Slammed by CBO Again

The Congressional Budget Office has slammed ObamaCare once again for failing to do anything to cut costs.

"For the second time this month, congressional budget analysts have dealt a blow to the Democrat's health reform efforts, this time by saying a plan touted by the White House as crucial to paying for the bill would actually save almost no money over 10 years. "

Republicans had a response:

""This letter underscores the enormous challenges that Democrats face trying to pay for their massive and costly government takeover of health care. In their rush to pass a bill, Democrats continue to ignore the stark economic reality facing our nation," said Boehner spokeswoman Antonia Ferrier. "Let's scrap the current proposal and come together in a meaningful way to reform health care in America by reducing cost, expanding access and at a price tag we can afford.""

Clearly, the "reform" proposed by the left includes so much government that it could not possible be efficient or fair.

Of course, to the left, its more about control than costs or fairness.

Senator Charles Grassley, however, says that a reform bill will be passed this year:

"“They said we’ve got to show the Democrats they don’t have a vote to nationalize health insurance and then they’ll come to us and we’ll get a compromise,” Grassley said, describing conversations he has had with the other leaders."

Everyone, it seems, thinks we have to reform medical insurance, and that is fine. But will it be good enough for Congress and the President to include themselves in the reform?

And how can you compromise a bill that is so bad?

Current legislation would exempt all the Feds, so they must not think its a very good deal.

The public should demand that any reform that is passed apply to everyone, and not leave out a privileged few.

It is very apparent that the few in Washington consider themselves far above those of us out in the hinterland.

We should throw them all out. All of them.

Memo to the President and Congress re: Health Care

Mr. President and Congress, you are presently trying to pass a health care reform bill. You have exempted yourselves and all Federal employees from the provisions thereof.

You need to pardon me for shouting, but:

I WILL ACCEPT ANY REFORM OF MEDICAL CARE THAT YOU AND ALL FEDERAL EMPLOYEES WILL BE SUBJECT TO, AND NONE OTHER.

PERIOD.

I do not know why you believe that you have some kind of superior rights to the rest of us, but rest assured, you do not.

The South Plainsman

Bored?

Last night's press conference shows that Americans are becoming bored with Obama. It was the lowest rated yet in terms of viewers.

It was also the lowest rated in terms of substance.

Called to help bolster the sagging health care agenda, the presser demonstrated that Obama does not have a clue about the subject matter.

Even with the adoring White House press corps asking softer than goose down questions, Obama couldn't get into the swing of things. From the first question until the last, he gave circuitous, meaningless answers to the easy questions.

The last, of course, was the doozy about racial profiling, where he took a stand before he even had heard the evidence.

If everyone keeps the heat on their Congressmen and Senators, ObamaCare should be defeated.

Hopefully the same for the cap and tax, er, trade, bill.

Meantime, at the stock markets, Obama's lackluster performance gave it a boost above $9,000 on the Dow Jones Average today.

So perhaps he did accomplish something.

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head......

Wow. Got up this morning and drove to work in the rain. Finished, and drove home in the rain. Its still raining....a nice constant rain.

Here we are in West Texas on the 22nd of July, and it is 64 deg. and raining.

Sounds like time for a good nap.

Public Enemies

We went to the movies today. I don't usually go, but this one was about John Dillinger, the bank robber active back during the Great Depression.

Good movie. I recommend it for those that like action.

It occurred to me during the movie how much things had changed since then. Back then, guys like Dillinger, "Baby Face" Nelson and "Pretty Boy" Floyd were the bad guys, robbing and killing folks.

Today, its entirely the opposite. Now the banks and financial institutions, particularly the great big ones on Wall Street, are the ones doing the robbing and pillaging.

Just think. They had that huge bubble that blew up courtesy of the Federal Reserve and the helpful politicians of both parties in Washington. Those banks and financial institutions sold all kinds of paper, all represented to be good, while at the same time, they and the government were encouraging the public to borrow more and more.

Huge bonuses piled on huge bonuses for the perpetrators of all of this. They all got tremendously wealthy.

Then the house of cards crashed down.

Retribution for their excesses? Of course not. Their enablers in the government decided to bail the perps out with money that will have to be taken from the victims of all of this, namely the US taxpayer.

Instead of ending up like Dillinger, at least figuratively, most of them are going to get even richer off of the bailouts.

I understand from Mr. Barofsky, who is the authoritative person in this issue, that the US taxpayer may get stuck for as much as 23.7 TRILLION DOLLARS.

We need to throw out all of the pols in the government that were, and continue to be, behind this.

Quickly.

Birth Certificate Issue Makes it to Congress

It seems that those who question Obama's natural born citizen status have gotten some Congressmen to jump on the bandwagon.

There is a bill co-sponsored by 9 Congressmen, including our own Randy Neugebauer, that would require any candidate for President to produce his or her birth certificate.

John Avlon, writing over at The Daily Beast, thinks that is rather silly, and it certainly may well be.

"All this might be laughable, if there weren’t deadly serious hyper-partisan hatred behind it all. There is plenty to debate over the administration’s policies, but Obama Derangement Syndrome is not healthy for our democracy—it is pathological hatred of the president posing as patriotism."

Those are pretty harsh words for what might seem a reasonable sort of request. Reminds me of the Bush Derangement Syndrome we saw for 8 years.

My view is that Obama should release his birth certificate. If he is who he says he is, and I have no reason to doubt it, then he could put this business to rest very quickly, and send the "birthers" running with their tails between their legs.

The only thing that gives this life is Obama's strenuous efforts to hide the birth certificate and other records that most Presidents release.

Is he trying to hide something?

A Cure for Radiation Sickness?

YNet has posted news that a cure for radiation sickness has been found by Jewish-American scientists and one from Israel. The research was funded by Israelis.

"The ground-breaking medication, developed by Professor Andrei Gudkov – Chief Scientific Officer at Cleveland BioLabs - may have far-reaching implications on the balance of power in the world, as states capable of providing their citizens with protection against radiation will enjoy a significant strategic advantage vis-à-vis their rivals."

It will also have other very valuable uses:

"Gudkov's discovery may also have immense implications for cancer patients by enabling doctors to better protect patients against radiation. Should the new medication enable cancer patients to be treated with more powerful radiation, our ability to fight the disease could greatly improve. "

This drug, if it works and passes the tests, will have profound implications for every human being living in this nuclear age.

The potential use in fighting cancer is mind boggling.

They hope to have it through the FDA in a couple of years. We will see.

Go read the whole story.

And a hat tip to Roger L. Simon.

What are they smoking?

Hillary is in India, trying to convince the Indians that they should cut their carbon emissions according to the Washington Post. While there, she told the Indians:

"No one wants to in any way stall or undermine the economic growth that is necessary to lift millions more out of poverty," Clinton countered. "We also believe that there is a way to eradicate poverty and develop sustainability that will lower significantly the carbon footprint."

Yeah. And I have a bridge in Brooklyn I would like to sell you. The world's economies from ours all the way down to the smallest depend upon fossil fuels to operate their economies. If other nations are to continue to grow and expand their economies, they will have to use more, not less.

Incidently, Hillary was responding to India's very predictable and definite "No" to her proposals.

It seems that, unlike our current government, India has done a cost/benefit analysis of reducing emissions, and found, like anyone would, that the costs of such a program would far outweigh any benefits. Particularly in a world that has been cooling for over ten years now.

Reuters says that our Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke said in China that the US taxpayers should pay for Chinese emissions:

" “It’s important that those who consume the products being made all around the world to the benefit of America — and it’s our own consumption activity that’s causing the emission of greenhouse gases, then quite frankly Americans need to pay for that,” Commerce Secretary Gary Locke told the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai."

That, of course, is after the Chinese have made clear that they are not going to pay for any of it.

So let me see if I can get this straight.

We spend the last two or three decades shipping our manufacturing jobs to China, and a lot of high tech jobs to India, and they are going to get off scot-free on this global warming idiocy? And then we will have to pay for it ourselves?

With what?

I propose that Obama and his cadre get off the dope they are smoking and get back to the real world.