August 17, 2009
Aug 17 14:20 Blois On Tea Parties, TPaw & Birthers Aug 17 00:16 Canadacare Imploding Aug 17 05:26 A Good Cycle For the GOP? Aug 17 06:30 Sit Back & Enjoy The Fight Aug 17 07:13 The Public Option ISN'T Dead Yet, Part II Aug 17 09:56 How's That Hope And Change Thing Working?
Prior Months: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul
Blois On Tea Parties, TPaw & Birthers
I've got the DVR set each Sunday morning for At Issue with Tom Hauser. This Sunday, Blois Olson represented the liberal perspective on the issues of the week. The first topic discussed during his panel with Annette Meeks was the contrived leadership summit that Gov. Pawlenty won't participate in.
After Meeks said that the event was contrived and that Gov. Pawlenty would have a bullseye painted on him from the time he walked in, Olson jumped in, saying that "We've known for 7 years that this governor has never liked criticism." That's true to the extent I wouldn't accept criticism from status quo politicians who haven't had a new idea in a decade without a fair amount of disdain for the complainers.
The DFL leadership operates from the same playbook year after year after year. Year after year, they get nothing accomplished that makes Minnesota more more attractive to business. Meanwhile, Gov. Pawlenty is constantly proposing one innovation aftter another, whether it's about health care, property taxes or education.
What's to be gained by attending this event with Sen. Pogemiller is invited? Gov. Pawlenty already knows what Sen. Pogemiller will say because he's been reading the same script since Gov. Pawlenty got elected into his current office. Gov. Pawlenty also knows that the odds of Sen. Pogemiller throwing a hissy fit are 75 percent, if not higher.
During the showdown portion of the show, our man Blois criticized the tea party movement's ruining health care reform. He then proceeded to insinuate that all tea party activists are birthers. That isn't credible since alot of the tea party attendees are Reagan Democrats and independents.
Thankfully, David Strom added a voice of sanity to the discussion, saying that, while it's true that some of the tea party activists have said some things that were over the top, it's equally true to say that they're just real people who are worried that their health care options might disappear. David cited past videos of President Obama saying he preferred the single-payer system as the basis for their legitimate fears.
Despite all the things I've said, that wasn't the highlight for me. The thing that was the highlight for me was our man Blois saying that the tea party activists are a real problem for Republicans going forward. I'll respectfully disagree. They're responsible for swinging the enthusiasm gap from being a major advantage for the Democrats last year to it being a major advantage for Republicans this year.
I agree that some tea party activists aren't the most eloquent speakers but that isn't as important as having something important to say. Most of the people who attended the Tax Day Tea Parties were people upset that President Obama and Speaker Pelosi passed a $787,000,000,000 stimulus bill without reading the bill's contents. The people who attended the Tax Day Tea Parties were also upset that President Obama was in bailout/takeover mode at the time. Alot of people that attended the Tax Day Tea Parties were people upset that President Obama's Homeland Security secretary, Janet Napolitano, said that returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan were potential recruits for domestic terrorists.
I know that had a good portion of the St. Cloud Tea Party audience upset because I talked with those people. That day's crowd was upset that the Democrat-controlled congress didn't seem to mind spending money at a record pace. They were also upset that Congress was bailing out the UAW under the guise of keeping GM workers employed. That day's crowd knew the bailout was aimed at helping the UAW.
Speaking from firsthand interaction with the crowd, the Tax Day Tea Party was one of the most informed groups of people I've interacted with. For Blois Olson to attempt to discredit them on the basis of what a handful of people say is irresponsible. It's also something I'd expect from the DFL's talking points on Tea Party activists.
Our upcoming Tea Party event will stress the themes of fiscal responsibility and accountability. As the day nears, I'll be supplying you with specific information on the event. For now, just mark Sept. 12 down on your calendar as the big day. Suffice it to say that we've got an star-studded lineup of speakers mixed with everyday people who happen to be passionate activists, too.
Posted Monday, August 17, 2009 2:20 PM
Comment 1 by R-Five at 17-Aug-09 09:57 PM
1. I watch @issue regularly, too, had the same reaction to Blois's almost juvenile perspectives.
2. When it comes to thin skin, it is Pogemiller that can't take as we saw twice recently.
3. Pawlenty would be a fool to engage in this silly leadership conference created to save DFL face. He is clearly the intended target as everyone on both sides of the aisle knows.
4. If the subject is leadership, why should Pogemiller be invited? It should be open to real leaders only, not people who simply accuse others of not leading, i.e., vote his way.
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 18-Aug-09 01:44 AM
I couldn't agree more on not inviting Pogemiller. If anything, he should be sent to a remedial course in leadership.
Canadacare Imploding
I've long thought that Canadacare was vastly overrated. Thanks to Drudge highlighting this article , I now have proof galore that Canadacare is a disaster. Here's what I'm referring to:
SASKATOON - The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says this country's health-care system is sick and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it.Health care systems that aren't "patient-centred" are worthless. If the patient's needs aren't the health care system's highest priority, then that system's priorities are worthless. PERIOD.
Dr. Anne Doig says patients are getting less than optimal care and she adds that physicians from across the country, who will gather in Saskatoon on Sunday for their annual meeting, recognize that changes must be made.
"We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize," Doig said in an interview with The Canadian Press. "We know that there must be change," she said. "We're all running flat out, we're all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands."
The pitch for change at the conference is to start with a presentation from Dr. Robert Ouellet, the current president of the CMA, who has said there's a critical need to make Canada's health-care system patient-centred.
Who cares if everyone is insured if there are 17 week waiting periods for primary care physicians and longer waits for specialists? Who cares if everyone is insured if Canada has one-third of the MRI machines per capita that the United States has?
The question that conservatives should've been asking John Q. Public is whether they were willing to trade breakthroughs in equipment and life-saving procedures so that everyone is insured. We've failed in that type of messaging. Starting immediately, I won't make that same messaging mistake again.
It must've about killed them to write this:
His thoughts on the issue are already clear. Ouellet has been saying since his return that "a health-care revolution has passed us by," that it's possible to make wait lists disappear while maintaining universal coverage and "that competition should be welcomed, not feared." In other words, Ouellet believes there could be a role for private health-care delivery within the public system .It must've been painful for someone who's worked in a single-payer system to admit that "competition should be welcomed, not feared." It must've been eye-opening and painful. While Obama and the Democrats have tried extolling the virtues of single-payer, albeit in code, Canada is moving in our direction. (Isn't irony wonderful?)
Doig says there are some "very good things" about Canada's health-care system, but she points out that many people have stories about times when things didn't go well for them or their family.Obviously, Canada's system won't look like a competition-based system anytime soon. Still, it's instructive to me that people are rethinking their socialist system and pondering a competition-based system. It might not sound dramatic when phrased that way but glasnost and perestroika didn't sound threatening to the former Soviet Union when Gorbachev announced them, either. Thanks to the lens of history, we know how that turned out.
"(Canadians) have to understand that the system that we have right now, if it keeps on going without change, is not sustainable," said Doig. "They have to look at the evidence that's being presented and will be presented at (the meeting) and realize what Canada's doctors are trying to tell you, that you can get better care than what you're getting and we all have to participate in the discussion around how do we do that and of course how do we pay for it."
Posted Monday, August 17, 2009 12:22 AM
Comment 1 by R Johnson at 17-Aug-09 01:15 PM
Canada needs to take a look at the Healty Americans ACT. Google and Bing have a lot of info about it.
This proposal is truly Free Market principals at it's best and it takes the Coporate world out of deciding our Health Care premiums and Health Care choices
A Good Cycle For the GOP?
I've thought for awhile that this might be a very good cycle for GOP gubernatorial candidates. After hearing that Wisconsin's Gov. Doyle will announce he isn't running for re-elction , I'm convinced that Democratic incumbents will have trouble this cycle. Here's the lowdown on Gov. Doyle:
Gov. Jim Doyle on Monday will announce that he won't seek re-election to a third term in 2010, prompting the state's first wide-open gubernatorial race since 1982.Gov. Doyle's approval rating is pathetic:
A spokeswoman for Doyle said Saturday the governor will announce his future political plans on Monday, although she declined to provide details. Carol Andrews, the governor's communications director, disclosed that Doyle would be making the announcement after Politico reported Doyle has told associates he won't seek re-election.
Doyle's approval rating was 43% and disapproval rating 48%, with the 9% remaining undecided or unsure, in a survey by Daily Kos/Research 2000 conducted June 8 to 10. The poll of 600 likely voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.In other words, he sidestepped a disaster that was surely headed in his direction.
An automated phone poll by Public Policy Polling showed that 34% supported Doyle's record, 60% disapproved and 6% were unsure. The June 9 to 10 poll of 2006 or '08 voters had a margin of error of plus or minus of 4.1 percentage points, according to Tom Jensen, a spokesman for the Raleigh, N.C., company that conducted the poll.
I found this interesting tidbit of information from another article that's definitely worth mentioning with regards to this cycle's elections:
Ed Goeas, a Republican pollster in Washington who is working for Republican gubernatorial candidate John R. Kasich of Ohio, said: "There's a bigger issue than just health care. What I am seeing in state after state is the No. 1 issue is wasteful government spending."Ed Goeas is one of the best pollsters of this generation. Many is the time I've watched him on panels discussing everything from polling methodology to predicting election outcomes. He's extremely astute. That's why I take notice when I read him saying that "the No. 1 issue is wasteful government spending."
This isn't entirely surprising. It's just a cornerstone tidbit of information to remember throughout this election cycle. I'd suggest that every conservative blogger and every GOP strategist should remember that information anytime the Democrats start surging in the polls. The minute the Democrats start gaining traction, remind people that they're the party of out-of-control spending. In DC, we can highlight the fact that they got 3 votes from Republicans on the stimulus bill and that they didn't get any votes for the omnibus or budget bills that are overloading us with debt.
Let's remind people that the omnibus bill that's funding the government this fiscal year only has Democratic fingerprints on it. Let's remind them that the $1.8 trillion deficit this year only has 3 sets of GOP fingerprints on it.
I don't know who the eventual candidates will be to replace Gov. Doyle. Still, I like the Republican's chances because people trust Republicans more than Democrats on the subject of fiscal responsibility. That's what's fueling this conservative revival.
Posted Monday, August 17, 2009 5:28 AM
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Sit Back & Enjoy The Fight
Now that Kathleen Sebelius and Kent Conrad have said that the public option is essentially off the table, something that I'm not buying BTW , the progressives are throwing a hissy fit :
On the same day that a Cabinet member signaled the administration's willingness to forego inclusion of a public health insurance option in the final version of health care reform legislation, a Texas Democrat who is also a registered nurse suggested that the public option might be a deal breaker for at least some House Democrats.This is getting delicious. The moderate-sounding Democrats are urging the radicals-progressives to not commit political suicide. The radicals-progressives hold safe seats so they're rejecting that offer. A food fight is about to start between the moderate-sounding Democrats and the radicals-progressives.
"It would be very, very difficult," to support a bill that lacked a public health insurance option, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson said Sunday on CNN's State of the Union, "because, without the public option, we'll have the same number of people uninsured. If the insurance companies wanted to insure these people now, they'd be insured.
Johnson added that "an option that would give the private insurance companies a little competition" is "the only way" to be sure that insurance is available to low income people and people without employer-provided coverage.
That means one thing to me: pull up a soft recliner and watch the food fight destroy the Democratic Party. There's nothing quite as fun as watching the Democrats get complacent before starting a food fight.
PS- Feel free to grab an adult beverage or light up a fine cigar if you're inclined to do so as these things have been known to enhance the enjoyment.
Posted Monday, August 17, 2009 6:34 AM
Comment 1 by Brad C at 17-Aug-09 09:56 AM
Nothing makes me happier than watching Nancy Pelosi's hackles rise and she gets ready for a fight, especially one she can not win. I remember seeing her talking to a group of illegal immigrants and promising them the world, something a public health plan would have given them. You're right, sit back and enjoy the fight, it should be a doozie. Between newly elected representatives looking towards re-election and dems from generally conservative areas, there will never be enough votes for a public option, and seeing the Dems seethe at each other like a bunch of snakes palced in a burlap sack will be enjoyable.
The biggets fallacy is that a public option would compete with private insurance... you can not compete with the government. You can not compete with an entity that does not need to show a profit. Its impossible.
The Public Option ISN'T Dead Yet, Part II
This is getting more fun by the minute. Now the Obama administration is walking Kathy Sebelius's statement, saying they aren't waving the white flag on the public option :
An administration official said tonight that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius "misspoke" when she told CNN this morning that a government run health insurance option "is not an essential part" of reform. This official asked not to be identified in exchange for providing clarity about the intentions of the President. The official said that the White House did not intend to change its messaging and that Sebelius simply meant to echo the president, who has acknowledged that the public option is a tough sell in the Senate and is, at the same time, a must-pass for House Democrats, and is not, in the president's view, the most important element of the reform package.Now that's what I call professional messaging. NOT!!! No wonder they're losing this fight. The HHS secretary says that the public option isn't an essential element of health care reform. A White House official says that it's difficult walking a tightrope considering the fact that the far left progressives insist on single-payer while timid moderates insist on committing political mass suicide.
Meanwhile, President Obama says that there's alot of tension in all this because it won't be easy for him to hand out the amounts of goodies it'll take to buy off enough Blue Dogs in the Senate or enough progressives in the House.
If that isn't enough, Senate Democrats announced that they were removing the death panel provision from their bill right after they denied such a provision existed.
Meanwhile, the American people are watching the different wings of the Democratic Party fight amongst themselves like children going through terrible twos. Though they're probably enjoying the calamity, at some point, John Q. Public will tire of the Democrats' infighting, decide that hopeandchange was just a bill of goods, and elect Republicans because they'll pass for adults.
The Democrats' messaging is proof to me that there is a God in Heaven and that He is indeed good. My suggestion? Sit back and watch the fight .
Posted Monday, August 17, 2009 7:15 AM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 17-Aug-09 07:30 AM
Oh, no. Don't sit back. Get "on the air" with a blow-by-blow and an emphasis on what power-drunk buffoons these folks are. The MSM, remember, is going to highlight the immense progress being made by our hard-working Congress on a difficult national problem.
Comment 2 by Brad C at 17-Aug-09 09:58 AM
Remember: "To desire Change for the sake of Change without understanding the consequence of that Change is the greates of follies". People wanted soemthing different so badly, they didn't allow themselves to see the repercussions. They finally are, and like the Americans that I am proud to a member of, they are fighting back.
Just wish we could have avoided this fight all together- McCain may not have been the best choice, but a mummy is better than a vampire any day.
How's That Hope And Change Thing Working?
Being an influential member of the Conservative Regime in Exile, I got this e-letter update from Rep. Mike Pence on the subject of ARRA:
WASHINGTON, DC-U.S. Congressman Mike Pence, Chairman of the House Republican Conference, issued the following statement today regarding the six month anniversary of President Obama's signing of the economic stimulus package:While the stimulus bill was working its way through Congress, Republicans criticized the bill because it was just a spending bill. Here's President Obama's reaction at the time:
"Six months ago today, President Obama signed a stimulus bill with the promise that government spending would put Americans back to work. Congress was told that borrowing another $1 trillion would prevent unemployment from rising over 8% nationwide. With the loss of more than two million jobs since the stimulus was signed and unemployment at 9.4%, the results are in: the stimulus isn't working. This Administration and this Congress have failed to keep their promise to the American people.
"The American people know we can't borrow and spend our way back to a growing economy. Thousands of Americans are filling town hall meetings expressing outrage and disappointment at the policies of a Congress and an Administration that promised to mend our economy and get people back to work, and that has only offered more spending, more deficits, more bailouts and more unemployment.
"In the next six months, Democrats in Washington should start working with House Republicans on real solutions to get this economy back on track: fiscal discipline in Washington, D.C and fast-acting tax relief for working families and small businesses. The American people deserve solutions to put our nation back to work, not more empty promises from Washington, D.C."
"So then you get the argument, well, this is not a stimulus bill, this is a spending bill. What do you think a stimulus is? (Laughter and applause.) That's the whole point. No seriously. (Laughter.) That's the point. (Applause.)"Had President Obama understood that a stimulus bill isn't a spending bill built whose priority was paying off one's political allies, he might've focused the bill on high priority infrastructure projects and tax cuts that incentivize investment and job creation.
Instead, President Obama chose to foolishly spend $787,000,000,000 without a plan for reviving the economy. He now owns this economy, lost jobs and all.
Posted Monday, August 17, 2009 10:00 AM
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