Slublog writes (in a comment here) how important it is to push this disaster off until after the recess:

Another strike against the passage of ObamaCare is that some Democrat politicians are finally beginning to see just how angry some of their constituents are. The same politicians who dismissed the tea parties as a bunch of racist, right-wing teabaggers are now being openly mocked when they try to flack for the president's policies.

It's not just conservatives who are angry - the independents are as well. The main reason for the anger is that they were lied to, pure and simple. The voters were promised a moderate and they got a radical. And when they see their own Democrat Congressperson passing 1000+ page bills that will add to the deficit without reading them, it adds to the anger.

I wrote earlier about this. Obama's not merely going to face falling approval, but greater intensity of disapproval. Because people don't like to admit they're wrong; they'd rather excuse their intellectual error by blaming someone else and saying "I was lied to."

Of course, in this case, they're quite right.

Yeah, You Were Lied To: Obama's budgeters "forget" to cover higher doctor fees payments in their plan, for reasons I do not understand.

As in, no really, I do not understand this gibberish at all:

A senior administration official says billions of dollars to raise fees for doctors treating Medicare patients are not covered by President Barack Obama's pledge to pay for health care legislation.

Budget Director Peter Orszag said Tuesday that's because the administration always assumed the money would be spent to prevent a cut of more than 20 percent in doctor fees.

What does that even mean?

Anyway, I think I know the reason doctors' fees weren't covered:

The Congressional Budget Office said last Friday the higher payments cost $245 billion over 10 years. It said including the money in the overall bill would result in deficits totaling $239 billion.

Just slipped their minds to include that figure, eh?

Thanks to Uncle Jefe.

Posted by: Ace at 02:36 PM | Add Comment
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Skip down the update for the most important thing here.

Key finding in the report: Alaska doesn't permit legal defense funds. Something the report's author himself says makes no sense whatsoever.

As you might know, I doubted that these costs could drive Palin from office, because I assumed that a legal defense fund could cover any costs.

Apparently not. Or, at least, there is enough question about it that she could letigitimately fear being bankrupted by a vindictive blogger with nothing but time and spite on her hands.

And More for Palinites: Dennis Miller praises a column abut Peggy Noonan's jealousy over Sarah Palin.

The column's here. Worth a read.

Posted by: Ace at 02:03 PM | Add Comment
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Down, down, down:

That's the finding in a USA Today/Gallup poll released Tuesday. Forty-four percent of those questioned in the survey approve of how Obama's dealing with health care, while 50 percent do not.

The poll is the fourth national survey in the past month to suggest that the president's approval rating on health care reform is now under 50 percent, joining an ABC News/Washington Post poll, a CBS News survey, and a Quinnipiac University poll. It is the first poll to show the number who disapprove of Obama's track record on health care higher than the number who give Obama a positive rating on that issue.

"Obama's support on health care is similiiar to the pattern that polls found for Bill Clinton in 1993," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "In April of 1993, a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found 51 percent of Americans who approved of how Clinton was handling health care policy. By August of that year, Clinton's approval rating on health care had dropped to 44 percent."

Here's something I didn't know, from Kaus: It turns out that "access" to health care polls badly. I always imagined the opposite, that people were just wild about socialism in this area.

Not so. They know when we talk about "access" we're talking about raiding their wallets (and rationing their care) to cover someone else, so they don't like it.

That's apparently why Obama has apparently chosen to sell this abortion in terms of "reducing costs" and "bending the curve."

The problem with that is that he's actually attempting to reduce costs so he can increase access. So it's not about reducing costs per se -- it's about reducing costs and rationing enough that he can expand access to more non-paying people.

And that might be why this isn't working. Because, while he may talk about one more salable notion, people are getting word that in the actual details of the plan it's not about reducing costs, i.e., giving them the same or superior service for less money. It's about giving them inferior service so that more people can have that same level of inferior service.

Oh: And the premise that Obama will reduce costs at all -- even as he extends federally guaranteed coverage to millions of Americans -- is so risible that audiences are literally laughing out loud at such assertions.

And, to stress, the only reductions in cost at all (reductions more than offset by the huge new costs) will come at the expense of the currently insured, who will find that they must now sacrifice their personal health for the Greater Good of Lord God King Obama's plan.

(Incidentally, apologies if I earlier seemed to imply that Obama's plan really would cut costs. Of course it wouldn't. I was taking his claims at face value, for sake of argument.)

Highly Experimental Talking Points: If you saw the vid on Hot Air, you know that the RNC has decided that the word "experiment" is a winning one for Republicans. The Huffington Post got a leaked RNC report pushing the talking points:

* President Obama and Democrats are conducting a grand experiment with our economy, our country, and now our health care.

* President Obama's massive spending experiments have created more debt than at any other time in our nation's history.

* The President experimented with a $780 billion dollar budget-busting stimulus plan and unemployment is still rising. The President experimented with banks and auto companies, and now we're on the hook for tens of billions of dollars with no exit plan.

* Now the President is proposing more debt and more risk through a trillion dollar experiment with our health care.

* Democrats are proposing a government controlled health insurance system, which will control care, treatments, medicines and even what doctors a patient may see.

* This health care experiment will have consequences for generations, but President Obama and Democrats want to ram this legislation through Congress in two months.

* President Obama's health care experiment is too much, too fast, too soon. Our country cannot afford to fix health care through a rushed experiment.

* Americans want health care reform that addresses, not increases, cost or debt.

* Government takeover is the wrong way to go -- health care decisions should remain between the doctor and the patient.

I wouldn't have guessed "experiment" held a lot of rhetorical power, but that's why no one pays me for my insights.* Personally, I'm already overloaded on "experiment" myself, and I just saw one guy using the word. Steele said it about ten times.

I guess this sort of repetition works. But it sure seems transparent and silly.

* Well, you guys do pay me -- and thanks. But no one is putting me on a salary.

Thanks to AHFF Geoff.

Posted by: Ace at 01:44 PM | Add Comment
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Why only Santa Barbara? Because in this instance the oil producers were able to mollify the environmental freaks by shutting down oil rigs closer to the shore; these rigs will slant-drill from further out. They also agreed to shut down some production facilities by 2022.

This sort of compromise doesn't seem easily replicated, as most of the drilling we need is new and can't be offset by shutting down other rigs

It's not a clear win for Drill Here, Drill Now, but it's something. In the net, more oil will be produced. Assuming this isn't all sabotaged by the enviros through lawsuits.

Because California is in such dire financial straights they've actually agreed to start producing valuable goods again.

California could allow new oil drilling under a tentative agreement the state's governor and lawmakers reached to plug the state's $26.3 billion budget hole.

In a rare agreement with environmental groups, oil producer Plains Exploration & Production Co. (PXP) has proposed promptly expanding oil drilling off the coast of Santa Barbara, then shutting down four oil platforms and two onshore processing facilities in Santa Barbara by 2022. The company also agreed to donate 4,000 acres of land for public use. The company would slant-drill into the state's seafloor from a platform it operates in federal waters.

Environmental and community groups in Santa Barbara have hailed the project, called Tranquillon Ridge, as a major milestone in their efforts to shut down the oil rigs off Santa Barbara's coast. Current law allows offshore drilling operations that were in place prior to a 1981 moratorium on new offshore drilling to continue indefinitely.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has championed the project as a new source of desperately needed cash to fill the state's budget gap. The state would collect an up-front payment of $100 million from Plains, followed by and as much as $2.3 billion in royalties over the 13 years of the project.

The budget compromise supposedly ends the crisis without raising taxes. Which is a clearer victory.

Posted by: Ace at 11:18 AM | Comments (7)
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The following analysis is not mine at all. I would credit the author, except I forget who wrote it initially, or where, or even when. Still, it was persuasive enough that it stuck with me so that I can basically paraphrase his arguments from memory.

So, just to clear myself of plagiarism charges: What I'm writing here is in my words, but the idea isn't mine at all. I wish I could remember whose idea this was, but I can't. more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:25 AM | Add Comment
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It would be a major win if we can unseat that insufferable asshat Waxman. When he's setup to take donations, I'm going to throw him a few bucks.

UPDATE:

Rasmussen: Republicans lead dems in generic congressional ballot by 4 points. This number has waffled around back and forth since the Obama ascension, but in the last month it looks like it has solidly swung to the republican side.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 09:53 AM | Add Comment
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"Revolt" may be overstated. But they refused their support.

A key House committee on Tuesday indefinitely postponed voting on health care reform legislation after Democratic leaders were unable to line up enough votes from moderate members of their own party.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee canceled the session as it faced serious concerns about the legislation from fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats, who hold a large number of seats on the panel. The Energy and Commerce Committee is the only House panel with jurisdiction over health care that has not completed writing its version of the reform bill.

President Obama plans to meet with those Democrats Tuesday.

...

But he and his congressional allies still have a lot of Democrats to convince.

...

The two other House committees with jurisdiction over health care legislation -- Ways and Means and Education and Labor -- approved their versions of the package last week.

But the Energy and Commerce Committee was considered the toughest lift for advocates of the bill on the table, which could carry a price tag of up to $1.5 trillion over 10 years. The Blue Dog Democrats on the committee say they are worried about the cost of the bill, tax increases that could be attached to it and the speed at which the House is trying to adopt it.

The legislative process really begins, normally, when there is a consensus about the basic mechanism by which the law will operate. That basic consensus doesn't exist yet, partly because Obama hasn't clearly spelled out his "plan," and in any event, the public hasn't been convinced by his plan. (I don't think they would be convinced if he honestly shared his plan with them, but, whether I'm right or wrong about that, it seems clear there is no national consensus for a single payer plan.)

So these guys are trying to work out the details when the Big Picture is still in flux.

Ed has a post on a subject I wanted to write about -- rationing. The dirty little secret is that, yes, of course there is rationing now.

However, the most significant rationing that goes on now involves the difference in treatment of those who have health care insurance, or can pay for their care out of pocket, and those who don't. Those who can pay get better health care. Period. Those who can't pay are not, in fact, allowed to die in the street as in Victorian London, but they are not getting the standard of care that people who can pay do.

For one thing, they have to wait for everything.

A single-payer scheme would obliterate this distinction. Health care would be rationed in other ways -- Obama's plan calls for "bending" the health cost curve so that it doesn't become so expensive, but he mostly calls for that so that covering everyone becomes a non-bankrupting proposition -- but no longer would doctors make distinctions between those paying and the indigents they care for pro bono.

That's the entire point of "covering everyone." Obama and the Democrats think it's unfair that those who pay for health care get a better standard of care, and prompter service, and so forth, than those who don't, and wish to end this "Tyranny of Paying Customers."

This is a good deal for those currently getting that lesser standard of care. (But not all that good -- any country that does this immediately lowers its overall standard of care and the health care system becomes even more dysfunctional.)

It's a terrible deal for those who are currently "privileged" due to the fact they're actually paying for the services they seek.

The standard for those who pay will be reduced to a gray British-style medium-crappy standard of care, because it's only fair that we all have the same level of treatment, after all, and the standard off care will then have to fall for all the current payers, because there is only so many "units" of health care in the system, and if you're spreading them more equitably, that means you're moving some from the payers to those subsidized by those who pay.

I don't know if this is a good message for the Republican Party. It's "selfish" (as if the other side's position isn't similarly "selfish.")

But it is important that, before anyone sign up for this system, he correctly categorizes himself as someone currently "privileged" due to the fact he actually pays for what he's getting, either out of pocket or through his insurance, or someone unpriviledged due to the fact he's not paying and his coverage is paid for largely through excessive charges to those who pay.

For the latter, single payer is a step up. (Although, again, not as great a step up as hoped, because the system as a whole will inevitably become mediocre or worse, as it has everywhere else it has been tried.)

For everyone else -- for the 275+ million Americans who do have health care coverage -- your health care standard will become poorer, by necessity.

And, by the way: You'll have to pay a lot more for that privilege. Obama can't do this only by reducing the standard of care for everyone; money has to be injected into the system as well. So you'll be getting a worse standard of care and paying more for it to boot.

Again, I don't know if this is a winning message for the party itself, but it seems an important one. Maybe one that Tellers of Unkind Truths like Rush Limbaugh should get out there.

Posted by: Ace at 09:17 AM | Comments (4)
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Hey, who needs more of the most advanced fighters in the air today or tens of thousands of related jobs? Not Obama!

The Senate on Tuesday voted to strip $1.75 billion on seven additional F-22 jets that President Obama said was unnecessary and would doom a $680 bill authorizing defense spending plans for the coming fiscal year.

The 58-40 vote prevents Obama from carrying out a threat to use the first veto of his presidency if senators had kept the designation in the defense bill.

...According to Lockheed Martin Corp., the main contractor, 25,000 people are directly employed in building the plane, and another 70,000 have indirect links, particularly in Georgia, Texas and California. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., a supporter of the program, said there are 1,000 suppliers in 44 states.

Dodd, speaking on the Senate floor last week, questioned why Congress should approve $65 billion to prop up the automobile industry but can't spend $1.75 billion to support an important segment of the aerospace industry.

Obama just gave a statement about this and crowed about cutting what he termed a "waste" of money on an "outdated" program. This administration can't even find $100 million (less than the NY Yankees payroll) to "cut" across the government but they are awful quick to cut high end defense spending as 'waste'. Well, at least we've finally found some kind of spending Obama doesn't like. I guess there was no way for ACORN to muscle in on that sweet, sweet F-22 cash.

I get that Gates and others say the Raptor isn't any good in Iraq or Afghanistan but we aren't going to be fighting there forever. We simply can't assume that we'll never need the Raptor (Hello, China!) or that the JSF will be the end all and be all (they are different planes, with different roles).

It seems keeping your options open, especially until the JSF actually enters service, would be a good idea.

Update: We are screwed.

Remember, surrender isn't an accident, it's a plan.

I know "It's fucking cool" isn't a strategic metric but if it were, the F-22 would have survived. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 08:16 AM | Add Comment
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No great breaking news but a couple of things worth noting instead of breaking into a bunch of headline posts....

The Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee exercised their right to hold over the vote for a week until next Tuesday, the 28th. That will mean a vote by the full Senate sometime in early August.

Susan Collins, who laughingly still identifies herself as a Republican, joins Richard Lugar, Mel Martinez and her fellow Mainer Olympia Snowe on the pro-Sotomayor bandwagon.

And finally but most enjoyably, Arlen Specter is getting beat up by Rep Joe Sestak, his opponent in Pennsylvania's Democratic primary, for being too mean to Sotomayor during the hearings.

His campaign issued a release Monday bashing Specter for the way he handled himself during the confirmation hearings of judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court.

"Arlen Specter has announced he will vote for Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination -- but only after giving the first Latina nominee to the Supreme Court a worse grilling than his Republican colleagues," reads the release.

God, I'm so glad he's their problem now.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:35 AM | Comments (2)
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Yesterday Obama was whining about Republicans playing politics with health care refortm, looks like what he really needs to worry about are Democratic votes and not Republican strawmen.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee canceled the session as it faced serious concerns about the legislation from fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats, who hold a large number of seats on the panel. The Energy and Commerce Committee is the only House panel with jurisdiction over health care that has not completed writing its version of the reform bill.

This isn't the kind of news Obama wants to hear as he kicks off two days of trying to sell an increasingly skeptical public on his plan. The push will be capped off with a prime time press conference tomorrow night. 3 networks will carry it, Fox passed, but only after the White House agreed to move it up an hour an out of the more lucrative 9pm slot.

The stakes were particularly high for NBC, which airs the most-watched show of the summer, "America's Got Talent," at 9 p.m. This week, the reality hit includes a heavily promoted interview with "Britain's Got Talent" singing sensation Susan Boyle.

Sources said that NBC demonstrated reluctance to carry Obama's news conference live. Faced with the prospect of only one or two major broadcasters -- CBS and ABC -- covering the event, the White House moved its start time to 8 p.m.

Why would even Obama's own personal network balk at carrying it? Because his prime time shows have become increasingly unpopular.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:28 AM | Comments (1)
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