DEMOCRATS ADMIT: 'WE SHOULD CALL IT CLUSTERCARE'

Just read between the lines of the 2,000-page ObamaCare bill and you'll find two stark admissions. Democrats are convinced that the bill will lead to an unmitigated catastrophe.

Admission 1: After months of proclaiming the "urgent" need for health care reform, PelosiCare doesn't actually kick in for at least three (3) years.

There are two reasons for the delay.

First, it's a tacit acknowledgment that prompt implementation would destroy Obama's reelection chances in 2012.

Second, it's an outright financial scam authored by the Statist Democrats: " The CBO has scored the bill at $1.055 trillion [which] does not take into consideration that fact that the ten-year window contains ten years of revenue and only three to eight years of major payouts –- meaning that the bill will bleed red ink [in subsequent years."

Admission 2: The only Americans not required to join the national health care program are -- wait for it -- members of Congress. Democrats are so certain that their own health would be endangered that they want no part of the disastrous Rube Goldberg contraption they've created.

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"ClusterCare" is a $700 billion tax hike that will bankrupt the country as certainly as night follows day. It is 2,000 pages of pure horror, a perfect read for Halloween.



Cross-posted at: Doug Ross @ Journal.

Innovative Plan Offered to Save Newspapers

Raised an avid consumer of newspaper journalism, I went on to earn a journalism degree from Oklahoma State University and hold a variety of professional positions, most of which afforded me opportunities to work with and among professional journalists on a daily basis. So it goes without saying -- and with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek -- that I want to do my part to assist influential elected officials in their effort to keep the nation's newspaper industry from going under. Among them, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Earlier this year, Speaker Pelosi recently urged the Justice Department to consider giving Bay Area papers more leeway to merge or consolidate business operations to stay afloat, according to a report at SFGate.com, the online home of the struggling Hearst Corporation-owned San Francisco Chronicle.

More recently, however, President Barack Obama joined Pelosi in her desire to help struggling newspapers. In fact, he told The Hill, saying he is "happy to look at" bills before Congress that would give struggling news organizations tax breaks if they were to restructure as nonprofit businesses. Newspapers deserve help, right? Of course, they do.

While I think the hearts of both the speaker and the president are in the right place on this issue, I'm doubtful that a legal rearrangement of the newspaper industry's "deck chairs" will produce the desired results. That's why I'm proposing a different solution:

The job of running the nation's major newspapers -- including those in the Bay Area -- should be turned over to the inmates in state prisons. As a launching pad for this project, inmates at San Quentin State Prison can take over operations at the nearby Chronicle.

Though at first blush appearing preposterous, my solution is likely to work out as well or better than the newspaper model that has been in decline for most of the past two decades. Below are several of the reasons why it should work:

• After a 16-year hiatus, the San Quentin News newspaper was revived on June 1, 2008 (Vol. 1), and has printed six editions since then (See Vol. 2, Vol. 3, Vol. 4, Vol. 5, Vol. 6 and Vol. 7).
  

• It already circulates inside and outside the prison walls;

• It boasts a circulation of 7,500; and
  

• It costs very little to produce.
  

To meet the increased circulation and daily deadlines associated with running the Chronicle, the San Quentin News staff will need to grow. To fill those staffing needs and, at the same time, relieve overcrowding, inmates can be given jobs at the Chronicle immediately.

Under my plan, they would be offered jobs as beat reporters, distribution specialists and collection agents for the new Chronicle, and people would subscribe -- I guarantee it!

If the San Quentin News-San Francisco Chronicle project works, it can be duplicated in cities across the state and across the nation. Imagine the possibilities!

[Editor's Note: The post below was originally published here March 31, 2009. With news about a newspaper bailout back in the public spotlight, I decided to breathe new life into it and republish an updated version of the post today.]

Read more like this at Bob McCarty Writes.

Obama Hints at Fairness Doctrine on Sunday Shows

Brace yourselves, conservatives: While President Barack Obama used his appearances on the Sunday talk shows to push for government-run health care, he also fired what could be considered an Oval Office "missile" aimed squarely at conservative talk radio.

During a poignant segment of his interview the president that was broadcast on FACE the NATION this morning, CBS News veteran Bob Schieffer set up and asked a "softball" question as follows:

"Let me ask you a little bit about the tenor of this debate. It seems to me that there's a sort of meanness that has settled over our political dialogue. It started this summer at these town hall meetings. We saw the outbreak when you spoke to the joint session (of Congress). Some people, clearly, just don't agree with your policies, but there seems to be others that are just, just mad and angry. President Carter is now saying he thinks its racial. Nancy Pelosi says it could be dangerous. What do you think it's all about?"

Obama responded as if trying to be every-man's president:

"Well, what I think we have to remember is that, at various periods in American history, people get pretty rambunctious when it comes to our democratic debate. That's not new, and every president who's tried to bring about big changes, I think, elicits the most-passionate responses."

Sadly, he went on to offer a thinly-veiled comparison of himself to Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan:

"I mean, if you hear what people have to say about Abraham Lincoln or what they had to say about FDR or what they had to say about Ronald Reagan when he first came in and was trying to change our approach to government -- that elicited huge responses."

Next, he tells Schieffer Big Lie #1:

"Now, I think that what's driving passions right now is that health care has become a proxy a broader set of issues about how much government should be involved in our economy, particularly coming off a huge economic crisis, and the only thing that I've been trying to say is, number one, I have no interest in increasing the size of government. I just want to make sure we have a smart government that is regulating, for example, the financial institutions smartly so I don't have to engage in any kind of bank bailouts" [Note: "Big Lie #1" is found in the fact that he already bailed out the banks!]

It's followed soon after by Big Lie #2:

"That's point number one, and, point number two, even though we're having a passionate disagreement here, we can be civil to each other, and we can try to express ourselves, acknowledging that we're all patriots, we're all Americans and not assume the absolute worst in people's motives. [Note: "Big Lie #2" is found in his contention that we're all patriots, we're all Americans and we're assuming the worst in people's (i.e., "his") motives. Truth is, we're not assuming; we're witnessing.]

Finally, he adds icing to the "cake" House Speaker Nancy Pelosi frosted yesterday by setting the stage for a push to enact the so-called "Fairness Doctrine," a measure they hope will muzzle conservative media, especially on talk radio and in the blogosphere:

"I do think part of what's different today is that the 24-hour news cycle -- and cable television and blogs and all this -- they focus on the most extreme elements on both sides. They can't get enough of conflict. It's catnip to the media right now. And, so, the easiest way to get 15 minutes of fame is to be rude to somebody. In that environment, I think it makes it more difficult for us to solve the problems that the American people want us to solve."

Brace yourselves conservatives: The (tea) party has only just begun.


NOTE: To watch the video of Obama's appearance on FACE the NATION, click here.