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On Monday, President Obama threw out the opening pitch for the Phillies-Nationals baseball game, nothing exciting there.  By all accounts, his pitch sucked by magnitudes not yet invented…but at least he wasn\’t wearing \”Mom jeans\”.  Ok fine, I really don\’t care about the athletic abilities or fashion sense of my candidate.  In fact I really don\’t care if he knows what a baseball is, it\’s irrelevant to his job.

What DOES concern me escaped my notice until just yesterday.  After his pitch, he went up to chat with the announcers.  One of them quizzed him on his favorite White Sox player.  Instead of answering the question, he gave this rambling answer.

You know, uh…I thought that, uh, you know, that the truth is, a lot of the Cubs I like too. Uh, I did not become a Sox fan until I moved to Chicago.  Because I, ah, you know, I was growing up, uh, in Hawaii, so I ended up actually being an Oakland A\’s fan. But when I moved to Chicago, I was living close to what was then Cominsky(!) Park.  And, went to a couple games, and just fell in love.  And the nice thing about the Sox, is it\’s real blue-collar baseball.  You know, we always tease about the Cubs.  They, you know, they\’re up at Wrigley, sipping wine, playing those day games, they\’re having a good time.

Okay fine, you can\’t name a single Sox player, I don\’t care, again, it\’s not relevant to your job.  You can\’t pronounce the name of their ball field properly, again, not part of your job, below your pay grade as it were.

But it does bother me that when you\’re backed into a corner on a question you can\’t answer, your first reaction is to start playing the class warfare card.  For a chief executive of anything, that is a very disturbing gut reaction.

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!!\”

John G.  Is 63 years old and owns a small business. He\’s a life-long Republican and sees his dream of retiring next year has all but evaporated. With the stock market crashing and new taxes coming his way, John assumes now that he will work to his dying  day.

John has a granddaughter. Ashley is a recent college  grad. She drives a flashy hybrid car, wears all the latest fashions, and loves to go out to nightclubs and restaurants. Ashley campaigned hard for Barack Obama. After the election she made sure her grandfather (and all other Republican family members) received a big I told-you-so earful on how the world is going to  be a much better place now that her party is taking over.

Having lost both roommates, Ashley recently ran short of cash and cannot pay the rent (again) on her 3 bedroom townhouse… Like she has done many times in the past, she e-mailed her grandfather asking for some financial  help.

Here is  his  reply:

Sweetheart,

I received your request for assistance. Ashley, you know I love you dearly and I\’m sympathetic to your financial plight. Unfortunately, times have changed. With the election of President Obama, your grandmother and I have had to set forth a bold new economic plan of our own…\”The Ashley Economic Empowerment Plan.\” Let me explain.

Your grandmother and I are life-long, wage-earning tax payers. We have lived a comfortable life, as you know, but we have never had the fancier things like European vacations, luxury cars, etc.. We have worked hard and were looking forward to retiring soon. But the plan has changed. Your president is raising our personal and business taxes significantly. He says it is so he can give our hard earned money to other people. Do you know what this means, Ashley? It means less for us, and we must cut back on many business and personal expenses.

You know the wonderful receptionist who worked in my office for more than 23 years? The one who  always gave you candy when you came over to visit? I had to let her go last week. I can\’t afford to pay her salary and all of the government mandated taxes that go with having employees. Your grandmother will now work 4 days a week to answer phones, take orders and handle the books. We will be closed on Fridays and will lose even more income to the Wal-Mart.

I\’m also very sorry to report that your cousin Frank will no longer be working summers in the warehouse. I called him at school this morning. He already knows about it and he\’s upset because he will  have to give up skydiving and his yearly trip to Greenland to survey the polar bears.

That\’s just the business side of things. Some personal economic effects of Obama\’s new taxation policies include none other than you. You know very well that over the years your grandmother and I have given you thousands of dollars in cash, tuition assistance, food, housing, clothing, gifts, etc., etc. But by your vote, you have chosen to help others — not at your expense — but at our expense.

If you need money now sweetheart, I recommend you call 202-456-1111. That is the direct phone number for the White House… You can also contact the White House here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/ .

You yourself told me how foolish it is to vote Republican. You said Mr Obama is going to be the People\’s President, and is going to help every American live a better life. Based on everything  you\’ve told me, along with all the promises we heard during the campaign, I\’m sure Mr. Obama will be happy to transfer some stimulus money into your bank account. Have him call me for the account number which I memorized years ago.

Perhaps you can now understand what I\’ve been saying all my life: those who vote for a president should  consider the impact on the nation as a whole, and not be just concerned with what they can get for themselves. What Obama supporters don\’t seem to realize is all of the money he is redistributing to illegal aliens and non-taxpaying Americans (the so-called \”less  fortunate\”) comes from tax-paying families.

Remember how you told me, \”Only the richest of the rich will be affected\”? Well guess what, honey?  Because we own a business, your grandmother and I are now considered to be the richest of the rich. On paper, it might look that way, but in the real world, we are far from it.

As you said while campaigning for Obama, some people will have to carry more of the burden so all of America can prosper… You understand what that means, right? It means that raising taxes on productive people results in them having less money; less money for everything, including granddaughters.

I\’m sorry, Ashley, but the well has run dry. The free lunches are over. I have no money to give you now. So, congratulations on your choice for \”change.\” For future reference, I encourage you to try and add up the total value of the gifts and cash you have received from us, just since you went off to college, and compare it to what you expect to get from Mr. Obama over the next 4 (or 8 ) years. I have not kept track of it, Ashley. It has all truly been the gift of our hearts.

Remember, we love you dearly….but from now on you\’ll need to call the number mentioned above. Your \”Savior\” has the money we would have given to you. Just try and get it from him.

Good luck, sweetheart.

Love, Grandpa

Obama campaigned with the promise of \”smart diplomacy\”, which is supposedly an improvement on the \”reckless cowboy\” diplomacy used by Bush.  For one it was supposed to endear us to our friends…well let\’s do the lineup.

Israel? Pissed them off

British? Apparently the special relationship is over

Poland? Sold them out for nothing from the Russians

Czech Republic? Same deal we gave the Poles

Canada? Insulted them over a petty issue in the Arctic, now they\’re withdrawing from Afghanistan

Wow…if that\’s how we\’re treating our friends, we certainly don\’t need enemies, how is he handling them?

Smooth, real smooth.

If this is Obama\’s \”smart diplomacy\”, I\’d hate to see when he screws up!

My favorite part is that Gibbs has no neck.

It seems like it\’s probably a bad thing that actually look forward to these emails now.

Kevin —

You hitting on me?

As we head into an election year, the new strategy for killing reform is claiming that members of Congress who vote for it will suffer at the polls.

No, that\’s not the strategy for killing reform, that\’s the strategy for voting your worthless asses out of office. And we don\’t have to do much claiming.  The voting public has been doing plenty of that themselves.  Whether it be Scott Brown in Massa-fucking-chusetts.  Or the Governor races in New Jersey and Virginia.  Republicans haven\’t just made those up.  Those are cases of the voters telling you they hate this shitty bill.

For months, our opponents have spread lies about reform to scare voters away. But the simple truth about what reform would actually do — save jobs, guarantee all Americans affordable, stable coverage, and significantly reduce the deficit — is something most Americans strongly support.

Problem is the facts doesn\’t back up any of that.  Truth is that this bill will RAISE the cost of health care for most and won\’t affect it much at all for everyone else.  And it\’ll massively add to the deficit, but due to some fancy bookkeeping you\’ve managed to hide most of it, but even then it\’ll still add to the deficit.  You seriously can\’t expect that you\’re going to massively increase the size of a program that\’s already losing money and expect it to suddenly be profitable do you??

So yeah, it\’s true that most Americans probably support all that, but the problem is your bill doesn\’t provide any of it.

The question is, come November, will the voters know the facts?

I hope so…because polling shows that the more the voters learn about this bill the more they hate it.

OFA supporters have asked for a way to show every member of Congress that if they fight for reform now, we\’ll back them up this election season.

Well you could have started by supporting the Democrat in Masschusetts, Virgina and New Jersey when it actually mattered.  Instead Democrats have stayed home, not that I\’m disappointed.

That\’s why we\’re launching \”You fight, we\’ll fight\” — a volunteer pledge bank where you can commit your time to back up candidates and officials who fight hard for health reform.

Another meaningless feel-good program by Democrats, why am I not surprised.  From the same party that spends spends spends, promising to pay it off later…but never actually does.

We\’re shooting for 1,000,000 hours pledged to spread the word to fellow voters. And if we get there, we\’ll publish the total hours pledged in USA Today, so there will be no doubt that health reform is both good policy and good politics.

Reminds me of that South Park episode where the boys are trying to make millions in \”Internet Theoretical Dollars\”.  But heh, I suppose this is what you have to settle for.  The polls are against you.  The elections are against you.  Political momentum is against you.  Nobody likes you, everybody hates you, time to go eat some worms.

Can you pledge right away?

Sure, why not? I pledge 5 billion hours…I promise…totally I do.

President Obama has made it crystal clear that he has no intention of walking away from health reform — and this movement has made its desire to fight on just as clear.

Yeah, a promise from Obama is about as rock solid as the one I just gave.  Every promise Obama makes has an expiration date.

And many members of Congress are already working hard by his side to get the job done. But for those on the fence about whether or not to proceed, knowing you are there to back up a courageous stand can make all the difference.

Yeah, you\’ll almost make up for the massive numbers of independents running away from Democrats.  Your candidate will only lose by 10 percentage points instead of 15.

Your volunteer hours can have a huge impact no matter where you live. You can make calls into critical districts where health reform champions are in jeopardy, write letters to the editor, volunteer for nearby campaigns, or even just talk to friends, family, and neighbors to help cut through the special interest spin.

You just lost Massachusetts….ergo EVERY district is in jeopardy.

And Obama hired most of the special interests for his administration…why would you be needing to cut their their spin??

We\’ll offer lots of ways to get involved between now and the elections in November, and you can decide which are right for you — the important thing right now is to publicly show your commitment to fight for those who make health reform a reality.

Basically feel free to make all sorts of promises, with the full understanding that you\’ll never actually follow through on them…..HEH! That sounds a lot like the ObamaCare plan….how convenient!

We\’ve certainly faced setbacks in this fight. But as President Obama told OFA supporters last week, that only means we need to work that much harder.

Setbacks?  Yeah, the Titanic also had a minor navigational error.  The public has turned against you.  The voters are voting against you.  Your base has abandoned you.  The independents are disgusted with you.  Only thing you have going for you is the Republicans are too incompetent to fully take advantage.  But I suppose in your always sunny world, that\’s a \”setback\”.

Thanks for making it possible,

Don\’t thank me, thank the voters.

Mitch

Mitch Stewart
Director
Organizing for America

Thanks Chuck

….besides which, our Founding Fathers never thought it necessary to apologize for our country.  Least of all to tyrannical despots.

Tonite the Teleprompter of the United States (TOTUS) gives the State of the Union (SOTU) speech via the President of the United States (POTUS), Barack Obama. Given the developments of the last few months, especially the last week, the speech promises to be either extremely lame, or comedy gold. Given the pre-SOTU talking points being disseminated by the White House, I\’m leaning towards the latter.

Reading through them, a couple tidbits jumped out at me enough, that I thought I\’d give a pre-SOTU rebuttal.

Rescue, Rebuild and Restore

That\’s the theme of the entire speech…doesn\’t have quite the rhetorical flare that \”HOPE! CHANGE!\” had now does it? It\’s as if our shining city on the hill has been occupied by the enemy.

A $1.3 trillion budget deficit, two wars and badly frayed global alliances also greeted the President at the door.

And Obama responded by doubling down on all of it. He tripled our deficit, expanded the wars, and frayed even more national relations by offending most of our friends and bowing to our enemies.

Within one month of his inaugural, President Obama had shepherded the most far-reaching economic recovery plan in American history. It has brought our economy back from the brink of a second Great Depression and, one year later, we are beginning to see signs of progress.

Hardly, in fact the stimulus has either had no effect, in which case it\’s $787 billion of wasted taxpayer dollars, or it\’s actually harmed the US economy.

Job losses, while still too high have fallen to a tenth of where they were a year ago and the economy is growing for the first time in two years.

The unemployment rate continues to climb, and in fact would be skyrocketing except that we don\’t count workers who have given up on looking for a job. Plus we\’ve learned the following:
– US \”unexpectedly\” lost 85,000 jobs in December
– Overall home sales \”unexpectedly\” dropped 16% in November
– Foreclosures rose \”unexpectedly\”
– New housing starts fell \”unexpectedly\” in December
– Builder sentiment \”unexpectedly\” fell this month
– Home resales \”unexpectedly\” plunged in December faster than ever before

\”Unexpectedly\”, this is NOT an economy in recovery.

Under President Obama\’s leadership, we have begun to confront challenges that Washington has ignored for decades and enact reforms meant to strengthen families, small businesses, and American economic competitiveness that lobbyists and special interests have worked to prevent time and again.

You\’ve accomplished nothing for the taxpayers. The only thing you\’ve accomplished is bailing out special interests, which is probably due to the fact that you hired most of the lobbyist in Washington to join your Administration….but at least you got them to start paying their taxes again.

We are closer than ever on real health reform, we\’re moving toward a clean energy economy, we\’ve taken on the big banks and special interests to reform outdated and lax financial rules, and we\’ve initiated far-reaching education reforms to demand excellence in K-12 and make college more accessible and affordable.

Closer than ever doesn\’t count. Doesn\’t matter if you got the fastest horse in the world if it drops dead a foot before the finish line.

Fact is health care reform has failed due to the fact that you ignored the wishes of the public when drafting your bailout of special interests, you have failed to get anywhere with a clean energy economy, because you concentrated only on the \”clean\” and ignored the \”energy\” and \”economy\” parts. You bailed out big banks and had secret meeting with special interests. And you appointed a sodomy loving pervert to Secretary of Education.

He\’s matched this leadership and advocacy for the American people by standing up to those very special interests and by beginning to change the way business is done in Washington by making government more accountable, accessible and transparent to all Americans.

You didn\’t stand up to them….unless by \”stand up to\” you mean \”offer them a cushy government job\”. Then yeah, you were awesome at that.

You haven\’t changed the way business is done in Washington. In fact, you\’ve doubled down on some of the worst aspects of Washington. Secrety meetings. Partisan bickering. Bribing legislators. Monthly scandals. Silencing the opposition. Special privileges. The list goes on…you haven\’t changed Washington, and you\’ve admitted that yourself previously.

For the first time ever, every visitor to the White House – what they\’re doing and who they\’re meeting with – will be made public

Except for the ones you\’ve refused to release details of…that\’s not transparent, that\’s selective hypocrisy.

And we\’ve limited the influence of lobbyists in government by preventing executive branch employees from receiving gifts from lobbyists, by prohibiting administration officials from lobbying the government for two years after they leave public service, and by removing lobbyists from government boards and commissions.

A large number of the people appointed to your administration ARE lobbyists. You had to waive your own rules regarding lobbyists because you were hiring so many of them!! You don\’t limit their influence by hiring them.

As he\’s worked to rescue the economy and rebuild it on a new foundation that will promote growth and prosperity for all Americans, President Obama has begun the hard work required to restore America\’s standing and leadership in the world.

By selling out our allies to the Russians? By repeatedly insulting the British? By bowing to foreign leaders? By projecting weakness to our enemies? Fact of the matter is that you\’ve pissed off all our friends and you\’ve encouraged our enemies. Even the Tower of Piza has a better foundation than the foundation you \”built\”

After one momentous year in office, President Obama has governed as he said he would, making tough decisions instead of deferring them, thinking about the long-term well-being of the country and not just his own, short-term politics.

You took months and countless studies just to accept the recommendations on Afghanistan. You deferred to Congress\’s \”leadership\” on every part of the legislative agenda, with disastrous results. You\’ve saddled us with MASSIVE long term debt. You pushed for a health care bill that would have multiplied our looming entitlements problem. And you initiated numerous programs like Cash for Clunkers that were designed more for short-term benefit, at the expense of long-term recovery.

Sorry, Mr. President, but your charisma has worn off and your oratorical skills just aren\’t enough to disguise the shit you\’re shoveling. It\’s best to just come clean with the country, rather than just compound the lies. Just admit it, you fucked up. Let\’s accept that and move forward.

[Crossposted at True North]