health care – Page 20

Hey, Freedomworks has a mailbag!

Or at least an answering machine. It looks like the folks over at MoveOn.org and the AFL-CIO decided to send some calls over to FreedomWorks, and with the usual result: slurs, profanity, sexual obsession, histor… actually, there is a lot of sexual obsession in the sample phone calls that Freedomworks have posted; it’s kind of interesting, actually. Anyway… historical inaccuracies, and of course everyone’s favorite: threats of violence.

In other words, pretty much par for the course. We get sent this stuff all the time, over at RedState. Heck, I get sent this stuff on a fairly regular basis here, and I blog about zombies.

Sen Dorgan (D, ND)… well, he’s ducking and covering on health care.

There’s no way to sugar-coat it, although Dorgan’s certainly trying. If his town halls are all going to be like this one:

Dorgan will be at the fire hall for only an hour, so there won’t be a lot of time for questions, Pyle said.

…then yes, he is in point of fact ‘worried.’ As well he should be: Ramussen’s new numbers are out, and they are really, really pretty. At least, from the point of view of folks who are against health care rationing. Continue reading Sen Dorgan (D, ND)… well, he’s ducking and covering on health care.

Remember: the Democrats never wanted a health care debate in the first place

I actually plan to think about other things besides health care today, so let’s finish with this from Jonah Goldberg, via the Sundries Shack:

…the Democrats, starting with Obama, wanted their partisan version of health care reform to be made law before the August recess. If they had won, there would be no debate, civil or otherwise, right now because they would have steamrolled the opposition already.

Jonah wants to know why the Democrats are complaining. Well, stick my tail in the crack of a door and shut it and I’d yell, too.

Crossposted to RedState.

‘Culture shock.’ (with an egregious HP Lovecraft reference!)

That’s what the always-interesting Jen Rubin over at Commentary is calling the increasingly-hysterical (in a non-funny way) reaction of Congressional Democrats to their own constituents:

…citizens got the idea that they could come out—in droves—and give their representatives a piece of their mind. It is all quite a culture shock for the lawmakers, who seem blissfully unaware that somewhere in just about every crowd there is someone with a video camera or a cell phone recording how they respond to criticism. And so far, it’s not a pretty sight.

…and it kind of fits. If you divide the fear into three distinct types – gross-out (purely physical flight reaction to the grotesque), horror (extreme apprehension and concern about a situation), and terror (sudden awareness that one of your fundamental assumptions about the universe is dangerously false)* – then the Democrats are largely exhibiting terror. People simply do not complain like this in their nice, orderly universe. The Democrats’ actions do not have consequences. This cannot be.

Hence, the screaming of every slur that the Democrats can think of in response to a lot of people standing up in meeting halls and loudly proclaiming that they know the difference between rain and somebody urinating on their legs, thanks. It’s almost certainly pure reflex from the cosmic terror: the Democratic congressional leadership must feel like they’re suddenly in the political equivalent of the Cthulhu Mythos.

Moe Lane

PS: IA! IA! IA!

*More or less stolen from Stephen King. Then again, he is an expert in the subject.

Crossposted to RedState.

We’re not the ones sending out the blueshirts, Nancy.

(Via RS Diarist rechief) Turns out that the Drudge rumor was right: Pelosi & Hoyer really did write an op-ed with the title ‘Un-American’ attacks can’t derail health care debate. And it’s precisely what I expected, too. Which is to say, an op-ed that can write this:

Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American.

…without even a hint of a sign of a suggestion that the authors mean by that condemnation the physical violence done to conservatives by SEIU members (noted here and here). Which is actually not surprising: they don’t. It’s them that are doing it, so it’s by definition OK. And if you don’t like that observation of mine, then the Democratic party’s leadership is perfectly welcome to prove me wrong by issuing a terse statement saying that they do not support SEIU’s violent tactics. Until then, they can own the actions of their blueshirts. Continue reading We’re not the ones sending out the blueshirts, *Nancy*.

My summary of ‘Crunch time for Obama.’

(Via Hot Air Headlines) In case you don’t have time to read Doug Schoen’s piece:

Despite my claim that the Republican Party does not have any policies or ideas, it is my opinion that the Obama administration should take a leaf from the Clinton administration – which I, Doug Schoen, saved – and rip off all the policies and ideas that I am required to pretend that the Republicans do not have, lest the Obama administration suffer the same fate in 2010 that the Clinton administration- which I, Doug Schoen, saved – faced in 1994. Of course, should that happen, I am available to duplicate my magic – did I mention that I, Doug Schoen, saved the Clinton administration? – and since no Republican legislator is literate, we’ll be able to get away with it.

Third Way! Which is to say, steal from Republicans and take the credit.

Really, it’s like some sort of demented resume cover letter.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Rasmussen: Plurality of Americans support town hall protesters.

The Democrats had best hope that this is not party-line thinking.

The results are 41% support / 35% don’t / 23% not sure, but the interesting thing here is the partisan breakdown:

Given the partisan anger prompted by the town hall meetings, it’s not surprising to see a similar divide in the survey. Fifty-five percent (55%) of Democrats have an unfavorable view of those opposing the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and the leaders of their party. Sixty-three percent (63%) of Republicans and the plurality (48%) of voters not affiliated with either party view the protesters favorably.

Not good news for the administration. Neither is the breakdown on the “Are they fake?” question (49% real, 37% fake, 14% not sure):

The partisan divide is even wider when the motivations of the protesters are at issue. Seventy percent (70%) of Republicans and 58% of unaffiliated voters say the protesters reflect the concerns of their neighbors. Sixty-one percent (61%) of Democrats say the protests are phony.

All in all: this poll is only good news for Congressmen sitting in safely liberal districts. Everybody else favoring health care rationing? Not so much.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

If you’re losing Ben Cardin (D-MD)…

…a Senator who is barely known for defeating Michael Steele in the 2006 election (honestly, Maryland does not have particularly interesting Senators; sorry about that) – anyway, if you can’t get Ben Cardin to sign off on your ‘astroturf’ rhetoric, well, you have a branding problem. Watch as he manfully attempts to avoid sweating on national television over the mess that his higher-ups have landed him in:

Cardin probably saw this poll (via @RobertBluey). 71% of adults want to attend a town hall involving health care, and are currently pegged at 50% for, 45% against. Turn those numbers into likely voters… and now you know why Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) suddenly doesn’t think that health care rationing protesters are ‘un-American‘ after all. Not that she’s planning to actually face all those protesters; even if they are also 2010 voters…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Behold those scary, scary swastika-bearing astroturfers.

(Brief summary for those lacking video: Dallas AARP meeting went wrong for organizers when participants refused to sit down, shut up, and applaud Democratic talking points. Organizers then left; meeting continued.)

Complete with their quoting Madison and their insisting that AARP worked for them and not the other way around and their refusal to believe that AARP isn’t sucking up to the administration on health care rationing. The sheer nerve of them, acting like they were real, live citizens of both the United States of America and the state of Texas. I mean: they’re all over fifty!

Terrifying, aren’t they?

(Via AoSHQ)

The young people trying to run the Dallas AARP meeting (while almost-successfully managing to hide their baffled contempt at the way that the audience refused to take direction) certainly thought so. Up to the point where they ran away.

Moe Lane

PS: Exit question: when one of John Sweeney’s union thugs messes up and smacks around some guy in a walker without checking for cameras – how do you think that will play in Peoria? Shoot, how do you think that will play in Chicago or Detroit?

Crossposted to RedState.

RedState Gathering Video: John Randall.

There should be a better video of this coming soon (I wasn’t the only one filming things), but I wanted to make sure that people heard this speech by John Randall, eCampaign Director of the NRCC as soon as possible. He spoke briefly about the need in general for us to hold Democrats’ metaphorical feet to the metaphorical fire:

As you can see, the NRCC is very interested in bringing up the troublesome contradictions of the Democratic Party on health care rationing.

And you should be, too.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.