(Apologies to Irving Berlin)… We knew that Barack Obama was turning DC into a mecca for sucking at the public teat, but it perhaps was not as obvious until recently as to what extent this is occurring.  RedState member Fred Maidment sent this blog entry from The American to me this morning. It illustrates the depth to which Obama is influenced on “governmentalization” of the private sector.  The graphic tells it all:

Unsurprisingly, the low points come during the Democrat(ic) Kennedy, Carter, Clinton and Obama administrations. But the dearth of private sector experience in the Obama cabinet is almost breathtaking. As Nick Schulz notes, “over 90 percent of its prior experience was in the public sector”. Wow.

It shouldn’t be a “wow” moment, though. The Obama administration is promoting exactly what we have suspected it would - elimination of private sector industry in favor of government control. From banking to automotive to health care to “net neutrality” - the government takeover is already well under way. And we shouldn’t be surprised - they’re just doin’ what comes naturally.

The time is coming that the left is going to begin its drive for Single Payer Internet, and so the time has come for us to fight back. Finland is gradually nationalizing the Internet and declaring use of other people’s Internet hardware a “right,” and the left is cheering. Obama’s “Internet Czar” does not hide the left’s hopes for an end to freedom and markets for Internet service.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, President Barack Obama, and the rest of the radical left want to use the Net Neutrality movement as the crisis that gives cover to sweeping big government action, allowing the FCC to pick winners and losers and dictate to private individuals and firms how their private property must be run, putting government bureaucrats in charge of the Internet.

The dangers of the administration’s Net Neutrality plans are not theoretical:

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MSNBC’s First Read reported last night that the Obama Administration is now saying that illegal immigrants will be specifically prevented from obtaining coverage under the president’s health care proposal.  The chage comes on the heels of Rep. Joe Wilson’s (R-SC) “You lie!” outburst during Obama’s health care address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday.  Although the president denied from the rostrum of the House chamber that illegals would be covered by the plan, the Administration thought it necessary to make changes to the existing proposal in order to clarify the issue.

But the bigger story the MSNBC missed with its focus on the Wilson flap is found in the second bullet point sent out by the White House last night.  The Obama Administration inadvertently confirmed that the president’s plan will begin a slow take over of the health care system by the federal government.  How else could this be interpreted?

“Undocumented immigrants would be able to buy insurance in the non-exchange private market, just as they do today. That market will shrink as the exchange takes hold, but it will still exist and will be subject to reforms such as the bans on pre-existing conditions and caps.”

In other words, as the federal exchange takes hold, plans not complying with the federal government’s standards will start to disappear.  Eventually, it won’t make any sense for any company to offer health insurance as the federal requirements will make the business of providing health insurance far too expensive, and the premiums far too expensive for the insured.

The result will be that everyone will wind up with no other “choice” than the so-called public option, just as the Administration has planned all along.  It took Wilson “calling out” the president’s “misinformation” and “lies” to finally get the Administration to admit it.

The argument from federalism: One of the great benefits of federalism is that the states can act as the laboratories of democracy.  If a new public policy is tried in the states and works (as happened with welfare reform in Michigan and Wisconsin), then a similar program has a good chance of succeeding at the national level.  The welfare reform went national and proved to be one of the most successful public policy initiatives of the last half century.  On the other hand, major governmental healthcare initiatives have been tried in Tennessee and Massachusetts.  Neither of those have panned out.  That should be a cautionary sign to avoid rushing ahead to just get a bill done!

The argument from misery: I cannot think of any encounter with my government that I willingly seek out.  I hate going to the DMV.  I hate going to the post office.  I hate getting my car inspected.  I hate getting a passport renewed.  All of these things eat up productive time in my day and are filled with useless, inefficient waiting.  This basic situation also applies to people who rely on the government for their healthcare.  When my wife did indigent care in Houston, her clients did not pay for her services.  They paid with their time.  LOTS OF WAITING.  I don’t need more waiting in my life.  And because government employees are typically unionized, I don’t need to be at the mercy of a bunch of unionized employees any more than I already am.

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Contra Gateway Pundit (and Hot Air), I am not certain that Senator Bernie Sanders (Socialist-VT) actually meant to imply that the Democrats were going to destroy private health insurers. Given that he is in fact a socialist, it may be that being one has finally killed enough brain cells to make him not notice that he answered the question so poorly.

[Update: I'm reminded that video isn't universally accessible. Transcript, also via Gateway Pundit:]

FOX News analyst: But they’re afraid. Private insurance companies are afraid that they will be put out of business. So why shouldn’t they fight it?

Sen. Sanders: They should be afraid. Let me tell you they should be afraid. I think when they deny people health care because somebody has breast cancer a few years ago, when they throw people off of health insurance because people were sick and ran up a health care bill they have a right to be exposed, a right to be afraid.

Look, it’s not my fault that intellectually speaking being a self-identified socialist in this day and age is much like being a self-identified Flat-Earther*. It just is.  And it makes you do dumb things, like tell private insurance companies that the United States Senate is coming after them with a mad gleam in its eye.  Given that, true or not, this is precisely the impression that current Senate leadership does not want to create… well.  To use the terminology of the guy that the Senator spent the last eight years ineffectually fighting: heckuva job there, Bernie.

Moe Lane

PS: More seriously, please remember: no matter what happens with the health care plan, neither Senator Sanders, his family, nor his close associates will ever suffer from the more onerous aspects of it. Because while all animals are equal, some animals are more equal than others.

*Well, except for the former’s higher historical body count.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Barack Obama’s new way socialism is really just as no way as it’s always been. But, regardless of the central American spirit that Obamaism attempts to defeat, it is proclaimed that he is only interested in fixing America. So, because he is only here to help, Obama is deemed a savior by his acolytes.

Another of Obama’s false fronts is his claim to be “just like” Abraham Lincoln, a facade he wears with relish. The claim is, after all, a perfect cover for his essentially anti-American agenda. What could be more American than the fulfillment of Lincoln’s efforts to free the slaves but a black man being elected to the presidency? The mere fact of his election seems to affirm the better angels of our nature.

But, here I’d like to report a quote that tends to show that Lincoln would not have approved of a president Barack Obama. Not because Obama is a black man, but because he is a socialist.

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Barack Obama arrives in Mexico for a brief visit today, and my quick perusal of the local press turns up an op-ed he wrote for Mexico City’s El Universal (translation my own):

Too often, the United States has not sought or maintained relations with its neighbors. We’ve allowed ourselves to be distracted by other priorities, without realizing that our progress is directly linked to progress in the whole American continent. My government is committed to the promise of a new day. We will renew and maintain more extensive relationships between United States and the hemisphere, for the sake of our common prosperity and our common security.

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I’ve never argued that Barack Obama is a communist, but Fidel Castro seems to recognize a fellow traveler. Castro endorses calls for an end to the U.S. embargo against Cuba and writes:

If President Barack Obama travels the world asserting, as he did in his very own country, that it is necessary to invest the sums needed to pull out of the financial crisis, to guarantee the homes where countless families live, to guarantee jobs for the American workers who are becoming unemployed by the millions, to install health services and quality education for all citizens, how can he reconcile that with blockade measures to impose his will over a country like Cuba?

[snip]

There is no need to emphasize what Cuba has always said: we do not fear dialogue with the United States. Nor do we need the confrontation to exist as some foolish people think: we exist precisely because we believe in our ideas and we have never feared dialogue with the adversary. It is the only way to secure friendship and peace among peoples.

You would think that the warm and loving embrace of Fidel Castro would be enough to signal to Barack Obama that he’s headed down the wrong road. After all, even he should see that the Cuban experiment hasn’t really been a roaring success. Maybe Obama thinks that Cuba would have worked out just fine if it was led by smarter people.

a) The kind of fool who has never held a real job?
b) The kind of fool who thinks there’s nothing un-American about using punitive taxation to drive the best baseball players in the world out of the United States?
c) The kind of fool who has been drinking too much bong water?

Judging by this post, probably all three?

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Well, well, well. Now that Captain Cowpatty’s manure is starting to stink up the place and the American people have decided it is starting to smell a hell of a lot like socialism, his poll numbers are dropping.

Polling data show that Mr. Obama’s approval rating is dropping and is below where George W. Bush was in an analogous period in 2001. Rasmussen Reports data shows that Mr. Obama’s net presidential approval rating — which is calculated by subtracting the number who strongly disapprove from the number who strongly approve — is just six, his lowest rating to date.

Overall, Rasmussen Reports shows a 56%-43% approval, with a third strongly disapproving of the president’s performance. This is a substantial degree of polarization so early in the administration. Mr. Obama has lost virtually all of his Republican support and a good part of his Independent support, and the trend is decidedly negative. . . .

There is also a clear sense in the polling that taxes will increase for all Americans because of the stimulus, notwithstanding what the president has said about taxes going down for 95% of Americans. Close to three-quarters expect that government spending will grow under this administration.

There are some caveats here.

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Believe it or not, the term “muddling through” comes from none other than ultra-Keynesian Paul Krugman, who kicked off today’s column by saying, “The Obama administration’s economic policy is already falling behind the curve, and there’s a real, growing danger that it will never catch up.”

It’s pretty clear that “muddling through a rescue” is about the kindest face that can possibly be put on the actions of an administration that has, since coming into power less than two months ago, overseen a drop of over 20% in the stock market an an increase in the unemployment rate (8.1%) to its highest level since December 1983.

Who’s Really Working for Failure Here?

For all the hullabaloo about Rush Limbaugh saying he wants President Obama to fail at the implementation of his far-left policies, Obama is proceeding as though he wants American businesses to fail — or, at very lest, as though taking advantage of the present opportunity to implement his far-left wealth-redistributing, government-growing, tax-hiking agenda is far more important to him than actually taking effective steps to abate and end this crisis. (Then again, perhaps he is simply too “overwhelmed by the economic meltdown,” as the UK Telegraph quotes “sources close to the White House” as saying, to think beyond his deeply-ingrained “expanding government is the answer to all problems, regardless of its proven failure every time it has been tried” ideology.

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We are all aware that Barack Obama is on the path to move the USA towards his vision of a socialist paradise.  Hidden in Obama’s budget proposal is another plan to raise taxes - but this time it’s being done on the backs of those who are trying to help the needy and unfortunate:  charities.  His budget proposal calls for reducing the deductibility of charitable contributions for high-income taxpayers (> $250K/yr).  The deduction would be limited to 28% instead of the 35% in place today.

The leftists who are in favor of this measure -  yet another soak-the-rich strategy - piously claim that “they should give out of the goodness of their hearts and not for the deduction”.  This is true, but it’s not reality and it’s not relevant.  In reality, many give not only to benefit the charity, but also to get the writeoff.  No matter what the motivation to give, this will inevitably impact charities by reducing that motivation.  And this impacts not only the giver, but the charities that receive the donations.

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Newsweek’s Jon Meacham and Evan Thomas are tired of all this talk of socialism. We need to stop talking about yesterday’s news, they say, and embrace the great new fact that America is already a socialist country. They chortle that
America is just like France. Meacham and Thomas chide Sean Hannity for using socialism as a dirty word because it “seems strangely beside the point.” The pair is enthusiastic about our new American socialist society!

We are a European country and we like it, claim the Newsweek duo. Unfortunately, they seem to misunderstand so very much about what they speak.

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