Michelle Obama’s Nutritional Finger-Waggling

Amen!! I felt exactly the same way… How dare Michelle Obama intimidate and scold a disciplined Olympian who just won two Golds for her country for splurging by eating an egg McMuffin. (NBC for once had the fortitude to title their coverage… Michelle Obama scolds Gabby Douglas instead of ‘teases’ like a lot to the a_s kissers did, but then felt they had to soften it by adding a lot of kitsch to their video coverage).

Wow talk about being out of touch and a wet blanket. It almost made me feel bad for the President and certainly did for their girls!

I mean really? For an Egg McMuffin? These Olympic athletes can eat endless calories because they work out all the time and if you know this gal’s story… she is disciplined and deserves a splurge! And it wasn’t like she said ‘I ate a quarter pounder with cheese, fries, and a chocolate shake followed by an apple pie…’ It as an egg McMuffin~

I am not a McDonalds defender. Americans need to eat better and we certainly eat too much fast food but this is not the way to cure that ill!

God help us if Ms. O and crew get 4 more years to police our food and everything else! M~

Mark America (links added):

Setting Her Back?

On Monday night’s renewal of the Jay Leno show, Michelle Obama appeared along with Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas, and as the discussion went on, Douglas mentioned eating a celebratory Egg McMuffin from McDonalds. Self-appointed National Nutrition Czar Michelle Obama, who enjoys telling everybody on the planet what to eat, chided Douglas over the choice. I realize this was said mainly in jest, but frankly, Michelle Obama needs to shut the hell up. Gabby Douglas needs Michelle Obama as a nutrition adviser like I need her husband as an automobile consultant. “No, I don’t want an exploding electric car, Mr. President.” There’s something wrong with the Obamas, and it comes down to their desire to run the lives of others, but more than this, there is something unseemly about a woman who has no accomplishments of note (beyond marrying a guy who was elected President), counseling or even jokingly chiding an Olympian about her choices of foods.

Really, what the hell has Michelle Obama ever accomplished? She was an attorney for a while, and there are questions to whether she can still practice. And she served in some positions in Chicago that appeared to have been little more than political favors to her husband, where a cloud still hangs over her (and cronies Axelrod and Jarrett’s) decisions and programs. Apart from that, and apart from spending millions of taxpayer dollars on her seemingly endless string of vacations, I can’t imagine what has qualified the lady to give any sort of nutritional advice to anyone, never mind an Olympian who has managed to train her whole life long and win Olympic glory all without the help of Michelle Obama. There were no quotas, no set-asides, and no special favors for Gabby Douglas, her only way forward and up to the top available having been to achieve it by her own efforts. She didn’t obtain Olympic fame and fortune by marrying a gymnastics judge.

I have no problem with first spouses who are accomplished in their own right. I think it’s terrific to see First Ladies becoming involved in various causes, but they shouldn’t have any official power, and in truth, they shouldn’t have any role in governance because we don’t elect them. Until Hillary Clinton, most first ladies tended to restrain themselves to charitable activities and voluntary efforts, more or less, but something was wrong with Hillary Clinton becoming involved in health-care plans, just as there’s something wrong with Michelle Obama nattering-on about nutrition. Hillary Clinton is not a medical professional, an insurance professional, and at the time, she hadn’t been elected to anything. Similarly, Michelle Obama is not a nutritionist, knows damnably little about food beyond consuming it, but certainly little about its production, and yet here she chastises the Olympian? Of course, she also toured Army posts earlier this year examining their dining facilities, and what nutrition is available to our soldiers, as if the Army needs her advice or direction.

I’m tired of this nonsense. I’m tired of her fake wisdom and her husband’s fake Presidency. For the better part of four years, we have had to listen to these two self-aggrandized nit-wits chiding the nation over this or that, but frankly, it’s time for them to shut the hell up. At every turn, here they are to remind us of a ruling family in some tin-pot dictatorship, like Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos of the Philippines, and while we can guess than Michelle doesn’t have 2700 pair of shoes, she does seem to have a thing for belts. I don’t believe the American people hired Barack Obama to provide a nutrition consultant in the form of his wife, and I don’t think the American people need any more lectures on the evils of oil. It’s long past time for these two to leave the White House, and be stricken from the American memory in the same way we have tried to forget James and Rosalyn Carter.

The next time I see Michelle Obama doing anything athletically, gracefully, and with extraordinary discipline, it will be the first, but until then, she should leave the nutritional concerns of our Olympians, our soldiers, and indeed our entire nation to qualified parties. When I notice how emaciated Barack appears, I wonder how well she’s looking after her own family’s nutrition. In stark contrast, like the champion she is, Gabby Douglas handled the situation with good humor, and her gracious approach sits well with her Olympic achievement. It’s too bad we don’t have a First Lady with similar grace and class.

Let us also remember that McDonald’s is a huge multi-national (CFR elitist company) sponsor of and contributor to the Olympics… But can you really take their money and demonize them at the same time?

Related:

More Fruit, Fewer Fries: Michelle Obama Might Have Taken the ‘Happy’ Out of McDonald’s Happy Meals

Food Fights and Class Warfare

Global Elite Using Obesity Vaccines to Alter Minds and Curb Consumption

OBESITY CONSPIRACY: The U.S. Government Scandal that's Really Making You Fat

Health department raids community picnic and destroys all food with bleach

Deal-making, arm-twisting, and sellouts

Comment:

Rebel Rashida:

If Gabby were my daughter, I know who I’d be votin for in November, and it wouldn’t be Obama!

Technorati Tags: Gabby Douglas,Olympians,nutritian,Big Sis Michelle Obama,Michelle Obama,food police,McDonalds,athlete's diets,Nanny State,control,fanatics,moderation,fast food,Obamaland,Olympics,David Axelrod,Valerie Jarrett

Why We Have No Budget and Why It Can’t Be Balanced

“We receive wake up call after wake up call and all to no avail because our government is either economically illiterate and doesn’t understand the problem of spending other people's money even after other people run out of money, or is too ideologically committed.  The best, but radical, thing that we could/should do is to cut entitlements and foreign aid immediately, knowing full well that could start rioting. And even that would be just the beginning, it will be like chipping away at an iceberg (See the video below)”  …Gary the Rat

WHEN BROKE means BROKE

We Have A Budget That Can't Be Balanced

CLICK HERE

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/EW5IdwltaAc?rel=0

And yet…

Obama Ends Welfare Reform as We Know It, Calls for $12.7 Trillion in New Welfare Spending putting us even further into debt to try and garner votes for his re-election.  President Obama has also played the smoke and mirrors game pandering to students on the backs of seniors by hiding a provision in the transportation bill covering first year college loan fees with money from the already broke social security fund.

The people we have in the White House now and most that we have in Congress are not capable or not willing to do what needs to be done to fix the problems.  And many don’t even understand the problem and are ideologically blinded.

President Obama and the Senate under the leadership of Harry Reid purposely kept this from the American people by not passing a budget or bringing on to vote in years.

All issues other than fixing the economy and jobs are diversions and secondary at this point.

In November we must clean house from President Obama on down or our ship of state will sink!

I'll take Romney's business experience over the nightmare we're experiencing in Obama's America Any Day!

Related:

Economist Ron Hera really nails it. We are ALREADY in collapse

Technorati Tags: jobs,economics,economy,national budget,balancing the budget,Congress,Election 2012,2012 Election,welfare reform,Obamaland,Obama's agenda,destroying America,seniors,student loans,smoke and mirrors,Mitt Romney,one term Obama,Mitt Romney 2012,entitlements,stop spending,nanny state,Progressivism

Morris: Romney To Win Undecideds

By DICK MORRIS  -  Published on TheHill.com on May 15, 2012

From May 5-11, 2012, I conducted a survey of 6,000 likely voters. On such a mammoth sample, the margin of error is less than 1 percent. I found that Romney has amassed a sizable lead over Obama of 51-42, far in excess of what published polling and surveys of registered -- as opposed to likely -- voters are indicating.

If Romney were to win 51 percent of the vote, the election would, of course, be very close. But if he could hold Obama to 42 percent, it would be a landslide. So the obvious question is how Romney should go about winning the voters in between.

To answer this question, I drilled down in my sample to these undecided voters, none of whom voted for Romney in the survey. I added to their ranks those who voted for Obama but indicated that they only "somewhat" approved of his performance in office. This left me with a sample of 1,500 likely voters who are in play. The data in this column reflects their views. If Romney can win a quarter or a third of their votes, he will win by a landslide margin of 10 points.

On the economy, 46 percent of these swing voters do not believe that there is any recovery. Twenty-three percent say the economy is the same as when Obama took office and an additional 23 percent say it is worse. Thirty-nine percent say the jobs situation has not improved. Twenty-five percent say it is the same and 14 percent say it is worse. And 37 percent agree with the statement that "if we look around, there isn't real evidence that we are actually making progress."

Specifically, swing voters do not believe that the unemployment rate drop Obama heralds is real. Forty-nine percent agree that "the only reason it goes down is that each month more people give up even looking for work."

So Obama's claims that we are climbing out of the recession fall short with almost half of the swing vote. Indeed, 31 percent of swing voters say that "Obama's policies have made the recession worse."

About a third of swing voters squarely blame Obama's borrowing and spending as the culprit for the failure of the economy. Thirty-six percent agree that "the deficit and debt Obama's program caused did more harm that the spending did good. His cure was worse than the disease."

Forty-four percent of swing voters believe that "if we cut government spending and borrowing, we could recover much more quickly."

A third of swing voters -- 31 percent -- reject the president's argument that "if it were not for Obama's policies, things might have been even worse."

Finally, 44 percent of swing voters agree that "if we reelect Obama, he'll just do more of the same."

Romney has the ability to slice off a third of the undecided swing voters by way of a major attack on the economy, thereby lifting him well above the 50 percent threshold. Swing voters:

• Challenge Obama's assertion that we are recovering and that unemployment is dropping.
• Lay the blame for the economic stagnation on his "spending and borrowing" and suggest that with less of each, things would improve much more quickly.
• Believe that "his cure is worse than the disease" in that "the borrowing has done more harm than the spending did good."
• Are convinced that if we reelect Obama, we have only more spending and borrowing to look forward to and that the results will be the same.

Will Romney exploit the vulnerabilities this poll suggests? Only time will tell.

"It's a Chain of Lie After Lie After Lie"
What if the financial crisis wasn't an accident? That experts have PROOF regarding an elaborate scheme dating back to Sept. 18, 2008?… Dick Morris

Morris, a former adviser to Senator Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Clinton, is the author of Outrage, Fleeced, Catastrophe and 2010: Take Back America — A Battle Plan.  Revolt!: How To Defeat Obama and Repeal His Socialist Programs — A Patriot’s Guide and his latest book:  Screwed!: How Foreign Countries Are Ripping America Off and Plundering Our Economy-and How Our Leaders Help Them Do It  See: dickmorris.com.

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Defining America’s Future Event

Restoring Love Event – What Is It?

Interested in Fighting the Nanny State With Lemonade, Delicious Pies… and Hugs?  Beck Will Tell You How

Houston: Lemonade Day to Highlight Project Row Houses for Second Year

Technorati Tags: Dick Morris,Election 2012,2012 Election,Mitt Romney 2012,Mitt Romney,elections,undecideds,polls,nanny state,Glenn Beck,events,Restoring Love,lemonade stands,afa,Mercury One,Project Row Houses,entrepreneurship,independents

Peter Schiff slams Obama's "Julia" - Brilliant video

 

Video:  Taxes, Busybodies, and Soul-Sucking Bureaucracy: The Real Story of Julia (21:30 mins)

A Better Life For Julia

• What ‘The Life of Julia’ really tells us
• HotAir: A Better Life for Julia
• From the cradle to the grave, Obama says the government should control your life
• The Life of Julia – Left-Wing Faulty Politics
• A Life For Julia
Technorati Tags: Big Government,Choices,conservatives vs liberals,Election 2012,entitlements,Heritage Foundation,liberals vs conservatives,Nanny State,social justice,TEAM Obama,Women,Julia,Socialism

A Better Life for Julia… ;-)

Last week, President Obama’s team introduced the “Life of Julia,” a portrayal of a liberal vision of life for one woman.

Watch the “Life of Julia”  as presented by the Obama Campaign (mind you… Obama remains President throughout Julia’s 67 (short) years life.

If Obama is re-elected in November 2012 Life of Julia:

Then watch the Heritage Foundation version showing how conservative policies, like the ones outlined in Heritage’s Saving the American Dream plan, where Julia and all Americans are empowered without government interference at every stage of life.

Rather than President Obama’s vision of cradle-to-grave government dependence, conservatives want an empowered Julia with personal liberty and economic opportunities.

Conservatives believe people should be in charge of their own lives, not government.

If Romney is elected in November 2012 Heritage’s Saving the American Dream plan:

h/t to MJ

Related Articles

• What ‘The Life of Julia’ really tells us
• HotAir: A Better Life for Julia
• From the cradle to the grave, Obama says the government should control your life
• The Life of Julia – Left-Wing Faulty Politics
• A Life For Julia

Technorati Tags: Socialism,Obamaland,Conservative policies,Conservatives vs Liberals,Liberals vs Conservatives,choices,Election 2012,2012 Election,GOP,Mitt Romney,BHO

From the cradle to the grave, Obama says the government should control your life

By: Old Ironsides  - Conscience of a Conservative – Cross-Posted by TMH of the Noisy Room

Well, Obama’s mask is finally beginning to slip off his face. A few days ago the 2012 Obama campaign released its official slogan, FORWARD, and immediately the origins of this favorite action word became known thanks to Obama’s greatest adversary, the conservative bloggers. From now until November the Democrats will be marching FORWARD to victory. Just as their fellow communists have done in the past. Most of those communist posters from past history were not written in English so they’re not as obvious, see the blog written by Hack Wilson, http://www.hackwilson.blogspot.com/ But, even though Obama’s Democrats left out the revolutionary soldier carrying the red flag in their poster, at least one of those communist posters from modern history is in English. And it is most convincing in its true meaning when the Leading Light Communist Organization uses it.

So now the Obama Democrats have taken the next step in convincing everyone of their true purpose, spreading the philosophy of Karl Marx. Only the Obama Democrats are being a bit cautious because they are revealing their plan in little pieces. Such as their new web site propaganda piece “The Life of Julia” wherein the Democrats show their love and compassion for everyone from the cradle to the grave. The part they left out is what they expect from you in return.

No, it isn’t Socialism, it isn’t Communism, it isn’t Marxism, its just our good old Democrat pretender Barack Hussein Obama telling America that life is better when you depend on the government to give you everything you need. Is the word “depend” the right one to use? Maybe the sentence should read: Life is better when you allow the government to control your life, because control is what the Democrats want. Too bad the wisdom of a true American patriot, Thomas Jefferson, has been forgotten by so many Democrats today. Back in the days when our Founding Fathers were creating our Republic, Jefferson argued that “A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.” Maybe that’s why so many liberal teachers are rewriting American History today because they don’t want tomorrow’s voters to think about these things.

I know where I’ve heard that Democrat slogan before. It was first written by Karl Marx when he said: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” And Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were the authors of The Communist Manifesto. The Obama Democrats have presented the later part of the Marxist statement, the part that appeals to greed, but they conveniently left off the first part, the part that dictates what the government wants in return. Wikipedia reveals the complete origin, along with the full text in which it appeared.

The complete paragraph containing Marx’s statement of the creed in the ‘Critique of the Gotha Program’ is as follows:

In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly—only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!

Then another search of Wikipedia reveals more on the application of this basic communist philosophy.

“Claiming themselves to be at a “lower stage of communism (i.e., “socialism”, in line with Marx’s terminology), the Soviet Union adapted the formula as: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his work (labor investment)”. ”

Proletarians and Communists
The second section, “Proletarians and Communists”, starts by stating the relationship of conscious communists to the rest of the working class, declaring that they will not form a separate party that opposes other working-class parties, will express the interests and general will of the proletariat as a whole, and will distinguish themselves from other working-class parties by always expressing the common interest of the entire proletariat independently of all nationalities and representing the interests of the movement as a whole.

The section goes on to defend communism from various objections, such as the claim that communists advocate “free love“, and the claim that people will not perform labor in a communist society because they have no incentive to work.The section ends by outlining a set of short-term demands:

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

8. Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form and combination of education with industrial production.[15]

The implementation of these policies would, as believed by Marx and Engels, be a precursor to the stateless and classless society. In a controversial passage they suggested that the “proletariat” might in competition with the bourgeoisie be compelled to organize as a class, form a revolution, make itself a ruling class, sweep away the old conditions of production, and in that step have abolished its own supremacy as a class. This account of the transition from socialism to communism was criticized particularly during and after the Soviet era.

My name is Nelson Abdullah and I am Old Ironsides.

The 0bama administration is trying to have this removed from Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward_%28generic_name_of_socialist_publications%29

 

Technorati Tags: politics,Socialism,Progressivism,radicals,Marxism,Obamaland,Communism,watch the other hand

The Life of Julia – Left-Wing Faulty Politics

Critics… pretty much anyone with a brain, rip the Obama Campaign’s very telling creation, Julia; another campaign stunt that will surely backfire!

The Blaze:

The Obama campaign’s new “Life of Julia” tool has led to no shortage of mocking parodies of the faceless, fictional female guided through life by the president’s programs.

The efficacy of Obama’s policies — and the hardships “Julia” would befall under a Romney administration — are certainly up for debate. One thing that’s not? Whoever created Julia and her world really should have brushed up on their flag etiquette.

From “The Life of Julia,” age 25:

Julia’s college graduation podium is flanked by two flags — the U.S.’s and a generic “U.” The American flag is to the would-be speaker’s left, while U’s is on the right. So what’s wrong with that?

From the U.S. Flag Code:

When displayed from a staff in a church or public auditorium, the flag of the United States of America should hold the position of superior prominence, in advance of the audience, and in the position of honor at the clergyman’s or speaker’s right as he faces the audience. Any other flag so displayed should be placed on the left of the clergyman or speaker or to the right of the audience.

Yikes. Pretty embarrassing flub for a national presidential campaign. Good thing it’s only the first one.

(h/t Eric Adam, TeaPartyProductions.com)

The Life of Julia a Pathetic Loser… is anything but Aspirational or Enviable!

Adapted (in italics) from The Life of Julia the Pathetic Loser by Paul Phaneuf (http://ning.it/J2EHot), TPN

Julia’s life begins at the age of 3 (guess her mama skipped the abortion choice) when Julia is enrolled in a Head Start Program where she will learn about Heather’s two mommies, the joys of masturbation, the foolishness of freedom, and the hypocrisy of the American Founding Fathers.

She will learn the identity of the real Messiah, the Kenyan Barry Soteoro, and the American President who single handedly lowered the level of the oceans and saved planet Earth from stupid humans while simultaneously ushering in the New Stone Age for what was once the greatest country in human history.  And amazingly the morphed Barry, Barack Obama, will be President of the United States her entire life.

At the age of 17, Julia takes the SAT, gleefully cheats on her exam and achieves a perfect score of 800 when she successfully navigates the times table all the way through to the sixes.

She trains for the Race to the Top, a program implemented by President Barry, however Julia finds that her advanced degree in “The History of the Occupation Movement and Its Contribution to the Downfall of American Prosperity” is not in high demand among employers and is disappointed to learn that no one is willing to pay her for useless propaganda.

At the age of 18, after her third abortion, Julia and her family which comprises of Julia, the four children she did not abort, and her life mate Galtilla the Witch, qualify for President Barry’s American Opportunity Tax Credit.

Julia and Galtilla are tickled pink as this gives Julia the chance to earn her doctorate in Secret Mathematical Tables of the Coven, not a religion. Julia has used the money to retain an attorney in anticipation of the discrimination lawsuit she will file if she is not hired by the local diner for $350,000 a year.

At the age of 22, Julia, Galtilla and the four kids are on her parents Medicare insurance and, thank the god Barry, do not have to experience the duress of paying for health care insurance. After navigating the bureaucracy, Julia is elated to get an important surgical procedure approved before she turns 30. Unfortunately, the surgery is performed at the local butcher shop because no one has entered the involuntary servitude of the medical profession since Julia was 3.

Because of the Lilly Ledbottom Fair Play Action Association, Julia is one of millions of women who get to stand up for her right to equal pay, a situation Julia intends to capitalize on as soon as the manager from MacDonald’s returns her calls.

At the age of 25, Julia’s federal loans are more manageable from her hovel in the Bank of China Gulag in the Florida Everglades. She makes her payments on time every month, or else.

By the age of 27, Julia and 120 million other women have worked as web designers for one of Obama’s czars who have been in power for 24 years. Finally Julia and Galtilla are neutered under the Chinese mandate of no more than one child per hovel per gulag.

At the age of 31, Julia decides to have a child with a man whose name she would like to remember, but after numerous attempts, Julia is diagnosed as unable to have children because she has been neutered. Thankfully, she can still collect benefits for prenatal care and, using her newly issued ITIN is compensated for all the children she could have had, including the ones she aborted.

At the age of 37, Julia’s four children are repeating Kindergarten for the seventh time and Julia opts for the Race to the Top degree in Kindergartenology for all of her children. There is great rejoicing when Julia and Galtilla learn that their eleven year old daughter is pregnant.

At the age of 42, Julia wants to start her own web business. The Smaller Business Administration offers her three and a half million dollars not to start the business and Julia uses the money to purchase a tent and a faux fur coat which she shares in the winter with her children and 14 grandchildren in the gulag. Unfortunately, Julia has been evicted from her hovel for violation of the Bank of China’s policies. Galtilla is nowhere to be found.

At the age of 65, Julia enrolls in Medicare and heads right to the butcher so she can grab a number and schedule a checkup by her 72nd birthday, by age 79, should she live that long, there will no treatments available to her.

At the age of 67, Julia retires from her successful career not designing websites in the business the government paid her not to start and she receives monthly benefits without worrying that she’ll run out of savings. Unfortunately Julia is very lonely because she has sold all her children into bondage to pay for bread and rat soup.

President Barry doesn’t spend two seconds thinking about Julia or any other woman from his mansion on the top of Mount Olympus where he has resided with all the other gods for all these years... since the emergence of the NWO, administered by the United Nations .

Julia dies an old broken, ignorant, hungry bondservant in the gulag at the ripe old age of 68… even though the average age of women in the United States is now 80.  Sounds like a death panel encounter to me!

All Hail King Barry.

Let us all remember: "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have." (Thomas Jefferson)

Related:

Obama campaign's "Julia" turns into Republican fodder

Cradle to Grave: The Obama Campaign's Fantasy for American …

War over #Julia: Has Obama campaign set a trap for Republicans ...

Stolen Purse… Brunswick, GA

Feeding The Homeless BANNED In Major Cities All Over America

It is getting crazy out there!!

The Economic Collapse Blog

What would you do if you came across someone on the street that had not had anything to eat for several days?  Would you give that person some food?  Well, the next time you get that impulse you might want to check if it is still legal to feed the homeless where you live.  Sadly, feeding the homeless has been banned in major cities all over America.  Other cities that have not banned it outright have put so many requirements on those that want to feed the homeless (acquiring expensive permits, taking food preparation courses, etc.) that feeding the homeless has become “out of reach” for most average people.  Some cities are doing these things because they are concerned about the “health risks” of the food being distributed by ordinary “do-gooders”.  Other cities are passing these laws because they do not want homeless people congregating in city centers where they know that they will be fed.  But at a time when poverty and government dependence are soaring to unprecedented levels, is it really a good idea to ban people from helping those that are hurting?

This is just another example that shows that our country is being taken over by control freaks.  There seems to be this idea out there that it is the job of the government to take care of everyone and that nobody else should even try.

But do we really want to have a nation where you have to get the permission of the government before you do good to your fellow man?

It isn’t as if the government has “rescued” these homeless people.  Homeless shelters all over the nation are turning people away each night because they have no more room.  There are many homeless people that are lucky just to make it through each night alive during the winter.

Sometimes a well-timed sandwich or a cup of warm soup can make a world of difference for a homeless person.  But many U.S. cities have decided that feeding the homeless is such a threat that they had better devote law enforcement resources to making sure that it doesn’t happen.

This is so twisted.  In America today, you need a “permit” to do almost anything.  We are supposed to be a land of liberty and freedom, but these days government bureaucrats have turned our rights into “privileges” that they can revoke at any time.

The following are some of the major U.S. cities that have attempted to ban feeding the homeless….

Philadelphia

Mayor Nutter recently banned feeding homeless people in many parts of Philadelphia where homeless people are known to congregate….

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter has announced a ban on the feeding of large numbers of homeless and hungry people at sites on and near the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

Mayor Nutter is imposing the ban on all outdoor feedings of large numbers of people on city parkland, including Love Park and the Ben Franklin Parkway, where it is not uncommon for outreach groups to offer free food.

Nutter says the feedings lack both sanitary conditions and dignity.

Orlando

Last June, a group of activists down in Orlando, Florida were arrested by police for feeding the homeless in defiance of a city ordinance….

Over the past week, twelve members of food activist group Food Not Bombs have been arrested in Orlando for giving free food to groups of homeless people in a downtown park. They were acting in defiance of a controversial city ordinance that mandates permits for groups distributing food to large groups in parks within two miles of City Hall. Each group is allowed only two permits per park per year; Food Not Bombs has already exceeded their limit. They set up their meatless buffet in Lake Eola knowing that they would likely be arrested as a result.

Houston

Down in Houston, a group of Christians was recently banned from distributing food to the homeless, and they were told that they probably would not be granted a permit to do so in the future even if they applied for one….

Bobby and Amanda Herring spent more than a year providing food to homeless people in downtown Houston every day. They fed them, left behind no trash and doled out warm meals peacefully without a single crime being committed, Bobby Herring said.

That ended two weeks ago when the city shut down their “Feed a Friend” effort for lack of a permit. And city officials say the couple most likely will not be able to obtain one.

“We don’t really know what they want, we just think that they don’t want us down there feeding people,” said Bobby Herring, a Christian rapper who goes by the stage name Tre9.

Dallas

Dallas has also adopted a law which greatly restricts the ability of individuals and ministries to feed the homeless….

A Dallas-area ministry is suing the city over a food ordinance that restricts the group from giving meals to the homeless.

Courts dismissed Dallas’ request for a summary judgment last week, saying the case, brought up by pastor Don Hart (in video above) may indeed be a violation of free exercise of religion, as protected by the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the blog Religion Clause reported.

In the court filing, the ministry leaders argue that their Christian faith requires them to share meals with the homeless (Jesus did!) and that the requirement that even churches and charities provide toilets, sinks, trained staff and consent of the city keeps them from doing so.

Las Vegas

A few years ago, Las Vegas became the first major U.S. city to specifically pass a law banning the feeding of homeless people….

Las Vegas, whose homeless population has doubled in the past decade to about 12,000 people in and around the city, joins several other cities across the country that have adopted or considered ordinances limiting the distribution of charitable meals in parks. Most have restricted the time and place of such handouts, hoping to discourage homeless people from congregating and, in the view of officials, ruining efforts to beautify downtowns and neighborhoods.

But the Las Vegas ordinance is believed to be the first to explicitly make it an offense to feed “the indigent.”

That law has since been blocked by a federal judge, and since then many U.S. cities have been very careful not to mention “the indigent” or “the homeless” by name in the laws they pass that are intended to ban feeding the homeless.

New York City

New York City has banned all food donations to government-run homeless shelters because the bureaucrats there are concerned that the donated food will not be “nutritious” enough.

Yes, this is really true.

The following is from a recent Fox News article….

The Bloomberg administration is now taking the term “food police” to new depths, blocking food donations to all government-run facilities that serve the city’s homeless.

In conjunction with a mayoral task force and the Health Department, the Department of Homeless Services recently started enforcing new nutritional rules for food served at city shelters. Since DHS can’t assess the nutritional content of donated food, shelters have to turn away good Samaritans.

Can you believe that?

The bureaucrats are officially out of control.

In America today, it seems like almost everything is illegal.

One church down in Louisiana was recently ordered to stop giving out water because it did not have a government permit.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I sure am going to give a cup of cold water to someone if they need it whether I have a permit or not.

It is as if common sense has totally gone out the window in this nation.

Over in New Hampshire, a woman is being sued for planting flowers in her own front yard.

This is the kind of thing that makes me glad that I have moved to a much more rural location.  People in the country tend to be much more relaxed.

Sadly, those that love to micro-manage others continue to get the upper hand in America.  Back in January, 40,000 new laws went into effect all over America.  The politicians continue to hit us with wave after wave of regulations and laws with no end in sight.

All of this is making America a very unpleasant place in which to live.

This Cartoon Seemed Far-Fetched in 1948

A Must Watch for Every American!

Video: Make Mine Freedom (1948)

We have been warned over and over for years, but we have chosen the Nanny State (whether directly or by default) over freedom, fun activities over responsibility and we bought into all the lies that now control us instead of paying attention and remaining vigilant.

We are now not only standing at the edge, we are teetering forward with only one foot left on the land of freedom.  We have only one chance remaining to turn things around… that is to replace the present occupant in the White House and his team in the upcoming 2012 Election and to repeal and replace the jewel of socialism, ObamaCare (socialized medicine), which is the progressive lynch pin to controlling every aspect of our lives and one sixth of the U.S. economy).

Even if your chosen candidate doesn’t get the GOP nomination or didn’t even run, or if the GOP nominee is not who and what you wanted nor meets your standards… you need to vote and support them to start turning our ship of state around.  It will take a long time.  It took a long time to get here.  But it will be a beginning and no matter who replaces Obama the movements that have been awoken and the possibilities that have emerged with them will live on to fight another day.

h/t to George King – Cross Posted at National Juggernaut

Food Fights and Class Warfare

There was a time when full tables signified prosperity and thick waistlines were considered attractive. The ability to eat one's fill was what separated the gentry from the peasant making do with a few crusts and salted leftovers. Fat was in because it represented leisure and wealth. Thin meant you were on the road to the poorhouse or to consumption, which meant your body was being consumed, not that you were the one doing the consuming.

Then feudalism went the way of the dodo, agriculture was revolutionized and starvation went extinct in the West. Between the widespread availability of cheap food and social welfare programs covering everything from soup kitchens to food stamps, it became hard to starve. Not only was the availability of food no longer associated with prosperity, but even the poor had begun to eat so well that fat began to carry working class and lower class associations.

Fat was no longer wealth, instead conscientious fitness became a mark of prosperity. The laden table made way for micro portions and exotic but barely edible foods. Thin was in on the plate and the waistline.

In Third World countries where feudalism never ended and the agriculture revolution never mattered, the values often never flipped. Instead of anorexia, teenage girls suffer from being force fed to make them more marriageable. The wealthy are fat and the feasts at the top never end.

In the West, weight stands in for class, at a time when explicit classism has become politically incorrect. When Europeans sneer at how fat Americans are, and American coastal elites sneer at the rest of the country for being fat, it's a class putdown that dressed up longstanding contempt in the colors of the welfare state.

Just because the left and its class warfare worldview, which pretends to be concerned about the plight of the underclass, dominates Western societies does not mean that it is not classist. The left is elitist and its underclass protectionism creates a new wave feudalism with a vast government funded upper and middle class dedicated to caring for the underclass, subsidizing it, caring for it and taxing it to pay for all those services.

The obesity concern trolling is a combination of classism and nanny statism that brings to mind the days when their ideological forebears thought that the way to deal with the poor was to sterilize those who seemed less capable than the rest to improve the breed. There is something equally Darwinian in the sneers aimed at Paula Deen. The breed being culled while the elites try to teach their less evolved cousins to survive by eating their arugula.

The nanny state is built on a technocratic confidence in the ability to create one size fits all solutions, overlaying that on a map of the current medical wisdom leads to the creation of single standards, which often have less to do with health than they do with the status symbols of the leisure class. 19th century popularized medicine created so many of these fads that some of them are still around today. The 20th century created even more.

Death though is not only inevitable, but it cannot be dodged with a one size fits all standard. Fitness guru Jim Fixx who helped kickstart the running craze died in his early fifties of a heart attack. Fixx had quit smoking and lost weight, and still died at an early age. Jackie Gleason who spent his life looking like a walking health attack, smoking and drinking, outlived him by nearly twenty years.

Medicine is individual and the collectivization of medicine is a technocratic solution that leads nowhere except to few doctors and ranks of unionized medical personnel nudging patients into following the script handed down to them by professors who have never actually practiced medicine a day in their life. This is the outcome of a nanny state outlook that sees individuals as dispensable, that is concerned only with group outcomes.

This view requires seeing all people as endowed with certain problems that require broad stroke solutions, like adding calories to menus and other rats in a maze tactics designed to modify human behavior on a national level. The targeting of fast food restaurants, public school meals and food stamps reeks of the same elitist arrogance that drives the nanny state.

The politicization of food by the elites of the left always comes down to class, no matter how it may be disguised in liberal colors. From exotic to locally grown, the trajectory of food politics follows the upselling of food prices The only difference is that the dominance of the left has wrapped the added cost with no added value in their own politics. The more affordable food becomes, the more the left finds ways to add cost to food, without adding value.

But the politicization of food goes beyond the fair trade and locally grown fetishes of the politically correct elites, the more politics ends up on your plate, the more the elites are driven to involve everyone else in their food fights. What begins as a way of raising prices while diminishing value to assert wealth and privilege becomes imposed on everyone in the name of their political morality. Once everyone else is paying more and getting less, then the classist left demands new ways to set its superior moral eating habits apart. Instead of everyone ending up with more food, everyone ends up with less.

The cultural ascendance of the left has meant that instead of conspicuous consumption, the consumption has to be disguised with conspicuous political pieties. The food may cost twice as much, but it's locally grown on a farm run by handicapped union workers who visit Cuba to receive free health care or by the indigenous peoples of Tuba-Tuba with the proceeds going to a complete sonic library of their chants and ceremonies. The entire thing is meaningfully meaningless, but it disguises the consumption in a hairshirt, which is the entire point.

Conspicuous consumption is now for the poor while conspicuous conservation is for liberal elites. Al Gore may live in a mansion but he still has the carbon footprint of a mouse. The problem is the truck driver whose vehicle emissions are killing the planet. Whole Foods is just fine, but we need to do something about McDonald's.

Conspicuous conservationism has made America a poorer country, destroyed millions of jobs and outsourced them overseas. Now it's beginning to make America a hungrier country. In a moment of horrifying tone deafness that makes Marie Antoinette seem enlightened, the left is cheering that fewer Americans are eating meat, without seeming to understand that it's because fewer Americans are able to afford it because of their economic policies.

What the left's food police can't accomplish with nudges and shaming, they can finish off with policies and regulations that end up raising the price of food or by making it too difficult to sell. As the left tries and fails to sell the general public on conservation as a status symbol, it moves in the heavy bureaucratic artillery.

It isn't unusual for elites to use the legal system to enforce their own values on the general public, though it was the kind of thing that the universal franchise was supposed to put a leash on, but there is something grim about their growing preoccupation with the habits and mortality of the population. It's the kind of concern that has a habit of ending in eugenics and the more medicine is universalized, the easier it is to start cutting off access to medical treatment for those who haven't been nudged far enough in the right direction.

Social medicine politicizes food consumption and a globalized economy politicizes food production. And the politicized American plate has less on it and at a higher price. While the left obsessively pursues its mission of destroying fast food in the name of lowering social medicine costs and being fairer to farmers, what they are truly accomplishing is to take affordable and filling food off the shelves, as they have done with countless other products that they have targeted.

By the time the left was done with Russia, it had gone from a wheat producer to a wheat importer and many basic food staples were hard to come by even in a country filled with collective farms. Finding modern day examples of that isn't hard. We only have to look as far south as Venezuela to see empty store shelves under the weight of government food policies. But one day that may be the local grocery store if the left gets its way.

By Daniel Greenfield at Sultan Knish  -  Cross-Posted at True Health is True Wealth  - h/t to TMH of the NoisyRoom

Team Obama Regulates Goat Herders' Workplaces… Morons?

What is the term, stupid is as stupid gets, or is it…   No matter, stupid is stupid and that is U.S. government.

Nanny State government at its worst.

I can't believe ANYONE would be stupid enough to create this kind of mess!

 

Team Obama Regulates Goat Herders' Workplaces

by  Audrey Hudson  -  08/24/2011

The Obama administration is setting new workplace regulations to assist foreign workers who fill goat herding positions in the U.S.  including employee-paid cell phones and comfy beds.

These new special procedures issued by the Labor Department must be followed by employers who want to hire temporary agricultural foreign workers to perform sheep herding or goat herding activities.  It describes strict rules for sleeping quarters, lighting, food storage, bathing, laundry, cooking and new rules for the counters where food is prepared.

“A separate sleeping unit shall be provided for each person, except in a family arrangement,” says the rules signed by Jane Oates, assistant secretary for employment and training administration at the Labor Department.

“Such a unit shall include a comfortable bed, cot or bunk, with a clean mattress,” the rules state.

Diane Katz, a research fellow in regulatory policy at The Heritage Foundation, unearthed the policy in the "Federal Register​," the massive daily journal of proposed regulations that Washington bureaucrats publish every day.

Under the Obama Administration, the nanny state has imposed 75 new major regulations with annual costs of $38 billion.
“This captures what is wrong with government,” Katz said.  “I could not have made this up.”

With unemployment holding steady at 9% and government regulations adding more burden to small businesses, such as those run by ranching families, Katz said, bureaucrats aren’t helping.
“Instead of remedying the problem, the regulations make it that much harder,” Katz insisted.  “We may need a whole set of regulations just to define what a comfortable bed is.  I imagine it’s not straw."

The new lighting standards say that in areas where it is not feasible to provide electrical service such as tents or mobile trailers, lanterns must be provided.  “Kerosene wick lights meet the definition of lantern,” the regulations say.

“When workers or their families are permitted or required to cook in their individual unit, a space shall be provided with adequate lighting and ventilation.”

“Wall surfaces next to all food preparation and cooking areas shall be of nonabsorbent, easy-to-clean material.  Wall surfaces next to cooking areas shall be of fire-resistant material,” the regulations say.

“It makes you wonder,” Katz said, “how they ever did this before the government got involved?”

“Who knew we needed all of this federal help for herding goats?” Katz quipped.

---

Audrey Hudson, an award-winning investigative journalist, is a Congressional Correspondent for HUMAN EVENTS. A native of Kentucky, Mrs. Hudson has worked inside the Beltway for nearly two decades -- on Capitol Hill as a Senate and House spokeswoman, and most recently at The Washington Times covering Congress, Homeland Security, and the Supreme Court.

But Wait… Could this be related?:

Well over a year ago I sent Neil Cavuto at Fox News/Fox Business an e-mail asking him and his staff to do a background check on all our United States Representatives and Senators to see how many had a background or at least an education in economics/business. A couple of minutes ago I saw the following report on the Fox News website. As I highly suspected, very few would even know how to operate a curb side lemonade stand. This report was late in coming but maybe Neil remembered my e-mail.

Study: 80 Percent of Lawmakers Lack Academic Background in Business, Economics

Published August 25, 2011

AP The Capitol Dome is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington July 28.

Congress might want to find some consultants as it tries anew to tackle the country's deep deficits. A report from the Employment Policies Institute finds that only one in five members of Congress has an academic background in business or economics.

The organization looked at lawmakers' college degrees and found that most of them -- 55.5 percent -- majored in either a government-related field or "humanities." Just over 8 percent majored in economics, while almost 14 percent studied business or accounting.

The numbers raise questions about their ability  to tackle tough economic challenges when they return from break early next month. The Obama administration, as well as lawmakers touring their districts, are clamoring for a new approach to the jobs crisis. Meanwhile, a congressional "supercommittee" is set to get to work finding $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade.

But that supercommittee may have the same education deficit as the rest of Congress. Just four of the 12 members on that committee have an academic background in economics or finance -- Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas; Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich.; Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif.; and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.

Others earned professional experience in the field. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., was an investment banker. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, was a lawyer who ran his own practice before being appointed U.S. trade representative and later becoming head of the White House budget office under the George W. Bush administration.

Aside from Portman, six others were attorneys in their private lives -- Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.; Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. (although his real occupation is marrying rich liberal progressive women whose money he can use); Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.; Baucus; Becerra; and Camp.

Two other committee members, Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., were educators. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., was a congressional aide.

EPI's Defeat the Debt project released the study on lawmakers' academic background.

"This research suggests that our elected representatives may want to dust off their Econ 101 textbook (if they have one) before trying to tackle the weighty questions about the impact of taxes, spending and debt on our economy and the labor market," the group wrote.

So we have a bunch of ignorant uneducated imbeciles who have been on the public dole all their lives and who probably can’t even balance their own check books or control their family finances while doing a horrible job running our country. And we have an imbecile in chief who also doesn’t have a clue about running our country. Absolutely Pathetic!!! No wonder we are where we are now. IT IS TIME FOR CHANGE and I’m not talking about what Obama envisions. WB

STUDY: Congress Filled with Morons

Posted on Tuesday, July 26th, 2011  -  By Frank Lake

CAMBRIDGE, MA – A groundbreaking study has determined that 83% of the members of Congress are certified morons!

The Kennedy School of Government did a longitudinal study over the last 30 years that looked at the average IQ of members of Congress – the Senate & House of Representatives.

The study found that, despite the many advanced degrees from prestigious universities, and despite the fact that many in Congress are millionaires, the average IQ of U.S. Representatives is 71.   The average IQ of U.S. Senators, is surprisingly, even lower at 68.

“We spent one hour a month with each member of Congress over the last thirty years.  We gave them a number of IQ tests – including math problems, verbal problems and analytic reasoning problems.  The results were consistent year-in-year out.  Members of Congress are morons,” said Professor Thomas Turley of Harvard.

So what is a moron?  A moron is a person whose IQ is less than 70 on a consistent basis.

The lowest IQs typically were the leaders of the two-parties.

In response to the study, Senator Harry Reid said, “Is that bacon?”

John Boehner said, “We will not back down and we will not give an inch and we will kill the cows when they come home.  Hand me a tissue.”

Nancy Pelosi said that she would have to read the study before she could make a comment on it.  But, before reading it, she said that she thought it was “stupid.” People who do studies at Harvard are stupid.  It’s just stupid to do studies about morons. Who funded this?”

Nancy Pelosi approved the funding of The Moron Study back in 2009.

83% is a large number of morons, but is it the same percentage in the general population?

“Only 7% of normal citizens are certified morons,” said John Murtaugh, the leader of the Harvard Study.  “Except in Hollywood.  The rate there is close to 49%, but that’s still nowhere near the level we find in Congress.”

So, why do Americans keep electing morons?  And why do we keep following them?

“Morons have one common strength: the ability to dupe intelligent people.”

Many are suggesting that potential candidates be given an IQ test BEFORE they are allowed to run for Congress… or any other elected office!!

But that idea was shot down by Congress.

Morons!  -  Any questions??

THE COW AND THE ICE CREAM

ONE OF THE BEST EXPLANATIONS

OF
WHY OBAMA WON THE ELECTION

--From a teacher in the Nashville area –

"We are worried about 'the cow' when it...
Is all about the 'Ice Cream.'

The most eye-opening
Civics lesson I ever had was while teaching third grade this Year.

The presidential election was heating up...

And some of the children showed an interest.

I decided we would have an election for a class president.

We would choose our nominees.

They would make a campaign speech and the class would vote.

To simplify the process...
Candidates were nominated by other class members.

We discussed what kinds of...
Characteristics these students should have.

We got many nominations and from those...
Jamie and Olivia were picked to run for the top spot.

The class had done a great job in their selections.

Both candidates were good kids.

I thought Jamie might have an advantage...
Because he got lots of parental support.

I had never seen Olivia's mother.

The day arrived when they were to make their speeches.

Jamie went first.

He had specific ideas about how to make our class a better place.

He ended by promising to do his very best.

Everyone applauded and he sat down.

Now it was Olivia's turn to speak…

Her speech was concise.

She said…

"If you will vote for me, I will give you ice cream."

She sat down.

The class went wild.

"Yes! Yes! We want ice cream."

She surely would say more…

She did not have to.

A discussion followed.

How did she plan to pay for the ice cream?

She wasn't sure.

Would her parents buy it…

Or would the class pay for it.

She didn't know.

The class really didn't care.

All they were thinking about was ice cream.

Jamie was forgotten.

Olivia won by a landslide.

Every time Barack Obama opened his mouth...

He offered ice cream and...

52 percent of the people reacted like nine year olds.

They want ice cream...

The other 48 percent know…

They're going to have...
To feed the cow and clean up the mess."

This is the ice cream Obama promised us!

Remember…

The government cannot give anything to anyone…

That…

Which they have not first taken away from someone else.

Obama Approval Index Month-by-Month

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/obama_approval_index_month_by_month

If we pay attention to the lesson, Obama’s election could be the best thing that ever happened to our sleeping country, for there are many issues that this Country faces, including wanting something for nothing, apathy, and outside as well as internal forces stealing the country that most Americans love. The question now… is do we choose to step up and stand up, each one of us, for the America our Founding Fathers and young American troops have fought and spilled blood for ever since… or do we continue to choose the easy way out… the promise of ice cream for doing nothing as we roll into a total Nanny State… Socialism or worse? I have heard people, who themselves long ago stopped thinking for themselves and stopped standing up for God and Country ask, “Why has God forsaken this Country?” As we all know, “God doesn’t always give us what we ask for… He give us what we need!” Perhaps we needed the wake-up call more than we needed a man who at least seemed like he was a man of the people… another issue for another day!

God Helps Those Who Help Themselves and Stand By Him!!

Ask Marion~

Nanny State bans ice cream socials | The FOX Nation

Click Here for Video:  Nanny State bans ice cream socials | The FOX Nation

Nothing is free... take the governments money through programs, they will tell you what you can and cannot do...

Comment:  

This is why home schooling is becoming so popular. I home school and my kids have ice cream and I supervise it all....what the problem really should be addressing is the lack of phys ed in schools....my kids used to have music twice a week and gym class once in a 6 day cycle...duh! ...Labbs

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Obama: The Grand Strategy

Unified theory of Obamaism, fifth (final?) installment:

In the service of his ultimate mission -- the leveling of social inequalities -- President Obama offers a tripartite social democratic agenda: nationalized health care, federalized education (ultimately guaranteed through college) and a cash-cow carbon tax (or its equivalent) to subsidize the other two.

Problem is, the math doesn't add up. Not even a carbon tax would pay for Obama's vastly expanded welfare state. Nor will Midwest Democrats stand for a tax that would devastate their already crumbling region.

What is obviously required is entitlement reform, meaning Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. That's where the real money is -- trillions saved that could not only fund hugely expensive health and education programs but also restore budgetary balance.

Except that Obama has offered no real entitlement reform. His universal health-care proposal would increase costs by perhaps $1 trillion. Medicare/Medicaid reform is supposed to decrease costs.

Obama's own budget projections show staggering budget deficits going out to 2019. If he knows his social agenda is going to drown us in debt, what's he up to?

He has an idea. But he dare not speak of it yet. He has only hinted. When asked in his March 24 news conference about the huge debt he's incurring, Obama spoke vaguely of "additional adjustments" that will be unfolding in future budgets.

Rarely have two more anodyne words carried such import. "Additional adjustments" equals major cuts in Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.

Social Security is relatively easy. A bipartisan commission (like the 1983 Alan Greenspan commission) recommends some combination of means testing for richer people, increasing the retirement age and a technical change in the inflation measure (indexing benefits to prices instead of wages). The proposal is brought to Congress for a no-amendment up-or-down vote. Done.

The hard part is Medicare and Medicaid. In an aging population, how do you keep them from blowing up the budget? There is only one answer: rationing.

Why do you think the stimulus package pours $1.1 billion into medical "comparative effectiveness research"? It is the perfect setup for rationing. Once you establish what is "best practice" for expensive operations, medical tests and aggressive therapies, you've laid the premise for funding some and denying others.

It is estimated that a third to a half of one's lifetime health costs are consumed in the last six months of life. Accordingly, Britain's National Health Service can deny treatments it deems not cost-effective -- and if you're old and infirm, the cost-effectiveness of treating you plummets. In Canada, they ration by queuing. You can wait forever for so-called elective procedures like hip replacements.

Rationing is not quite as alien to America as we think. We already ration kidneys and hearts for transplant according to survivability criteria as well as by queuing. A nationalized health insurance system would ration everything from MRIs to intensive care by myriad similar criteria.

The more acute thinkers on the left can see rationing coming, provoking Slate blogger Mickey Kaus to warn of the political danger. "Isn't it an epic mistake to try to sell Democratic health care reform on this basis? Possible sales pitch: 'Our plan will deny you unnecessary treatments!' . . . Is that really why the middle class will sign on to a revolutionary multitrillion-dollar shift in spending -- so the government can decide their life or health 'is not worth the price'?"

My own preference is for a highly competitive, privatized health insurance system with a government-subsidized transition to portability, breaking the absurd and ruinous link between health insurance and employment. But if you believe that health care is a public good to be guaranteed by the state, then a single-payer system is the next best alternative. Unfortunately, it is fiscally unsustainable without rationing.

Social Security used to be the third rail of American politics. Not anymore. Health-care rationing is taking its place -- which is why Obama, the consummate politician, knows to offer the candy (universality) today before serving the spinach (rationing) tomorrow.

Taken as a whole, Obama's social democratic agenda is breathtaking. And the rollout has thus far been brilliant. It follows Kaus's advice to "give pandering a chance" and adheres to the Democratic tradition of being the party that gives things away, while leaving the green-eyeshade stinginess to those heartless Republicans.

It will work for a while, but there is no escaping rationing. In the end, the spinach must be served.

By Charles Krauthammer – Washington Post
Friday, April 24, 2009

Posted:  Knowledge Creates Power