Rancho Miller

Earlier this year, I dogged George Stephanopoulos and other liberal media types for rolling over for a tummy rub from the Zero.

But Stephanopoulos showed he had some bite in his bark as the only interviewer on Zero’s 9/20 media tour who challenged him.

When President Barack Obama was confronted by ABC New’s George Stephanopoulos in regard to the excise tax, he continually tip-toed around an explanation. When Stephanopoulos read the definition of tax from Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, Obama provided an arrogant response that questioned Stephanopoulos’ reasoning for reading the dictionary.

The Zero’s foreign policy is being revealed to be as insane as Manuel Zelaya, the deposed president of Honduras.

William A. Jacobson, a Cornell U law professor who blogs at Legal Insurrection, nails it in this post:

As reported in the Miami Herald, Zelaya’s insanity is seeping out. Zelaya claims he is the victim of radiation and mind control experiments and is being targeted by Israeli mercenaries.

This is the man the Obama administration has been trying hard to restore to power in Honduras. A crazy, power-hungry tyrant in the image of Hugo Chavez, Muammar al-Khadaffi and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

By taking Zelaya’s side, the Obama administration has betrayed an ally and friend. More important, the Obama administration’s foreign policy has been revealed to be as insane as Zelaya.

We bully our friends, twist the concept of the rule of law to portray our allies as criminals, and impose sanctions and other get-tough tactics only against people who like us. A foreign policy gone mad, in which good is bad and friend is foe.

I really hope the Obama administration learns the right lessons from its failed love affair with the crazy Zelaya. But I won’t hold my breath on that one.

Obama’s central America policy is shaping up to be about as helpful as Jimmy ”I Surrender!!” Carter’s was.

Main thoughts from Wednesday’s Big Health Care Speech, in which President 0bama didn’t say anything new but did say some old things in new ways:

1. The Big 0 made references to his “plan” for health care. Which plan is that? The one written by Teddy Kennedy before 0 was even elected president and now under consideration in the Senate? The 1,100-page plan about to make it to the House floor? (No, it can’t be that one; 0 said he doesn’t know what’s in it.) Or is it a secret plan being kept in a vault along with Richard Nixon’s 1968 secret plan to end the war that actually was so secret it didn’t exist?

You’ve got to admit, it’s genius to go before Congress and push a heatlh care plan that hasn’t even been introduced as such. Then, when something else gets passed that looks like health care reform, if people like it, 0 can say, “That’s my plan!” and if they don’t like it he can say, “That wasn’t my plan!”

That’s why it’s been so bizarre that he has claimed his plan has been misrepresented by opponents, when they’ve actually been targeting the details of the Senate and House plans and haven’t been focusing on his plan–because it doesn’t exist. He has just offered repeatedly some general principles about a health care plan with no details.

He even, at one point, said, “As soon as I sign this bill …” WHAT BILL?? WHICH OF THE HALF DOZEN BILLS ARE YOU GOING TO SIGN??? WHICH ONE ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT???

Talk about a moving target.

I’ve never seen such a brazen lack of political leadership in my life. I knew this guy was unfit to govern, but I didn’t think he’d be unfit  even to lead his own party.

2. He talked about an individual mandate to buy insurance, although he didn’t use those words, instead pushing a “requirement.” But he didn’t mention fines at all that I can remember. That’s just cowardice. At least Sen. Max Baucus is honest when he proposes up to a $3,800 fine for those who don’t have insurance. Of course, standing before a joint session of Congress and the American people at the same time and telling them they’re going to be fined for not having health insurance isn’t the kind of thing I’d want to do, either.

3. On individual and employer mandates: “Improving our health care system only works if everybody does their part.”

We’re all socialists now. 

4. The false argument (different from the false dichotomy that if you’re not for his plan, whatever that is, you’re against health care reform) was brought out once again that the federal government requiring you to buy health insurance is no different than states requiring drivers to buy liability car insurance.

There’s a big difference. 

The states own the highways and streets and give individuals who meet certain criteria a license to drive on those highways and streets. We do not have a “right” to drive; we are granted that privilege by the state by meeting certain standards. The states thus are completely within their rights to require that people who drive on those highways and streets that the state owns carry a certain amount of insurance, most frequently insurance that would pay for damage to another person’s vehicle.

But if you don’t own a car, you don’t have to have liability insurance, although the car you’re driving best have it.

The individual mandate or mandatory insurance is a different cat altogether. Just by existing, you are required to have health insurance under the proposals out there, as well as under, apparently, 0’s “plan.” That’s like requiring the person who has never had a driver’s license or owned a car to have liability insurance for their vehicle. Everybody will have to be covered in one way or another or they will face a fine which, under Sen. Baucus’ new proposal, could range up to $3,800 for a family.

Plus, it’s up to the states to decide what they want to do regarding car insurance requirements, but 0 wants to make it a national requirement that we all have health insurance.

Now, I’m not that bright of a guy, but even I can figure out the difference between mandatory health insurance and mandatory car insurance. But our president can’t? Oy.

Or is 0 trying to subtly tell us that the government owns our bodies like the states own the streets? Ah … crazy like a fox, this 0ne.

5. This was one of the more entertaining speeches to a joint session of Congress that I’ve seen. A couple times, I thought 0 was going to come down from the podium and take on some of the Republicans who were jeering him. That would have been more interesting than seeing Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Biden stand up and sit down a lot. At one point, somebody from Obama’s left yelled something and briefly caught his attention. And I loved the laughter when 0 admitted that, well, some details needed to be “ironed out.” Not that he was looking for laughs, but he got them anyway.

6. I counted at least twice that he dumped responsibility for the current health care problems, or some kind of problems, on the Bush administration.

Hey, 0, LET IT GO, dude. You won. Now it’s your deal. Live with it. Forget the past; it is prologue. Or something like that.

Honestly.

I wasn’t that fond of Bush II. Voted for him once, didn’t twice. I think he messed up a lot of things. But 0 has been president for eight months now. Does he have to beat that particular dead horse all the time?

And pointing out the cost of his health care plan–whichever one it is–is less than the cost of the Iraq war makes the point that … what? That it’s OK to spend more billions of dollars foolishly? Didn’t he just get done chastising Bush II for doing just that?

Note to 0: Review logic class notes.

7. Oh, and he said that abortion wouldn’t be paid for under his plan, whichever one that is, apparently even if it’s the plan with abortion coverage in it. Actually, he maneuvered that one nicely. He said that abortions wouldn’t be paid for by “federal dollars.” Didn’t say anything about the premiums paid into the public option paying for them, though. Maybe he considers the premiums and federal dollars to be the same things.

On the heels of Barack Obama’s effort to impose unprecedented control over the lives of citizens through his health care effort comes his plan to insert his cult of personality into the lives of children whose parents have sent them to public school.

The lesson involved includes follow-up discussion on why it’s important to listen to the president and other authorities as well as other things supposedly learned from the One’s monologue.

One of the people upset about the Sept. 8 address is a woman whose children were in public school, pulled out for homeschooling, and are now back in the public school system. Talk about confusing.

Writing on Pajamas Media, Barbara Curtis says this:

Having kids in public school today is actually a profound responsibility.

Actually, it’s a profound abdication of responsibility. You have allowed the government to intervene between you and your children. You have given authority over your children to the government. Parents with children in public schools upset about Obama’s planned speech to their kids really have nothing to say about it. When they registered their children for public school (thanks WCIC!), they gave up that authority. There may be some things a public school will allow them to have input about, but by and large, you’ve handed over your children.

Curtis said she “worked” for 24 hours to make sure her children’s school would not be subjected to Obama’s speech and followup assignments. But her link to the e-mail exchange with the superintendent of the school district in question only showed that the district was planning to have teachers stream the speech later anyway. Curtis actually accomplished nothing. 

She also points out that

that there are teachers, principals, and administrators who see themselves on a mission: to rescue students from the “provincial,” “backwards,” and ignorant parents of the progeny in their care. …

Like most liberals, many liberal teachers see conservatives as evil and stupid. Posing as the tolerant class, they dehumanize and vilify those philosophically opposed to their political agenda. They will do their best to “deprogram” your children and convert them to the religion of liberalism. …

The key for parents is to take the time to find out from your kids what is going on in school. Ask good questions. My grandson says that his economics teacher is pushing ObamaCare — in other words, giving only one side of the argument and not equipping children to see both sides and think for themselves. My grandson will be gathering information calling ObamaCare into question. Our children need to be encouraged to learn how to debate and they need to see us as strong role models.

What Mrs. Curtis is doing is homeschooling her children in order to help them survive government school. The only thing she is modeling, though, is confusion: She is sending her children to public school only to have to teach them at home how to counteract what the public schools are doing to them. This doesn’t even involve how, as a Christian, she and her husband also have to counteract the humanistic teachings their children are subjected to.

Her approach assumes that government schools are redeemable. They are not. They are so entrenched in how they do things that no matter what measures parents take, their children will always be subjected to objectionable material. Mrs. Curtis shouldn’t be surprised that Obama wants to use the public school system to further his agenda. Any local control those systems had was long ago surrendered to state and federal influences.

Of even more concern is that Mrs. Curtis is a Christian author and speaker who has influence over Christian families.

Barack Obama tells a group of rabbis that:

“We are God’s partners in matters of life and death.”

It’s believed that Obama’s reference was to a prayer from services for the upcoming holiday of Rosh Hashanah. Problem is, that prayer doesn’t say that “We are God’s partners in matters of life and death.” It says that who will live and who will die in the next year is determined by the Lord on Rosh Hashanah, but that the decree of an untimely death can be modified by repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement).

Now, being God’s partner in something isn’t totally foreign to Jewish or even some Christian thought. Jews traditionally teach that we have been given the task of completing the creation of the world. Reform Jews, especially, would probably have no problem with Obama’s statement. I have a suspicion, though, that the more orthodox a Jew is, the more likely he would be to have a problem with Obama’s teaching. It’ll be interesting to see their response.

But, spoken in the context of a discussion on health care reform, the “partners in matters of life and death” is a bit disquieting and gives credence to Sarah Palin’s reference to a “death panel” under ObamaCare. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he meant it in the sense that providing health care to all people can mean the difference between life and death. Like always, though, Obama left himself wide open on this one.

But his activist view of man’s place in the world was known before this, which leads me to think that I shouldn’t give him the benefit of the doubt. In 2007, he said at a church appearance that:

“I am confident that we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth.”

Again, nothing original about a statement like this. Plenty of Christians and Jews believe that as well, but others believe the Messiah will need to return or appear for the first time for it to happen.

All in all, this seems like another Obama overreach and a sign of desperation to rally anyone he can to his health care efforts.

David Axelrod of the White House sent out an e-mail today in which he says that

we’ve launched a new online resource — WhiteHouse.gov/RealityCheck — to help you separate fact from fiction and share the truth about health insurance reform.

That’s good that there will be a more unified White House approach to defining what health care insurance reform looks like to the Obama admin.

However, it’s also pretty presumptive.

It assumes what a bill that arrives on the president’s desk to sign or veto will look like. What if a bill arrives that does mess with veterans’ benefits or obviously will limit the type of insurance or coverage or what have you? Does that mean Obama will veto it?

With his track record of keeping to promises, I doubt it.

The White House is looking for snitches to report on people spreading alleged “disinformation” about health insurance reform. (Note the new term, health insurance reform, which is actually more accurate regarding the aims of the bills in Congress but not accurate regarding what our Fearless Leader has been saying about getting doctors to accurately diagnose tonsillitis).

This is an amazing public relations blunder, even for the White House, which tries to top itself daily anymore.

What I’m asking you to do, though, is to send an e-mail to flag@whitehouse.gov and report me. Here is a link to anti-health care insurance reform posts I’ve made on this site. Please include it in your rat-out e-mail.

http://ranchomiller.wordpress.com/tag/health-care/

Now that I look at it, I’m somewhat ashamed that I’ve made so few posts regarding health care. I’ll have to fix that.

Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch updates the “Muslim country” situation. The White House has released the transcript of the interview. The pertinent section is this:

Now, the flip side is I think that the United States and the West generally, we have to educate ourselves more effectively on Islam. And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslims [sic] Americans, we’d be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world. And so there’s got to be a better dialogue and a better understanding between the two peoples.

That’s still not accurate. Spencer thinks Obama may have gotten this idea from Congressman Keith Ellison, himself a Muslim.

Does the cover-up of the IHS symbol for the name of Jesus during an address by Barack Obama at Georgetown University mean that:

• Obama wanted to obliterate reference to the Savior?
• Obama wanted to avoid unnecessary church-state entanglements (even though speaking at a Catholic university kind of assumes there will be such)?
• Obama modestly wanted to make sure there was no equation between himself and the Messiah?