The Weekly Enlightenment

Wow, so much this week it is going to be hard to limit all of it. First a few pieces of commentary...

The big push on health care has always been about the 47 million uninsured. Instead of upsetting the health insurance system that most people are happy with (according to all the polls I have heard), why not just reform Medicare to cover them? I don't even buy the notion that the system is broken. You have people like Obama and Pelosi continually saying our system is broken, so many believe it despite most people being happy with the coverage they get. It is the same thing when Bush was President. The media kept pounding the drumbeat that we were in a recession, even before we were in the recession. Polls said people were doing fine but they weren't so sure about their neighbors...after all, the media was running sob story after sob story. Ultimately, of course, we know government intervention does not work. After Medicare, Medicaid, prescription drug, SCHIP, state programs, etc., we still have millions who don't have coverage. So what makes anyone think it will somehow be better with more government intervention?

Miscellaneous
1. Pelosi is now calling the public option the competitive option or the consumer option...why not just call it the sunshine option, or the puppies option? It would be just as deceptive.
2. Democrats claim the health care bill will contain an opt-out option. But not in the sense any normal person would think of it. States could opt out of receiving benefits, but their citizens would still have to pay for it through taxes. This is always the Democrat sleight-of-hand. Claim their is a choice even if realistically it means everyone would choose one option because of circumstances. It is the same thing with the Post Office. Companies can compete with the Post Office but only if they service the entire country. Who could do that right off the bat? Even UPS and Fedex could not do it overnight. So Democrats can claim the Post Office is not immune from competition even though practically no one can compete.

Finally, from the Wall Street Journal, the title "A Sign of Racial Progress".

"Politico's Josh Gerstein raises the question: Why hasn't there been more commentary along the lines of our lead item today? (We're paraphrasing.) He raises the obvious explanation, media bias, then offers some further speculation:

Others say there's a larger phenomenon at work--in the story line the media wrote about Obama's presidency. For Bush, the theme was that of a Big Business Republican who rode the family name to the White House, so stories about secret energy meetings and a certain laziness, intellectual and otherwise, fit neatly into the theme, to be replayed over and over again. Obama's story line was more positive from the start: historic newcomer coming to shake up Washington. So the negatives that sprung up around Obama--like a sense that he was more flash than substance--track what negative coverage he's received, captured in a recent "Saturday Night Live" skit that made fun of his lack of accomplishments in office. 'There may well be almost an unconscious effort on the part of the media to give Obama a bit more slack because he is more likable, because he is the first African-American president. That plays into it,' said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst at the University of Southern California.

Is Jeffe allowed to say that some people in the media are hoping Obama succeeds because he's black? Six years ago, a similar comment about Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb cost Rush Limbaugh his job as an NFL commentator. That such statements are no longer verboten is a sign of racial progress in Obama's America."

MUST READ
* The new health care bill is a massive 1990 pages. Any guess Democrats will try to ram it down our throats before we find out what is really in the bill?
* Remember the Honduran dictator Obama supported a couple months back? It turns out conservatives were right, that the Honduran president was rightly removed from power. Now, however, Senator John Kerry is trying to cover up a report showing Honduras was acting legally in removing the ex-President.
* Another example of government efficiency. Such a deal, that Cash for Clunkers only cost about $24,000 per car.
* Dismantling the 46/47 million myth.
* Great article by David Limbaugh. Democrats have been coddled by the media for so long now that they simply cannot tolerate dissent.
* Must watch, Reagan's speech 45 years ago this week. Nearly all of it, if not all of it, rings just as true today.
* Top Democratic donors getting exclusive access to the White House. I thought Obama was going to change all of that.

Economic Ignorance
* Most people would be inclined to think this a bad thing. After all, why should you get punished for being a good customer? Until you realize, all businesses are forced to charge higher prices because of bad customers. Some customers will have insufficient funds and never pay their bill, sometimes you take customers to court, theft, etc. All that costs money, and it is borne by good customers.

Democrat Deception
* Stimulus jobs created or saved were overstated by thousands. Why not just claim credit for the millions who have kept their jobs through the recession?
* Obama still suffers from Bush Derangement Syndrome. For some reason he cannot refrain from attacking Bush when he is being defensive about himself.

What Media Bias?
* When they do something well, we should applaud them, and I do. This time raising questions about the government's ability to manage a health care bureaucracy.

What Science
* As Ann Coulter would say, don't dare question evolution, despite mounting evidence against it. Case in point.

Think it can't happen here?
* Police in the UK are told what words they can and cannot use, among them "evening" and "afternoon". How Orwellian.
* More bad news from Britain. Databases of protestors who have attended rallies.