This symbol has a real impact. This is an example of the power of “iconography”. Iconograpghy is used everyday by advertisers, but its propaganda value has been used by government at least since the times of the Romans. When we think of propaganda we mostly think of spreading lies, but it be also used for communicating complex truths, albeit using exaggerated imagery. I wrote an extended piece on “iconography” HERE which is certainly worth a look.
Since ShePAC started putting the pressure back on the Democrats for their terrible comments about Republican women, not to mention what the Obama campaign did to Hillary Clinton in 2008, the heat on the Democrat’s hypocrisy on this issue has been turned up in the press.
Remember when Obama and the Democrats went on and on saying that ObamaCare would only cost $900 Billion so that it would be revenue neutral (not ad to the deficit)?
It wasn’t just this writer back in his college days who said that this number was a pipe dream. Many conservatives who ran the numbers said it would cost over $2 trillion as I reported in my college days (1, 2, 3, 4).
But it gets worse, the CBO is still underestimating the cost. Why? ObamaCare doesn’t start to spend huge money until the last phase of it’s implementation in 2014, but the new taxes are already starting to be phased in and really ramp up in 2013 just after the election. So ObamaCare is taking in money for over a year before the large expenses start incurring. If we take that into account and start the ten years in 2014, which is much more honest, the expense according to my estimates will be close to $2.3 trillion over ten years. Feel free to mark me on this readers, as I am certain others will verify this in time, as my earliest predictions about ObamaCare have been spot on so there is no reason to believe my estimate will prove to be any different (the Examiner piece below mentions the nine year issue as well).
Remember the adverse selection “death” spiral we spoke of in posts below? The longer ObamaCare goes on the more the costs will rise exponentially as that is exactly what it is designed to do. If Democrats manage to prevent an ObamaCare repeal, they know darn well they will have to replace it with a total government take over soon or the system will blow up in a short time.
President Obama’s national health care law will cost $1.76 trillion over a decade, according to a new projectionreleased today by the Congressional Budget Office, rather than the $940 billion forecast when it was signed into law.
Democrats employed many accounting tricks when they were pushing through the national health care legislation, the most egregious of which was to delay full implementation of the law until 2014, so it would appear cheaper under the CBO’s standard ten-year budget window and, at least on paper, meet Obama’s pledge that the legislation would cost “around $900 billion over 10 years.” When the final CBO score came out before passage, critics noted that the true 10 year cost would be far higher than advertised once projections accounted for full implementation.
Today, the CBO released new projections from 2013 extending through 2022, and the results are as critics expected: the ten-year cost of the law’s core provisions to expand health insurance coverage has now ballooned to $1.76 trillion. That’s because we now have estimates for Obamacare’s first nine years of full implementation, rather than the mere six when it was signed into law. Only next year will we get a true ten-year cost estimate, if the law isn’t overturned by the Supreme Court or repealed by then. Given that in 2022, the last year available, the gross cost of the coverage expansions are $265 billion, we’re likely looking at about $2 trillion over the first decade, or more than double what Obama advertised.
UPDATE – ObamaCare to force increases in state Medicaid programs:
Again, this is something I wrote about and you can find on my old college blog in the four links above. One of the ways that the costs of ObamaCare was hidden is that some of it’s implementation is through unfunded mandates to state medicaid programs.
The CBO now projects that from 2012 through 2021 the federal government will spend $168 billion more on Medicaid than it expected last year, $97 billion less on subsidies for people to purchase insurance on government-run exchanges and $20 billion less on tax credits to small employers. That works out to a $51 billion increase in the gross cost of expanding coverage from what the CBO estimated a year ago. However, the CBO also expects the federal government to collect more revenue from penalties on individuals and employers, as well as other taxes. These revenue increases will more than offset the spending increases, according to the CBO, so it now expects the cost of Obamacare during those years to be $48 billion lower.
It’s also worth noting that we were told time and again during the health care debate that the law didn’t represent a government takeover of health care. But by 2022, according to the CBO, 3 million fewer people will have health insurance through their employer, while 17 million Americans will be added to Medicaid and 22 million will be getting coverage through government-run exchanges.
Editor’s Note – It is unfortunate that I have to gloat about such bad news, but this very writer was among the first in the country to observe and write that ObamaCare creates what is called an “Adverse Selection Spiral” (also known as an economic death spiral); meaning that the short term incentives, regulations and tax structure in the ObamaCare is designed to make the long term risk management economically unsustainable due to the long term increases in costs forced into the system.
This very writer said that ObamaCare is designed to break private insurance and make people “cry out for a public option”. Ironically some months later former Democrats Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said the exact same thing.
Speaker Pelosi used IUSB Vision Editor Chuck Norton’s exact words that ObamaCare will “make them cry out for a public option” on C-Span [Notice how all of the Democrats cackle maniacally when she says it]:
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday that the days of private health insurance are coming to an end in the United States.
“The private market is in a death spiral,” Sebelius said, contending this would be the case whether or not President Barack Obama’s health care law had been enacted.
At the Ways and Means hearing, Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) asked Sebelius about the administration’s assurances that people who liked their current health insurance plan would be able to keep it under the new law.
“How about when the president said you can keep your health care coverage, if you like it?” Roskam said. “And yet, the reality is, according to Bloomberg (News) at least, 9 percent fewer businesses are offering medical coverage than in 2010. There the rhetoric didn’t meet the reality, did it?”
Sebelius did not contest the numbers.
[Here comes the spin – Political Arena Editor] “Well again, congressman, what you’re seeing, it wouldn’t have mattered if we had passed the Affordable Care Act or not,” she said. “The private market is in a death spiral.”
It would have happened anyways is the new spin. Nice try.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says that private health insurance providers are in a “death spiral.” Of course they are. Isn’t that the way the authors of ObamaCare planned it?
Testifying last Wednesday in front of the House Ways and Means Committee, Sebelius was asked by Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., if the administration was being honest when President Obama promised that those who liked their health plans could keep them.
Said Sebelius: “The private market is in a death spiral.”
Sebelius tried to temper her comment by claiming the private insurance market would collapse even if the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act had not been passed. But the truth is, the market cannot survive under the growing weight of government, and Obama-Care was to be the final heavy load that will crush it.
Don’t believe it? Look at the provisions of ObamaCare and consider them in context with the Democrats’ constant public demonization of insurers.
Start with the mandates. By now, most of the country knows that ObamaCare requires health insurers to pay for contraception and other birth-control measures. But that’s not the law’s only mandate. Among the many diktats of the Democrats’ health care overhaul is the requirement that insurers must spend at least 80 cents on medical claims for every $1 they take in from premiums in the individual and small group markets, and 85 cents from premiums in the large group market.
Insurers’ first response was to cut broker commissions. But what gets trimmed next? At what point will the industry no longer be able to pay competent people in companies because of the medical-loss ratio mandate, or to make the profits needed to stay in business?
Maybe the industry could simply increase premiums to avoid problems created by the medical-loss ratio. But the central planners thought of that, too. Under ObamaCare, the secretary of Health and Human Services has the power to decline premium increases of 10% or more in the individual and small group markets. Only those considered “reasonable” by bureaucrats’ standards will be accepted. This policy is an effective price control that’s sure to cause losses in the industry.
Remember Bart Stupak? He was head of the Democrats for Life Caucus in the House. President Obama promised him an executive order, in exchange for the votes of his group of congressmen, to strip public funding of abortion so ObamaCare would never use tax dollars to kill babies? Well guess how well that worked out? And Stupak’s constituents were not fooled as he sold out the values he ran on and sacrificed his political career to advance the cause of government power.
Related:
The Myth of the Pro-Life Democrat in Congress – LINK
Stupak’s “Pro-Life” Caucus Gets $4.7 Billion in Earmark Funds after Voting for Public Funding of Abortion – LINK
Despite President Obama’s empty rhetoric to the contrary, a recently finalized Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rule makes clear that ObamaCare will use tax dollars to fund abortion.
Sadly, these facts have now come to fruition. HHS, under the direction of President Obama and Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has issued its final rule for implementing the state exchanges created by the ObamaCare law. These final rules include requirements for how abortion funding must be handled.
First off, when we consider that the President told us that his Executive Order made it clear that abortion was not a part of this law, it is reasonable to ask why the final rule references ‘abortion’ 30 times? If abortion funding was not to be a part of this law, the statute needed only a short, clear prohibition of such funding – a prohibition offered in the Pitts/Stupak Amendment, which was initially approved by the House of Representatives, and later stripped out by the President and then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Because the law does indeed contradict the President by allowing abortion funding, this final rule goes to great lengths to devise a scheme that attempts to hide that funding. The result is a complicated web of regulations that reference ‘abortion’ 30 times.
Everyone concerned about government promotion and funding of abortions should read this rule for themselves, but allow me to outline a couple of the basic components with regard to the abortion requirements.
First, beginning on page 453, this rule describes and reaffirms the “segregation of funds for abortion services” as required under ObamaCare. Essentially, insurance plans may include abortion services in a plan subsidized by federal taxpayer dollars. To justify this inclusion, the plan will collect a $1 “surcharge” from all policy holders. Of course this surcharge will be collected as part of a larger premium payment, and not as a part of a separate collection. Additionally, plans are entirely free to advertise the total cost of these plans without mentioning that $1 of the premium is specifically intended to subsidize the abortion coverage. Further, the surcharge is only to be disclosed when the policyholder first enrolls.
In short, the $1 surcharge does not even attempt to resemble an actual offset of the abortion coverage cost, is virtually undetectable by the policy holder, and serves the singular purpose of providing a flimsy defense for inserting the federal government into the business of providing coverage for elective abortions.
Additionally, on pages 364-365, the final rule makes it entirely plausible that States that have passed laws prohibiting abortion coverage will be forced to provide that coverage anyway. This would occur through the multi-state plans administered by the Federal Government. The final rule simply says that rules governing these plans will be issued at a later date, so it’s entirely feasible (I’d say likely) that these plans will be permitted to cover abortion, even when one of the States within the multi-State area prohibits it.
Of course, this very writer was predicting this from mid 2009 and onward (2) as ObamaCare is phased in more and more people and businesses are seeing the results. So much for Obama’s promise that ObamaCare would save you $2,500 a year.
NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Compliance with health care reform is already driving up costs for some employers’ group health plans, and a majority of employers expect price increases to be passed on to employees, according to a health care reform survey released today by the Willis Human Capital Practice, a unit of Willis Group Holdings (nyse:WSH), the global insurance broker.
“The survey suggests employers realize that costs of providing medical benefits will increase and that they will likely have to pass those costs on to their employees.”
This is what will hurt you most:
Employers expect that similar employers will pass increased costs on to employees: More than half of the responding employers felt that other, similar employers would pass more of the cost for dependent coverage on to their employees. One-third of respondents thought other, similar employers would reduce coverage to the lowest-cost package to avoid the “pay-or-play” penalty, and a majority of employers also thought that wellness programs would be expanded in scope. Finally, nearly two-thirds of the employers expected that employee contributions would be increased.
You read that correctly, the result will be increased costs to you AND reduced coverage.
Indiana Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels said Tuesday that the size of the U.S. national debt and the rate at which the debt is accumulating will lead the United States to “ruin” — and no other outcome is mathematically possible.
“Whether one believes in a large, very active government or something more limited, mathematically, the amount of debt we already have and the terrifying rate at which it is accumulating will lead to national ruin,” Daniels said.
“There’s no other outcome arithmetically possible,” he added.
As of February 2012, according to monthly U.S. Treasury statements, our national debt is $15.48 trillion, about a $130 billion more from the month prior when the national debt was $15.35 trillion.
The Hoosier governor made his remarks in a conference call hosted by No Labels, a group of Democrats, Republicans, and independents “dedicated to making government work again.”
Daniels said that Congress has become dysfunctional in terms of dealing with our economic and fiscal situation — and picked a “lousy time” to become dysfunctional, since the United States has never faced “a non-military danger or threat as large as the one we face today.”
Daniels said that when addressing the problem of the national debt and trying to level with audiences, he usually asks them to put ideology aside for the moment and focus on the math surrounding our national debt – something he said no longer “works.”
“Look, let’s put the ideological debate off (to) tomorrow,” Daniels said. “You know, for today, can we agree that the math here does not work?”
Mathematically speaking, Daniels said, it all breaks down.
“There is absolutely no way” that cutting or taxing our way out our fiscal problems are the solutions. Instead, we need a private economy that grows much faster, and meaningful entitlement reform, Daniels said.
An American flag with President Obama’s image in place of the stars flew over a Florida county’s Democrat headquarters long enough to enrage local veterans who called the altered banner “a disgrace.”
You can see our previous Sandra Fluke coverage HERE and HERE and HERE.
Not only does she take grand international vacations, not only does she go to a top private university, she travels to and fro across the country and is represented by one of the most powerful PR firms in Washington D.C.; yet, she insists that government should force the Catholic Church to pay for her birth control. It gets better, it turns out that her boyfriend is one of those evil super rich 1 percenters that groups she associates with protests against for not spreading their wealth…
Just when you thought you’d seen everything.
Poor Sandra Fluke, the 30 year-old far left activist who wants you to pay for her $9 a month birth control, is dating a rich socialist.
They recently traveled to Spain and Italy together.
It was a lovely getaway for the women’s rights activist and her rich socialist boyfriend.
Here the two lovebirds are roughing it late at night in Barcelona – drunk.
Sandra Fluke and Adam in Barcelona
And, here the poor little darling tries to make ends meet in Pompeii.
Sandra Fluke in Pompeii
What a brave woman. How does she manage it all?
Brooks Bayne has much more on Sandra and her very rich boyfriend.
If this were happening in America every single day would you take this? Would you demand that the country launching them, and any that assisted be bombed into the stone age? This is what Israel has tolerated for years and even under this barrage their acts to defend themselves are very limited. If this was happening to Americans would you demand such a limited response? So why do we ask Israel to do what we would not?
Thanks to ACORN type of registration fraud and the dead voting in larger numbers in some areas, including some precincts that cast more votes than said precincts have voters, over 34 states have now introduced and/or passed laws saying that you must have ID when you vote.
The Democrats oppose such laws because they say that they are racist, but the courts have not been sympathetic to such arguments. The Supreme Court has held up Indiana’s voter ID law and Obama’s Justice Department knows very well that eventually their court challenges will lose, but the goal is to enable as much vote fraud as they can until after the election.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department’s civil rights division on Monday objected to a new photo ID requirement for voters in Texas because many Hispanic voters lack state-issued identification.
Texas follows South Carolina as the second state in recent months to become embroiled in a court battle with the Justice Department over new photo ID requirements for voters.
Photo ID laws have become a point of contention in the 2012 elections. Liberal groups have said the requirements are the product of Republican-controlled state governments and are aimed at disenfranchising people who tend to vote Democratic — African-Americans, Hispanics, people of low-income and college students.
Proponents of such legislation say the measures are aimed at combating voter fraud. But advocacy groups for minorities and the poor dispute that and argue there is no evidence of significant voter fraud.
In regard to Texas, “I cannot conclude that the state has sustained its burden” of showing that the newly enacted law has neither a discriminatory purpose nor effect, Thomas E. Perez, the head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, said in a letter to the Texas secretary of state.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot has said the Obama administration is hostile to laws like the one passed last year in Texas.
The National Conference of State Legislatures called the voter ID issue “the hottest topic of legislation in the field of elections in 2011,” with legislation introduced in 34 states.
UPDATE – O’Keefe video exposes voter fraud friendly Vermont – LINK
On Vermont Primary Day, Project Veritas sent a team of investigators into polling places throughout the state with a list of both deceased and still-living voters to see if they would be permitted to vote without presenting a photo ID.
Our team tested multiple polling places, simply walking up and stating the name of the registered voter and in all cases — they were offered ballots.
While our investigators cast no votes and returned the ballots, there was nothing stopping our team, or anyone else, from illegally influencing the outcome of a presidential primary.
In fact, as shown in the video, Project Veritas investigators insisted on presenting identification in order to vote, but were told repeatedly, “you don’t need it.”
One investigator was eerily told, “We believe you.” In contrast, Project Veritas’ team also tested the integrity of other establishments in Vermont: Bars and Hotels. Our investigators were repeatedly turned away for their failure to present a photo ID.
• At least 51 million eligible citizens remain unregistered—more than 24 percent of the eligible population.
• Nearly 2 million deceased individuals are listed as voters.
• Approximately 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state.
• About 12 million records have incorrect addresses, meaning either the voters moved, or errors in the information make it unlikely any mailings can reach them.
There are two sources for today’s story, one is a devastating piece from the normally Obama friendly Washington Post, the other is from an Iowa PAC called the American Future Fund. President Obama was the largest recipient of Wall Street cash of any presidential candidate in 20 years. While Obama was a Senator he took more money from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae than anyone in the Senate with the exception of who many call the architect of the financial collapse Christopher Dodd.
The Influence Industry: Obama gives administration jobs to some big fundraisers
Big donors considering whether to work the phones raising money for President Obama’s reelection campaign might consider the fate of his 2008 bundlers. Many of them, it turns out, won plum jobs in his administration.
Obama campaigned on what he called “the most sweeping ethics reform in history” and has frequently criticized the role of money in politics. That hasn’t stopped him from offering government jobs to some of his biggest bundlers, volunteer fundraisers who gather political contributions from other rich donors.
More than half of Obama’s 47 biggest fundraisers, those who collected at least $500,000 for his campaign, have been given administration jobs. Nine more have been appointed to presidential boards and committees.
At least 24 Obama bundlers were given posts as foreign ambassadors, including in Finland, Australia, Portugal and Luxembourg. Among them is Don Beyer, a former Virginia lieutenant governor who serves as ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
Top 20 Industry Money Recipients This Election Cycle – Who is in the back pocket of Wall Street? – LINK.
Top All-Time Donors, 1989-2012 – Hint: Most goes to Democrats – LINK.
Wall St. Made More Money In 2.5 Years Of Obama Than 8 Years Of Bush – LINK.
Corruption You Can Believe In: Failed Sub Primes and Mortgage Fraud Lenders Funneled Money to Dodd & Obama the Most. Fannie & Freddie Gave $200 Million to Partisans-Most Went to Democrats! Dodd, Obama Among Top Recipients. Republicans Attempted to Pass Reforms-Blocked by Democrat Leadership! – LINK.
Hypocrite! Elizabeth Warren Takes Wall Street Cash! – LINK.
Corruption: Most Stimulus Funds Spent in Democrat Districts – LINK.
The taxes Democrats propose to “soak the rich” always seem to miss those who they demagogue for not paying their fair share. They have been “soaking the rich” for decades and keep missing the target. Why? – LINK.
…and why we should not let “the establishment” and the conventional wisdom choose our nominee.
John McCain wants NATO/UN etc (read US) to respond militarily in Syria. The situation is portrayed as a crazed dictator indiscriminately slaughtering his own people who want democracy – and that description is a load nonsense if their ever was one. We were told the exact same thing about Libya and Egypt, and as soon as we helped the Muslim Brotherhood take over the freedom crowd vanished instantly. The Muslim Brotherhood is now murdering Christians in Egypt, murdering black Africans in Libya, imposing Sharia Law and abusing women. The now Muslim Brotherhood controlled Egypt is sabre rattling at Israel
The dictators in the Middle East kept the Muslim Brotherhood and the Al-Qeada’s at bay. Mubarak was critical to maintaining the Israeli/Egyptian Peace Treaty and many of the worlds terror groups want to replace the Arab dictators with Sharia inspired regimes.
Now President Obama is arming the Middle East to the gills, including modern M1 battle tanks to Egypt in spite of the fact that the new authorities are engaging in Taliban like behavior such as attacking peaceful Coptic Christians with armored military vehicles.
If our entire policy is designed to undermine Israel’s security it explains why Obama was not interested in helping the Iranian freedom movement.
There has been every indication, as Prof. Niall Ferguson (video) pointed out as the Egyptian protests began in early 2011, that the so called “Arab Spring” is being coordinated by the Muslim Brotherhood.
With all of this information now known so publicly, Senator McCain’s advocacy of Syrian intervention is not only irrational, it aids our enemies and Israel’s enemies in the middle-east.
Related:
Prof. Niall Ferguson Blasts Obama and MSNBC on Egypt – LINK
Former head of CIA “bin Laden Unit”: Libyan rebels are like the Taliban – LINK
My Concerns About the Operation in Libya & Egypt – LINK
Analysis: Obama proposes $800 million in aid for the Muslim Brotherhood – LINK
Islamic militants receive two-thirds vote in Egypt – LINK
AP: Egyptian Women March Against Abuse by Military – LINK
Sandra Fluke claims to have no money for birth control, but she is flying all over the country speaking and appearing. How is she even attending class? How much it cost to have Anita Dunn’s PR firm (her husband is White House counsel), the PR firm that is closest to the White House, represent you?
Wal-Mart sells birth control pills for $9.00 a month. Many not for profit clinics give them away or sell them for even cheaper than Wal-Mart, but no, the Catholic Church needs to be forced to pay for “day after” abortion pills? Give me a break.
UPDATE – There is now a Send a Condom to Sandra Fluke Facebook Group – LINK.
Breitbart editors Joel Pollak and Ben Shapiro joined Sean Hannity today on his nationally syndicated radio program to give a sneak preview to tonight’s Fox News exclusive program focusing on our continuing series “Vetting The President.”
Underemployment is 19.1%, up from 18.7% in January
In addition to the 9.1% of U.S. workers who are unemployed, 10.0% are working part time but want full-time work. This percentage is similar to the 10.1% in January, but is higher than the 9.6% of February 2011.
Warning, some of these descriptions are graphic. What is interesting is that even after Bill Mahar said these horrible things, attacked and mocked Christians etc, the networks said what a delight and pleasure it was to have him on while making more of these attacks, examples of which you will see below.
Much of the time, those shouting *civility* are the biggest hypocrites imaginable. For some shocking evidence of just what I am talking about take a look at About Civility Part I and About Civility Part II[you can see our previous Sandra Fluke coverage HERE and HERE.]
Monday, on MSNBC’s The Ed Show, host Ed Schultz — who last year had to apologize after he called conservative radio host Laura Ingraham a “slut” — urged liberals to exploit Limbaugh’s use of the same term (also with an apology) to get his show cancelled. Schultz fantasized: “If there is a time to get him off the air, this is the push. I mean, if women in this country are serious about what they hear on the free airwaves of America, there’s no better time.”
Now, here’s a rundown of some demeaning language used by Bill Maher in just a nine day period last March:
■ On March 18, 2011, Maher, on his HBO show Real Time, employed a crude term for a female body part when talking about Sarah Palin: “Sarah Palin finally heard what happened in Japan, and she’s demanding that we invade Tsunami. I mean, she says, ‘These Tsunamians will not get away with this.’ Oh speaking of dumb twats….”
■ A week later, on his March 25 show, Maher insulted Palin and Michele Bachman as “bimbos.” Talking about the GOP field, Maher argued: “If Bachmann and Palin get in, that’s two bimbos, and then there’s Mitt Romney, a millionaire, and Newt Gingrich, a professor. We just need a skipper and a buddy – we’ve got Gilligan’s Island.”
■ Two days after that, on March 28, Maher employed the C-word in talking about Palin during a show in Dallas. According to a favorable review in the Dallas Voice: “It’s that fearlessness — he acknowledged that some people would probably be uncomfortable with some of his remarks about religion, not to mention calling Sarah Palin a ‘cunt’ (‘there’s just no other word for her’) — that makes Maher the most dangerous person in comedy.”
But none of this prompted any of the scolding that has greeted Limbaugh’s transgression. In fact, in the days and months that followed, CNN and MSNBC cheerfully included Maher a dozen times as a guest in their line-up. Only Chuck Todd, filling for Chris Matthews on Hardball, brought up Maher’s vicious comments just one day after the day after his Dallas event: “Any regrets on what you said?”
Maher, predictably, said he wasn’t sorry: “I’m not trying to hurt somebody’s feelings. But if you want me to say ‘I’m sorry, what I said was wrong,’ no, sorry, I can’t go there.”
These demeaning comments have not caused the news networks to sour on Maher, as he continues to make regular appearances and receive pats on the back from CNN and MSNBC hosts:
■ On March 22, 2011 — in the midst of his storm of nasty comments about conservative women, Maher appeared on CNN’s In the Arena. Host Eliot Spitzer did not ask about Maher’s “dumb twat” insult of Palin from four days earlier, or pose any hostile questions to Maher. Spitzer ended by genuflecting: “Your show is brilliant. I love watching it.”
■ On March 29, 2011, Maher made his MSNBC Hardball appearance with Chuck Todd, as noted above. While Todd — unlike CNN’s Spitzer — did ask Maher about how he was “getting hammered in the conservative blogosphere, among a lot of conservative hosts” for his nasty comments about Palin and Bachmann, he was in no way judgmental.
Todd ended that interview by publicizing both Maher’s upcoming show on HBO as well as appearances in Indiana and North Carolina. “Bill Maher, always entertaining to have you on.”
■ On April 12, 2011, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow hosted Maher, and not once asked about his nasty comments about women. Instead of scolding Maher for his deplorable remarks, Maddow was thrilled to have him: “It is nice to see you….I’m very excited….Thank you so much for being on with us, Bill. It’s really nice to see you. Thank you.”
■ On May 3, 2011, Maher popped up on The Joy Behar Show on CNN’s Headline News Network. Behar fawned over her guest: “I love your show. I watch you every week, and I really get irritated when they put you on hiatus.”
■ On May 17, 2011, Maher showed up on MSNBC’s Hardball, where Chris Matthews touted him as their “star guest.” Maher trashed Michele Bachmann as a “frothing loon,” jabbing that “Bachmann is the candidate for people who find Palin too intellectual.”
■ On June 14, 2011, CNN’s Anderson Cooper interviewed Maher about the GOP debate. Maher unleashed his usual invective, declaring that the Republican candidates “have just horrible, society-killing ideas about America.”
■ On July 11, 2011, Maher appeared as a guest on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight, and made the host laugh with a crude reference to Palin and Michele Bachmann. Morgan asked Maher about the GOP nomination: “If you had a choice, gun to your head, which one is it? Palin or Bachmann?”
Maher replied: “I would need a gun to my head. I hope Sarah Palin gets in so that they split the MILF vote.” MILF is an acronym for a “Mother I’d Like to Fuck.” The CNN host ended the interview by telling Maher: “May you remain gloriously uncensored on HBO…Love the show.”
■ On August 3, 2011, fill-in host Michael Eric Dyson had “the great Bill Maher” on MSNBC’s The Ed Show. Dyson touted Maher as “my very good friend.”
■ On October 11, 2011, Maher returned to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show, which Maddow eagerly promoted. “The one and only Bill Maher is going to be here for an interview tonight,” she promised viewers. Talking about the radical Occupy protesters, Maher used the occasion to suggest violence against Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch: “If a brick came through Rupert Murdoch’s window, I have a feeling Fox News would be a lot more gentle on the Wall Street people….”
■ On January 25, 2012, CNN’s Cooper brought Maher onto his show to talk about Obama’s State of the Union speech and the Republican nomination contest. During that interview, Maher made a derogatory reference to Mormons, predicting Romney would be the nominee and: “I think Obama is going to beat him like a runaway sister wife.” Cooper winced: “Geez, your runaway sister wife? I haven’t heard an LDS punchline in quite a while.”
■ On February 27, 2012, Chris Matthews was thrilled to see Maher back on Hardball where he talked about the Republican “crazies” and “idiots.” “Hey, Maher, you’re the best,” Matthews flattered. “You’re the funniest, smartest guy around….Thank you, Bill Maher — you’re an Irish guy, too. Thank you for coming on.”
■ That same night, Morgan interviewed Maher again, this time prompted by his $1 million donation to Obama’s SuperPAC. Maher mocked Christianity: “You’re allowed to have your opinion that a Palestinian 2,000 years ago walked on water and did magic tricks and was really — he’s really still his own father and all that stuff.” As always, Morgan was delighted: “Bill Maher, always a great pleasure.”
Rush Limbaugh was trying to use absurdity to demonstrate her absurdity and went to far; then there is Bill Mahar who donated $1 million to President Obama’s SuperPac and he regularly uses the words c*nt, tw*t, b**ch, boob, etc to describe female politicians he doesn’t like.
Now this is not justification for Limbaugh’s mistake, but when I look at the facebook pages of those having a fit about Limbaugh, I see nothing about Bill Mahar, or so many others. In fact, as far as the elite media goes, they were blaming Sarah Palin for the Arizona shooting and that went on for days… and these are the people acting as if they are the civility police.. please.
Much of the time, those shouting *civility* are the biggest hypocrites imaginable. Here is a great piece of evidence of just what I am talking about:
Sandra Fluke demanded in her testimony to Congress that Catholic Universities, Hospitals and other institutions give her $3,000 worth of birth control because she goes to school at Georgetown (Catholic) University which is enough to buy so many condoms that she could have sex three times a day, every day she is in school. Fluke also wants Catholic institutions to pay for so called “morning after” abortion pills (See our previous Sandra Fluke coverage HERE).
It gets better.
Fluke, according to transcripts, also expects Catholic institutions, insurance companies, government, small businesses etc to pay for sex changes.
Sandra Fluke, Gender Reassignment, and Health Insurance
Sandra Fluke is being sold by the left as something she’s not. Namely a random co-ed from Georgetown law who found herself mixed up in the latest front of the culture war who was simply looking to make sure needy women had access to birth control. That, of course, is not the case.
However, as I discovered today, birth control is not all that Ms. Fluke believes private health insurance must cover. She also, apparently, believes that it is discrimination deserving of legal action if “gender reassignment” surgeries are not covered by employer provided health insurance. She makes these views clear in an article she co-edited with Karen Hu in the Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law.
The title of the article, which can be purchased in full here, is Employment Discrimination Against LGBTQ Persons and was published in the Journal’s 2011 Annual Review. I have posted a transcript of the section I will be quoting from here. In a subsection of the article entitled “Employment Discrimination in Provision of Employment Benefits” starting on page 635 of the review Sandra Fluke and her co-editor describe two forms of discrimination in benefits they believe LGBTQ individuals face in the work place:
“Discrimination typically takes two forms: first, direct discrimination limiting access to benefits specifically needed by LGBTQ persons, and secondly, the unavailability of family-related benefits to LGBTQ families.”
Their “prime example” of the first form of discrimination? Not covering sex change operations:
“A prime example of direct discrimination is denying insurance coverage for medical needs of transgender persons physically transitioning to the other gender.”
This so called “prime example” of discrimination is expounded on in a subsection titled “Gender Reassignment Medical Services” starting on page 636:
“Transgender persons wishing to undergo the gender reassignment process frequently face heterosexist employer health insurance policies that label the surgery as cosmetic or medically unnecessary and therefore uncovered.”
To be clear, the argument here is that employers are engaging in discrimination against their employees who want them to pay for their sex changes because their “heterosexist” health insurance policies don’t believe sex changes are medically necessary.
Newt Gingrich blasts NBC’s David Gregory and the elite media for deliberately misleading the American people about this made up “access to contraception” issue. No one is being denied access to contraception and not one politician is trying to ban it, yet the elite media and the Democrats are either saying or directly implying that this is what Republicans are trying to do.
The Obama Administration is trying to make the Catholic Church pay for abortion pills.
“I am astonished at the desperation of the elite media to avoid rising gas prices, to avoid the president’s apology to religious fanatics in Afghanistan, to avoid a trillion-dollar deficit, to avoid the longest period of unemployment since the Great Depression, and to suddenly decide that Rush Limbaugh is the great national crisis of the week,”
UPDATE – Sandra Fluke: Catholic Institutions Should Pay for My Sex Change – LINK
Sandra Fluke says that as a law student she is poor that a Catholic University or an insurance company should be forced to give her birth control for free.
Sandra Fluke says that she uses $3,000 a year worth of birth control; CNS News and others ran the numbers and concluded that she would have to have sex 3 TIMES A DAY every day to use $3,000 worth.
So our friend Rush has a little fun with that statistic and makes jokes a parodies. One of the jokes was that if she wants to have that much sex and wants others to pay for it, are we not in essence paying her to have sex? If so she should post videos.
Rick Santorum, obviously forgetting that anyone who enters the political arena is fair game for jokes from just about everyone (I bet Jay Leno had a ball with this), condemned Rush for making the joke, which obviously had a very serious point behind it, which Rick also wimped out on commenting on.
Of course contraception is free at many health clinics and state run institutions, and that includes birth control; so this has nothing to do with who is going to pay for her insatiable sex habits, rather it is about going after the First Amendment’s protections of freedom of religion and conscience. It is also an effort to close Catholic hospitals and clinics so that government can take one step closer at taking over the health care system (which Kathleen Sibelius just all but admitted that this is the administration goal). It is also important to keep in mind that the Obama Administration is trying to force Catholic institutions not just to provide free contraception, but also to provide free so called “morning after” abortion pills.
Sandra Fluke presented herself as just another average Catholic law student, but in reality she is the president of the radical pro-abortion group “Law Students for Reproductive Justice” (2). Fluke is absurd and should be called out on it.
Secretary Chu: The Energy Department is not working to get gas prices down.
It is amazing when they let the truth out. President Obama’s Energy Secretary Stephen Chu gave an honest answer when he gave a direct answer to a direct question in testimony to Congress:
Chu specifically cited a reported breakthrough announced Monday by Envia Systems, which received funding from DOE’s ARPA-E, that could help slash the price of electric vehicle batteries.
He also touted natural gas as “great” and said DOE is researching how to reduce the cost of compressed natural gas tanks for vehicles.
High gasoline prices will make research into such alternatives more urgent, Chu said.
“But is the overall goal to get our price” of gasoline down, asked Nunnelee.
“No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil, to build and strengthen our economy,” Chu replied. “We think that if you consider all these energy policies, including energy efficiency, we think that we can go a long way to becoming less dependent on oil and [diversifying] our supply and we’ll help the American economy and the American consumers.”
Mark Levin plays some more of Secretary Chu’s testimony where he makes it clear that the Obama Administration intends to drive up prices by limiting future supply:
…to start a non-profit health insurance company, but the group is has no experience in the insurance industry. What the group does have experience in is far left radical activism. Saul Alinsky was a 1960’s revolutionary communist activist.
More Obama pals get your money.
Like many of the “green jobs” projects that the Obama Administration has given huge loans to, this is yet another big taxpayer investment that will likely never be paid back and is instead taxpayer dollars used for Democrats political activism. Many “green jobs” government loan recipients went out of business soon after receiving the loans, but the CEO’s of the companies were large political contributors who paid themselves large salaries and bonuses before ceasing operations.
A Saul Alinsky-tied group has been awarded a $56 million federal loan to start up a nonprofit health insurance company — one of several organizations across the country this week tapped to launch a new network of insurers under the sponsorship of the federal health care overhaul.
The Wisconsin group, Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative, was awarded the funding on Tuesday. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the group is expected to provide coverage statewide within five years after starting on a smaller scale in early 2014.
But Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson questioned the group’s credentials — given its affiliation and lack of experience in the insurance field.
“The indisputable fact is that Common Ground was an outgrowth of the Alinsky operation in Chicago,” Wilson said. “We’re not giving money to a group with experience in health care issues or in setting up exchanges. … We’re handing the money to people who have been trained by arguably the single most expert individual on community organizing in the last 100 years.”
Common Ground, a Milwaukee group that dates back to 2004, is an affiliate of the Alinsky-founded Industrial Areas Foundation.
“If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” – Malcolm X
Political Arena 