for the cost of one amputation.
My question is, Does Pres Obama even know that? I mean, where did he get this $30,000 figure, which he presents so authoritatively? And does he know how much smaller the figure really is?
Is he being deceptive or just ignorant?
If he's deceptive, that's despicable. But I think he's just ignorant. I think he really believes that, at a reimbursement cost of "a pittance," he can help many more Americans by preventing amputations or tonsilectomies or whatever else he thinks greedy doctors are doing just to make extra money.
But that means he actually
thinks that doctors see someone with diabetes and think, "Man, if I just bide my time and fatty here loses his foot, then I can buy a new jet ski!"
I just find it worrisome that Pres Obama thinks we're going to save all this money with his new health care plan because he's overestimating how much we currently spend by a factor of thirty!
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I think he's a mixture of deceptive and ignorant. He knows he's not checking facts himself, but when someone brings it up to him, he claims ignorance.
When my counselor told me she was all for national health care, I wanted to ask her if she would be happy to be paid what TriCare pays her ALL the time. I get the explanation of benefits sheets. I know that she gets from TriCare 2/3 what she bills, give or take. My chiropractor doesn't even take TriCare, but he voted for Obama and is still very happy about it. I know that TriCare is only just now expanding their chiropractor services, but I know they don't take it very seriously. Where's his practice going to go when there are no insurance companies to cover him? He will lose his higher-maintenance customers, because they might not wish to afford more than two visits a month (at $40/visit).
Should this bill go through, I wonder if any health professionals who think Obama is all that will change their tune when the excrement hits the oscillating air-circulation device.
Posted by: Deltasierra at August 13, 2009 09:31 PM (unCAk)
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The man can't rattle off the accomplishments of Billie Jean King without botching it...no doubt some staffer's head adorns a pike outside in the Rose Garden. You can't expect the same sort of fact gatherers to get something correct that would require actual math.
Posted by: deskmerc at August 14, 2009 12:24 AM (pYOXQ)
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Not everyone who receives the 'pittance' for preventative care would have needed an amputation. Even at his grossly inflated cost per amputation, the expanded roles of people on preventative care (remember that its 'free' so everyone will want it) given to those that don't need it will balloon the costs well over his deceptive number.
Figure that balanced against what an actual amputation costs and it becomes, like Krauthammer said, off by a factor of 30, or more.
Sigh, we are all doomed.
PS, I personally think he is being deliberate in his deception. It has always worked for him in the past, the media regurgitates his figures on a daily basis with nary a skeptical eye turned their way.
Posted by: John at August 14, 2009 12:57 AM (T0dFH)
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A salesman who once worked for me was fond of the phrase "in sales as
in medicine, prescription without diagnosis is malpractice."
Obama has a pocket full of policy prescriptions which he's been
carrying around for a long time. He is much more interested in getting
the patient to take those prescriptions than he is in diagnosing the
patient's actual situation.
Posted by: david foster at August 14, 2009 06:34 AM (uWlpq)
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I think we've seen evidence before that Obama's not good with numbers.
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at August 14, 2009 08:03 AM (bjGKR)
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Oh, this claim just about made my head explode, except that it was shaking too quickly in disbelief... "did he ACTUALLY say that?!?! Oh my word... demonizing doctors, accusing them of patient neglect and/or malpractice... he's either a liar or a moron." That kind of put me over the "hemming and hawing" stage, and now I believe that he's lying out of a little ignorance and a lot of quasi-conscious malice.
Quite the trait, for a CIC trying to ram through legislation...
Posted by: Krista at August 14, 2009 12:41 PM (sUTgZ)
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Not that he'd be taking them to the doctor, but his daughters must have never had an ear infection or tonsillitis for that matter. If he thinks ENT specialists are yanking out tonsils left and right to try and afford a new yacht, he's even denser than I'd imagined.
There is literally a magic number that you must reach before your pediatrician will even REFER you to an ENT person and then, the ENT person will 'monitor' your child over a certain number of weeks/months. I believe my youngest had no less than 19 trips to the doctor with strep throat and double ear infections (her ears do not drain properly & won't until she grows and her face widens) before we could even have someone talk to us about tubes. It wasn't until a particularly awful bout of strep that left her tonsils enlarged, touching and causing sleep apnea (her record b/w breaths during sleep? 17 seconds) before we could discuss removing her tonsils and adenoids.
It has nothing to do with health care. It has to do with the mentality of 'we know better what is best for you.' And, once this administration ushers in health care for all (no matter how craptastic), they will FOREVER be able to say, "Sure...vote for the other guy, but they will take away your health care."
I also cannot stand the lecturing on etiquette and manners. Puh-leeze.
Posted by: Guard Wife at August 14, 2009 12:54 PM (qk9Ip)
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Worse, is the fact that he's saying things in terms of savings.
Even if an amputation did cost $30,000, we don't really save anything, because the costs for the gummint to insure everyone will far outstrip potential "savings" by spending less on preventive medicine.
It's like this: You have ten bucks. You go to the store, and want to buy a widget. One widget is $5, one better widget is $6, one cheap widget is $2, and there's even a widget marked down from $20 to $9.
No matter which widget you buy, you don't "save" anything. You spend. The only choice you have is what amount you spend. And NO, buying the $20 mark down doesn't mean you "saved" $11. YOU STILL WALK HOME WITH ONLY $1.
Posted by: Chuck at August 15, 2009 09:46 AM (bMH2g)
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Science fiction writer Heinlein,Asimov? once wrote 'TINSTAAFL',
there is no such thing as a free lunch. Â As for OHB's "facts"- Winston Churchill was asked how he'd gotten 6 mos. of research for info before his speech. Ans. I made them up, but it'll take 6 mos. for them to prove it. We'll have other crises to distract them.
Posted by: Ray Ott at August 29, 2009 12:36 PM (g6d1f)
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August 07, 2009
THERE IS NO MATH THAT CAN MAKE THIS WORK
Obama vs Mathematics:
But President Obama promised that he would raise taxes only on those in “rich†households.
That’s where the arithmetic gets especially interesting. Funding the
new health-care plan on the backs of households making $200,000 or more
per year would require permanently increasing their annual total tax
payments by about 50 percent. So, for example, a household that
currently pays $50,000 in federal income taxes would need to pay
another $25,000. Remember, however, that Social Security and Medicare
already face enormous shortfalls. Shoring up these programs — another
Obama campaign promise — would require collecting 328 percent more tax
revenue from the rich. No, we didn’t forget a decimal point: That is
three hundred and twenty-eight percent.
Most households making
between $200,000 and $500,000 per year would not have enough money to
pay their federal, state, and local tax bills, much less eat. Rich
households in California or New York would not be able to pay their tax
bills regardless of their incomes. And a family of four living in a
low-tax state (South Dakota) would need to gross almost $900,000 per
year to have enough income left over to reach the poverty line. In
fact, there is no mathematical configuration of taxes on the current
rich alone — including additional levies on the “super-rich†making
more than $1 million per year — that is compatible with putting the
nation’s entitlement programs and the new health-care plan on a
sustainable course.
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Oh yes, there is a math that can make this work! If Big brOther says two plus two is five,
it is. Ask the ecOnOmists who believe in the One (or at least pretend to do so in order to please their bOsses). The number-manipulators can always justify the dreams of Great Leaders. The
Five-Year Plans always worked on paper but were ruined by
wreckers. Similarly,
maaaad mobs of atavists are all that stand in the way of the Four-Year Plan of Hopenchange. Where's the civilian security fOrce when the peOple need it to secure their right to freeee health care?
Posted by: kevin at August 08, 2009 01:58 PM (h9KHg)
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If you've got the math skillz,
the gOvernment wants you!
So the new data sleuths come from backgrounds like economics, computer science and mathematics.
They
are certainly welcomed in the White House these days. “Robust, unbiased
data are the first step toward addressing our long-term economic needs
and key policy priorities,†Peter R. Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, declared in a speech in May. Later that day, Mr. Orszag confessed in a blog entry that his talk on the importance of statistics was a subject “near to my (admittedly wonkish) heart.â€National Review is not a statisticians' journal. We are certain there are thousands of prOfessionals who can disprove its claims, just as every true Soviet scientist believed in
Marr and
Lysenko.
Posted by: kevin at August 10, 2009 12:08 AM (h9KHg)
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... just as every true Soviet scientist who believed in
Marr and
Lysenko could disprove the claims of capitalist linguists and geneticists.
Every true USSO statistician will love to be among the Alphas crunching
the numbers determining gOvernment health care policy:
The President has made it very clear that policy decisions should be
driven by evidence – accentuating the role of Federal statistics as a
resource for policymakers ...In health
care, bending the curve on cost growth will require more information
about how we’re spending our health dollars, the health outcomes we’re
producing, and how specific interventions rank against alternative
treatments.Number wOrkers of the wOrld! This is your chance to grab pOwer! Jump on the bandwagOn now!
Posted by: kevin at August 10, 2009 12:19 AM (h9KHg)
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July 21, 2009
PERFECT ALIGNMENT
The Communist Party just
lurves Obama (via Amritas).
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Sometimes I felt uncomfortable speaking of Obama as if he were a Communist, but he might as well be one. Of course, he doesn't care about the CPUSA. They lack the power he craves. But they share the same goals. Omerica = USSA. RIP USA?
No Communist conspiracy theories, please. Obama is not the puppet of the CPUSA. They lack the power he craves - and has. The horrifying thing about Obama is not that he is a secret alien, Muslim, or Communist - he's none of the above - but what he does in the public eye for all to see. Unfortunately, so few look. Content with vOting for him, they sit back and wait for their handOuts.
Posted by: Amritas at July 21, 2009 12:53 PM (+nV09)
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July 14, 2009
OBAMA WTF, TAKE TWO
Once again, does Pres Obama really think this is true?
The American and Soviet armies were still massed in Europe, trained and
ready to fight. The ideological trenches of the last century were
roughly in place. Competition in everything from astrophysics to
athletics was treated as a zero-sum game. If one person won, then the
other person had to lose. And then within a few short years, the world
as it was ceased to be. Make no mistake: This change did not come from
any one nation. The Cold War reached a conclusion because of the
actions of many nations over many years, and because the people of
Russia and Eastern Europe stood up and decided that its end would be
peaceful.
Liz Cheney
lets him have it.
This guy does not live on the same plane of existence as I do...
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Oh yes, he does. It's
his wOrld you're living in. This planet - every planet - has
his shape. O!
Even we object to Obama's attempts at moral equivalence, because it's clear that the Soviet way was superior. Give us the KGB over the FBI any day.
The Soviet "sphere of influence" was delineated by walls and barbed
wire and tanks and secret police to prevent people from escaping.No, the capitalist imperialists put up the Iron Curtain to keep their oppressed peoples from fleeing to the Red World where they would finally be free to obey Great Leaders. Don't you remember Gorbachev's speech? "Tear this wall down, Mr. Reagan!"
The Gipper embarrassed our natiOn. Fortunately, we're on the Red road to recOvery. As His handler said, "We have the best brand on Earth: the Obama brand."
Posted by: kevin at July 14, 2009 01:20 PM (+nV09)
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THE PRESIDENT PROPOSES A PRONOUN
Does Pres Obama really think this is true?
Over the last several weeks, key committees in the House and the Senate
have made important and unprecedented progress on a plan that will
lower costs, provide better care for patients, and curb the worst
practices of the insurance companies. It's a plan that will not add to
our deficit over the next decade. Let me repeat that: It is a plan
that will not add to our deficit over the next decade — and eventually
will help lower our deficit by slowing the skyrocketing cost of
Medicare and Medicaid.
Yuval Levin remarks at
The Corner:
To which any observer of the passing scene must say: What in the world
is the president talking about? Where is the committee in the House or
Senate that has offered up a bill that will not add to the deficit?
What bill would that be? Even in their own terms, with all the gimmicks
they’ve been able to come up with, the plans the Democrats have
proposed so far are all enormously expensive, and no one has yet
proposed a way to pay for them. So what is the “it†the president has
in mind exactly?
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Ah, but don't you know that we'll just plants some of these here magic beans that grow into big tall money trees? Problem solved.
Sorry, the very idea that people think the United States can afford universal health care when it can't even afford existing social programs (ahem, Social Security, Medicare) makes my head explode. Sure "free" health care would be nice. But then, so would free landscaping or free cars. Any chance of lobbying Congress for a new Mercedes?
By the way, I absolutely love your blog. It's on my daily to-read list.
Posted by: Val L. at July 14, 2009 08:36 AM (4iXKP)
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We are disappointed that our emperOr has not proposed a new pronoun to replace the sexist terms
he and
she.Val L., we would have those magic beans today if only that crazy creationist Bushaitan hadn't stopped all genetic engineering research. If
Canadians can wait three years for a checkup, you can wait three years for a few beans that will stimulate the economy.
Until then, no free Mercedes for you. You'll have to settle for a Government Motors
Trabant.
Posted by: kevin at July 14, 2009 01:32 PM (+nV09)
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June 29, 2009
HONDURAS: OBAMA FAIL
I am just completely flabbergasted by the events in Honduras.
A president decides he wants to be president longer than the law allows. His country does everything possible to get him to follow the law, but the president keeps abusing his power and acting like a lunatic. The country respects its constitution and decides to legally and justifiably oust him.
And Obama is siding with
him?
I must be missing something, because this is insane.
Remember when all the loony lefties swore that George Bush was going to stage a coup and stay in office a third term? They went berserk predicting this. If it had actually happened, you can bet your sweet bippy that they would've used every channel possible to toss him out. And rightly so: the leader has to respect the law of the land or the citizens get rid of him.
But now a president in another country has actually just done what the nuts swore Bush was going to do, and Pres Obama is backing the would-be dictator.
Oh, and also
Castro, Chavez, and Ortega side with Obama too.
Have I gone completely mad? This is sick.
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".....you can bet your sweet bippy?"
Has Flip Wilson taken over TTG?
(I agree with you on the madness of it all,by the way)
Posted by: MaryIndiana at June 29, 2009 06:16 PM (SaSZV)
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my favorite part of the original statement was the respecting the 'democratic norms'
Where do these fall in order of importance:
vote for bills you did not read
accuse and portray your opponents as terrorists
tell public companies how to run themselves and pick and choose which contracts they should follow and which they should disregard
Posted by: wifeunit at June 29, 2009 06:58 PM (t5K2U)
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124623220955866301.html
This editorial was really good. And, from googling the writer, she has been covering the gov't in Honduras for awhile.
Posted by: Guard Wife at June 29, 2009 08:39 PM (43JOF)
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Oh, and P.S. -- Let me get this straight:
Hack your unarmed people to death with axes in the streets & we'll call it a spirited debate and not get involved.
Violate your country's constitution and ignore the democratic principles your people desire & we'll do our best to return you to power.
WTF?
Posted by: Guard Wife at June 29, 2009 08:41 PM (43JOF)
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I think Obama thinks in generalities and keywords rather than through
detailed logic. "Military coup" is a bad thing in his mind: forget the
context and nuance.
I wonder if Oster, Beck, Stauffenberg, etc had been successful in their
planned coup against the Hitler regime--and Obama had been around at
the time--his reaction would have been the same.
Posted by: david foster at June 29, 2009 09:26 PM (uWlpq)
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It seems to me to be a recurring pattern with Obama. His initial response on pretty much everything is exactly the opposite of what any decent human would instinctively say. Time and again, going back over the past year or two into the campaign he has come out with a public statement on -pick random crisis-.
Within a day or two after receiving criticism from all corners his lackeys start to 'redifine' what he orginally meant. This is usually followed within a week by a direct statement from Obama himself taking the exact opposite position he originally stated, while claiming that his new position is exactly the same as his original.
This is going to blow up in his face at some point. His instincts are just completely wrong from the get-go and needs a week or two for his spin meisters to clean up his bad judgements. One of these days he won't have a week to retool his thoughts, and when that happens I hope it isn't something bad enough to cause real trouble.
Posted by: John at June 29, 2009 09:46 PM (crTpS)
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I will have to admit I hadn't heard and it
is terribly shocking!
Posted by: Darla at June 29, 2009 11:48 PM (LP4DK)
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I am very concerned (read that frightened) with his attitude, I think of all the things he and others were saying GWB would do, mainly declare martial law and keep on being president, and then have done the same thing they were against while GWB was president.
Posted by: Ruth H at June 30, 2009 02:05 PM (Y4oAO)
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david,
It only takes one word to trigger the prOper response from the One: "military". The M-word disturbs Him so much that He didn't use it to describe his "civilian security force".
I was initially surprised that Europpressive Hillary was on the side of the gOOd persyns since she is not a wise Latina womyn, but she and Obama probably learned everything they know about Honduras from the very same MSM that defies reality and deifies Him. Other viewpoints from nonpersyns like O'Grady simply do not matter.
Ruth H,
Anything Bushaitan did or was supposedly going to do was eeeevil by definition. Obama can do the same things as Bushaitan but the results will be infinitely better because He is a superiOr being. Iraq was the greatest crime of all time, but security operations (must not use the M-word!) in Afghanistan will attain new heights of nobility.
Posted by: kevin at June 30, 2009 06:22 PM (xHfeS)
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God, please let us over out the Democrat majorities in the Congress in 2010 and Obama in 2012. Amen...
Posted by: Miss Ladybug at July 01, 2009 12:15 AM (paOhf)
Posted by: tim at July 01, 2009 01:36 PM (nno0f)
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June 23, 2009
GOLF MEANS YOU'RE SMART...UNLESS YOU'RE BUSH
Media Cheer Obama's Golf Outings; Criticized Republicans' Trips to Course contrasts the press' fawning over Obama's golf hobby to Bush's.
Gag.
The original article quoted, "Just the sport for a leader most driven," is sickeningly praiseworthy. Bush is a golfer too, but I don't remember him ever being praised with these compliments:
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Everything Obama dOes is of cOsmic significance. When Bushaitan golfed, he was just a brute with a club. But when the One gOlfs ... ah, he is the cOmmander of the cOurse, the Titan of the Tee, the Paragon of Putting.
According to
The Washington Post,Obama's predecessor said he quit golfing just as the Iraqi insurgency
began to escalate in August 2003. "I don't want some mom whose son may
have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf," George
W. Bush told interviewers in 2008. "I think, you know, playing golf
during a war just sends the wrong signal."Whereas Obama, the cOOlest man on Earth, doesn't let a mere war shake up his rOutine:
He's hit the course five times since late April -- rushing out to the
links on Sunday afternoon just 90 minutes after returning to the White
House from his overseas trip.Such firmness of spirit is unknown to Bushaitan. Be like Barack!
Posted by: kevin at June 23, 2009 05:27 PM (2eQQr)
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My favorite quote from the
Post story at standard.net:
Says sportswriting legend Dan Jenkins, who's seen a lot of golf in his
time: "I certainly don't want my president to be a good golfer. It
takes too much time and practice to be any good -- it's a very hard
game to play consistently well. I think there are better things he
could be doing."What would Bunker say?
(PS: Is anyone else bugged by the little SNL icon at standard.net? It makes me think of
Saturday Night Live, though there's nothing funny about this story or the site.)
Posted by: Amritas at June 23, 2009 05:34 PM (2eQQr)
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I'm not really into O-bashing because I think it makes us seem as bad as the other side. But....here is what I found really disturbing about the article:
"Obama golfed on May 25 after he spoke and placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetery on Memorial Day. Presidential aides told the media that Obama observed a moment of silence at 3 p.m. while on the links."
If I were one of the POTUS advisers I would have made damn sure that there was an all day schedule of events including military members and their families on Memorial Day. If he has to play golf then he should have included some soldiers in his outing.
Not saying he doesn't have a right to play a nice game every once in a while, but it seems like he does it an awful lot. I've played, 18 holes take a long time. He is fiddling while Rome burns.
Posted by: Mare at June 24, 2009 07:46 AM (HUa8I)
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Mare, I really don't care if Obama golfs or not. He's human; he needs diversions. What bugs me is how the prOpaganda machine spins it. When Bush stopped golfing, it was obviously a baaaad thing:
"That's his idea of sacrifice, to give up golf?"(It may not have been "his idea". He may have given up in response to public demands. Perhaps the same public offended by Bush golfing doesn't mind Obama golfing.)
Posted by: Amritas at June 24, 2009 03:56 PM (2eQQr)
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June 19, 2009
NOT THE CHANGE WE COULD BELIEVE IN
Here's another
toldyaso for Bush's breakfast table, this time from
Andrew Sullivan:
We need to start confronting the president at his events. We need civil
disobedience. We need to tell him we do not want another fricking
speech where he tells us he is a fierce advocate for our rights, when
that is quite plainly at this point not true. [...] I worked my ass off to get this man to power.
Now don't get me wrong, I am happy that Democrats are pointing out Obama's flaws. I
did the same with Bush. (Oh, and that link is hilarious: Andrew Sullivan was a different man five years ago.) I encourage Democrats to speak out when their guy is not representing them. I want them to see Pres Obama for who he really is, not some blank slate they project onto.
But I find the "this isn't the change we could believe in" remorse to be amusing.
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They simply weren't paying attention if they are now surprised by what he is doing. Shame on them.
Posted by: tim at June 19, 2009 03:40 PM (nno0f)
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Whenever I see Toldyaso on your blog I think of this episode of Will and Grace where Debbie Reynolds is singing and doing a little dance.
I find it amusing too, but also a little frightening that so much of the country had their collective heads up their rears in the first place.
Posted by: Mare at June 20, 2009 10:48 AM (HUa8I)
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"We need to start confronting the president at his events."
Sullivan should also be saying,
"We need to start asking ourselves, what were we thinking?
Were we thinking?"
I have not read Sullivan in years. This piece makes him sound like a one-issue guy (which he isn't). It embodies identity politics. It's all about my X-ness, and I'm gonna be unhappy until
others affirm
my rights as an X.
But when you hear Democrats criticize Obama, keep in mind that the enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend. Many readers of this site might think Obama goes too far, but some of Obama's Democrat critics think he doesn't go far
enough.
Posted by: Amritas at June 20, 2009 09:05 PM (x4B1D)
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June 17, 2009
TOLDYASO
You know what I really hope is happening? I really hope over breakfast, George Bush points out stories in the paper to Laura and smugly snickers, "Dude, I told you this would happen. I told you once he got in office, he'd start to grok the enormity of the job."
Via CaliValleyGirl:
The Obama administration is declining to release documents that would identify visitors to the White House, embracing a legal position taken by the Bush administration, according to a watchdog group that filed a federal lawsuit over access to the records.
The group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, filed its lawsuit after being denied access to Secret Service records, including White House entry and exit logs, that would identify coal and energy industry visitors.
The government's refusal to release the records contrasts with President Barack Obama's pledge of transparency.
I also got a chuckle out of Roseanne Barr's rant that everyone has gotten snowed by Obama because he's not really doing anything different. And the Bill Maher rant was excellent. Choice bit:
I mean, selling the personal part to stay popular, I'm all for it, but you got us already. We like you, we really like you! You're skinny and in a hurry and in love with a nice lady. But so's Lindsay Lohan. And like Lohan, we see your name in the paper a lot, but we're kind of wondering when you're actually going to do something.
And this:
Obama needs to start putting it on the line in fights against the banks, the energy companies and the healthcare industry. I never thought I'd say this, but he needs to be more like George W. Bush. Bush was all about, "You're with us or against us."
Obama's more like, "You're either with us, or you obviously need to see another picture of this adorable puppy!"
I hope George Bush is enjoying his toldyaso. And listening to the song "Won't Get Fooled Again" often.
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Wow, I never imagined you'd be siding with Roseanne Barr and Bill Maher - at least for a moment! (But I should have figured Barr is a Chomskyan.)
Of course, when Maher says he's wondering when Obama is "actually going to do something", he means he's wondering when Obama is finally going to go all-out Leftist.
I'd rather have Obama Lite than Hardcore Obama.
Posted by: Amritas at June 17, 2009 01:52 PM (x4B1D)
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For the record, I don't mean to say I think you agree 100% with Barr and Maher's rants - just that you agree with their main point that Obama isn't the capital-C Change they were waiting for. And I'm glad he's not!
Posted by: Amritas at June 17, 2009 01:56 PM (/IwHi)
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June 12, 2009
I MUST BE HIGH BECAUSE I DO NOT GET THIS
My brother just told me about some legalization of marijuana stuff that he was commending Pres Obama for. I decided to look it up, and I am more confused than ever.
I used to get so annoyed when people would blame anything bad that happened on Pres Bush. Didn't find the WMDs after giving Saddam months of advance notice that we were invading? Bush's fault. Economic troubles that started under the Clinton administration? Bush's fault. Hurricane hits New Orleans? Bush's fault.
Similarly, I will be quite annoyed if a trend starts where everything good that happens is
attributed to Pres Obama,
even if he opposes it and has nothing to do with it.
After four decades of mindless prohibition and draconian prison sentences for addicts and casual users, the first four months of the Obama era have seen a rapid turn toward rationality.
So far so good in paragraph one. Let's see what Obama has been doing in the realm of weed, because I simply haven't been following it. So then I get to paragraph three:
But while states like California and New York are challenging the fundamentals of prohibition and punishment that have governed America's drug policy since the Nixon era, the Obama administration is largely staying the course. The president, who has blasted the drug war as an "utter failure," has nonetheless delegated oversight of drug policy to one of the chief architects of that failure: Vice President Joe Biden, who coined the term "drug czar" and steered the passage of the nation's harsh drug sentences as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Far from scaling back funding for drug interdiction and law enforcement, the administration's 2010 budget increases the levels established under George W. Bush. And despite the growing bipartisan discussion among state leaders about decriminalizing marijuana, Kerlikowske tells Rolling Stone that legalization is not up for debate "under any circumstances." [emphasis mine]
So, pray tell, why does "the Obama era" get the credit for any of this? Obama doesn't seem to have done squat; the rest of the article gives most of the credit to Schwarzenegger and Webb.
Political pressure to end the War on Drugs is building in surprising quarters. In recent months, three distinct rationales have converged to convince a growing number of politicians — including many on the center-right — to seriously consider the benefits of legalizing marijuana.
Huh? Center-right Republicans are becoming more open to the idea of legalization, and somehow
Obama gets all the credit in the opening paragraph?
And then there's this:
366-day sentence for pot dispensary ownerI
have followed that story, and that man should not be in jail, period. Get your federal laws off him; this should be a states issue. But let's see what credit Obama gets here:
A federal judge sentenced the owner of a Central California medical marijuana dispensary to a year and a day in prison Thursday, spurning the Obama administration's push to give the defendant five years imprisonment in a test case of new federal policies toward state pot laws. [emphasis again mine]
Oh wait, the Obama administration pushed for a
longer sentence. All hail the Obama era!
Obama hasn't done anything to help legalize marijuana or let people off who were clearly in the right under state laws.
Rolling Stone needs to stop attributing anything to "the Obama era." And to think that McCain was called McSame during the campaign...
Wouldn't it be awesome if the
intrastate commerce clause folks who are working on
gun rights in Montana teamed up with the
intrastate medicinal marijuana folks in California and turned the 10th Amendment inside out? Guns and weed, teaming up together for Change We Can Believe In!
****
For the record, I don't smoke pot, have never smoked pot, and am about the biggest anti-pot person you can meet, for the reasons
South Park lays out:
Well, Stan, the truth is marijuana probably isn't gonna make you kill people, and it most likely isn't gonna fund terrorism, but...well son, pot makes you feel fine with being bored and it's when you're bored that you should be learning some new skill or discovering some new science or being creative. If you smoke pot you may grow up to find out that you aren't good at anything.
But just because I think it's lame doesn't mean I think it should be illegal.
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That last line is classic! Perhaps all that is lame should be legal, but anything that endangers the rights of others should be illegal.
The blame-Bush bless-Barack pattern may be a throwback to our caveman days, when government was simpler, when it was just the tribal chief. One guy. Easy to understand. Our institutions have grown faster than our ability to comprehend them. So if we hate the man who personifies the government, everything is his fault. And if we love him, he gets the credit.
This isn't just a problem with perceiving government. Look at how Bill Gates is equated with Microsoft. Or Steve Jobs with Apple.
Why do ads feature celebrities? Why do informercials have hosts, even ones you never heard of? Because we are a social species. We want faces associated with our products, our organizations, everything.
But behind the One Face representing a government or business is a complex network of faceless people behind the scenes. We can't see what's going on, we may not even be able to understand it, so we credit it all to the One Face.
The power-hungry want that face to be theirs. They want to be the focus of a cult of personality. For them, "it's all about meeee!" But it never is.
Posted by: Amritas at June 15, 2009 01:45 AM (b3Ptv)
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Example of lame and legal: Phil Collins (at least in your opinion, Sarah!).
We're not just a social species. We're a storytelling species. We want life to make sense (and it does - just not in a way we can understand or accept). We attempt to shove it into simplistic narratives with heroes and villains who can save or destroy the world with their actions. Bush and Obama fit the bill for these nonexistent superbeings.
Real life doesn't work like those stories. The spotlight is not perpetually on the protagonist. Key events occur off-camera. They seem to be Black Swans to us only because we focus too much on our favorite central plotlines. We try to fit those twists and turns into our predetermined storylines, but we're only fooling ourselves.
Posted by: Amritas at June 15, 2009 04:59 AM (usSRx)
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June 02, 2009
ZERO CHANCE
I have a friend who voted for McCain and loved Palin...but who now is thrilled with Obama and would vote for him in 2012. And this friend wants me to be open-minded about considering voting for him too.
I'd love to dismiss this as the passing fancy of a politically unserious person, but I just can't seem to stop thinking about it. Every time I am confronted with
the badness of Pres Obama, I have this urge to point it out to my friend as one more reason why things are far worse than I can stomach. Such as this graph from
Cass' post:
I can't seem to let it go that this friend doesn't see the badness of Obama. CaliValleyGirl pointed out to me that now she understands how people felt about Pres Bush. How it feels to think your president is a buffoon who has no idea what he's gotten himself into.
In contrast to the Bush haters though, I don't think Pres Obama is evil. I just think he wants to live in a USA that looks nothing like the USA I want to live in. But he has the power now to get his way and I don't. I feel impotent as so many enormous changes are altering my country forever. I am aghast, and I am even more aghast that there are people who are
not aghast.
And as much as I feel like bombarding my friend with email after email of all the horrifying things Pres Obama is doing, I don't. As Lawrence Auster
said, "the badness of what Obama is doing, and the amount of it, and
the complexity of it, is overwhelming and I frankly find it hard to
take it in and form a view of it."
All I can do is politely tell my friend that, no, there is zero chance of me voting for Obama in 2012.
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If the Pravda article doesn't give pause to think on the way he is taking the country, nothing will. I sent it to my liberal son and his wife. I've heard from them but that hasn't been mentioned. I sent it on Memorial Day.
Posted by: Ruth H at June 02, 2009 11:13 AM (Y4oAO)
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Ruth -- I was going to link to
the Pravda article here but didn't really find a place where it flowed. You're right: if flippin' PRAVDA can see what a mess we're in, then geez...
Posted by: Sarah at June 02, 2009 12:18 PM (TWet1)
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May 23, 2009
HAHA
I wish I had made that caption up, but it actually came with the article
Sobbing Kindergarteners Snubbed for Steelers?.
I got a screenshot because I thought it was too funny to be true.
Keep it up, Obama. Keep making the people who voted for you mad.
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Well come on he had bigger and better things to deal with then allowing small children a window to our democracy. He had a jersey to receive.
What a putz.
Posted by: the mrs. at May 23, 2009 02:44 PM (NJQf+)
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Speaking of a LOLCAT moment - that is hilarious!
Posted by: Darla at May 23, 2009 08:38 PM (LP4DK)
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While I find this story hilarious, I have to agree with TSO at This Ain't Hell about it: you just don't show up to the White House late.
You just don't.
Remember how early we left to make sure we got there in time? And then we had to wait at the gate for an hour or more.
Unfortunately, the President's day doesn't allow for late kids. HE can be late. And it's easier for him to be on time because he has his own helicopter and traffic has to stop for his motorcade. Plus he has a wicked awesome airplane.
But you just can't be late if you're visiting the White House.
Posted by: airforcewife at May 24, 2009 08:38 AM (NqbuI)
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AFW -- I agree that late is late and don't really care about that aspect of the story. I just love that hoopleheads are mad at Obama over this, like the quote about how he should be for the middle class but instead chose millionaires over the kids. It's 100% schadenfreude for me here.
Posted by: Sarah at May 25, 2009 11:29 AM (TWet1)
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Hoopleheads is the best word ever. I love it. I had to google it to see exactly what it meant, but even before I did that it described everything perfectly.
Best word. Totally.
Also, apparently I wasn't paying close enough attention when I watched Deadwood.
Posted by: airforcewife at May 25, 2009 09:37 PM (NqbuI)
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May 19, 2009
WHY DOES HE GET TO MEET NETANYAHU?
Yesterday, presented Rachel Lucas style:
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I love this! When I had a medical test recently, the film came back with 'area of concern' marked on it and I immediately thought of Rachel Lucas. She has left her mark on us all.
And of course we all love Bibi too! I hope HE left his mark on Obama!
Posted by: Amy at May 19, 2009 09:37 PM (9fDOS)
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Actually, they both look pretty goofy in that picture...
Funny thing, the unexpected happened in that meeting: nothing in particular.
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at May 19, 2009 11:03 PM (uOgRs)
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May 16, 2009
INTERESTING
An interesting tidbit on Pres Obama from an
old Christopher Hitchens article:
[David Freddoso's book] has the fairly easy task of showing that Obama comes from a far more “left†milieu than any Democratic nominee
before him. I believe I could prove this by my own unaided efforts:
when Newsweek’s Jon Meacham asked both presidential candidates
for a sample of their reading matter, he got back a fairly strong list
from each. Obama gave John Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle where someone else might have been content to put The Grapes of Wrath.
Whereas the latter is about suffering and stoicism, the former is about
how the field hands finally rebel, and how the “organizer†helps them
to do so.
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In Dubious Battle is one of my favorite books too but either Hitchens never read the book or wanted so badly to illustrate a point as to grasp at straws. "The Party" in the book is only mentioned with dark shady language that implies some type of unseen evil. The organizers work in the shadows. Basically, Steinbeck presents the laborers as being equally explotied by the Land Owners (capitalist), that are more interested in profit than people, and the "Party" (communist), which are more concerned with the movement than the people. While I realize 10 different people can read a book and each see something different, how anyone could walk away thinking that Steinbeck's view was anything other than populist must be...well, Christopher Hitchens...
Posted by: David at May 18, 2009 07:11 PM (MF7i+)
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April 16, 2009
NO, I WAS NOT A DEADHEAD
For the readers who went to my high school: How many Deadheads did we have at our school? I swear, most days it looked like students were cutting class to follow Phish. I can think of at least three cars that had Grateful Dead-themed license plates, and many more that had dancing bears on them.
And when I wrote my graduation speech and made the joke about Deadheads, our principal read it and said, "Whaaat? The Grateful Dead is popular?" I remember immediately thinking that she was far too out of touch to be a good principal. One walk through our hallways or parking lot would've knocked her over with tie-dye and patchouli, but she was oblivious to a huge trend among her students.
I was reminded of this today when I heard ABC's statement that "The White House says the president is unaware of the tea parties and will hold his own event today."
Wow, seriously? He didn't even know that thousands of citizens were protesting yesterday? Not he didn't care or he didn't think it was significant (guh, neither OK in my book), but he didn't know?
Out of touch, dude. Out of touch.
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Oh I'm sure he knows all about it. Just the same spin as when they tried to convnce us that Bush wasn't concerned about his approval rating. To be fair, the Bush administration didn't seem to care too much about statements of dissent.
Granted, I thought Obama was going to be the type of guy to address this type of thing head-on. So that's pretty dissappointing.
And for the record, I do remember the dead being way popular in our school. Granted, that's also when pot-smoking got way popular too...if only I could draw a connection between the 2...
Posted by: Sarah's Pinko Commie Friend at April 16, 2009 01:59 PM (aKpbG)
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I'm still marveling at how a handful (or even one or two) pink-shirted screamers garnered a spot on every evening news program on regular and cable TV--and these people were taken seriously & treated with deference, but thousands of people turning out in droves, peaceably assembling for a specific purpose were 1) not covered or, if they were, 2) they were treated with disdain and oral sex references. Bravo to those who, had I not been paying better attention, would have had me doing a song and dance for my 10-year-old rather than explaining to her what teabagging is. SUPER thoughtful and mature.
Posted by: Guard Wife at April 16, 2009 02:05 PM (Bfea2)
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Excerpted from Alinsky's rules for radicals. Sound familiar?
RULE 5: "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." There is no defense. It's irrational. It's infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. (Pretty crude, rude and mean, huh? They want to create anger and fear.)
RULE 6: "A good tactic is one your people enjoy." They'll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They're doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones. (Radical activists, in this sense, are no different that any other human being. We all avoid "un-fun" activities, and but we revel at and enjoy the ones that work and bring results.)
RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)
But no, the 4th estate/5th column isn't biased.
What we should do as a movement is close ranks. No media interviews, no punditry, no debates. Make grassroots just that, and go old-school. Door to door, word of mouth, etc. As you DH will attest, the movement has to control the message, and therefore the media.
Then, we protest the media in ways that will force them to respond (like swarming their offices and shutting them down) and still control the message, ensuring all protesters refuse comment, deferring only to the pointed spokespersons, who must be out most well educated, normal-looking, no-skeletons-in-the-closet, and charismatic people. (I nominate you, Sarah.)
Even more fun, go after the advertisers. Protest their support of an elitist, biased media that invents news and produces piss-yellow journalism. Force them to pull ads from news programs, news papers, and even the news networks.
How about an Oprah's book club burning? That'd make the news right?
Yes, but in a very bad way.
Any journalist who uses "teabaggers" is immediately banned from interviews. Even if that interview has NOTHING to do with the tea party movement. They should receive a standardized answer that you refuse to speak with them, personally, because of their bias on other issues. Cite examples, if you like, but don't enter into discussions with them about it.
And to make it even more intriguing, use tactics practiced by the Falun Gong. Those people scare the crap out of the Chinese gummint.
Most important, we have to figure out how to identify and discourage the crazies.
--Chuck
Posted by: Chuck at April 17, 2009 04:34 AM (bQVIy)
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Hah! Dead Heads at RHS. Uh, what a great story and accurate recap.
Yeah, I remember the stink eye I would give all the dead heads. And then I end up marrying one! Isn't that freakin' karma. This summer - 1 Dead concert and 1 Phish concerts. I think God is LHFAO at my expense.
But at least I'm a good sport about it.
Posted by: BigD78 at April 20, 2009 05:15 PM (g3z97)
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March 23, 2009
YOU THINK OBAMA IS HIDING IN A CLOSET AND CRYING À LA ELLIOT FROM SCRUBS YET?
And the hits just keep
coming.
President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela called President Obama “ignorant” on Sunday, saying he has a lot to learn about Latin America.
[...]
Mr. Chávez said: “If Obama respects us, we’ll respect him. If Obama tries to keep disrespecting Venezuela, we will confront the North American empire.”
Bwahaha. But I thought the whole world would love us and sing kumbaya once Obama was elected? I thought Obama was a "citizen of the world" who chided us all for not speaking French (even though he can't) and never met a dictator he couldn't sit down and negotiate with?
You mean to tell me that actually Obama doesn't even know that there are different formats for movies throughout the world (something I learned in French class in high school; maybe if he'd taken French, he would've learned it too) and that he can't magically make dictators love us just by kissing their butts?
And his mere fact of existence doesn't change the world into a Garden of Eden?
Say it isn't so.
(Link via David B.)
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March 21, 2009
IT'S HARD TO BOWL WITH YOUR FOOT IN YOUR MOUTH
When I was in grad school, I volunteered as a scorekeeper for the school's wheelchair basketball team. One of the players was my classmate and friend, and he took me to a practice one day, got me a chair, and taught me the basics.
Wheelchair basketball is really hard.
You try dribbling a ball while pushing a wheelchair with both hands. And while other wheelchairs are crashing into you trying to steal the ball. And then shoot a basket from a seated position, with just your arm strength.
I thought about that when I heard Obama belittled the Special Olympics. Sporting events for people with disabilities is no joke. They are not "sports for people who are bad at sports." Guard Wife is right that disabled bowlers would score way higher than Obama did.
The best quote on this issue came from The Anchoress: "And now, I guess I understand what all the folks on the left used to feel when they claimed the president 'embarrassed' them."
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March 17, 2009
SMOOTH MOVE, OBAMA
I am alive, in case you were wondering. I just don't have anything good to say. Rachel Lucas, on the other hand,
lays into Obama for suggesting that our wounded warriors be covered by private insurance instead of the VA. The "blow" line was a nice touch.
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March 12, 2009
COVERING FOR OBAMA
Here's another example of someone covering for Obama. She worked with him when he was president of the Harvard Law Review, but didn't say anything while he was running for president because she "thought maybe it wasn't fair." But now that he's elected and a disaster, she's on record saying that he's
always been this way:
[W]hen he was at the HLR you did get a very distinct sense that he was the kind of guy who much more interested in being the president of the Review, than he was in doing anything as president of the Review.
A lot of the time he quote/unquote "worked from home", which was sort of a shorthand - and people would say it sort of wryly - shorthand for not really doing much. He just wasn't around. Most of the day to day work was carried out by the managing editor of the Review, my predecessor, a great guy called Tom Pirelli whose actually going to be one of the assistant attorney generals now.
He's the one who did most of the day to day work. Barack Obama was nowhere to be seen. Occasionally he would drop in he would talk to people, and then he'd leave again as though his very arrival had been a benediction in and of itself, but not very much got done.
We're boned. We are so boned.
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March 11, 2009
UNILATERALIST
A quote from
the State Department:
The official dismissed any notion of the special relationship, saying: "There's nothing special about Britain. You're just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn't expect special treatment."
That arrogant, cowboy, unilateralist administration! Don't they care about our allies? Don't they care about diplomacy?
Oh wait, it wasn't Bush?
Bah, forget it then.
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