The never-ending 2012 campaign
This morning we awaken to a new phase of the Obama 2012 campaign – the election campaign that never ends. Apparently, the face we never tire of seeing has called a special joint session of Congress so he can explain to them what he expects from their healthcare that he refuses to draft – voting present on one of the most important issues to be decided this year. (Washington Times link)
The White House on Wednesday said Mr. Obama would head to Capitol Hill on Sept. 9 to speak to lawmakers in prime time upon their return from a monthlong vacation that was highlighted by heated town-hall meetings on health care. Top advisers to the president promised that Mr. Obama would give more detailed direction to Congress, after months of only general guidance.
Though David Axelrod, top adviser to the president, said Mr. Obama still “embraces” a government-run “public option” for health insurance, which combined with the plan’s price tag has fueled much of the public blowback, the president was not expected to insist that it be part of any final plan. The White House has declined for weeks to be pinned down on the controversial government-run component embraced by the Democratic Party’s liberal base, saying only that Mr. Obama’s priority is a reform that increases competition in the health insurance industry and choice for consumers.
So, Obama is for the single payer option, while simultaneously being against it. That’s what you get when you elect a politician instead of a leader.
The Washington Post calls it “fleshing out his vision”. You’d have thought he would have done that sometime before now, wouldn’t you? That’s what has Americans so upset – no one really knows what’s in that thousand-page document – not even the folks who are writing it. But this administration speaks in abstract concepts and doesn’t pin itself down to specifics. So, I’m pretty sure all we’ll see is the strutting rooster at the podium, chin high, staring down his nose at America – pretty phrases and no specifics.
Oh, and TSO, look who is expected to flip on the GOP side to lock in the health care vote in the Senate according to the Wall Street Journal;
The White House is holding intensive talks with Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, a moderate Republican, about Ms. Snowe’s proposal to use the public plan as a fallback option, aides familiar with the conversations said.
Surprised? Yeah, me neither.
But that’s not all. After a big kerfuffle yesterday about Obama attempting to campaign to school children, going around their parents, he’s decided that he won’t require a term paper from children in which they pledge their souls to Obama (yet another Washington Times link);
President Obama’s plan to inspire the nation’s schoolchildren with a video address next week erupted into controversy Wednesday, forcing the White House to pull out its eraser and rewrite a government recommendation that teachers nationwide assign students a paper on how to “help the president.”
Presidential aides acknowledged the White House helped the U.S. Education Department craft the proposal, which immediately was met by fierce criticism from Republicans and conservative organizations who accused Mr. Obama of trying to politicize the education system.
Yes, our President who struggles every day to find a new way to get his face on television, is surprised that parents are starting to push back against the incessant blather that comes from the White House.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Health Care debate, Liberals suck
This entire situation is outrageous to me. I can only imagine the unionmember/teachers excitement at continuing to campaign for their leader.
not good.
My 11 year old wants to stay home instead of having to watch the Fuhrer, er, um, I mean Dear Leader give his speech. I suggested that perhaps we could make her an armband with his “Obama” seal on it, and when he begins to speak, she could snap to attention and give the Hitler salute. She thinks that that is funny as hell, and wants to do it. Now I’m torn…. 🙂
And BTW, the speech is directed at ALL students, from pre-K to high school, not just up through the 6th grade. This President is a monster, a total anathema to everything our nation stands for. I thought that I was worried during the Carter years about losing our freedoms. Now I am genuinely concerned about the very near future.
Dear AW1 Tim,
Sad to see how the citizens of this once great country, like yourself, have mutated into a bunch of selfish, narcissitic, mean-spirited, bigoted losers. Since as a country we don’t produce much of anything any more, all we can do is prey on each other and take from each other. I guess it’s safe to say, you have yours AW1 Tim, let the less fortunate people fend for themselves.
You worry about your freedoms, huh? Like the freedom to go bankrupt from medical bills? The freedom to play by the rules and still lose everything? The freedom to cling to your shitty job instead of taking a chance on a better job because your family needs the insurance? The freedom to see your relatives or neighbors out on the street through a quirk of genetics? The freedom to get canceled out of your insurance plan because you dared to use it? The freedom to have a cap on the benefits you paid for? Some freedoms. You’ve bought into the right-wing lies hook, line and sinker – they have arrogant, self-righteous suckers like you right where they want you….
Dear Joe,
Nice try. This ain’t Venezuela, or Cuba, yet, but if your Dear Leader has his way, it soon will be no different than any 3rd world sh!thole.
WE have a free-market economy that will work just fine if d!ckheads like Obama will stay the hell out of it and let it work.
BTB, word to you, bro: healthCare is a commodity, no different than a car or a house or a Bass boat. You get what you can afford, and that’s the way the world runs. No one owes you or me or anyone anything that we didn’t earn.
Cry me a socialist river, numbnutz, because I don;’t care. If you got jobbed by your insurance plan, then hire an attorney. Don’t come trying to shake me or anyone else down to fund your little entitlement program.
I sincerely hope that this president and his administration are the first to end up in chains and behind bars because they so richly deserve it. All the thugocrats who were carping about “W” acting without Constitutional Authority ought to be having their own frikkin’ heads exploding at the lawlessness of the Obama bunch, and their banana-republic emulation tour.
So feel sorry for yourself, because your 2nd-rate public school education obviously failed to educate you about the way this nation is supposed to work.
Break Text / out
Ah, yes. The “selfish” code word. How dare anyone want to keep what they’ve worked for, and earned? Ditto, for mean-spirited. Why, we should give up what we have with a smile, so that those who haven’t worked for anything, can have a slice of our pie.
“Prey on each other”? Um, no, prey on those who have, because Dear Leader promised you a little something from those nasty, rotten old “haves”.
As to the “arrogant, self-righteous suckers”, that would be Obie’s followers, just waiting for him to hand them something for nothing, yet again.
“WE have a free-market economy that will work just fine if d!ckheads like Obama will stay the hell out of it and let it work.”
So, AW1 Tim, boom and bust cycles that leave millions of workers and families out on the streets, send our manufacturiing jobs overseas, and migrate all the cash up to the top is an economy “that works just fine”? If the last eight years has been capitalism, give me socialism any day.
“If you got jobbed by your insurance plan, then hire an attorney.”
That’s why we spend fully 31% of all health care dollars on administative costs (read: paper pushers and lawyers)whereas in Canada they spend 1%. Pretty efficient system – if you’re a lawyer. If you someone who needs medical help, well that’s another story.
“it soon will be no different than any 3rd world sh!thole.” I’ve got news for you pal – it already is a sh!thole, and getting worse fast. Of course that doesn’t stop clueless, chauvanistic meatheads like you from shouting, “We’re number one!”. Number 1 in gun deaths, number 1 in deaths due to lack of medical care, but number 42 in health care, way down on the list by Romania in infant mortality, etc. Maybe in the 50’s we were number 1, but times change (myths don’t), and we’ve been left in the dust by our more intelligent, more cooperative neighbors. None of that will stop you from believing in broken myths (that’s what they want you to believe, while they pick your pocket), but then again, that’s a big part of the problem.
Joe–I’ll take my chances here, thanks all the same. BTW, there was an old Soviet joke which went something like, “The birthrate in Russia is so high because even though any woman can get an abortion, the wait to get one is ten months long.” Nowadays the Canadian and British healthcare systems are similarly inept. I see Canadians come to border states (like here in NH) by the truckload to get care they simply are not getting in Canada. Oh, but it’s “free”! Small consolation to someone who died waiting for it.
NHSparky – Just want to say you sound like an actual rational person, a rarity on this site. I think the horror stories from Canada, Britain, France, etc., are exagerrated or plain false. Talk to your average person from one of those countries and they almost unanimous in their support universal coverage. They laugh at us, and cry for us. Sure, every system has its flaws, and even they admit their systems could use some fine tuning. But I absolutely guarantee you one thing – in none of the aforementioned countries did 30,000 people die, some of them hard working middle class people, because they couldn’t get health care, unlike the US. It’s beyond shameful that a country of our resources lets 30,000 people die each year for no reason. No amount of flag waving or chest thumping can excuse that disgraceful statistic. And there are a lot more where that came from. Some people are just blinded by propaganda and chauvanism……