Tuesday, March 09, 2010

The Reagan Obama Debate (Video)

California vs. Texas

Doug Ross explores how that worked out:

Based upon: Michael Barone, Washington Examiner.

Cross-posted to CALPAL.

Pelosi: But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it

How many ways can you say incredible and mindboggling?

Speaking at the 2010 Legislative Conference for National Association of Counties Nancy Pelosi made the following statement:

“You’ve heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the other.  But I don’t know if you have heard that it is legislation for the future, not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America, where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for or out of pocket.  Prevention, prevention, prevention—it’s about diet, not diabetes. It’s going to be very, very exciting. 

“But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.

Has the woman lost what is left of her mind?

Reagan Forum with Mark Levin (Video)

On Friday, March 5, 2010 The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation welcomed Mark Levin for a Reagan Forum. Levin provided a philosophical, historical, and practical framework for revitalizing the conservative vision and ensuring the preservation of American Society.

For more information on the ongoing works of President Reagans Foundation, visit us at http://www.reaganfoundation.org

Saturday, March 06, 2010

CBO: Obama 2011 Budget Deficit $1.2 Trillion More than Predicted

• CBO: Obama’s Record Budget Deficits Even Worse Than Predicted

The AP reported:

A new congressional report released Friday says the United States’ long-term fiscal woes are even worse than predicted by President Barack Obama’s grim budget submission last month.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts that Obama’s budget plans would generate deficits over the upcoming decade that would total $9.8 trillion. That’s $1.2 trillion more than predicted by the administration.

The agency says its future-year predictions of tax revenues are more pessimistic than the administration’s. That’s because CBO projects slightly slower economic growth than the White House.

The CBO predicted that the federal deficit would hit $1.5 trillion in 2010 under President Barack Obama’s proposals.  This tops last year’s record deficit and is more than three times the deficit during George W. Bush’s last year in office.

• CBO: Obama 2011 budget deficit $1.2 trillion more than predicted

AP’s Andrew Taylor hits the media cyberwaves with the news that today’s CBO analysis of Obama’s 2011 budget plans would generate deficits totalling $9.8 trillion over the next decade…. $1.2 trillion more than predicted. But just as Harry Reid sluffed off a job loss of 36K last month as “a big day in America” Taylor also attempts to soften the blow.

Thursday, March 04, 2010

Dedicated to Barack Obama (Music Video)

You talk too much, you worry me to death,
You talk too much, you even worry my pet,
You just talk, you talk too much.

You talk about people that you don’t know,
You talk about people wherever you go,
You just talk, talk too much.

You talk about people that you’ve never seen,
You talk about people, you can make me scream,
You just talk, talk too much.

Those Who Actually Serve Oppose DADT

There have been blog posts after blog posts in the past couple of weeks, all by civilians, who write on and on about how it is time for the military to get with the program and institute the social agenda of said civilians. I have been active in the comment sections saying that civilians should not even have a voice at the table on the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) issue and that as far as I am concerned it is those on active duty and those who have served who are the voices, the only voices, that should be listened to. I’ve taken lots of flack. Well now we know what the military members think in a current poll and low and behold, I have been right, they don’t like it, they don’t want the policy changed. This poll supports what I knew all along from personal experience of being a Navy wife for 26 years and as a Mom who has spent lots of time around young men. Since I am a live and let live type who is basically tolerant of anyone’s private choices in life and have tried hard to raise my kids with the same attitude, my objections to lifting the DADT policy has never been one where I thought gays couldn’t serve honorably. My objections come from asking at what price should allowing this policy to be abandoned for an insignificant number of gays who want to serve their county honorably as opposed to the number who sign up to try to make their social agenda point?

• Poll: Military opposes DADT repeal

But why doesn’t CBS, CNN, and friends poll the folks who have to deal with the aftermath - our troops?

Military Times did in fact poll the military, and found that only 29.5% support the proposed repeal. Maybe some liberal in Rhode Island would feel better if gays/lesbians/bisexuals/intrasexuals/transgendered folks/and so on could openly serve, but it would appear that the folks in the mud and blood won’t. Another question that should have been asked was: Do you think that the effect of repealing DADT would be positive or negative? Who better to ask than those at the tip of the spear?

I am sure that the forthcoming RAND Corporation study that the DoD commissioned will show that there is no negative effect on our military’s readiness - and I wouldn’t be surprised if the study says that the repeal will actually INCREASE our readiness.

How is it that the government, whose primary function is national security, is clearly more concerned with social experimentation than they are with protecting the American people? Before we conduct more studies and form committees to push this nonsense, perhaps Americans would be better served if we defined our enemies and defeat them. Just a thought.

Those who serve in our military understand their mission and that mission does not include social experimentation.

There is that Word Malignant Again

This time it is coupled with the another of the three words I most associate with Barack Obama, narcissist. The third is insidious, which does not show up in this article, yet is implied throughout.

A brutal assessment that, in our opinion, is spot on, a sample follows:

• Obama’s Malignant Narcissism

Sure, we’ve had lots of evidence about his oddities over the last two years—Obama giving the finger to Hillary during the campaign; Obama thrilling to the sound of his own voice echoing at the Berlin Victory Monument, using Karl Marx’s own words in Marx’s old haunting grounds; Obama speaking to the whole Muslim world from Al Azhar Mosque in Cairo; Obama rushing to Copenhagen to rescue a scientifically phony climate treaty; Obama suddenly looking enraged last week when Rep. Paul Ryan demonstrated with impeccable logic that ObamaCare just doesn’t add up. It’s simple arithmetic. That C-SPAN shot of Obama’s sudden expression of rage when he couldn’t answer Paul Ryan is now being analyzed frame-by-frame by the intelligence agencies of the world. Their psychological teams are trained to look for momentary facial expressions, to study this man in every conceivable way, to see out how his mind works. If he can change the destiny of nations you can be sure that lots of nations have whole KGB Directorates trying to read him. It’s hardly a perfect science, but they would be fools not to try.

They are not fools.

Here’s a partial checklist. You decide.

[...]

The biggest question is what real damage Obama may do to the country. This man has been entrusted with the greatest power in the world. He will have those powers for the next three years at least.

But he may not be able to emotionally tolerate any real limits on his need for self-aggrandizement and power. And still he can’t be allowed to beat the country into submission. 

That Was So Yesterday…

• Pelosi picks fellow Californian to take gavel after Rangel bows out

Yep! That was so yesterday…

Today

• Second Ways and Means boss ousted; Levin replaces Stark

Can you say disarray?

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Sarah Palin on Jay Leno (Videos)

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Sick and Tired of the Health Care and Glow-bull Warming Debates

And that’s all I have to say on that.

Residents Stunned as Hundreds of Fish Fall Out of the Sky

Too funny. It reminds me of a story I did a few years ago about frozen lizards falling from above, but apparently these fish were alive when they fell to the ground, hundreds of them. I know if it started raining fish, I would be a bit freaked out. The scientists are theorizing that they got swept up in a tornado.

• Residents stunned as hundreds of fish fall out of the sky over remote Australian desert town

Chilean Quake Likely Shifted Earth’s Axis, NASA Scientist Says

This boggles my mind, although after the glow-bull warming fiascos, I’m wary of any scientific statements based on computer models. Interesting nonetheless.

• Chilean Quake Likely Shifted Earth’s Axis, NASA Scientist Says

Earthquakes can involve shifting hundreds of kilometers of rock by several meters, changing the distribution of mass on the planet. This affects the Earth’s rotation, said Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who uses a computer model to calculate the effects.

“The length of the day should have gotten shorter by 1.26 microseconds (millionths of a second),” Gross, said today in an e-mailed reply to questions. “The axis about which the Earth’s mass is balanced should have moved by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters or 3 inches).”

Monday, March 01, 2010

D-Baggers Calling for Up and Down Vote on Health Care

Pelosi may be telling her D-bagger cohorts should sacrifice their jobs to pass health care, but would they really be that stupid, that foolish, to listen to her and do it? I just saw a repeat of the Sunday show where Rep. Paul Ryan told Chris Wallace that the votes aren’t there, but that Pelosi is a master arm twister so anything is possible. Who knows? It would be political suicide and November will be an election bloodbath, if they try this stunt of passing it with an up and down vote. Obama may be pushing for the Senate rules that allow up and down votes, sometimes, but the Senate isn’t the House, with its own rules. And Senators, in my opinion, are even more wedded to their own power, so does Obama really think they would be willing to sacrifice their careers for a president with only 44% personal approval and polls that consistently show that the electorate does not like nor want the Senate plan of Obamacare? Remind them that:

The support/opposition split on the health care bill, according to various pollsters:

Rasmussen: 41/56
Newsweek: 40/49
Public Policy Polling: 39/50
Pew: 38/50
Quinnipiac: 35/54
Ipsos/McClatchy: 37/51
NBC/WSJ: 31/46
CNN: 38/58
NPR: 39/55

The AP reported:

The White House called for a “simple up-or-down” vote on health care legislation Sunday as Speaker Nancy Pelosi appealed to House Democrats to get behind President Barack Obama’s chief domestic priority even it if threatens their political careers.

In voicing support for a simple majority vote, White House health reform director Nancy-Ann DeParle signaled Obama’s intention to push the Democratic-crafted bill under Senate rules that would overcome GOP stalling tactics.

Republicans unanimously oppose the Democratic proposals. Without GOP support, Obama’s only chance of emerging with a policy and political victory is to bypass the bipartisanship he promoted during his televised seven-hour health care summit Thursday.

“We’re not talking about changing any rules here,” DeParle said. “All the president’s talking about is: Do we need to address this problem and does it make sense to have a simple, up-or-down vote on whether or not we want to fix these problems?”

DeParle was optimistic that the president would have the votes to pass the massive bill. But none of legislation’s advocates who spoke on Sunday indicated that those votes were in hand.

(H/T: Gateway Pundit)

You can click the image to find your Senator or Representative or find the image link in the right sidebar anytime under “Places of Interest.” Call them!

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Racism

The only way to answer a bogus charge of racism by a D-bagger is to laugh in their face and tell them to look in the mirror.

• The Left Should Think Twice Before Charging ‘Racism’

Without Noah Webster’s knowledge, the definition of a “racist” has been diluted and redefined to mean “a person who disagrees with a liberal,” or in more explicit terms, “any individual who uses logic to divulge evidence of liberal malfeasance.” For years, the left has used race as a bully tactic to smear and debunk those on the receiving end of the label.  This desperate and exploitative attempt at winning political arguments comes at a great cost to democracy, interpersonal relations and our nation’s internal progress.

Read it all.

Five Decades of Federal Spending

Via Instapundit:

• From Cato: Five Decades of Federal Spending.

The question: Why does the left always blame defense for excess spending, especially when protecting us is government’s job #1? I think this chart puts the lie to that meme.

If It is Sunday, It Must Be Time for Funnies

The Funnies are almost all health care related this week and maybe it is just me, but I don’t get alot of them, and those I do get, I don’t think are all that funny, although as you scroll down through the long list, the ones about Toyota are much better. Maybe it is just that everything that can be said, has been said about health care and I don’t think what Obama is trying to ram through is funny at all. As usual, here is a sample, but see Flopping Aces for all the

Sunday Funnies

Happy Birthday GOP

Via Big Government:

Today, in 1854, the Republican Party is organized in Ripon, Wisconsin. One of its central planks is the abolition of slavery.

Olympic Pictograms Through the Ages (Video)

The Olympics are almost over and I’m already sad. I am an Olympic junkie. I love them and as they wind down, I’m already feeling withdrawal. My kids make fun of me because I cry, not at a US loss, but with tears of happiness for every athlete who gives all, no matter what country. I turn into every competitor’s Mom as they race down a hill or ice track, as they jump and spin on ice, or as they race around a track. I mean is there anything more beautiful, more uplifting, than seeing these young people give their all to represent their country and their sport? I enjoy every minute, even when NBC blows the coverage by interrupting with commercial after commercial. I love the bios, the stories of these great athletes, although again NBC sucks at this. Let’s face it, the cynical, scandalmonger Bob Costas is no Jim McKay. Mary Carillo’s features were really fun, however. But my overriding enjoyment cannot be spoiled, even by NBC.

So congratulations to all the athletes. You put on a damn fine show.

Here is a little parting history that is kind of fun.

Designer Steven Heller traces the evolution of the tiny symbols for each Olympic sport since their appearance in 1936.

Presidential Approval Index Now at -21

We the People Will Defend Our Liberty (Video)

This video brought tears to my eyes, tears of frustration, tears of emotion, and tears of determination. Please watch.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Presidential Tracking Poll Drops Again

Friday, February 26, 2010

Andrew Klavan: Liberalism Exposed: Beyond the Elitist, Preening America-Hating Stereotypes (Video)

Boehner: Freedom is a Right - GOP Leader Answers Your Health Care Questions (Video)

For more:

• Freedom is a Right, and Any Health Care Bill That Takes Away Americans’ Freedom is Wrong

Obama Picks Fox to Oversee the Henhouse

Is there any entity in America that has done more damage than the Unions, especially SEIU? These moneygrabbers have nearly bankrupt California and are well on their way to bankrupting the United States. Unions! Yuck! My experience with union workers is that they are slothful and arrogant and a bunch of prima donas. Now, Obama appoints the head of SEIU as a member of his so-called debt commission. Disband the Unions, I say, and for heaven’s sake, don’t put the worst offender in a position to come up with solutions on the deficit. Criminey, Stern and his SEIU thugs are largely responsible for much of our problems. The Union demands have ruined American car companies, absolutely destroyed the economy of my state and who knows how many others. One more instance of Obama’s ignorance, socialism, and desire to destroy American ingenuity and capitalism.

• Obama Makes Picks for Debt Commission

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama rounded out his appointments to his new deficit commission, naming former Federal Reserve Vice Chair Alice Rivlin and three others to serve on the panel.

In addition to Ms. Rivlin, Mr. Obama appointed Honeywell International Inc. Chief Executive David Cote, Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern, and former Young & Rubicam Chief Executive Ann Fudge to the commission.

“I am proud that these distinguished individuals have agreed to work to build a bipartisan consensus to put America on the path toward fiscal reform and responsibility,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. “I know they’ll take up their work with the sense of integrity and strength of commitment that the American people deserve and America’s future demands.”

[...]

Mr. Obama established the 18-member commission with an executive order last week, saying the panel is needed because addressing the deficit’s disturbing trajectory has proven difficult for lawmakers.

The commission’s goal is to slash the budget gap to around 3% of gross domestic product by 2015, from its projected level of 10.6% in the current fiscal year. Mr. Obama has indicated that nothing, including middle-class tax increases, will be off the table for the panel, despite his long-running pledge not to boost taxes on households making less than $250,000.

Uh huh. He really wants to slash the budget gap. So far his goal has been to put as many people on the public dole in government jobs so he can make his bogus claims about jobs saved or created. Does it ever occur to him that it is the private sector that produces things of value, whereas the government is just a giant mouth sucking the blood and money out of the economy.

...showing without a doubt that during the last two years the number of public employees has increased from 22.3 million in January 2008 to 22.4 million in January 2010, after peaking at 22.6 million in July 2009.  Not that impressive you will say. Well, excuse me but it certainly beats being a private employee during that same period of time. The number of private jobs decreased from 115.5 million in January 2008 to 107 million. That’s a loss of 8.7 million jobs in the private sector while the public sector gained almost 100,000 jobs.

Mr. Stern’s appointment to the panel triggered quick criticism from a conservative group. Katie Packer, executive director of the Workforce Fairness Institute, said in a statement that putting Stern on the panel “doesn’t pass the laugh test.”

“It appears we have moved from the state of the surreal to the land of outright insanity if our leaders are now taking advice from Big Labor bosses who have run their own programs into the ground,” Ms. Packer said.

Wasn’t it just this morning that I read that Obama wants government work to go to Unions?  What happened to our competitive process? But then how would Obama ensure that the Chicago Way corruption continues to flourish without his precious unions? Here is an excerpt, but there is much more at the link:

• Obama To Use Contracts To Boost Unions

An appalling statistic just in itself.

administration officials see the plan as a way to shape social policy and lift more families into the middle class. It would affect contracts like those awarded to make Army uniforms, clean federal buildings and mow lawns at military bases.

Translation: Mr. Obama is going to steer government business to his union thugs and environmental whacko cronies, to reward them even further for their contributions and support.

This is what the Democrat machine does in Chicago. This is what they do in every city, county, state government where they have control. It is what they have done since long before Tammany Hall.

It is also what the ruling parties did in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. It is what they do in Cuba, Venezuela and China to this day.

Although the details are still being worked out, the outline of the plan is drawing fierce opposition from business groups and Republican lawmakers. They see it as a gift to organized labor and say it would drive up costs for the government in the face of a $1.3 trillion budget deficit.

“I’m suspicious of what the end goals are,” said Ben Brubeck, director of labor and federal procurement for Associated Builders and Contractors, which represents 25,000 construction-related companies. “It’s pretty clear the agenda is to give big labor an advantage in federal contracts.”

Critics also said the policy would put small businesses, many of which do not provide rich benefits, at a disadvantage…

CNN: Majority Say Federal Government a Threat to Citizen’s Rights

Americans overwhelmingly think that the U.S. government is broken. I agree. What do you think?

• CNN Poll: Majority says government a threat to citizens’ rights

A majority of Americans think the federal government poses a threat to rights of Americans, according to a new national poll.

Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government’s become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. Forty-four percent of those polled disagree.

The survey indicates a partisan divide on the question: only 37 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Independents and nearly 7 in 10 Republicans say the federal government poses a threat to the rights of Americans.

According to CNN poll numbers released Sunday, Americans overwhelmingly think that the U.S. government is broken – though the public overwhelmingly holds out hope that what’s broken can be fixed.

I don’t want to say I told you so, but I did tell you so over two years ago. 

White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers Stepping Down

In case you have forgotten, Rogers was supposed to be responsible for screening guests for White House functions and we all saw with the party crasher couple that she wasn’t very good at her job.

• Aide: White House social secretary Desiree Rogers to step down

White House social secretary Desiree Rogers will leave her post. Rogers was criticized by some lawmakers after an uninvited couple infiltrated President Obama’s first state dinner.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Glenn Beck & Pat Gray Act Out Letters that Obama Reads Every Night (Video)

Support for Israel in U.S. at 63%, Near Record High

• Support for Israel in U.S. at 63%, Near Record High

Health Care Summit - Is it All for Show? - Updated

Yes, I’m watching it. I missed some of the early morning session, but I’ve caught up through reading a couple of live-blogging sites and the comments that accompany them. So far, the Dems are not impressing me. The Republicans appear to have come exceptionally well prepared. Obama looks surly most of the time.

Will anything get accomplished? How can it when you have reports such as this from Politico:

After a brief period of consultation following the White House health reform summit, congressional Democrats plan to begin making the case next week for a massive, Democrats-only health care plan, party strategists told POLITICO.

A Democratic official said the six-hour summit was expected to “give a face to gridlock, in the form of House and Senate Republicans.”

Democrats plan to begin rhetorical, and perhaps legislative, steps toward the Democrats-only, or reconciliation, process early next week, the strategists said.

In other words, it is all for show.

RELATED:

• ABC News: Obama’s Wrong, Republicans Are Right On Health Care Premiums

Yuval Levin writes:

Beyond particular observations about individual exchanges or moments I would say the morning’s session suggests three broad points. First, the Democrats appear to have no particular purpose in mind for this event. They’re not driving anywhere, or making a clear individual case, while Republicans clearly want to get across the point that we should scrap the current bills and start over in pursuit of a few incremental steps. The Democrats may have thought that simply putting the spotlight on Republicans when the subject is health care would make the GOP look bad. But Republicans so far seem prepared enough and focused enough to avoid that, and to make the Democrats look rather aimless by comparison.

Second, the Democrats are going to great lengths to argue that their bill incorporates some Republican ideas—by which they mean that it includes insurance exchanges and the like—suggesting that this means they are moving in the direction of Republicans and toward some middle ground. They fail to see (or to acknowledge) that while some similar mechanisms may be proposed by wonks on both sides, Republicans and Democrats in fact want to move in nearly opposite directions from our current health-care arrangements: Republicans toward a genuine individual market and Democrats toward a greater socialization of costs. That makes a great deal of what Obama and the Democrats said this morning basically meaningless. (This is a point I tried to argue more fully in this space a while back.)

Third, an important part of the Democrats’ problem is that Obama himself is their only star, and this format is not working for him. He certainly seems engaged and well informed (even given a few misstatements of fact, at least one of which John Kyl made very clear.) But he doesn’t seem like the President of the United States—more like a slightly cranky committee chairman or a patronizing professor who thinks that saying something is “a legitimate argument” is a way to avoid having an argument. He is diminished by the circumstances, he’s cranky and prickly when challenged, and he’s got no one to help him. The other Democrats around the table have been worse than unimpressive. The Republicans seem genuinely well-prepared, seem to have thought through the question of who should speak about what rather carefully, and several of them have done quite a good job making their case against the Democrats’ approach. If we were to judge by debating points, Republicans certainly won the morning handily.

• Early “returns” good for Republicans

CNN’s David Gergen:

The folks in the White House just must be kicking themselves right now. They thought that coming out of Baltimore when the President went in and was mesmerizing and commanding in front of the House Republicans that he could do that again here today. That would revive health care and would change the public opinion about their health care bill and they can go on to victory. Just the opposite has happened

CNN’s Gloria Borger:

The Republicans have been very effective today. They really did come to play. They were very smart.

They took on the substance of a very complex issue. ... But they really stuck to the substance of this issue and tried to get to the heart of it and I think did a very good job.

They came in with a plan. They mapped it out.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer:

It looks like the Republicans certainly showed up ready to play.

The Hill’s A.B. Stoddard:

I think we need to start out by acknowledging Republicans brought their ‘A Team.’ They had doctors knowledgeable about the system, they brought substance to the table, and they, I thought, expressed interest in the reform. I thought in the lecture from Senator John McCain and on the issue of transparency, I thought today the Democrats were pretty much on their knees.

• Obama: Americans “Aren’t That Interested” In Whether Or Not The Senate Uses Reconciliation

Obama said:

You know, this issue of reconciliation has been brought up. Again I think the American people aren’t always all that interested in procedures inside the Senate.  I do think they want a vote on how we’re going to move this forward.

That’s a pretty shocking statement, given that according to Gallup 52% of Americans oppose using reconciliation.

Protest of the Health Care bill outside Blair House today:

• Obama Ends Bipartisan Summit With GOP By Threatening to Ram Obamacare Through Congress (Video)

• Health Care Summit Fact Check: Will Premiums Go Up?

President Obama and Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander made competing claims about how the Democratic plan would affect premiums. Sen. Alexander says premiums for those in the individual insurance (non-employer) market will go up an average of 10 to 13 percent. The president says it would only go up for those choosing better coverage and that “The costs for families for the same type of coverage that they’re currently receiving would go down 14 percent to 20 percent.”

Both cite a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of the Senate bill done at the request of Senator Evan Bayh.

Who is right?

Well, the CBO analysis does say, flatly, that “the average premium per person covered (including dependents) for new nongroup policies would be about 10 percent to 13 percent higher in 2016 than the average premium for nongroup coverage in that same year under current law.” This affects the roughly 17 percent of Americans below age 65 who do not get their insurance from their employers.

Why are premiums going up?  CBO cites the combination of three factors:

1. Premiums would be 27-30% higher because coverage would be better. The law, for example, requires that all policies cover maternity care, prescription drugs, mental health & substance abuse and no denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions.
2. Premiums would be 7 to 10 percent lower b/c of changes to the way the individual market is structured.
3. Premiums would be 7 to 10 percent lower b/c of an influx of more people, many of them healthy, into the insurance market.

The net effect of those three factors: Premiums would be 10 to 13 percent higher for the average policyholders.

President Obama’s claim of premium reductions of “14 to 20 percent” comes from adding factors two and three. The problem: You can’t ignore factor one. That’s why CBO’s conclusion is that, on average, people in the individual market would see their premiums go up 10 to 13 percent. You can keep your old, less generous plan, but only until 2018.

But it doesn’t end there.

Paul Ryan was great:

• Winners and losers from the health care summit

Pelosi sat there and lied through her teeth:

• Pelosi’s Misdirection on Public Funding for Abortion

Speaker Pelosi has her own idiosyncratic dictionary, one in which federal agencies can pay for abortion on demand without spending “public funds” or “taxpayer funds” for abortion. In ordinary English, however, this is deceptive claptrap. Every version of the health-care bill has contained multiple pro-abortion mandates and federal subsidies for abortion—except for the version that was fixed by adoption of the Stupak-Pitts amendment, over Speaker Pelosi’s objections.

President Obama and Senator Reid succeeded in keeping that fix out of the Senate bill—indeed, the Senate produced a final bill that is the most pro-abortion single piece of legislation to reach the floor of either house of Congress since Roe v. Wade. It would result in direct federal funding of abortion through Community Health Centers, tax subsidies for private plans that cover abortion (including some federally administered plans), and pro-abortion federal administrative mandates, among other problems. The Ben Nelson language in the Senate bill is unacceptable, but most of the problems are entirely outside the scope of the Nelson language.