EckerNet.Com

Reportedly President Obama was recently heard to utter \”Plug the damn hole!\”. I heard the comment out of context so I was momentarily confused regarding which hole he was referring to. Several possible options immediately came to mind…

Was it Biden\’s mouth?? From which so much comedy gold easily flows…much to the embarrassment, if they\’re smart enough to be, of the Obama Administration.

Was it the holes in the border? The holes through which millions of illegal aliens, including violent criminals, constantly flows. So much so that Arizona finally gave up on the federal government doing it\’s job and adopted Federal (and California) law, as it\’s own.

Was it the holes in public opinion? Obviously there must be one somewhere because Obama\’s approval ratings have been sinking across all demographics.

Was it Nashville, TN? The city which was under several feet of water for a days and days without warning….not that you\’d know it from the federal governments non-response.

What it TARP and the bailouts?? Through which we\’ve pissed away billions of dollars to no apparent benefit, except to nationalize the auto and student loan industries?

Was it Obamacare? Through which we\’re about to piss away billions of dollars more, to no apparent benefit, and quite possibly catastropic results???

Was it the upcoming The American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010?? A bill which pisses away even more billions by increasing spending by $174 billion, through $40 billion in tax increases and $134 billion in deficit spending…again to no apparent benefit.

Was it the SEIU?? Through which, while most Americans 401K plans are sinking, we\’re about to bailout underfunded and over generous union pension plans to the tune of $165 billion….because union bosses mismanaged the funds during good times, such as spending $85 million on getting Obama elected.

Is it the spot where the federal budget should be?? Because while they have an 18-seat majority in the Senate, more than a 70-seat majority in the House, and they control the White House, they still can\’t manage to even propose a budget….which leaves two possibilities, incompetence or apathy.

What hole was it that Obama angerly interrupted an aide and demanded that they \”plug the damn hole!\”

Turns out it was just that oil leak in the Gulf…the one the Federal government dithered about upon for over a week and still haven\’t gotten their act in gear. Turns out they are considering taking over from BP to address the issue….even though, by their own admission, they couldn\’t do any better job than BP has done.

At least BP is trying, which is more than can be said for the Federal government, as the state of Louisana can tell you.

At least BP is accountable to stockholders, who is the federal government accountable to….the voters?? The Obama administration has long since shown they don\’t give a damn what the voters think, as adequately evidenced by Obamacare, the AZ immigration bill, terrorist trials, bailouts and their rampant deficit spending.

No Obama, the only hole I wish was filled is the gaping chasm which appears to exist between your ears.

[Crossposted at True North]

Remember VH1\’s Pop-Up video?  Where little bits of trivia would pop up during a music video….for those of you younger folk, at one point Music Television (MTV) and Video Hits 1 (VH1) actually played music videos at one point in their history.

Anyway Pop-Up Video is back! And in such an amusing new format.  I\’m with the boys over at HotAir, this should most certainly be required for all political speeches from this point forward.

Turns out the public is confused over health care reform.  Chief amongst their confusion is where does one go to get that sweet \”free\” healthcare??

Two weeks after President Barack Obama signed the big health care overhaul into law, Americans are struggling to understand how — and when — the sweeping measure will affect them.

Questions reflecting confusion have flooded insurance companies, doctors\’ offices, human resources departments and business groups.

\”They\’re saying, \’Where do we get the free Obama care, and how do I sign up for that?\’ \” said Carrie McLean, a licensed agent for eHealthInsurance.com. The California-based company sells coverage from 185 health insurance carriers in 50 states.

Well to answer those questions I\’d tell them, get in line.  Because sure as hell there is going to be widespread shortage of health care providers.  Set aside the politics, ideology, rhetoric, etc….there is just no way, on a even a simple logistical level that you can suddenly add millions of customers to the field and expect our existing health care system to be able to handle them.

Then add in things like shitty reimbursement rates and you discourage expansion of that same system to handle the added demand for their services.  Possibly even convincing some doctors to leave the system entirely, which from headlines we\’ve already seen is not an unreasonable concern.

But wait, it gets better….

\”We tell them it\’s not free, that there are going to be things in place that help people who are low-income, but that ultimately most of that is not going to be taking place until 2014,\” McLean said.

In other words, people are just now finding out it\’s not \”free\”…not even the socialist form of  \”free\”.  And due to the accounting gimmicks the Democrats had to make this look like anything but a financial disaster, most of the \”benefits\” (I use the loosest definition of that word) don\’t kick in until 2014.

What\’s amazing about that is we haven\’t seen the bottom of public disapproval rates for this health care boondoggle yet.  We\’re already at the point where a majority of people are opposing the health care plan, so much that 54% would still like to see it repealed.  If people are still finding out that they got sold a sack of lies, it\’s going to get worse.

I look forward to the evolution of Obama\’s \”It\’s Only Been A Week\” excuses….\”It\’s only been a week\” ==> \”It\’s only be a year\” ==> \”It\’s only been two years\” ==> \”It\’s only been four years\” ==> \”It was Bush\’s fault!!\”

You\’ve long suspect it.  Now see the video of a US Congressman, Rep. Phil Hare (D-IL) openly declaring on camera that he doesn\’t care what the Constitution says.

It\’s been said before, I\’ll say it again, \”Our country is in the best of hands\”.

In my day to day social conversations, I tend to avoid the topic of politics. It\’s a subject, that like religion and sex, tends to make people very uncomfortable unless they are in a situation where such a topic is natural. I\’m also aware that I am rather \”unique\” in that I find politics interesting. I\’m very aware that most of the normal population finds politics dreadfully boring, to the point that between politics and an icepick lobotomy, their only question is \”Which nostril?\”.

So I intensely avoid the topic if possible, both to save others the ordeal but also because I spend so much of my free time engaged in political activity that a change of scenery is nice. That said, I\’ve never hid either my love of politics nor my political leanings, and most people who have known me for any length of time, be they neighbors or my boss, are probably aware of it. It\’ll come up, but I won\’t force the issue unless they really want to. They rarely, if ever, do. Today all that changed.

I found, with a great deal of surprise, that a number of people who were, as far as I was aware, were very apolitical, have approached me today and started bitching about the health care bill. Presumably they figured they\’d find a sympathetic audience with me, and I\’m happy to oblige, if somewhat reluctant and mildly confused.

The content of their complaints were rather pedestrian, all ones I\’ve heard ad nauseum before, not that I don\’t have similiar concerns. Worries about the cost, and how this plan could possibly work. Worries about being dependent on government for something as basic as health care. Worried about just what direction things are going. The basics we\’ve all heard echoed in the political ecosphere for the six months or so.

What really struck me is just who these people were. There are people who seek out a political conversation with me, these were not among them. For most of them, they are so apolitical, if they\’ve ever even voted I\’d be surprised. Some were little more than strangers to me, with whom the most personal conversation I\’ve had is asking how much snow they got in their driveway. Yet here they are, complaining about health care and how the politician \”don\’t give a damn about us\” and distress at how \”politicians don\’t listen to us\”.

Another striking observation I had was that these people were very well informed. For a topic as complex and constantly changing as this health care issue has been, these were people that were very knowledgeable about the debate, but also the various versions this health care bill has had. For people that I though hate and avoid politics, this is clearly an issue that they had become engaged about.

For almost all of them, I followed the same script. I listened, I symphathized, I corrected misconceptions or outdated information when there was some (rarely), and then I usually at some point made the comment \”Well, just remember all this in November\”. Universally the response was some variant of \”You bet I will! I\’m voting their ass out\”.

The liberals may very well have opened Pandora\’s Box by releasing the means to obtain socialized medicine. By like the fabled box (actually a jar), they have also released Hope. Hope comes in the form of an awakened public, this public has been content to slumber, only to find it has been taken for granted and it\’s wishes ignored. Now awakened, this public is enraged in a way my generation has never seen, and November looks to be a time of retribution.

That above all, inspires Hope…not the fake Hope of Hope&Change, but the real stuff. The Hope that can only come from good decent folk working together towards a common cause, and especially when against the oppressive tyranny of a distant elite.

[Crossposted at True North]

Look most of you I\’ve been watching the progress of the health care bill. I\’ve been wanting to do a post on it, but to be honest there were just too many variables and shifting tides to to put together any sort of coherent analysis of the situation. Well call this the calm before the storm, but in the last few hours things have started to calm down. That doesn\’t mean the bill is dead, far from it, it just means some of the unknowns are either known or we at least know what we don\’t know at this point. So despite my confidence that this post will be out of date almost as soon as I push the Publish button, I\’ll give it a stab.

Here\’s what we know, Pelosi doesn\’t have the votes….yet. She may get them, but she\’s looking at a pretty uphill climb (more on that in a second). The Slaughter Solution is looking less and less likely….in fact one Congressional office was reporting it dead Wednesday afternoon. I\’ve seen nothing to confirm that, but it\’s likely that Democrats are fretting over the PR hit they\’re going to take over this. After weeks of Obama and the Senate demanding an up or down vote, the House is now doing everything it can to prevent one. Even Chris \”Mr. Tingle\” Matthews is seeing the folly in the Slaughter Solution.

One of the biggest factors driving lack of votes is lack of a CBO score for the bill. In order to qualify for reconciliation, the House changes have to reduce the deficit by at least a billion dollars in order to qualify. And for political reasons they need to get the cost of the bill below one trillion. Numerous sources have indicated that so far the Democrats haven\’t gotten the language to that point, hence they don\’t have an \”official\” bill yet and no vote. Undoubtably many of the current undecideds are waiting to see what the final form takes.

So where do we stand?? This is the way it breaks down. There are 431 members of the House, 253 Democrats and 178 Republicans. All the Republicans oppose the bill and the Democrats are divided. Pelosi needs 216 votes to pass it, and opponents need 216 votes to defeat it. Nobody really knows exactly where we stand, there are a number of different whip counts out there. By far the most accurate (and therefore useful) one I\’ve found so far is by the lefties over at FireDogLake. Their numbers are tracking pretty closely with what I\’ve seen elsewhere. Plus you have to figure that any Democrat that\’s going to vote Yes will tell the lefties for sure…why put themselves through the hell of their base revolting for no reason.

According to FDL

With leaners, you\’re at 205-210, with Democrats able to lose only 5 of the remaining uncommitted 16:

Jim Matheson, Harry Teague, Travis Childers, John Barrow, Zack Space, Chris Carney, Brad Ellsworth, Henry Cueller, Nick Rahall, Solomon Ortiz, Earl Pomeroy, Bill Foster, Harry Mitchell, Jason Altmire, Marcy Kaptur, Melissa Bean

So by that count, opponents need 6 of 16, and Pelosi needs 11 of 16. But there are a couple in that undecided list I think you can easily move into one of the two categories. Obama said that Teague is ready to announce his vote, which pretty much means he\’s in the Yes column. And Altsmire has been increasingly declaring very negative opinions of both the bill and the process, so he\’s a pretty good candidate for the No column. Which makes the count 206 – 211. It\’s damn close and it\’s a toss-up on where things go from here.

On one hand, public opinion is still solidly in the No category, and anyone considering a Yes vote should be pretty confident in their re-election chances. On the other hand, Pelosi can still bribe her members. She\’s somewhat constrained by the fact that the Cornhusker Kickback and the Louisana Purchase has left a sour taste in the publics mouth. So any bribe is going to be of the under-the-table IOU variety.

But it all still depends on the CBO score. And since we didn\’t get one today, a Saturday vote is pretty much impossible, Sunday is the soonest likely vote if we get the CBO score today which we\’re supposed to. But the Democrats appear to be having problems getting the score they\’re gonna need to plausibly pass this. Democrats are only asking for things that cost money, nothing that saves money. Call that a temporary hurdle, as there is no way the Democrats will let that stop them. They\’ll come up with some accounting tricks to eventually get the CBO score they need.

Even then reconciliation is in doubt, as the Senate has put the House on alert that reconciliation is an unlikely bet. So these remaining Democrats are going to have to make their decision with the liklihood that these \”fixes\” probably won\’t pass.

Ultimately, it really comes down to what 14 Democrats think. If any five of those fourteen think the political risk isn\’t worth it, it\’s game over and Katie bar the doors, you\’ll have Democrats scrambling to switch sides. Otherwise this is just step one of a long process to this bill passing. The Senate almost certainly won\’t pass reconciliation, but Obama will sign the Senate Bill.

Then you\’ll have the inevitable court challenges. Any challenges to the procedural process are going to be a PR move at best as there is pretty solid (and recent) case law indicating that this Slaughter Solution is constitutional. Any court challenge is likely to hinge on whether the courts agree that the Commerce Clause of the Constitution covers this health care bill. That\’s far from certain but it\’s a long shot. More than likely the court cases will be to score political points and drag the Democrats through more mud than they dragged themselves through.

Bottom line though is that even the White House agrees the economy isn\’t recovering in 2010, and approval ratings tend to track very closely to economic performance. So basically the public opinion polls numbers you\’re seeing is what we\’re likely to have in November. So Democrats are going to have an disastrous year, and hopefully those 14 Democrats are making their decision with that in mind.

Are you ready to give Sen. Al Franken a piece of your mind?

Senator Franken is holding an ObamaCare rally THIS Sunday afternoon (2/21) – see below.

Health care reform is not dead. Not yet.

Reports out of Washington, D.C. suggest that the majority party is planning to ram national health care into law through a reconciliation bill (only 51 votes needed) after the upcoming health care pow-wow (2/25/10).

It would be good if Sen. Al Franken heard a whole lot of \’NOs\’ at his health care rally.

What: Health reform rally with
Senator Al Franken

Where: Minneapolis United Labor Center
312 Central Ave, S.E.
Minneapolis, MN 55414

When: Sunday, February 21st
1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

The Organizing for America Obama-groupies are already organizing to try to mob the event to prevent people from voicing their distaste for this bill.  It\’s up to you to show up and let Senator Franken know you don\’t want this bill!

[Crossposted at True North]