Views on the News
August 1, 2009
Views
on the News*
Obama has accelerated
his agenda in the first six months of office, and may have turned himself into
a lame duck with his over-reaching hubris and leftist power grab. The
Obama administration has used a new tactic (known as the Cloward-Piven
strategy), one that has raised the level of concern and the need for action by elevating
every issue into a crisis. Since most
Americans are happy with their current health care, there is no reason to label
it a crisis. The technique postulates
that if a problem is regarded as a crisis, the government must act immediately.
Although there may be tactical value in
claiming a crisis instead of a problem, there is a dangerous side to this
approach. Overuse
of this pseudo-crisis technique is causing Obama to lose his credibility. This tactic is like crying wolf every
time an issue emerges. The question
arises that even if there were a crisis, why would you believe this president? If, God forbid, a national crisis does emerge
that requires mobilizing public support, a significant part of the population
will say: “Not again. This is simply another rhetorical exercise.” Hubris made him reach for too much, too soon;
brazenly overpromise about the effects of his programs; overestimate his
control of events; think the golden touch of his brilliant team could solve
intractable problems; and believe his words could trump reality. The real question is how well Obama is doing as
a result of his frantic efforts:
·
The
2008 deficit under Bush, the largest in history at the time: $459
Billion. CBO's estimate of Obama's 2009 deficit: $1,845
Billion.
·
The
total cumulative deficit in Bush's first seven years (2001-2007): $1.5
trillion. CBO's estimate of Obama's first seven deficits (2009-2015): $7.1 trillion.
·
Average
federal debt held by the public from 1980 through 2000: 40.1% of GDP. In
2008: 40.8%. Predicted for 2012: 70.1%.
·
Average
gross federal debt from 1980 through 2000: 56.3% of GDP. In 2008: 70.2%.
Predicted for 2012: 100.6%.
·
CBO's
predicted cumulative 2010-2019 deficit under laws prior to Obama's
budget: $4.4 trillion. Under Obama's budget: $9.3 trillion.
·
CBO's
estimate of federal deficit increase over the next 10 years if Obama's
"Affordable Health Choices Act" is enacted: $1.5 trillion. Net gain in number of people
covered by health insurance if enacted: 16 million (of the estimated 49 million
without insurance today).
·
Obama's
January 2009 prediction of peak unemployment if his stimulus is not
passed: 9%. If it is passed:
8%. Actual unemployment rate, with stimulus passed, in June, 2009:
9.5%. Obama's June 2009 prediction of unemployment later in 2009: 10%.
·
Non-farm
payrolls (total employees) in December 2008: 135,074,000. In June 2009:
131,692,000. Six month job loss (difference): 3.4 million.
·
The
number of pages stimulus package: 1,071.
Number of pages in Obama's health care plan: 1,018.
Number of pages in the "cap and
trade" legislation: 1,500. Number
of pages in the US Constitution: about eight.
Number of these pages read by the average US Congressperson: few, if any.
·
Adding insult to injury, Democrat Congressman John Conyers Jr.
disparaged lawmakers for even pretending to read the laws they pass, since
there is not enough time or knowledge to read and understand these 1,000+ page
bills.
President
Obama's performance approval rating has fallen below 50 percent among likely
voters, according to the Rasmussen Reports. The Rasmussen Reports showed that 40% strongly disapprove of
President Obama's performance versus 28% who strongly
approve, for a net rating of negative 12%. Voters are also beginning to reassess the
President's ideological coloring as politically liberal by 76%. The new USA
Today/Gallup poll shows that 59% of Americans say President Obama's
proposals to address the major problems facing the country call for too much
spending and 52% say Obama's proposals call
for too much expansion of government power.
On a personal front
Barack Obama revealed himself as the Reverend Wright trained black racialist by
jumping to conclusions on the Professor Gates arrest based on prejudicial stereotypes
and then injecting his opinion “stupidly”
into this local issue. By the way I
believe Barack Obama was born somewhere in Hawaii, but remain mystified why
Obama continues to hide all personal records from his youth from public
scrutiny? Barack Obama may very
well be the Second Coming of J.C. (unfortunately in Obama’s case J.C. is Jimmy Carter)
and personal trust may be his first casualty!
The President keeps returning to the same communications tactics
over and over, and all the pages of his PR playbook have one thing in common: a
big dose of Obama. As Obama’s once-lofty approval ratings
dip and voters express skepticism over his plans for health care and the
economy, the longevity of the White House’s go-to techniques is being put to
the test. One challenge for Obama’s team
in coming weeks: not overusing the president.
There are diminishing returns if you see the president too much. ... Part
of this is just because he’s fascinating and popular right now. Inevitably,
they’re going to hit some potholes, and they’re going to have to adjust their
strategy. Here’s a peek inside the Obama
PR playbook and the reasons why the White House keeps rinsing and repeating the
same tactics:
·
Town-hall-style
meeting – evolved into a stage managed
infomercial with preselected participants and prepared questions.
· Major address – word tested and lengthy preaching heavy on detail and delivered by the
glib “teleprompter-in-chief.”
· Prime-time news conference – another version of the town hall with preselected
reporters to ask questions and preselected topics, but losing ratings
· Interviews - Obama has given more interviews than
any recent president at this point in his term, since regional and foreign news
media tend to be softer interviews and give better play than members of the
White House press corps.
· The personal note - Obama usually infuses some type of
pop culture element into his communications smorgasbord.
The
White House believes its "all in" approach of high-visibility
speeches, media appearances, and town hall meetings is the way to overcome the
health care's shortcomings, instead it is accelerating health care reform’s
dropping popularity. Obama and his
advisers suffer from a fatal political conceit. They believe the power of his personality, the
popularity of his brand, or the strength of his rhetoric, can out-muscle public
opinion and separation of powers. This
miscalculation has not yet killed health care reform, but certainly has slowed
things down. Carol E. Lee
is asserting that as Obama’s credibility is sinking so over-exposure can only
accelerate this erosion.
Despite Obama’s best efforts to prolong the recession with doom
and gloom hysteria, the economy appears to have bottomed out and slow growth is
expected for the remainder of the year. There are intermittent signs that the
recession may be near an end, though darkened by forecasts that the economy
will likely take much longer than expected to achieve a full recovery. Companies that a few months ago were too
fearful even to project their future earnings are now seeing glimmers of hope
in the year ahead. The rate of home
sales has risen for three straight months. The number of people drawing unemployment
insurance benefits has fallen back to April levels, having receded for the
third straight week. Sales of existing
homes rose 3.6% in June, the National Association of Realtors reported on
Thursday, to an annual rate of 4.9 million homes sold. While that level is very low by historical
standards, it is the third straight month of increase -- a sign that housing
may no longer be a net drain on economic growth. Similarly, the job market remains in terrible
shape, but the pace of layoffs appears to be abating, but is still expected to
hit 10% by yearend and remain around 9% through 2010. We're getting more accumulation of evidence
that various sectors are stabilizing. The Conference Board Index of Leading Economic Indicators
for the U.S. increased for the third consecutive month in June. All those recent signals sent the
stock market surging as investors sensed that the worst of this recession is
behind us. Recoveries have to start
somewhere, and the preliminary signs of modest improvement in some sectors
suggest we're nearing the bottom of this recession. The economy is starting to come back led by
the Gross Domestic Product predicted to be flat or a little positive in the
third quarter, and pick up a little momentum in the fourth quarter and next
year. Predictably, President Obama was
taking credit for any improvements, saying they showed that his
administration's policies were working, but there is no evidence that his
snail's-pace public-works plan has created many jobs that made any real dent in
the recession. Obama's stimulus plan
(most of which won't be spent until next year) and the minuscule middle-class
tax credits have had little, if any, substantive effect on the economy. As expected this
recession is ending naturally and did not require any government stimulus to
recover, but the excessive stimulus spending yet to come may still undermine
this recovery.
The Waxman-Markey bill,
one of the oddest and most far-reaching pieces of legislation advocated by the
new administration, is unwanted, ineffective, and unaffordable. It
passed the House a few weeks ago by a 219-212 vote with 28 of the 50 state
delegations voting no, and one quarter of the 219 majority votes came from New
York and California. Pragmatists believe
that although global warming is not a fact that the "scientific debate" is over.
Global warming is a "religion"
and the faith of those who believe in it cannot be changed. However "global warming" is neither a reality nor a religion, it is
instead a "superstition."
A reality is something that actually exists and global warming has not existed
for at least 7 years. Even the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's
internal memos say it does not exist, and so do increasing numbers of noted
scientists. A “religion” is a belief in a supernatural being, a
system of faith or worship and global warming does not fit this definition. A "superstition"
is a fear founded on irrational feelings and marked by credulity. It
should be easy for even members of our Congress to understand that no projection of future
world temperatures is a scientific reality.
The Waxman-Markey bill would be without question the biggest expansion of
federal government control over our economy since the 1930s. The Heritage Foundation concludes it would
reduce America’s real gross domestic product by $400 billion each year--a
cumulative loss of $9.4 trillion by 2035--leading to almost 2.5 million job
losses, and raise inflation-adjusted electricity rates by 90%. Our federal government would have full
control over global-warming matters and states would not be permitted to create
their own “cap-and-trade” programs,
but could be given emission allowances by the federal government which they
could sell to generate funds for clean energy programs. The federal government would also have control
over the carbon permit process giving away 85% of the permits to utility
companies, refineries and other politically connected businesses, and these
no-cost permits could be used by companies to continue to crank out
historically high CO2 emission levels, or be sold to other companies for real
money. Next would come the expansion of
American protectionism since China and India have declined to participate in
global-warming control, so under Waxman-Markey we would be able to impose
tariffs on their goods coming into America. The other side of that coin is of course that
they could impose tariffs on our exports too which would hurt American businesses and expand
government control of our economy, products and businesses, all in the name of
fighting global warming. Of course we
have seen the predecessor of the Waxman-Markey bill in the European Union’s “cap-and-trade” regulation, a political
failure as well as an economic one and the Europeans have not had much success
in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The
Waxman-Markey reduction of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions is predicted to reduce
temperatures by less than one-tenth of a degree Fahrenheit by 2050. Americans should be gravely concerned that
Congress might act to deal with a superstitious belief and willfully and
knowingly cost Americans their jobs, increase household utility bills, and
increase worldwide toxic pollutants that are being released into the
atmosphere. The reality is that credulous political elites (whose
personal ideology is to transfer wealth not only within classes of American
citizens, but from America to foreign countries) will impede domestic energy
production and fund countries and technologies that threaten America's homeland
security. The
real purpose of Waxman-Markey is to vastly expand the scope, power and
authority of the federal government with Washington permanently regulating and
dictating the performance of the U.S. economy, rewarding constituencies it
favors and punishing those it doesn’t, and make more and more Americans
dependent upon federal largesse.
The curtain has fallen
revealing the real Wizard of Oz, Barack Obama, as a leftist ideologue trying to
scare the United States into adopting his centrally planned, big government
solution to all problems. Americans elected Obama to change
things that are failing, but the President is not reforming, he's expanding. He wants the government to set up a parallel
health care apparatus, a giant entanglement of entitlements. It's not only confusion that is causing
Americans to bail on ObamaCare. Most of
us value freedom and have a healthy distrust of government. If the president's plan were clearly presented
with the costs spelled out, I believe it would have a chance of passing. I find it strange that the Joint Economic
Committee chart describing how this health care system would work under the
House plan is a bureaucratic mess and Democrats will no longer endorse its
use. However just about everybody knows
the USA might be facing bankruptcy, which would damage Americans far more than
a troubled health care system. Even
though he will not admit it, there is huge financial risk in Obama's health
care vision, and Americans are starting to wise up about the danger. Finally, there is the freedom factor. Your health is obviously personal and you want
to have as much control as possible when you get sick. Americans fear that if medical choices are
dictated by the feds, that the same kind of chaos that Canada endures will
happen here. Tennessee piloted TennCare
(much like ObamaCare) in 1994 primarily as a budget measure, to address the
rising cost of Medicaid, the federally funded, state-administered health care
program for the poor. Again like
ObamaCare, nine managed care companies participated in the program, essentially
as state contractors and gradually were squeezed out. Just as feared in ObamaCare, by 1998,
enrollment had grown by 100,000, as employers moved employees into the TennCare
system, which cost them less abandoning private insurance for the public plan
because it was lower cost. Centrally
managed TennCare paid health care providers 10% below what would be considered
actuarially sound. It only took ten years for the Tennessee Governor to conclude
that it was time to scrap TennCare as unaffordable and unsustainable but has
been unable to begin the dismantling due to litigation, which is the dismal
Republican forecast for ObamaCare.
ObamaCare is about exerting
government control over the entire health care system. If you listen to President Obama, his
"reform" will satisfy
almost everyone. It will insure the
uninsured, control runaway health spending, subdue future budget deficits,
preserve choice for patients and improve quality of care. These claims are
self-serving exaggerations and political fantasies. They have destroyed what should be a serious
national discussion of health care. The
goals of communistic governments were not to solve the problems of the masses
as much as to shift control from the existing leaders to the new leaders of the
country. The leaders of the former
communist countries were not living under the same rules as those they were
ruling. This same principle applies to
what we are experiencing in the debate about health insurance reform. The leaders of the movement who want the
current bills in Congress to quickly pass are individuals who have a greater
interest in shifting control of the health care system than they do in
improving the health care system. There
are three simple proof points highlight what are the real objectives of the
proposed reforms:
·
Only
15 million of the 45 million uninsured Americans are covered by these bills,
and there is no explanation of how the others will be covered.
·
The
proponents say the plan saves money, but in reality it will cost $150 billion a
year per year over the next ten years.
·
The
proposed bill is 1018 pages of legalese that would definitely challenge almost
all who read it - if anyone would actually commit to do so, and the President
has admitted he has not read the behemoth either.
Combine these
three factors; it will cost us a tremendous amount of money to cover only a
relatively small portion of the uninsured in a bill that very few if any
comprehend. The Democrats want to spend
$1.5 trillion over a decade, impose an $800 billion tax increase in the midst
of the worst recession in a generation, increase federal borrowing by $239
billion (on top of the $11 trillion the Obama budget already requires us to
borrow through 2019), impose costly mandates on employers that will discourage
hiring as unemployment nears 10%, force individuals to buy one-size-fits-all
government defined insurance, and insert the government in countless new ways
between doctors and patients. All of
that would occur whether or not the plan includes a "public option," which at this point it does include and which
will exacerbate all of these problems. The
people who are attempting to ram this albatross down our throats have little
clue of our circumstances. Most of the
drafters have never been an employer or even an employee. They are government wonks who crave power and
think they know better than the rest of us.
Our President asserts his desire to improve the health care system, but
why has he allowed Congress to draft such a monstrosity? He can dance around the issue all he wants to,
but common sense says this is a naked power grab. There is a group of people in Congress who are
convinced that our health care should be run through the federal government. Certainly since the time of the Truman
Administration and maybe FDR Administration the Democrats have been attempting
to nationalize health care. Until this
time they have succeeded in having 50% of health care dollars running through
government hands. This is an attempt in
one bold stroke to move the other 50% under government control. American people understand that should this
pass, they will get inferior care at a higher cost while the designers of this
plan will get superior care at no cost at all to them. The latest Rasmussen Reports national survey
found that 49% of Americans oppose health care reform vs. 47% in favor, with
41% strongly opposed! Only 23% believe
that health care reform will lower costs, while 50% expect the quality of care
to go down! Communism
is great if you make the laws and control the money, but unfortunately, you and
I are going to be waiting in line while the people who stuck us with this have exempted
themselves from its coverage.
President Obama has
repeatedly reassured Americans that they can keep their existing health plans
-- and that the benefits and access they prize will be enhanced through reform. After
a close reading of the two main bills, one backed by Democrats in the House and
the other issued by Sen. Edward Kennedy's Health committee, Shawn Tully found these bills contradict
the President's assurances. Reading page
by page, the bills reveal a web of restrictions, fines, and mandates that would
radically change your health-care coverage.
In short, the Obama platform would mandate extremely full, expensive,
and highly subsidized coverage -- including a lot of benefits people would
never pay for with their own money -- but deliver it through a highly
restrictive, HMO-style plan that will determine what care and tests you can and
can't have. There are five current “freedoms”
that Americans would lose under ObamaCare:
·
Freedom
to choose what's in your plan - The
bills in both houses require that Americans purchase insurance through
"qualified" plans offered by health-care "exchanges" that
would be set up in each state imposing a minimum list of benefits that each
plan is required to offer. Today, many
states require these "standard benefits packages" -- and they're a
major cause for the rise in health-care costs.
·
Freedom
to be rewarded for healthy living, or pay your real costs - the Obama plan enshrines into federal
law one of the worst features of state legislation: community rating, requiring
that all patients pay the same rates for their level of coverage regardless of
their age or medical condition. Americans
with pre-existing conditions need subsidies under any plan, but community rating
is a dubious way to bring fairness to health care.
·
Freedom
to choose high-deductible coverage - The
bills threaten to eliminate the one part of the market truly driven by
consumers spending their own money. That's what makes a market, and health care
needs more of it, not less. By requiring
minimum packages, they would prevent patients from choosing stripped-down plans
that cover only major medical expenses.
·
Freedom
to keep your existing plan - the
bills appear to say otherwise. The legislation divides the insured into two
main groups, and those two groups are treated differently with respect to their
current plans. The first are employees covered by the Employee Retirement
Security Act of 1974. ERISA regulates companies that are self-insured, meaning
they pay claims out of their cash flow, and don't have real insurance, stating
that employees covered by ERISA plans are "grandfathered." The bill
gives ERISA employers a five-year grace period when they can keep offering
plans free from the restrictions of the "qualified" policies offered
on the exchanges. But after five years, they would have to offer only approved
plans, with the myriad rules we've already discussed. So for Americans in large
corporations, "keeping your own plan" has a strict deadline. In five
years, like it or not, you'll get dumped into the exchange. As we'll see, it
could happen a lot earlier. The outlook is worse for the second group. It
encompasses employees who aren't under ERISA but get actual insurance either on
their own or through small businesses. After the legislation passes, all
insurers that offer a wide range of plans to these employees will be forced to
offer only "qualified" plans to new customers, via the exchanges. The employees who got their coverage before
the law goes into effect can keep their plans, but once again, there's a catch.
If the plan changes in any way -- by altering co-pays, deductibles, or even
switching coverage for this or that drug -- the employee must drop out and shop
through the exchange. Since these plans generally change their policies every
year, it's likely that millions of employees will lose their plans in 12
months.
·
Freedom
to choose your doctors - The
Senate bill requires that Americans buying through the exchanges -- and as
we've seen, that will soon be most Americans -- must get their care through
something called "medical home." Medical home is similar to an HMO.
You're assigned a primary care doctor, and the doctor controls your access to
specialists. The primary care physicians will decide which services, like MRIs
and other diagnostic scans, are best for you, and will decide when you really
need to see a cardiologists or orthopedists. The danger is that doctors will be
financially rewarded for denying care, as were HMO physicians more than a
decade ago. It was consumer outrage over despotic gatekeepers that made the
HMOs so unpopular, and killed what was billed as the solution to America's
health-care cost explosion. In reality,
the flexible, employer-based plans that now dominate the landscape, and that
Americans so cherish, could disappear far faster than the 5 year "grace
period" that's barely being discussed.
Companies
would have the option of paying an 8% payroll tax into a fund that pays for
coverage for Americans who aren't covered by their employers. Forced migration to
the public option won't happen right away -- large companies must wait a couple
of years before they opt out, but it will happen, since it's likely that the
tax will rise a lot more slowly than corporate health-care costs, especially
since they'll be lobbying Washington to keep the tax under control in the
righteous name of job creation… hence the nickname of Trojan Horse!
President Obama's
sustained push to radically rework American medicine has triggered an enormous
backlash among Americans who have come to understand that despite his repeated
promises to the contrary, the president's scheme will cause many millions to
lose the health insurance they have and see it replaced by the so-called "government option/public plan." At
the same time Hugh Hewitt sees a
spreading recognition that the massive "stimulus" package not only didn't work, it worsened the jobs
situation in the country by signaling businesses small and large that fiscal
irresponsibility on a scale never before imaginable had arrived at 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue and that the years ahead would be rough. Payrolls have been trimmed drastically as a
result, and now the Federal Reserve is predicting sustained and high
unemployment. The president's talk of
"saving or creating millions of jobs"
is just talk, because the jobs crisis is real and continuing and the Obama
Administration has no plan to surge employment. This double Democratic whammy on the country's
sense of security has launched two grassroots initiatives, the success of which
signals that the GOP's grassroots are growing again. First, the National Center for Policy Analysis
launched a petition to stop ObamaCare which has close to a million signatures
and a huge impact on the United States Senate - a million electronic signatures
stops them in their tracks. On the jobs
front, Newt Gingrich has harnessed the new technology to help rebuild a
conservative agenda on jobs. The former
Speaker who is now the General Chairman of American Solutions unveiled a
concise, four part proposal to ignite job creation along with the brilliant
summary point: America can't work if Americans aren't working. The centerpiece of Newt's plan is a two-year,
50% reduction in payroll taxes, which would give an enormous and immediate
boost to employers and employees alike, providing not only a huge jolt to
consumer spending but also an opportunity for businesses to add the employees
they are presently fearful about bringing on because of looming increased
marginal costs of employment and general fears about Obama economic policy. It has been a long six months for center-right
activists as the greatly diminished ranks of Republicans on the Hill and the
dispirited activists in the states have struggled to gear up for what in sports
is universally called "a rebuilding
year." Now, suddenly, the
president's and Nancy Pelosi's incredible overreach combined with the
demonstrable disasters that have attended the stimulus and which would follow
cap-and-tax-and-tax-and-tax and the radical plans for American medicine have
revived and energized the Republican grassroots. The recognition that
the stakes are too high to shuffle through an entire cycle has spread quickly,
and key organizations like the National Center for Policy Analysis and AmericanSolutions.com
have stepped up to provide vehicles through which that energy can be
effectively channeled.
The Obama administration lacks a foreign policy ideology as a
matter of ideology, but even lacking an ideology, the administration does have
a doctrine. Michael Gerson explained that the defining principle
of President Obama's foreign policy is engagement with America's adversaries. Much of the president's public diplomacy has
been designed to clear a path for such talks, expressing respect for legitimate
grievances, apologizing for past wrongs and offering dialogue without
preconditions. North Korea responded to
administration outreach by testing a nuclear weapon, firing missiles toward
U.S. allies, resuming plutonium reprocessing and threatening the United States
with a "fire shower of nuclear
retaliation." The Iranian
regime's reaction to engagement was to cut the ribbon on a nuclear enrichment
facility, add centrifuges, conduct a fraudulent election, and kill and imprison
a variety of political opponents. The
problem is not engagement itself, which was, after all, attempted in various
forms by the previous administration. The
difficulty is that the Obama foreign policy team has often argued that the
reason for tension and conflict with nations such as North Korea and Iran is a
lack of adequate American engagement, which is absurd, and which has raised
absurdly high expectations. Such regimes
are often internally preoccupied. Precisely
because they lack genuine legitimacy, they spend large amounts of time and
effort maintaining their fragile authority, consolidating power and managing
undemocratic transitions. And the
inherent instability of oppressive regimes also leads them to tighten control
by invoking threats from abroad, particularly from the United States. The Obama administration's public campaign of
engaging enemies is headed toward an entirely unintended consequence. Eventually this approach will raise
expectations for action. As the extended
hand is slapped again and again, the goals of North Korea and Iran will be
fully revealed and the cost to American credibility will rise. This is the paradox of the Obama doctrine. By attempting to
engage North Korea and Iran so visibly, Obama is dramatically exposing the
limits of engagement -- and building the case for confrontation.
The United States faces
a polarizing dilemma: How can it stop Barack Obama's relentless course toward
Marxism and rebuild this country at the same time? What’s
needed now is nothing short of reforming an entire nation, its economy, its
politics, and its culture to the critical juncture from which America most
recently lurched off course, under the auspices of Obama-ism. The first necessity is to halt that Obama
ruination. The next is to reconstitute
an entire nation, only the greatest ever known in history. The
purpose of that reformation is to set forth, once again, toward the future the
Founding Fathers intended for this country. Stopping Obama’s onslaught on capitalism and
individual initiative in its tracks, arduous as that obviously will be, is
child’s play compared with the far-larger feat: reversing things and restoring
them to the status quo ante. Initially,
you have to sell most Americans, or at least enough of them short of a
majority, that it’s a good idea, let alone a self-survival necessity. It is no exaggeration that government
programs, once launched, are near impossible to return to port. What government agency ever died of old age,
committed suicide, or was allowed to perish from lack of taxation
nutrition? What creates big-government
statism is what perpetuates it. Around
each new or enhanced program instantly coalesces a protective coating of
dependent constituencies, drone-bee lobbyists, and parasitic tributary programs
with their own subsets of tax-suckers. It won’t be enough for Republicans just to be “the party of no” and stop there because
they will also have to propose national alternatives that begin all over again
where Barack Obama first seduced America into his leftward-spiraling,
all-consuming maelstrom of latter-day Marxism.
* There is so much published each week
that unless you go out of your way to find it, you will miss important breaking
events. I package the best of this
information into my “Views on the
News” each Saturday morning for your reading pleasure and to fill in
factual vacuums.
If you are
sick and tired of government and politics as usual, read my web site with its
individual issue analysis and recommendations sections at: http://www.returntocommonsensesite.com . Individual issue updates this week include:
· Elections at
http://www.returntocommonsensesite.com/dp/elections.html
· Healthcare at
http://www.returntocommonsensesite.com/dp/healthcare.html
Week’s
Best Articles:
· “Obama’s top
five PR tricks” by Carol E. Lee dated July 22, 2009 published by Politico
at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25248.html
· “New Media,
New Activism, and the New GOP: Newt and the NCPA” by Hugh Hewitt
dated July 24, 2009 published by Town Hall at http://townhall.com/columnists/HughHewitt/2009/07/24/new_media,_new_activism,_and_a_new_gop_newt_and_the_ncpa .
· “Hope Builds
for the Economy As Positive Reports Pile Up” by Neil Irwin
dated July 24, 2009 published by The Washington Post at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/23/AR2009072301609.html .
· “5 freedoms
you’d lose in health care reform” by Shawn Tully dated July 24, 2009
published by Fortune Magazine at http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/24/news/economy/health_care_reform_obama.fortune/index.htm .
· “What Barack
Obama Fails to Understand About America” by Bill O’Reilly dated
July 25, 2009 published by Town Hall at http://townhall.com/columnists/BillOReilly/2009/07/25/what_barack_obama_fails_to_understand_about_america .
· “No White
House Apology for Professorgate” by Erick Erickson dated July 25, 2009
published by Human Events at http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32866 .
· “Waxman-Markey
Deserves to Die” by Pete Du Pont dated July 26, 2009 published by The Wall
Street Journal at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204886304574308771420637620.html .
· “Hoven’s
Index: Obama’s First Six Months” by Randall Hoven dated July 27, 2009
published by American Thinker at http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/07/hovens_index_obamas_first_six.html .
· “What They
Really Want” by Bruce Bialosky dated July 27, 2009 published by Town
Hall at http://townhall.com/columnists/BruceBialosky/2009/07/27/what_they_really_want .
· “All the
President’s Debt” by Vasko Kohlmayer dated July 27, 2009 published by Front
Page Magazine at http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=35705 .
· “Halt Obama
Nation and Rebuild America” by John L. Perry dated July 27, 2009 published by News Max
at http://www.newsmax.com/john_perry/Obama_Marxist_ruination/2009/07/27/240383.html .
· “Obama’s
Crisis Syndrome Will Backfire” by Herbert London dated July 27, 2009 published by News
Max at http://www.newsmax.com/herbert_london/Obama_crisis_healthcare/2009/07/27/240622.html .
· “Obama’s
Misleading Medicine” by Robert Samuelson dated July 27, 2009 published by Real
Clear Politics at http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/07/27/obamas_misleading_medicine_97633.html .
· “Will Obama
Continue to Defy Gravity?” by G. Tracy Mehan, III dated July 28, 2009 published by The
American Spectator at http://spectator.org/archives/2009/07/28/will-obama-continue-to-defy-gr .
· “In the Name
of Global Warming” by Don Blankenship dated July 28, 2009 published by
American Thinker at http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/07/in_the_name_of_global_warming.html .
· “Just 23%
Believe Health Care Costs Will Go Down if Reform Passes Congress” dated July 28, 2009
published by Rasmussen Reports at http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/july_2009/just_23_believe_health_care_costs_will_go_down_if_reform_passes_congress .
· “Death of a
Doctrine” by Michael Gerson dated July 29, 2009 published by the
Washington Post at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/28/AR2009072802110.html .
· “Read the
bill, congressman” dated July 29, 2009 published by The Washington Times at http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/29/read-the-bill-congressmen/ .
· “Fatal
Conceit” by Gary Andres dated July 30, 2009 published by The Weekly
Standard at http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/789qczld.asp .
· “Wanted: A
Modest Obama” by Rich Lowry dated July 31, 2009 published by National
Review Online at http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=N2ZiOWI0ZWJlYjViYWUxNmViMjVmYTFhMGFjOTUyZjY= .
· “An anemic
recovery, with high unemployment” by Donald Lambro dated July 31, 2009
published by Town Hall at http://townhall.com/columnists/DonaldLambro/2009/07/31/an_anemic_recovery,_with_high_unemployment .
· “Off the
Charts” by Jim Geraghty dated July 31, 2009 published by National
Review Online at http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YzE0MjJhNWM5MDEwYzExNDhmNjJlMjY1ODc5YTBkYTM= .
· “Tried and
Found Wanting” by Fred Lucas dated August 3, 2009 published by The Weekly
Standard at http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/769nuwys.asp .
· “ObamaCare:
It’s Even Worse Than You Think” by James C. Capretta and Yuval Levin
dated August 3, 2009 published by The Weekly Standard at http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/764zjvvu.asp .
David Coughlin
Hawthorne, NY