Thursday, January 21, 2010

Nullification of Congress

There hasn't been so much heated discussion of "nullification" since the OJ trial. You remember that culture-clash moment in American Justice, don't you? When OJ Simpson, the former NFL star turned actor, was acquitted of the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend? The 1995 courtroom spectacle in Los Angeles has been described as the most publicized criminal trial in American history. Its outcome — an acquittal in the face of reasonably damning evidence — has also been cited as one of the most glaring examples of a legal phenomenon known as "jury nullification."

Put simply, jury nullification is the process whereby a jury in a criminal case effectively nullifies a law by acquitting a defendant regardless of the weight of evidence against him or her. It is the power of the panel to act in bold defiance of both law and fact, voting to set a defendant free, even if that person did run afoul of a particular criminal statute. In the OJ case, the sympathetic jury essentially poked a prominent finger in the eye of the system, giving their own peculiar twist to the term "blind justice."

More recently, nullification of a different sort has been put on trial in the court of public opinion and pursued in the chambers of state legislatures across the country. This type of nullification is not an act of defiance, rather one of obedience — obedience to the Constitution of the United States and to the conscience of its determined protectors.

When a state nullifies a federal law, it does so with the solemn conviction that the law in question is unconstitutional. The state's lawmakers, generally invoking their sovereign powers under the Tenth Amendment, are proclaiming that the offensive law is void and inoperative, or non-effective, within the boundaries of that state. In other words, they declare that the federal law is not "legal" and cannot be enforced against their citizens.

Such nullification has a long history in the American tradition. Of late it has been used by quite a few states in effectively blocking the federal Real ID Act of 2005 and resisting federal marijuana laws. With regard to healthcare legislation expected to be forced on us against our will by Washington, a number of states are already putting into motion the wheels of nullification. Legislation has been introduced, or state constitutional amendments put forth for 2010, that could effectively nullify national healthcare mandates within the borders of the various states.

What's directly implied in such nullification laws is "interposition" (as referred to by James Madison in the Virginia Resolution of 1798). This is a bedrock principle supporting state sovereignty. According to this principle, state governments not only have the right to resist unconstitutional federal acts, but, in order to protect liberty, they are "duty bound to interpose" or stand between the federal government and the people of the state. To do less would be an unconscionable dereliction of civic duty and would jeopardize the standing of the state and the rights of its citizens.

Which introduction to nullification brings us now to the sharp point of this piece — the looming danger we face from the impending nullification of the Congress of the United States.

It is a charge that, until recently, would seem too outrageous even to consider. But given the extreme, purposeful and concerted misdeeds, destructive acts and examples of egregious malfeasance by official Washington, it is a charge that cries out to be aired.

The Obama Administration and its either willing or unwitting co-conspirators on Capitol Hill (I would bet heavily on "willing") are, without a doubt, scheming to undermine our cherished Constitutional system of checks and balances. They are conspiring to cause future elections of our U.S. Senators and Representatives to be effectively "null and void" in their legislative impact. After all, in their radical leftist construct for government "rule," why should the "rulers" have to bother with that pesky, problematic, unpredictable Congress? This would, indeed, be "fundamental change," wouldn't it? And if the Obamacratic oligarchists succeed in this subversion — one that would tragically be "historic and unprecedented" (to borrow again from Mr. Obama's lofty language) — it will matter little how federal elections turn out in 2010...or in any year beyond.

Alarmist, am I? Cuckoo escaped from the cage, you say? Consider this: Every major move, initiative, proposal or policy of the Obama White House and its willing enablers down the street in DC has, at its dark heart, a pernicious power grab or power shift. The intent? To restructure the balance of power into the hands of an almighty Executive. The evidence?

Healthcare. Use empty promises, corrupt bargains, secret negotiations ... ignore the clear and consistent will of the people ... create some horrendous, freak show of a bill built in haste for partisan political purposes ... ram it, cram it, jam it through in a "crisis" atmosphere ... grab untold power for a vast new bureaucracy, as well as for the IRS as "enforcer" ... and ... Congress is then pretty much out of play because this voracious monster will be able to feed at will and grow willy-nilly without restraint.
Cont@ Source

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Coca Cola Happiness Commercial



Now this has absolutely nothing to do with my blog, but this commericial is one of the best that I have ever seen. It will make you laugh...


Resveratrol- When you overdose on the real thing bring down your blood sugar..

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

10 symptoms of 'Obama Stockholm Syndrome

Now, Tom ran for President, he was one of those minor candidates that did not really have a vision other than he was anti-immigration. Although I was never a Bush supporter, I had two sit through 8 years of liberal bashing of conservatism, even though Bush was never a conservative. Well, here is a bit of payback, we can call it payback lite to start as Obama before he is through will make us long for Dick Cheney or a Hugo Chavez as Presidente...




By Tom Tancredo


Many political analysts and pollsters have been noticing the growing number of citizens reporting Obama Voters Remorse, or OVR. Americans experiencing OVR report symptoms such as job loss, savings evaporation, hypocrisy exhaustion, national-debt insomnia and global-warming skepticism.

Yet the most significant political news may be that Obama Voters Remorse is rarely found in a certain substrata of the population, our "political elites," who instead exhibit symptoms of a new epiphenomenon known as Obama Stockholm Syndrome. Persons experiencing OSS display a compulsive and irrational need to reaffirm their vote for Obama no matter what happens in the real world. Thus, they are curiously immune to attacks of Obama Voters Remorse.

The demographic differences in the two groups are extraordinary.

While Obama Voters Remorse has been detected across diverse segments of American society, from construction workers in the Mountain West, senior-citizen retirees in the South and soccer moms in Pennsylvania, the symptoms of Obama Stockholm Syndrome are confined almost entirely to four insular populations. OSS is most likely to be found among university faculty clubs, mainstream-media newsrooms, windmill-farm technicians and Hollywood celebrities. Nevertheless, OSS can strike anywhere the New York Times is sold.

Show your neighbors what you think of BHO with WND's classic LOL bumper sticker!

The following list of the 10 most common OSS symptoms may help concerned citizens recognize this affliction in friends or relatives and assess the seriousness of the condition. Treatment and rehabilitation are possible if the disease has not progressed to Stage Four.

The afflicted person should be asked to agree or disagree with each of the following 10 statements, with one to five points awarded depending on the degree of agreement with the statement. Appropriate treatment will be based on the person's score on a scale from 10 to 50 points.

You believe that the Obama bumper sticker on your Prius automatically extends its warranty to the year 2016.


You think Obama should have won the Nobel Prize in Philanthropy for giving away other people's money.


You believe that the 1.5 million people who protested excessive government spending on the Capitol Mall on Sept. 12 were all part of a vast right-wing conspiracy.


You believe the colder winters across Europe and North America over the past 11 years, the cooling of the Pacific Ocean and the increased ice accumulation in the Antarctic are all convincing evidence of global warming.


You think the best way to stop the drug cartel violence in Mexico from spilling into the U.S. is to curtail handgun sales in Omaha, Denver and Spokane.


You think Obama's acquiescence to Iran's nuclear weapons is a giant step toward peace in the Middle East.


You believe that giving amnesty to 15 million illegal aliens will actively discourage another 15 million from coming across our open borders in the decade ahead.


You believe that a committee of United Nations bureaucrats should be given a veto over U.S. economic policies in order to reverse the destruction of the planet's environment by American capitalism.
USCivilflags- Based on the original Treasury flag in 1799, before the country was bankrupt. A symbol of a Constitutional Republic.


You think al-Qaida will not attack America again because Barack Hussein Obama and not George Bush is now the face of America in the Muslim world.


You believe that Obamacare will provide better health care for more Americans at lower cost without rationing because government-run services are always more efficient than services provided by the greedy private sector.
Persons who agree strongly with all ten statements earn a score of 50 points, while those who disagree strongly will score only 10 points. Individuals scoring 11 to 16 have only a very mild case of OSS, identified as Stage One. They should begin a daily journal to record new symptoms and conduct a rigorous self-assessment of weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

Persons scoring 17 to 24 on the quiz are at Stage Two OSS and have a serious problem coping with reality. They should immediately read Glenn Beck's book "Arguing with Idiots" and attend the next tea-party protest.

Individuals scoring 25 to 32 are at Stage Three OSS and may need intervention by friends or relatives. They should immediately call a doctor and ask for a list of the nearest Obamaholics Anonymous meetings.

Anyone scoring 33 or above (66 percent, or strong agreement with the 10 statements) are at Stage Four OSS, which is frequently irreversible and incurable. The only known treatment formula with some record of success is to go "cold turkey" by giving up MSNBC, the Daily Kos and Bill Maher completely.

Fortunately, according to the most reliable surveys, only 19 percent of the U.S. population has Stage Four Obama Stockholm Syndrome. However, that figure can range up to 88 percent on some Ivy League campuses and inside West Coast newsrooms and Illinois state correctional facilities.

Source

Monday, January 11, 2010

As an American, I refuse to buy mandatory health insurance that supports corrupt conventional medicine

NaturalNews) Even if Obama's health care reform bill becomes law, mandating that all Americans buy health insurance policies for a failed system of "sick care", I will refuse to comply. I've read the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights, and nowhere in that document do I find that the federal government has the power to force consumers to purchase for-profit insurance products from private companies.
Colloidal Silver- Nature's anti-biotic, kills over 660 viruses.
The very basis of the health care reform bill is, at its core, unconstitutional. If this mandate is allowed to stand, it sets a dangerous precedent for the U.S. government to require us to purchase other products and services from whatever industries it chooses to support. What's next? Will the government pass a law forcing us to buy pharmaceuticals at thousands of dollars a year? Will it force us to purchase U.S.-made automobiles in order to boost the automobile industry? Is our economic free choice now centrally planned by our own government operating like Communist China?
Orgone Zapper- Electro-medicine before the Rockefellers instituted Symptom-based care.
This is a serious question that Constitutional scholars will no doubt be debating in the months ahead. But who am I kidding anyway? The U.S. government has long since abandoned the U.S. Constitution and no has any intention of abiding by it. Want proof? Read just one amendment: the 10th amendment.

Check out the website www.TenthAmendmentCenter.com which carries a highly relevant article on this matter: Health Care Nullification and Interposition (http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com...). It paraphrases James Madison, saying, "...state governments not only have the right to resist unconstitutional federal acts, but that, in order to protect liberty, they are 'duty bound to interpose' or stand between the federal government and the people of the state."

Xylitol Toothpaste- re-enamels teeth and no fluoride!

Our right to choose has been stolen away
In addition to the very serious legal problems with government-mandated private health insurance, this health care reform law strips away my right to choose what type of medicine I wish to be treated with. I don't find any credibility in the drugs-and-surgery approach to health care. The pharmaceutical industry is riddled with scientific fraud, quackery, corruption and criminal behavior -- much of it documented right here on NaturalNews.com. Its drugs are approved by a corrupt, dishonest regulatory agency (the FDA) that has abandoned science in its quest to push more drugs onto the people. Why should I, as a "free" American, be forced to pay money to a system that I know to be largely based on fraud?

If I had a choice, I would prefer to buy into a system of naturopathic care, where doctors respect the healing ability of the human body and try to work with the patient instead of assaulting him with chemicals and surgeries. But Obama's health care reform bill gives me no such choice. I cannot choose to direct my money into a system of medicine that I trust and respect. Instead, I am being forced to pay money into a system that is morally corrupt and scientifically fraudulent. It is a system that will only bring more harm and suffering to the people while enhancing the profits of the greed-driven corporations behind this medical scam.
Source

Friday, January 8, 2010

40% of Americans now ready for Tea Parties and Ron Paul

Ron Paul's got staying power, that's what happens when you don't lie.This does not mean Sarah Palin, she has yet to take a stand for actually libertarian anti-tax sentiments. At this point just a pretty poser with some balls.

A new poll by NBC/Wall Street Journal shows that a hypothetical Tea Party would beat out both the Republican and Democratic Party's in a three-way matchup. According to the poll, more than 40 percent of Americans would support the Tea Party movement, compared to a 35 percent for Democrats and 28 percent for Republicans." The Tea Party movement does not have an official political platform but provides a voice for angry populist sentiment against the government and political establishment. However their is concern that the movement has been hijacked by Neocons and partisan Republicans the same way the anti-war movement was by democratic partisans during the Bush administration.

In a new documentary about the tea part movement activist Nate Wiggim said, "I think a tea party foreign policy would probably be none. A tea party foreign policy would be working on getting the U.S.A. back together… Our economy is in disarray. I don't think this is a time to worry about foreign policy when our country is about to collapse. It's time to take care of ourselves. It was a foolish decision to go to Afghanistan in the first place… [while] our own country's borders are left open," continued Wiggim. "We have all this globalization. We don't produce any of our own products, we always import everything. We need to focus on ourselves before we worry about any other country's foreign issues."

The 2006 and 2008 elections were referendums against the Bush administration and Republican Congress over the Wars in Iraq, corruption, and reckless spending. However the democrats interpreted it as a mandate for their agenda. Now Americas are just as fed up with Obama and the democratic congress. There has not been a situation in recent history were the American public strongly rejected both major political parties. Perhaps the closest situation was when Ross Perot ran as an independent on a Populist platform and earned 19% of the vote.

Obama's promised change but his policies are not that much different than Bush's. He renewed the Patriot Act, continues deficit spending, fails to secure our borders and pushes for amnesty, and continues the two wars in the middle east. Americans have been lied to that the democrats are liberals and the republicans are conservatives. We have two parties that believe in globalization over national sovereignty, favor wall street and multi-national corporations over the middle class, have no regard for our constitution, and support an interventionist foreign policy that is not in our nations interest.

Americans are now realizing that both parties have failed to provide the solutions to fix our country but the political system is rigged against third parties. However by working within the Republican party Ron Paul's movement successfully taps into this sentiment and has influenced the direction of the GOP. There are several candidates who are part of his movement running for office this year, including his son Rand Paul who is now leading in the Republican primary for Senate in Kentucky.
UScivilflags- based on the original Sons of Liberty flag. The flag of the original Tea Party.

Former Congressmen Traficant who also has a growing following said "there's a group out of Washington, and in several cities around the country, that want to bring back the old Reform Party, combine it with the tea party and bring the Libertarians in and everybody, and they want me to run as an independent for president." Former CNN pundit Lou Dobbs, who is a self described independent populist and advocate for the middle class has also been mentioned as potential candidate for 2012. Dobbs said, "I will be in the public arena and engaged," and that his areas of interest are, "Illegal immigration, international trade, job creation, and economic growth."

While independent candidates have long had a snowballs chance in hell of getting elected, if Obama's approval ratings continue to plummet and the republicans fail to provide and alternative, 2012 may provide an opportunity. The Internet has changed the political scene by breaking the monopoly that the corporate media has long had over political discourse. While getting elected as a third party is still near imposable, we will likely see change within the existing two parties such as with Ron Paul's movement.
Source

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

An American Heads Interpol Executive Order 12425



This story of course falls under pure speculation that an American was picked as the head of interpol to clean up the corruption within the U.S. government and specifically the banking information. The information is based on Raye Allan's former husband Gunther Russbacher who was the number 3 man in the CIA during the Reagan years and a Knight Templar, alledge to possess a note for a gold-backed trust ear-marked to restore Sovereign Republics currency systems. The story is intriguing for a couple of reasons symbolically the man's name is Nobel who appears to be a light-skinned black, like you know who, who won the Nobel prize for peace for his good looks... Ronald Nobel's background as the undersecretary of the Treasury. Knowing a little about the commercial code, there are two sides to the treasury the fiat currency side and the real money side. Whether Mr. Nobel represents the gold-backed side is unknown at this point, but you never know, maybe there is some change around the corner being led by a black man..
UScivilflags based on the original Treasury flag in 1799.
Ronald K. Noble was elected Secretary General by the 69th INTERPOL General Assembly in Rhodes, Greece, in 2000, and was unanimously reelected to a second five-year term by the 74th INTERPOL General Assembly in Berlin, Germany, in 2005. He is also a tenured Professor of Law at New York University School of Law, on leave of absence while serving as INTERPOL’s Secretary General.

Mr Noble previously served as the United States Department of Treasury’s first Undersecretary for Enforcement (1993-1996), where he was in charge of some of the US’s then-largest law enforcement agencies, including the Secret Service, Customs Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and Office of Foreign Assets Control. Prior to that, he served as an Assistant US Attorney and Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the US Department of Justice (1984-1989).

A former member of INTERPOL’s Executive Committee, Mr Noble was also President of the 26-nation Financial Action Task Force, the anti-money laundering organization established by the G7 in 1989. Mr Noble served as a Law Clerk for Judge A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., of the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, from 1982-1984, where he received the highest evaluation ever given to a Law Clerk by Judge Higginbotham.

http://www.interpol.int/Public/ICPO/Governance/SG/noble.asp

Note from Rayelan:

Just keep this in the back of your mind while trying to figure out what is going on.

When Gunther was released from prison in December of 1993, he was offered a job that would have put him at the top of the 13 intelligence agencies here in the United States. This would be a position where he would liaison with intelligence agencies around the world.

While Gunther was supposedly in prison in Austria, I knew he was working with Interpol.

After Gunther left me, Sherman Skolnick found him living in Bristol, England running a group of intelligence agencies known as Group 26

According to Sherman, Group 26 was made up of the 13 existing United States Intelligence agencies and 13 European Intelligence agencies... Interpol included.

Gunther told me that the type of crimes that are destroying the United States will never be handled by law enforcement in the United States because the President and the Attorney General have the power to divert investigations and/or make up charges against the men and women who are actually trying to do their jobs and expose crimes and arrest those involved. Many times those involved are closely connected to Presidents, Congressmen and other high level government appointees.... people that the president and the Attorney General will protect.

At that time, 95-96, I was so angry with President George H.W. Bush and President Clinton for their crimes... i.e. Randy Weaver, Waco, the Murrah Building as well as financial crimes such as BCCI, Nugen Hand, Household Finance and others... that I wanted Interpol to have authority here in the United States to arrest these high ranking crooks!!

President Obama's financial team appears to have "lost" trillions of dollars. I wonder if Interpol will find this money and bring the crooks to justice?

Gunther once told me that the United States can never be cleaned up by its own law enforcement agencies. Just look at the types of crimes... starting with drugs in the 60s, Savings and Loan looting in the 70s and 80s, dot com boom and bust in the 90s, and our current real estate bubble. These events didn't just happen, they happened because of laws our Congress passed for their friends who used these laws to make billions of dollars and leave the American taxpayer holding the bill for cleaning it up.

How many people went to prison for the excesses of these years? Only a handful and this handful, including Michael Milken are out of prison and just as wealthy as they were before prison. In other words, just a few scapegoats took the fall for all the crooks. Why? IMO because the other crooks, like Marc Rich, had high level protection... probably because they had blackmail material that could be revealed and/or... bought the Presidents... i.e. Bush 1 and Clinton with secret bank accounts filled with billions of dollars.

How can this country be cleaned up? The people have no power. The law enforcement agencies won't go after high level Congressmen and women... and they certainly won't go after former Presidents and Vice Presidents.

I'm not going to condemn Interpol until I see what it's going to do. It might be the salvation that the slaves here in America have been looking for.

If they can cut away the level of crimes being committed by the Elite... starting with the Federal Reserve and Corporate United States, maybe they can rid us of our slave masters.
UScivilflags- based on the original Treasury flag of a Sovereign republic.
I say this, because Gunther said it almost 14 years ago, while he was supposedly in prison in Austria.

I could be completely wrong... but let's try to see Interpol from both sides.
Source

Friday, January 1, 2010

Impeach Obama

This article is so good and it is written by a liberal.. Signs that there is real change coming round the bend this year. Become outrageous and reject the healthcare bill and anything else that you don't agree with.
Kevin U.S. Civilflags.org


Does the left want to Impeach Obama too?


I have been accused of never agreeing with a leftist, but I do like to read what the left is saying if for no other reason than monitoring the enemy. Recently, I have found to my pleasant surprise many on the left are as upset with Obama as we are.

So don’t hesitate to ask your liberal friends to help us impeach Obama.

To prove my point, I am going to reprint an unedited column (profanity included) by the raving leftist professor David Michael Green. This column was first published on the unabashedly progressive Opednews.com. Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York.



Here is what Green has to say about our messiah-in-chief in his article:

Now I’m Really Getting Pissed Off

"Hey did you hear about the iconic African-American guy who plays golf, and whose relationship with the public is in a free-fall lately?

No, as a matter of fact – I’m not talking about Tiger Woods.

You know, I’ve really been trying not to write an article every other week about all the things I don’t like about Barack Obama.

But the little prick is making it very hard.

Like any good progressive, I’ve gone from admiration to hope to disappointment to anger when it comes to this president. Now I’m fast getting to rage.

How much rage? I find myself thinking that the thing I want most from the 2010 elections is for his party to get absolutely clobbered, even if that means a repeat of 1994. And that what I most want from 2012 is for him to be utterly humiliated, even if that means President Palin at the helm. That much rage.

Did this clown really say on national television that “I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of you know, fat cat bankers on Wall Street”?!?!

Really, Barack? So, like, my question is: Then why the hell did you help out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street?!?! Why the hell did you surround yourself with nothing but Robert Rubin proteges in all the key economic positions in your government? Why did you allow them to open a Washington branch of Goldman Sachs in the West Wing? Why have your policies been tailored to helping Wall Street bankers, rather than the other 300 million of us, who just happen to be suffering badly right now?

Are you freakin’ kidding me??? What’s up with the passive president routine, anyhow, Fool? You hold the most powerful position in the world. Or maybe Rahm forgot to mention that to you. Or maybe the fat cat bankers don’t actually let do that whole decision-making thing often enough that it would actually matter…

But, really, are you going to spend the next three interminable years perfecting your whiney victim persona? I don’t really think I could bear that. Hearing you complain about how rough it all is, when you have vastly more power than any of us to fix it? Please. Not that.

Are you going to tell us that “I did not run for office to be shovel-feeding the military-industrial complex”? But what – they’re just so darned pushy?

“…I did not run for office to continue George Bush’s valiant effort at shredding the Bill of Rights. It’s just that those government-limiting rules are so darned pesky.”

“…I did not run for office to dump a ton of taxpayer money into the coffers of health insurance companies. It’s just that they asked so nicely.”

“…I did not run for office to block equality for gay Americans. I just never got around to doing anything about it.”

“…I did not run for office to turn Afghanistan into Vietnam. I just didn’t want to say no to all the nice generals asking for more troops.”

Here’s a guy who was supposed to actually do something with his presidency, and he’s turned into the skinny little geek on Cell Block D who gets passed around like a rag doll for the pleasure of all the fellas with the tattoos there. He’s being punked by John Boehner, for chrisakes. He’s being rolled by the likes of Joe Lieberman. He calls a come-to-Jesus meeting with Wall Street bank CEOs, and half of them literally phone it in. Everyone from Bibi Netanyahu to the Japanese prime minister to sundry Iranian mullahs is stomping all over Mr. Happy.

And he doesn’t even seem to realize it.

Did you see him tell Oprah that he gave himself “a good solid B+” for his first year in office? And that it will be an A, if he gets his healthcare legislation passed?

Somebody please pick me up and set me back on my chair, wouldya?

I am seriously beginning to worry that this cat is delusional. He has lopped off twenty full points from his job approval rating in less than a year’s time, falling now below fifty percent. His party, once dominant in generic congressional election poll questions, is today almost even with hated Republicans in the public mind. Last month, Obama’s inverted coattails (don’t even ask where those go) got two Democrats clobbered running for governor in New Jersey and Virginia. The otherwise obnoxious George F. Will (very) rightly points out that in Kentucky, “a Republican candidate succeeded in nationalizing a state Senate race. Hugely outspent in a district in which Democrats have a lopsided registration advantage, the Republican won by 12 points a seat in Frankfort by running against Washington”. Wow. Obama is now wrecking state senate races! What’s next? Will local Republican candidates for sheriff win office just by opposing the embarrassment in the White House who chooses abysmal policies and then refuses to fight for them, lest he should ruffle any feathers?

“For Democrats, the red flags are flying at full mast," said Democratic pollster Peter Hart in a recent AP article. "What we don’t know for certain is: Have we reached a bottoming-out point?”

Au contraire, Peter. Au contraire. I think anyone more sentient than a newborn amoeba can answer that question. The first thing to note is that the economy is not coming back anytime soon, if it comes back at all. Unless, of course, you’re a fat cat Wall Street banker. Then you’re just fine, because the Bush-Obama administration took care of you quite nicely, thanks very much. The rest of us poor slobs out here in real-world land, on the other hand, got a “jobs summit”.

I can’t even begin to describe how insulting Obama conducting a “jobs summit” is to me, or what an unbelievably ham-fisted piece of public relations that was for the White House, which is increasingly showing itself not just to be sickeningly regressive, but also fully inept. I think I speak for a whole lot of Americans when I say that, one year into his stewardship over a destroyed economy that was actually atomizing for at least six months before inauguration day, I don’t want my president sitting around a table, running a dog-and-pony show, pretending to kick around ideas on how to generate jobs. I wanted him to have those ideas, himself, before he was inaugurated. I wanted those to be real ideas, that produce real jobs for real Americans who are really hurting. I wanted that to be, and still be, the be-all and end-all of his presidency, not some distant fourth-place priority, behind healthcare and the White House dog selection process. And, especially not some fourth-place priority behind jive healthcare reform.

Which brings us to the second answer to Mr. Hart’s question. If Democrats think they’ll be screwed next November because of unemployment, wait till Congress passes this healthcare monstrosity. Or doesn’t. At this point, either way they’re gonna get slammed for it, and rightly so.

If they don’t pass anything, they will be seen as unable to govern. This perception will be quite true because they will have failed to pass a major piece of legislation, despite having 60-40 majorities in both houses of Congress and control of the presidency. It doesn’t get much better than that for a governing party in the American system. But it will be true in an even more profound sense, because the whole priority structure of the Democratic agenda is wrong. Sure, people want healthcare reform right now (especially if it were to miraculously also have the virtue of being authentic healthcare reform), but what they really want, overwhelmingly, is jobs. This choice of priorities is the equivalent of, say, invading Iraq when you’ve been attacked by people in Afghanistan. Surely no president would be that stupid, right? Surely any political party would realize the costs of having priorities so divorced from those of the voters, right?

On the other hand, the Democrats and their hapless president are probably in worse shape if they actually pass this legislation. Especially now that it’s been stripped of nearly every real progressive reform imaginable, it has become an incredibly stupid bill, from the political perspective. It will force people who can’t afford it to spend a giant amount of money on lousy insurance, without any real choice to hold down costs, and it will fund this by hacking away at the Medicare budget. No wonder an insurance industry lobbyist broadcast an email last week declaring: “We WIN. Administered by private insurance companies. No government funding. No government insurance competitor.”

But here’s a little riddle that any sixth-grader can easily figure out, although it seems to have eluded the brain trust at the White House: If insurance companies are winning big-time, then who is doing the losing? Something tells me that if Democrats are dumb enough to pass their own legislation, voters will provide them the answer to that puzzle in November of 2010, and then again two years later. What could be stupider than saddling thirty-five million Americans with a new monthly bill that will probably represent the second or third biggest item in their budget, in exchange for crappy private sector health insurance that is unlikely to pay out when needed, and wastes a third of the dollars paid in premiums on bureaucracy and profits anyhow? Slapping big fines on them if they don’t pony up for the insurance, perhaps? Yep, that’s in there too.

This bill alone could mobilize legions of people to go to the polls and vote for whichever party didn’t do it, and I’m pretty sure the GOP won’t be shy about reminding Americans who that is. I mean, if Democrats were searching for legislation less likely to win them votes, why didn’t they just bring back slavery or the debtor’s prison? Why not come out for pedophilia? It would have been so much more efficient. At least they wouldn’t have spent the last year looking like idiotic bunglers who, in addition to sponsoring really unpopular ideas, also inadvertently left their testicles at the coat check and have spent the last thirty years trying to find their way back to the gala.

Ah, but wait! If you order now, there’s more!

As I understand it, the bill doesn’t even actually force insurance companies to cover people, at least in the sense that they can charge prohibitive amounts to those with whatever they define as pre-existing conditions. You know, like the young woman who had a policy but died when she was denied cancer treatment because she had a bad case of acne as a teenager.

This will be a total train wreck for the Democratic Party. Already, the public opposes the plan by a ratio of 47 to 32 percent. And they haven’t even been handed the bill for it yet. And they haven’t even had their premiums skyrocket yet. And they haven’t even seen insurance corporation executives buy small countries for use as second homes with the increased compensation they will be floating in. And they haven’t even found out what this does to their Medicare yet. And they haven’t even seen the impact on the national debt yet. And they haven’t even realized that the ‘good’ parts of the bill don’t go into effect until FOUR YEARS from now.

You know, elite Republicans may be sociopaths, and they may be lower on the moral totem pole than your basic cannibal, but they’re not stupid. I bet they’re salivating at the idea that this thing passes. I bet they’d even have Olympia Snowe vote for it if necessary, just to put it over the top. They must be laughing their asses off at this gift. All they have to do is oppose it right down the line, then say “Told ya so!” at the next election, squashing the pathetic Demognats, one after the next. Hey, even if worse comes to worse and the thing eventually becomes popular, they can always wait a decade or two and become champions of the new publically beloved healthcare system – just like they did for Medicare, Social Security, civil rights, etc.

This is President Nothingburger’s great gift to America, along with doing nothing about jobs, doing nothing about the Middle East, nothing about civil liberties, nothing about civil rights, and now doing nothing at Copenhagen. Regarding the latter, the world is literally on fire, and he jets in, gives a speech haranguing the delegates that “Now is not the time for talk, now is the time for action”, then splits even before the vote in order to beat the snowstorm headed to the east coast that might delay him getting home to his comfy bed. I’m not kidding. You can’t make this shit up, man.

This guy is killing me, though at the same time I still can’t quite figure him out.
Here’s what I get: This president is a corporate hack. Like Bush or Clinton, he has constituents, alright – but you and I are not on that particular list.

Here’s what I don’t get: He is radically tanking, at a moment when people no longer have patience for those kind of politics anymore.

Here’s what I get: This president has his fingers in many pies, as he needs to, ranging from global warming to economic implosion to two wars abroad to massive federal debt.
Here’s what I don’t get: Why does he bother to do these things in a way that pleases no one, and only dramatically undercuts his own political standing? Why does he refuse to make anyone his enemy, thus making everyone his enemy?

Is he just massively deluded? I wouldn’t have thought so, but watching the guy give himself a very good grade for 2009 – straight face and all – during the same year he’s lost twenty points off his job approval rating, and at a moment when even blacks and gays are deserting him, you know, you have to wonder.

Is he happy just to be a one-term president – just to say he’s been there and done that, and then sell some more books – even if he is reviled as one of the worst in history?
Maybe. But what about the rest of us?

The rest of us, indeed. It’s been quite some time since anyone in the White House ever cared about that sorry pack of rabble.

Obama looked like he could’ve been something different. He ain’t.

So this is it, folks.

Change you can believe in?

More like bullshit you can take a bath in, if you ask me.”
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