She replied that she agrees with that recommendation, but with health care reform we are trying to eliminate unnecessary tests, so the American Osteopathic Association recommends scans at age 60.

60!

Welcome to state-run medical care, folks.  Enjoy it while you can.  Before you die from something that is currently able to be detected early, but won’t be when we have to wait for basic care.

What?  I’m just using Republican scare tactics?

That’s what everyone said – including our truthful president – when the right claimed that private insurance would be driven out by the government.  Yet, Investor’s Business Daily reports that the House’s health care legislation goes so far as outlawing private coverage.

Of course, as Pres. Obama said, we can keep our current coverage.  We just can’t alter it or ever get another policy, if we move or change jobs.

Government monopoly, baby.

While you revel in it, check out Steven Crowder’s undercover look at Canada’s system.

I hope you have $900 for a check up at a private clinic.  That seems to be the standard advice given by the government run health providers, not once but thrice, in his video.

Hope and Change!

Allies of Mr Obama say his weary appearance in the Oval Office with Mr Brown illustrates the strain he is now under, and the president’s surprise at the sheer volume of business that crosses his desk.

What exactly did he expect?  Did he think that being president was like running for president?  He did say that managing a campaign gave him more experience than Sarah Palin’s running of a small town (ignoring the fact that he was not actually the manager of the campaign and that she was, in fact, a governor).

What exactly did we expect?

This is a big deal.

The American source said: “Obama is overwhelmed. There is a zero sum tension between his ability to attend to the economic issues and his ability to be a proactive sculptor of the national security agenda.

Well, at least we are not in the middle of a war or anything.

“The one real serious flaw I see in Barack Obama is that he thinks he can manage all this,” the well-known figure told a Washington official, who spoke to this newspaper. “He’s underestimating the flood of things that will hit his desk.”

I guess being the wife of a former president does make you more qualified to be president after all – at least you know what the job entails.

I just hope that Pres. Obama finishes up with his on the job training before anything serious happens.

The White House on Wednesday admitted that their public comments about conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh and cable news personalities in recent days has been “counterproductive.”

Counterproductive?  That’s not quite the word I would use.

This Rush Limbaugh episode is pretty disturbing.  Even though the White House is trying to be dismissive and even claim that President Obama was not even giving Mr. Limbaugh’s criticisms any thought, the president’s official spokespeople launching an all out assault on a US citizen for criticizing said president is inappropriate at best.

Look at it this way, imagine if President George W. Bush did it.

Freedom of speech anyone?

And not only are Pres. Obama’s goons attacking Mr. Limbaugh, but they are grossly mischaracterizing his words, knowing that most people who hear them will not have actually heard what Limbaugh said.

I don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh, but I do know that he didn’t say he wanted the US economy to fail.  That is utterly moronic (to think that).  The man is a capitalist.  Why would he want capitalism to fail?

What he said was that he wants Pres. Obama to fail in his pursuit of turning the country into his socialist utopia.

Me, too.

Why should Limbaugh, or I for that matter, want a massive expansion of government power?   We are conservatives.  We don’t like that sort of thing.

Just curious, how many on the left wanted George W. Bush to succeed in enacting conservative policies?

Did the left want Pres. Bush to succeed in Iraq?

Did the left want the Bush tax cuts to succeed in stimulating the economy?

(Answers: no, no, and no.)

Rush Limbaugh did not do anything that liberals were not doing for the past eight years.

Tell me again what a tyrant Bush was.  I don’t recall his administration launching a full-scale media assault on any liberal commentators.

Hope and Change.

One more question: If conservaitsm is really dead, why is everyone so afraid of Rish Limbaugh?

.

For background, USA Today has a decent summary in this opinion piece by Chuck Raasch.

Is there anything we can say anymore?

Hope and change in Obama’s post-racial America!

I wonder what will happen to our cultural literacy with all of these banned phrases.  I once saw someone taken to task on a blog over the phrase, “beyond the pale.”  As in, it’s racist.  I kid you not.

Then there was that “black hole” kerfuffle.

Personally, I think these incidents make the accusers look ignorant of culturally acceptable expressions and their meanings.

Now, if conservatives look at the comic and see a reference to infinite money theorem and liberals look at the comic and see a reference to Barack Obama, who is the racist?  I’m just saying.

Anyway, didn’t Pelosi write the bill?  Did Obama even actually write any of it?

I cannot deal with this for for years.

Thanks to the wonders of the amazing internet workers, I was able to find a YouTube clip of the segment I saw.

NPR’s Mara Liasson asked the President what he learned from the stimulus bill process.  Knowing that he will need true bi-partisan support – not just 3 Republicans in the Senate, none in the House – for meaningful reforms to health care, energy, and entitlement programs, what does he think he will need to do to get bi-partisan support?

First, he blames Republicans for this highly partisan bill.

“Old habits are hard to break.”

“People want to test the limits of what they can get.”

“…positioning for the next election.”

Then, he claims that Republicans were brought in and consulted.  (They were, but they were also ignored and told, “I won,” by the President.)

The money quote, the line that is the very quintessence of Obama’s attitude toward bipartisanship, comes at about 2:07.

Let me set it up.  He says that when the Republicans were brought in they liked the tax cuts that were in there and those tax cuts are still in there.  Apparently, that is what he considers “bipartisan” – when the other party doesn’t hate everything in the bill your party wrote.

Then he says,

“I suppose what I could have done was started off with no tax cuts, knowing that I was going to want some, and let them take credit for all of them.  Maybe that’s the lesson I learned.”

That’s what he has learned about how to create a bipartisan solution to tough problems?  Leave out things he wants that the Republicans would like, then put them in to make them think he was actually listening to them and taking their concerns – and the concerns of those who elected them – seriously?

But to get these important things done that Liasson asked about, it’s only the Republicans who need to “break out of ideological rigidity.”  Yeah, okay.

I have no problem with President Obama and the Democrats using their power to do what they want to do, without consideration for bipartisanship.  They won the election.  It’s their prerogative.

What I do have a problem with is this pretense of bipartisanship.  The continued claims that this is a bipartisan effort, if only the Republicans would stop playing political games.

This is not a bipartisan bill.  It was written by the Democrats and contains Democratic spending priorities.  Even the tax cuts are limited to the ones that the Democrats wanted.

If President Obama really believes that this bill is the right thing to do for the economy, then he should have no problem taking full ownership of it.

At least when President Bush did something without deference to bipartisanship, he would admit that and accept the responsibility that comes with making a tough decision.

I really never thought I would miss the Decider as much as I do.

Ed Morrissey has more on the press conference, with the two lies and misunderstanding/rewriting of history therein.

He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.

That was David Axelrod on why President Barack “Shared Sacrifice” Obama has the heat cranked in the Oval Office, so much so that he needed to remove his suit coat.

You could not grow orchids in here, that’s for sure.  I keep the thermostat at a sultry 65 degrees.  Some days I am so cold that I turn it up to 68, just to get my bones warm again.

As I sit here and type, I have on a thick sweater, extra warm socks, and even a hat.  I am still freezing.

So, what does this have to do with Mr. Obama?  I mean, I keep the thermostat down because I like to keep our gas bill as low as possible.  Obviously, I hold nothing against people who choose to keep their homes warmer.

Still, it is hard to listen to a man like Barack Obama, or Al Gore for that matter, talk down to us plain folk about shared sacrifice and all of the things we need to do to stop global warming – like turning the heat down – when they do not practice what they preach.

“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,” Obama said.

“That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen,” he added.

So, I get told what kind of light bulbs I am going to have to use come 2012 – regardless of the fact that they trigger debilitatingly painful migraines that will have a devastating effect on my quality of life – based on some poorly conducted science, while President Obama keeps it hot enough to grow orchids.

That’s not leadership.  But, it seems, that is going to happen.

Missiles fired from suspected US drones killed at least 15 people inside Pakistan today, the first such strikes since Barack Obama became president and a clear sign that the controversial military policy begun by George W Bush has not changed.

Security officials said the strikes, which saw up to five missiles slam into houses in separate villages, killed seven “foreigners” – a term that usually means al-Qaeda – but locals also said that three children lost their lives.

From the comments:

Another president, another child killer.
dave, london, uk

Business as usual for the US President, I see.
Sam Carter, London, UK

Hope! Change! The world will love us!

On a side note, maybe the foreign policy of the Obama Administration won’t be a complete disaster.

This clip from the Daily Show is so hilarious.

I wondered how long it would take before someone pointed out that they are saying the same things. I must admit, though, less time than I thought.