Today, the big news in the media was the “non-partisan” Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO’s) preliminary report. This report suggested that the Democrats’ socialized medicine proposal would reduce the national deficit. For the moment, let’s forget that the CBO did not grade the actual bill because the actual bill had not been released. Also, let’s forget that this optimistic estimation of the bill’s costs was almost certainly wrong. For the moment, let’s simply consider the failed logic behind such a dumb selling point.

ANY proposal involving cuts to spending (i.e., to Medicare), combined with tax increases, would reduce the deficit. For crying out loud, what a non-story! Even if the socialized healthcare takeover did reduce the deficit (which it won’t), we could reduce the deficit even more by cutting those same costs, jacking up those same taxes, and NOT crippling the medical industry.

Think about the problematic logic this way: If Uncle Sam suddenly seized 100% of every citizen’s assets, would that increase or decrease the budget deficit? Despite the improved budget, would the country be better off?

To put things simply, even if the government were made financially better off by this bill (which it won’t be), the people will be worse off. The people will be forced to buy insurance they didn’t choose while subsidizing all the leeches in society who themselves are also forced to “buy” insurance they didn’t choose. And aside from the usual government waste, the taxpayers will be forced to fund the slaughter of unborn babies. (And if I took the least bit of effort, I could probably list several other troubling issues with this legislation, but suffice it to say all the different, conflicting hidden bills and amendments have confused the heck out of me.) So whether Uncle Sam is better off or not under this socialist scheme, American society will verge on collapse. Think about that, non-partisan CBO!

Very good point:

So, folks, please– explain the things that were utterly well known when you were in college.

Everyone should know all about Goldwater, because it happened when you were 24?  That was 1964. You might have grandkids that age; some of you are great grand parents.

Barry Goldwater ran for President four years before I was born, and I’m 41 years old. It is unreasonable to expect people in their twenties or thirties to know anything about the conservative movement of those days when all they know of WWII, the Korean, and the Vietnam war is what they saw in the movies. And half the time, those movies were shown in history class.  Most of them probably could not name the combatants in WWI or explain why they were fighting.  They think women’s suffrage is a Bad Thing which should be stopped immediately.

How can they not know about the suffragettes?  Didn’t these people at least watch Mary Poppins?  But details of a political movement half a century ago is quite beyond them.

ROFL at this #demonsheep ‘Warning: Tea Party In Danger’: Leader Slams Palin As ‘Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing’.

Love the verbiage. It includes defilement, bastardization, and bilious.  Of course the GOP would like to co-opt the Tea Party movement.  Duh.  And of course the left – having failed to discredit the movement with crude sexual slang and dismissive media treatment – is now trying to undermine it with fake Tea Party websites.

Stock up on popcorn.  The 2010 and 2012 elections are going to be very entertaining as both major political parties try to figure out exactly how to recover the allegiance of voters they have willfully screwed over for decades.

ADDED: To me, the story was just a quick, amusing read because of the recent Carly Fiorina #demonsheep gaffe, and the suggestion that Palin is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  But because I don’t follow the intricacies of the Tea Party movement, I didn’t realize how “bilious and disingenuous” that Talking Points Memo post really was.  The guy with all the heated rhetoric against Palin isn’t a leader in the Tea Party movement.  Gateway Pundit explains.

It’s also worth noting, any idiot can “found” a website.  About ten bucks for a domain name, if you want to go with private hosting, maybe $5 a month, and many free, automatically installable software packages to run it.  The key to determining who is a leader is to see how many, if any, are following.  And on that point, this Robertson bozo decidedly does NOT measure up.

This year the GOP really seems to have latched on to alternatives to what Blogmocracy calls Ye Olde Media.  From blogger conference calls to finally figuring out how to respond to attacks quickly and in a way that encourages viral distribution, they’re finally catching on.  Two examples that amused me today -

My senator, Louisiana’s Senator David Vitter, took a swipe at his opponent, Charlie Melancon, and it’s going to leave a mark:

Vitter took a well-deserved hit for his prostitution scandal, but he still has my vote for a couple of reasons. 1) He dropped out of politics and resolved the issue with his wife BEFORE the story came out. There were rumors when he dropped out, but nothing solid. The details, and his confirmation, didn’t come out until a couple of years later. So I tend to think his repentance was sincere, and that restored his personal credibility to a great extent, to my way of thinking. 2) As far as his political performance – which is the main issue for me anyway – he’s responsive to his constituents, and I approve of nearly everything he does.  So he’s got my vote and volunteer time until/unless someone better comes along.

Chuck DeVore, in California, is running for the seat currently held by Barbara Boxer. His GOP opponent, Carly Fiorina, released a genuinely bizarre attack video that featured a guy in a sheep suit with glowing red eyes. DeVore, you see, is a wolf in sheep’s clothing… I have no idea whose idea this ad was, but they should be sacked immediately. The Fiorina ad was unintentionally hilarious, but DeVore’s campaign immediately released an intentionally hilarious response – a website for the Society for the Eradication of Demon Sheep from our Political Discourse.  All your sheep are belong to us, indeed. Very well played.

ADDED: Houston, we have liftoff. First, #demonsheep.  Then, Hitler was informed:

I’m not sure if this can be called epic yet, but it’s definitely full of win.

Although I’m no longer a Republican, it’s certainly no secret that I lean toward that party politically because I’m a conservative. Although the GOP is not perfectly in line with my political views, it’s certainly closer than the Democratic party. So I’m glad to see they’re coming out swinging against the new budget, which is going to bleed us dry.   Since Democrats took over Congress, the debt limit – including today’s increase, which they just passed as I write this – has been increased by about 60%.  Make no mistake, as the President is fond of instructing us – the real problem for Democrats in getting this passed is getting Democrats in line to vote for it. Democrats still control both houses of Congress. But they’ll blame the GOP for obstructing it in order to give cover to Democrats from conservative districts who aren’t enthused about it.

A lot of independents say there’s not really much difference between the two parties.  I’ve said it, in fact, and in context, that is often true.  But where fiscal conservativism is concerned, there is a huge difference.  For example, the GOP suggested budget borrows 3.6 trillion less than President Obama’s budget.  It slows mandatory entitlement spending from 5.3% to 3.9%.  That’s huge in terms of real numbers.  And lest anyone play the “Republicans are big meanies who want to starve poor people” card, as they did when the GOP passed welfare reform that Clinton signed into law (and which Obama has effectively rescinded), just a reminder: that legislation lifted more poor people above the poverty level than decades of Democratic aid did.  [Read more...]

Princeton Professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell suggested on Scarborough that Obama has “inherited” a “hollow prize” in the presidency of the United States.

The one place where we have many African-American executives was in the mayor’s office. But one of the things that we saw in cities where African-Americans had risen to the level of city hall, was that they inherited what we call “hollow prizes.” They became mayor of Detroit just as the auto industry was hollowing out the city, just as the tax base was hollowing out.

And when you look at the particular structural constraints facing this president: reduction in the tax base, mobile capital, the real question became whether or not Barack Obama, in becoming president, inherited a hollow prize in the United States.

What a classic example of race-based blameshifting, and a victim mentality – and so typical of the Ivy-league left that so heavily populates David Brook’s “educated class.” [Read more...]