The time for debate is over.

So is the time for studies demonstrating PelosiCare will increase premiums by a cumulative $20,700 between 2013 and 2019.

Or else.

Or else Nancy Pelosi just might want to investigate the industry for antitrust violations.

No longer able to sit idly by while the President and his chief minion in the House amateurishly try to revamp one-sixth of the U.S. economy, the health insurance industry released a study they commissioned that analyzes the costs of the Obama-Pelosi plan. The results are quite sobering. The study shows that "between 2010 and 2019 the cumulative increases in the cost of a typical family policy under this reform proposal will be approximately $20,700 more than it would be under the current system." (Emphasis mine.)

Rather than challenge the study's results on merit, Obama and Pelosi wasted no time demonizing the health insurance industry with hyperbole and rhetoric. And then Pelosi lowered the boom, expressing "tremendous interest" in revoking the industry's decades-old antitrust exemption. This proved to be no empty threat, as the Democrat-run House Judiciary Committee promptly passed a bill to do exactly that.

Now, curtailing the health insurance industry's limited exemption from federal antitrust laws may or may not be good policy. But given the circumstances, this is beside the point.

The real issue is that Obama and Pelosi are using the power of Congress to muzzle the speech of a private sector industry, First Amendment be damned. It couldn't be more blatant. Stay quiet about their disaster of a health plan, and Obama and Pelosi will leave you alone. Point out how their plan will actually make matters worse, and Obama and Pelosi will hit you back with new laws that hurt your business.

If there are antitrust questions here, shouldn't they be investigated either way?

What is this apparent linkage? If you play ball we won't look into it, if you don't, we will?

Posted by: Ace at 10:28 AM | Comments (124)
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Fresh off their months long gubernatorial campaign against Republican Bob McDonnell and batting less than .500 with their endorsements, the Washington Post now claims that the scary Republicans actually will be moderates.

Behold what suddenly passes for moderation.

McDonnell and the other Republicans played down ideological issues Wednesday. When asked, House Republicans did say they will move to make Planned Parenthood ineligible for state funding and expand the death penalty.

...The governor-elect and other Republicans said they will move quickly to pass bills that will offer tax credits to new businesses, make it easier to open charter schools, authorize oil and gas drilling off the coast and privatize the state's liquor stores -- proposals Democrats have opposed in the past.

If a lower tax, anti-Planned Parenthood and drilling for oil agenda means you are moving to the center, Ich bein ein moderate!

So after spending months trying to portray McDonnell as Neanderthal who wanted to see women barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen, they finally get around to noticing that wasn't actually what he campaigned on.

Being a liberal media outlet means never having to say you are sorry.

Posted by: DrewM at 10:09 AM | Comments (79)
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Obama Stimulus...? Not ringing any bells.

What year is it? Is my name "Patient"? I think that nurse is stealing from me. Is it cold in here? Can we get to Red Lobster by 4:00? I have a coupon, or did, before my schvatze nurse stole it from me.

I know it's Florida, but... I don't think that anyone's going to buy Crist's attempt to plead dementia on his record.

Posted by: Ace at 09:25 AM | Comments (121)
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Worried about it. Might not "look" like all that much, you see.

Any other cool facts about Levi Johnston?

I heard he impregnates girls, refuses to take responsibility for his child and the child's mother, and then tries to turn that shady resume into some kind of paying gig. Anyone else hear that?

Posted by: Ace at 09:15 AM | Comments (161)
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All I can say is that as much as you might hate a RINO, there are more detestable creatures out there.

Democrats are hoping a growing conservative revolt within the GOP wreaks havoc on Republicans in the 2010 elections.

Republicans "are facing primaries from the right all over, and that's the only thing saving our asses," one Dem operative said of the push by fired-up fans of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh to purge their party of moderates.

...

"This is a big problem for the Republicans," an insider said.

Some conservatives agreed. "The Democrats won not because they were brilliant but because Republicans were stupid," said presidential contender and ex-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

I like primary challenges, myself. As long as the pieces are put back together afterwards, and everyone unites for a general, it's a win-win thing.

If not... Well. This is their plan. To just hope for disarray and anger in our caucus.

I may be a sell-out and not have integrity and whatever else but I desperately do not want strife after the primary challenges. From either side, the RINO side or the more conservative side. Fair is fair and a winner's a winner.

Posted by: Ace at 09:10 AM | Comments (91)
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A five year old girl was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer.

She passed a year later.

She hid a series of notes and cards for her parents to find after her death.

Whether this gives her parents comfort or makes it all the more unbearable I don't know.

Posted by: Ace at 09:03 AM | Comments (94)
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Levi Johnston is complaining that people are making stuff up about him.

On Conan, William Shatner read, poetically, tweets supposedly coming from Johnston, like "Where can I get some weed?" Conan said they were all real. Johnston says they'e not, or at least some weren't.

So here is unemployed attention whore Levi Johnston, attempting to get paid for dishing made-up crap about Sarah Palin, whining that people are speaking falsely about him.

When his kid grows up he can look up to a father who sought to make an income for himself by constantly slandering his grandmother and further hurting his mother.

Fixed It: tachyonshuggy suggests that what Johnston is doing is "whining that people are making what are obviously jokes and acting all butt-hurt about it like a little bitch."

I think that's correct. Butthurt.

Don't be butthurt, Levi.

Are you all butthurt that being an illegitimate father and making your child's mother into a single mother is not the high-paying gig and prestigious career you'd hoped it would be?

Posted by: Ace at 08:51 AM | Comments (87)
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At last, a plan that actually does precisely what it is sold as doing: Making health care insurance more affordable to the middle class and reducing the deficit, rather than making it more expensive and blowing up the deficit.

Flaming skull worthy? I think it damnwell is.

The CBO put the price tag for the GOP plan at $61 billion, a fraction of the $1.05 trillion cost estimate it gave to the House bill that lawmakers are set to vote on this weekend. And the CBO found that the Republican provision to reform medical malpractice liability would result in $41 billion in savings and increase revenues by $13 billion by reducing the cost of private health insurance plans. Â…

According to CBO, the GOP bill would indeed lower costs, particularly for small businesses that have trouble finding affordable health care policies for their employees. The report found rates would drop by seven to 10 percent for this group, and by five to eight percent for the individual market, where it can also be difficult to find affordable policies.

The GOP plan would have the smallest economic impact on the large group market that serves people working for large businesses that have access to the cheapest coverage. Those premiums would decline by zero to 3 percent, the CBO said.

That small reduction still accrues to those already with the cheapest insurance, of course, and those who already have it through their employers.

And the Democratic plan? Premiums will go up, taxes will go up, we all know that. He says we're trying to make them go up less than they would, but they're still going up.

He asks you to accept that there is no competing plan on the table that makes them actually go down.

But there is.

Posted by: Ace at 08:09 AM | Comments (130)
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Syria of course denies that a ship chock-full of Iranian weapons headed for the Hezb contained any weapons at all. The transparency of the Syrian lie is truly breathtaking. more...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 07:46 AM | Comments (59)
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Obama's not voting 'Present', he's voting "Past".

A year after his historic election, President Barack Obama sought to remind Americans on Wednesday the biggest problems he is grappling with -- from the economy to the war in Afghanistan -- are the legacy of his predecessor, George W. Bush.

... "One year ago, Americans all across this country went to the polls and cast ballots for the future they wanted to see," Obama said.

But he said his administration was also confronted with a "financial crisis that threatened to plunge our economy into a Great Depression, the worst that we've seen in generations."

"We had record deficits, two wars, frayed alliances around the world," Obama added.

He said his administration had acted swiftly to save the economy from "imminent collapse."

Let's consider what the Bush administration was facing on the one year anniversary of election day...a terror attack that left 3,000 people dead, an economy already in recession after their predecessors tech bubble run and now damaged by fear and uncertainty. They were also a whole month into the war in Afghanistan and listening to likes of the NY Times compare the campaign to the 'quagmire' of Vietnam.

But of course we all remember how Bush for months, if not years, blamed Bill Clinton for spending too much time screwing around with the interns when he should have been going after al Qaeda.

Bush was a leader. Obama is a whiner.

Keep fucking that chicken Barack. It's a sure winner.

*New headline from Ace

Posted by: DrewM at 06:51 AM | Comments (178)
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