Patterico's Pontifications

8/26/2013

Defunding ObamaCare: The Possibility of Failure Cannot Prevent Us From Making the Attempt

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:21 am



“The effort to defund ObamaCare has failed. It was my hope that we could fight this law, which marks a new level of government control over our lives, and defeat it before it was implemented. I was wrong to think that we could get this done at this time and in this way, but I will never stop fighting until the goal of repealing this law is finally achieved.” — Ted Cruz, September 29, 2013, on the failure to defund ObamaCare.

“Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the navy did all that bravery and devotion to duly could do. If any blame or fault is attached to the attempt it is mine alone.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower, July 5, 1944, on the failed D-Day invasion.

“Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice. . . . Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man’s search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts. For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.” — Richard M. Nixon, July 21, 1969, after confirmation of the deaths of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon.

As we contemplate the fight to defund ObamaCare, the prospect of failure weighs heavily on Republicans’ hearts. The question on many people’s minds is: if we fail, what will that mean for Republicans’ election prospects?

Perhaps the better question is: if we fail, what will that mean for freedom?

Men have faced the prospect of failure before, in embarking on undertakings whose prospects for success seem obvious now, with the virtue of hindsight.

Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote a message in his own hand that he was prepared to deliver in July 1944 if it became clear that D-Day had not been successful. The message, quoted above, shows that Eisenhower knew there was no certainty that we would win the day in Normandy — something that had to weigh heavily on his mind given the catastrophe of the Battle of Dieppe, the previous attempt at an invasion of the European mainland.

William Safire drafted a speech, excepted above, for Richard Nixon to deliver in the event that humanity’s first attempt to have men walk on the Moon was a disastrous failure. Given the deaths of Gus Grissom, Edward White II, and Roger Chaffee in Apollo 1, success certainly did not seem assured — and as students of the landing know, there were many points where everything could have gone (and almost did go) disastrously wrong.

I hope Ted Cruz does not have to deliver the short address I have written above, but he might.

Any time we embark on any worthwhile fight, we must consider the possibility of failure.

But we must also not allow the possibility to frighten us into not trying in the first place.

124 Responses to “Defunding ObamaCare: The Possibility of Failure Cannot Prevent Us From Making the Attempt”

  1. Ding

    Roy in Nipomo (160066)

  2. Damn straight, Sir.

    The talk going in to Amnesty was that the Lord of the Flies would use it as the fulcrum to destroy the GOP.

    Then Scandalgeddon hit, and the Republicans have halted their disorderly retreat and, where surrender would have been too honorable, simply gone over to the enemy.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  3. People keep worrying about what will happen if we fail. Maybe an election goes badly for us. But if the election went well, and we got a lot of our guys in there, what good is it if we don’t do anything?

    Patterico (9c670f)

  4. “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”

    Obamacare will destroy itself. Let it. And let Obama take the entire blame for his mistake.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  5. This idea is a mistake. If Obamacare, or some part of it, goes into effect, the result will not be an immediate disaster, so extreme efforts should not be made.

    It also goes counter to the best way of fighting it, which is letting it be tried, up to a certain point, and failing.

    Politically, this is a very bad idea. When it comes to a government shutdown, if it happens, the public will blame the side it believes is more unreasonable. If somehow a continuing resiolution is passed and President Obama vetoes it, or a continuing resolution cannot pass because it does not include Obamacare, the people insisting on excluding it will be blamed, because this is trying to use the entire U.S. government as leverage to force the repeal or near repeal of an important bill.

    What would make more sense tying finding of Obamacare to something much smaller – like excluding a few other things from the continuing resolution.

    But by and large, unless there is a really strong argument that something irreversible is going to happen, it’s got to be allowed to demonstrate that it simply doesn’t work.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  6. Comment by Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 8/26/2013 @ 8:38 am

    Obamacare will destroy itself. Let it. And let Obama take the entire blame for his mistake.

    Exactly.

    Now you want to avoid problems in the meantime, but only what avoids problems should be attempted.

    And the fact of the matter is, there is no suibstitute on the table.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  7. what utter idiocy: not doing anything to stop the damage caused by Obamacare now is like saying there’s no need to treat that painful bleeding wound in your hand or foot because we can always amputate the entire limb later if it becomes septic.

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  8. What is so bad about a shutdown?

    I remember the last one, and it had no effect on me or anyone I knew. It was a blip!

    Just do it, GOP. If nothing else, educate the people on the issue.

    Patricia (be0117)

  9. 4. meet 7.

    Boehnercare, nee Romanycare, erstwhile Obamacare, is the lawless break en toto with America 1789 and enlightened, heroic, non-despotism.

    We have literally have to do it all, over again.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  10. 6. “And the fact of the matter is, there is no suibstitute on the table.”

    Samuel, if’n it were possible, I’d have reached thru the nets to slap you as fittingly unconscious as that offense warrants.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  11. Let’s face it, the Dems fully expect Obamacare to fail and annoy millions of voters. That is step 2 out of 3. They will leverage that anger into the push for single payer.

    So, if the Republicans also gratuitously hand them an issue for 2014 and 2016, they will gladly accept it. Face it, the left has been far more effective in positioning conservatives in the minds of voters than the GOP. Until the GOP creates an effective PR capability, it will always get crushed in the battle for the hearts and minds of the electorate. Efforts like defunding a program will be seen as obstructive in the absence of context that has been repeatedly communicated over months or years.

    in_awe (8fa979)

  12. 11. Continuing the thought contra Alinsky party line mouthpiece present:

    Everyone who could afford care has been waived.

    Some trifling percentage of those who did not have access to the pride of insurance will now have it at the price of quality and availability of their healthcare.

    Millions of at-will employees have lost insurance and are thrown into ER waiting rooms with the untouchable indigent. Millions more will self-insure.

    Tens of thousands of providers will leave the profession, will cease dealing with insurance in any form, will take government jobs and leave the sentient.

    The one and only purpose of Obamacare is the destruction of our social contract with government.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  13. The people that want it, don’t have to pay for it. The people that don’t want it, have to pay for it. This is a financial battle, not one of Highly Principled Ideology.

    There is a cost to failure. A cost in credibility, and in making the case to fight the next battle. There is nothing noble in losing.
    Obamacare is law NOW, because we have already fought and lost THEN. Whatever political capital we have left is not well-spent on a guaranteed loser like this. The GOP needs to pick a battle it can win, and then win it; I haven’t seen anything like that recently, and even the battle “won” (i.e. GWB’s Medicare Part D, all the foreign adventures, No Child Left Behind,etc.) were good ideas that were blown up by reality and poor execution. We need a win, not another Unforced Error.

    TimesDisliker (886a73)

  14. OT by one degree of separation. Business and the Markets proceed merrily to set prices based on Government verisimilitude not their treacherous lyin’ eyes.

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-26/soybean-corn-and-wheat-prices-are-surging

    My little chink in the wall provides a very restricted view of the crops and saw May, the month of planting a total washout. We’re just now into the second week of hot humid weather all summer that corn, squash and tomatoes love.

    Seriously the bulk of the maize up here is four, maybe five feet tall.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  15. Need I also point out that the 2010 elections were largely about the GOP’s fierce desire to stop this abomination in its tracks?

    I’m sort of gobsmacked here – if we don’t oppose ObamaCare and do our best to get rid of it, why bother voting for us? Is there any functional difference between the party that implemented the law and the party that opposed it but will keep it anyway?

    bridget (b00d78)

  16. Here’s another reason Obamacare should be defunded and repealed: Obama has waived all requirements in No Child Left Behind in minority communities in CA but still gives them the money!

    http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/obama-administration-approves-nclb-waiver-request-california-core-districts

    Of course, this type of thing will continue to happen with Obamacare.

    Patricia (be0117)

  17. With full respect to everyone here, I’m not seeing it. The Republicans have been the majority in Congress, and yet have not passed a budget in 4 years. How does that happen, and how does the GOP expect to have any credibility in funding matters? The GOP is now the party of opposing gay marriage, attempting to impeach Obama, Student Loan “crisis” managers, Don “Wetback” Young, Pete “Babydaddy” Domenici, Mark “Creepy Liar” Sanford, Marco “Let ‘Em All In” Rubio, and now the Government “Shutdown”.

    Did you know only 80 (of 233) Republican Congressmen are committed to defunding? Why? Lobbyists. No politician is capable of saying “no more goodies”, even with annual Trillion dollar deficits, and Republicans aren’t focused on anything other than getting re-elected.

    btw, Bridget, I take your point about the 2010 election being about repealing Obamacare, but the GOP lost seats in 2012 and for very good reason (no results). I wish it would be repealed, but I don’t see it happening and don’t see the value in squandering time, money and effort for yet another battle lost before it is fought. Another Unforced Error.

    TimesDisliker (886a73)

  18. 17. “The Republicans have been the majority in Congress, and yet have not passed a budget in 4 years.”

    Sorry, Bub, wherever you meant to be, you’re in the wrong place. Daily Kos this isn’t.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  19. 18. garygulrud, I’m in the right place and have been posting on PP for years. One of the things that PP has a lot of, is posters like you that simply dismiss other posters, because they can’t dismiss the facts (like the one you referenced from me, and the other one in #6 in which you made the personal ad hominem instead of addressing his point). This is why the GOP is going to lose this issue, and will keep on Quixoting, thinking it is just enough to keep their safe gerrymandered seats while not delivering results. Anyway, enjoy your ‘beautiful loser’ fight but please don’t wonder why the troops can’t get excited to back the next GOP cause (see my previous list, above).

    TimesDisliker (886a73)

  20. 19. Alright, gender of your choosing, let us just parse thru the quoted sentence of yours.

    The useless bags of mostly water with an R behind their name have only had a majority in the House.

    They passed a budget in 2012 which was actually just a bit inside your limits of inconsequence.

    Please let us adults browbeat each other in peace.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  21. The Republicans have been the majority in Congress, and yet have not passed a budget in 4 years.

    . . . posters like you that simply dismiss other posters, because they can’t dismiss the facts. . .

    If you are going to be a stickler for “the facts” then you should retract and/or correct the following incorrect assertions that you made:
    (1) The GOP does not hold Congress, it simply holds a majority in the House of Representatives. The Senate continues to be run by the Democrats.
    (2) The GOP has only held the House for 32 months (since January 2011), not the four years that you claim above.

    JVW (bea3f2)

  22. ” The Republicans have been the majority in Congress, and yet have not passed a budget in 4 years. ”

    The brazen way in which Democrats lie is astonishing. The historic facts: The GOP gained the House at the beginning of 2011. The Senate remains Democrat controlled. The Democrat controlled House never passed a budget after FY 09 which was passed in January of 2009. The GOP controlled House did pass budgets, the Senate never voted upon them at all for years.

    Brazen lying – that’s what the Democratic Party offers.

    SPQR (768505)

  23. Well it does take two to tango, and Reid won’t deal,

    narciso (3fec35)

  24. For years, narciso, the Democrats in the Senate would not even pass a Senate version of the budget. (Like the Democratic House for FY 2010 and FY2011). They refused to be on the record on a budget at all.

    Complete abdication of their most basic constitutional responsibility.

    SPQR (768505)

  25. Just so you know, the student loan brouhaha, was because funds were removed to make Obamacare look more solvent,

    narciso (3fec35)

  26. For years, narciso, the Democrats in the Senate would not even pass a Senate version of the budget. (Like the Democratic House for FY 2010 and FY2011). They refused to be on the record on a budget at all.

    And of course we know that this unwillingness to act is mostly an attempt to prevent vulnerable Democrat Senators in the South and Midwest — McCaskill, Landrieu, Pryor, Nelson, Baucus, Tester, et al. — from having to try to reconcile their party’s demand for Big Government with their constituents’ demand for low taxes and deficit reduction. The Constitution being subverted just to enhance one corrupt party’s electoral chances.

    Remember about seven months ago when everyone in the media was breathlessly reporting that Senator Max Baucus was finally going to write up an actual budget and present it? Is it any wonder that once Democrats realized that it is impossible to reconcile their promises with reality that they dropped the idea of passing a budget altogether?

    JVW (bea3f2)

  27. Yes, I wondered what happened to that trial balloon, it dissapeared like Beaks with the Gorilla,

    narciso (3fec35)

  28. They passed a budget in the Senate, but Hary Reid is refusing to appoint a conference committee.

    The reason wasn’t to avoid tough votes for some Senate Democrats. The reason was because Harry Reid wants to avoid abudghet resolution. It is possible to pass things with only a majority vote with a budget resolution and he didn’t want certain things in the House budget resolution brought uip for consideration.

    So all that did was put the Senate on record as proposing something in a budget.

    Also it is easier to get things into a continuing resolution than other legislation because it is emergency legislation.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  29. @gulrud, JVW, SPRQ, right, right. You read “Congress” and immediately think “both Congress and Senate”, unlike the rest of the world that never uses “Congress” and only uses “House of Representatives (of Congress)”

    A distinction without a difference, 4 years and HoR (known as “Congress” to citizens of the U.S., and not blog-wonks intentionally misunderstanding) hasn’t done their job.

    You keep on doing what you’re doing, and enjoy your failures Emporer’s New Clothes. I’m not enjoying my GOP failures, and understand that this is not about winning an “argument” but winning an election and policy.

    TimesDisliker (886a73)

  30. No, when one party is irresponsible, and the other party is responsible, this is the result,

    narciso (3fec35)

  31. @30.narcisco, please explain the ‘responsible’ party and how one could possibly tell by any metric that your description of ‘responsible’ is accurate. Examples of a$$-covering responsibility?*tick, tick, tick*

    TimesDisliker (886a73)

  32. TimesDisliker – Spin it any way you like. You messed up. Congress is composed of two chambers, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Republicans have controlled neither for the past four years, but since resuming control of the House in 2011, they have passed budgets each year.

    The error is in your comment, not any one else’s.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  33. TimesDisliker,

    Are you one of these disaffected Republicans who wants to change the name of ObamaCare to BoehnerCare ?

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  34. @daley, even if you are correct (which you are not) are you really making the case that the Senate passed a 2012 budget and therefore all is well in your pedantic definition of Congress?

    And the mistake is yours. The Senate is controlled by Dems, and they are the ones that passed a budget in 2012 (not Congress, which is controlled by Republicans). As Noam Chomsky says, “don’t take my word for it, look it up!”

    All this distraction from a clear point which we both understand, how do you feel going down time after time with Republicans squandering their effort on losing causes? Unforced errors? It must feel bad, I know I feel bad because the GOP is ‘my team’. Well, give Mike Lee a call and let him capture your phone # so he can hit you up for a donation later, and let him know “how very deeply” you want to defund Obamacare. Maybe if you and the rest really care a lot! it will make a difference and we will win the policy battle instead of just winning an argument.:-)

    TimesDisliker (886a73)

  35. 34. Mr. F., I know we’ve had our differences, I believe you to be perilously treading moby waters, etc.

    But just so we’re clear: You are a freaking genius compared to some that the OFA sends here.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  36. #33 Elephant Stone, I wish it was ‘BoehnerCare’ because then it would stall out and simply be a stain in the GOP undershorts. #34, just google ‘TimesDisliker’ and stop being a silly cooze.

    TimesDisliker (886a73)

  37. 36. Oh look everyone, he got me to google ‘cooze’. He called me a name derogatory of ladies’ privates.

    What a remarkable lad.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  38. @gulrud, JVW, SPRQ, right, right. You read “Congress” and immediately think “both Congress and Senate”, unlike the rest of the world that never uses “Congress” and only uses “House of Representatives (of Congress)”

    A distinction without a difference, 4 years and HoR (known as “Congress” to citizens of the U.S., and not blog-wonks intentionally misunderstanding) hasn’t done their job.

    This is seriously the most stupid attempt to cover up an asinine comment that I have seen in some time. Only the truly ignorant would hear “Congress” and think “House of Representatives.” What kind of stupid half-assed justification are you aiming for here?

    Perhaps you will tell us the actual Senate Budget Bill that passed that chamber in 2012? Are you so dense as to not know the difference between the Senate Appropriations Committee and the actual U.S. Senate? I don’t have the time to tutor you in a remedial course on the workings of the United States government, so let me just advise you to go brush up on that subject before you beclown yourself here any further.

    JVW (bea3f2)

  39. As Noam Chomsky says, “don’t take my word for it, look it up!”

    Or just take Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s word for it:

    http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/03/reid-senate-will-not-pass-a-budget-this-year/

    JVW (bea3f2)

  40. OK. I’ve given it some careful thought and I’m absolutely certain that when I use the term “Congress” I mean to include both the House and Senate. Otherwise if I mean the House of Representatives I say “the house”. And when I am talking about the U.S. Senate I use the words “the senate”. Full disclosure: I took civics and history well before 1990 from good teachers in good schools. So that might explain it.

    elissa (ae7d8d)

  41. 39. That article is dated February 3.

    2012.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  42. The 50-to-49 vote in the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats, sets up contentious — and potentially fruitless — negotiations with the Republican-controlled House in April to reconcile two vastly different plans for dealing with the nation’s economic and budgetary problems. No Republicans voted for the Senate plan, and four Democrats opposed it: Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mark Begich of Alaska and Max Baucus of Montana. All four are from red states and are up for re-election in 2014.

    “The Senate has passed a budget,” Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the Senate Budget Committee chairwoman, declared at 4:56 a.m.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  43. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/us/politics/chances-of-a-deficit-deal-are-rapidly-fading.html?pagewanted=all

    “What Republicans want to do is make progress on the debt,” said Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a member of the House leadership’s vote-counting team. “With all due respect to Republicans in the Senate, just because you get a deal with the minority of the minority over there doesn’t mean you get a deal with a majority of the majority in the House.”

    The search for a path around the looming crisis has been complicated by a full-throttle conservative push to shut down the government in October unless the Affordable Care Act is deprived of all further financing. Senior Republicans have tried hard to cool the enthusiasm around the idea. Mr. Cole called it “well-intended but misdirected.”

    “If it would work, fine, but it’s not going to work,” he said. “You don’t win your political point by putting hundreds of thousands of Americans out of work.”

    I don’t think you’d get that many people out of work, but people would think the Republicans were more unreasonable.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  44. Sammy, TimesDisliker specifically claimed that the Senate passed a budget in 2012. Here is his contention:

    And the mistake is yours. The Senate is controlled by Dems, and they are the ones that passed a budget in 2012 (not Congress, which is controlled by Republicans). As Noam Chomsky says, “don’t take my word for it, look it up!”

    There was no way the Democrats were going to put their vulnerable Senate members on record for a budget vote in an election year, and notice that four of the most vulnerable Democrats abandoned their party in the vote this year. Do you really think that Pryor, Hagan, Begich, and Baucus (who is, admittedly, retiring) are going to be put on the line again in 2014 (and election year) along with Mary Landrieu, Jeanne Shaheen, and Mark Warner? Will they get Tim Johnson’s vote if he thinks it spells certain doom for his party’s nominee? No way Reid gets them all to fall on their swords next year, and he has zero margin for error.

    JVW (bea3f2)

  45. Congress is both houses, and a “member of Congress” can be from either house (especially if someone was a member of Congress in the past) but a Congressman is a member of the House only. A member of the Senate is called a Senator.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  46. Thank you Sammy. I see you took a civics class too.

    elissa (ae7d8d)

  47. “@daley, even if you are correct (which you are not) are you really making the case that the Senate passed a 2012 budget and therefore all is well in your pedantic definition of Congress?”

    Timesdisliker – Are you high? Are you seriously suggesting you can come even close to inferring that from anything I wrote?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  48. I do acknowledge, though, that my comment on this thread from 4:45 pm is incorrect, and that the Senate Democrats did pass a budget this year (as Sammy reminded us).

    JVW (bea3f2)

  49. 45. JVC: “TimesDisliker specifically claimed that the Senate passed a budget in 2012.”

    I see. (although @26 you said the Senate dropped the idea of passing a budget. They actually pass a budget because they needed to to get paid because condition was in the debt ceiling bill)

    It looks like TimesDisliker @34 is wrong in more ways than one, almost to the point of incoherence.

    Where did he get the ideaa that the Senate, but not the House, passed a budget in 2012?

    Or that “Congress” means just the House of Representatives?

    I didn’t study the thread.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  50. Or that when Daleyrocks wrote

    Congress is composed of two chambers, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Republicans have controlled neither for the past four years, but since resuming control of the House in 2011, they have passed budgets each year.

    he was saying a budget resolution passed both chambers? There is some incoherenece there because if the Republicans resumed control of the House in 2011, then it wrong to say they controlled neither chamber “for the past four years.”

    He meant the four years from the election of 2006 to the election of 2010.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  51. 47. Comment by elissa (ae7d8d) — 8/26/2013 @ 9:38 pm

    47.Thank you Sammy. I see you took a civics class too.

    I think I had some civics, in the 7th or thr 8th grade, but I didn’t gte it from that.

    No Civics class would get that particular as to say that the (informal, because that’s what it is) usage is Congressman only for a member of the House, but a “member of Congress” can belong to (or, more likely, had belonged to) either House.

    Of course that “Congress” means both the House and the Senate is more basic.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  52. Math. Civics. History. Reading. Who knew it would all come in so handy?

    elissa (ae7d8d)

  53. Yes, elissa, as I remember, I learned to write “Dear Congressman So and So” (as opposed to “Representative So and So”) and “Dear Senator So and So” in formal letter writing and typing class, in summer school, between 7th and 8th grade.

    nk (875f57)

  54. I know we as a nation have really hit the skids when I truly feel more confident about the veracity and reliability of a foreign leader along the lines of Syria’s notorious president than that of the person now in the White House (not to mention John “self-inflicted-purple-heart” Kerry or Hillary “what-difference-does-it-make” Clinton). I say that with a sense of astonishment, disbelief and, yes, disgust.

    I’ll also note that, perhaps in the next few days (if US military action is initiated), the left had better not ever dare sneer again about “WMD,” Hussein/Iraq and George W Bush.

    wnd.com, August 26, 2013: As the U.S. considers a response to what it calls a chemical weapon attack by Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime that killed hundreds of civilians, reliable Middle Eastern sources say they have evidence the culprits actually were the rebel forces trying to take over the government.

    Secretary of State John Kerry accused the Assad government Monday of covering up the use of chemical weapons in “a cowardly crime” and a “moral obscenity” that shocked the world’s conscience. Kerry claimed the Obama administration had “undeniable” evidence “that the Assad government was culpable in the use of chemical weapons on civilians” in the Aug. 21 attack in Damascus suburbs.

    Assad has rejected charges that his government forces used chemical weapons as “preposterous” and “completely politicized,” the Los Angeles Times reported. He argues Syrian forces were in the targeted area.

    “How is it possible that any country would use chemical weapons, or any weapons of mass destruction, in an area where its own forces are located?” Assad asked in the interview with Izvestia, according to a translation provided by Syria’s official news agency and published by the Los Angeles Times.

    “This is preposterous! These accusations are completely politicized and come on the back of the advances made by the Syrian Army against the terrorists.

    theatlanticwire.com, May 2013: A member of the United Nations commission of inquiry announced on a Swiss-Italian television show that they believe the Syrian rebels have used chemical weapons on Assad’s troops. “Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated,” said Carla Del Ponte, a member of the commission. “This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities.”

    ^ This is why I snicker even more at US government entities when they possibly can’t even provide accurate or honest feedback on something as apparently obvious as what’s indicated above. IOW, the lack of common sense in today’s America could sink a ship, both literally and figuratively.

    Mark (fd91da)

  55. @17 With full respect to everyone here, I’m not seeing it. The Republicans have been the majority in Congress, and yet have not passed a budget in 4 years.

    Comment by TimesDisliker (886a73) — 8/26/2013 @ 3:46 pm

    @29 A distinction without a difference, 4 years and HoR (known as “Congress” to citizens of the U.S., and not blog-wonks intentionally misunderstanding) hasn’t done their job.

    Comment by TimesDisliker (886a73) — 8/26/2013 @ 5:23 pm

    It is true that the House is often referred to as congress, however that is not an absolute (see below). Further, if you were referring to the House, your assertions contained at least two falsehoods:
    a) The Republican majority has existed for less than three years (you claim 4 years).
    b) They did pass a budget on at least two occasions, FY 2011 and FY 2012 (you claimed they did not).

    This is sort of primer stuff that most readers here really already know, but FWIW:

    Here is a Wikipedia definition of the US Congress: The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States consisting of two houses: the House of Representatives and the Senate. Congress meets in the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

    Here is how the US Constitution defines it (Article 1 / Section 1): All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

    Pons Asinorum (8ce71a)

  56. Comment by Mark (fd91da) — 8/26/2013 @ 10:47 pm

    if US military action is initiated), the left had better not ever dare sneer again about “WMD,” Hussein/Iraq and George W Bush.

    The interesting thing is the way President Obama almost turned on a dime, from worrying about evidence to certainty.

    My guess is what tipped the balance is some NSA intercepts, even though thaty’s not being cited at all, and is in fact, not necessary.

    There was some basic logic to accusing Saddam Hussein of having chemical weapons, and that applies here to: If it is not true, and Assad really wants to disprove it, he can.

    What happened in Iraq is that Saddam Hussein wanted President George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to believe that he ahd chemical weapons.

    But he didn’t want anybody else to believe it.

    And the best way to have them not discovered accidentally was not to have them.

    Possibly his underlings (afraid to defy an order but afraid of what would happen to them if they carried out an order to use chemical weapons) sold him on this idea, or maybe the Russians did.

    I said Saddam Hussein wanted Bush and Rumsfeld to believe he had chemical weapons. Bush, not Iran, as David Kay, I think, later concluded. he wanted Bush to think he had them, not that he didn’t have them.

    Why? Because I think Saddam Hussein believed that weapons of mass destruction was not the reason Bush wanted to invade Iraq, but it was because he was an evil dictator who had wanted maybe to kill his father and whom his father had left in power. Indeed anyway there were other reasons.

    And he saw how Bush amde plans to counter to the use of chemical weapons. U.S. troops all had that chemocal weapon gear. As a practical matter that meant an invasion could not take place later than the start of April because otherwise it would be too hot.

    And he also knew that the U.S. plan involved Turkey.

    At the last minute Turkey backed out. Members of the Turkish parliament were probably in Saddam Hussein’s pocket, and he knew this would happen.

    Saddam Hussein expected that to force George Bush to cancel the invasion. At least until October, and maybe something would happen by then or Bush couldn’t keep so many soldiers in the Middle East all that time.

    Surprise! Bush went ahead anyway without any help from Turkey!

    You see Turkey had been involved more for political than military reaons. The plan was still 90% the same without it. It would be like D-Day without the landing on the southern coast of France.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  57. Re: Defunding Obamacare

    Letting Obamacare break and hoping the political Left will somehow lose power and thereby leave conservatives in a position to restore the Constitution, is somewhat akin to watching your horse die and believing that it will be replaced by a unicorn.

    In 2012, despite record-breaking debt, stagnant unemployment, poverty-rates not seen since the 60’s,… President Obama was re-elected — by a decent margin.

    We need to stand tall and fight, and then fight harder. We need to fight like there is no tomorrow, because it is possible that there really is no tomorrow.

    Defund the Bee-Ich.

    Pons Asinorum (8ce71a)

  58. Obamacare is mostly a financial disaster. Insurance rates won’t go down. People won’t sign up and will get subsidies that in the end when they fill out their taxes the next year, it turns out they are not eligible for. They’ll owe money to the federal government, starting in 2015, but it won’t be collected.

    The idea about the horse dying is that insurance companies will all go bankrupt or out of the business, and then it won’t be possible to get private insurance again.

    But what you havr to understand anyway, is that the horse is no good, doesn’t do the job right, causes much of the same problem as single payer does except that you can sue private insurance companies, and we need a unicorn, anyway.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  59. Unicorn = something that hasn’t been invented yet, or doesn’t exist on the scene.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  60. 57. SF: “The interesting thing is the way President Obama almost turned on a dime, from worrying about evidence to certainty.

    My guess is what tipped the balance is some NSA intercepts..”

    Seems to be correct.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/world/middleeast/syria-assad.html?hp&pagewanted=all

    In the coming days, officials said, the nation’s intelligence agencies will disclose information to bolster their case that chemical weapons were used by Mr. Assad’s forces. The information could include so-called signals intelligence — intercepted radio or telephone calls between Syrian military commanders

    When the president does it, at least he thinks he’s getting something for it, like putting an end to the claims the Syrian government didn’t do it.

    As I said, that that doesn’t mean that foreign double agents, or people still working for Assad who want to get rid of him – but maybe I repeat myself – didn’t encourage the use of chemical weapons so as to bring about this intervention.

    The inspectors by the way did make their way to the scene of the crime.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  61. My guess is what tipped the balance is some NSA intercepts

    Sammy, I can tell you’re quite emotionally invested in bits and pieces of the left — of liberalism and the Democrat Party — when even after all is said and done you still believe there’s something coherent and legitimate behind Obama’s motives. At the very least, Obama and the ding-dongs around him have to know the opposition of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is not just as ruthless or diabolical as he is, but probably even worse, if not far worse. Yet the current White House chooses to make Syria’s regime not just the big ol’ heavy, they choose to spin a tale that its renegades are somehow incapable of using deadly weaponry cited by the UN as an act against humanity.

    If Obama and Company can be as idiotic as they were about George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin, who’s to say they’ll be less idiotic regarding Al-Assad and his opponents?

    Mark (fd91da)

  62. “He meant the four years from the election of 2006 to the election of 2010.”

    Sammy – It’s 2013. Why would either timesdisliker or myself be referring to 2006-2010? Use your brain a little bit. It makes no sense no more sense that way.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  63. @59 The idea about the horse dying is that insurance companies will all go bankrupt or out of the business, and then it won’t be possible to get private insurance again.

    Comment by Sammy Finkelman (6c9102) — 8/26/2013 @ 11:27 pm

    Interesting take Mr. Finleman, but no, that is not what my analogy was about. It has nothing to do with insurance companies at all.

    The “horse” (are we really going here -lol) is the Constitution.

    The horse getting sick is related to the Constitution getting Obamcare. If we do nothing to fix the Constitution, it will be subsumed.

    When things fall apart, whatever systems/processes are brought in to replace the mechanisms of the Constitution will be hailed as necessary in order to “fix” things (aka, the unicorn — magical, not real).

    Our Federal Republic is an anomaly in history, one of few self-governments to have ever existed, and the only one to have lasted as long as we have — a product of the genius and character of the Founding Fathers, which has never been duplicated since. In short, if We The People decide to roll the dice thinking that we should let our Constitution destroy itself so that something better might come along — it is like thinking our horse will be replaced by a unicorn.

    Really, this is not something I would expect most Obamacare supporters to understand, but neither do they matter. I was addressing those that know we have to fight (defund Obamacare), but perhaps disagree on tactics.

    Pons Asinorum (8ce71a)

  64. Look. Pearl Harbor killed a lot of people. It was a military disaster. But if we had detected their carriers ahead of time and pre-empted there would have been no support for a long war with the Japanese Empire.

    Similarly with Obamacare. You can tell people it will be a colossal mistake and do your damndest to prevent it, but until they see this crap go belly up on their doorstep, they will keep on voting for people who say water runs uphill.

    The people chose this path. At this point if you fight it the danger is not that you will lose, it is that you will WIN and they will never ever have to admit that their failure.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  65. admit that their failure

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  66. OT Could the truth painted all over their driveway, front door and poochie force House ‘leadership’ to act?

    http://nicedeb.wordpress.com/2013/08/26/digenova-benghazi-scandal-growing-quietly-behind-the-scenes-witnesses-coming-out-of-the-woodwork-nsa-scandal-tip-of-the-iceberg/

    If you mean a celebrity focus group, well, mebee.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  67. Days that Pons shows up in the comment threads are good days.

    JD (5c1832)

  68. I’m a little late to this thread. Did TimesDisliker ever explain his theory that the reason why the Democratically controlled Senate has not passed a budget in four years is because of the Republicans in “Congress”?

    Icy (b7138e)

  69. 6. “And the fact of the matter is, there is no suibstitute on the table.”
    Samuel, if’n it were possible, I’d have reached thru the nets to slap you as fittingly unconscious as that offense warrants.
    Comment by gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 8/26/2013 @ 9:18 am

    — Not that I would ever support virtual violence, but I certainly second the sentiment. Finkelman is falling into the same bullsh*t “repeal & replace” trap that a large percentage of the GOP has embraced.

    Icy (b7138e)

  70. Comment by Icy (b7138e) — 8/27/2013 @ 8:11 am

    Finkelman is falling into the same bullsh*t “repeal & replace” trap that a large percentage of the GOP has embraced.

    It’s not me. “Repeal and replace” is the platform that many ran on. Repeal and replace is what they have to do (or, more exactly, show that they could do if they had the votes.)

    The old system is not good and steadily getting worse with time.

    Now to make Obamacare fail faster is a kind of a legitimate strategy, as long as that failure is basically built in anyway, or the thing that makes it fail faster is avoiding something bad about it, (the individual mandate and penalties) but just to talk of repeal, and especially tgo be fanatic about it, goes no place.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  71. Repeal and replace is only a trap because most Republicans have no idea what to do, or can’t agree.

    Agree? Not very many have put much on the table.

    The medical marketplace is wrecked and something must be restored.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  72. The market is wrecked because the cost doesn’t matter to almost everybody (but, by the way, we don’t want it to matter too much) because of third party payments and no incentive to save money. Auto parts and auto repair suffers from the same condition to alimited degree.

    Markets can also be werecked by other things. College tuition by borrowing.

    Housing, well, also by borrowing.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  73. “Agree? Not very many have put much on the table.”

    There you go again. Another myth of the left.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  74. 72. Please, a trap of their own making. The ‘need’ is all of Federal making.

    We, I mean this seriously, would be better off burning it down and starting over.

    Fortunately events conspire to fill others’ hands with the torches.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  75. Comment by Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 8/27/2013 @ 12:34 am

    [Pearl Harbor] was a military disaster. But if we had detected their carriers ahead of time and pre-empted there would have been no support for a long war with the Japanese Empire.

    Japan also invaded the Phillipines and expanded its attack in in China, going also into Indochina, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies.

    But it may be that some people did think this way. The FBI did not warn Franklin Delano Roosevelt about Pearl Harbor even though they’d be warned by Dusko Popov, the British Double Cross agent “TRICYCLE” who was the original model for James Bond, that the jaapnese were very interested in military details Pearl Harbor because he’d been given this questionaire by the Abwehr, and a deputy to Canaris, Johnny Jebsen, had specifically pointed out to him tghe meaning of that (with the intention he dshould tell the British and the Amerians)

    But all J. Edgar Hoover wanted to do was threaten him with violating the Mann Act for taking a girl to Hawaii with him.

    People in the FBI were still at it defending J. Edgar Hoover’s conduct in the American historical review in 1982 and 1983.

    http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/51865363/once-again-pearl-harbor-microdots-j-edgar-hoover-letter-john-toland

    Somebody there probably wanted it to happen. (to make sure the U.S. got into the war while the fighting was still far far away)

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  76. 65. That’s a dubious hypothetical dilemma.

    The Empire attacked when it did hoping at one stroke to crush our Navy. They found obsolete dreadnoughts in harbor but the new carriers were all at sea on maneuvers.

    Either way war was in the offing FDR having embargoed their oil.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  77. FDR was actually afraid after Pearl Harbor that maybe Congress wouldn’t want to declare war on Germany. That was not his strategy for getting the U.S. into the war.

    Hitler solved that problem for him by declaring war first.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  78. Comment by Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 8/27/2013 @ 12:34 am

    Similarly with Obamacare. You can tell people it will be a colossal mistake and do your damndest to prevent it, but until they see this crap go belly up on their doorstep, they will keep on voting for people who say water runs uphill.

    yes, and also if it s prevented from even being tried, even the parts people like, it would always be maintained it would have worked.

    The people chose this path. At this point if you fight it the danger is not that you will lose, it is that you will WIN and they will never ever have to admit that their failure.

    It’s bad either way. Although it’s worse to win.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  79. Pearl Harbor was Prince Bandar’s fault.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  80. SF: “Agree? Not very many have put much on the table.”

    Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/27/2013 @ 9:41 am

    There you go again. Another myth of the left.

    There are some ideas floating around, and McCain had a plan in 2008 which he didn’t understand.

    I didn’t say nobody put much on the table. I said not many. Ideas like making the tax treatment of health insurance identical regardless of who is paying for them, and allowing policies to be sold nationwide merely nibble around the edges.

    I could take apart Paul Krugman’s defense of the individual mandate which he mentioned in a column I think Monday a week ago, but these Republican endorsed ideas have problems.

    Equal tax treatment doesn’t get rid of the problem of adverse selection. Group policies have the advanataage that ost people on it are healthy.

    Selling across state lines leaves open the possibility of consumeer fraud. (like policies that pay just the daily hospital rate, sold to people who have no idea what hospitals could charge for an operation)

    I have some ideas.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  81. 80. Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/27/2013 @ 9:59 am

    Pearl Harbor was Prince Bandar’s fault./i>

    He wasn’t born yet.

    Maybe the Outfit, though. (it made sense. They needed the war not to affect life inside the United States much and they were just cynical enough to do it. Some people in the FBI may have been corrupted. The FBI was denying the existence of organized crime well into the 1950s.)

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  82. Didn’t stop the italics. You can see the /i>

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  83. “it’s worse to win.”

    Oh, the simplisme of ruthless reductionism.

    The political battle, plausibly so. The cost to hour healthcare? I beg to differ. Doing nothing would have been highly preferable.

    You have done nothing in weeks to demonstrate otherwise. Squat sh*t.

    We have an entrenched two-party system with tens of billions in discretionary income locked up in this Kabuki theatre.

    The costs of monopolized healthcare in lost opportunity costs will be huge. The whole exercise is economic madness.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  84. “Doing nothing would have been highly preferable.”

    gg – Exactly!!

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  85. This practice of never admitting the obvious and highlighted errors in your arguments fools no one Sammy.

    Its like my five-year old: Everything is negotiable, ‘No’ is never an option, and is never acknowledged.

    The Federally installed market of health insurance is a chimera, a monster. It isn’t insurance against catastrophic loss its freaking rent of our physical space, the air that we breathe.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  86. It sounds like TimesDisliker and EPWJ each has the same decoder ring from a box of Fruit Loops that convinces them that trashing conservatives is a way to prove their conservative bonafides.

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  87. Comment by Patterico (9c670f) — 8/26/2013 @ 7:39 am

    The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  88. Comment by gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 8/27/2013 @ 10:20 am

    The Federally installed market of health insurance is a chimera, a monster. It isn’t insurance against catastrophic loss its freaking rent of our physical space, the air that we breathe.

    I know that. The problem is hat on;y 12% of costs are paid by the person who makes the purchasing decision.

    There was a Republican idea – Health Savings accounts. But it is not a complete solution.

    We’re going in the wrong direction.

    And the qualification for subsidies is a nightmre. Basically it’s claim what you want, with some precuations to be instituted later, including maybe credit checks.

    The subsidy you might have been entitled to is only calculated the next year when income for the previous year is reported. The system is almost predicated on stable and unchanging income. You get a penalty for any mnth without insurance. If you took too much, you owe the money back, and you owe money also if you skipped months of insurance, but the money will only be subtracted from future refunds.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  89. 89. “We’re going in the wrong direction.”

    And as long as our thinking produces sentences like “only 12% of costs are paid by the person who makes the purchasing decision” we will remain so.

    So people being born and those busy dying are the big spenders, as in $100K at a throw.

    So we have to spend 10 times, nay 50 times, what we would have spent, in constant Cro Magnon spear points, to persuade the living to cover those not yet or soon to be departed and have this feeling we’re compassionate and sacrificing.

    Obviously we’re paying 100% of the costs. The suck surrounds the demographic reality that there is no way to pay tomorrow for today’s operation. Involving the Government can only make things worse, as we are amply instructed.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  90. OT Prince Bandar speaks:

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-27/meet-saudi-arabias-bandar-bin-sultan-puppetmaster-behind-syrian-war

    All this to build a Qatari(MB bankroller) gas pipeline that will be indefensible.

    World war and it isn’t even opening with an attack on Israel. Who’d a thunk?

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  91. And here is the Wall Street Journal article from yesterday (there’s a maybe one time ability to click on that link without a subscription)

    A Veteran Saudi Power Player Works To Build Support to Topple Assad

    Officials inside the Central Intelligence Agency knew that Saudi Arabia was serious about toppling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad when the Saudi king named Prince Bandar bin Sultan al-Saud to lead the effort….

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  92. “There was a Republican idea – Health Savings accounts. But it is not a complete solution.”

    Sammy – Congratulations, you finally admit there was at least one Republican idea on the table. Now see if you can remember any more. Nobody claimed HSA’s were a complete solution, that’s a straw man of your own invention.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  93. @65 Look. Pearl Harbor killed a lot of people. It was a military disaster. But if we had detected their carriers ahead of time and pre-empted there would have been no support for a long war with the Japanese Empire.

    Similarly with Obamacare. You can tell people it will be a colossal mistake and do your damndest to prevent it, but until they see this crap go belly up on their doorstep, they will keep on voting for people who say water runs uphill.

    The people chose this path. At this point if you fight it the danger is not that you will lose, it is that you will WIN and they will never ever have to admit that their failure.

    Comment by Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 8/27/2013 @ 12:34 am

    You have a great point Kevin M and maybe you are correct.

    IMHO, I believe that Obamacare is supposed to fail and upon its collapse anti-liberty forces will have another opportunity to advance their cause further and continue to subsume the Constitution in order to centralize the government, at which point our experiment in self-government will cease.

    It is not likely that a pro-liberty renascence of some type will occur (“Gee, I guess those conservatives were correct after all…”).

    The 2012 election was similar in construct with high: unemployment, debt, and poverty rates — yet look who won. As a result, our Constitution is now routinely ignored by this President and his administration. Liberty is apparently not as valued as security or entitlements.

    Maybe you are right Kevin and indeed your Pearl Harbor supposition is quite sound, but I think the fight is here and now; I think our Pearl Harbor has already occurred.

    In any event, time will tell.

    Pons Asinorum (8ce71a)

  94. Comment by JD (5c1832) — 8/27/2013 @ 6:51 am

    JD, ever since you have denounced me, I feel like a free man! Thank you.

    I can’t believe your triathlon feats (Geez, I get winded just getting a beer out of the fridge) — — u da man!

    Pons Asinorum (8ce71a)

  95. 91. Comment by gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 8/27/2013 @ 12:59 pm

    All this to build a Qatari(MB bankroller) gas pipeline that will be indefensible.

    Surely you don’t believe that an unnecessary pipeline is the reason for any of this? The pipeline was something supposed to be of interest
    to Russia. If this offer was made, it looks like Putin didn’t bite, and why should he? The Saudi promises were too much.

    What do you read there?

    1) Saudi Arabia rejects the support given to the Moslem Brotherhood by Qatar and Turkey. Definitely true, Saudi Arabia probably encouraged the Egyptian military to kill demonstrators. (this will tend to prevent them ever turning over power to a democratic government because the people involved might face the death penalty or close)

    2) They do favor extremist religious regimes, like what Pakistan did with the Taliban (and so a new regime would be extremist only against Israel)

    3) Putin told Bandar he supports Iran’s right to obtain nuclear fuel. All that this means is that Russia will not be the determining factor.

    (Putin previously indicated Putin will not endorse a UN resolution like the US and Britain want but that Russia would not interfere militarily with anything the U.S. wanted to do in Syria, and he doesn’t know why we’re not satisfied with that.)

    4) Bandar said the Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by Saudi Arabia. That may or may not be entirely true.

    World war and it isn’t even opening with an attack on Israel. Who’d a thunk?

    Syria seems to be threatening something. If anyone in the Syrian government is trying to maneuver western or other intervention, something to make that happen (even beyond the use of chemical weapons last week) might be done.

    It may not be too hard for Prince Bandar or others to get Bashir Assad to take bad advice. Bandar needs to figure out what it will take to get Obama (or even Israel) to act.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  96. Saudi Arabia reportedly was promising that a new regime in Syria would be just as good to Russia as the old regime, and they would buy all the weapons that Russia no longer could sell to Syria.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  97. SF: My guess is what tipped the balance is some NSA intercepts

    We don’t need any NSA leakers – when Obama suddenly readily accepts reality, it’s a tell.,

    62. Comment by Mark (fd91da) — 8/27/2013 @ 12:13 am

    fter all is said and done you still believe there’s something coherent and legitimate behind Obama’s motives.

    Sometimes there is. He’s not pure evil. That’s true of a lot of people.

    At the very least, Obama and the ding-dongs around him have to know the opposition of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is not just as ruthless or diabolical as he is, but probably even worse, if not far worse

    Some of it is. they are now relying on Prince Bandar to pick out the good guys. !

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  98. “Maybe you are right Kevin and indeed your Pearl Harbor supposition is quite sound”

    Pons – Indeed, that’s why you blame Benghazi on a video instead of a failed Mideast policy and radical Islam.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  99. @99 Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/27/2013 @ 1:37 pm

    Well yeah, I mean the Religion of Peace is like peaceful, and of course bad TV is a perfectly rational reason to commit murder, and HC’s accomplishment(s?) were the most awesome-est ever, except maybe the would-be second black President, he should be pretty good too, if he can get off his yacht (btw: does his appointment make him the second black SecState? I am so confused. And denounced).

    Pons Asinorum (8ce71a)

  100. Pons – Plus that Muslim Brotherhood and its splinter entities is really just a mostly peaceful, benevolent, social organization, a lot like Hamas that way.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  101. #69 Icy and #87 Elephant Stone, interesting you are both still going around the block and passing the same house, stuck on wordplay but never addressing my point. I’m a conservative, not trashing conservatives or theory. But I am trashing a lack of results, tone-deaf, and fighting battles already lost.

    Well, off your knees and on to your march into the Killing Fields, unconcerned about the continued losing streak and feeding the GOP as the party of lame. Apparently, your “Rebranding” is to double-down. Enjoy~!:-)

    TimesDisliker (e418b1)

  102. 96. “Surely you don’t believe..”

    Actually Sam I believe that between the two of us we present only a passable Western plebe’s reckoning of what’s actually taking place.

    The internecine alliances and conflicts meeting in Syria are worthy of Islam, whose caliphs died almost without exception at the hand of an ally, are baffling with respect to how peace can result.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  103. 102. Well if punkinhead can stop a bullet who are we to sneer?

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  104. Unaffordable?! Wha chu talkin’ bout narciso?

    Despite mounds of evidence to the contrary, President Obama is convinced that the healthcare premiums under his signature legislative policy will be cheaper than the average American’s cell phone bill.

    The president made the remark in an exclusive interview with radio hosts Tom Joyner and Sybil Wilkes from the Oval Office earlier this week.

    “Anybody who doesn’t have health insurance in this country is going to be able to get it at an affordable rate, and we were just talking with some folks earlier about the fact that for a lot of people it’ll be cheaper than your cellphone bill,” he said.

    According to a report by the CTIA Wireless Association, the average American pays $47.16 a month for cellphone service, which is actually a steep decrease from the $71 per month Americans were paying on average in 2012.

    http://weaselzippers.us/2013/08/27/blatant-lie-obama-claims-health-care-premiums-under-obamacare-will-be-cheaper-than-your-cellphone-bill/

    elissa (aba4a2)

  105. Rules? There are rules?

    http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/08/27/final-rules-released-on-obamacares-individual-mandate/?mod=WSJ_LatestHeadlines

    I gather the main one is they apply to you not us.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  106. TimesDisliker,

    The rumour must be true; you are truly the true conservative.
    You win !
    If you contact Cracker Jack at the address given on the side of the box, I’m sure they will mail you your prize !

    If only we could all be so pure and sanctimonious as you.

    Just keep in mind, it was Goldwater’s disastrous yet pious “full steam ahead !!!” 1964 campaign which enabled LBJ to enact the expansion of the Not-so-Great Society, as a result of the Democrats then having a whopping two-thirds majority in each the House and the Senate, in addition to the White House. Certainly, LBJ won some sympathy votes following the assasination of JFK—but not that many.

    Ronald Reagan won lots of Democrat votes in 1980 and ’84 because he was the Happy Warrior. Let us all try to keep that in mind before we cry for a “full steam ahead !!!” push which results in a shut down of the federal government.

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  107. Well would Rockefeller have really fared better, in the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination,

    narciso (3fec35)

  108. A couple of good links on the state of things:

    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/356404/suicide-pact-kevin-d-williamson

    http://spectator.org/archives/2013/08/23/in-another-country

    108. One minor difference between then and now, Stones. America was growing like mad. Now we’re contracting real bad.

    No way this gets turned around at the ballot box.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  109. 106. Obama said:

    “Anybody who doesn’t have health insurance in this country is going to be able to get it at an affordable rate, and we were just talking with some folks earlier about the fact that for a lot of people it’ll be cheaper than your cellphone bill,”

    He’s not lying. Not exactly lying.

    But he’s making himself out to be very stupid, if he thinks that is a fair description of the situation. Of course he doesn’t. What he said was deliberately misleading, but not technically a lie.

    Obama didn’t bother to explain the scenario, but if you pay close attention to his words, and understand the way Obamacare works, you might be able to figure it out.

    First, “a lot” can still be a relatively low percentage.

    I think the people at Red Alert may possibly have missed that subtlety.

    But, you think maybe, even so, there are no examples of that whatsoever.

    The article at Red Alert goes on to compare the most expensive cellphone (only) plan with the cheapest health care plan, and they think they have caught him in a lie.

    Moreover, many smartphone users on a major carrier like AT&T or Verizon may be playing close to $100 per month – and that’s just for an individual plan.

    Regardless, Obama’s claim fails to hold any weight when you consider that the average 21-year-old male will pay $214 monthly through the law’s healthcare exchanges, a 42-year-old woman will be charged $284 a month and a 62-year-old man will pay a whopping $615 monthly. Obviously none of these numbers are remotely close to cost of owning a cellphone in the U.S. regardless of carrier or plan type.

    So you see:

    Most expensive individual cellphone plan: Approximately $100.

    vs.

    Cheapest individual health care plan: $214 for a 21-year old male. (possibly females could be cheaper I didn’t check)

    How can President Obama be right?

    He has to be right. He’s referrinbg to a staged discussion he had where the idea of a health care plan being cheaper than a cell phone plan was discussed. There has to be backup for that claim.

    What’s the answer? Many people are getting subsidized.

    People with a sufficiently low income, but above the poverty rate, and above the stated income that lets you qualify for Medicaid, can indeed pay more for the cellphone than health insurance.

    Some college students or recent graduates, who may feel a need for the most expensive cellphone, and who are not on their parent’s plan, may
    fall into this category.

    That is the Final Jeopardy question.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  110. 109. Comment by narciso (3fec35) — 8/27/2013 @ 6:42 pm

    Well would Rockefeller have really fared better, in the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination

    Of course. Even though he wouldn’t have carried any of the states maybe that Goldwater did.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  111. If you move to a new rental every six months, yanking your kids out of school after school, and if you do drugs in front of your children, and sell your food stamps for cash, then chances are you are part of that culture. If you are 20 years old, living with your grandmother, with no interest in ever getting a job, or getting married, or doing much of anything, chances are you are part of that culture. If you do not have a kitchen table, but you do have a big flat screen TV, and when the social worker comes to visit someone yells, “The social worker is here, go get the light bulb,” then chances are you are part of that culture.

    …For the underclass to escape the culture of poverty they would have to cease doing most if not all of the above, and I don’t see that happening.

    People don’t do much of that in New York.

    Move every six months? We have rent stablization. If someone does not pay rent they ahve dioffuclty in moving. Doing drugs? Probably not a big thing. Putting ina light bulb whjen a social worker visits? When does Social worker visit? Section 8 inspector maybe. But even though New york City has tghe most expensive electricity rates in the country outside of Long Island…people not using light bulbs? Social workers etc would not for smoke detectors, not light bulbs. I don’t understand that at all. And the only people who could conceiveably sell food stamps for cash are people who have other sources of income or food.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  112. 111. “He’s not lying. Not exactly lying.”

    It all depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is.

    The totally unsurprising thing about the single-payer bum rush is healthcare costs have been rising at half the rate of higher education since Government got into the latter business.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  113. 113. Note that Williamson’s article indicated NY has lost $68 Billion in AGI to other states since 1992.

    No sum was given for the AGI loss of Manhattan to Westchester county, it was only given to be substantial.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  114. “How can President Obama be right?

    He has to be right. He’s referrinbg to a staged discussion he had where the idea of a health care plan being cheaper than a cell phone plan was discussed. There has to be backup for that claim.

    What’s the answer? Many people are getting subsidized.”

    Sammy – He needs to produce examples to proves his point because otherwise it looks like a blatant lie and an offensive statement to make to the American people.

    An article I saw showed the average cell phone bill at $47 and change. Based on the numbers I ran at Kaiser’s ObamaCare subsidy calculator, few individuals will pay anything that low for insurance coverage per month.

    Examples or its just another lie.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  115. I actually consider myself to be very far to the right on the political spectrum, and I agree with the Mark Levins of the world in my heart, but my head tells me at this point that a federal government shutdown would be fully blamed on the GOP. The media would beat that drum night and day.

    Last summer and fall was a dress rehearsal, and the incompetent GOP couldn’t even adequately convince the American public that Mitt Romney was not responsible for the cancer death of a wife of a layed off employee…whom Romney had nothing to do with.
    Given that, how the hell is the GOP going to respond to charges that they “shut down the federal government.”
    Good grief.

    On top of that, the idiot strategists of the GOP could not even adequately respond to the fact that Romney’s federal tax rate was low because he was merely paying capital gains taxes on his investments rather than income taxes from a job. (He had no job.)
    It may be shocking to discover, but a lot of working class and lower class people who don’t have stocks and investments have no idea what the capital gains tax is all about VS what the ‘normal’ federal income tax is.

    The point of the 1964 comparison is that the Democrats not only got sympahty votes for JFK, but they successfully convinced many Nixon voters (from the ’60 election) that Goldwater was taking the GOP back to the stone ages, and that he was going to also take the country into a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
    The point is to suggest that Goldwater’s very uncharasmatic full steam ahead campaign and let the chips fall where they may is not the way to convert people on the fence, or people on the other side. My point IS NOT TO SUGGEST THAT NELSON ROCKEFELLER WOULD HAVE won the White House in 1964.

    In 2013, the Democrats have a stranglehold on the electorate due to too many low information voters, and too many people dependent upon government money, whether it is welfare our actual government employment. If the government is “shut down,” the GOP will get blamed for it, and all of the delays and problems with the implementation of ObamaCare will be blamed on GOP “obstructionism.”
    I really believe ObamaCare is collapsing of its own weight.
    If the government gets shut down, it will enable Obama to have a boogie man to demagogue against for the 2014 elections.
    It would be better for the GOP if the delays and Barney Fife incompetency of ObamaCare is an issue that the GOP can point to and say, “See ? It’s a Titanic disaster.”

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  116. Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/28/2013 @ 10:11 am

    Sammy – He needs to produce examples to proves his point because otherwise it looks like a blatant lie and an offensive statement to make to the American people.

    I didn’t look, but I would wager that staged discussion he had, or part of it, is available on the White House web site.

    What he said is totally misleading, but as I said, it is not technically a lie. It >i> looks like a blatant lie, but I don’t think he would tell a blatant lie on this issue, because it is too easily refuted, so there’s a catch, but it’s technically true.

    You have to wonder, though, what is in his mind, because this is not going to fool anybody.

    An article I saw showed the average cell phone bill at $47 and change.

    But he didn’t say the average bill – he said “a lot” of people would pay less for their health insurance than for their cell phone bill – and, given the millions of people in the United States, “a lot” of people can be a small percentage.

    Based on the numbers I ran at Kaiser’s ObamaCare subsidy calculator, few individuals will pay anything that low for insurance coverage per month.

    Yes, but let’s not use the average cell phone bill. Let’s use the 85th percentile. I don’t know what that is.

    Somebody on his White House staff, or a friendly lobbying group, or at the DNC, cooked up this talking point.

    Examples or its just another lie.

    Examples would expose that statement for the blatant nonsense that it is, so he just referred people to his earlier discussion. “we were just talking with some folks earlier about the fact that for a lot of people it’ll be cheaper than your cellphone bill.”

    I just wonder though, what he thought he was accomplishing by all of this. It’s a joke.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  117. I am reasonably certain that if you find that discussion you will find some hypothetical examples of how somebody’s health insurance premium could be lower than their cell phone bill, told in the first person. Maybe I should go looking for it.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  118. This is apparently video of Obama making the claim (I think August 27) in an exclusive interview with radio hosts Tom Joyner and Sybil Wilkes. (a transcript, or that exat transcript may not be on the white House web site)

    http://washingtonexaminer.com/obama-martin-luther-king-jr.-would-have-liked-obamacare/article/2534753

    So he must have had some staged discussion about this August 26 or 27. (Monday or Tuesday)

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  119. I can’t find out what earlier discussion was referring to.

    Sammy Finkelman (6c9102)

  120. People keep worrying about what will happen if we fail. Maybe an election goes badly for us. But if the election went well, and we got a lot of our guys in there, what good is it if we don’t do anything?

    This. What’s the point of winning elections, if we do the same bad things the other side does, for fear of losing the next one?

    Milhouse (3d0df0)

  121. With full respect to everyone here, I’m not seeing it. The Republicans have been the majority in Congress, and yet have not passed a budget in 4 years.

    Liar.

    Milhouse (3d0df0)

  122. @gulrud, JVW, SPRQ, right, right. You read “Congress” and immediately think “both Congress and Senate”, unlike the rest of the world that never uses “Congress” and only uses “House of Representatives (of Congress)”

    A distinction without a difference, 4 years and HoR (known as “Congress” to citizens of the U.S., and not blog-wonks intentionally misunderstanding) hasn’t done their job.

    OK, maybe not a liar, just an idiot.

    Milhouse (3d0df0)


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