Same Old Square Dance

Mark Steyn on the futility of trying the same, tired ideas and expecting different outcomes:

President Barack Obama was supposed to be “cool.” But he isn’t. He’s square. Not just mildly so, but embarrassingly square. He’s squaresville squared. It’s like you’re having a party with your friends, and he’s the cringe-making middle-age parent who wants to show he digs where the young people are at by grooving around in the middle of the dance floor all night long.

How do I know? I’ve been there, and I’ve been square. By “there,” I mean I’ve been in places that have tried all the cool Obama dance moves and eventually wised up to what utter clunkers they are.

A week ago, the House of Representatives passed some gargantuan “cap-and-trade” bill designed to “save” “the environment.” Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, accused those Neanderthals who voted against the bill of committing “treason against the planet.” By that standard, most of the planet is guilty of treason against the planet. I don’t mean just in the sense that China, already the world’s No. 1 CO2 emitter, and India and other rising economic powers have absolutely no intention of doing what the Democrats have done, no way, no how - because they don’t see why they should stay poor just because New York Times columnists think it’s good for them.

No, I mean that most of the developed world has already gone down the paved road of good intentions and is now frantically trying to pedal up out of it. New Zealand was one of the few Western nations to sign on to Kyoto and then attempt to abide by it - until New Zealanders realized they could only do so by destroying their economy. They introduced a Dem-style cap-and-trade regime - and last year they suspended it. In Australia, the Labor Government postponed implementation of its emissions-reduction program until 2011, and the Aussie Senate may scuttle it entirely. The Obama administration has gotten to the climate-change hop just as the glitter ball’s stopped whirling, and the band’s packing up its instruments.

It’s like watching the four millionth rerun of Saturday Night Fever expecting it to end differently. Folks like Paul Krugman are demanding even more “stimulus” spending even though the “old” stimulus has been increasing unemployment instead of producing jobs. Expecting different outcomes is a specialty of the left.

Out of control spend and tax programs beget new, bigger spend and tax proposals. Yet the song remains the same, the tired, dated dance steps go on endlessly under the strobe lights and the glitter ball. It ends the same way every time the movie plays.

The outcomes remain the same. Rapidly rising deficits. The only growth is in a bloated Federal bureaucracy needing ever increasing feedings of tax dollars. Tax dollars that are just not there as more and more people lose jobs as the economy spirals down, crushed under the increasing load of debt and the looming financial disaster all this spending will bring about.

Over and over and over, the same, tired, statist ideas that only lead to more statist ideas.

Go read the whole thing.

Life, Liberty And The Pursuit Of Happiness

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

God Bless America

Never Saw This One Coming

Sarah Palin will resign her office as governor of Alaska within weeks.

WASILLA, Alaska — In a stunning announcement, Gov. Sarah Palin said Friday morning she will resign her office in a few weeks.

Speculation has swirled for weeks, perhaps months that Palin would not seek re-election in 2010 as she pursues a political career on the national stage. The former vice presidential candidate has long been rumored to be considering a run at the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.

Palin did not address those rumors at the press conference at her Wasilla home, during which she did not take questions from reporters.

Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell will be inaugurated as her successor at the Governor’s Picnic at Pioneer Park in Fairbanks on Sunday, July 26, Palin said.

Wow. This is stunning. Is this a prelude to her running in 2012 or is she sick of all the circus acts going on in the media? We’ll have to wait to find out apparently.

Driving Away Your Cares

Cheerfully filched from The Anchoress.

It would be funnier if it wasn’t so close to being true.

Presstitution Ring

(Late to this story since I am still lucky enough to have a job.) The Washington Post has apparently recrossed its legs and decided not to offer full access to itself, its reporters, staff, members of Congress and assorted Obama administration officials to any and  all well-heeled lobbyists.

Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth said today she was canceling plans for an exclusive “salon” at her home where for as much as $250,000, the Post offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record access to “those powerful few” - Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff.”

With the Post newsroom in an uproar after POLITICO reported the solicitation, Weymouth said in an email to the staff that “a flier went out that was prepared by the Marketing department and was never vetted by me or by the newsroom. Had it been, the flier would have been immediately killed, because it completely misrepresented what we were trying to do.”

The flier stated the goals thusly:

“Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate,” says the one-page flier. “Underwrite and participate in this intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth … Bring your organization’s CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama Administration and Congressional leaders…..

One assumes the promotion went astray by failing to appear more as an upscale bordello instead of like a streetwalker near a lamppost.  

Whatever they were trying to do was simply pay for play. No matter how they try to dress it up.  One is reminded of the quote attributed to George Bernard Shaw: “We’ve already established what you are, ma’am. Now we’re just haggling over the price.” Only they appear to be haggling over the presentation of the wares, not the money.

UPDATE: The Post’s ombudsman reports that the Post has only committed to canceling the first bordello “salon“. Apparently, the “repackaging” will commence “Post”-haste. Perhaps a nice “personal Services” ad on Craig’s List.

This was more than a public relations disaster. This is several notches above that and well into “apocalypse” territory. The cancellation of just the one event pushes it past that line.

About Those Green Shoots

It turns out the green is just mold. Growing on the by-now ludicrous claims made in the past few months that the economy is turning around. 467,000 people lost jobs last month. The much-massaged unemployment rate inched up to 9.5%. (Whereas when the number of unemployed who have simply given up looking for work or who are taking whatever part-time jobs they can get are factored in, the unemployment rate now stands at an all-time record of 16.5%). In other words, this is bad and getting worse, not better.

Nearly 3.4 million jobs have been lost during the first half of 2009, more than the 3.1 million lost in all of 2008.

“It’s not the catastrophic numbers we saw earlier this year, but they’re still pretty damn lousy,” said Keith Hembre, chief economist with First American Funds.

The job losses don’t tell the full picture of the pain the labor market either. The average hourly work week fell to 33 hours from 33.1 hours in May, a record low in readings that go back to 1964. Average hourly wages were unchanged, so the shorter week shaved $1.85, or 0.3%, off of the average weekly paycheck.

The so-called underemployment rate, which counts those who are working part-time jobs because they couldn’t find a full-time position as well as discouraged job seekers who have stopped looking for work, rose to a record high 16.5%.

Those who have been out of work for six months or more, many who have run out of unemployment benefits, climbed to nearly 4.4 million, also a record high.

There are the usual raft of administration officials assuring everyone that the stimulus will kick in at any moment and everything will be all wonderful. Ponies for everyone! These would be the same liars optimists who swore that unemployment would stop at 8 % if the “stimulus” was passed. We are, in fact, worse off than the Obama administration predicted without a stimulus. By a rather large margin now.

The same incompetents people are also now assuring us that just as soon as they spend even more, everything will be even better than it is. Rational people shudder at the thought.

Here’s the fact: if something is supposed to stimulate the economy rapidly, it must be applied rapidly. The fact that most of the wonderful promised effects haven’t kicked in yet indicate that the “stimulus” was nothing more than a bloated spending plan, not meant to really do what it was supposed to but only to give out favors to friends.

That is one big reason things are going downhill as fast as they are. This is also why the administration makes nebulous claims of having “created or saved” 150,000 jobs, but can only name a dozen or so at any one time.

We have lost 3.4 million jobs in just the first half of the year. Versus 150,000 supposed saved or new jobs. You have to be completely unable to do math to not see the problem here. In which case, you would be perfectly suited to a job as an economic adviser to the current administration.

Hey! They created a job!

Indulgences

Robert Zubrin in Roll Call:

On June 25, the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate stabilization act, which would institute a cap-and-trade system to restrict Americans’ carbon emissions. While proponents of the bill have sought to argue that the costs of such a system would be negligible, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the bill proposes a massive and highly regressive tax on the U.S. economy, and could potentially cause not only extensive business failures, unemployment and privation within our borders, but starvation among poorer populations elsewhere.

To understand this, it is only necessary to look at the numbers. According to a report issued by the Environmental Protection Agency in April, by 2015 the price of carbon emission indulgences required by the bill for industries to operate could be expected to run between $13 and $17 per ton of CO2 emitted. It may be noted that this estimate was made by an Obama administration agency highly favorable to the bill and that it did not take into account the very real possibility that speculators might act aggressively to buy up all the available indulgences and then, acting like ticket scalpers, force industrial users to purchase them at greatly inflated prices. So these EPA figures for carbon emission costs should be viewed as minimal. That said, let’s stipulate the $15/ton midrange of the EPA estimate, and see what it implies.

The United States emits about 9 billion tons of CO2 per year. Therefore, at a rate of $15/ton fee for emission indulgences, the bill would impose a tax of $135 billion per year on the nation. Divided by the U.S. population of 300 million, that works out to a cost of $450 per year levied on every American man, woman or child, or $1,800 for a family of four. While for wealthy individuals like Al Gore such an impost might represent a mere pittance, for working families struggling hard to make ends meet it would be a very significant burden.

The whole scheme of the Marxman-Wacky bill hinges upon the sale of what Zubrin calls, repeatedly, “indulgences”. This is quite apt, since that is exactly what the carbon warrants - or whatever they term these fictitious instruments - are.

This is nothing more than a handout to “green” speculators to make money by trading “green” credits to rake in lots and lots of green “dead presidents” for themselves. And to pass the high costs of the trading in indulgences on to the people of this nation. We will all pay the price for the buying, selling and trading of these indulgences. Some will pay more - those who can least afford it.

Everything will cost more - and more and more - to pump money into the pockets of the “green” speculators. The numbers don’t add up to anything more than an opportunity for well-connected speculators to make money off the poorest, weakest members of this society. This is a brutally regressive taxation scheme, passed by Democrats who portray themselves as champions of the poor and weak.

It is the sale of indulgences, nothing more. To make money for Democrat-allied speculators. 

Someone had a few things to say about the sale of indulgences quite a few years ago:

The assurance of salvation by letters of pardon is vain, even though the commissary, nay, even though the pope himself, were to stake his soul upon it. - Martin Luther, Thesis 52

Those words were written almost 500 years ago now. They are no less true today.

Go read the whole thing to see how bad this bill is. It is very, very bad. I am calling it Marxman-Wacky for good reason.

Via Memeorandum.

42 to 19

That’s percentage of people who think the Marxman-Wacky bill will hurt the economy rather than help it. A new Rasmussen poll shows a two to one disparity between the two groups:

Americans have mixed feelings about the historic climate change bill that passed the House on Friday, but 42% say it will hurt the U.S. economy.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 19% believe the climate change bill passed by the House on Friday will help the economy. Fifteen percent (15%) say it will have no impact, and 24% are not sure.

A majority of both Republicans (56%) and adults not affiliated with either major political party (52%) think the bill will hurt the economy. Among Democrats, however, 30% say it will help the economy, 23% that it will hurt and 21% say it will have no impact.

That is not a strong showing even among Democrats. The numbers are disastrous for Democrats unless the economy recovers between now and election day 2010. But with the current unemployment, this appears unlikely.

An awful lot of Democrats have left their political throats exposed with this one vote.

Flunking Basic Math

Forbes on the Marxman-Wacky fraud bill:

Electricity is a good thing. It powers your computer, drives economic growth, transmits images from Tehran streets, keeps preemies alive in hospitals, prevents meat from rotting and enchants and cools you in movie theaters.

Yes, electricity is a good thing. Where does it come from?

In the U.S., electricity is produced from these sources. If you are reading this on a handheld and can’t read Wikipedia’s wonderful pie chart, here is the breakdown:

48.9% — Coal
20% — Natural Gas
19.3% — Nuclear
1.6% — Petroleum

Got that? A tick over 88% of U.S. electricity comes from three sources: coal, gas and nuclear. Petroleum brings the contribution of so-called “evil” energy–that is, energy that is carbon- or uranium-based–to almost 90%.

The remaining sources of U.S. electricity, the renewables, are, by comparison, tiny players:

7.1% — Hydroelectric
2.4% — Other Renewables
0.7% — Other

Hydroelectric accounts for 70% of renewable energy in America. But, of course, hydro is mostly tapped out. Almost every dam that could be built has been built. Ironically enough, political opposition to building more dams comes from the same crowd of tree huggers who oppose coal, gas and uranium.

Do you see where I’m going?

The Waxman-Markey bill that passed the House on Friday by a 219-212 margin will punitively tax energy sources that contribute 90% of current U.S. electricity (or 71% if you want to leave out nuclear). The taxes will be used to subsidize the 10% renewable contributors (but really just 3% after you leave out hydro).

I’ve pointed out before that wind energy is a bad bet. Yet this is deemed to be the future of this nation. Marxman-Wacky dooms the United States to a future of rapidly-rising energy costs and a much lower standard of living. On top of the, it hammers the economy while we are still in serious economic trouble. 

On top of that, the “science” this is based on is more faith than fact.

Start calling your Senators and help stop this monstrosity.

A Break With Tradition

Quite often, the winner of the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest, held annually at the Sonoma-Marin County Fair tends to be from the “Chinese Crested” breed. (Which, we suspect, is actually a huge, complicated practical joke on the part of the Chinese.) This is because the good looking Chinese Crested dogs can make a grown man cry for his mother.

However, there has been a break in the tradition this year. Enter a dog named Pabst:

A new champion has emerged in the competitive world of ugly-dog exhibitions. Pabst, a 4-year-old boxer mix, was crowned World’s Ugliest Dog at the annual event held at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in northern California on Friday.

Pabst, like many of the event’s competitors, is a rescue dog — owner Miles Egstad of Citrus Heights, Calif., adopted him from a shelter three years ago. He’s named for the well-known cheap adult beverage because, Egstad said, he had a “bitter beer face.”

Pabst’s win was something of an upset for the competition, now in its 21st year, which often appears to favor members of the Chinese crested breed. “Hairless” Chinese cresteds (which aren’t truly hairless, as tufts of fur sprout from their heads, feet and tails), with their tendency toward dental issues that cause their tongues to stick out, are typically World’s Ugliest Dog shoo-ins. (Chinese cresteds also come in a coated variety known as “powderpuff,” and hairless and coated puppies can even be born in the same litter. Understandably, however, the powderpuffs aren’t the regular victors in the Ugly Dog competition that the hairless dogs are.)

Pabst took the championship away from - wait for it - a Chinese Crested - who won the purebred category.  There hasn’t been this much excitement since Elwood - a Chinese Crested - won. (Well, ok, we didn’t post about last years winner, so we don’t have a lot of history to go on. Hey, we’re short on staff here.)

We will however, point out that Pabst looked very familiar when we first saw the picture of him. Then it hit us. Pabst looks distressingly like a gym teacher we had in junior high school. In fact, on close inspection, we are not at all sure that it is not the same creature.

Honduras

Go read Fausta, she has it all put together.

What is of concern here is that Obama, who ignored, belittled and reluctantly supported Iranian dissidents jumped right out to support a guy who was blatantly trying to destroy his country’s Constitution.

But Wait

There is no more. Billy Mays has died:

Internationally known TV product pitchman Billy Mays, who rose to the top of his profession with a boisterous persona that touched consumers and helped create more than $1 billion in merchandise sales, was found dead in his South Tampa home this morning .

His wife Deborah woke up and found Mays, 50, in bed and not breathing, Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said.

He was dead when Tampa Fire Rescue arrived at Mays’ house at 2853 Bowen Daniel Drive, where he was with his wife and 3-year-old daughter. The time of death was reported as 7:45 a.m.

My youngest boy actually told me about this. Personally, I do not watch a lot of television, but even so, I knew who Billy Mays was. I think that’s a pretty good epitaph for a TV pitchman.

Rest in Peace.

Target: Scientists Unwilling To Support AGW

The world’s left wing has a slightly different agenda focus than the US left:

Dr Mitchell Taylor has been researching the status and management of polar bears in Canada and around the Arctic Circle for 30 years, as both an academic and a government employee. More than once since 2006 he has made headlines by insisting that polar bear numbers, far from decreasing, are much higher than they were 30 years ago. Of the 19 different bear populations, almost all are increasing or at optimum levels, only two have for local reasons modestly declined.

Dr Taylor agrees that the Arctic has been warming over the last 30 years. But he ascribes this not to rising levels of CO2 - as is dictated by the computer models of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and believed by his PBSG colleagues - but to currents bringing warm water into the Arctic from the Pacific and the effect of winds blowing in from the Bering Sea.

He has also observed, however, how the melting of Arctic ice, supposedly threatening the survival of the bears, has rocketed to the top of the warmists’ agenda as their most iconic single cause. The famous photograph of two bears standing forlornly on a melting iceberg was produced thousands of times by Al Gore, the WWF and others as an emblem of how the bears faced extinction - until last year the photographer, Amanda Byrd, revealed that the bears, just off the Alaska coast, were in no danger. Her picture had nothing to do with global warming and was only taken because the wind-sculpted ice they were standing on made such a striking image.

Dr Taylor had obtained funding to attend this week’s meeting of the PBSG, but this was voted down by its members because of his views on global warming. The chairman, Dr Andy Derocher, a former university pupil of Dr Taylor’s, frankly explained in an email (which I was not sent by Dr Taylor) that his rejection had nothing to do with his undoubted expertise on polar bears: “it was the position you’ve taken on global warming that brought opposition”.

Please go over and read it all. It speaks volumes that the people pushing AGW are trying to shut down any dissent. People secure in their science have no need to do so.

The “science” of the AGW true believers, however, does not actually constitute science.

For example, there is, indeed, a loss of ice cover at the North Pole right now. But it is completely negated by the addition of ice at the South Pole. Net result for the planet: zero. 

Not that you’d read that in the MSM.

Via Memeorandum.

Target: Democrats

By the left:

In the high-stakes battle over health care, a growing cadre of liberal activists is aiming its sharpest firepower against Democratic senators who they accuse of being insufficiently committed to the cause.

The attacks — ranging from tart news releases to full-fledged advertising campaigns — have elicited rebuttals from lawmakers and sparked a debate inside the party over the best strategy for achieving President Obama’s top priority of a comprehensive health-system overhaul.

The rising tensions between Democratic legislators and constituencies that would typically be their natural allies underscore the high hurdles for Obama as he tries to hold together a diverse, fragile coalition. Activists say they are simply pressing for quick delivery of “true health reform,” but the intraparty rift runs the risk of alienating centrist Democrats who will be needed to pass a bill.

In recent days — and during this week’s congressional recess — left-leaning bloggers and grass-roots organizations such as MoveOn.org, Health Care for America Now and the Service Employees International Union have singled out Democratic Sens. Ben Nelson (Neb.), Mary Landrieu (La.), Ron Wyden (Ore.), Arlen Specter (Pa.) and Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) for the criticism more often reserved for opposition party members.

“Will Mary Landrieu sell out Louisiana for $1.6 million?” says one Internet ad that suggests a link between contributions she has received from the medical industry and her reluctance to back the creation of a government-sponsored insurance option.

Why the full frontal assault on Democrats? Simple. If Harry Reid can muster a simple majority, the leftist Democrats plan on blasting this health care “fix” (it is not) through, bypassing the normal rules of the Senate.  

What they are not calculating, I suspect, is that should they do so, they will own - wholly - the ire of those people who are forced off their private health insurance because their employers decided it was cheaper to pay than play in a rigged game.

If I were one of the targeted Democrats, my back would be up right now. I sincerely hope this effort by the likes of MorOn.org accomplishes exactly the same result as their attacks on the surge in Iraq: the opposite of what they intended. 

I’ll just point out that MorOn.org is very, very loud and knows how to grab left-leaning media attention. But in terms of actual strength, not so much. So the targeted Senators have no real reason to fear the sliming from such groups.

Via Memeorandum.

Lies, Damned Lies And Low, Low Medicare Administrative Costs

Tom Bevan at Real Clear Politics:

In fact, President Obama has made this claim several times. This statistic about Medicare’s low administrative costs has become one of the linchpins in the argument for a “public option” on health care. The only problem, not surprisingly, is that it’s hogwash.

The explanation is really quite simple, and it’s provided here by Robert Book of the Heritage Foundation. The statistic cited by Alter and Krugman uses administrative costs calculated as a percentage of total health care costs (For Medicare it’s roughly 3 percent and for private insurers it’s roughly 12 percent).

But here’s the catch: because Medicare is devoted to serving a population that is elderly, and therefore in need of greater levels of medical care, it generates significantly higher expenditures than private insurance plans, thus making administrative costs smaller as a percentage of total costs. This creates the appearance that Medicare is a model of administrative efficiency. What Jon Alter sees as a “miracle” is really just a statistical sleight of hand.

The fact is, on a per person basis, the government plans simply costs more in terms of administrative costs than competently run private sector insurance. Anyone who has ever dealt with any Federal agency knows that intuitively. Bevan calls this oft-touted statistic “hogwash”.

I’d call it an outright, intentional lie.