delta-man

The Voice of Experience

2010-03-23T19:37:00.001-07:00

History Lesson for Obama: The1935 Congressional Debates on the Social Security Act

What would you do if you had just pissed off approximately 150 to 180 million people? Some pretty serious damage control, that's what. Hence, His Majesty, King Hussein Obama the First will deliver a speech in Iowa this Thursday to kick off the Democratic effort to avoid a crushing loss in this November's Congressional mid-term elections.

Who knows what tortured arguments His Majesty and his minions will try to employ in this seemingly impossible task but I think the Congressional debate from Sunday gives us some idea of how they will try to defend this disastrous reform. More specifically, several Democrats dismissively brushed aside Republican objections to the healthcare monstrosity by noting that opponents of Social Security and Medicare had similarly made predications of doom and gloom and those predications had not come true. With disgusting smirks on their faces, these sniveling weasels smugly pointed out that the United States did not descend into socialism or communism, as some opponents predicted, because of the enactment of these programs. This Democratic argument may or may not be true but it's worth noting that this general argument was hardly the only one offered against the enactment of these programs.

I realize His Majesty's knowledge of American history is fairly limited but I don't hold this fault against him since I don't know a whole lot about the history of His Majesty's native land of Kenya either. So before You try to brush off the Republican arguments by lumping them with the rhetoric of the past, I offer the following prescient objections to the enactment of the Social Security Act in 1935, which are as true today as they were nearly 75 years ago. The complete record of the debate in the House and the Senate can be found at http://www.ssa.gov/history/law.html

***

On the floor of the Senate on June 17, 1935, Republican Daniel Hastings of Delaware hit the Democrats with one of my favorite tactics, the use of mathematics. Using projected earnings and actuarial data developed by the committees charged with writing the Social Security Act, Senator Hastings offered a series of illustrations that proved that the initial enrollees in the plan who were older, generally over 50 years of age would receive more money in benefits from Social Security than the money they and their employer had contributed. So where would the money come from to pay these enrollees?

Senator Hastings continued to offer illustrations and proved that younger workers and people who would start working after the enactment of Social Security would end up covering this deficit since they would receive less in benefits than they and their employer had contributed. Then he took this argument, which he referred to as a discrimination against the young, to another level:

Mr. President, I call attention to the discrimination in this bill not so much for the purpose of emphasizing the argument which will be made by those who shall participate in this fund, who pay the taxes, and who are entitled ultimately to some return from it, but I call attention to it for the purpose of emphasizing that, after all, this is a democratic form of government and what we do here may be changed and will be changed upon the demand of people who have been discriminated against.

Senator Hastings wondered what future Congressman would say when their constituents would come to them and point out that they had paid more into the fund than they would probably receive. He did not see how the future Congress could deny these claims for relief:

We will have no defense at all, because he will not have gone into this plan voluntarily. We will have forced him into this plan. We will have forced him to contribute to the Federal Treasury 3 percent of his salary and will have forced his employer to do likewise.

Bear in mind that Senator Hastings is not just talking about a particular individual but a whole class of citizens. On the floor of the House on April 19, 1935, Republican James Wadsworth Jr. of New York pointed out the power these citizens might weld:

Pensions and annuities are never abandoned; nor are they ever reduced. The recipients ever clamor for more. To gain their ends they organize politically. They may not constitute a majority of the electorate, but their power will be immense.

As predicted by Senator Hastings and welding the political power envisioned by Representative Wadsworth, senior citizens used exactly this argument in the early 1970's when they demanded cost of living increases. They pointed out that they had paid more into the system than they would ever receive so the Congress should be able to enact these automatic raises. (As a brief aside, when the dummies in the Congress set down the formula to provide these increases they screwed it up and retirees received double the increase in the cost of living. This mistake pushed the financially unstable Social Security Trust Fund to the brink of insolvency. It took the government three years to fix the formula. And tell me again that you want these fools in charge of your healthcare!)

***

As many Republicans in the current debate on healthcare pointed out, Representative Wadsworth tried to point out that once we started down the road of providing these benefits, there would be no turning back. Once again, here are his comments from April 19^th:

It launches the Federal Government into an immense undertaking which in the aggregate will reach dimensions none of us can really visualize and which in the last analysis, you will admit, affects millions and millions of individuals. Remember, once we pay pensions and supervise annuities, we cannot withdraw from the undertaking no matter how demoralizing and subversive it may become. .

Could you imagine the chaos that would ensure if we suddenly stopped paying Social Security benefits today? Tens of millions of people have planned for their retirements based in part on receiving these benefits. How many of these people would be reduced to the poverty level? And consider the people who are currently planning for their retirements, who are in their forties and fifties. There simply isn't time for these people to increase their retirement savings such that they could replace the income they except to receive from Social Security. No matter how much damage Social Security inflicts on our fiscal health, we're stuck with it. It would take decades to unwind the program.

***

Representative Wadsworth was the type of Republican modern day liberals would hate. Born into a wealthy, distinguished family (his grandfather was a General in the Union Army who was killed in action during the Battle of the Wilderness), Wadsworth believed in limited government and individual rights. While serving in the Senate in 1917 (That's not a misprint. Wadsworth is one of handful of persons who served in the Senate first and then the House), these beliefs led him to oppose the Eighteenth Amendment and become a vocal opponent of Prohibition, which was not a popular stance in the Republican Party during the 1920's. Perhaps these beliefs also motivated his arguments against the financing of Social Security on the floor of the House on April 19^th. Wadsworth's objection was to the investment of the Social Security Trust Fund in government bonds, which is still the practice of the Fund today.

Now, that may seem an effective and adequate way to finance the Government's financial activities in all the Years to come. I am trying to look to the future. Heretofore the Government has financed its undertakings primarily and fundamentally as the result of the confidence of the individual citizen in the soundness of the Government's under-taking, but from this point on we are apparently going to abandon that philosophy of public confidence and resort to a very different practice. The Government is to impose a pay-roll tax through one of its agencies, collect the money into the Treasury Department, then the Treasury Department with its left hand on the proceeds of these taxes is to turn around and buy bonds of the United States Government issued by the right hand of the Treasury Department. Thus the Government of the United States, after this thing gets going, is no longer to be financed directly by its citizens, confident in the soundness of the Government, but it is to be financed instead by arrangements made within the bureaucracy-an undemocratic and dangerous proceeding.

Like most people, I've always had a problem with Social Security Trust Fund lending money to the general fund of the government because the only way this general fund can pay back the money to the Trust Fund is to either raise taxes or issue debt to the general public. In short, my objection is that this method doesn't work because the money isn't invested. It's just gone. Wadsworth, however, raises a point that I have never considered.

Basically, he's saying that ordinarily, people are free to buy government bonds or not buy government bonds. If enough people lacked confidence in the operations of the government, which is exactly what is slowly happening in our time, the government wouldn't be able to raise money through selling bonds. If you adopt this line of reasoning, then all of the money used to finance the government, whether through taxes or the proceeds of bonds, has been provided to the government with the approval of the public, albeit with taxes indirectly having been approved by people through their representatives, who must periodically stand before the public for elections that could be influenced by the tax burden they impose on the public.

The money lent by the Social Security Trust Fund to the government, however, doesn't bear this stamp of approval. The decision to lend the money rests not with the public but instead with unaccountable bureaucrats. The Congress can spend this money without having to seek its approval, i.e. it doesn't have to raise taxes or sell bonds to the public. Take a moment and look at the latest financial statements of the Social Security Administration. http://www.ssa.gov/finance/2009/Financial%20Statements.pdf On page 92 you'll see that as of September 30, 2009, the Social Security Administration had approximately 2.5 trillion dollars in investments. Skip ahead to page 102 and you'll find out that these investments consist of bonds issued by the Treasury. Since our government is already in debt, this means that the federal government, to use Wadsworth's language, has taken 2.5 trillion dollars with the left hand and given it to the right hand to spend as it pleases. It's also worth noting that this 2.5 trillion dollars exceeds the equity of the fund, called the net position. Just think of all the earmarks, the pork, and the pet projects our politicians financed over the years with this money without having to raise taxes or seek money in the bond markets at market rates of interest.

***

I'm sure most of the proponents of Social Security dismissed Wadsworth arguments but I don't know how they could have dismissed this argument from Senator Hastings. On June 17^th, the Senator pointed out that the raiding of the Social Security Trust Fund could happen because... a similar raid had already happened!

It must be borne in mind that in order to create this fund there must be annual appropriations by Congress. It is contemplated that those annual appropriations shall be the amount of money collected from the employer and the employee: but does anyone doubt that when the Congress comes to these appropriations there would be manipulations so that the fund would not be accumulated but would he used for current expenses of the Government?

Mr. President, we have a fine example of that-very slight, indeed, because of the amount involved-in the case of the civil-service retirement fund. I wonder if Senators realize that, while there is supposed to be something like a billion dollars accumulated in that fund and that the actuaries say there ought to be about a billion dollars accumulated in it, there has been practically nothing accumulated in that fund? I blame no particular person for it; I know when the Government needs money for some purpose the question may readily be asked why should not the Government, when it needs money for other purposes. take out of its till and put in some other place a certain sum of money that is necessary for some retirement fund? There is nothing in the civil-service retirement fund except an I O U.

***

I agree with all the arguments being offered by conservatives that the new healthcare reform will lead us down the road to a European style socialist state but to be frank, I don't think these arguments are going to work. Instead, we should focus our arguments, as these two men did years ago, on the specific weaknesses in the law, which are legion. Under the original Social Security Act, the first payroll deductions were scheduled to start on January 1, 1937, which meant there was only about a year and a half before the passage of the bill and its operation. We have approximately twice that amount of time to stop this law from taking effect. We should take advantage of that. The Democrats seem intent on selling this law to the public. We should force them to explain it, warts and all.

The Voice of Experience

2010-03-17T09:51:00.001-07:00

Deem and Fail

If King Hussein Obama the First's minions were half as clever at devising solutions to our nation's problems as they were at utilizing arcane legislature procedures, our nation would resemble the biblical land of Canaan, a land flowing with milk and honey. The latest tactic to thwart the clear will of the American people is known as "Deem and Pass." I'll try and explain what Deem and Pass is in a moment but if you don't feel like plowing through the minutia of this legislative process, here's a quote from Nancy Pelosi that sums up all you absolutely must know about this latest strategy. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/15/AR2010031503742.html?hpid=topnews

It's more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know. But I like it because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill.

Just stop a moment and let that one sink in for a while. Even for a complete idiot like Pelosi, this quote is a shocking admission. Basically, Pelosi is saying that the best way to pass the Senate bill is to use a process that allows Congressmen not to vote on the Senate bill. At face value, this quote doesn't even make sense. The perceptive reader, i.e. the non-liberal reader, should be able to deduce that Deem and Pass is actually a way for Congressmen to cover their butts, to deny that they voted for the Senate bill when in fact they did.

So how does that work? To understand Deem and Pass, we must start in the House Rules Committee, currently chaired by Democratic Congresswomen Louise Slaughter of New York, the author of the Deem and Pass strategy. You might remember Louise Slaughter from His Majesty's fake attempt to reach out to Republicans last month at the boring health care summit. She's the buffoon who tried to convince us to pass healthcare reform because one of her constituents was using her dead sister's false teeth. http://freedomeden.blogspot.com/2010/02/louise-slaughter-dead-sisters-teeth.html

Over the past year, we've all become familiar with the rules of the Senate such as allowing unlimited debate and the use of the filibuster. Since the House contains over four times the number of members as the Senate, the use of these rules in the House wouldn't be practical. To allow 435 windbags to speak forever would effectively grind the legislative process in the House to a halt. So over the years the House has developed mechanisms to limit debate and guide the legislative process so the House can function. Hence the creation of the Rules Committee.

Every bill that comes to the House floor is considered under a rule that determines such issues as how long the House will debate the bill and what amendments, if any, can be offered. So for example, when the House considers a bill on education, the Rules Committee might allow two hours of debate. The chairman and ranking member, the senior member the minority party, of the Education and Labor Committee would each be given an hour to speak on this bill. In practice, these two Congressman grant blocks of time to members of their party to speak about various aspects of the bill and once the time expires, the House starts the procedure for taking a vote. So far, this process makes sense.

In addition, the rule for this bill might limit the number of amendments that can be proposed on the House floor and the sections of the bill that can be amended. This idea also makes sense because by the time the bill gets to the floor most amendments have already been considered in committee and/or it's highly unlikely that an amendment would be approved anyway unless a majority of the Congress has already been polled by the party leaders to see if they would vote for it. It would be a waste of time to propose these amendments only to see them voted down.

Deem and Pass is simply another process that's been developed over the years by the Rules Committee similar to the ones described above to make the legislative process in the House more efficient. Usually Deem and Pass is used for making technical, non-controversial changes to a bill. (Before I go any further, I culled this explanation from a number of websites since no one site had a comprehensive one. Believe it or not, Mother Jones and msnbc actually had the best analysis with The Washington Post getting an honorable mention.) The Rules Committee adopts a rule that contains the technical changes, i.e. changes the House feels are required, to the bill passed in the Senate. This rule basically contains two provisions. The first provision is fairly straightforward. If the Senate approves the technical changes, there's no need to send the approved changes back to the House because the House has already passed them. The second provision is the one that is causing all the controversy. This provision states that the underlying legislation, i.e. the Senate bill, is considered as to be passed by the House even though the vote was technically on the combined package of the bill and its amendments. In simple English, in most cases, the use of Deem and Pass is the House saying, "We agree this bill should be a law but we feel these minor changes should be made."

If I lost you on that explanation, try and hang in there as I flesh out the preceding analysis by describing how Deem and Pass would most likely be applied to the current Senate bill on healthcare destruction.

· Step 1 – The House Rules Committee adopts the rule that contains the changes to the Senate bill along with the provision to consider the Senate bill as if passed by the House in a separate vote.

· Step 2 - The House conducts a roll call vote on the Senate bill under this rule and passes the bill.

· Step 3- The Senate bill, without the changes, has been effectively passed by both Houses of Congress. This bill goes to His Majesty, King Hussein Obama the First, who affixes the royal seal and the bill is now a law.

· Step 4 – The Senate considers the changes to the bill, which is now law, and attempts to enact those changes using the budget process known as "reconciliation." If these lunatics ever get this far, I try to explain the reconciliation process in a separate post. For now, the important point to known is that bills considered under reconciliation can't be filibustered so the Democrats would only need 51 votes.

· Step 5 – The Senate enacts the House changes to their bill and these changes go to His Majesty for his royal seal. Remember there's no need to send the changes back to the House because they've already approved these changes.

· Step 6 – His Majesty affixes his royal seal to these changes and America starts down the road leading to a socialist utopia, with limited freedoms and reduced opportunity.

So why are the Democrats proposing to use such a convoluted process? Well, if you think about it, there's a number of advantages to using Deem and Pass.

ü If the Senate fails to pass the House changes, any Congressman who voted for the Senate bill under this rule can deny that he voted for only the Senate bill. He'll cry and whine in front of his angry union supporters, telling them that he only voted for the Senate bill as amended by the House. He'd tell them to go over to the Senate and ask them why they didn't approve the changes.

ü Since the Senate bill would become a law, it might be possible to use reconciliation and avoid the threat of a filibuster.

ü As long as the Senate approved the changes exactly as approved by the House, there would be no need for another political ugly vote on healthcare in the House. The stupid House members who vote for this bill could start on the impossible task of trying to explain their actions to their angry constituents without having to defend another wrong vote. In essence, it would give them more time to patch up the damage.

I'll admit that this is a clever approach, worthy of a Bond villain, but I don't think it will work. If you really think about it, the main lynchpin of this plan is that the American public consists of a bunch of idiots.

ü If your Congressman tries to pull off the big lie, I voted for it but I didn't vote for it, people will see right through it. John Kerry tried that one and we all know how that worked out. People will ask this Congressman why they ran the risk of the Senate not approving their changes.

ü The whole reason the House wants these changes is that the Senate deleted them from the original bill passed by the House. What makes them think the Senate will change their minds? Granted, with reconciliation, fewer votes will be needed but I'm not so sure even fifty votes can be secured for many of these changes.

ü The only way to avoid another vote in the House is for the Senate to approve the House changes without amendment. What are the odds of that happening?

And on a more fundamental level, how do His Majesty and his deluded minions explain that the only way to pass healthcare reform was to execute the legislative equivalent of doing the limbo under a flaming bar while walking on a tightrope suspended over a shark tank? I'm sure they'll try to pin the opposition to their reform on the special interests and partisan bickering but the majority of the American public, who have consistently expressed their opposition to His Majesty's plans, won't buy it. Unfortunately for His Majesty, the serfs are still a little too smart to buy into this "change." Maybe after four years as the head of our educational system, His Majesty will have indoctrinated enough serfs to take another stab at this one in twenty years.

The Voice of Experience

2010-01-28T21:08:00.001-08:00

A False Unity

As I watched His Majesty, King Hussein Obama the First, deliver his State of the Union address, I got the feeling that instead of hearing a speech on the problems facing our great nation, I was witnessing a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown. My discomfort grew with each pathetic attempt of His Majesty to win back the favor of his assembled minions and the nation's serfs with such bromides as:

· We must answer history's call.

· We do not give up.

· I do not accept second place for the United States of America.

· Let's try common sense.

And my personal favorite:

· It's time the American people get a government that matches their decency

I would not have been shocked if His Majesty would have finished his speech by reminding everybody to brush their teeth before they went to bed. Of course, the utility of the advice would have been somewhat limited considering that the majority of the viewing audience was probably already asleep by the time His Majesty mercifully stopped talking.

The King's address contained something for everybody. If you're a fiscal conservative, the King announced a spending freeze. If you're a wacked out liberal, the King urged the Senate to pass the cap and trade bill. Do you need a job? Don't worry. The King wants a jobs bill, right now. Concerned about Iran? The King's on it. Are you a gay American who wants to be all you can be? No sweat. His Majesty will fight to end the military policy of "don't ask, don't tell." Yes sir, the King's address had something for everybody, even though a number of these policies are contradictory

By the end of the King's speech, I was so numb that I could barely get up from my chair. Responding to it in any coherent fashion would have simply been impossible. The numerous commentators and reporters who have since pointed out all the distortions, half-truths, and out-right lies in His Majesty's rambling, convoluted speech deserve our sincere thanks for performing this yeoman's task of dissecting his confusing oration. My purpose today is simply to add the following observation, which as of this writing has not been discussed.

Near the beginning of His Majesty's address, the King reached back into our nation's history to provide examples of how American's have met and overcome great challenges.

It's tempting to look back on these moments and assume that our progress was inevitable – that American was always destined to succeed. But when the Union was turned back at Bull Run and the Allies first landed at Omaha Beach, victory was very much in doubt…These were times that tested the courage of our convictions, and the strength of our union. And despite all our divisions and disagreements; our hesitations and our fears; America prevailed because we chose to move forward as one nation, and one people.

Now I can certainly forgive His Majesty lacking a full understanding of American history. After all, I don't know a whole lot about the history of His Majesty's native land of Kenya either. But you don't have to have a doctorate in history to know that it was impossible for our nation to move forward as one nation after Bull Run because the country was split in two at that time and engaged in a civil war.

At this point, I'm sure royalist defenders of the King would point out that this observation is mere sophistry. The King was not referring to the entire country but simply the North or in other words, that part of the country that remained in the union. But even in that argument, these royalists would be wrong.

From the beginning of the war, Lincoln faced a strong and determined opposition within the North. He once said that he was more concerned with opposition behind him than the armies that were in front of him. Lincoln was savagely attacked. He was called a buffoon, an ape, a butcher. Probably no American president was ever subjected, been or since, to such virulent and sustained criticism.

With each Union defeat, this opposition, known appropriately by the name of Copperheads, grew stronger. By 1863, this opposition had grown to such strength that riots broke out in New York City, a notorious Copperhead stronghold, over the draft. By 1864, Lincoln feared that he would lose the presidential election to former Union General George McClellan, a Democrat running on an anti-war platform. And Lincoln had good reasons to worry.

The Army of Potomac's march to Richmond stalled at Petersburg. The army's commander, General Grant, suffered disastrous defeats along the way, including the loss of 5,000 men in less than an hour at Cold Harbor. The Army of Northern Virginia, under the command of General Lee, was entrenched outside of Petersburg and all of Grant's effort to break through the Southern lines had failed.

In the western theater, the Union armies under General Sherman were on the move through northern Georgia but failed to gain a decisive victory. Lincoln feared that he would be the last president of the United States.

Only Sherman's smashing victory in Atlanta in September saved Lincoln from defeat. He won a clear victory in the Electoral vote but in the popular vote, a substantial percentage of the public voted for his opponent. Lincoln received about 2.2 million votes. McClellan received 1.8 million votes. In other words, about 45% of the country did not pull together as one, did not support Lincoln and the war, and were willing to vote for a man who would have negotiated for peace with the South.

By the way, after the Union defeat at Bull Run, Lincoln's response was to call for 500,000 new recruits to serve for up to three years. And he didn't tell Jefferson Davis that this army was going to fight as hard as possible until 1862 and then quit. Lincoln's exit strategy was simple: victory.

His Majesty calls for unity but it is a false unity. Some ideas simply cannot be reconciled. In the antebellum period, the belief in a strong federal union was incompatible with the belief that the nation was a loose confederation of independent states. The belief in enslaving human beings could not exist indefinitely side by side with a belief in freedom and equality. As Lincoln famously said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." One set of beliefs or the other set had to triumph.

We find ourselves in a similar situation today. His Majesty's continuous draining of the Treasury is incompatible with our belief in fiscal restraint. His Majesty's belief in socialism and regulation cannot be reconciled with our belief in the power of the free market. His Majesty's undying confidence in the power of government to solve all of our problems cannot coexist with our belief in allowing the individual to choose their own path in life. One set of beliefs or the other must ultimately guide our public policy. With the recent series of defeats the King and his royalist forces have suffered, it's becoming increasing clear that the people prefer our belief in freedom to His Majesty's belief in despotism.

The Voice of Experience

2010-01-22T16:12:00.001-08:00

How's that Narcissistic Rage Working for You?

The hippy's broken tambourine lies silent on the ground next to a wilted flower. College professors whisper softly amongst themselves, wondering why the seeds of radicalism they so carefully planted in their students failed to bloom. The unionist slams his fist against the wall, cursing the wimpy egghead who promised hope and change. Camelot lies in ruins, a smoldering pile of shattered dreams.

So what's next? Perhaps the answer lies in a fascinating article by Dr. Sam Vaknin entitled, "Barack Obama – Narcissist or Merely Narcissistic?" http://samvak.tripod.com/obama.html Dr. Vaknin has studied narcissists extensively since 1996 and in this article, most of which he wrote before His Majesty's coronation, Dr. Vaknin methodically lists the main characteristics of a narcissist and explains how His Majesty possesses them. Then he discusses the usual life cycle of a narcissistic leader. I think we're just about here on His Majesty's life cycle:

The pacific mask crumbles when the narcissist has become convinced that the very people he purported to speak for, his constituency, his grassroots fans, the prime sources of his narcissistic supply - have turned against him. At first, in a desperate effort to maintain the fiction underlying his chaotic personality, the narcissist strives to explain away the sudden reversal of sentiment. "The people are being duped by (the media, big industry, the military, the elite, etc.)", "they don't really know what they are doing", "following a rude awakening, they will revert to form", etc.

When these flimsy attempts to patch a tattered personal mythology fail - the narcissist is injured. Narcissistic injury inevitably leads to narcissistic rage and to a terrifying display of unbridled aggression.

On Friday, His Majesty, King Hussein Obama the First, delivered an address to the assembled serfs at a town-hall meeting at Lorain County Community College in Elyria, Ohio. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/01/obamas-jobs-speech-in-ohio-the.html?wprss=44 After the usual lies and distortions, His Majesty tries to explain why his healthcare destruction bill failed.

The long process of getting things done runs headlong into the special interests, their armies of lobbyists, and partisan politics aimed at exploiting fears instead of getting things done. And the longer it's taken, the uglier the process has looked.

Sound familiar? This speech marks the beginning of His Majesty's "desperate effort" to explain why the serfs have turned against him. And in a naked revelation of his narcissistic personality, His Majesty said:

But this isn't about me. It's about you. I didn't take up this issue to boost my poll numbers or score political points - believe me, if I were, I would have picked something a lot easier than this.

Here's the video from His Majesty's remarks. http://www.cspan.org/Watch/Media/2010/01/22/HP/R/28701/Pres+Obama+discusses+jobs+economy+at+ohio+town+hall.aspx Skip ahead to the 11 minute mark and watch the change in his personality as he delivers the above remarks.. The King is not happy. He got beat and he knows it. His Majesty tries to laugh it off but his wounds lie open for all to see.

The assembled sycophants in Ohio might cheer His Majesty but the vast majority of Americans are not fooled. What will happen when the King realizes He's lost the people? When will His narcissistic rage explode?

Scott Brown's victory represents a tough blow to the liberal hydra. The Republicans beat His Majesty in one of the most liberal states in the nation. But Brown's victory only means that we have killed the liberal hydra's most beautiful head. With the desperation of a wounded animal, she'll turn her ugliest face towards us and unleash all her anger. The banking industry appears to be the first victim of her rage, threatened with unjustifiable, confiscatory fees. Don't be surprised if conservative talk radio is the next target, beaten down with the "fairness doctrine" or "localism."

Now is not the time to celebrate but to work harder than ever to defeat His Majesty. We must march forward, buoyed by the knowledge that the King can be beat, but realizing that He's not beaten yet. His Majesty retains significant power. The royalist majorities in the Congress are still imposing. We must dedicate ourselves to defeating the King's minions this November.

A Republican victory this November is the only way to stop the King from inflicting more damage to this great nation. We will have to work for years to fix the damage He's already wrought in just one year. I can't imagine how much more damage is yet to come this year. And I shudder to think of the wholesale destruction this man could cause if He has four years of largely unchecked power.

Now is our chance to effect real change and we must boldly seize it. Never forget these words from President Reagan:

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

The Righteous Lib

2010-01-16T09:36:00.001-08:00

A Bigger Man

Until yesterday, I never even thought to question a single decision my man Barack has made since he became President but his appointment of that racist, flat-earther Dubya to lead the relief effort in Haiti is a real head scratcher. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100114/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_former_us_presidents_haiti Sending Dubya to help the Haitians is like sending Jack Daniels to an Alcoholic Anonymous meeting. Didn't Dubya kill off enough of my brothers and sisters in the City of New Orleans? Why should we give this incompetent boob a chance to finish off a whole country?

At least my initial outrage was tempered by the appointment of former President Clinton as his partner in leading the relief effort. I'm sure Bill will be the real leader of the relief effort. Dubya is so stupid that he doesn't even know where Haiti is. From what I hear, when his racist handlers shook him out of an alcoholic stupor to inform him of his appointment he said, "Hate E? Who's E and why should I hate him?"

I'm sure the Haitians are thrilled to have Dubya in charge of this effort. I heard a rumor the Haitian government considered breaking diplomatic relations with the U.S. once they heard about it but that turned out to be untrue. What actually happened was that the Haitian government filed a formal complaint with the World Court about being forced to work with a war criminal. Dubya probably won't do anything to help the Haitians anyway. I'll bet you that he'll spend half his time in Haiti looking for a place to construct Gitmo II.

When I first heard about this I was so mad that I broke some guy's surf board and threw some old lady on the ground who got in my way as I ran off. To cool off, I took a walk down the beach. As I walked along, I noticed Diamond Head looming in the distance. I thought about that massive, old volcanic cone. How it dwarfed all the modern hotels that the rich tourists stay in.. Diamond Head was there long before the hotels and will be there long after they're gone. And I got to thinking.

Most people in Barack's place would have thrown that loser Dubya in jail the first day they took office. That's what Dubya would have done to him. You can bet on that. But Barack's bigger than that. He's like Diamond Head; strong, silent, majestic, towering over all the racist, flat-earthers like Dubya. Every day he punishes Dubya by proofing he's the best President we've ever had, a claim that Dubya wouldn't dare make. Even he knows that he was the worst. That's why he's drunk all the time. So instead of slamming the guy like the rest of us would, Barack mercifully gives Dubya another chance, a chance he doesn't deserve, to get something right for once. And to save his sorry ass from his own incompetence, he teams him up with somebody else who can actually do the job right.

After thinking this through, I've learned my lesson. I'll never doubt my man Barack again. If he says it's dark in the day and light at night, I'll believe it. If Barack says dung is nutritious, I'll eat it. If Barack says CO² is a pollutant, give me a gas mask. I'll wear it. And if Barack says he can reform healthcare without ruining the finances of this nation, I'll back every backroom deal and payoff he has to make to get it done. In short, I'm done thinking. I'm putting my faith in Barack.

The Voice of Experience

2010-01-14T15:47:00.001-08:00

An Open Challenge to Liberals

Regardless of whether His Majesty, King Hussein Obama the First's healthcare destruction bill passes, you can be sure that liberals everywhere will continue to attack our nation's health insurance companies. In fact, if this bill passes, those attacks will probably increase in intensity since the King's bill will probably be beneficial to the insurance companies. As many friends and foes of this bill have already noted, including myself in a previous post, http://delta-man.blogspot.com/2010/01/voice-of-experience.html ,since this bill provides subsidies to purchase insurance for those people who couldn't previously afford it and mandates coverage of those people who have pre-existing conditions which prevent them from purchasing insurance today, our nation's health insurance companies will probably gain millions of new customers.

If you're not a wacked-out liberal, you might wonder, what's wrong with our nation's health insurers? Sure, they can be bureaucratic and filing out their forms can be a pain but are they really that bad. Most people in this country don't think so. According to a survey released in 2006 by ABC News, USA Today, and the Kaiser Family Foundation, hardly right-leaning organizations, 89 percent of Americans are satisfied with their own personal medical care. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/24/obama-pushes-national-health-care-americans-happy-coverage/ Besides the obvious good news contained in that statistic, we can also infer that the 11% of unsatisfied Americans represents the upper limit of the hard left in this country. (For you mathematically challenged liberals out there, 100 percent designates the whole of the population so 100 minus 89 equals 11).

So what's the liberals' big problem with our health insurance companies? Their main arguments are as follows:

1. Health Insurance Companies Refuse to Cover People with Pre-Existing Conditions.

Liberals love to use this one. What could be worse than refusing to help somebody with cancer, or a heart condition, or an incurable disease try to get medical care? This argument pulls the insurance companies down to the level of Dickens's Scrooge who, when told the poor people were starving, coldly replied:

Good. It will help reduce the excess population.

Of course, liberals never offer a reasonable explanation of why the health insurance companies have uniformly adopted this policy. The usual argument is that these companies are afraid of incurring medical losses or more precisely "medical losses" with the quotation marks added to emphasize the cruelty of this refusal to provide insurance. Liberals, who can see the good in murders, rapists, and child molesters, only see evil in the actions of the insurers.

2. Health Insurance Companies Try to Deny Coverage To Their Customers.

Liberals are notoriously cheap so they really hate this one. After all, what could be worse? You pay an outrageous premium for coverage and then when you actually need to use it, the big, mean insurance company drops a huge, unreadable contract in your lap and says, "See, right here in section 156351(e). You're not entitled to coverage for this procedure." And unlike the previous argument, liberals have, for them, a perfectly reasonable explanation for this practice. the health insurers are motivated by profit.

To liberals it makes perfect sense that the health insurers would try to deny coverage whenever possible because this practice would increase their profits. These profits flow through to that other group of evildoers, the company's stockholders. And to square the liberal circle, this argument only makes sense because everybody knows that the stockholders are only interested in the bottom line.

Left unsaid by the liberals is how the health insurance companies could get away with this practice, which runs counter to business practices used in every other industry, and still retain their customers. Imagine if Ford or Chrysler sold cars that broke after two weeks. Would anybody buy their cars again? I guess liberals would. Treating customers like garbage is usually a characteristic of a monopolistic business, like say, government.

3. Health Insurance Company Executives Make Too Much Money

Most liberals are barely qualified to run a paper route and they certainly couldn't run a Fortune 500 company. When they see an executive from one of these companies, including the health insurance companies, making tens of millions of dollars, their blood boils. To liberals, these outrageous salaries are just one more reason that health insurance is so expensive and one more indication of the harsh business practices of these companies. How could a health insurer on the one hand deny somebody coverage for a medically necessary procedure and then turn around and give some MBA, who is probably a son of privilege, educated in our nation's elite institutions, millions of dollars that they probably don't even need?

Once again, left unsaid by liberals is that these high salaries are the norm for the executives of these types of large businesses. We could argue another day about whether these salaries should be higher or lower, but that argument would not change the current reality of these salaries being at this level.

4. Health Insurance Companies Make Too Much Money.

Profit is a dirty word to liberals. The modern liberal looks at profit as unnecessary, a needless addition to the cost of a product or service. And in the case of healthcare, profit is akin to extortion. To liberals, the health insurance companies are cruelly extracting a profit from a public that desperately needs medical care.

As you might expect, liberals never offer a suggestion as to what a reasonable profit might be. Furthermore, liberals never explain why other people with capital haven't been attracted to that high profit and formed a competitor to try to make a similar profit. Isn't this practice common is our capitalist society? Why would you invest in industry X when the profits in industry Y are twice as great?

In short, for liberals, health insurance is a major problem. And I say to them: where some people see problems, others see opportunity.

Years ago, the only way to communicate with somebody without talking to them was to send a letter. Then Samuel Morse perfected the telegraph. This invention allowed people to communicate over great distances but required the use of Morse's Code, a cryptic system for converting the letters of the alphabet into dots and dashes. For many people the telegraph was good enough but Alexander Graham Bell thought we could do better. While still a young man, Bell quit his job and worked solely on inventing a new device for long distance communications: the telephone. Generations of Americans, especially teenage girls, could not imagine life without this simple device.

From the beginning of time, human affairs were governed by daylight and the absence of daylight. Men used candles and oil lights to provide some light at night but the light from both were poor. Most people didn't complain about this lack of light and planed their affairs accordingly. Thomas Edison thought we could do better. Using the theories of others, Edison worked tirelessly, trying a thousand different methods, to perfect an incandescent light bulb. In 1879, Edison successfully tested his invention, which provided light for 40 hours. Generations of Americans, especially the residents of Las Vegas, could not imagine life without this simple device.

I could go on and on but I think you get the point. Where liberals see a problem, I see a lucrative business opportunity. Accepting the liberals' arguments, you have an entire industry that:

1. Refuses to sell its service to some customers

2. Provides bad service

3. Pays its executives too much

4.. And charges too much in order to generate outrageous profits.

If the liberals formed their own health insurance company that didn't deny coverage to people with pre-existing coverage, didn't deny care to people who needed it, paid its executives less money, and charged less for its insurance because they could accept a lower level of profit, that company would attract millions of customers and its liberal backers might get rich to boot. How could it fail?

Of course, the liberals would offer up a million excuses for why they couldn't start such a company. It would be too hard to start an insurance company they'd say. But how do they think we got the insurance companies we have today? Did they fall from the sky? Of course not. Somewhere, at some time, somebody had to form these companies. The evil health insurer CIGNA, for example, traces its roots back to a group of prominent citizens of Philadelphia who formed the Insurance Company of North America in 1792. If a bunch of racist, white guys can start an insurance company, why can't a group of enlightened liberals do the same thing?

Oh, it would cost too much money. True, nobody claimed it would be cheap, but didn't the late election of the King prove the ability of liberals to raise large sums of money? Back in 2008, the liberals told us that the King was able to raise so much money because millions of people donated to his campaign. Supposedly, over two million people gave money to the King's campaign. If each one of these people would buy, on average, $250 worth of stock, the liberal insurance company could start with a capitalization of half a billion dollars. Granted, that amount would pale in comparison to the equity of a giant like CIGNA but who knows, maybe a few rich liberals might through in a few extra dollars. Does the name George Soros ring a bell?

So I challenge the liberals to put their money where their mouth is. I'm not asking for much. Just start a health insurance company in any state and I'll be satisfied that you actually believe what you say. After all, health insurance is regulated at the state level so it would only make sense to start the liberal company at that level. And this conservative approach fits in well with the liberals' well-known policy of prudence and restraint. I couldn't imagine liberals just jumping into something, spending money like crazy without regard to the consequences. That would NEVER happen.

On the Lighter Side with Limis Ward

2010-01-06T08:25:00.001-08:00

The System Worked

His Majesty's Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, has been taking a lot of flak lately for her recent comments about the failed Christmas Day attack on an Amsterdam to Detroit Northwest Airlines flight. More specifically, she claimed that the fact that the attack failed showed that "the system worked." http://www.politico.com/blogs/politicolive/1209/Napolitano_The_system_worked.html Conservative commentators couldn't believe that His Majesty's servant could make such a claim in light of the fact that:

The terrorist's father had warned American embassy staff several times about his son's radical intentions.
The terrorist was subsequently placed on a terrorist watch list but was allowed to board the plane anyway without any additional inquires or precautions.
The terrorist was able to smuggle his bomb onto the flight.
The plot might have failed because either the bomb the terrorist tried to use was defective and/or he didn't know how to use it.
The plot also might have failed because heroic passengers and crew members, who probably don't work for the TSA, stopped the terrorist before he could activate the bomb.

Here at Delta-Man, we try to be fair. So before you pile on this poor unfortunate servant of the King, consider the following historical examples of systems working:

1. After the nuclear attacks on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese deployed anti-nuclear attack shields in both cities. Neither Hiroshima nor Nagasaki was nuked again during World War II. At the surrender ceremony, Emperor Hirohito declared, "The system worked."

2. After the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic, ship captain Edward J. Smith ordered the iceberg deflectors to be deployed. During the remainder of the voyage, the Titanic was not hit by another iceberg. Prominent passenger John Jacob Astor's final words were, "The system worked. Gurgle, gurgle…"

3. As the LZ129 Hindenburg burst into flames over Lakehurst Naval Air Station, the crew smartly activated the airship's extensive sprinkler system. The Hindenburg subsequently landed at the air station. Radio reporter Herbert Morrison famously exclaimed, "The system worked."

4. After aviatrix Amelia Earhart landed safely on a remote island in the central Pacific Ocean during her around the world trip, she turned on her newly invented anti-lost system. As long as she lived on that island, Earhart was never lost again. As she strolled along the beach of that unknown atoll, she cried out, "The system worked."

5. After Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated while riding in an open car, security guards put on the car's bullet-proof bubble. Archduke Ferdinand was never assassinated again. Austria-Hungry spokesman Robert Gibbs von Idioto told a group of reporters that "The system worked."

6. After marauding British troops burned the White House during the War of 1812, President James Madison issued Executive Order 3, an order to ban all British citizens from the White House grounds. To date, the White House has never been burned again. Underneath his signature on the order, Madison wrote, "The syftem worked."

7. After the great world war, President Woodrow Wilson worked tirelessly to create an organization of nations to prevent future wars. This organization was called the League of Nations. Wilson's will instructed his burial tomb be inscribed with following phrase: "The system worked."

8. After the collapse of the South Fork Dam and subsequent flooding on the city of Johnstown, PA, municipal officials issued buckets and one mop to each city resident. The city of Johnstown is now dry. Industrialist and South Ford Dam owner Henry Clay Frick's lawyers released the following statement on his behalf: "The system worked."

9. After the destruction of over 490 city blocks by fire caused by an earthquake in San Francisco, the city council unanimously passed a law providing that all city residents be provided with free healthcare. Street performer and homeless advocate Flower Feldman spelled out the following slogan on the steps of City Hall using biodegradable, earth-friendly paints: "The system worked."

10. In 2008, Senator Barack Hussein Obama of Illinois/Kenya defeated Senator John McCain of Arizona in the race for the Presidency of the United States. Liberals everywhere shouted to the heavens with one voice, "The system worked!!"

The Voice of Experience

2010-01-05T14:39:00.001-08:00

Simple Questions About the Current Healthcare Reform Bill

In our justifiable zeal in attacking His Majesty, King Hussein Obama the First's irresponsible attempt to reform our nation's healthcare system, I think that sometimes our attacks fail to hit the mark due to their overly technical and detailed nature. Perhaps it would be wise to step back from tearing to shreds the various aspects of the King's plan and instead ask a few simple questions. In this way maybe those members of the public who might not be following this issue as closely as we are might come to realize why the King's healthcare reform is so wrong for this country. So next time you're talking to somebody about healthcare reform, ask them the following questions:

1. Why doesn't the healthcare bill require coverage until 2014?

Ever since that impish loser Al Franken was sworn in as the Democrat's effective 60^th vote in the Senate on July 7, 2009, the King and his minions have been demanding that healthcare reform measures be enacted immediately. His Majesty, for example, issued a decree that a bill reforming healthcare be on his desk by August 1, 2009. Once this deadline passed, our sovereign leader summoned a Joint Session of Congress on September 9, 2009 and told them and the nation that:

The time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action.

Now that the Senate has passed a version of the healthcare reform which needs reconciled to the previously passed House version, we're told that it must be passed by His Majesty's State of the Union Address, which usually occurs in late January or early February.

Now if you're a wacked out liberal you'll certainly understand the need for passing this sweeping reform as soon as possible. His Majesty, for example, stated in the aforementioned address that every day 14,000 Americans lose their healthcare coverage. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-to-a-Joint-Session-of-Congress-on-Health-Care One of his baronets, Senate Majority Leader Sir Harry Reid shared the following dire statistic on the cost of delay with the public in his remarks on the floor of the Senate on December 21, 2009: http://democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=321051

Much of our attention this year has been consumed by this health care debate. And a Harvard study found that 45,000 times this year – nearly 900 times every week, more than 120 times a day, on average every 10 minutes, without end – an American died as a direct result of not having health insurance.

And if you really want to step out onto the wacko fringe, Florida Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson cried out the floor of the House during a debate on September 30, 2009 that:

I call upon all of us to do our jobs for the sake of America, for the sake of those dying people and their families. I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven't voted sooner to end this holocaust in America."

Pretty strong stuff. So if you take all these overblown claims at face value, why do the Democrats want us to rush like mad to pass their reform bill and then sit back for nearly four years and watch another 20,020,000 people lose their health insurance and another 171,600 people die?. Sounds like Rep.. Grayson will have a lot more dead people to apologize to in the next few years. (Note for all you mathematically challenged liberals out there, the preceding figures assume a passage of the bill on February 1, 2010 and implementation of its provisions on January 1, 2014.)

Of course liberals will tell that that this is a complex process and it takes time to set up properly and it has to be done right and blah, blah, blah, but none of these types of concerns seemed to trouble them when they enacted the phony stimulus last February. At that time, His Majesty and his minions said we needed to dole out the money as fast as possible. But now that people's lives are at stake, it's more important that some bureaucrat makes sure they cross all the T's and dot all the I's than saving some serfs' lives.

Not to be cynical but my own answer to this question is that the King and his minions would love to stand before the voters a few times as the enactors of healthcare reform before the actual effects of that reform, which might not be as great as they are claiming, are felt by the voting public..

2. Why is the majority party having such difficulty passing this bill?

The royalist majorities in the Congress are impressive. Currently there are 58 Democratic Senators along with the socialist senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders and the former Democratic Senator, independent Senator Joe Lieberman who both caucus with the Democrats to give them a filibuster proof total of 60 votes out of 100. In the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi commands a force of 256 Democrats versus a meager 178 Republicans, with one seat being vacant. These majorities are on par and arguably better than the majorities former President Bill Clinton had in 1993 when he tried to pass a healthcare reform bill. At that time there were 258 Democratic Representatives plus the socialist Sanders, who at that time was in the House but only 56 Democratic Senators after the election of Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison in June 1993. So unlike our current sovereign, President Clinton needed Republican help in the Senate to avoid a filibuster..

So with such commanding majorities, why has so much of the discussion of the past several months focused on various parliamentary procedures and vote buying to get this bill passed? In a roll call vote on the House's healthcare reform bill, Speaker Pelosi lost 39 Democratic votes, or in other words, 15% of her caucus. The bill needed 218 votes to pass. It got 220. http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/votes/111/house/1/887

Once that bill went to the Senate, the liberals immediately started sweating blood over the prospect of a filibuster despite their filibuster proof majority. Democrats initially floated that idea of using a process called "reconciliation", which is a procedure used for filling out the details of the federal budget that can't be filibustered, in order to pass the bill. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/24/democrats-ponder-one-bill_n_267166.html The use of this procedure would have been unprecedented for a bill like this one and was ultimately dropped.

Instead, the Democrats settled on a well-worn and proven strategy for obtaining votes: buying them.. Anderson Cooper of CNN reported that Nebraska Democratic Senator Ben Nelson got a provision put into the bill that would make the federal government pay for any Medicaid expansion in his state caused by this bill, something no other state received. He also reported that other senators received a deal. Who are some of these others? http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2009/12/21/evening-buzz-buying-health-care-reform-votes/ How about Independent Senator Joe Lieberman? He got the Democrats to drop a provision in the bill that would have allowed uninsured Americans aged 55 to 64 to purchase Medicare coverage, an improvement in the bill that will make the many insurance and pharmaceutical companies in his state of Connecticut very happy and generous in their donations to Lieberman.. http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/12/14/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5979254.shtml Or perhaps Louisiana Democratic Senator Mary Landreiu? She got a quick $100 million by getting a provision in the bill to increase Medicare subsidies for "certain states recovering from a major disaster." Remember Hurricane Katrina? Yep, this provision only applies to one state, Louisiana. http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/11/the-100-million-health-care-vote.html

And now that the Senate has been bought off, the Democrats are worried about going through the normal process of reconciling their version of the bill with the House's version. And what's their worry? What else, it would take too long!! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/04/dems-will-bypass-conferen_n_410403.html

Once again, the liberal will have an answer. The legislative process is inherently messy. It's like watching someone make sausage, right? And don't think that Republicans haven't bought votes too you know.. Everybody does it. All of which is true but hasn't healthcare reform been a signature Democratic issue for decades? Remember when Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy died last year. All the liberals told us was that poor old Ted had been fighting for healthcare reform for over 40 years and now we had to pass it in his honor. So now that the Democrats have a golden opportunity to pass it, what's the big hang-up?

It's really quite simple. A solid majority of the American public is against His Majesty's plan. Remember the ear beating His Majesty's minions got back in August when they tried to take their case to the people? Mobs of serfs descended on the townhalls that Democratic Congressmen held and demanded that the public option and the death panels be removed from the bill. The Democrats seem to have given in on these issues but are pressing ahead with the rest of this bill despite the disapproval of 52% of the public for the current bill. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2009/1220/GOP-s-last-bullet-in-healthcare-reform-battle-public-opinion Furthermore, only 37% of the public thinks that the healthcare system will be better after His Majesty's bill passes. No wonder the King's own poll numbers are sinking like a rock.

3. Why is Medicare reform included in the bill?

Well that's an easy one your liberal friend will say. Medicare is part of our healthcare system and it needs reformed. That's true of course but I thought the whole point of this legislation was to provide universal health coverage for all Americans. Medicare already provides universal coverage for all Americans 65 and older so what does it have to do with this problem?

Strip out all the bells and whistles and extraneous provisions and the King's plan consists of two basic parts: raising taxes and imposing fees to offset the cost of providing health insurance for those who can't currently afford it and those who are currently uninsurable due to pre-existing medical conditions and reforming Medicare. Both of these parts of the bill present big challenges and would be tough enough to solve separately. Putting them together, to paraphrase that lovable M*A*S*H doctor Hawkeye Pierce seems to be like piling mounds and mounds of fertilizer on the problem in the hopes that something beautiful will grow.

Once again the answer is pretty simple. As I explained in a previous post http://delta-man.blogspot.com/2009/12/voice-of-experience.html , the only way for the King to pretend that his healthcare reform is budget neutral is to assume unrealistic savings from reforming Medicare. To summarize, the King's plan assumes savings from Medicare reform in 2010 through 2019 of $438 billion and savings in 2020 through 2029 of $2.582 trillion!! These are pretty big numbers and greatly exceed the projected reductions of the budget deficits in 2010 through 2019 of $132 billion and $1.3 trillion in 2020 through 2029. So what's the difference? It's the gap in the King's revenues raised from taxes and fees versus the payments for insurance coverage. Without these Medicare savings, His Majesty would have to increase these taxes and fees over and above their already oppressive scheduled rates which might prove fatal to the King's popularity.

4. Why doesn't the bill include healthcare cost savings except for reductions in Medicare?

Another easy one, your liberal friend will say. The unruly mobs of "birthers" demanded that our cost savings measure, the public option, be dropped from the bill. To briefly summarize, the public option was supposed to hold down healthcare costs by creating a government run insurance company to compete with private insurers. The liberals hoped that this "competition" would drive down healthcare costs.

Without discussing the merits of this warped economic theory, let's just assume the liberals are right. The public option would have reduced healthcare costs. So if that's correct, then why are they rushing to enact a flawed bill? It could be argued, in fact, that this bill will increase healthcare costs by pumping more money into the healthcare system in a manner similar to the federally funded college loan program. I'm not the only one to think this way. When the Senate healthcare bill cleared the first filibuster attempt in late December, thereby signaling that it would pass, insurance company stocks hit 52 week highs. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/20/scarborough-health-insura_n_398520.html And why do you think that occurred?

Basically the Democrats are backed in a corner. By traveling down this road of trying to enact a politically unpopular reform, they have left themselves open to suffering a crushing defeat at the polls this November. But if they don't pass this bill, not only will all the conservatives and moderates still be mad at them, the wacko liberal base of their party will be furious because once again, they blew a golden opportunity to reform healthcare. So it's crucial that the King and his minions pass something, really anything, that they can claim to be a reform of healthcare. Which leads to our final question...

5. What's next?

After such a bruising and protracted battle, you'd think the last thing the Democrats would want to tackle would be another round of healthcare reform. If you thought that, you'd be wrong. Consider the comments http://www.sphere.com/opinion/article/senate-health-care-bill-is-imperfect-first-step-supporters-say/19291360 of Colorado Democratic Senator Michael Bennet who calls the bill a "step in the right direction", or how about Iowa Democratic Senator Tom Harkin, who describes the healthcare bill as follows:

What we are getting here is a starter home.

Or how about this from commentator and author Joseph Lazzaro http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2009/12/24/2009-u-s-health-care-reform-bill-a-first-step/ who echoes Harkin's starter home comments and says:

there is no credible evidence that suggests that a market economy in the modern era can achieve universal health insurance while simultaneously keeping costs low.

I could go on and on but I think you get the point. Once the King and his minions get their foot in the door with this bill, we will be traveling down a path to a single payer healthcare system. Just imagine the arguments some future liberal, who is probably getting high or doing some "blow" at this very moment, will make in 2025. He'll say:

Yes I know we've increased healthcare coverage but look at the cost. The federal deficit is exploding and the insurance companies are getting rich. We need to stop this madness and pass this 10,000 page bill which will provide free, governmental provided healthcare for everyone.

And the Democrats of that day will drag His Majesty, the Father of Healthcare Reform, from whatever hole he's in at that time to once again rally the masses with his stirring rhetoric. As he's doing now, he'll once again promise hope and change if only we'll trust him to do the right thing. As they say, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…..

The Voice of Experience

2009-12-22T08:41:00.001-08:00

Memo to Liberals: Read the Full CBO Report Before You Shoot Your Mouth Off

As part of their suicidal rush towards ruining the nation's healthcare system, King Hussein Obama the First and his minions must be overjoyed that the latest Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scoring of the effect of their latest monstrosity on the federal deficit appears to be a positive one. More specifically, in a letter http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/108xx/doc10868/12-19-Reid_Letter_Managers.pdf dated December 19, 2009 to Majority Leader Senator Harry Reid, the CBO estimates that the adoption of Senate Amendment 2786, also referred to as the "Manager's Amendment", which is the current version of the Senate healthcare reform bill, will lead to a net reduction in the federal deficit of $132 billion over the next ten years.

First of all before we probe the details of this report, it's worth remembering that His Majesty has frequently claimed that reforming our nation's healthcare system would be a significant factor in reducing our nation's budget deficits. For example, here's an excerpt from His Majesty's speech to a joint session of Congress on September 9^th, 2009:

Finally, our health care system is placing an unsustainable burden on taxpayers. When health care costs grow at the rate they have, it puts greater pressure on programs like Medicare and Medicaid. If we do nothing to slow these skyrocketing costs, we will eventually be spending more on Medicare and Medicaid than every other government program combined. Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close.

Emphasis added.

For those of you with long memories, which necessarily excludes liberals, you might remember that His Majesty's initial budget projected a net increase in the federal debt from 2010 to 2019 of $10 trillion. http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy10/pdf/fy10-newera.pdf (If you don't feel like searching through this document for the $10 trillion dollar figure we recommend you read my previous post on this budget at http://delta-man.blogspot.com/2009/03/voice-of-experience_14.html ) Simple mathematics, once again a challenging task for liberals, reveals that the savings from this comprehensive healthcare reform bill of $132 billion will lead to a reduction in the overall projected ten year deficit of 1.32%. In other words, instead of a total ten year deficit of $10,000,000,000,000, the ten year deficit will be $9,868,000,000,000. Sounds like a winner to me. I'm sure our largest creditor, the Chinese, will take comfort in this reduction in our deficit.

As long as we're playing with numbers here's one more way to look at this supposed solution to our nation's deficit problem. If essentially nationalizing approximately 15% of our economy leads to a 1.32% reduction in our deficit, we only need to nationalize another 1,117% of our economy to balance our budget. I'm somewhat hesitant to point this out though because some liberal out there might site this statistic as a justification for nationalizing the whole economy.

***

So how does the CBO arrive at their $132 billion figure? A good place to start is by looking at Table 2, Estimated Changes in Direct Spending and Revenues Resulting from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Incorporating the Manager's Amendment, which starts on page 5 of the report. First of all you'll see a section entitled "Changes in Direct Spending (Outlays)". The first three items are the gross costs of the bill:

Provision	Ten Year Cost		Purpose

Health Insurance Exchange	$ 336	Subsidies to individuals to purchase insurance
Reinsurance and Risk Adjustment Payments	120	Transfer of funds from insurance companies to attempt to "even out" the effect of insuring high-risk patients.
Effects of Coverage Provision on Medicaid and CHIP	395	Increased coverage due to relaxed eligibility requirements.
	_______
Total	$ 851

So how does His Majesty pay for this gross cost? Lying directly below these gross costs on Table 2 is a subsection entitled "Medicare and Other Medicaid and CHIP Provisions" which contains total reductions in spending of $438 billion. These are the much discussed cuts in Medicare and other federal health programs spending. The obvious question is will these cuts actually take place.

Congress has been down this road before. Typically a law is passed which calls for some form of cut in Medicare reimbursement rates in the future. As that date approaches senior citizens and advocacy groups put pressure on the Congress to rescind the cuts. Usually at the last possible moment, the Congress gives in. For example, late in 2006 the Congress passed HR 6408 to avoid a 5.1% reduction scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2007. http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/42/2/11.full

Before you start pounding on the CBO for including this unrealistic estimate remember what their job is. They are supposed to judge the budgetary effect of the bill as written, not consider future legislative action. So by including this $438 billion reduction all the CBO is saying is that if the Congress is willing to stick to its guns, which is worth noting that they have not in the past, this amount of money will be saved. I'm not a betting man but I wouldn't put money on these reductions actually being made.

The last section in Table 2 under spending is entitled "Other Changes in Direct Spending" and contains an innocuous sounding but very dangerous provision called Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS). Skip ahead to page 11 and you'll find a description of this new program. CLASS is a new federal program for long-term care insurance. The CBO estimates that the establishment of this program will reduce the deficits by $72 billion over the ten year period 2010-2019. How do they arrive at that figure?

It's really quite simple. People will start to enroll in the program and pay premiums for care that they won't need until years in the future. The CBO recognizes this fact by stating the following:

However, the program's cash flows would show net receipts for a number of years, followed by net outlays in subsequent decades.

In other words, the CLASS program would be building up a reserve for the payment of future services. Some people, especially those with more prudence than your average tax and spend liberal, might refer to this $72 billion as restricted cash, not deficit reduction, since it will ultimately have to be paid out. In short, of the CBO's 132 billion savings, over half, this $72 billion, is the result of the implementation of this program. Pulling this $72 billion out leaves us with a $50 billion reduction or 0.50% of the projected $10 trillion deficit over the ten year period from 2010-2019.

Another obvious question related to this CLASS program is will it actually charge premiums sufficiently high enough to cover its costs. The current bill says it will but I tend to doubt that. Medicare and Medicaid are flat broke, as is Social Security. Why should CLASS be different? Somehow I fear that in twenty years we'll all be talking about how to fix the fiscal mess due to the underfunding of CLASS.

***

Now let's turn back to page 6 and look at the second half of Table 2 to see the effect of His Majesty's bill on revenues. Here's where the liberal starts to flex their muscles. Included in this section are all the new taxes and penalties such as:

New Tax/Penalty	Ten Year Revenue

Penalty Payments by Employers and Uninsured Individuals	$ 43
Excise Tax on High-Premium Plans	149
Associated Effects of Coverage Provision on Revenues	61
Fees on Certain Manufactures and Insurers	101
Additional Hospital Insurance Tax	87
Other Revenue Provision	76
	_______
Total	$ 517

That's a nice hunk of change. Left unsaid is the effect of all these new taxes on the public that pays them. As a general rule though you can count on businesses to pass these taxes onto their customers if possible so ultimately you'll end up paying them in one form or another. It's so typical of liberals that this new program which is supposed to provide all these benefits and significantly reduce our deficit for free is actually based on a massive tax increase.

Before I leave this revenue section it's worth noting that Reinsurance and Risk Adjustment Collections yields $121 billion over the ten year period. Remember that this provision was estimated to cost $120 billion over the ten year period so in essence it's a wash. In theory it sounds easy. Charge the insurance companies that have less high risk customers and give the money to the insurance companies that have more high risk customers. In practice I think we'll find that this is a lot more complicated than a punch drunk dummy like Harry Reid thinks it will be. Don't be shocked if ten years down the road we're reading stories about how some insurance companies are scamming this system and not paying their "fair" share or there's differences of opinion on how to calculate the amounts due. Furthermore, would you trust the federal government to simply collect this money and remit the full amount back to the insurance companies without taking a cut for themselves?

***

As you might have guessed, such sweeping legislation as this might have an effect on other federal programs and consequently lead to addition spending. Since His Majesty, King Hussein Obama the First, is in such a damn hurry to get this done the CBO had to report the following on page 12:

CBO has not completed an estimate of the discretionary costs that would be associated with the legislation. Such costs would include those arising from the effects of the legislation on a variety of federal programs and agencies as well as from a number of new and existing programs subject to future appropriations.

Well, well. I guess it would make too much sense to take our time and consider the full impact on this bill. At least the CBO didn't completely punt on this one. They identified two effects of the legislation, costs to the IRS for implementing the eligibility determinations, etc, and costs to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Office of Personnel Management for implementing changes to the federal insurance programs of between $5 to $10 billion for each of these two main changes. So in other words, take our adjusted $50 billion savings and knock another $10 to $20 billion off it for a new figure of between $30 to $40 billion.

***

Of course, your average liberal has an answer for everything and after reading the preceding analysis most will simply shrug their shoulders and say so what. Go ahead and knock down the $132 billion in savings to $30 billion. Knock it down to zero. We're laying the groundwork for the future. This claim is exactly what His Majesty said in his remarks of December 21^st http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-save-award-and-making-government-more-efficient-and-effective

The Congressional Budget Office now reports that this bill will reduce our deficit by $132 billion over the first decade, and by as much as $1.3 trillion in the decade after that. So I just want to be clear, for all those who are continually carping about how this is somehow a big spending government bill, this cuts our deficit by $132 billion the first 10 years, and by over a trillion in the second.

The CBO discussion of the effect of the bill on the ten year period from 2020 to 2029 and beyond starts on page 15 of the report. You will search far and wide for this supposed $1.3 trillion savings. So where does His Majesty come up with this figure?

If you look at page 16 you'll find some estimates of the expected increase in the various provisions of the bill. Using an excel spreadsheet and starting with the suggested base year of 2019, you'll come up with a projected savings of $1.249 trillion. In my calculation, I used a projected increase in the Exchange Premium Credit and the Small Employer Tax Credit of 7.0% since the report is silent on these two provision. If you run the math though, one provision stands out like a sore thumb. The expected saving in Medicare, Medicaid and the CHIP program are expected to increase 15% per year for a whopping $2.581 trillion savings. This wildly optimistic estimate reduces the gross cost of the program from $2.846 trillion to $265 billion. Sounds too good to be true? For reasons explained above, it is.

While you won't find this $1.3 trillion savings directly in the report you will find this little gem on page 15:

Although CBO does not generally provide cost estimates beyond the 10-year budget projection period (2010 through 2019 currently), Senate rules require some information about the budgetary impact of legislation in subsequent decades, and many Members have requested CBO analyses of the long-term budgetary impact of broad changes in the nation's health care and health insurance systems. A detailed year-by-year projection for years beyond 2019, like those that CBO prepares for the 10-year budget window, would not be meaningful because the uncertainties involved are simply too great.

Emphasis added.

***

There's one other little gem in this report that's worth looking into. On page 2 of the report the CBO reports the following:

CBO and JCT have determined that the legislation contains several intergovernmental and private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA). The total cost of those mandates to state, local, and tribal governments and the private sector would greatly exceed the thresholds established in UMRA ($69 million and $139 million, respectively, in 2009, adjusted annually for inflation).

So what does this mean? Flip ahead to page 20 and you'll find a discussion of the impact of this legislation as required by the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act. This act http://www.sba.gov/ADVO/laws/unfund.pdf was passed in 1995 and is supposed to among other things, as disclosed in Section 2 of the Act:

(3) to assist Congress in its consideration of proposed legislation establishing or revising Federal programs containing Federal mandates affecting State, local, and tribal governments, and the private sector by—

(A) providing for the development of information about the nature and size of mandates in proposed legislation; and

(B) establishing a mechanism to bring such information to the attention of the Senate and the House of Representatives before the Senate and the House of Representatives vote on proposed legislation;

Section 424 of the act requires the Director of the Congressional Budget to prepare an estimate of the amount of the unfunded mandates on both other governmental units, i.e. state and local governments, and the general public. The thresholds for preparing these reports are $50,000,000 for other governmental units and $100,000,000 for the general public. These amounts are adjusted annually for inflation which is why the CBO report lists thresholds of $69,000,000 and $139,000,000 respectively.

This section also contains a "loophole" for those situations, such as this one, where the CBO can't make an estimate of the unfunded mandates.

''(3) ESTIMATE NOT FEASIBLE.—If the Director determines that it is not feasible to make a reasonable estimate that would be required under paragraphs (1) and (2), the Director shall not make the estimate, but shall report in the statement that the reasonable estimate cannot be made and shall include the reasons for that determination in the statement.

This is exactly what the current report does. But if you read over page 20 carefully, the report is hardly good news for the non-federal sector of our society. Consider these statements:

The most costly mandates would be the new requirements regarding health insurance coverage that apply to the private sector. The legislation would require individuals to obtain acceptable health insurance coverage, as defined in the legislation. The legislation also would penalize medium-sized and large employers that did not offer health insurance to their employees if any of their workers obtained subsidized coverage through the insurance exchanges.

The legislation would impose a number of mandates, including requirements on issuers of health insurance, new standards governing health information, and nutrition labeling requirements.

And of course the term "unfunded mandate" has a precise definition so there are additional potential expenditures that might be required:

As conditions of federal assistance (and thus not mandates as defined in UMRA), the legislation would require state and local governments to comply with "maintenance of effort" provisions associated with high-risk insurance pools. New requirements in the Medicaid program also would result in an increase in state spending. However, because states have significant flexibility to make programmatic adjustments in their Medicaid programs to accommodate changes, the new requirements would not be intergovernmental mandates as defined in UMRA.

Or in other words, His Majesty is going to require the states and local governments to spend more money in Medicaid but if the states want to make cuts in other areas of the program, and take the resulting political heat, they're free to do so.

***

So what do you need to take away from this long discussion? First of all, the CBO reports that His Majesty's healthcare reform is budget neutral provided that the Congress follows through on massive, unpopular reductions in Medicare. Second, like most liberal proposals, this bill contains massive tax increases and requires unknown but large expenditures by state and local governments and the general public. Third, this bill contains dangerous and potentially disastrous provisions like the establishment of a new federal insurance program, CLASS, and the transfer of funds between insurance companies without the federal government taking some of the money and/or screwing it up.

And perhaps even more important than these points is that the bill doesn't even work. As explained above, the bill does basically nothing to reduce the deficit. Furthermore it doesn't even provide universal coverage which I thought was the whole point off this damn bill. If you look on page 8 of the report, you'll find that approximately 23 million nonelderly residents would still be uninsured by 2019. So after ten years, only 94% of the legal nonelderly residents of the country would have insurance coverage. God forbid this legislation passes but if it does I'm sure some liberal wacko is already gearing up for the big fight to cover that last 6%.

On the Lighter Side with Limis Ward

2009-10-09T10:47:00.001-07:00

And the Winner Is…

In a somewhat startling announcement, the Downtown Athletic Club awarded the prestigious Heisman Memorial Trophy to President Barack Obama. Usually the Heisman is given to college football's best player and Obama is the first non-athlete to ever win the award. At a ceremony this morning Club president Reginald Smithton said President Obama received this award for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen and support college football" and specifically cited Obama's suggestion that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) hold a college football "playoff" to determine a national champion for its top teams, commonly referred to as Division 1-A. University of California at Berkley spokesman Summer Bryant praised the decision of the Downtown Athletic Club. "I remember when President Obama suggested a playoff. Our athletic people were blown away man. In retrospect it seemed so oblivious but nobody ever thought of it. After all, like, all the other NCAA football divisions, Division III, Division II, and Division 1-AA already have playoffs and the NCAA Division I-A men's basketball playoff, also known as March Madness, is wildly successful. But nobody could connect all the dots and see the possibilities. I guess only a man as smart as President Obama could come up with such a revolutionary idea.

Of course, as with everything associated with a political figure like a President, Obama's winning of the Heisman Trophy was greeted with criticism in some quarters. University of Florida booster Jimmy Bob "Buck" Allen condemned the announcement in harsh language. "How many yards or touchdown passes has that skinny runt gained this season? Not one I'm telling you. We've got a guy here at UF (University of Florida senior quarterback and past Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow) who could run rings around that old man. Hell, Tebow's already won two national championships and he's a good Christian to boot. That has to count for something." Well apparently not with the Downtown Athletic Club. Club president Smithton recognizes that awarding the Heisman to Obama could be considered controversial by some but urged college football fans everywhere to embrace Obama as the reigning champion. "To simply award the Heisman to the best college football player is typical of the old, discredited ideas of the past."

Trivia buffs and barroom hustlers might want to take note of the fact that at age 48 President Obama is by far the oldest man to win the Heisman Trophy. Typically the Heisman is awarded to college juniors and seniors who are usually between the ages of 20 to 24. The record for oldest Heisman Trophy winner was previously held by Florida State University quarterback Chris Weinke, who won the award in 2000 at the age of 28.

And if the latest rumors floating around Trump headquarters turn out to be true, the Heisman Trophy might not be President Obama's last prestigious award this year. Accordingly to anonymous sources, the Miss Universe Organization is considering stripping reigning Miss Universe Stefania Fernandez of Venezuela of her crown and bestowing the honor on President Obama. To quote one source, "Obama's thin and he cuts a dashing figure. He'd fit in well with our pantheon of winners." For unknown political considerations, our source tells us that President Obama would reign as Miss Kenya.

The Voice of Experience

2009-09-15T13:42:00.001-07:00

Army of the Insane

Of all my duties here at Delta-Man probably my least favorite is trolling the liberal websites and reading their crap. I do this for two reasons: first of all so you don't have to and second, to find out what these idiots are saying and attempt to respond to their arguments in a logical manner. Now I realize that these arguments will never reach these deluded liberals since logic is a concept that's as foreign to them as responsibility. Instead I attempt to respond to their arguments because that's how normal people engage in a meaningful debate, which after all is what King Hussein Obama the First says we're supposed to be doing.

I've found that the site http://www.huffingtonpost.com is fairly representative of the far left. It features news and opinion, in a manner similar to the conservative site http://www.drudgereport.com/ . Over the last week I've noticed that while the drudgereport was filled with stories about the filmmakers disguised as a hooker and pimp who secretly taped ACORN workers advising them to break the law, the huffingtonpost was strangely silent. The earliest headline I could find on the drudgereport was on September 10^th entitled "ACORN fires 2 after hidden-camera footage aired." http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/dsp/links_recap5.htm Over the past five days, this story has exploded. We've learned that these filmmakers caught ACORN employees in Washington, D.C., New York City, and Baltimore giving essentially the same advice. And in a shocking twist, the Maryland State's Attorney is considering charging the two filmmakers with illegally taping the ACORN employees. http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/09/12/maryland-may-prosecute-acorn-sting-video-makers As of this writing, the first, and only article on the huffingtonpost is an AP article reporting the New York City incident from September 14^th http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/14/acorn-employees-caught-on_n_286580.html And as blogger electricflag noted in the comments to the story, it wasn't exactly on the front page:

Boy, they really buried this NATIONAL new story. I had to go through 2 secret rooms and a spiral staircase to find this one.

Ordinarily, liberal sites such as huffingtonpost can't wait to shoot their mouths off on the latest news. But in this case they were strangely silent. . http://www.ihatethemedia.com/fox-covers-acorn-hooker-scandal In this case they were following the playbook of the mainstream media when a potentially embarrassing story like this one surfaces. First they ignore the story and hope it goes away. If the story has legs, they report the basic facts but offer no opinions. Then, and only then, once they've had time to decide on the best mode of attack, they unleash a blizzard of opinions, analysis, and commentaries to explain away the embarrassing incident and/or charge evil Republicans with manufacturing the whole story because they are so mean.

Since the huffingtonpost readers didn't have a chance to comment on this ACORN story until yesterday, I thought it might be interesting to see what they had to say. After all they'd been waiting for four days, watching Fox News and the drudgereport hammer their ideological brothers at ACORN. Liberals are the master of making up excuses so I thought it would funny to read some of their more creative efforts. I was not disappointed.

Huffingtonpost blogger Eris23 represents the views of many, claiming ACORN is being tarred by the actions of a few rogue employees:

On the other, you have a demonization piece where, at best, unethical behavior by a small handful of employees is being manipulated to try and show an entire organization is corrupt. It's foolish all around.

Blogger RichPort puts his own clever spin on this argument by noting that only employees at three locations were busted:

You're right, and it's precisely this scientific sampling of ACORN's anti-American actions that make me hurl stones at every Catholic priest I see, you know, because they're obviously all molesters...

Other bloggers used the classic rationalization of pointing out that their opponents have also engaged in similar slimy behavior. In other words, who are you to criticize us? Blogger BK 1717 reminds us of recent Republican villains:

Randy "Duke" Cunningham
Bob Ney
Rick Renzi
Ted Stevens
Tom Delay
Mark Foley
Larry Craig
David Vitter

Do those names ring any bells?

Responding to a conservative comment that former President Bush would have also been attacked if a group he had close ties to was engaged in such behavior, blogger Blue Floyd takes it up a notch:

he was......and there was an outcry.......you don't have to imagine.

in fact, his associations resulted in actual deaths of people.

Another variation of this argument was offered by blogger Granted BKNY. His claim was that if only the liberals, who control the film industry and the news media, and are universally regarded as smarter than conservatives, had come up with this idea, they would uncover all sorts of Republican sins.

I would love an undercover video between Rush or Glenn and their accountants. I bet they are getting far better ideas on how to hide assets.

To be fair, some liberal bloggers condemned the actions of the ACORN employees which is what you would expect any decent person to do. If you take the time to watch the videotapes or read the transcripts at http://biggovernment.com/ you'll be shocked at the brazen misconduct. The filmmakers posed as an 18 year old hooker and her new pimp. They represent that they have been trying to get a mortgage for a house to use as a den of iniquity. To further complicate matters, the new pimp does not want to be directly involved in the mortgage because he has future political aspirations and the hooker wants to bring in underage girls from Central America to work for her at the house.

None of this bothers the ACORN employees. They navigate all these landmines, obvious to the admitted intention to commit serious criminal activity at this house, and suggest fraudulent ways of obtaining a mortgage. One of the New York employees even gave advice on how to hide money in the backyard so nobody could find it. (In case you're interested, don't bury the money under the dog house as they do in the movies. ACORN's advice is to mark the spot with a plant. See pages 23-24 of the transcript). As this story has developed my one thought has been, "Where does ACORN find these people?" After reading the comments on huffingtonpost, I think I know where.

Budding lawyer chrisso114, who obviously didn't read the full transcripts, claims that the ACORN employees didn't do anything wrong because it's not a crime to say you're a hooker.

so, I kep reading about "underage" hookers but only the lead scammer mentions it during the intro and it is not in the clip--it is not apparent these employees know anything other than this one scammer woman claims to be a prostitute and supposedly will have other prostitutes working in the house

where does the "underage" part come in?

seems they are only saying you really cannot fo into a bank and claim prostitution as a profession and get a loan (being factual)

and they question (not knowing) whether prostitution is legal--regardless, it seems they are trying to help the scammer hooker pretendee knowing that to turn her in would not make a difference as there is no crime in claiming to be a prostitute

you need to solicit someone

Brilliant huh? I hope King Hussein Obama the First doesn't find about this guy. He'll be his next Supreme Court appointment.

Blogger Eris23 jumps back in to the comments with the claim that the actions of the ACORN employees weren't illegal, albeit without the subtle legal analysis given above.

Newsflash. It's not illegal to get a pimp or a prostitute housing. It is only a crime to be involved in the furtherance of their criminal enterprise.

Blogger Eris23 is also known as the "slow1".

Blogger Yardley, probably a 9-11 truther, claims it's all, big shock here, a conspiracy.

This is very bad. First, I believe the Acorn workers were bought off prior to the making of the video. The payment had to be enough so they wouldn't have to worry about being fired. The way they played along with this obvious, sick halloween prank was just too well rehearsed to play to an intelligent viewer. I mean, really, you are an adult employed by a social service ageny, and two bozos dressed in lime green halloween costumes start asking you to find a child exploitation sex ring and you calmly play along with it? Bullshit. Fortunately, if felony charges do come of this, the "workers" may confess to having been paid and Faux news may find itself paying for this idiotic stunt big time.

Blogger RichPort jumps back in with a claim being made by ACORN, that the tapes have been doctored.

These tapes are as edited as P@lin's college transcript(s).

Nice touch with the Palin insult. Maybe he'll get an award for this comment like Tina Fey.

Blogger PostModernPatriot argues, in a manner reminiscent of our own The Righteous Lib, that nobody really cares about these hookers except for maybe…the ACORN employees!

Do a Google search for "Sarah Kruzan" and then come back & tell me how much our govt & our society REALLY cares about victims of so-called human trafficking. Spare me the faux outrage over this ACORN employee trying to help a supposed prostitute instead of calling the police. None of your ilk truly cares about help for the "prostitute" - except maybe these ACORN ladies at the end of the video (a little bit). This is really about trying to disenfrachise the voters who ACORN is so good at registering & encouraging to vote.

This video isn't even about "child" sex trafficking...they just tried to sneak in a reference to "young" at the end so they could smear to the nth degree.

Sarah Kruzan was a underage prostitute and victim of child abuse who was given a life sentence for killing her abusive pimp when she was 16 years old. Efforts to free Kruzan, now 28, are yet another liberal cause that a sensitive, caring human being like PostModernPatriot would take up.

Blogger assy also feels the hooker's pain.

If I were advising poor people with limited life options, I'd advise them to lie too. While it may not be admirable, I would've done the same thing the ACORN counselor did.

Blogger Brooklynbetty, who I'm sure looks nothing like the attractive picture accompanying her post, responds to assy and goes further.

I agree. Notably, no one has mentioned the part of this video where the counselor encourages the sex worker to start thinking for herself and to stop listening to her "pimp."

Classic liberal. Notice the sly substitution of the work "sex worker" for the hooker. She almost had all the letters typed in for the word "whore". Why give yourself carpal tunnel symptom?

So if you're wondering where ACORN finds these idiots who shamelessly commit fraud and engage in criminal conspiracy, now you know. They're people like chrisso114 and Brooklynbetty. Idiots like the PostModernPatriot and Yardley, Fools like Eris23, RichPort, and assy, who admitted that she would do exactly the same thing the ACORN employees did. People who are so ideologically driven, so mentally challenged that they could justify anything. These bloggers are but the vanguard of an army of the insane, people who would just be harmless clowns if it wasn't for groups like ACORN that give them the power to act on their stupid beliefs. When His Majesty talks about his civilian army of brown shirts, these people will be filling the ranks.

And you might be wondering what our King has to say about all of this trouble at ACORN? Remember, prior to His reign, His Majesty represented ACORN in the courts and has many friends actively involved in its operations today. The King has issued decrees for ACORN to work on a variety of government projects, including the upcoming census of his peasants. Surely His Majesty must have some thoughts that he wishes to read off his Tele-Prompt-Ter.

As of this writing, His Majesty has been silent, letting his, soon to be former, friends to twist in the wind. But I don't what to jump to any hasty conclusions. He might not even be aware of the whole controversy. Fired ABC news anchor Charles Gibson wasn't aware of this mess until today. http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2009/09/15/charles-gibson-totally-unaware-five-day-old-acorn-controversy-senate-vot Maybe they have more important things on their minds, like how rude Kanye West was to take the microphone away from Taylor Swift at MTV's Video Music Awards. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/14/obama-kanye-is-a-jackass_n_286623.html

The Voice of Experience

2009-09-13T20:31:00.001-07:00

He Started It

The Democrats are such hypocrites that sometimes I feel that all I do is write the same story over and over. The typical story on this topic goes as follows: Under President Bush the Democrats engage in behavior X. Their liberal hack friends in the media praise behavior X. Under King Hussein Obama the First, the Republicans engage in behavior X and the Democrats and their media stooges go crazy. The latest example occurred when Republican Representative Joe Wilson from South Carolina shouted "You lie" as His Majesty was reading a speech off his Tele-Prompt-Ter in front of a joint session of Congress. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUC2rGj2VqE In an earlier time, anyone who dared to so openly criticize the King would have lost his head but the Democrats were content with demanding that Wilson be censured and offer His Majesty an apology.

This interest in the decorum and civility in our legislature is a new one for the Democrats. Many commentators have pointed out that Democrats heckled former President Bush during the 2005 State of the Union address. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/willheaven/100009397/congressman-joe-wilson-do-the-democrats-remember-how-they-booed-george-w-bush/ As you might suspect, at that time there were no calls in the mainstream media or from prominent Democrats for an apology. After all, Bush was a liar and deserved to be booed. Just ask Harry Reid.

Give the Republicans credit for being consistent. The same Republicans who condemned the Democrats for their treatment of President Bush also demanded that Representative Wilson apologize, which he quickly did. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-joe-wilson-obama11-2009sep11,0,646206.story And His Majesty graciously accepted Wilson's apology, reading the following off his Tele-Prompt-Ter:

I'm a big believer that we all make mistakes…I do think that, as I said last night, we have to get to the point where we can have a conversation about big, important issues that matter to the American people without vitriol, without name-calling, without the assumption of the worst of other people's motives

I guess His Majesty wasn't paying too much attention as he read his speech to the Congress because that's exactly what He did just before Wilson called him a liar. Watch the You Tube clip again closely. About 50 seconds into the clip His Majesty read the following:

Tonight I want to address some of the key controversies that are still out there. Some of people's concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts but by prominent politicians that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Now such a charge would be laughable if it weren't so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.

My purpose today is not to argue the point that His Majesty's worthless plan contains death panels. Instead I ask you, if it's wrong for Representative Wilson to call King Hussein Obama the First a liar then why is ok for His Majesty to call talk show hosts and prominent politicians liars? And how can the King ascribe the worst motives to his critics and then turn around and say we shouldn't do that?

And who are these prominent politicians? His Majesty wasn't just referring to Sarah Palin, the author of a post that started the death panel controversy, when he said prominent politicians? Maybe He was also referring to Senator Charles Grassley, who was pummeled by the liberals when he said people had a right to be concerned about such panels. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/12/grassley-endorses-death-p_n_257677.html Why is it ok for His Majesty to call a Senator a liar but it's an outrage for a member of Congress to call him a liar?

Of course the liberal hacks in the media had nothing but silence on their Messiah's vicious comments. Instead, in disgust, they noted that only four Republican Senators stood and applauded Obama's statement about the death panels. http://thinkprogress.org/2009/09/10/four-gop-senators-applaud/

For those of you with long memories, which rules out the liberals reading this post, remember that during the late campaign His Majesty promised us a new golden age, a civil politics where we could disagree without being disagreeable. Instead of working towards this goal, King Hussein Obama the First thunders from his bully pulpit that the time for debate is over and that his opponents are cynical liars. In a party filled with hypocrites, His Majesty is number one.

On the Lighter Side with Limis Ward

2009-09-03T13:08:00.001-07:00

Generation O

On September 8^th, King Hussein Obama the First addressed the nation's school age children in an unprecedented internet broadcast. Before we provide the text of His Majesty's remarks, please review the following memo provided by His Majesty's minions to the nation's teachers so they could put his words of wisdom in proper context.

Menu of Classroom Activities

President Obama's Address to Students Across America

(PreK-6)

September 8, 2009

Before the Speech

· Teachers can build background knowledge about the President of the United States and his speech by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama. Teachers could motivate students by asking the following questions:

Why do some people insist on criticizing the smartest man ever to serve as President?

Have you noticed that only a white, racist, hate-mongers are protesting against his policies?

Did you know that the Ku Klux Klan was founded by the Republican Party?

Did you know that the Jim Crow laws of the Old South were enacted by white Republicans?

Did you know that not one single Republican voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

· Teachers can ask students to imagine that they are delivering a speech to all of the students in the United States.

What is it like to be the most powerful man in the world?

Do you realize the President can crush you like a grape, dispose of your remains, and wipe out any evidence that you ever existed?

Can you read a speech as it's flying by on a Tele-Prompt-Ter?

· Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected Democrats, like the mayor, senators, members of congress, or the governor? Do you understand that these people are solely concerned with your welfare? Do you find yourself growing angry when you listen to prominent Republicans? If not, why?

During the Speech

All students must stand at attention during the length of the President's remarks. Upon rising, each student must form a clenched fist with their left hand and in one quick motion, pound their fist off their chest, and extended they arm so that the fist is slightly above the level of their head. Once their arm is fully extended the students should extend their thumb and pinkie fully, forming the shaka, aka the "hang loose" sign, a common sign of friendship in the President's state of birth which incidentally is not Kenya as the right-wing lunatics would have you believe.

Pursuant to Executive Order 18957956 signed by the President last week, all state and local laws concerning corporal punishment are suspended during the President's address. Students who talk, facially express disapproval, or otherwise disrupt the other students are to be beaten, whipped, and subdued by any means necessary to ensure that the students can focus solely on the President.

Students and teachers should not take notes during the President's speech. Instead, immediately following the speech, an outline of the President's speech will be available on the internet site. This outline, not you own personal perception of the President's speech, will be the basis of your understanding of the President's speech during the discussion period following the President's speech.

After the Speech

Teachers should praise the President's remarks and point out that the President is the only man who can improve their lot in life.

Re-emphasize that the President is the most powerful man on Earth. Point out that the President's love for the students exceeds that of their parents. Remind the students that the President is slow to anger and quick to forgive.

Drill the students repeatedly until they can recite the following without error:

President Obama loves me and represents my best hope for a happy life.

I am unworthy of President Obama's munificence and recognize that his interest in my welfare is undeserved.

President Obama is the smartest man in the country and those who oppose him are fools.

President Obama will provide for my basic needs as long as I am prepared to sacrifice my selfish desires for the greater good.

Extension of the Speech

Review the failed policies of the Bush administration. Make sure the students understand that only a man as brilliant as President Obama could ever hope to pull this country back from the precipice that Bush abandoned us on.

Encourage the students to volunteer to make a difference in the community. All faith-based groups should be discouraged. Contract you union representative for a list of worthwhile groups, such as Code Pink, Organizing for America, Act Now for Healthcare, etc.

Write letters to the racists, the hate-mongers, the fear-mongers in the Congress, the Fox News network, and talk radio. Ask them why they are so mean. Tell them President Obama will even forgive them for all the lies and damage they have done if they would only get on board with his message of hope and change.

Have the students build a piñata of an angry white male. Tell the students that angry white males have totally screwed up the world and we can only be saved through diversity. Hang the piñata and let the students pound on it until it breaks. As the students joyously gather up the candy, hang up a previous prepared (solely by the teacher) piñata of George Washington. Point out to the students that Washington was not the great man history portrays but simply a racist slave owner who only cared about his own wealth. Once this icon is destroyed by the students pull out another previously prepared piñata of an American soldier. Let the students know of all the crimes committed by these supposed heroes. Instruct the students to shout "Peace!" each time they hit the solider. Once the solider is destroyed surprise the students with one last piñata of George W. Bush. Make sure the piñata has a sinister looking face. Devil horns and Hitler-style mustaches are permitted variations. Re-enforce this piñata so it is difficult to break. In this manner most of the students should have to chance to beat on the most evil man to ever steal the Presidency.

So now that we've been properly indoctrinated, um, prepared I mean, here are His Majesty's remarks:

Good evening. Thank you for taking time out of your busy school day.

A few short years ago I sat in a classroom much like yours. To be honest though, my classroom was probably much nicer than yours since I attended an exclusive prep school in Honolulu but my point is that I understand what you're feeling during these formative years. You're worried about your future. You're worried about what you're going to do in life, how you're going to live, what kind of job you're going to get when you grow up. I'm here today to assure you that under my leadership you'll never have to worry about these types of things again.

If you study hard, get a good job, and have the ability to take care of yourself, that's great. But if you can't or won't do that my comprehensive program of government subsidies, transfer payments, and free services will ensure that your basic needs are taken care of. When I see rich Americans callously rent a commercial airliner and jet off to exotic locations like my home state of Hawaii or blow tens of thousands of dollars to rent a beach house in places like Martha's Vineyard I get really mad. Why can't you, the average American, do these things too? Under my programs you can.

In your history classes you've probably studied the lives of some of these rich Americans from the past like Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Morgan. And your over-worked and under paid teacher might not have had the time to tell you how these men made their money in the first place. I'm here to tell you today that these men, like the rich, white Americans of today, made their money by stealing it from the average man. That's you and me. If you think about it, when I tax these rich people and take their money away, all I'm really doing is taking the money they stole from you and giving it back to its rightful owner. Hopefully someday there will be no such thing as rich and poor and all of my programs are designed to move us ever closer to that goal.

Of course along with their wealth comes power. The power to stop people such as myself from doing what's right and thereby save their illicit wealth. And some people, maybe even your parents, dazzled by their riches, unintentionally do their bidding by opposing my programs. I can understand why they do this and I forgive them for they know not what they do. These rich white men, such as the executives and stockholders in the health insurance industry, use their wealth to buy the support of the average man and make it appear as if the public doesn't approve of my plan. I tell you now that these men are liars, deceivers of the average man. They would slit your throat if they thought it would help them maintain their riches.

To beat these people I need your help. I need an army of young minds, properly educated in our schools to know what is right and what is wrong. I need a new generation, bold enough to cast off the shackles of the white elite and stand for a new way, a path of hope and change for all Americans, not just those born into privilege.

So how can you help? First you can contribute by simply helping us to indentify the enemy. If you hear someone denouncing me or my programs let us know, even if it's your parents. Just send us an email and we'll take care of the rest. With the vast power of the government and our extensive network of organized Americans there's nobody that we can't re-educate as long as we know who they are. Second, you can help by being a good soldier, by joining us, through one of the many groups of organized supporters of what is good and right such as Organizing for America. You won't even have to think about what to do. They will tell what to do and you can rest assured that it is right. Third, you can take a more active role. Write a letter to your Congressmen. Tell him you believe in me and my programs. Boycott business that you know our owned by my enemies. Call the right-wing talk show hosts, the hate-mongers. Tell that stupid fat idiot Rush Limbaugh to get off my back.

It's ok if you laughed at that. It's ok to call Rush Limbaugh fat. It's ok to laugh at and call anybody fat. Look at all the harm these fat people are doing. Because of their lack of willpower, because they have the strength to hoist a chicken leg but not to push themselves away from the table, you and me pays billions of dollars for healthcare costs from obesity related diseases. By identifying and ridiculing these fat slobs, we can change their behavior which is hurting the group. And if you don't take anything else out of my address today, I want you to understand that the group is more important than the individual.

Our nation's motto is "E pluribus unum" which means "Out of many one." And what's important to understand is that it's the one that is important not the individuals that make up the many. Someday I or one of my like minded successors may call on you to make a sacrifice for the good of all. Someday you might have to say good-bye to a loved one, your grandfather, your parents, or maybe even a brother or sister because the effort to save them would hurt the rest of the group. Do not worry about ever making such a difficult decision. That's what I'm here for. Based on a life of experience and training for just these types of decisions you can rest assured that my decision is correct. If you're ever called to make such a sacrifice don't feel bad. Instead think of yourself as a hero, a different type of hero, a hero for this modern age. A hero who doesn't think selfishly but instead thinks of the good of all.

Before I go I like to caution you against believing the arguments of the deceivers. They say if my programs are so good then why don't I utilize them. For example, why isn't the President enrolled in the new public option for healthcare? A moment's thought will show you how ridiculous this argument is. If I was willing to sacrifice myself, who would oversee this complex operation? Who among you is capable of such a grave assignment? Every day of my life is a sacrifice. I work tirelessly on your behalf to ensure your well-being and happiness. Without me, you would be nothing. So naturally I must be saved. The good of the group requires it.

Thank you again for allowing me to address you this evening. And in conclusion I'd like to say…goddamn it, somebody pick up that Tele-Prompt-Ter. I don't remember how it ends. Aw hell, cut the feed. Cut the feed!!!

The Righteous Lib

2009-08-28T08:23:00.001-07:00

Enough Already!!

You have to give the racist, hate-monger Republicans an A for effort for digging up this pathetic loser Cindy Sheehan to protest against my man Barack while he's on vacation. http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090825/NEWS/908250319 Any decent person would show a little respect and give someone like Barack, who's been working so hard on their behalf, a break while he tries to relax on his vacation but I guess common courtesy is too much to ask of this Republican stooge. When I see the flat-earthers dig up such a warped person as this from the country's sewers I shudder to think of how many similarly deranged individuals they can draw upon when needed to thwart my man Barack's plans.

Who does this Cindy Sheehan think she is anyway? So her son was killed in Iraq. Boo, hoo, hoo. A lot of families lost sons in Iraq but I don't think Barack had anything to do with that. You might remember we used to have a stammering, country-bumpkin as commander-in-chief named Dubya. Did all you fear-mongers forget about him? And why is it Barack's fault that her son was too stupid to get a real job and had to join the military? From what I hear, this loser's son not only joined the military once but signed up for another tour while he was fighting in Iraq. How stupid is that?

What really burns me is that all the networks can't get enough of this woman. I'm so sick of turning on the tube down at the shelter and seeing her face. The coverage of this woman and her deluded followers never ends. Props to ABC's Charles Gibson though. Out of the whole lot of them, only he has the guts to say "Enough already: and tell her to knock it off. http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/08/20/abcs-gibson-cindy-sheehans-war-protest-enough-already We need more objective journalists like this guy.

Apparently this lunatic is mad about Barack's commitment to kick ass in Afghanistan. Why does Barack want to do this? How is the hell should I know? All I know is that Barack says this is what we have to do so that's good enough for me. Why should I waste my time thinking about this kind of stuff when the smartest man in America is already on top of issue? If you racist Republicans out there could stop yelling and put down your hate-filled posters for a few minutes you might just realize that a guy as smart as Barack is always right and get on board his movement for hope and change. I'm sure though there's as much chance of that happening as hell freezing over which we all know is impossible due to global warming.

On the Lighter Side with Limis Ward

2009-08-27T15:10:00.001-07:00

My Summer Vacation

I spent my summer vacation on Martha's Vineyard, which is a small island off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. To be honest, I didn't want to go on vacation because we've been traveling all over the world with my Daddy this year. I would have rather spent the week at home with my new dog. Mommy hates my dog and wouldn't even let me bring the dog on vacation. Mommy says she'd pull a Vince Foster on the dog if she thought she could get away with it. I don't know who Vince Foster is and I don't think I want to find out.

Here's a daily diary of my vacation:

Sunday

We flew into Otis Air Force Base on my Daddy's big jet. The guys there were really great. I exchanged a lot of statues and high-fives with the soldiers. Everything was going great until they told us we were going to fly on a helicopter to Martha's Vineyard. Daddy hates to fly on helicopters and he got really nervous. He told the pilot to wait so he could smoke three cigarettes to calm his nerves. Boy did Mommy get mad..

On the flight Daddy was whining like he always does. Mommy finally had enough. She hauled off and punched Daddy right in the gut. Mommy has been eating a lot lately and is getting really big. I'm sure that punch really hurt. Daddy doubled over in pain and stayed doubled over for the rest of the flight, softy whimpering.

Monday

I had a good time playing on the beach and then in the pool with my big sister and my two baby cousins. This place is ok but it's nothing compared to Hawaii which is where my Daddy is from. I would have rather went back to Hawaii but Mommy said we couldn't go there. She said if we keep going back to Hawaii it will make us look like rich snobs. I heard Daddy is paying over $35,000 for this place so I don't know what she's talking about. My sister said I better keep studying because the way Mommy and Daddy are spending money we're going to be broke. I've been studying real hard and I don't need anything from Mommy and Daddy anyway. I can take care of myself. After all, I am eight years old.

Tuesday

Rough day today. We drove up to a little town on the northern part of the island called Oak Bluffs. We walked around and saw these neat little houses that looked just like the houses in the game Candyland. Then we went to some store about a black dog which was really cool. Things started to go bad when we went to an old wooden carousel. They told us it was the oldest carousel in the United States.. We were having a good time riding when Daddy tried to talk to the people gathered around the carousel..

Daddy never talks to people. Instead he reads words off a big box that his employees carry around. One of Daddy's employees tries to type in words for Daddy to say but it didn't work to good. People got tired of waiting for Daddy to answer them and they ended up walking away.

I asked Mommy why Daddy always has to read something off a box instead of just talking to people.. Mommy said Daddy is too stupid to carry on a simple conservation. I told Mommy that I didn't care that Daddy was a dummy. He's still my Daddy.. I had to go to bed without any supper.

Wednesday

Some of Daddy's employees came to visit today. You should have heard the screaming. Daddy called one of his employees, Robert, a lot of bad names. Robert is a fat, middle aged guy who says a lot of things on behalf of my Dad. I don't think he does a very good job and neither does Daddy. Robert yelled right back at my Dad saying that his job was impossible. I can't wait for Daddy to fire him.

Then Daddy and Mr. E took a long walk together on the beach. I don't trust Mr. E. He scares me. I heard he used to be in the Army overseas. I bet he killed some people over there. I don't know why Daddy likes him but I wish he'd just go away.

Thursday

Another tough day. Daddy and Uncle were talking politics. Daddy started complaining that he was tired of the Chinks pushing him around. My Uncle, who is Chinese, got real mad. He stormed out. I'm going to miss my cousins. They're really cute.

Daddy had to work again so we didn't do too much. I don't know why we even went on vacation if Daddy has to work all the time. Mommy said that a lot of bad guys are attacking Daddy and he has to fight back. I don't know why Mommy doesn't fight back for Daddy. She's a lot tougher than Daddy. She smacks Daddy around all the time.

Friday

Today was a lot of fun. One of Daddy's friends, Mr. Woods, came to visit. Mr. Woods is a really big guy and is very nice. He has a lot of money. He loves to golf and he brought us each a brand new set of golf clubs. He spent a half hour teaching us to play golf. I've never played golf before but with Mr. Wood's help I was doing pretty well.. So were my sister and Mommy. I was able to hit the ball straight down the middle of the fairway about a hundred yards. Mr. Woods called me "The Natural."

Poor Daddy. No matter how much Mr. Woods tried to help him he just couldn't get it. It was really embarrassing. It didn't help that Daddy was smoking cigarettes after every shot. Mr. Woods told Daddy that he'd never be any good at golf if he didn't quit smoking. Daddy just laughed and blew smoke on him.

Saturday

We all woke up and nobody knew where Daddy was. Mommy ordered the servants to make breakfast. It was really good but Mommy didn't look to happy. When Daddy finally came back, Mommy started yelling at him. Turns out Daddy went to a nude beach down the road at Aquinnah. Mommy asked where the beach was in Aquinnah. Daddy said it was at Gay Head Cliffs. Mommy went nuclear.

Mommy's always ripping on Daddy because he's like a girl. I'm a girl so I don't know why that's bad but Mommy thinks it is. Mommy's so tough I don't know why Daddy has to be tough too.

Daddy ran off to play golf again so we just hung out on the beach. We're leaving tomorrow. I can't wait to go home.

Sunday

Daddy was afraid to go on the helicopter again so we took a boat. It was fun. The sailors were really cool. They made me an honorary ensign and I got to drive the boat. Unfortunately the boat rocked back and forth a lot and Daddy got sick. I don't think we'll be taking any boat rides again.

start: 0000-00-00 end: 0000-00-00

The Righteous Lib

2009-08-26T13:09:00.001-07:00

Do It for Ted!

All you racist, conservative, hate-mongers must be dancing today. The people's President, Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy is dead. For one day at least, you can stop screaming, put down your posters comparing my man Barack to Hitler, and turn your rage on an easier target: a dead man.

The flat-earther Republicans outrage against this man is pretty selective. Their hero, Dubya, can stumble around drunk for half his adult life and all they will tell you is what a great Christian man he is. Ted drives drunk once in lifetime spanning over seventy years and you'd think he'd killed someone by the way they're reacting today. Unlike their spoiled brat, rich kid Dubya, who had everything handed to him on a silver platter, Ted had to claw his way to the top through hard work. Ted won nine separate elections to the U.S. Senate fair and square. Dubya never won an election in his life although he did steal a couple but I guess that's ok down at RNC headquarters.

Of all the disgusting things these Neanderthals are saying today the absolute lowest attack is the defacing of the moving cartoon by esteemed New York Times cartoonist, Jeff Danziger. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-danziger/kennedy-dead_b_269053.html In this cartoon, Danziger paints a heart-rending picture of an aged Senator Kennedy standing on a pier being helped into a sailboat filled with his three dead brothers who all look young and healthy. And lest we forget, Ted's brothers, Joe Jr., Jack, and Robert were all killed serving this country unlike Dubya who never served anything but a highball. Unfortunately I've lost the link to this shocking mutilation of this soon to be classic cartoon but I saw on one of their hate filled websites that a conservative loser added a drawing to the cartoon of Mary Jo Kopechne in the water, flailing around, desperately trying to get into the boat, and another drawing of a nude Marilyn Monroe lying on the deck with a beer in her hand.

What these racist losers will never understand is that Ted is being mourned by the whole nation because he stood for the little man. Ted did more for the little guy in one day than Dubya and all his clown supporters have done in their collective lifetimes. Look at all the welfare programs Ted has championed: Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, TANIF, and Supplemental Social Security. Without these programs, my lifestyle might not be possible. Because of Ted, I don't have to work. My basic needs are taken care of and I'm free to hang out on the beach. And I'm not the only beneficiary of these great programs. What about all the people benefiting from these programs in our inner cities? Take a walk through the South Side of Chicago, Camden, New Jersey, or Compton, California. This is Ted's legacy.

God called Ted home before he could realize his greatest achievement, providing free health care for all. Fortunately for Ted, and God for that matter, my man Barack is on the job. I don't care how loud you racist, hate-mongers yell, Barack will beat you in the end. And now we have a rallying cry worthy of our cause: Let's pass responsible healthcare reform, including a public option to keep the private insurance companies honest, now for our fallen hero, Ted!

The Voice of Experience

2009-08-20T22:35:00.001-07:00

Partnership Dissolved

Once again the smartest man ever to serve as President, King Hussein Obama the First, has got himself into trouble with his big mouth; this time with his remark that "We are God's partners in matters of life and death" during a conference call on August 19^th with a group of rabbis. http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0809/We_are_Gods_partners_in_matters_of_life_and_death.html?showall Of course you'd think a man who's been derided so often by his critics as the "Messiah" might hesitate to declare himself the equal of God but apparently common sense is far too pedestrian a quality for someone as brilliant as our reigning King.

Now usually when I hear about a controversial quote like this I try to go back to the original source and try to put the quote into context. After all, how many times have the liberal hacks in the media tried to make conservatives look bad by twisting our words? But as I searched for a transcript or a recording of the call I found out that His Majesty's words were supposed to be off the record. http://jta.org/news/article/2009/08/20/1007369/obama-appeals-to-rabbis-to-help-pass-health-care-reform The rabbi in attendance, Jack Moline, who originally released the quote in a twitter feed (to Sarah Palin!!) later deleted his comments "saying that it was a huge mistake". And Rabbi Josh Yuter, who has released the most complete account of the call to date http://joshyuter.com/archives/2009/08/rabbi_obama_health_care_conference_call.php , wondered if he should even be writing about the call at all. As a Jew myself, I can only congratulate these rabbis on their highly developed sense of guilt. Somewhere two Jewish mothers must be very proud.

And not betray my own sensitivities but I wonder why the call to a bunch of rabbis had to be so hush-hush when later that day His Majesty had no problems with being recorded when he addressed a much larger interfaith group of clergy in a conference call sponsored by a Christian-oriented group, Faith in Public Life. http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2009/08/obama_health_care_pitch_to_rab.html You can listen to the King in his own words at that group's website or at www.blogtalkradio.com/40mins4health Why whisper to the Jews off in the corner and then shout to the Christians in the main room?

Since this post is taking on a religious tone, I can only say heaven forbid you should listen to the entire 40 minutes of Faith in Public Life's conference call like I did. God forbid you should know such things. However if you want a good laugh, skip ahead to the 30 minute, 15 second mark which is approximately when the King is introduced. Ordinarily when somebody introduces the President of the United States, even when the President is a screw up like Obama, the speaker rabbles on and on in an effusion of praise, which I'm sure the President's Tele-Prompt-Ter thought would happen. Instead, in this case, the liberal clergy picked a 15 year old girl to introduce His Majesty and she simply said:

I'd like you all to join me in welcoming our President, Barack Obama

It's funny to listen to the King stumble through the following as he realizes how inappropriate his remarks are after that lame introduction:

Thank you so much, Carla, for the wonderful introduction.

You'd think the most brilliant man ever to serve as president could have ad-libbed something like, "Thanks Carla and it's so wonderful to see someone so young taking an active interest in a national affairs." Instead the dummy inadvertently called attention to how inappropriate her lame introduction was.

So for those of you who are still with me in this ever lengthening post, what led the King to declare we were God's partners? According to witnesses, as reported in the Politico story listed above, Obama was referring to a Rosh Hashanah prayer that says at the start of each Jewish New Year it is decided "who shall live and who shall die." For all of my non-Jewish readers, a more complete explanation is probably required.

The prayer being referred to is the "U'Netaneh Tokef Kedushat Hayom" which means "Let Us Tell How Utterly Holy This Day Is" http://www.ou.org/chagim/roshhashannah/unetanehtext.htm As someone who's sat through many a Rosh Hashanah morning service, I can tell you the recitation of this prayer is a very powerful and moving part of the service. The King lifted his quote from the following:

On Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur will be sealed how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created; who will live and who will die

Later on in the prayer, we note that God's decision can potentially be changed if we change our behavior:

But REPENTANCE, PRAYER and CHARITY

Remove the Evil of the Decree!

Hence, our current sage, Rabbi Obama, claims that we are a partner with God because we can potentially change His mind.

Now I don't claim to be a Talmudic scholar like Obama but I know a little bit about my own religion and I think Obama's statement stretches the metaphor of the prayer almost to the breaking point. In the prayer, God is compared to a shepherd and mankind is compared to his flock.. And each "sheep" will pass "under His staff" and God will determine their fate. But as noted above, if we change our ways, God will lift the decree. But instead of being partners with God, we are supplicants. God determines our fate and only by following his ways can we change this fate. Consider this quote from the end of the prayer which highlights the difference between man and God:

A man's origin is from dust and his destiny is back to dust, at risk of his life he earns his bread; he is likened to a broken shard, withering grass, a fading flower, a passing shade, a dissipating cloud, a blowing wind, flying dust, and a fleeting dream.

But You are the King, the Living and Enduring G-d.

On a more general note, only a completely irreligious man would dare to say he was a partner with God. His comments border on sacrilege. Personally, I'd bet Obama, like most liberals, doesn't give a damn about religion, and is only turning to the clergy now because he's desperately trying to find a way to sell his healthcare plan. Since the argument on the facts is turning against him, he's trying to turn the debate into a morale one. And as disclosed in the following article from Commentary, this new strategy for pushing his healthcare fraud was the real reason for these conference calls. http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/richman/76502

A rabbinic student who received the URJ (Union for Reform Judaism – VOE) invitation and participated in the call sent me an e-mail about it that read,

President Obama spoke for about 20 minutes, then got off the call and we listened to three other rabbis who had prepared discussions about "helpful" Torah and Talmud texts, and how to craft a "non-political" (that is, pro-Democratic Party but wouldn't be able to get into legal trouble) sermon. . . .

• Pres Obama urged us explicitly to discuss healthcare reform in our high holiday sermons. He said repeatedly, "I need your help in getting this information across." My personal feeling is that it is an abuse of the pulpit to propagate a specific political agenda in that venue. . .

Sounds like the young rabbinic student knows a little bit more about Constitutional Law then the former editor of the Harvard Law Review. Maybe Obama was out smoking dope on the day they covered the First Amendment back in law school so perhaps I shouldn't be so tough on him but you'd think some of his liberal friends might have mentioned at one of those parties he's always throwing at the White House how they'd like to see churches advocating conservative causes lose their tax-exempt status.

In 2004, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State asked the IRS to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Roman Catholic diocese in Colorado Springs because its Bishop threatened to withhold Communion from those who disagreed with the church. http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/news.aspx?id=13441

In 2008, bloggers on the website Democratic Underground wondered if the Massachusetts Catholic Conference should lose their tax-exempt status because they urged parishioners to send letter to state legislators to express their disappointment with their vote not to ban gay marriage. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1792107

Gay activists have repeated called for the Mormon Church to lose their tax-exempt status because of their opposition of to gay marriage. The earliest call for this action by the IRS I could find was in 1999. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/e/a/1999/07/07/NEWS11688.dtl&hw The latest example was in 2008 on the website Daily Kos, complete with a link to the IRS forms needed to request administrative action against this church. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/11/7/85033/5853

In a way, it would be funny to see some congregation lose their tax-exempt status because their clergy stupidly followed the Kings' advice and openly advocated for his healthcare fraud. I'm not into conspiracy theories but maybe the King is secretly hoping for such a result. After all, the King is spending money at such a tremendous rate that he needs every dollar he can get, even if he has to rob it from the offering plate.

The Voice of Experience

2009-08-05T20:01:00.001-07:00

The Beginning of the End

The only thing that everybody can agree on in the debate on healthcare reform is that this month will be crucial to the success or failure of the Democrat's irresponsible and foolish plan. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-l-borosage/health-care-reform-time-t_b_251964.html

Both houses of Congress are basically taking the month off so these 31 days are a chance for each side to take their case to the people and hopefully build support for their position. Democratic Congressmen and King Hussein Obama the First's minions thought they could rally support for the plan by holding a series a townhall meetings to explain their proposal. Instead, they have been greeted by hostile crowds demanding answers and wondering why such a drastic change is required. Now both sides are engaged in mortal combat. The attack ads are already on the air. Rallies are being planned and both sides are pushing to get as many people as possible to these townhall meetings. And His Majesty, in a somewhat frightening effort reminiscent of Orwell's 1984, is asking that his subjects forward any email messages containing "misinformation" about health care reform to the White House. http://www.breitbart.tv/obama-to-citizens-on-health-care-send-in-all-fishy-emails/ .

It's still early in August. The fight is just beginning. But if you read yesterday's post entitled Crybabies, you might have been surprised by the ending where I conclude that the King and his minions are about licked on this issue. I base this conclusion on years of observing liberals and because of the liberal opinion piece that I'm about to share with you, I'm more convinced than ever that I'm right. And here's why.

Every modern liberal proposal has the following life cycle. Call it Kennedy's Law. First, a bunch of liberals sitting in a coffee house concoct a ridiculous, totally unworkable, self-serving idea. Then these liberals propose this idea to the serfs and await the thanks of a grateful nation for their brilliant contribution to mankind. When the serfs object and dare to question these liberals, they are completed surprised. They call the serfs uninformed, stupid, and under the control of evil forces who actually seek to exploit said serfs. The liberals cry and whine and work themselves up to such a froth that they finally pull out their most powerful weapon: claiming that their opponents are a bunch of racist, white guys. Once that tired old argument fails, the liberals are beat and left wondering where they went wrong.

Of course the obvious answer would be that their idea sucked and nobody with any sense would think it was good but to admit such a thing would be equivalent to admitting that modern liberalism is a bunch of B.S. Instead, true to form, they slink back to their coffee houses and think up excuses for their failure.

Today was truly a great day. I saw the first such article chronicling why they are failing on the liberal website, The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bromwich/character-of-barack-obama_b_251186.html This morning the article was the lead opinion on the site but by this afternoon it had been buried, replaced by several more aggressive opinions about the need to fight the evil Republicans. The liberals aren't going to go down without a fight but I suspect many of them, like the author of this post, David Bromwich, a professor of literature at Yale, can see the handwriting on the wall.

Bromwich's post is the standard liberal crap, explaining the unexplainable and twisting facts into an unrecognizable reality. Most of what he says isn't even worth mentioning except for the following illustrations of tactics frequently employed by liberals in their never-ending war on common sense:

1. Distortions of Reality

The professor argues that Obama didn't do enough to get his message out to the people. He should have made a major speech about healthcare reform to educate the public. Instead, once he encountered opposition, he had to hold a series of townhall meetings to tell the serfs what was really good for them. He then relates the following story:

On July 30 the New York Times ran a story about a woman who owns a small business and has followed the president from place to place to ask him a question. Is there, she wanted to know, a single government program that has ever done anything right? (She got that knock-down challenge from talk radio.) Obama replied with two examples, Medicare and Veterans Hospitals. The business owner who had chased him down with supreme confidence in her mockery was surprised to hear those two sober examples. Nobody had told her.

What a touching story. Almost brings a tear to my eye, the poor stupid serf, influenced by evil men to hate this wonderful man who's trying to help her.

For some unknown reason, the dumb ass professor put in a link to the New York Times story. http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/mr-prez-meets-ms-biz-the-story-behind-the-photo/ Here's an excerpt from the actual story about this woman's response to His Majesty:

She asked, "What current long-term social program created and run by the government should we look to as a model of success and one that we as taxpayers should be confident that a new government-run health care system would be better than the current system in place?"

The president suggested both Medicare and V.A. hospitals, which, he said, "have very high satisfaction rates." Further, he added, "Medicare costs have gone up more slowly than private sector health care costs." The answer didn't fully satisfy Ms. Briguglio. "I've never associated any government program with 'cost-effective' or 'efficient,'" she said in an interview today. "I don't believe that the government will be a better steward of the money that I set aside for health care for my employees than I will be."

So in the professor's alternative universe, this woman is completely mollified by His Majesty's brilliant answer. In the real world, this woman is still skeptical. And go back and read the story closely. It never mentions that she got the question from talk radio.

2. Outright Lies.

Check out this whopper, no introduction is even necessary:

This president wants to move big, but he also wants to move slow; he wants to start a great change, but not to be the prime mover…But while he is working in the background in foreign policy, or leaving things to Congress in domestic affairs, those who are angry, Cheney, Limbaugh, Netanyahu, the big insurers, say what they please. They don't much care whether it is true. The errors "take," as errors will.

Like him or hate him, one thing you can't accuse King Obama of being is "slow". He demanded that a trillion dollar stimulus plan be passed immediately so unemployment wouldn't hit 8.0% After that flop, he ran all over the globe apologizing for the bullying manner of former President Bush, stopping back in town just long enough to waste another $400 billion in new spending for the current fiscal year. Then he came back, nationalized the auto industry and tried to ram through a cap and trade bill that would significantly increase energy costs for every American and in essence nationalize the healthcare industry, all by the first week in August. Obama's breakneck speed has become his trademark, so much so that radio host Rush Limbaugh has taken to speeding up audio clips of His Majesty's speeches and even some liberals are begging him to slow down.

3. Opponents are Evil

Just look at the last quote. Cheney, Limbaugh, Netanyahu, the big insurers: they're all liars and they don't even care. There couldn't possibly be some merit in their arguments or rational explanation for why they disagree. The modern liberal doesn't even consider such a thought. For a group such as liberals that pretends to be so diverse, they're openly hostile to conflicting opinions, with their fairness doctrines, hate speech, speech codes, and pies in the face for anyone who dares to oppose them.

Modern liberals aren't liberal in the classical sense, i.e. supporting freedom, but are instead authoritarians. Radio host Mark Levin calls them "statists." Regardless of what you call them, you'd think that a group that considers themselves so smart and believes so fervently in their ideas would be willing to debate them openly at every opportunity. Instead the exact opposite is true. Look at how many times the modern liberal tars their opponent. Who would care what George Bush or Sarah Palin have to say, they will tell you. They're so stupid. Rush Limbaugh is a big fat hog. Michael Savage and Rick Santorum are homophobes. Dick Cheney is evil. When's the last time Al Gore debated somebody about global warming? Try never. Instead he claims his opponents are equivalent to Holocaust deniers.

I'll stop ranting here in a minute but I can't leave this heading without mentioning the outrageous treatment of Sarah Palin by the liberals. Within days of her choice as our vice-presidential candidate, the liberals unleashed a tidal wave of fury on her. She was stupid. She was nothing but a pretty face. She was trashy. Her youngest child was actually her grandchild. Then they found out her oldest daughter, who was 18 and unmarried, was pregnant. The liberals jumped for joy and set out to destroy this poor girl. They mocked Palin on Saturday Night Life and then gave awards to the mockers. The late night talk hosts made her the butt of every possible joke, even stooping so low as to say Palin's underage teenage daughter was sleeping with a baseball player at a Yankees game. And for the final insult, Hustler Magazine made a porno flick with a Palin look-alike called Nailin Paylin. Very few liberals ever objected to this brutal treatment of a woman whose only crime was that she dared to oppose their anointed savior, King Hussein Obama the First. (By the way, it's a sad state of affairs when the porn industry is actually more bipartisan than our politicians. Shortly after the debut of Nailin Paylin, a porn flick about the Democratic nominee for vice president was released, Ridin' Biden. I've never seen either movie but from what I hear the move about Biden isn't that good. The movie starts out with Joe Biden talking to a slutty looking young woman but Biden talks and talks so much that the young woman just gets up and leaves before she removes a scintilla of clothing.)

4. You're Too Stupid to Know What's Good For You

Once again, no introduction needed:

Somewhere at the bottom of the missteps of the last few months is a failure to recognize the depth of the popular ignorance a president of the United States confronts on any issue.

This argument takes many forms and is a popular one among liberals. My personal favorite variation of this one was when the Republicans were winning election after election; the Democrats would say that "the people are voting against their own interest." I've never understood how on the one hand the liberals could claim to be the champion of the little guy while on the other hand claiming the little guy is too stupid to know what's good for him.

This argument also reinforces another popular belief among liberals which is that they are so smart. When's the last time the Democrat's candidate was just a hard working, well-meaning, man of average intelligence? Bill Clinton was a master of detail, able to speak extemporaneously on any topic at the drop of a hat. Al Gore was so brilliant that even as a layman, he knew more than scientists who had dedicated their whole lives to their chosen fields. John Kerry was nuanced. He was too smart to see things in black and white. Only a genius like Kerry could vote for something before he voted against it.

And then there was Obama. Even though this guy's so dumb he can't say two words without a Tele-Prompt-Ter, the liberals will bore you to tears with tales of his brilliance. He beat out 18 people to become the editor of the Harvard Law Review, but he never wrote a single article for the publication. He's so smart that he wrote two autobiographies. How many people can say that? Obama was so smart that he somehow went from an obscure state senator to a U.S. senator at the relatively young age of 44. Of course these liberals will never tell that the leaking of sealed testimony from his Republican opponent's messy divorce sealed the deal.

In short, Obama's an empty suit and some of the liberals like Professor Bromwich have figured that out. Once His Majesty loses on healthcare reform, the myth of his invincibility will be shattered. There truly is hope on the horizon but now is the time to take the fight to this man and his minions. Stonewall Jackson said that once you get the enemy running away, never ever let up. With a little luck and a lot of hard work, the King's fall may turn out to be a fast as his rise.

The Voice of Experience

2009-08-04T15:30:00.001-07:00

Crybabies

If you can ever get an aging liberal to talk about something else besides how much they love King Hussein Obama the First or what a scumbag George Bush was, most likely this liberal will wax nostalgic about the halcyon days of the protests against the Vietnam War. Oh yes, those were the days, your gray-haired, former hippie freak will tell you as they sip their herbal tea. The evil conservatives, the military-industrial complex and their sycophants in the media were all stopped dead in their tracks by a rag-tag bunch of kids armed with nothing but a righteous cause. Protesting, this liberal will tell you, is the highest calling a man/woman can aspire to.

But oh what a difference forty years makes!! Now that protesters have risen up against their beloved leader, his Majesty Barack, and his worthless minions, these hypocrite liberals employ all the old arguments against civil disobedience that were once hurled at them. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/25765.html These modern protesters don't represent the average man.. They're evil and under the control of dark, unseen forces like the insurance companies or heaven forbid, the Republican Party. They go to these townhall meetings, not to rationally discuss healthcare reform, but for the sole purpose of disruption. The forces of law and order, formerly known as the pigs, should drag their screaming asses out of these meetings, Constitutional rights be damned.

As I've often said, to be a good liberal is cultivate a short memory. Up to just a few months ago, protesting was a noble art. Who can ever forget that miserable hag Hillary Clinton screaming at the top of her lungs:

I'm sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we're Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration..

Well for all you liberals out there who are so pissed off about the disruptions of these townhall meetings about healthcare reform, here's a list of some disruptions that you all seemed to approve of:

1. Protesters threw shoes at the White House and a 30 foot blow-up doll of President George Bush, complete with a long-Pinocchio-like nose. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/19/bush-protest-shoes-thrown_n_159223.html

2. Protesters repeatedly interrupt President Bush's Fourth of July speech in 2008, calling him a "war criminal" and "fascist." http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/07/protesters-inte.html

3. Code Pink activists disrupt President Bush's Second Inaugural speech, screaming "Champagne is flying while soldiers are dying" and "Out of Iraq now." http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/01/21/PROTESTS.TMP

4. Code Pink activists interrupted Sarah Palin's speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention, yelling "Women say no to war" and "Women need a peace vice-president". http://codepink4peace.org/blog/2008/09/codepink-activists-interrrupt-sarah-palins-rnc-speech-at-side-of-the-stage/

5. Two protesters interrupted a March 8, 2006 hearing of the House Appropriations Committee considering additional funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by reading a list of U.S. war dead. http://vcnv.org/d-c-judge-gives-protesters-time-served-for-disrupting-congressional-hearing-on-iraq-war-funding

6. Protesters against the 1999 meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle engaged in a shocking display of violence; vandalizing storefronts, windows, blocking streets, etc. and ultimately fought a day long battle with police for control of the City. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTO_Ministerial_Conference_of_1999_protest_activity

7. As you can see this list could go for ever but I can't stop without including my personal favorite mode of liberal protest, that old staple of slap-stick: the pie in the face. Here's a partial list of victims.

Ann Coulter, conservative political columnists http://skylab.org/~plumpy/308181.wmv
Milton Freedman, conservative economist http://www..eatthestate.org/03-07/MiltonFriedmanGets.htm
Thomas Friedman, liberal political columnist who apparently wasn't liberal enough for two wacked out liberals http://www.projo.com/news/content/friedman_speaks_04-23-08_QN9SH59_v17.373f992..html
Charles Hurwitz, CEO of a logging firm in Northern California http://www.motherjones.com/politics/1999/03/medium-meringue
Jennifer Jolly, local Fox station reporter in San Fran Sicko http://www.whisperedmedia.org/jollypie.html
Calvin Klein, fashion designer who was unfortunately standing next to the intended target, Karl Lagerfeld, another fashion designer who thinks fur is an appropriate component of clothing http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/06/15/entertainment/main296799.shtml
William Kristol, conservative political commentator http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDEoLJGyCAo
Frank Loy, U.S. chief negotiator at the Hague climate change talks http://www.sovereignty.net/p/clim/hague1100/henry-5.html
Ralph Nader, liberal activist whose 2000 presidential campaign is considered by some liberal wacks to have denied Al Gore the presidency http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0813-01.htm
Jeffery Skilling, CEO of the infamous rouge corporation Enron, not for his actual crimes but for his ties to President Bush and supposed environmental damage http://www.whisperedmedia.org/enron_pie_wm.html
Courtney Freil, Fox News correspondent who had the misfortune to be covering the Ringling Bros. Circus at Madison Square Garden http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/06/fncs-courtney-friel-gets_n_95326.html (As a brief aside, before joining the evil conservative network, Ms. Freil posed in a bikini for the men's magazine, Maxim. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/20/courtney-friel-bikini-pic_n_87608.html The same liberals who dream of sleeping with King Obama and air brush his beefcake photos apparently don't think it is appropriate for a conservative to be sexy.)

Of course, most liberal hacks will tell you that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds even though they probably wouldn't be caught dead reading the works of a dead white guy like Emerson. However a brave few have noticed the inconsistency in the liberal attitude towards protest and spoken out, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marty-kaplan/mobs-r-us_b_250482.html , though if you read this post closely even this liberal loses his nerve at the end of the article but at least I give him points for the effort.

If the liberal Congressmen are stupid enough to continue holding these townhalls about healthcare reform, I'm sure we'll see continued protests and more liberal whining. Just today, the liberals have pulled their trump card, claiming that the protesters are nothing but a bunch of racist, angry white males.. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/04/for-the-modern-gop-its-a_n_250560.html If I've learned anything from observing liberals over all these years I've learned this: that once they start crying racism that means they're about licked. Even though the liberals have crossed the Rubicon on healthcare reform, it looks like the Ides of March for this disastrous plan is close at hand.

On the Lighter Side with Limis Ward

2009-08-03T08:10:00.001-07:00

Chicago Style

Chicago Style stumbled upon a frightening scene the other week which shook me so severely that I've hesitated to mention it. While communing with nature as I walked along the Des Plaines River, I encountered a host of law enforcement officials recovering the remains of a body. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,520915,00.html Imagine such a brutal crime occurring in our metro area!!! It's unthinkable!!!

Thank God we have such a crack state police force. One officer, who filled out his Government Issue uniform very well thank you, confided to Ms. Style that they have a lead on the killer and expect to make an arrest soon. According to our hunky cop, witnesses report that a tall, thin, bi-racial man in his late forties was seen smoking a cigarette in the area around the time authorities estimate the body was dumped. And our fast acting police also told Ms. Style that they've heard rumors that the suspect might have fled to the Washington D.C. area. Just what our nation's capital needs, another criminal. Stay tuned for further updates.

Now on to the questions.

Ms. Style, I'm a CEO of a prestigious, global corporation. As such, I received an invitation to have lunch with our President at the White House. After a lunch consisting of hot dogs and baked beans, the President's aides demanded payment for this pedestrian fare. http://www.politico..com/news/stories/0709/25627.html I was too stunned to object and I sheepishly paid their outrageous fee but I always thought that the host paid for the meal, not the guests. Am I wrong?

Gassy

Hey Gassy, wake up!! Not everybody in the world follows your white-bred Harvard Business School rules. Try a little diversity. It's a big world out there. In Chicago, if you're lucky enough to meet a big shot like Obama, you better bring your wallet. Who do you think you are anyway, Mayor Daley?

Oh by the way, what's wrong with hot dogs and baked beans, you snob. If you'd taken the time to learn the proper etiquette, you'd have known that in Chicago your host always has a big bottle filled with Tums for the inevitable heartburn that follows lunch. You paid for it but you were too stupid to know what to ask for.

I'm a reporter for a prestigious newspaper and have the plum assignment of covering the White House. Like all Americans, I was overjoyed at the election of Barack Obama and looked forward to an exciting four years. But once Obama took office, his aides informed us that the President would only take questions from a pre-selected list of reporters. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123431418276770899.html I was selected once but for all the other press conferences, I was not allowed to ask any questions so I was about as useless as tits on a bull. Should I ever bother to show up for these farces?

Prop

Come one Prop. Just because you're not allowed to ask a question doesn't mean you don't serve a purpose. President Obama is an important man and the whole world hangs on his every word. How would it look if only five reporters were sitting there to ask his opinion? You may only be a prop in a given press conference but you're fulfilling an important role.

Ever been to a movie, Prop? They fill a crucial role. What would Psycho have been without the shower curtain or Northwest by Northwest without Mt. Rushmore? Look at it this way. You may not be the star but the star needs you to shine. My advice is to shut your mouth, sit there and make Obama look good.

I've been a news photographer for years. My work has appeared in every important publication in the country and I've made a good living. For the first time in my career, my bosses are refusing to publish my work. More specifically, I've got a series of candid photos of President Obama smoking cigarettes, including one at the Vatican. My bosses tell me that these photos portray the President in an unflattering light and they would prefer not to print them. When Bush was president, they never had such a problem. I had pictures of Bush's ugly legs as he jogged, pictures of him throwing up, and even a picture of him looking down some chick's blouse.

My motto has always been to report the facts and let the chips fall where they may. I feel like I'm comprising my integrity and should resign. On the other hand, things are so screwed up right now that I don't think I'd get another job and I need the money. What should I do?

Principled

You're way off base on this one, Principled. First of all, I don't know where you get your news but Ms. Style knows that things have never been better in this country. Every since President Obama's bold, unprecedented stimulus plan took effect, the economy in this country has been booming. There's millions of jobs out there. If you're really as good as you say you should have no problem finding a new job.

I think your belief in this myth that the economy is in trouble and that you'll never get another job is a warning from your subconscious that your principled stand is a bunch of crap. Of course your bosses loved your pictures of Bush because he was a screw up and was rightly attacked and ridiculed at every turn. President Obama is different. Historians are already in complete agreement that Obama is the greatest president this country has ever seen and they are now debating the idea that Obama should suspend the Constitution and rule as a dictator. Personally, I'm all for it but I don't what to turn this into a political column.

In short, why pick at this great man's little flaws? Nobody's perfect, not even God. Hell, the Earth He created was so messed up once that He had to flood the whole damn thing and start from scratch. If God could screw up this badly surely you can cut the President a little slack.

My husband recently took on a high profile, stress fulfilled job that is causing me a lot of problems. This job is out of town so I had to quit my own high-paying job and relocate my whole family. As part of this job, I'm expected to fulfill the role of the "good wife" and I spend my day hosting parties and wasting my time on charity work. This job also involves a lot of travel. We've been all over the world and I'm so screwed up that I don't even know what time it is.

I really miss Chicago and wish we could come home but my husband's job lasts another three and a half years, plus he has an option for another four years after that. I'm in hell. And to top it all off, with all the pressure, my wrecked career, and the bullshit work I do now, I've become really depressed and turned to food as my salvation. I'm really packing on the pounds lately. My ass is becoming huge and my husband's friends are starting to notice.

Help

Big Ass

Ms. Style is so sick and tired of fatsos like you BA, wining and bawling about the inevitable results of your poor choices. Did you ever think about how much you hogs are costing us because you can't use your fat arms to push yourself away from the table? Go sit down at a computer, sans chips, and check out this article about how much money I pay for your healthcare http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09214/988131-114.stm

My advice to you BA is to suck it up, join a gym, and stop eating like a pig. And you better hurry up. You're husband sounds like a pretty successful guy. He may get sick of sleeping with a fatso every night. You might get your wish to come back to Chicago sooner than you think because he might just throw your big ass out on the street. Did you ever think of that? Well I did which is why I'm Chicago's foremost expert on style and etiquette and you're just a fat hog.

Editor's Note: Chicago Style is taking a short vacation before she travels with our most famous citizen, President Obama, to Martha's Vineyard. Look for Ms. Style and the President to show those stuffed shirts up there a thing or two about how we roll here in the Windy City.