Obamacare will sell itself. Sure it will.

Americans are not eager for subsidized insurance. Forget what they tell the pollsters. Actions speak louder than words and the unspoken refrain is no thank you. Even in liberal California political dogma is subordinated to personal finance. The Obama administration boasts that 107,000 have enrolled in Cover California. Big deal. As of January 1, 800,000 Californians will lose the insurance they were promised they could keep. Another Obama promise that failed to materialize is that most purchasers of health insurance on the exchanges would get a subsidy. The state has 2.5 million uninsured and one study estimates that 1.4 million would qualify for a subsidy This begs the question why if subsidized insurance is so great are only 107,000 people are taking advantage of the plentitude. Maybe Adam Levine can help them sort that out but in the meantime left without the sagacious advice from the glitterati Californians evidently prefer to be uninsured.
California is not alone in its rejection of Obamacare and the wonderful subsidies. Kentucky has 646,000 uninsured and an estimated 132,000 eligible for subsidies but it could only write 13,000 policies. New York has enrolled a whopping 45,000 with an uninsured population of about 2 million with some 600,000 eligible for subsidies. The state of Washington reports similar dismal numbers. It enrolled 17,000 out of 960,000 uninsured with about 220,000 eligible for subsidized insurance.
To say that Washington is out of touch with the rest of the nation in understatement. It's not even on the same planet. The dogs will not eat the dog food! Most people, even Californians, understand their personal finances better than even Barbara Boxer or Nancy Pelosi. A few may be smarter than even Barack Obama. It is an inescapable fact that the subsidies are too small to make an impact on many family budgets. If the policy premium has doubled a 10% subsidy won't close the deal.
Does a policy that costs $500 per month with a $6,000 deductible even make sense? One can almost hear people say that they are afraid to commit to a policy as they may get sick and not be able to afford it. If a family must first burn through a $6,000 or even a $12,000 deduction before it gets to use its insurance barring a hospitalization it's an extravagance. The public is rejecting Obamacare on its merits. It knows a good deal when it sees one and it knows Obamacare is for the uninsurable and suckers.

Congressman Paul Ryano?

Can we call him Congressman Ryano? I feel as David Stockman does. The budget agreement is a total capitulation on the part of Republicans. No one ever expected Paul Ryan to find himself to the left of Mitch McConnell who will vote against the compromise. The congressman from Wisconsin will no longer be seen as the Republican's expert on all matters budgetary, something he has been able to do notwithstanding his vote for TARP. At the risk of appearing pollyannaish there may be a silver lining in the dark clouds if House Democrats can be tricked into blowing up the budget deal. They seem willing to do anything to distract the public from Obamacare and assume that the public will blame Republicans for any shutdown but that to me at least seems less than certain.
Suddenly it seems the extension of unemployment benefits were overlooked in the negotiations and must be included in any deal. Blowing up the deal may not necessarily redound to the good of the Democrats. The media, which always fawns over any deal as if any deal is a positive good, has trumpeted the Ryan-Murray pact as the greatest agreement for the good of the republic since Appomattox. The Democrats start from behind if they try to un sell the deal which one must assume has the blessings of Harry Reid and the White House. Doesn't Obama care about the unemployed?
If House Democrats take the bait and shutdown the government Ryan will probably be viewed as a shrewd political tactician but not much of a conservative which I suspect he has been all along.

Ohio Dems criticize President Selfie

  Even MSNBC gets it right sometimes. Apparently the left wing media is noticing that many Democrats--Ohioans, in this case--aren't happy with President Selfie.

The selfie reveals all

  Many (if not most) politicians are completely uninterested in actually improving the lot of most Americans' lives and pocketbooks, unless they are perceived as benevolent givers of our own money back to us for the purposes of re-election.
  They don't care that we are stealing from future generations' pocketbooks, creating Ponzi schemes for pensioners that will create millions of Detroits around the country.
  They didn't care about wrecking health care, although now that it has been revealed as such a tidal wave of disaster and their re-elections are in doubt, suddenly there's cringing and concern that they will get caught up in the tidal wave.
  The absurd "agreement" with the brutal dictatorship of Iranian leaders seems to have struck a nerve, however, with even Democrats such as Rep. Juan Vargas of California, who thinks John Kerry would have been a "magnificent" president but thinks the Iranian deal, which will allow the Iranians to develop nuclear bombs, is "naive."
  Christian Science Monitor:

“I’m completely against it,” said Rep. Juan Vargas (D) of California. “Sanctions were working, but we didn’t ratchet them up enough.”
The Nov. 23 deal “seems to me to be naïve, frankly, on its face.” he added.
“I think it’s anything but naïve,” Kerry shot back. “I’ve been thinking about the Iran file for a lot of years,” he told the freshman lawmaker.

  Note that Vargas is sufficiently servile and reverential to Kerry before he criticizes him and that Kerry's response is to condescendingly remind Vargas that he, Kerry, has been around a long time and therefore deserves preferential totem pole treatment.
  Perhaps even Democrats are realizing that Obama's feckless foreign policy will have devastating consequences for the US, considering that Iranian leaders repeatedly state that their goals are to annihilate Israel and the US.
   The DC pecking order produces a Stockholm Syndrome mindset in politicians, coupled with the desire for more and more power; is the Syndrome's influence loosening? First Tea Party politicians like Paul and Cruz have had the audacity to not acknowledge their "superiors."
  Now even Leftists are beginning to question the seriousness of Obama's leadership.
  Ruination of our excellent health care system through politicization and income redistribution?
  Destruction of the economy through onerous regulations and the restructuring of 1/6, forcing volunteer fire departments to disband and small businesses (which employ some 80% of the work force) to downsize?
  Introducing the "fake" Iranian deal with a "fake" speech about acquiescing to terrorists' demands, allowing nuclear bombs to proliferate while relinquishing our own?
  Pointedly shaking the hand of a man who has tortured and killed human beings with those very hands?
  Repeated lies to his own constituents, the true believers, and then excusing those lies by informing the true believers (and the rest of us) that we misunderstood what our ears heard repeatedly?
  The house of cards is falling, even Stockholm Syndrome isn't working anymore and to top off this miserable term, Obama shows himself to be the unserious "leader" that he is by posing ridiculously during a solemn funereal event for a "selfie," photographs of which went immediately viral around the world. What fools.
  Even Michelle understood that this was inappropriate behavior that would reflect poorly on her man.
  Hovering nearby in the photos is Iranian born Valerie Jarrett, the shadow president.
  Even the sign language interpreter was fake at the ceremony which honored Mandela, whose true motives and nature are questioned by many people, particularly Christians.
  We had fun with the selfie yesterday but Obama's careless feckless moment of snapping a few selfies with an attractive blond and another male "ally" revealed much to the world.
  That single picture alone was enough to sour even the most smitten Obama fans. 
  It was narcissism writ large, unseriousness exposed and emblematic of a man who should have stayed locked in some academic ivory tower somewhere rather than be given the responsibility of running the most powerful nation on earth.
 The selfie that will live in infamy.
  Forever. 

The "serious" "leader" at a "serious" event

"Santa" freaks out kids

  Wait. Let me put down my coffee cup before I howl with laughter. This video is up to a thousand views (meh heh heh) and has been sourly launched by Greenpeace in the face of concerns about how COLD our planet is rather than global warming.
  Join MADONNA & JUDE LAW in their concern about how much you fly and not them GLOBAL WARMING!!! Carson the Butler from Downton Abbey, um, *stars* in this hideous hilarious ad.
  How long will it be before the global warmists switch to concerns about global COOLING?
  SQUIRREL!!!

GOP comeback! Michigan Republicans lead in latest poll

Voter anger over Obamacare has dealt Michigan Democrats a sharp reversal in fortunes. They had hoped to turn out incumbent Governor Rick Snyder and hang onto the senate seat of retiring Carl Levin. In early June Democrat Mark Schauer led Snyder 42% to 38% but the latest PPP poll finds Snyder leading 44% to 40%. Snyder's approval / disapproval numbers are nothing to write home about at 42%-49% but they have improved since June and are, if his leads holds, good enough to win with. Somewhat popular Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land edges out Democrat Gary Peters 42% to 40%. In June Peters led 42% to 38%.
On Obamacare 48% of voters disapprove while only 34% approve.

NWOCC Emergency Meeting

NW Ohio Conservative Coalition
  12/9/13

Emergency NW Ohio Conservative Strategy Meeting - We have 6 weeks!
Last weekend,  150 Leaders from Conservative groups  across Ohio met in Columbus to formulate the strategy for the upcoming 2014 elections.

Unfortunately, for this strategy to work, we must start NOW.  We have about 6 weeks before the Primary Election filing deadline (Feb 5, 2014), and a lot of commitments need to be made.

If every Leader, Group, and Activist does a small part, you are going to see something happen in Politics that you have never, ever seen before.

Please attend this very important meeting. Your group, your members, your activists must do a very small part.

Saturday, Dec 14
11:00 a.m.  - 12:30 p.m.
Kiwanas Village
Meeting Room (back entrance off of court yard)
1200 Croy Dr.
Findlay Ohio

For more information, contact:
John McAvoy
NW Ohio Conservative Coalition
419-787-9585

Cheryl Blakely
OLC NW Board member
419-722-0534

Pouty Michelle vs. Carefree Barack

  Heh.
  So not only does Obama take the solemn occasion of Mandela's memoriam to take a bunch of laughing selfies.
  He gets into the dog house because that cheerful Michelle isn't happy he's taking selfies with the attractive blonde Danish prime minister sitting next to him.
  How does it resolve itself? Well, she makes him change seats with her, the blonde studies her phone, Michelle stares straight ahead and Obama avoids looking at her.
  Hilarious.
  Gateway Pundit has the hilarious series of pictures.

   Our First Lady has a history of making, um, interesting faces.
  We've seen Michelle's mad face before. 

It's all about meeeeee again.

  We were shocked when it first happened.
  Obama, abroad, bows to communist leaders, men whose heavy fists have ruled their people with violence and oppression.
  Obama, abroad, denounces the country who elected him and its founding principles.
  Obama, abroad, takes partisan jabs at people who do not think and believe the way he does.
  He was asked to speak at Mandela's memorial service at our great expense and, as he frequently does when given even the slightest opportunity, he chose that international opportunity to claim that some leaders "passionately resist even modest reforms that would challenge chronic poverty and growing inequality."
  Obama went on to scold leaders who "stifle dissent."  Apparently that doesn't include leaders who sic national revenue services on people who disagree; or maybe it doesn't also include leaders who publicly denounce/mock/ridicule those with whom they disagree to the "true believers" who have Dear Leader's picture above their fireplaces.
  Mandela, btw, endorsed voter ID, which has encouraged some wags to accuse him of being a "racist" since that's the argument the Holder DOJ uses when states try to curb voter fraud by requiring an ID card.
  Those rogues over at Weasel Zipper also noticed that though Obama claims Mandela was a great inspiration for him, he only mentions Mandela a total of two times in two books.
  Naturally an internationally watched speech gave Obama the opportunity to self-reference yet again.
  It really has reached comedic proportions.
  Every time some famous reformer/person dies or is eulogized, Obama digs into his picture file for an image of himself, sad, pensive, interested, staring at the sky or whatever.
  There's the contemporary Mandela jail cell.
  Used again when Mandela died.
  There's the moment of silence in the Oval Office.
  And Rosa Parks' death. 
  And the anniversary of JFK's shooting. 
  And last year's commemoration of the Pearl Harbor attack. 
  And Neil Armstrong's death. 
  Downtrend has noticed:

Inserted into the end of Calvin Coolidge’s biography, we see this: “President Obama became the first president to hold virtual gatherings and town halls using Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, etc.” How incredible. But also what a glory hound! He just had the White House biographers insert pointless information about himself alongside other leaders. Not to mention the fact that it almost seems as if the intention is to take away from the original achievement. Again, I say, whatever.

  Le sigh.
  UPDATE from Breitbat: And there's more on the ShamWow POTUS who can't resist talking about meeee meeeee meeeeee!

"For the people of South Africa, for those he inspired around the globe--Madiba’s passing is rightly a time of mourning, and a time to celebrate his heroic life," President Obama said in remarks prepared for delivery. But I believe it should also prompt in each of us a time for self-reflection. With honesty, regardless of our station or circumstance, we must ask:  how well have I applied his lessons in my own life? It is a question I ask myself--as a man and as a President."

The New Puritans

  Gosh, could these people screw health care up any more than they have? 
  I guess it could only get worse if they started telling the truth about this Nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue.
  Oh, wait.
  Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the architects of Obamacare, spilled the beans yesterday in an interview with Fox News's Chris Wallace, by snidely barking that 'Oh, sure, you can keep your doctor if you're willing to pay more for it."
  Load that on top of the news that Obamacare is squeezing out top tier hospitals and doctors for the people who are forced to enroll in it, which will eventually lead to a two tiered health care system where the residents in The Capitol receive the best and the 13 Districts are given little or nothing.
  It's all about cost control, we learn, just as it is in England, the health system Obamacare is modeled after where over 1,000 patients have died of dehydration in the last 10 years.
  Which leads me to my larger point.
  There was a time in this country when being a Democrat meant you actually cared about people and their welfare, or at least you said you did.
  It becomes obvious at some point that much of what politicians want for our lives includes feathering their own nests by passing laws & regulations that increase their power over us.
  That certainly is a description of Obamacare. The (Un)ACA wasn't about care at all. It's about providing a back door--a front door, really-- into the homes of every American.
   That's what the Dodd Frank bill was meant to do.
  Other bills around the country are meant to control what we eat, what we look at on the internet, how and what we shop for, where we spend our money, what we study in school, what we watch on television.
  In fact, very little of what Leftists propose has to do with actually caring about people.
   There was much to admire about the old Puritans who first immigrated to these shores, but they've been widely ridiculed and excoriated by today's so-called scholars, who've decided they were too judgmental, too controlling, too religious.
  And yet today's Leftists have become exactly that. 
  They are the New Puritans--those whose pursed lips, many rules and heavy fists disapprove of just about everything everyone else says and does.
  These New Puritans, unlike the first, care little about God (in fact many are actually hostile toward God) and are intent on forcing Americans to conform to the pattern of behavior they've decided we need, not that they ask the same of themselves.
  I was thinking about this the other day when a friend piously proclaimed that all birth control--including the medical procedure of abortion--should be paid by even those who believe it is murder.
   This person is not well liked, can be cruel and laugh about it and supports Obama like he's God.
  Yet I doubt if this person has ever voluntarily given a penny to any cause such as the Salvation Army, the Cherry Street Mission or even the United Way.
  This person wants the state to control feeding the poor and health care, not realizing that one day this will backfire on even Leftists.
  Leftists have replaced faith in God with a very real and intense faith in the state and it's not outrageous to assert that there's very little "caring" going on when it comes to controlling and snooping the Lives of Others.
  This is all being revealed in a short time; it's difficult to process because it is happening so quickly.
  This blog predicted, now that Obama has achieved his second term, Leftists would go wild--even moreso than when they held the House and the Senate and the presidency--with power, greed and bizarre behavior.
  That thin line of Tea Party House patriots have held back some of the devastation; Obama has decided his way around that is to issue one authoritarian decree after another, usually preceded by a declaration to the true believers that no, he really can't do ___ because our system of government doesn't give him the power to _____.
  This probably had to happen, given the hateful liars who are running our government. People don't like to be controlled this way; they could get away with more when the low information voter and the easily impressionable still thought Obama was about hope.
  Now that the evil of Obamacare--the (Un)ACA protested by the likes of Ted Cruz and Mike Lee--is coming to light, it won't be so easy to maintain the popularity and approval Leftists previously enjoyed.
  They are being revealed for who they really are; even the true believers have to choose the truth or the lie. 
  And that is not a bad thing.

Maryland Sacks Obamacare Wonder Woman

I think it fair to say that what happens in Oregon stays in Oregon. That's because the other 49 states don't give a damn what happens in Oregon. Not since 54.40 or Fight. To date no one in the Beaver State has been able to use Cover Oregon's website. Presently some 500 state employees are working through 54,000 paper application and boasting that over 4000 applications have been completed but not boasting that some 140,000 Oregonians have lost the coverage that they were promised they could keep. Insurance Commissioner Laura Cali has said they can keep their policies if they can get them back, choosing to go along with the Obama fix. She was good enough to warn that the policies might not measure up to the ACA compliant policies that would be available if the state exchange actually worked.
It's enough to make one sick. In fact it did make Cover Oregon Executive Director Rocky King sick. He is taking a three month medical leave.
"Rocky has been dedicated to building Oregon’s health insurance exchange so that individuals and small businesses can get coverage," said Gov. John Kitzhaber. "I know how difficult it is for him to leave during this crucial time, but he has to put his health first. I have full faith in Bruce Goldberg to continue to get people enrolled and address Cover Oregon’s IT issues."
Right. Oregon's IT issues are ripe to be addressed but in a system only Bangladesh would envy Rocky's horror show goes on while the director and executive producer calls in sick.
Not everyone has it so good. The Oregon Duck and Cover website could be infected with stuxnet and the national media would never know but when one screws up in close proximity to Washington in full view of the national press corps people do get fired. O. Henry once referred to New York City as an aviary over populated with jays but that would also describe Maryland's congressional delegation. Steny Hoyer, Chris Van Hollen, and Elijah Cummings perpetually preen in the warm reflection of the media pool and Governor Martin O'Malley has presidential ambitions so there is a limit to the incompetence one can bring to the job and still keep the job.
Rebecca Pearce, who until Friday ran Maryland's bug prone health care exchange, is now treading water in the free agency pool. Gone is the $175,000 annual salary. Just because Obama can load up Air Force One and leave town when the going gets tough doesn't mean Maryland bureaucrats can take week long Caribbean Thanksgiving vacations where they cannot be contacted by email or phone while the Maryland peasantry agonizes over cancelled health insurance and a buggy website. After all Maryland is the birth place of Nancy Pelosi and it has an image to maintain.

Having run out of unions to wreck, Democrats must organize fast foods

If one listens to the popular media one would think the country was going through a labor movement renaissance as evidenced by the walkouts and demands of fast food workers. Suddenly everyone thinks she should be paid $15 per hour. Let's throw in free dental just for good measure. Is this what has become of the labor movement? It's down to trying to organize fast food restaurants? This was the same movement that took on big steel until it ran it into the ground and big auto until it ran it into bankruptcy and now it wants to pick a fight with a McDonalds franchisee?
My friend and I have watched the construction of a convince store since mid summer. It's being built non union and incredibly not a solitary picket has shown up. Ten years ago there would have been a half dozen pickets walking the line. Thirty years ago someone would have dynamited the thing to kingdom come. On the other side of town when a similar store was being built last year the carpenters union did hire a couple of goofy looking women to stand there four hours a day with a sign that said "shame". You're damn right it was a shame but the shame belonged to the unions which could not convince their membership to walk a picket line.
I was not always unsympathetic to the labor movement. I was was part of it and proud to be so. In those days business agents, the men who actually ran the show and got things done, thought it unbecoming to ever talk politics or religion since they viewed these things to be personal beliefs to be respected. As that generation passed, the politics began and membership loyalty declined. Political candidates got contributions and the membership got platitudes. Some of us just went to work elsewhere.
My suspicion is the present fights with fast foods and Walmart is more of a covert political operation than an organizational effort. There are implacable dollar and cents laws unions use when deciding to organize a bargaining unit. It must, or at least in the past, have to pay its way. Don't organization a company with a small, highly transitory, and  grievance prone workforce that wants to take every issue no matter how insignificant all the way to the NLRB or you'll lose your shirt. A Walmart bargaining unit may make sense but a McDonalds, Wendy's would not.
The fast food fights are a sham battle that dovetails into the effort to raise the minimum wage and fight income inequality that has been exacerbated by the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing. Ben Bernanke is not solely responsible for the stratification of incomes but he is certainly not blameless. Quantitative easing, whether deliberate or not, has become a one-two punch for the Democrats. It has driven up stock prices to placate the financial industry and simultaneously given the party an issue of fairness that would not exist so flagrantly without it.
Let's face it. Now days labor unions only flourish in the public sector. The cause of their decline is unclear. What we are now seeing is political theater with a liberal media and Democrat activists who left Occupy and have duped the least sophisticated into risking their jobs to further someone else's political ends. They have run out of unions to wreck.

HHS: don't worry about the price tag!

  So the conservative blogosphere is atwittering with the horrendous HHS winner for best video; Ms. McDonald "parodied" (or something because it's not a parody it's an alternate universe version of another song called "Price Tag.) a song to come up with this.
  Note all the sh*t in the background. She was workin' hard on makin' it real, sitting in front of her computer and reverbing her vocals. 
Ms. McDonald and HHS want us to "forget about the price tag!" Comrades! Forward! With that whole redistribution thing!
  Don't worry, either, because it "ain't about the cha ching!"
  Y'all don't worry about blowing a billion dollars on an insecure, uninformational website that doesn't work!

Senator Rand Paul will go to Detroit

During the last Republican primary the only campaign that brought new voters to the party was that of Congressman Ron Paul. Paul could sell his libertarian ideas to millennials and minorities. Now Senator Rand Paul will go to bankrupt Detroit Friday to make his case for less government in a city that has been ruined by government. Paul will propose several ideas that will naturally be rejected by geniuses who created the current mess but may strike a chord with the young, the lost, and the discouraged.
He will propose providing eligible areas with a reduction in individual and corporate income tax to a single, flat 5 percent rate and reducing the payroll tax. He would also providing child education tax credits to parents while suspending the Davis-Bacon prevailing wage mandates and EPA non-attainment designations. The Senator has already visited Howard University where he was warmly received.
The millennial vote is up for grabs! Harvard's Survey of Young Americans’ Attitude Toward Politics and Public Service shows the 18 to 24 group rejects Obama and the Democratic Party.

While the survey is not all good news for Republican this quote should dispel any notion that Obama remains popular among the young.

Additionally, we found that a majority (52%) of 18- to 29- year olds would choose to recall all members of Congress if it were possible, 45 percent would recall their member of Congress (45% would not) and approximately the same number indicate that they would recall President Obama (47% recall, 46% not recall).

The Party of Reagan must stop talking about Reagan and start acting like Reagan. Senator Paul has made a start.

Seeing the world as the world is not

Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Look into the pewter pot
To see the world as the world’s not.

I'm really not suggesting that Democrats are all drunkards but the below graphic from Investor's Business Daily suggests that their perceptions are a bit skewed to say the least. To them the Obamacare rollout has been a smashing success, the economy is improving and the country is moving in the right direction.

On the other hand;

And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God’s ways to man.

It depends on the meaning of the word "lie"

  I've never thought Obama was the anti-Christ.
  Watching his followers convinces me that whenever that spiritually horned individual appears on the global scene, lots of people will fall right in line behind him like he's the Pied Piper, chanting some wackadoodle mantra, swaying back and forth and jockeying to hit the ground at his feet first.
  I don't care what color skin Obama has; he's a lousy leader, so lousy there's no possibility he's the anti-Christ of the Holy Scriptures.
  Oh, yes, he's divisive, which will undoubtedly be a necessary part of the anti-Christ's bag of tricks, in contrast with the also necessary ability to unify the humming numnuts of the planet.
  And, sure, he's attractive, if that "I'm a god who will heal the planet" sort of thing appeals to you.
  He and his teleprompter are good speakers, at least when planted in front of a(n ever smaller) humming crowd of genuflecting numnuts.
  It's just really, really hard interesting revolting fascinating to watch a hip, dreadlocked, individual who fancies himself an intellectual (you can tell this by the way he talks through and down his nose at the underlings) explain that, since every president lies, we just have to decide which lies we are most comfortable with.
  We know Obama--in his heart--wants the best for us, L.Z. Granderson loftily explains, so we have to trust him to lie to us about only good things.
  Now, we all know the same was not true of Reagan (who committed atrocities and this before drones)--or any Republican president, for that matter, but we can trust Obama because.
  I guess, once again, faced with a charismatic Democrat Leftist leader, we as a people just have to decide what the meaning of the word "is" is.
  L.Z. seems to have trouble distinguishing between a "lie" and an "error," as he first explains the Obamacare kerfuffle that is ruining health care and affecting the nation.

80% of Americans liked their health insurance before Obamacare

I guess for want of a better acronym I'll just throw this mania into the LDS category. No, that has nothing to do with Latter Day Saints rather it's a chronic mental disorder known as Liberal Derangement Syndrome. Witness this exhibit from Kevin Drum from Mother Jones entitled Republicans Nearing a Dead End on Obamacare.
Given all this, it's hard to see Obamacare being a huge campaign winner. For that, you need people with grievances, and the GOP is unlikely to find them in large enough numbers. The currently covered will stay covered. Doctors and hospitals will be treating more patients. Obamacare's taxes don't touch anyone with an income less than $200,000. Aside from the tea partiers who object on the usual abstract grounds that Obamacare is a liberty-crushing Stalinesque takeover of the medical industry, it's going to be hard to gin up a huge amount of opposition. And that's doubly true since, as Sargent says, the Republican Party will have no credible alternative for a benefit that lots of people will already be getting.
So where will the GOP find people with grievances in large numbers? It shouldn't be to hard judging from a Gallup poll that appeared before Obamacare was passed. Notice that a full 80% of respondents were either very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with the quality of their health insurance while only 61% liked the price. To date 5.6 million have lost the care they were satisfied with and when employee health plans are cancelled next year that number may be 10 times greater. If only 61% were happy about the price one doubts if they will be happier paying a higher price with a higher deductible for insurance no one will take.


Doctors and hospitals will be treating more patients? Certainly with Medicaid expansion more people may have a legal right to medical care but there will be no increase in the number of doctors participating in the program. One supposes that Obama can convince the newly eligible that the mere legal right to care was something they did not previously have and sometime in the indefinite future the right will morph into treatment.
We have, on this blog, identified 4 Democratic Senators; Begich, Hagan, Landrieu, and Pryor whom we deem as vulnerable and whose political fortunes have exhibited a steep decline as individuals have found that they may not keep their insurance nor their doctors. One doubts that the outrage is apt to abate simply because millions of other Americans have found healthcare that they like. Two new possible entries into the high risk pool are Senators Mark Udall of Colorado which I wrote about on another blog and Senator Al Franken of Minnesota who achieved a whooping 39% approval rating in the St. Cloud State University Survey. Franken only won with 42% in a 3 way race and that included the dead who somehow managed to vote.
Maybe Kevin Drum is not deranged. Maybe he has deadlines that impair his judgment but screwing up a system that 80% of the population was satisfied with does not strike me as a winning strategy.

Judge paves the way for Detroit's bankruptcy

Detroit will go bankrupt. Federal Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes ruled that the city is insolvent and entitled to seek protection under Chapter 9 of the bankruptcy code. He dismissed arguments from the city's public unions that somehow the law did not apply to the Motor City. Municipal unions have argued that pension benefits, although they are the direct cause of the insolvency, should be immune to cuts.
“The city needs help,” said Rhodes. Detroit is facing "mounting crime rates, spreading blight and a deteriorating quality of life. The city no longer has the resources to provide its residents with basic police, fire and services."
If anything that is an understatement. About half the city's street lights are no longer burned in an attempt to save cash. The unions promised to appeal the decision. Well, of course they will but that's probably little more than a formality. Although New York and Pittsburgh have been to the brink Detroit will be the first major city to go belly up. The legal precedent should be a wake up call for a few dozen other large cities that find themselves strapped with unfunded pension liabilities.
Vincent Vernuccio, a pension expert with the Mackinac Center, said Rhodes’ ruling could prove a bellwether decision, as cities and states, such as Illinois, work to address multi-trillion dollar pension deficits.
“The judge is sending a message that it’s a myth that defined benefit plans provide guaranteed income with no risk and that nothing can be done to affect them,” he said. “This is going to send shockwaves throughout cities teetering on the brink.”

Obama Underwater by 15.6 in RCP Average of Polls

President Obama breaks a personal record in the latest Real Clear Politics average of polls on presidential approval / disapproval. The gap has widened to -15.6%.

The Dismal Science of Papal Economics

The Catholic Church has much to offer but in the area of economic theory it has much to learn. It has spent the last 350 hundred years trying to escape from the bad arguments it created to justify its prohibition of the payment of interest. The Catholic Church was not the only institution to forbid usury; just the most influential. The subject of usury and the prohibition thereof appear in the Book of Deuteronomy, the Code of Hammurabi, and the Twelve Tables of Roman Law. Even the Reformation protagonists with the exception of John Calvin could not find a kind word to say about the practice. The Church indulged in a great deal legal trickery in canon law to allow a practice that it in theory  forbade. One way to promote commerce without condoning usury was importing Jewish money lenders who would then be taxed.
Martin Luther, who saw the world through the eyes of a peasant mystic, seemed to regard all commerce as evil. His most tenacious adversary, John Eck was a doctor of canon law. Eck wrote a treatise on the "triple contract" at the behest of the House of Fuggers, a Jewish banking concern. The "triple contract" was loophole in canon law that allowed for a guaranteed rate of return on the principle. So the Medieval Church like, Lord Byron's Julia, while protesting that she would never consent-consented.
Were the arguments put forth by the many medieval schoolman from Thomas Aquinas to Jon Dunn Scotus simply wrong? No, they were probably right for their time. They lived in an era in which the bulk of the population lived on the ragged edge of subsistence. Population size was dependent on recent harvests. Even economist John Maynard Keynes, no friend of the Church, conceded the Medieval Church was on the right track.

I was brought up to believe that the attitude of the Medieval Church to the rate of interest was inherently absurd, and that the subtle discussions aimed at distinguishing the return on money-loans from the return to active investment were merely Jesuitical attempts to find a practical escape from a foolish theory. But I now read these discussions as an honest intellectual effort to keep separate what the classical theory has inextricably confused together, namely, the rate of interest and the marginal efficiency of capital. For it now seems clear that the disquisitions of the schoolmen were directed towards the elucidation of a formula which should allow the schedule of the marginal efficiency of capital to be high, whilst using rule and custom and the moral law to keep down the rate of interest.

The charging of interest on a loan to sustain one's very existence would evoke outrage even today but as European civilization slowly advanced in economic growth the need for borrowing became apparent. If one wanted to outfit a caravan to trek the spice route to China one had to have capital and no prudent man would lend money without a return on his investment. In this era thinkers, both in the Church and out, were like Euclidean geometers suddenly cast into a non Euclidian world who could only curse the parallel lines when they saw them meeting.
The present Pope Francis has recently condemned "trickle down economics". It's interesting that he would use a pejorative term when trying to address a serious concern with a pretense of objectivity. How does one answer this? "The pope is a jackass and so are you", was Evelyn Waugh's response to a admirer of Pope Paul VI. Of course Waugh lived in an age not that long ago when gentleman were expected to act like men and repair there wounded egos in private instead of moaning about bullying and hate speech to all who would listen so he could be more direct in his criticism. There is nothing wrong with papal silliness per se but impressionable minds such as Elizabeth Warren and Bill de Blasio are apt to take such loose talk as approval of their socialist ideology. Pope Francis is given a pass by the liberal media but one doubts if that would be the case if he had noted that all the supposed bad actors on Wall Street had been extricated from their mess by an unwilling public vis a' vis a compliant congress and had been made whole 5 times over by the Federal Reserve's qualitative easing and rewarded with assurances of immortality by the "too big to fail" feature of Dodd-Frank while the middle class saw it income decline.
Capitalism has had its serious critics especially in its turbulent infancy. It endured the wrath of Marx, Dickens, Debs and silly Upton Sinclair to name a few. If the pope wishes to be taken seriously he should address the serious works of Von Hayek, Schumpeter, and Friedman rather than giving the impression that he gleaned his insights into capitalism from an MTV special. If not? Well, as Waugh said, the pope is a jackass.