Archive for July, 2009
Why A Skinny Surgeon General Matters To Leftists
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009Who really cares about a pudgy Surgeon General? Remember K. Everett Koop? He was lovable in his Little House On The Prairie, old timey Doctor sort of way. Was he the Supreme Master of Fitness? Uh, no. But that wasn’t his job. His job, if a Surgeon General, even has a real job, was to explain, in simple terms, important health initiatives to the masses.
The Surgeon General’s job qualifications seem to be one: be a decent doctor, and two: be able to communicate easily. Mostly, people don’t know who the Surgeon General is, though they surely guide and direct policies and form part of an administration’s enforcement minions. So maybe a Surgeon General’s real power is behind the scenes.
Some Leftists believe the Surgeon General is very important. At Going Granola, the anonymous writer, a journalist and life-long vegetarian says:
But she also deserves criticism as a doctor for living an unhealthy lifestyle. Part of the oath of a doctor is the phrase, ” first do no harm.” As a medical professional who knows that diabetes runs in her family, Dr. Benjamin is doing harm, to herself. This does not set a good example for the rest of the nation.
Her personal weight issue is not an attack on her race or gender. (I am amused that it was brought up by a man who obviously is struggling with his own weight) Bringing up Dr. Benjamin’s race is an attempt to shock listeners away from the true debate, it’s nothing but noise to drown out the fact that fat is not ok. Sadly this is just more evidence that being overweight is okay in America.
See, Dr. Benjamin needs to have the moral authority to enforce the states rules. A skinny Surgeon General would be a much better tool to enforce government policies over what you eat, how you eat, how much you weigh, if you get insurance, what treatment you receive, etc.
A Leftist will be upset about Dr. Benjamin because the state power to affect social change is inhibited by a fat Surgeon General. And that’s why a skinny Surgeon General matters to Leftists.
NOTE: On the Right Doctor show tonight at 10 p.m. EST, I talk about this topic with my guests John Hawkins and Dan Riehl. Hope you’ll listen in or catch the podcast later.
Can The Press Make It All Better For President Obama’s Poll Numbers Blues?–UPDATED ALREADY
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009How powerful is the press in creating the narrative around President Obama? His poll numbers have slipped and I’m wondering if their full court press can rescue him. Can shiny, happy, soft-focused coverage for a huge government health care plan change the poll numbers? Will President Obama’s cajoling, reasoned, pleading tones work on the American people?
The members of the press won’t ask any challenging questions of Obama because they believe the greater good to be served is that President Obama’s agenda must be served. Please note, the mainstream media won’t even report that Democrats are divided on the many provisions in different versions of bills never mind whether the whole thing is a good idea at all. They want this FOR OBAMA. Good poll numbers are key. Can they do it?
UPDATED:
So I finish this post, go over to Instapundit, and see this link to Boing Boing about Hitler’s use of American-style advertising:
It continues:
“As is well known, the word propaganda in Germany is used synonymously with the word advertising. Although in this country and in Great Britain propaganda has the unfortunate connotation of being free instead of being paid for, this distinction does not exist in Germany.”
Ah, yes, that unfortunate connotation of freedom! Interesting that this is the only negative connotation of “propaganda” at this time. In fact, the (American) author makes sure to point out that in the Hitler speech that follows the word “propaganda” should be read as “advertising.” Apparently, the trade mag wants credit for schooling the Führer.
The article then goes on to quote Hitler at length talking about something that Americans who worked in advertising at the time already believed: that the masses are morons who respond only to simple messages repeated thousands of times (a perspective I discuss at length in my book).
Seventy-some years later, this belief is as popular with the powers that be as it was in 1933. Which, if nothing else, provides a shred of evidence connecting the makers of the Head-On commercial to the Nazis.
I do believe that President Obama and the press believe that the American people are sheeple and need to be lead to the right conclusion rather then presented the evidence and be allowed to come to their own conclusions. I’m still wondering how effective the non-stop advertising will be here. We’ll see in the coming two weeks.
My thought: If President Obama’s numbers rise over the next two weeks in the face of the horrendous economic numbers and general distaste for the ever expanding government, President Obama and his beholden press possess extraordinary power to manipulate the masses.
Does this make the masses stupid? I’m not sure. When the only information people receive is distorted, biased and yet presented as objective fact, can the people be blamed for believing and giving their President the benefit of the doubt?
Senate Doctors On Again
Tuesday, July 21st, 2009For those so inclined, you may watch here:
You Don’t Respect What You Don’t Earn
Tuesday, July 21st, 2009In my American Issues Project Column today, I talk about President Obama and the Democrats he leads, prods, cajoles, browbeats, and blackmails into submission and their collective disrespect for the American taxpayer:
Have you seen any of those shows that follow up on lottery winners? You know, the ones where the people had been down on their luck, or made repeatedly stupid decisions and then won big by getting lucky? There have also been accounts of people given those Makeover homes, mortgaging them, and then defaulting on the loans. People who come into money without having to work for it tend to respect it less.
It seems that the Democrats lead by President Barack Obama believe that the United States treasury is theirs to loot and misuse. They didn’t earn the money, after all, and have no respect for it.
At this writing, President Obama’s team is withholding the budget deficit numbers:
President Barack Obama’s economic forecasts for long-term growth are too optimistic, many economists warn, a miscalculation that would mean budget deficits will be much higher than the administration is now acknowledging.
And yet, with the budget deficits soaring, the administration spends and spends and wants to spend some more with the biggest entitlement ever: government run health care. Of this the Wall Street Journal editorializes:
We could go on, and we will in coming days. But the most remarkable quality of this health-care exercise is its reckless disregard for economic and fiscal reality. With the economy still far from a healthy recovery, and the federal fisc already nearly $2 trillion in deficit, Democrats want to ram through one of the greatest raids on private income and business in American history. The world is looking on, agog, and wondering why the United States seems intent on jumping off this cliff.
But is it really so strange? It’s the entitlement mentality writ large. People are careless with other people’s money.
Please go read the whole thing. Other good stuff over there, too. Jim Hoft (Gateway Pundit) writes about Cap-N-Tax killing the Midwest and Rick Moran (Right Wing Nuthouse) writes about the Health Care plan just plain killing you.
Besides The God Language & The ESC Federal Funding Ban, How Was President Bush Conservative?
Tuesday, July 21st, 2009David Brooks flaps his jaws again and this time, he’s going after his beloved, well-spoken Barack Obama for falling into the same trap as Republican president George W. Bush, except, I don’t see the parallel. At all. Here’s Brooks:
It’s not that interesting to watch the Democrats lose touch with America. That’s because the plotline is exactly the same. The party is led by insular liberals from big cities and the coasts, who neither understand nor sympathize with moderates. They have their own cherry-picking pollsters, their own media and activist cocoon, their own plans to lavishly spend borrowed money to buy votes.
Well, that perfectly describes the Senate on both sides, but I don’t see how it’s the Conservatives controlling anything. In fact, had Republicans stood up for fiscal responsibility, one could argue that an Obama presidency wouldn’t have even occurred.
So, President Bush talked God with a cowboy dialect but his actions were all moderation. Hello? AIDs spending in Africa? School reform with Teddy Kennedy? Amnesty? And all these things made the federal government bigger (or would have), more powerful and invasive. The Bush presidency wasn’t about restraint and limiting government power–traits I associate with conservatism.
David Brooks and the Beltway elites are delusional. If President Bush governed conservatively, then David Brooks would put nearly every conservative person I know into the Right Wing Extreme camp. No wonder Barack Obama sounded good to him. Obama moderate? Is he insane?
Dan Riehl says of Brooks new found Gah!-Barack-Obama-Is-A-Liberal! Religion:
This is all great. But if Brooks is so smart, where the hell was he during the campaign when the rubes knew what to expect?
Right. David Brooks knows politics. He’s smarter than you. And he knows a Moderate when he sees one.
Conservatives, Libertarians, Health Care & The Sex Lives Of Republicans
Tuesday, July 21st, 2009Yes, I talk about it all through my feverish, ranty haze. I have some sort of virus that has me rolling through fever and cold sweats. A downside to having kids is catching every single kid illness that comes along.
Bloggers mentioned in this podcast: Ace of Spades, Robert Stacy McCain, Michelle Malkin and AllahPundit.
Melissa’s show can also be found on RFC Radio every Monday and Wednesday night at 10:00 pm Eastern.
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When Melissa isn’t on the radio, you can find her at melissaclouthier.com and on Twitter. Her username is MelissaTweets.
Can The Press Rehabilitate President Obama?
Monday, July 20th, 2009While President Obama vacationed and spent time overseas with the G8, his poll numbers went down at home. I recall how President Obama’s poll numbers dipped when he gave his World Presidency speech in Germany.
What I’m wondering now is whether the press will be able to bump his poll numbers. The economy is objectively bad. Despite all the sweet, candy-coated talk, the numbers are grim and people are feeling the misery.
Will a constant, unremitting sunny face time on prime time be enough to bring Obama’s poll numbers back from the brink of disaster? We’re about to find out.
American Hostage–UPDATED Is he a deserter?
Monday, July 20th, 2009That this has happened is so distressing, I can hardly think about it let alone write about it.
War is hell and all that, but the thought of one of our service men at the mercy of these barbarians makes me sick. I hope we obliterate the bastards holding him.
UPDATED:
Is this soldier a deserter? That changes everything. If so, let him rot.
Michelle Malkin has the whole story.
Card Check Ain’t Dead Yet
Monday, July 20th, 2009Here’s the thing about liberal special interest groups: They are like the terminator. If one cell or piece of metal still exists, if the whole idea isn’t utterly destroyed, the machine will be back and angrier than before. That’s where Big Labor is about Card Check and the onerous Binding Arbitration. The Labor Unions will not let the issue die. President Barack Obama was bought and paid for, dammit, and this bill will pass. They are owed.
So, the one leg of the Trifecta of Doom(TM) is growing back. Says the Wall Street Journal:
One proposal would slash the time for an organizing vote, requiring that it be held within five or 10 days after 30% of workers had signed cards asking for a union. The median time today is 38 days. Organizers want the rush because they know the more time workers have to learn about a union, the less they usually want one. Once employees hear the other side of the story, support dwindles.
This also explains a Big Labor demand to bar companies from requiring their workers to hear management’s side during a union campaign. Labor supporters say this creates a “captive audience,” but these meetings are one of management’s few opportunities to address workers, since companies are barred from the sort of outreach allowed to union organizers — such as visiting employees at home. At the same time, Senators want to give union organizers access to company property.
Democrats also aren’t giving up on binding arbitration, which would let a federal arbitrator impose a contract if management and a newly established union at a work site aren’t able to agree within 90 days. The provision would encourage unions to make maximum demands and play for time, knowing that an arbitrator could force management’s hand. Binding arbitration also denies employees a vote on a contract.
Oh yeah, Unions are all for the little guy. The question is whether these thugs can jam through the legislation that Barack Obama has promised them.
Now is the time to call soft moderate Democrats from Southern states whose states benefit from being union-free.
The Union’s idea here is to make every state as unproductive, hamstrung and miserable as Michigan. Should places like Wal-Mart unionize or should manufacturing plants in the South end up unionized, the whole country will be as oppressed and depressed as the union states now are. Business can’t grow when forced to make unproductive, expensive choices. Card Check is another way Barack Obama is trying to make things “fair”. He wants people to be paid more than the job is worth. This will force companies to cut workforce. It always does. But that matters not to them.
To President Obama, the American economy is just one big, grand experiment.
What Will Doctors Do?
Monday, July 20th, 2009It is important to note that the AMA (American Medical Association) does not represent all doctors. In fact, many doctors belong to other organizations more suited to their specialty. One such organization the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, does NOT endorse President Obama’s health care plan. In fact, many members of this organization prefer to not participate in Medicare and Medicaid.
The AAPS did an internal survey and one answer was quite telling. 65% of those answering would rather treat Medicare and Medicaid patients for free than deal with the government. And, in fact, doctors like me do exactly that. I have opted out of Medicare and Medicaid. Still, finances have never interfered with care. Most doctors are the same way. Nearly all doctors have a percentage of charity patients. It’s just a fact of the business that no one minds. Most doctors go into the business to help people.
Of course, when there’s government mandated health care and all doctors must submit to certain rules, or else, what will doctors do? Here are three doctors who answer the question in their own words:
Government run health care will not only be a bureaucratic nightmare for patients and doctors, it will be a problem for quality of care. A person forced against their will to do something for the government will be providing a much different service than one who is giving care of his own free will. It’s just human nature. Doctors will have to comply with rules or be penalized.
As to why the AMA would support these sorts of government intrusions… Well, the organization, like unions, exist as much for their own power as for the benefit of their members. The leadership wrongly believes that by being on the “inside” they’ll have some control over the direction things take. It’s foolish and short-sited. No one wants to be on the outside looking in to the new plan. Being “inside” won’t matter. Some knobby-headed drone will be making decisions for physicians and that’s the way it will be.
The focus won’t be care, it will be costs the patients cause. There will be no thought about the government layers of bureaucracy costing the taxpayer their money and their life. There is already no thought for that.
Ultimately, doctors will leave the practice of medicine rather than practice this way.
