No one, that is, except Obama and his ideological allies.

This video needs to go viral. Not only does it inform people that the public option is just a Trojan Horse for single-payer, but it informs them of the liberals' fundamental bad faith and dishonesty.

It would be one thing if Obama were selling single-payer forthrightly. We could weight the pros and cons of it and then either give, or refuse, the informed consent of the patient involved.

But they're lying to us, trying to sell us on a radical surgery we neither want or need to by calling it something else and telling us it's "necessary" and denying that there are other, less invasive procedures we might try first.

Physician, reveal thyself.

Via Hot Air. Quote of the Day. Quote of the entire debate, I think.

Posted by: Ace at 08:37 AM | Comments (2)
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That's convenient.

Similar to the claims on TruthOut that an indictment had been sealed against Karl Rove. Just a matter of time before they unsealed it. But trust us, it's coming, some time in the future.

Stace McCain has been following this nonsense so you don't have to.

Update3: I just talked to my source again and learned the following.

Sarah and Todd will not be making their break up official for some time. . . .
However Todd is currently sleeping on the couch and, though they are still occupying the same house, the temperature is below freezing, if you get my drift. . . .

I get your drift the same way I get the drift of Page6 when it wants to put out an unsubstatiated and potentially actionable claim and so resorts to vagueries and euphemisms. Sure, I get that drift.

Incidentally, the Palins have a large home, which must include a guest room.

Sleeping on the couch? Why? He doesn't like beds?

Posted by: Ace at 08:25 AM | Add Comment
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That's a fair question and I think it's also fair to say the reasons have evolved since the Horse Soldiers rode toward Kabul with the Northern Alliance almost 8 years ago. That is an exceptional amount of time for us to be in armed conflict in one area, unprecedented actually. So we must have some damn good reasons for doing so. I think it is especially important to lay out the rationale for any continued action in the area as we are about to enter round II of battle with the Cut & Run caucus. The same folks who (quite wrongly) counseled retreat and eventual defeat in Iraq are gearing up for another Vietnamization, this time of the argument about Afghanistan. There is a weak piece in Politico attempting just this:

With the war in Afghanistan in its eighth year, with deaths and
casualties mounting and with no so-called victory in sight, perhaps it is time to recall the words of the late Sen. George Aiken (R-Vt).

There is a segment of the left that is fundamentally mired in the quagmire that is their thinking on any war. They seem to believe that absent a direct threat to the sovereignty and safety of the United States, there is no justification for fighting. I will stick with Von Clausewitz that war is the continuation of policy (diplomacy) by other means. Diplomatic solutions occasionally come about when two entities find a mutually advantageous agreement, but also quite often it is the knowledge that there is an iron fist in that velvet glove which nudges things along. For that threat of force to be useful it must be credible that it would be used and effective if put into play. That was one of the reasons defeat in Iraq was intolerable. It would have destroyed the deterrent factor that American expeditionary power provides. Worse yet it would have emboldened both al Qaeda and Iran.

We entered the fight in Afghanistan with easily understood and justifiable cause. The initial phases of the war went extremely well and constituted one of the most impressive and effective uses of Special Ops in history. We routed the Taliban and swept them from power along with their foreign friends al Qaeda. They died when they stood to fight but those who didn't headed across the border to Pakistan. At this point we could have packed up and headed home. There is a strong argument to be made that once we had removed al Qaeda's safe haven and the government that gave it to them, we were done. Rubble doesn't make trouble, to wax Derbyshirean.

The rest at BLACKFIVE

Posted by: Uncle Jimbo at 08:09 AM | Add Comment
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August. Really.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:24 AM | Add Comment
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The Chicago Way.

In the days before President Obama's last news conference, as the networks weighed whether to give up a chunk of their precious prime time, Rahm Emanuel went straight to the top.

Rather than calling ABC, the White House chief of staff phoned Bob Iger, chief executive of parent company Disney. Instead of contacting NBC, Emanuel went to Jeffrey Immelt, the chief executive of General Electric. He also spoke with Les Moonves, the chief executive of CBS, the company spun off from Viacom.

Whether this amounted to undue pressure or plain old Chicago arm-twisting, Emanuel got results: the fourth hour of lucrative network time for his boss in six months. But network executives have been privately complaining to White House officials that they cannot afford to keep airing these sessions in the current economic downturn.

The networks "absolutely" feel pressured, says Paul Friedman, CBS's senior vice president: "It's an enormous financial cost when the president replaces one of those prime-time hours. The news divisions also have mixed feelings about whether they are being used."

Ratings have been declining for these Obama shows and this last one lost out to Fox which carried an episode of "So You Think You Can Dance".

One of my favorite lefty talking points is that the media is actually conservative because it is really nothing more than another big business. I think it's great that Emmanuel finally demonstrated for all how ridiculous that is. He didn't got to the liberals at the news divisions, he went to the liberals running the companies.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:22 AM | Comments (1)
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The big story that the media doesn't really seem interested in covering.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council Director Larry Summers both sidestepped questions on Obama's intentions about taxes. Geithner said the White House was not ready to rule out a tax hike to lower the federal deficit; Summers said Obama's proposed health care overhaul needs funding from somewhere.

"There is a lot that can happen over time," Summers said, adding that the administration believes "it is never a good idea to absolutely rule things out, no matter what."

During his presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly vowed "you will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime." But the simple reality remains that his ambitious overhaul of how Americans receive health care -- promised without increasing the federal deficit -- must be paid for.

"If we want an economy that's going to grow in the future, people have to understand we have to bring those deficits down. And it's going to be difficult, hard for us to do. And the path to that is through health care reform," Geithner said. "We're not at the point yet where we're going to make a judgment about what it's going to take."

Clinton famously reneged on his own pledge to cut middle-class taxes by claiming the economy and budget were oh so much worse than he'd ever anticipated.

Seems Obama has already laid that predicate down.

Exactly how much fall-out there will be is hard to say. Much of the public, probably, never believed Obama when he said he wouldn't raise their taxes "a single dime." They knew he was lying, or at least suspected it.

So how much they hold it against him probably depends on how much he raises taxes. He can probably get away with a very small tax hike. More than that and it will seem like the lie it always was.

But it doesn't help his case for not-universal health care. Everyone with insurance is starting to realize that Obama's "reforms" give them nothing at all and merely cost them more in direct tax hikes and reduced services. The big selling point of ObamaCare -- "bending the curve" -- primarily benefits the federal government, and it doesn't even do that, as the CBO has found it explodes governmental costs rather than reduces them.

Obama's basically attempting to sell the public on three major initiatives the public doesn't want. He doesn't have the goodwill or political capital for even one of them.

The Pledge: Via Instapudit, here is Obama's categorical pledge.

Some apologists say he didn't mention indirect taxes, such as the increased costs cap and trade would impose. But that is silly. Having given such an emphatic and all-encompassing pledge, he can hardly now claim "But I didn't say anything about indirect pass-through taxes, now did I?"

Posted by: Ace at 07:22 AM | Comments (30)
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Not sure if this guy is putting up those posters, but that's the way to bet, as he's got product.

He's got the tagline that a commenter mentioned and another commenter declared thread-winner, too: "Why so socialist?"

Thanks to ArthurK.

Reader George Orwell put together this PDF of the poster, if you want to print your own.

Posted by: Ace at 07:11 AM | Add Comment
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Interesting story in the LA Times about the way Paramount Pictures is marketing "GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra." Awesome: the movie had its premiere in front of 1,000 service members and their families at Andrews Air Force Base. Not so awesome: the global marketing strategy.

The subtext is none too subtle: Critics are likely to roast the film, and fanboys of the original toy line and comic book may be indifferent, but if you're a flag-waving, Nascar-loving American, it's practically your patriotic duty to see this movie...

...Yet overseas, where big action films often earn 60% or more of their ticket sales, rah-rah American sentiment doesn't play well. So those references have vanished from the advertising.

European marketing, rather, focuses on action sequences set in Paris -- where the Eiffel Tower collapses -- Egypt and Tokyo, and emphasizes that G.I. Joe is an international team of crack operatives and not some Yankee soldier.

When it comes to selling "G.I. Joe" outside the U.S., the message is "this is not a George Bush movie -- it's an Obama world," director Stephen Sommers said. "Right from the writing stage we said to ourselves, this can't be about beefy guys on steroids who all met each other in the Vietnam War, but an elite organization that's made up of the best of the best from around the world."

Nothing wrong with that, but it does bother me a bit that the studio doesn't see anything odd in embracing patriotism to American audiences and hiding it for those overseas. So now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

Posted by: Slublog at 04:01 AM | Add Comment
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It's on AMC right now and it still holds up after 25 years (how the hell is it that long ago?).

A couple of great moments. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 06:03 PM | Comments (5)
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By now you’re probably quite aware that it sucks being you. Probably no need to remind you of that since you have to deal with that simple fact of life every day…in what little time you have remaining. Not only today as you watch the clock wind down on the last precious minutes of your so-called “weekend” and you trudge off to bed, secure in the depressing knowledge that when you wake up on Monday morning you have at least five days of soul-crushing “work” ahead of you that there’s no escape from.

But beyond that you still have the remainder of your life to experience even more suckitude. This will come in new ways and means that you can’t even begin to consider because what little imagination you once had has been ground out of you and crushed on the ground like a cheap cigarette. And if you’re hoping for the sweet embrace of death to rescue you from you? Fat chance, at least if you’re a regular around here. I have it on good authority that for you the afterlife will resemble the waiting room at the Department of Motor Vehicles. There you will take a number from one of those “spitters” like they have at delis, then told to take a seat and wait for your number to be called. When you have a seat and look at the number it says “8,” so you think “that’s not too bad.” Then you slowly realize you’re holding the ticket sideways...

Eternity is a long time I'm told.

But hey! Let’s not let all that get us down, ok? Because other peoples lives suck too, so why not revel in their misfortune while you still have the opportunity? Who knows, their lives may suck even more than yours (doubtful), but you can at least compare and contrast at FMylife. The “F” of course stands for a word that starts with “F.” Here’s a couple of examples:

”Today, this really attractive woman that I've known for years told me that when I can have sex with her standing up, she'll have sex with me. I'm confined to a wheelchair. FML”

“Today, my boss called me into his office to show me the web site of a potential business partner. When he began to type 'virginia' into google, it auto-completed his search with his recent search for 'virgin boy assholes'. I have to go on business trip with him tomorrow. I'm a young guy. FML”

“Today, I found out that I'm pregnant. My husband and I have been trying to have a baby for a while, and I was very excited to tell him the news. When I opened his office planning to surprise him with the news, I saw him making out with a man. FML”

So you get the idea. Got anything you want to share with us? Don’t forget to end your comment with the required “FML.” Perhaps we’ll compile the best ones in an updated post later. Thanks to Matt (an obviously sadistic bastard to spring this on a Sunday night)

Some FML entertainment and this weekÂ’s commenter stats below the fold.
more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 05:47 PM | Add Comment
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