Obamacare is one-size fits all medical coercion

This Wall St. Journal piece examines some of the thinking behind how Obamacare will be run.  Scary.

Anyhow, their big idea is the very old idea of price controls that are "binding on all payers and providers," much as post-RomneyCare Massachusetts is already doing. When that strategy fails as it always has, and the public denies further tax increases, the Orszag payment board will then start to ration or prohibit access to medical resources that it decides aren't worth the expense.
These political choices will be unpopular and even deadly, which is why Mr. Orszag worked so hard to insulate his payment board from oversight or accountability. Congress can only reject the board's decisions if it substitutes something else that reduces costs by as much. More amazing still, only a minority of the board can be "directly involved" in the provision of health care.

This latter provision is supposed to prevent the alleged conflicts of interest that come from knowing something about how health care is provided in the real world. What it reveals instead is that this board isn't about medical quality at all. It is purely a balance-sheet exercise to make sure that the Orszag-Obama agenda of top-down health care can't be undone by something as crude as democratic consent.
And they claim that Paul Ryan's proposal is "radical"?

***
What the debate over Mr. Ryan's reform is revealing is that the real health-care choice, and the real choice this November, is about the role of government. The Orszags of the world ultimately have what President Obama would call an "ideological" preference for coercion over individual choice. They want to impose the unilateral decisions of the state over those of millions of Americans.

Ouch! Carl Anderson on the Party of Death

He didn't call it that, but my goodness, what a column over at The Corner, where he predicts Americans will remember that Obama lost the presidency because of his extremist stand on abortion.  Here's an excerpt, with my emphases:

Come November, those entering voting booths from coast to coast are unlikely to be concerned by the poorly worded comments of a Senate candidate in Missouri. What they are likely to remember is that the president has embraced the most radical abortion position possible — one out of step with nearly nine in ten Americans.

The strident, pro-abortion face of the Democratic party that the nation will see during its upcoming convention also will underscore why it is that a real accommodation with the Catholic Church on the unpopular HHS mandate has not been reached and why one will be unlikely in the future.

Four years ago, candidate Obama was able to build a winning coalition that included Catholics and Evangelicals because he toned down the abortion rhetoric. Despite his own extreme voting record on the subject, he and his surrogates succeeded in muting his abortion stance in reaching out to Catholic and Evangelical voters.

He reached out to people like Pastor Rick Warren, who later said the prayer at the president’s inauguration. Now Reverend Warren says he will go to jail rather than comply with the HHS mandate.

He can hardly be alone in his disillusionment.

What must those voters who believed the president’s rhetoric in the last election think now? And what will they think in November?

It is clear that the president’s winning coalition of 2008 is fractured, and it is unlikely to be resurrected by appealing to 12 percent of the population. The Obama-Biden campaign’s new abortion strategy admits that the coalition is gone as far as many Catholics are concerned.
No president has won in recent years without a majority of the Catholic vote — a group that makes up a quarter of our country’s electorate. As of this week, many Catholics may be thinking that we have a president who has now firmly declared himself against life and liberty, while many voters already blamed him for the economic damper on their pursuit of happiness.
When the history of this election is written, it may well be that the decisions his campaign made this week, were decisive — in losing his reelection.
— Carl Anderson is CEO of the Knights of Columbus and the author, most recently, of Beyond a House Divided.

Why do Republicans keep doing this to themselves?

Todd Akin. Todd Akin.  Rape comments. Blah Blah. He should resign.  Where do I see most commentary about Todd Akin?  On conservative blogs that say he should step aside or Republicans will lose their chance of gaining control of the Senate.   The Corner at National Review, I mean you!

At first I was thinking, yeah, the guy should resign.  But then I saw this article by Jack Cashill, and it made me wonder why Republicans always shoot their own side when Democrats act up, instead of going on the offensive.  Perhaps there are some strategic reasons why Republicans might not want to attack Bill Clinton, who might be their secret weapon of Obama destruction in the 2012 presidential race, and he remains popular.  However the left remains silent about real rape, real sexual abuse and a real misogynist war on women coming from its quarters but pounces on any Republican gaffe as if Akin was responsible for actual rape instead of failing to see that "rape is rape,"  Whoopie Goldberg notwithstanding.  As Sherman Frederick writes:

But before we leave this Republican's step into the Twilight Zone of American politics, let's re-visit a similar comment from a Democrat.
Commenting on the movie-director Roman Polanski, "The View" commentator Whoopi Goldberg defended Polanski's rape of a minor.
She said: "I know it wasn't rape-rape. It was something else but I don't believe it was rape-rape. He went to jail and when they let him out he was like 'You know what this guy's going to give me a hundred years in jail I'm not staying, so that's why he left.'"
Whoopi also said, "Would I want my 14-year-old daughter having sex? Not necessarily."
Not necessarily? What kind of mom answer "not necessarily" to that question?

Here's Cashill:

As far as I know, Bill Clinton, unlike U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin, has never misspoken on the subject of rape. In fact, he is somewhat of an authority on the subject.
Clinton knows just what a woman who has been raped should do. As he told Juanita Broaddrick in that Little Rock hotel room some years back, “You better get some ice on that.”

Broaddrick was not alone in being sexually abused by Clinton. Indeed, in the Ken Starr investigation, Broaddrick emerged as “Jane Doe No. 5.”

Broaddrick was likely not unique in being raped by Clinton either. In his book, “Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter’s Story,” Michael Isikoff relates how Clinton, then Arkansas governor, had sex with former Miss America Elizabeth Ward Gracen.

“It was rough sex,” Isikoff writes, “Clinton got so carried away that he bit her lip, Gracen later told friends. But it was consensual.”

Isikoff missed the lip-biting connection. He also failed to acknowledge that at least one of Gracen’s friends, Judy Stokes, had told the Paula Jones legal team that the sex was not consensual at all.

Arrrrgggghhh!   Republicans, take your cue from from the Obama eats dog meme that finally pushed back against the weeks of Democrat attacks on Romney's carrying the family dog in a crate atop their car. 

Stop the friendly fire.  Stop letting stuff like this be the agenda for news cycle upon news cycle.  It's deeper than the economy, stupid!  It's character, stupid.  Without virtue and character the economy and government are sunk.

Sadly, it may be too late to walk this one back but if Akin remains the candidate then Republicans should ensure he wins anyway, despite being tone deaf to those undecided voters everyone is tiptoeing around to attract. 


UPDATE:  and while we're at it, how about instead of going on the defensive when a pro-life position that respects the humanity the unborn child from conception is attacked when rape and incest are used as the weapons, how about pointing out President Obama's abortion extremism.  He not only supports partial birth abortion, he voted to allow the infanticide of infants born alive as the result of a botched abortion.  How's them apples?  Talk about extreme.    

New film about Obama advertised on Drudge

At the top of the popular Drudge Report there's an ad for a new documentary about Obama entitled Dreams of My Real Father that makes the case that his real father was not the Kenyan Obama but a Marxist named Frank Marshall Davis.  The birthers are apparently quite upset. And the director has complained about receiving no mainstream news coverage at all.

Well, I would like to see this film.   If Michael Moore can make polemical films about George W. Bush, why not this?



Here's part of a Q&A with the director Joel Gilbert from the film's website, with my emphases, indicating I had noticed this too, or read about these things from other sources that I consider reliable:

How did you come to investigate President Obama's life history?

I have a background in Middle East and Islamic studies and in 2010 wrote and directed a film called Atomic Jihad: Ahmadinejad's Coming War and Obama's Politics of Defeat. While reviewing video of over 200 Obama speeches for that film, I noticed an odd pattern. When speaking of issues relating to the rich and the poor, Obama became very excited, speaking rapidly and louder, always in a higher pitch. On other subjects, he was quite calm. Why would Obama have an inner passion for class struggle? From my knowledge of his background, exclusive prep school, Ivy Leagues, Harvard Law - it didn't seem to fit. I then read his autobiography, Dreams from My Father, and noticed numerous references to Obama seeking out Marxist professors and friends, emulating Malcolm X, attending socialist conferences, and organizing. It was a life journey in socialism! Plus, of his visits to Communist Frank Marshall Davis' house with his grandfather, Obama wrote, "it was as if I were witnessing some complicated, unspoken transaction between the two men."

I decided to investigate Frank Marshall Davis. His close physical resemblance to Obama was shocking, while Obama little resembled the Kenyan Obama. How could this be? Next, I unearthed two film archives of Frank Marshall Davis, one from 1973, the other from 1987, as well as Davis' photo collection. I then acquired 500 copies of the Honolulu Record, the Communist run newspaper where Davis wrote a weekly political column for eight years. I also obtained seven indecent photos of Ann Dunham, Obama's mother, taken at Frank Marshall Davis' house, suggesting an intimate connection between Dunham and Davis. I concluded that to understand Obama’s plans for America, the question was "Who is the real father?"

How does your "Dreams" film compare to Obama's autobiography?

My "Dreams" provides the first cohesive understanding of Obama's deep rooted life journey in socialism. It includes Obama's indoctrination in Marxism by Frank Marshall Davis, his college years, his job as "organizer," his involvement with Project Vote and the subprime mortgage crisis, the Ayers family, Alinsky and Reverend Wright, all the way to his campaigns and Presidency. Dreams from My Real Father is an alternate theory to Barack Obama's autobiography. The film narrative is based on both new and existing factual pillars, then presents reasoned logic, re-creations of probable events, and speculation for a complete story. Some dialogue is taken directly from Davis and Obama's writings, while some is approximated to bridge known facts. Viewers must judge the story for themselves. I believe they will agree that my "Dreams" is closer to reality than Obama's account, which more resembles a fairy tale.

What new revelations are in Dreams from My Real Father?

First, I make the case that Barack Obama's real father was Communist Frank Marshall Davis. Next, the relationship between Davis and Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, is illustrated with seven indecent photographs of Dunham, some including other women, taken at Frank Marshall Davis' house in Honolulu. I was not happy to include these racy photos in the film, but found it necessary to substantiate the intimate relationship between them. Those photos ended up in a men's mail order catalog of nude women, likely sold to them by Davis. I placed black bars on parts of the photos to be respectful.

I love it when Mark Steyn links to my blog

I had an unexplained massive upsurge in traffic to my blog the past few days.  And, it is thanks to Mark Steyn writing over at The Corner.

A few months ago, on the Hugh Hewitt show, I was asked to respond to President Obama’s remarks to the National Prayer Breakfast, at which he said that he believed in “living by the principle that we are our brother’s keeper.” And I reprised a bit from my book, After America (out next month in paperback!):

In a TV infomercial a few days before his election, Obama declared that his “fundamental belief” was that “I am my brother’s keeper”.

Hmm. Back in Kenya, his brother lives in a shack on 12 bucks a year. If Barack is his brother’s keeper, why can’t he shove a sawbuck and a couple singles in an envelope and double the guy’s income? Ah, well: When Barack Obama claims that “I am my brother’s keeper”, what he means is that the government should be his brother’s keeper.

Dinesh D’Souza met Barack’s brother, George Obama, earlier this year for his new documentary. A couple of days ago he got a call from him:

He was a bit flustered, and soon informed me that his young son was sick with a chest condition.  He pleaded with me to send him $1,000 to cover the medical bills.  Since George was at the hospital I asked him to let me speak to a nurse, and she confirmed that George’s son was indeed ill.  So I agreed to send George the money through Western Union.  He was profusely grateful.  But before I hung up I asked George, “Why are you coming to me?”  He said, “I have no one else to ask.”  Then he said something that astounded me, “Dinesh, you are like a brother to me.”

In fact, as D’Souza points out, George’s actual brother is “a multimillionaire and the most powerful man in the world” who talks repeatedly about our obligation to be our brother’s keeper:

Yet he has not contributed a penny to help his own brother. And evidently George does not believe, even in times of emergency, that he can turn to his brother in the White House for help.
So much for spreading the wealth around.

Go on over and read the rest and see if you can spot the link that sent thousands over here to my humble little blog.  Thanks, Mark!  

Charter of Secularism proposed for Quebec violates religious freedom says expert

From my story published today in the Catholic Register  

OTTAWA - A religious freedom expert warns the Parti Quebecois leader's proposed Charter of Secularism should the PQ win Quebec's provincial election Sept. 4 would violate the Charter and push many religious believers out of public service.

"Religions in Quebec have rights and one of these rights is not to be forced out of the public sphere by the beliefs of atheism and agnosticism dominating the public," said Iain Benson, a constitutional lawyer and international religious freedom expert.

Benson said he was "startled" by PQ Leader Pauline Marois' proposed Charter of Secularism that would prohibit government employees from wearing religious symbols such as hijabs, kirpans (ceremonial daggers required by baptized Sikhs), turbans and kippahs (or yarmulke, the skullcap worn by Jewish men). It would allow the wearing of an unobtrusive crucifix. Marois' Charter later clarified the crucifix in the National Assembly could also remain because it is part of Quebec's heritage, explaining moves towards ensuring state neutrality do not mean Quebeckers have to deny who they are.

"It would mean that only those who do not have an orthodox traditional view of their religious tradition could work in a public sphere setting while maintaining their beliefs about religious garb and that doesn't seem fair," Benson said. "We just need to get over the secularist prejudice that only religious people believe things. Everyone is a believer and not wearing religious symbols is an indication what one does not believe as much as wearing them indicates what one does."

Marois is not alone in her support for the crucifix or other Christian symbols as a nod to Quebec's past. Other leaders also chimed in to support it, including Liberal Leader and Premier Jean Charest.

******

More at the link above

Home alone in the White House?

Niall Ferguson on why Obama has got to go.  This is a terrifying paragraph:


According to Ron Suskind’s book Confidence Men, Summers told Orszag over dinner in May 2009: “You know, Peter, we’re really home alone ... I mean it. We’re home alone. There’s no adult in charge. Clinton would never have made these mistakes [of indecisiveness on key economic issues].” On issue after issue, according to Suskind, Summers overruled the president. “You can’t just march in and make that argument and then have him make a decision,” Summers told Orszag, “because he doesn’t know what he’s deciding.” (I have heard similar things said off the record by key participants in the president’s interminable “seminar” on Afghanistan policy.)