I've been hitting the President for a week now about the lies in that speech, but was anything that man said true?

President Barack Obama, seeking to make a case for health-insurance regulation, told a poignant story to a joint session of Congress last week. An Illinois man getting chemotherapy was dropped from his insurance plan when his insurer discovered an unreported gallstone the patient hadn't known about.

"They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it," the president said in the nationally televised address.

In fact, the man, Otto S. Raddatz, didn't die because the insurance company rescinded his coverage once he became ill, an act known as recission. The efforts of his sister and the office of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan got Mr. Raddatz's policy reinstated within three weeks of his April 2005 rescission and secured a life-extending stem-cell transplant for him. Mr. Raddatz died this year, nearly four years after the insurance showdown.

Obama aides say the president got the essence of the story correct.

Ah, the "fake, but accurate" excuse. Hey, it sounded good, right? The story is so much better, so much more likely to scare the bejebus out of Grandma if the guy dies from lack of care.

The "essence" of the story is that a man's insurance was rescinded after he got sick. There's no word from the President or the insurer on why his care was rescinded and we are left to assume it was unjust and not because the fellow failed to make payments or to disclose prior conditions. We don't know that side of the story.

What we do know is that the man lived and the insurer paid -- eventually. Obama would rather obscure both of those facts. He would rather be able to say the man died so that people will be afraid. Then he would like to be able to say the insurer didn't pay so that he can point to a villain.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:09 AM | Add Comment
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That, plus a bonus Steele video over at Radio Vice Online.

Posted by: LauraW at 07:04 AM | Add Comment
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You can say one thing about President Obama, he is consistent on foreign affairs. Kick our allies in the teeth and kiss our enemies on the ass. I guess weakness is the new strength.

WASHINGTON – Citing a need to refocus America's defenses against
missiles, the White House said it will shelve Bush administration plans
to build a missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

"After an estensive process, I have approved the unanimous
recommendations of my secretary of defense and my joint chiefs of staff
to strenghten America's defenses against ballistic-missile attack," Mr.
Obama said in a morning address.

If all of those people did call for this, then we are in deep shite. This was so shocking the WSJ even released this piece with multiple spelling errors. Their editors must be in shock. I guess Obama is trying to curry favor w/ the Putin regime, so he can claim we are working with them to stop Iran from getting nukes. In the end this will show just how much he is getting played. I am gonna cut this off now before I spend a couple thousand words explaining just what a naif our President is. Unicorns and freaking bunnies FFS!

What Do You Mean It's Not Symbolic Update [Gabe]: Today is the 70th anniversary of Stalin's invasion of Poland. FYI.

Heh, Like I said he is consistent. I made this last Fall

Posted by: Uncle Jimbo at 06:54 AM | Add Comment
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Oh yes, the Speaker has the "play dumb" gambit down good:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday she is clueless about an amendment to prohibit government funds for embattled ACORN, although it overwhelmingly passed the Senate Monday and the White House is calling for the group to be held accountable.

"I don't even know what they passed," Pelosi told The Post yesterday. "What did they do? They defunded it?"

And the President is trying to distance himself from the corrupt, law-breaking group of community organizers. As well distance himself from his own right arm.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:41 AM | Comments (7)
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The confidence with which President Obama announced his intention to overhaul our health industry has been replaced with desperation to pass—in the words of presidential minder David Axelrod—"something, anything."

The President doesn't really care what the Democrats in Congress eventually decide to do. I'm sure he'd like it to be as close to his long-envisioned Trojan horse for single payer as possible. But if it's not possible, all he really wants to do is to sign his name to a bill with the words "Health", "America", and "Choice" in it.

It's his legacy. I'm serious. You didn't really think that a man who would write a personal memoir at age 34—before he had accomplished anything noteworthy—would wait around until the end of his term to start working on his legacy, did you?

Obama is the Narcissist-in-Chief. He won't be satisfied unless he's left an indelible mark on American life. He had hoped that would include unrestrained Leftist dismantling and reorganization of our economy, foreign relations, and social structure. But now he's willing to settle for smaller victories if that's all Congress can tee up for him.

And make no mistake. The Democratic Congress can still pass a bill that will cripple our health care system and Obama will happily sign that bill. A wild animal is never so vicious as when it is cornered and we have backed the Obama Administration into a corner on healthcare.

I suspect that this is a more dangerous time than July, when the President was trying to rush through a healthcare bill. Then he wasn't even considering compromising with fractious Democrats because he didn't contemplate they'd be a problem. But now he's probably willing to give massive concessions—beg, borrow, and steal—to get his healthcare bill.

So what do we do? Keep talking. Talk to your neighbors about it; talk to your friends; and, especially, talk to seniors. Obama is on the run because people are actually interested in what he's trying to do and they're actually trying to learn more about it. Building frustration with obstructionist legacy media has folks not normally plugged into alternative media like radio or blogs or— well, Glenn Beck's show are looking for answers.

And you guys can give them answers. I guarantee you that you guys know as much or more about the situation in Washington, D.C. than anyone who is getting their news from the papers or the nightly news programs. Tell people what you know!

The more people know about Obamacare, the more people don't like it. Which means that even if Congress manages to scrape together a bill and even when the President signs it, he and the Democrats in Congress will all have black eyes and bloody noses. Even if he passes healthcare reform, the President may take a wound that never heals and 2012 is just around the corner.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:33 AM | Add Comment
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Anybody else got a feeling this is gonna be a good day?

Disturbing, But Oddly Satisfying Vision Update: A comment from Mrs. Peel too good not to promote to the mainpage:

Of course! It's Constitution Day!

*envisions the Constitution taking bodily form and rampaging through Congress, avenging the abuses it has suffered*

"Oh, you want me to JUSTIFY eating you, Senator? Just read the COMMERCE CLAUSE! What's that you say? The Commerce Clause governs only interstate commerce? NOT ACCORDING TO YOU IT DOESN'T! NOM NOM NOM"

Om nom nom, indeed! Run, Senator, Run!

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:04 AM | Add Comment
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Welcome to hump day. It's all downhill from here.

ONT Trivia Question: How many US states have had a nuclear bomb set off in them?
Hint - It's more than you would think including one east of the Mississippi.
Answer is below the picture.

While I was in Vegas I went to the Atomic Testing Museum and learned this and all kinds of cool things. My mother spent a lot of her childhood at Nellis AFB and seeing mushroom clouds in the distance like this happened every few months. And yes my sister and I do have extra white teeth and very minor super-powers. Sadly they're more Mystery Men than Marvel.

Item #1: Secret Menu items at Fast Food Places
It turns out that what you see on the menu is not all you can order - there are secret items that only those in the know can order. Some are pretty well known like the In-N-Out 'Animal Style' hamburger, but others like the Starbuck's 'short size' are not. Of course my favorite is the Fatburger 'Hypocrite' - a veggie burger topped with bacon.

Item #2: Women Really Can't Keep A Secret
The average time before a woman tells a secret to someone else: less than 48 hours. Does it matter how sensitive the information is? No. And yet 83% consider themselves a hundred percent trustworthy.

To paraphrase Churchill, three men can keep a secret as long as two of them are dead and the third doesn't ever talk to a woman. Which means there is a place in government security for adolescent gamers and most AoS morons. more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 07:44 PM | Comments (1)
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Safe click -- just a screencap for y'all.

CJ's defending ACORN, by the way, in case you wondered what his scary-cogent analysis would turn out to be.

As with anything lately, CJ is defending because he must defend anything attacked by the Fount of All Evil, Glenn Beck. And all the other crazies on the right. Of whom he recently wrote, "are all receding away from me at the speed of light, and it's not fast enough for me." Or something like that.

Kinda feel the same way, pal. I kinda dig how you delete and ban everyone who merely disagrees with you. It's like North Korea over there. There's this weird thing where everyone seems determined to be the first to praise the High and Mighty Charles "Oz" Johnson, for fear of being exiled from the Twilight Zone cornfield.

Oh, I wanted to mention this. Some people -- who maybe are coming from Little Gulag Foothold -- get upset when the cobloggers DrewM and Gabe and Dave and Slu get into arguments with them.

DrewM. suspects that the reason people get upset is they think the cobloggers constitute some kind of official party line here, and so when we're arguing with you, we're not just arguing with you, we're telling you how it's going to be around here.

They don't. Neither do I, really, except on matters of taste and propriety and so forth. There is no party line.

So, the point is, it's not as if when a coblogger (or me for that matter) is arguing with you you're arguing against "The Man." Or someone with authority and license to delete you or ban you. It's just dudes arguing with you. We only delete and stuff with hardcore trolls, really. You have to be a total douche to get deleted.

Anyway, wanted to clear that up, in case anyone felt there was some implicit threat coming at them when the cobloggers argued with them.

Unless a coblogger is telling you to cool it on some Code of Conduct type thing, like something about inappropriate language or racial slurs or the like, it's not ex cathedra, it's just arguing from people who like to argue.

If it's the former sort of thing, then yeah, there is an implicit threat there. But otherwise, just arguing.

Thanks to DrewM.

Posted by: Ace at 07:39 PM | Comments (7)
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Adorable little girl tosses it back.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 07:04 PM | Add Comment
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Thanks to yarrr.

Let's Recap: In all five offices, ACORN officials sought to help out a prostitute. Fine, let's let that slide.

In five offices, ACORN officials sought to help out a prostitute who told them she was bringing around a dozen girls 13-15 years old into the country to be sex slaves.

In four of the offices (and maybe the fifth, we don't know yet), various methods of tax evasion or false statements on tax filings were encouraged by the ACORN staff.

In one of the offices, a tweaker seemed interested in leaving ACORN to come help out at the underage child sex slave brothel.

In one of the offices, a creepy guy told Hannah he had "connections" in Tijuana which might be useful for smuggling 13-15 year old sex slaves across the border.

He also solicited Hannah for sex. People are blowing this off as no big deal. I think it is. Because the reason I think he was offering to help smuggle child sex slaves across the border is he wanted to have sex with Hannah, and he figured that was his in.

So: In all five offices -- which are official federal "partners" with the IRS, being paid to help low-income people file taxes -- ACORN provided advice chiefly amounting to tax fraud or evasion and in several cases offered assistance in running a child sex slave brothel.

Five for five.

A few bad apples, you know.

Now, ACORN claims that lots of offices behaved properly before Giles and O'Keefe caught these bad actors. Trouble is, so what even if that is true, but it's not true. ACORN claimed the New York and San Diego offices turned them away; we can now see that is as far from true as can be imagined. Hell, in San Diego, the guy wanted to help coyote tweeners across the border!

Further, Giles and O'Keefe say it's not true, and at this point, I'm inclined to take their word over Bertha Lewis' and Scott Levenson's.

So, what to make? Should taxpayer dollars continue flowing to this obviously corrupt organization?

Is it a f**king story yet, Leftwing Media?*

* BTW, Bernie Goldberg is dead-bang right, we have been giving the media an accolade it never deserved by calling it the "Mainstream Media." It is not mainstream. It is leftwing.

We are the mainstream media. We're also the minor media, but we are the mainstream.

And so I'm never going to refer to them as "MSM" again.

Another Good Point by Goldberg: In that same interview -- maybe Monday? -- Goldberg challenged O'Reilly's question about the leftwing media taking an interest in this, asking, basically, "Why do we care if they've taken an interest?"

His point is that this is no longer David vs. Goliath. (Or an Army of Davids vs. Goliath, if you will.) It's now more like an up-and-comer vs. an aging, past-his-prime boxer. Sure, maybe the older boxer still gets a bigger share of the gate, but it's getting close to an even match. Not there yet -- but it's not some huge gulf.

It's no longer really the Dominant Media vs. the Outlaw Media. Well, it is that, but it's no longer "Dominant" -- it's now merely "Establishment, But a Shadow of Its Former Self, and Losing Audience Every Day" Media.

So his point was: Who cares if this fossilized incompetent corrupt old media covers it? Why are we even giving them that validation that what they assert to be true is in fact true -- "It's only a story when we say it's a story" ?

That's not true anymore. They said it's not a story -- the practically screamed it with their silence -- and we said "Oh yes it is."

And who won?

We did.

So who cares about them?

We're covering it -- we, the mainstream media -- and that's all that matters.

They will follow eventually, as they usually do these days.

And who really cares if they don't.

Anyone ever get linked by a legacy media outlet? We're linked right now by the NYT's blog and the referrals barely show up in the SiteMeter stats.

A link from a small blog throws a hell of a lot more traffic than the NYT. NiceDeb and Cassy Fiano are both linking us, as I can tell from my SiteMeter; there are zero referrals right now from the NYT. I only know I was linked because DrewM. told me so.

Who cares about them.

Who cares what they cover.

Who cares what they believe and what they think they "know."

The hell with them. They're losers. And they stink of desperation.

Here's Bernie Goldberg's blog-post on the subject.

Posted by: Ace at 05:48 PM | Comments (4)
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