The populace seems to be no more than trained seals, barking at the latest media hyperbole. As PT Barnum said “There is a sucker born every minute”—well 62 million of them reached voting age last year and proved his infinite wisdom. All that remains is to change “Hail to the Chief” to that catchy carnival music—-da dat dat dat dat dat dat, da dat dat dat, dum dum—and convert Air Force One into a clown car (an efficient green one though so we don’t stray off message in case anyone is watching).

Yes, the economic situation was beyond his control, I have no idea what Hillary would have done, but I bet it would have not been what Obama did, but so what? The dot com bubble and 911 were beyond Bush’s control, so was rebuilding a military, homeland security and counter insurgence, and the rest. So what?

You get what you get and you do the best you can. When it doesn’t work you don’t keep digging. Please, they saved 150,000 jobs and google has fewer hits around the economy then last month……..we’re doing great?

I still say, what in the hell are you doing, I’m screaming, what in the hell are you doing? Stop it, please! Take a deep breath, slow down and have a look around. Attach yourself to reality, instead of the hog wash you thought you knew. What you knew is not for real people, in a real world with real consequences. This is deadly serious stuff.

It has absolutely nothing to do with color does it?

Kathie,

Had Hillary won instead of Obama, I think she would be no different than Obama. Why? Both of them are Alinsky disciples. The economic situation was beyond their control.

Color has nothing to do with it.

The government was charged $1,191,200 for a Stimulus project started on April 28, 2009 and completed on June 30, 2009.

The description of work or service performed:

2 POUND FROZEN HAM SLICED

What idiots!

The 10th amendment has that right in there. It gives ALL rights to the people that are not specifically denied. The constitution doesn’t “give” rights to the people, the people are assumed to have all rights. What it does is gives only specific rights to the federal government. Unless it is specifically in the Constitution, the federal government does not have a right.

In fact, I believe national health care is unconstitutional. As is federal unemployment insurance. Those are the jobs of the states, not the federal government.

However, if the Blue Dogs were bought out by Pelosi on the Cap and Trade vote….

can we expect any different result this time?

We can use Saudi Arabia as a model!

The Health Nazi learns manners and libertarian principles…and the rest of us get an excellent workout.

During World War II wages were frozen to prevent wage inflation during the war when many men were being called to service. Companies with employees having valuable skills could not be given more pay in order to keep them. So in order to add indirect compensation that was allowed under the law, companies began to provide health insurance and enhanced pension programs for employees as “fringe benefits”. Prior to WWII few companies had pension programs and fewer still provided health insurance.

So now we have evolved to a point where people EXPECT employers to pay health insurance costs. Insurance has allowed hospitals and doctors to charge more for services because their patients aren’t paying for it out of pocket. In many cases the employee does not bear the economic cost of their demand for services. Imagine your employer gave you a gasoline benefit. Do you think your driving habits might be different if you didn’t have to pay for the gas you pumped?

People do not bear the economic cost of their lifestyle choices either. They sit around on the couch eating chicken-fried bacon with a remote control and wireless phone that allows them to not have to move except for “bio breaks”.

The notion that government is going to somehow make people healthier implies, as AJ pointed out, that there is going to be some kind of Health Nazis that are going to tell us what we can and can not do. Maybe they will outlaw elevators or something. But all of that is consistent with American’s currently not being used to or having to take personal responsibility for things. They are quite happy to foist the responsibility for their health onto “the government”.

If insurance was eliminated except for high-deductible catastrophic insurance, people would get healthier on their own because they would bear the direct economic consequences of their behaviors. Being unhealthy would take money out of your pocket. This notion that people get unlimited health care for free is what is nuts … no matter who is doing the paying for it.

If people pay for their own care, they will make better decisions and you won’t see things like people who don’t feel like going to work trotting down to the local emergency room just to get a slip that says they went there to cover for their being late or not showing up for work.