Internet Scofflaw

I can hardly think of anything more ludicrous than the prospect of Al Sharpton suing for defamation. (Via Instapundit.)

UPDATE: John Hinderaker reviews Sharpton’s involvement in the Crown Heights and Freddie’s Fashion Mart riots.

Jake Tapper reports:

President Barack Obama is naming George D. Mulligan, Jr. as Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Military Office (WHMO).

Mulligan replaces his former boss, White House Military Office director Louis Caldera, who resigned on May 8 after the so-called “Scare Force One” incident of April 27, which had an Air Force One aircraft flying very low over Manhattan for the purposes of new photographs of the plane, with little notice given to thousands of understandably concerned if not scared citizens, visions of 9/11 in their heads.

From 1994 until 2004, Mulligan – a Navy officer from 1986 until 1994 — served in various positions within the White House Military Office.

This doesn’t seem to correct the root problem that led to the Scare Force One incident, which is the Obama administration’s decision to change the position from a career military officer to a political appointment.

Anita Dunn — White House Communication Director, wife of President Obama’s lawyer, and front person in the White House’s new war on Fox News — says that Mao Tse-Tung is one of her favorite political philosophers. For the record, Mao is history’s worst monster.

UPDATE: Dunn defends herself:

In an e-mail message, Ms. Dunn said, “My source for the Mao quote was actually the late Lee Atwater, either in an article or bio I read after the 1988 election. Now that I’ve revealed this I hope I don’t get Keith Olbermann angry with me. Let it be noted that I also quoted Mother Teresa, but no one is accusing me of being a saint!”

The speech she gave was a high school commencement address. Ms. Dunn says that the line about Mao and Mother Teresa was intended to be ironic – neither was a political philosopher – and that she used it simply to illustrate a larger point about the importance of challenging the conventional wisdom.

Fine. But neither of these explain why Dunn called Mao one of her favorite political philosophers. (Did Lee Atwater call Mao one of his favorite political philosophers? I doubt it.) Explain that away, if you can. Until then you’ve rebutted nothing.

(Via Instapundit.)

A new Fox News poll finds that 62% trust General McChrystal more than President Obama to decide the next step in Afghanistan; only 22% trust Obama more. Even Democrats trust McChrystal more than Obama, by a 45-36 margin.

The public is evenly divided on the job Obama is doing in regard to the economy (49-48 disapproval), Afghanistan (43-41 disapproval), and Iran (44-43 approval). A majority disapprove of the job he is doing in regard to health care (50-42).

In order to deal with the problem of aggressive dogs, Denmark considers killing all mongrels. Any dog not registered in the national stud book would be put to death.

Rush Limbaugh’s quest to own the St. Louis Rams have dredged up a variety of supposedly racist things that Limbaugh supposedly said. All the worst ones have been shown to fabrications, but there’s one thing that he really did say. In 2003, Limbaugh said that Donovan McNabb was overrated, and that was because “the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback can do well.”

Is that statement racist? It’s not racist to say that McNabb was overrated. It’s hardly even arguable but that McNabb was mediocre back in 2003. So why was he overrated? The Eagles were not a top team nor were they a New York team, the usual reason for players to be overrated. Limbaugh’s theory seems possible but unlikely.

I say it’s unlikely because people don’t all do things for the same reason. No doubt a non-zero number of people wanted McNabb to succeed because he is black. But I also have no doubt that the number was nowhere near 100%. How many was it? Without a poll, it’s impossible to say. Anyway, who cares?

Why was this theory called racist? Apparently, people are offended by Limbaugh’s implication that people might adopt a view for racial reasons. But in 2009, we have a large group of people who claim that the only reason anyone opposes President Obama is because he is black.

Other than a change in players, the Limbaugh theory and the Carter-Garofalo-Krugman-Dowd-Murtha-etc-etc theory are pretty similar. So why do so many people claim to find the former theory offensive but the latter theory self-evident?

Jay Nordlinger writes: “A Marxist is someone who loves humanity in groups of 1 million or more.”

I get his meaning, but historically speaking, Marxists are those who kill humanity in groups of 4 million or more. In some cases much more. (Okay, Pol Pot killed only about 2 million, but give him a break; he only had access to about 10 million.)

A bunch of people think that we ought to have a US Department of Peace. No joke.

First thought: I guess no one reads George Orwell any more. Or watches Babylon 5 for that matter.

Second thought: Suppose we did create a government agency dedicated to Goodism. How long would it be before it was perverted from mere foolishness into some ACORN-like enterprise? I’ll bet it would happen on day one.

BONUS SNARK: This apparently is the brainchild of Dennis Kucinich, so I’m sure it would take a firm stand against chemtrails and space-based mind-control weapons.

(Via Atticannie’s Blog.)

The Democrats have decided to counter criticism of their health care ambitions by calling their critics liars. Now, one might think that when you call someone a liar, you have an obligation to say what they are lying about. But sometimes that can be a problem, because (1) they aren’t actually lying, and/or (2) you don’t want people to listen to them, so discussing their actual criticisms is counterproductive. In that case, you keep your allegations of lying non-specific. At least, that’s what you do if you have no decency.

Case in point: The Democratic National Committee is anticipating an ad campaign from health insurers opposing the Democratic health care schemes, and they don’t want anyone to listen to them. So they send out a mailer calling the insurers liars. Randy Barnett posts the letter and notes that its allegations are entirely nonspecific. They accuse the health insurance industry of lying, but don’t identify a single lie specifically, much less give a refutation of that lie.

Then mailer also links to a DNC video:

Let’s take this apart. Most of the video features one guy, Wendell Potter, from the Center for Media and Democracy (that’s a left-wing group, in case you couldn’t guess) telling CNN and MSNBC that the health insurance industry is a bunch of liars.

Unlike the mailer, the video does identify one specific claim: “Congress is proposing over one hundred billion in cuts to Medicare Advantage.” This is a peculiar kind of lie, in that it is absolutely true. (In fact, they could have said over $120 billion in cuts.) The rebuttal is no rebuttal at all: “THE TRUTH: The insurance lobby opposes reforming Medicare Advantage because they enjoy huge profits from the program. They’re just scaring seniors.”

They also take on the PriceWaterhouseCoopers report, sort of. Which is to say that they splash a “BOGUS” stamp on it, and rebut it with “THE TRUTH: The report is totally ‘bogus’.” Well then, if you can write “bogus” on it, I guess it must be bogus.

For the last fifteen seconds of the one-and-a-half minute video, they include vague sentence fragments from the AARP and an MSNBC talking head, and a single word (“deceptive”) from a Washington Post article. Obviously, the Post article is the one that we’re supposed to find credible, but a little bit of digging shows that the Post article is not an article at all, but a post on Ezra Klein’s blog. The substance of Klein’s criticism is that PriceWaterhouseCoopers once did a study for the tobacco industry, and its current study assumes that reform will not realize any savings.

So that’s it: one guy nonspecifically attacking the health insurance industry to credulous hosts on CNN and MSNBC, two non-rebuttal rebuttals, a couple of sentence fragments, and a single word from a Washington Post article that isn’t actually a Washington Post article and that hinges on the supposed dishonesty of assuming that the Democratic plan will not cut costs (an assumption with which 79% of the public agrees). It is on this basis that the Democratic National Committee accuses the health insurance industry of lying.

Lying is bad. Dishonestly accusing others of lying is despicable. Dishonestly accusing others of lying without even saying what they supposedly lied about; I’m not sure I even have a word for that.

Democrats are preparing to use the “nuclear option” to pass health care nationalization. I predicted this back in July.

New from the Onion: “Obama to Enter Diplomatic Talks With Raging Wildfire”. I thought the best line was: “President pulling firefighters away from the scene as a sign of goodwill”.

(Via Instapundit.)

When the CBO scored the Baucus plan, it found that it did not widen the deficit, under the assumption (among others) of drastic cuts in Medicare reimbursements. The CBO report was skeptical that the cuts would actually happen:

These projections assume that the proposals are enacted and remain unchanged throughout the next two decades, which is often not the case for major legislation. For example, the sustainable growth rate (SGR) mechanism governing Medicare’s payments to physicians has frequently been modified (either through legislation or administrative action) to avoid reductions in those payments. . . The long-term budgetary impact could be quite different if those provisions were ultimately changed or not fully implemented.

The CBO’s skepticism was with good reason. Democrats have already introduced the bill that would boost Medicare reimbursements. So the plan that the committee asked the CBO to score was a lie. There’s no other word for it.

Anyway, with the new legislation, we’re looking at hundreds of billions in new spending and new deficits.

POSTSCRIPT: It will be entertaining to watch the Democrats waive “PAYGO” for this thing; proving that PAYGO is a complete sham.

(Via Hot Air.)

The superintendent of the Burlington Township School District is standing by its Obama praise song:

The superintendent of a New Jersey school system where elementary school students were videotaped singing the praises of President Obama stood behind his employees Wednesday evening, saying the principal and teacher did nothing wrong — despite growing anger from parents.

“There was nothing systematic or indoctrinating about this innocent classroom activity,” Burlington Township Superintendent of Schools Christopher Manno said during a school board meeting. “There was no intention on the part of the teacher to make any political statement or promote a political agenda.”

Manno specifically defended the school’s principal and the teacher who led the activity.

To do something this raw, Manno must feel very secure in his job. However, the state of New Jersey also says it is investigating.

In the latest ratings for cable news stations, CNN and MSNBC not only fell well behind Fox, but also behind Headline News in the 25-54 demographic. (I haven’t been paying attention; when did Headline News stop being a joke? Or did it?) Maybe stuff like this is why.

(Via Hot Air.)

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the CBO, takes a look at the horrific taxes in the Baucus bill:

Most astounding of all is what this Congress is willing to do to struggling middle-class families. The bill would impose nearly $400 billion in new taxes and fees. Nearly 90% of that burden will be shouldered by those making $200,000 or less.

It might not appear that way at first, because the dollars are collected via a 40% tax on sales by insurers of “Cadillac” policies, fees on health insurers, drug companies and device manufacturers, and an assortment of odds and ends.

But the economics are clear. These costs will be passed on to consumers by either directly raising insurance premiums, or by fueling higher health-care costs that inevitably lead to higher premiums. Consumers will pay the excise tax on high-cost plans. The Joint Committee on Taxation indicates that 87% of the burden would fall on Americans making less than $200,000, and more than half on those earning under $100,000.

Industry fees are even worse because Democrats chose to make these fees nondeductible. This means that insurance companies will have to raise premiums significantly just to break even. American families will bear a burden even greater than the $130 billion in fees that the bill intends to collect. According to my analysis, premiums will rise by as much as $200 billion over the next 10 years—and 90% will again fall on the middle class.

Senate Democrats are also erecting new barriers to middle-class ascent. A family of four making $54,000 would pay $4,800 for health insurance, with the remainder coming from subsidies. If they work harder and raise their income to $66,000, their cost of insurance rises by $2,800. In other words, earning another $12,000 raises their bill by $2,800—a marginal tax rate of 23%.

(Via Instapundit.)

87% of the burden will fall on those earning less than $200k, the people on whom President Obama promised not to increase taxes “a single dime”. I don’t think a president has broken a central campaign promise so thoroughly since Woodrow Wilson “kept us out of war”. (And just wait, cap and trade is still on the back burner.)

Let’s suppose that a union owned two major auto companies and also controlled the labor for a third company that competes with the two it owns. What would you predict that the union would do?

If you guessed the union would stick it to the third company, you’re right. The UAW is now favoring GM and Chrysler over Ford.

(Via Instapundit.)

In upstate New York, an Eagle Scout has been suspended from high school for three weeks because he had a pocket knife in a camping kit he kept in his car.

UPDATE: The superintendent will not bend. Also, it seems that the school district’s purported zero-tolerance policy doesn’t actually appear in its rule book.

The Pittsburgh Trib reports:

Only 31 percent of Pennsylvania voters believe Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter should be re-elected, and 59 percent believe it’s time to give someone else a chance, a state poll released today shows.

Specter’s numbers are “staggering,” said pollster Jim Lee, president of Susquehanna Polling and Research. An incumbent typically is vulnerable if fewer than 40 percent approve of his or her re-election, Lee said. . . “When I see a re-elect in the low 30s, that’s … near fatal,” Lee said.

A Susquehanna Poll in February found 38 percent of Pennsylvanians believed Specter deserved to be re-elected.

UPDATE: In the latest Rasmussen poll, Specter continues to trail Toomey, 40-45.

Robert Reich is a former cabinet secretary under Bill Clinton, a professor of public policy at Berkeley, a political commentator, and an adviser to President Obama. In a talk in 2007, he explained what an honest candidate should say about health care:

• Young, healthy people need to pay more.
• If you’re very old, it’s too expensive to keep you alive a few more months, “so we’re going to let you die.”
• There will be less medical innovation.
• Therefore, “you are probably not going to live that much longer than your parents.”

The remarks seem to be fully in context. See for yourself:

I guess we should appreciate Reich for his honesty. Certainly we should appreciate him for nothing else.

(Via Instapundit.)

UPDATE: A commenter points out something I forgot to mention. The worst thing about this clip isn’t even Reich; it’s his audience. Where you should hear horrified gasps, you hear cheers instead. What is wrong with these people?

UPDATE: Reich claims that his remarks are being taken out of context. But when he explains the context, it’s exactly the context that is clear in the video: what a politician would say if he told the truth (as Reich sees it) rather than what people want to hear. In fact he affirms that the things he said in the video are “what everyone knows to be the truth”.

Apparently, Reich cannot believe that people could be offended by what he really said, so they must be misinformed as to the context. Well, Mr. Reich, believe it.

The Guardian reports:

The Guardian has been prevented from reporting parliamentary proceedings on legal grounds which appear to call into question privileges guaranteeing free speech established under the 1688 Bill of Rights.

Today’s published Commons order papers contain a question to be answered by a minister later this week. The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found.

The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented – for the first time in memory – from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret.

The only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations.

The good news, such as it is, is that the injunction was lifted today. (ASIDE: The affair had to do with a scandal involving dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast.) So, should we be mollified that the British press can be prevented from reporting the proceedings of a public session of the House of Commons for only one day?

(Via Instapundit.)

When browsing the federal budget this morning (I know, I know), I discovered a line-item I’ve heard nothing about: “Repeal LIFO method of accounting for inventories”. This is a tax increase on business (estimated to collect billions each year) brought about by a change in how business are required to account for the inventory. It’s technical, but not too difficult to understand.

LIFO stands for “last-in, first-out”. In computer science terms, it means that you may treat your inventory as a stack, rather than a queue. Consequently, the cost-basis for figuring the value of an item of inventory sold is the current replacement cost of that item. For example, let’s suppose you buy a widget for $10 and you turn around and sell it for $12. Under LIFO, you pay taxes on your $2 profit. It doesn’t matter if you happen to have a another widget in inventory that you bought when the price was $8.

In contrast, under FIFO (“first-in, first-out”), you are deemed to be selling the old $8 widget first. That means that you pay tax on $4, and you now have a $10 widget in inventory. When inflation is high (as it seems likely soon to be), the difference between LIFO and FIFO can be substantial.

The LIFO scheme makes sense. Let’s suppose you buy a widget for $10 and you turn around and sell it for $10. Your business has accomplished nothing; you’re back in exactly the same state as you were before. LIFO accounting respects that reality, you pay taxes on zero. Under FIFO, however, you need to look at what you have in inventory. If you had an $8 widget in inventory, you pay taxes on a $2 profit that doesn’t exist.

Unfair tax increases are no big surprise. Here’s the surprising thing: I’ve never heard anything about this. And it’s not just me. Having discovered this, I googled it and found a lot of stories in trade journals but not a single one from the general press. The closest thing I could find in the general press is a Fox News article from 2006 about a LIFO-repeal proposal that ultimately was defeated.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers has done an audit of the Baucus health care plan. The results aren’t pretty. Neither are they surprising:

Key Findings

• Health reform could have a significant impact on the cost of private health insurance coverage.
• There are four provisions included in the Senate Finance Committee proposal that could increase private health insurance premiums above the levels projected under current law:
  • Insurance market reforms coupled with a weak coverage requirement,
  • A new tax on high-cost health care plans,
  • Cost-shifting as a result of cuts to Medicare, and
  • New taxes on several health care sectors.
• The overall impact of these provisions will be to increase the cost of private insurance coverage for individuals, families, and businesses above what these costs would be in the absence of reform.
• On average, the cost of private health insurance coverage will increase:
  • 26 percent between 2009 and 2013 under the current system and by 40 percent during this same period if these four provisions are implemented.
  • 50 percent between 2009 and 2016 under the current system and by 73 percent during this same period if these four provisions are implemented.
  • 79 percent between 2009 and 2019 under the current system and by 111 percent during this same period if these four provisions are implemented.

In short, the Baucus plan makes a bad problem worse. The audit also observed that by 2019 most health plans (even the most basic ones) would face cost increases sufficient to subject them to the “Cadillac plan” tax.

(Via Hot Air.)

UPDATE: Graph added.

UPDATE: PriceWaterhouseCoopers is the largest and most respected of the auditing firms. But now they’ve been marked as enemies of the people:

Democrats and their allies scrambled on Monday to knock down a new industry-funded study forecasting that Senate legislation, over time, will add thousands of dollars to the cost of a typical policy. “Distorted and flawed,” said White House spokeswoman Linda Douglass. “Fundamentally dishonest,” said AARP’s senior policy strategist, John Rother. “A hatchet job,” said a spokesman for Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.

(Via Power Line.)

The stimulus package is a failure, and Democrats are worried that “Blame Bush” won’t cut it for much longer:

Alarmed by the rising jobless rate, Democrats are scrambling to “do something” to create jobs. You may have thought that was supposed to be the point of February’s $780 billion stimulus plan, and indeed it was. White House economists Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein estimated at the time that the spending blowout would keep the jobless rate below 8%.

The nearby chart compares the job estimates the two economists used to help sell the stimulus to the American public to the actual jobless rate so far this year. The current rate is 9.8% and is expected to rise or stay high well into the election year of 2010. Rarely in politics do we get such a clear and rapid illustration of a policy failure.

This explains why political panic is beginning to set in, and various panicky ideas to create more jobs are suddenly in play.

(Via the Corner.)

So he says.

A variety of nakedly political organizations are “partnering” with the Census Bureau.

Michael Moore helped write Hugo Chavez’s UN speech, or so he claims anyway.

Just to help you remember which side it is that repeatedly questions the other’s patriotism; here’s the Democratic National Committee:

The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists – the Taliban and Hamas this morning – in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize.

Media Matters:

Why does the conservative media hate America?

Michael Moore:

Why do [President Obama’s opponents] hate America so much?

(Via Reason, via Instapundit.)

In order to cut the astounding costs of health care in Massachusetts (the model for the Democratic plan, if you recall), the state will limit patients’ choices of hospitals and specialists. You can’t have everyone picking the best hospitals, you see.

But don’t worry, it’s being done by a commission, not a panel.

(Via Instapundit.)

Nancy Pelosi proposes a VAT. But this can’t happen; the president promised as much. Does Pelosi think the president will break his promise? Where would she get such an idea?

Of the U.S. presidents who were alive after the peace prize was first awarded in 1901, the worst two were Woodrow Wilson (also the worst overall) and Jimmy Carter. Both were awarded the peace prize. Barack Obama is making a strong run for third (or even second), so perhaps the award is appropriate in a sense.

UPDATE: Some other prominent humanitarians who have been awarded the peace prize.

Brad Woodhouse, the DNC’s communications director says:

The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists – the Taliban and Hamas this morning – in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize.

(Via the Corner.)

Point one: I guess Mr. Woodhouse didn’t get the memo. The Taliban are no threat now.

Point two: The idea that mocking the Nobel selection (or celebrating Chicago’s evasion of the Olympics) is tantamount to supporting terrorism is too ridiculous to bother rebutting. But, I will remark that — as with their allegations of racism — every time they make this sort of argument it diminishes their effect.

Point three: Once again, we see which side is comfortable impugning the other side’s patriotism.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) has blacklisted WTAD radio in Quincy, Illinois. Their offense? Reporting the news. In particular, they revealed his plans to come to town:

A spokesman for U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) says the senator’s office will no longer send media information to Quincy’s oldest radio station because the station decided to let the public know he was coming to town. . .

Durbin, the assistant majority leader of the Senate, has been an outspoken critic of health care town hall meetings, said he didn’t want to get a “sucker-punch” from constituents and opted to have a session in a conference room before an invited few and a handful of reporters.

(Via Instapundit.)

A more telling incident could hardly have been invented.

New polls out from Rasmussen and Gallup agree, support for gun control has hit a new low. Gallup find that just 44% support stricter gun laws; Rasmussen finds just 39%.

In addition, Gallup finds that just 28% believe handguns should be banned, also a historic low. (It was 60% in 1960.) Rasmussen poses the question differently, and finds that 71% believe the Constitution guarantees average citizens the right to own a gun. Only 13% say it does not.

(Via Instapundit.)

Politico has a rundown. It’s a good landscape for Republican gains. No wonder Democrats are rushing their agenda through.

(Via Instapundit.)

I wouldn’t say that the selection of Barack Obama for the peace prize demeans the prize.  The recent selections of Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter, Mohammed ElBaradei, and Al Gore already did that. (Yasser Arafat’s selection seemed reasonable at the time in 1994.) But by giving the award without even a plausible citation of accomplishment, they make themselves a laughingstock.

What I like about this is it is now unarguable that the peace prize is awarded as a political endorsement. It’s been clear to me since Carter’s selection in 2002, but in that case he had a record that could be cited (Camp David, Habitat for Humanity). Obama won it for rhetoric alone. Now, when we dismiss the awards to Gore, ElBaradei, etc., no one can argue.

By the way, I plan to do some seriously awesome type theory over the next decade. How about giving me my Turing Award now?

By a 55-32 margin, the public opposes the individual mandate to buy health insurance that forms the centerpiece of the Baucus bill, according to a new Rasmussen poll.

I noted earlier that while my state representative, Paul Costa (D), did not deign to reply to my email about CCAC trampling free speech, he did add me to his spam list. Now I’ve discovered that he doesn’t honor requests to be removed from the list either. What a jerk.

The CBO has scored the Baucus bill. A few notes:

• First of all, it’s not a bill. Amazingly, the Senate Finance Committee doesn’t actually deal with legislation, it deals with specifications that staffers turn into legislation after the committee has completed its work. As the CBO observes:
  

  CBO and JCT’s analysis is preliminary in large part because the Chairman’s mark, as amended, has not yet been embodied in legislative language.

• What the “bill” would do is establish a mandate on all Americans to acquire health coverage, at their own expense if necessary. It would include a steep fine on employers that do not offer health coverage, and on individuals who decline the health coverage offered by their employer. (This means that employers are given an incentive to offer the minimum plan, and employees are obligated to take it.)
• The plan would also create “exchanges”, which really don’t have much to do with exchanging anything. Rather, they are vehicles for government subsidies. The exchanges would subsidize the purchase of insurance by low-income households.
• The plan would create co-ops instead of a public option, but as I’ve noted, there’s no real difference between the two. Co-ops would eventually come to dominate the insurance landscape, and would be under effective government control, establishing a de facto single payer system. (Indeed, that is the whole point.) The CBO analysis largely ignores the co-ops though, concluding:
  

  The proposed co-ops had very little effect on the estimates of total enrollment in the exchanges or federal costs because, as they are described in the specifications, they seem unlikely to establish a significant market presence in many areas of the country or to noticeably affect federal subsidy payments.

  I wish I believed that.

• The plan would be paid for by deep cuts in Medicare and a variety of new taxes, including a tax on the value of health insurance. (Remember when the Obama campaign savaged McCain for suggesting a tax on health insurance “for the very first time”?) The tax would apply to health insurance over a certain ceiling, but that ceiling would increase more slowly than health care costs are likely to increase, so in time virtually all health insurance would be taxed.
• The plan is also paid for by unspecified savings that would be uncovered by a new Medicare Commission. Bizarrely, the CBO accepted this, and assumes that the commission would somehow find $22 billion in additional Medicare cuts.
• Finally, the plan assumes a variety of cost-cutting measures will be carried out that almost certainly will not be. As the analysis notes:

These projections assume that the proposals are enacted and remain unchanged throughout the next two decades, which is often not the case for major legislation. For example, the sustainable growth rate (SGR) mechanism governing Medicare’s payments to physicians has frequently been modified (either through legislation or administrative action) to avoid reductions in those payments. . . The long-term budgetary impact could be quite different if those provisions were ultimately changed or not fully implemented.

• Significantly, important provisions in the plan change their behavior in 2019, which not-so-coincidentally is the end of the period that the CBO analyzes. The CBO analysis therefore tells us nothing whatsoever about the impact of the legislation beyond the 10-year window, even setting aside the inherent uncertainties in long-term prediction. As the CBO notes:
  

  Many Members have requested CBO analyses of the long-term budgetary impact of broad changes in the nation’s health care and health insurance systems. However, a detailed year-by-year projection, like those that CBO prepares for the 10-year budget window, would not be meaningful because the uncertainties involved are simply too great.

• The CBO estimates that the plan would cut the number of non-elderly uninsured roughly in half, leaving 25 million without coverage.
• In total, assuming all the budgeted savings take place that surely will not, the plan would cost $904 billion over ten years ($829 for the coverage provisions, and another $75 billion for various Medicare provisions), which would be paid for by $507 billion in new taxes and $329 billion in Medicare cuts.
• As always, the CBO analysis is static, meaning that it does not take into account the deleterious effects that the plan would have on the economy.
• Of course, the CBO analysis has nothing to say about the plan’s innovation-stifling effects, or about the plan’s deleterious effects on the quality of care in general.

UPDATE: Under realistic assumptions and counting off-budget items, the plan’s real cost is over $2 trillion. (Via Instapundit.)

Robert Gibbs, making stuff up again:

Q: In a letter to senators last week the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said that, I’m quoting, ‘So far the health-reform bills considered in committee, including the new Senate Finance Committee bill, have not met the president’s challenge of barring the use of federal dollars for abortion.’

Is that statement wrong?

GIBBS: Well, I don’t want to get me into trouble at church, but I would mention there’s a law that precludes the use of federal funds for abortion. That isn’t going to be changed in these health care bills.

Q: There have been several amendments that would explicitly bar [federal funding for] abortions that were rejected–

GIBBS: Again, there’s a fairly well-documented federal law that prevents it.

I wish. I’d like to hear Gibbs cite the “fairly well-documented” law of which he speaks. He can’t, because there is no such law.

The Hyde Amendment bars Medicaid from spending money on abortion. It does not apply magically to other legislation. Consequently, similar amendments have been attached to other spending bills. But, the health care bill contains no such provision. In fact, the Senate Finance Committee voted one down.

Gibbs’s statement is an outright lie.

UPDATE (10/14): Kathryn Jean Lopez elaborates.

David Bernstein writes:

I’m disappointed in Obama, too. I expected him to be a liberal. I expected to disagree with him on most issues. But I hoped that either good government (“goo-goo”) liberalism or raw political calculus (like the Republicans in 1995) would lead him to keep some of his non-ideological promises, like on earmarks, transparency, and so on. I even hoped, consistent with his promise of a net spending cut, that he’d show more fiscal responsibility than Bush did, which isn’t hard to do; surely there are government programs out there that don’t serve liberal ideological ends and could be cut. He lost whatever good will or benefit-of-the-doubt I was inclined to give him by neglecting, backtracking, or going back on his word on all these issues.

The Obama administration has treated Obama’s promise of changing the way business is done in DC as a distraction from his legislative agenda. I suspect they’ll come to regret that perspective.

I agree, but I’d add a more important example. I expected that he would keep his central national-security pledge, to prosecute the war in Afghanistan. Like the others that Bernstein mentions, that pledge is being abandoned due to domestic political calculations. In the long run, failure in Afghanistan will hurt us much more than his failure to establish transparency and reform earmarks.

This YouTube video making the rounds purports to catch Michelle Obama in a lie:

I doubt it. All this shows for sure is that she was wrong. Childhood memories are notoriously unreliable and are often created later in life. I’m sure that’s what happened here, since this is hardly something one would lie about.

We would do well to remember that false statements are not necessarily lies. One can be honest and still be mistaken.

POSTSCRIPT: Yes, I know the other side does it all the time. That’s beside the point.

A White House staffer hands out lab coats in advance of President Obama’s photo op with doctors:

(Via Instapundit.)

Chicago Democrats blame the defeat of their Olympic bid on President Bush. I guess this shouldn’t surprise me.

A revealing bit from the New York Times:

Mr. Obama was in Copenhagen for just five hours and did not stay for the vote. He learned Chicago lost in the first round while watching a CNN transmission whose signal cut in and out as Air Force One passed over Cabot Strait between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.

A sense of stunned bewilderment suffused Air Force One and the White House. Only after the defeat did many advisers ask questions about the byzantine politics of the Olympic committee. Valerie Jarrett, the president’s senior adviser and a Chicago booster who persuaded him to make the trip while at the United Nations last week, had repeatedly compared the contest to the Iowa caucuses.

But officials said the administration did not independently verify Chicago’s chances, relying instead on the Chicago 2016 committee assertions that the city had enough support to finish in the top two. Mr. Obama, Michelle Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Ms. Jarrett worked the phones in recent weeks without coming away with a sense of how behind Chicago really was.

(Via Hot Air.)

Donald Sensing has an analysis of the Obama presidency that strikes me as very insightful, drawing from Mae West and the Peter principle.

(Via Instapundit.)

Chicago is lucky to have missed out on the disruption and expense of the Olympics. Having just experienced three days of disruption for the G-20 (thanks Mr. President!), I can only imagine what two weeks of the Olympics would be like.

As far as the expense: $4.8 billion was the official estimate, which was complete crap. London is looking at significant overruns over its £9.3 billion budget (that’s $14.8 billion!) The City of Chicago would be on the hook for any overruns, having signed an unlimited financial guarantee. The bid itself cost $100 million. (Balanced against the cost would be a benefit as small as $4.4 billion by one independent estimate, and as large as $19.2 billion according to its proponents.)

Accordingly, the public soured on the bid. A recent poll showed Chicagoans evenly divided on whether to hold the Olympics, but 84% agreed that public money should not be spent.  (Which, without a doubt, would absolutely have happened.)

Non-Chicagoans can be happy too, because a Chicago Olympics would also have cost billions in federal dollars. (This was even used as an argument to Chicagoans in favor of the games.)

Andrew Stuttaford celebrates the bid’s failure this way:

Chicago is a fine city and a place that I always enjoy visiting. It deserves better than to have the Olympics foisted upon it. What I cannot understand is why President Obama is joining in with the effort to bring this scourge to his home town. The Olympics after all, is a festival of bureaucratic arrogance, financial irresponsibility, internationalist vacuity, and politically correct blather.

Oh . . .

UPDATE: More here. London’s costs may reach $40 billion. Athens spent three times their projected amount. Montreal just finished paying off the 1976 summer games in 2006! (Via Instapundit.)

What’s with the sudden rash of prominent liberals calling for the annihilation of conservatives?

First you have Thomas Friedman calling for China-style autocracy so that Republicans cannot obstruct the Democratic agenda. He didn’t explicitly call for conservatives to be killed, but how exactly does he think that China’s “reasonably enlightened” autocrats deal with their opponents?

Next, Garrison Keillor made it explicit.

Now it’s Michael Moore. In his latest movie, he calls the elimination of capitalists, to the tune of the Soviet anthem in case anyone might miss the point:

The movie ends with Moore telling us, “Capitalism is evil, and you cannot regulate evil. You have to eliminate it.” Then he plays the bloodthirsty Soviet national anthem “The Internationale.”

(Via Classical Values, via Instapundit.)

Will this be enough for Democrats to loosen their embrace of the man? I won’t be holding my breath.

POSTSCRIPT: By the way, let’s not Bill Ayers (unrepentant domestic terrorist and disowned Obama pal) who had actual plans for genocide.

A new Rasmussen poll shows that 63% believe that guaranteeing that no one will be forced to change their health coverage is more important than a public option. Only 29% take the opposite view. Also a majority believe (correctly) that they personally would be forced to change their health coverage if the Democrats’ health plan passes. It’s not hard to see why a majority oppose the plan.

POSTSCRIPT: President Obama has been trying hard to convince the public that no one will lose their existing coverage, much as he has been trying hard to convince the public that his plan will not cover illegal immigrants and will not result in “death panels”. In each case, the public simply does not believe him.

(Via Instapundit.)

More evidence of the administration’s ambivalence towards free speech.

Even under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t buy a GM or Chrysler car, since they are — generally speaking — crap. But since the bailouts, I wouldn’t buy a GM or Chrysler car even if I were otherwise inclined to do so.

It seems that I’m not alone. GM and Chrysler’s sales are down dramatically since a year ago, GM’s by 45% and Chrysler’s by 42%. Meanwhile, Ford’s sales are down just 5%, which seems to indicate that this is not merely a function of the economic slowdown or the end of cash-for-clunkers.

(Via Instapundit.)

There’s a very strange result in that new Fox News poll. On the question of Afghanistan, they found:

Do you support or oppose the U.S. military action in Afghanistan?
                 Support     Oppose   (Don't know)
29-30 Sep 09       64%         27           9

By comparison, two weeks ago they found:

Do you support or oppose the U.S. war in Afghanistan?
                 Support     Oppose   (Don't know)
15-16 Sep 09       46%         45           9

During the same time, there was only a one-point shift in the question of whether we should send more troops to Afghanistan, so I think we can rule out a large shift in public sentiment. The only other difference is the wording: two weeks ago they asked about the “war” in Afghanistan but this time they asked about the “military action” in Afghanistan.

So it seems that quite a lot of people’s opinion hinges on whether the action is called a war or not.

(Previous post.)

Some more interesting takeaways from the new Fox News poll, on domestic policy:

• Two-thirds say that President Obama is proposing more government spending than we can afford.
• The vast majority say the national debt is so large it is hurting the country, and that we should cut spending.
• Two-thirds say that we should not raise the debt limit. (I’m pretty sure that most people don’t know what that means. I doubt that most would support a default on US treasuries.)
• A majority of those who have heard of ACORN view it as a corrupt organization, including a plurality of Democrats.
• The public is evenly divided on the question of whether Obama blames President Bush too often.
• Independents are evenly divided on the question of whether Obama behaves more like he is a candidate on the campaign trail, or more like he is the president.

And on foreign policy:

• A majority say that Obama apologizes too much to the rest of the world for past US policies.
• A majority say that Obama is not doing what it takes to win in Afghanistan.
• Two-thirds say they trust the military more than Obama to decide the next steps in Afghanistan! Only one in five trust Obama more.
• As I noted earlier, majorities say Obama has not been tough enough on Iran, think military action against Iran will be required, and support such military action.

(Previous post.)

You can’t make this stuff up; and if you could, you wouldn’t want to:

President Obama’s “safe schools czar,” under fire from critics who say he’s unfit for his job, acknowledged Wednesday that he “should have handled [the] situation differently” years ago when he was a schoolteacher and didn’t report that a 15-year-old boy told him that he was having sex with an older man. . . [Kevin] Jennings has written that he told the boy, “I hope you knew to use a condom.”

In a statement issued Wednesday, Jennings said: “Twenty one years later I can see how I should have handled this situation differently. I should have asked for more information and consulted legal or medical authorities.”

Gee, you think?!

Jennings, director of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, said he believes his office can now help keep other new teachers from making the same mistake.

“Teachers back then had little training or guidance about this kind of thing,” Jennings said.

I like to think that most teachers don’t need training to know to report statutory rape. This guy is the safe schools czar. The mind boggles.

UPDATE: Not just unconscionable, but criminal. Under Massachusetts law, teachers are mandatory reporters of statutory rape. (Via Instapundit.)

A new Pew poll reveals that support for abortion has faded in recent months. These results are very sensitive to the way the question is posed, but the trend is interesting. Support for legal abortion is at 47%, just one point higher than its all-time low (set this past July). Opposition is at an all-time high at 45%. The difference in well within the sampling error, making it a statistical tie (although, again, I think the trend is more interesting than the absolute numbers).

Support for abortion has slipped considerably in the last year:

It’s hard to guess what is driving the variation (particularly the strange dip in August 2001), but the overall trend is clear.

Another interesting result is that the importance of the abortion issue has dropped dramatically among abortion supporters, but not among opponents. Also, conservative Republicans are the best informed about abortion: 75% were able to identify President Obama’s view on abortion correctly. Moderate Democrats are the least well informed; only 49% could identify the president’s view correctly.

(Via the Corner.)