Despite Obamawords, “Free” Medical Care Costs!

The Cost of “Free” Medical Care

One of the most difficult economic concepts to grasp is that we live in a world of limited resources.  For better or for worse, scarcity forces us to choose from among our many wants, says Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks.

The Obama administration promises to “give” the American people more.  But at what cost?  No matter how hard it tries, the administration cannot repeal the basic laws of economics.

President Obama promised that his health care law would give us more health care coverage and “bend the cost curve downward.”  In some way or another, Obamacare was supposed to cover more people for less money.  Seven months after the passage of Obamacare, the laws of economics have struck back, says Kibbe.

• Under the new Obamacare law, insurance companies are forced to provide “free” screenings and preventive care, but there’s nothing free about Obamacare.
• Ultimately, we all will pay the cost of these “free” services in the form of lower wages, higher taxes or higher health insurance premiums.
• Some insurance companies have already increased their premiums by an average of 20 percent to help pay for the extra benefits required under Obamacare.
• It has been reported that consumers may face total premium increases as much as 47 percent in the near future.

Under the new law, it is mandated that all employers who offer health insurance must spend at least 80 percent of their revenues on patient care.  ”Mini-med” policies offered to 2.5 million low-wage workers do not meet this requirement.  Many businesses, including McDonald’s, have spoken out against this costly provision.

Some small businesses that are harmed by these costly regulations will have to choose between ending health care coverage and going out of business.  Surely, even the most ardent supporters of Obamacare would agree that mini-med coverage is better than no coverage at all.  This is an example of a trade-off that the fact of scarcity requires.

No matter what politicians may promise, you cannot get something for nothing, says Kibbe.

Source: Matt Kibbe, “The Cost of ‘Free’ Medical Care,” Washington Times, November 1, 2010.

For text:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/nov/1/the-cost-of-free-medical-care/ 

(The above information came from the National Center for Policy Analysis.)

Scandal Forces New Trial for Geert Wilders “Speaking Ill of Islam” Court Case?

“In a stunning turn of events, a Dutch court has summarily removed the judges presiding over the anti-Islam hate-speech trial of Geert Wilders, after it emerged that one of the judges attempted to influence an expert witness before the trial. A hastily convened judicial panel agreed with Wilders that the judges were biased against him and ordered a retrial, sending the closely-watched case back to square one before an entirely new panel of judges. Wilders, who has called the trial a farce, a disgrace and an assault on free speech, welcomed the decision, saying: “This gives me a new chance with a new fair trial.”

Wilders is facing five charges of inciting racial and religious hatred for remarks which include equating Islam with fascism and others calling for a ban on the Koran and a tax on Muslim headscarves. Viewed more broadly, however, the Wilders trial represents a landmark case that likely will establish the limits of free speech in a country where the politically correct elite routinely seek to silence public discussion about the escalating problem of Muslim immigration.

The Wilders trial, which began at the Amsterdam District Court on October 4, was scheduled to end on October 22, with the verdict from the panel of three judges due on November 5. But the trial unexpectedly collapsed in disarray on its final scheduled day of hearings after Dutch newspapers reported that Tom Schalken, one of the judges who ordered Wilders to stand trial, had dinner with Hans Jansen, a leading Dutch expert on Islam who also happens to be a defense witness. Jansen said that Schalken had improperly tried “to convince me of the correctness of the decision to take Wilders to court.” (An English-language translation of Jansen’s accusations can be found here.)

After the allegations came to light, Bram Moszkowicz, Wilders’s lawyer, asked the court to summon Jansen, but Moszkowicz was refused. In response, Moszkowicz formally protested that the judges were biased against the defendant and should be dismissed; he also called Schalken’s contact with Jansen “scandalous.”

A separate review panel was then convened to consider Moszkowicz’s complaint, which it upheld by ordering a retrial with new judges. Judge G. Marcus said the panel understood Wilders’ “fear that the court’s decision displays a degree of bias … and under those circumstances accepts the appeal.” The highly unusual event means that it is likely to be many months before a new trial can be held.

Moszkowicz had previously sought to have the judges removed on the opening day of the trial after one of them passed comment on Wilders’s decision to make use of his right to remain silent during the proceedings. But that complaint was dismissed.

On October 15, midway through the trial, the Dutch Public Prosecutor’s office argued that there was no case against Wilders and that he should be acquitted. Amsterdam public prosecutors Birgit van Roessel and Paul Velleman testified in court that Wilders was not guilty of discrimination against Muslims and inciting hatred against them.

Van Roessel and Velleman said that “comments about banning the Koran can be discriminatory, but because Wilders wants to pursue a ban along democratic lines, there is no question of incitement to discrimination ‘as laid down in law.’” Regarding Wilder’s comparison of the Koran with Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf, the prosecutors called it “crude, but that did not make it punishable.” In any case, they said, the comparison did not originally come from Wilders, but from the late Italian writer Oriana Fallaci.

The prosecutors also argued that Wilders had spoken out not against Muslims per se, but against the threat to Dutch society posed by the growing assertiveness of Islam in Dutch political and social life. The judges dismissed all of the prosecutors’ recommendations out of hand.

In June 2008, Dutch prosecutors had initially refused to bring charges against Wilders, arguing that he was protected by the right to free speech. But in January 2009, they were overruled by an appeals court led by Judge Tom Schalken, who ordered that Wilders be charged for “sowing hatred.”

During the trial, Moszkowicz rejected the accusations of hate speech against Wilders and urged judges not to “shoot the messenger.” He told the court that Wilders is a straight-talking politician seeking to prevent Koran-inspired violence. “Regardless of the danger to his own life, he speaks about the dangers he sees around him that result from immigration,” Moszkowicz told the court. “In his eyes, Islam is a totalitarian ideology.”

Moszkowicz cited the right to freedom of speech: “Wilders’s conscience dictates that he does not close his eyes … dictates that he places this discussion on the political agenda. As a politician, Wilders does not have to be silent.” Wilders “has criticism, and expresses that criticism. Regardless of the danger to his own life, he speaks about the dangers he sees around him that result from immigration.”

Moszkowicz also countered accusations by critics who say that Wilders’s call for banning the Koran is inconsistent with his defense of the freedom of speech. He told the court that Article 132 of the Dutch Penal Code prohibits books that “incite to violence.” He asked if books such as Mein Kampf can be banned under that article, why not another book that manifestly incites its readers to violence and hatred? Moszkowicz said that as long as the Netherlands has such laws, Dutch authorities should apply them consistently and not selectively based on politically correct considerations.

Reacting to the court’s decision to order a new trial, Wilders said: “I am confident that I can only be acquitted because I have broken no law but spoke the truth and nothing but the truth, and exercised my freedom of speech in an important public debate about the dangerous totalitarian ideology called Islam.”

(In a March 2009 interview with Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe, Wilders summed up his views about Islam: “I have nothing against the people. I don’t hate Muslims. But Islam is a totalitarian ideology. It rules every aspect of life — economics, family law, whatever. It has religious symbols, it has a God, it has a book — but it’s not [only] a religion. It can be compared with totalitarian ideologies like Communism or fascism. There is no country where Islam is dominant where you have a real democracy, a real separation between church and state. Islam is totally contrary to our values.”)

Wilders has also articulated what is at stake in this case: “I am being prosecuted for my political convictions. The freedom of speech is on the verge of collapsing. If a politician is not allowed to criticize an ideology anymore, this means that we are lost, and it will lead to the end of our freedom.”

The above article was written by Soeren Kern and appeared at Hudson New York.

Comment:  I had received information about two weeks ago that the prosecution has recommended a “not guilty” verdict and had written a blog article  to inform Prager readers about the progress of the case.   I had learned that a verdict would be announced November 4, 2010,  While seeking information about the verdict, I came across this article at Hudson NewYork.

While you are reading all of this, keep in mind that the Netherlands is supposed to be a modern democratic state.   It’s the kind of   state emulated by many of the American Obama leftists where bureaucrats such as the apparatchiki here have authority to threaten imprisonment for those accused of thinking and speaking  “incorrectness”. 

Many of the leftwing judges in America look on the judiciary of countries such as the Netherlands as models for American courts to follow.

Cravaack Beats Oberstar……Who’d of Thunk?

Most potentates survive reelections.   That is what entitles them to be called potentates.

The vast majority of potentates in national and Minnesota politics are DEMOCRATS.   Some never get beat ………until November 02,2010.

And the biggest such shocker around here in a long is the win by Chip Cravaack over Jim Oberstar…….up there in Iron Range territory. 

Here’s an article from the StarTribune at HotDish by Eric Roper about the unexpected:

“A sleepless Chip Cravaack reflected on the long journey to victory tucked in the back room of his small North Branch campaign office Wednesday afternoon.

Eighteen-term U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar had conceded the race minutes earlier at an emotional press conference in Duluth. 

“This was a warning. This was a warning to Congress that they better listen to the people,” Cravaack said. “Even [lawmakers] with 35 years of incumbency. If you don’t listen to your people, you will listen to them when they vote. And that’s what this was all about.”

The retired Northwest Airlines pilot and former Navy captain decided to run after visiting Oberstar’s office in August 2009 to request a town hall during the health care debate. He was told the congressman was too busy to see them.

“I’ve never run for political office. I never thought I’d ever be in political office,” Cravaack said. “I was very happily retired. So I just said my mission is to beat congressman Oberstar and that is what I set my sights on doing.”

In Congress, he hopes to secure a spot on the Education and Labor committee because of his background as a union steward and Master’s Degree in Education. Or perhaps Oberstar’s Transportation and Infrastructure committee, given he was a Federal Flight Deck Officer while with Northwest.

But what about earmarks, perhaps Oberstar’s biggest legacy? Cravaack was critical of earmarks during the campaign, but wasn’t ready to pledge not to request them Tuesday — as the Republican Caucus has done. He didn’t rule it out either.

“We have to reform that system,” he said, noting that projects should be given priority based on their merits, rather than a lawmaker’s seniority.

Reps. John Kline and Erik Paulsen are lending a hand in the transition. No phone calls yet from presumed future-Speaker of the House John Boehner, but the day isn’t over just yet.

“There’s a conference call tonight for all the newbies.”

Comment:  Some of the potentates at the national level don’t let on if they are dead or not.   They’d wheel that ”beloved relic”  Byrd from West Virginia  year in and year out on a litter when needed for a vote for something Left and Democrat in the U. S. Senate.   They’d  poke for a bit of poetry.  If he could rhyme something they knew he had a vote “left”.

Mark Halperin: Obama Must Walk the Walk on Change?

……..is the title of his article at Time printed here:

“Republicans didn’t win everything they hoped for Tuesday night. But they took enough seats from the Democrats to gain control of the House, pick up Senate slots, wrest control of several state legislatures, create a solid gubernatorial stronghold in the Midwest and send an unmistakable message to Democrats: Much of the American public wants a check on the policies of Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.

A lot will change now for President Obama. He will have to deal with a Speaker of the House from the other party and a Senate that is even more divided than before. His year of political pain and missteps has been punctuated by the unmistakably negative verdict of the voters. And he has suffered the first catastrophe of his national political career that calls into question his political judgment, long-term viability and his place in history.

There have already been weeks of speculation about how Obama should respond to Tuesday’s long-anticipated results, and the pundits’ guessing games will soon reach fever pitch. But no one outside the president’s inner circle has much insight into what he will do. The most obvious model to follow – mimicking what Bill Clinton did after the 1994 midterm massacre – contains many elements that have not been part of the Obama modus operendi in the past. He has almost never brought in outsiders as key advisers, admitted ideological overreach, trimmed his sails or accepted broad strategic changes to plans already set in motion.

But for all the focus on what has changed for Obama — what adjustments he will need to make to survive the post-midterm world and the new-found attention that will surely be given to novel Republican leaders -– some important factors remain the same. Obama is still the president, with half the balance of his term remaining. With that comes an unmatched ability to drive the agenda of the nation and the world, even if those advantages are meaningless when they go unexploited.

It has become common parlance to ask where Candidate Obama of 2008 went — the man with formidable political and communications skills. But compared to President Obama, that man had fewer determined opponents, a blanker canvas on which to paint his image and the greater freedom of movement that comes with a campaign. But while Obama might find some elements of his former self useful, this is a new situation. It requires a new Obama that exhibits the best of what we have seen before, but also displays some fresh elements. For the sake of his supporters, his political future and the nation, one should hope that the man who has resisted the very change he promised is ready to become something new.”

Comment:  Nearly all of the conservatives who have guessed what Obama will do,  now that he has experienced  ”rejection” from the voters, agree Mr. Obama does not appear to  recognize rejection of something he has done.   His subjects are always correct…..Sometimes communication isn’t as clear as it should be…….but he, the president, cannot be a person to blame.

Roger Kimball Writes About the New York Times “Not Getting It!”

Yes, I like what I like and don’t like the “Harry Reid-Nancy Pelosi-Barack Obama” trio.   I do like solos, however, those  who write well and are entertaining.   No one on the Left seems to meet these qualfications.  (Andy Rooney used to when he was a bit younger.)  Here is a solo I think you will like too:

 Roger Kimball at Pajamas Media, writes about America’s funniest newspaper, the New York Times:

“According to the New York Times, the GOP’s big win last night “Stirs Economic Jitters Abroad.” Yes, that’s right: our former paper of record reports that “the United States’ allies overseas are concerned that the political upheaval in Washington may pose fresh challenges to the global economy.”

Why is that?  Because they are not following the neo-Keynesian playbook favored by the Times’s chief galactic economist Paul Krugman. For months now, Krugman has been skirling that the government, having spent more than $1 trillion on a non-stimulating stimulus package, wasn’t spending enough to achieve economic lift-off, let alone escape velocity.  Spend spend spend! — that is Krugman’s mantra.

At least, it’s the first verse. The second goes: “Tax tax tax.” And here we have some folks — really quite a few: count ’em Nancy! — who think government should be smaller, that government should spend less, that the best way to address the deficit and to create jobs is to stimulate economic growth, and that the tried and true way to do that, as old Uncle Milt Friedman reminded us many years ago, is to cut marginal tax rates and reduce burdensome regulation, because — are you following me, Paul? — by doing that you unfetter economic activity, encouraging business to expand.

But here we have the New York Times, in its best hand-wringing mode:

“Despite pledges to curb government spending and the huge U.S. budget deficit, Republicans are expected to address anxiety over unemployment and flagging growth by pushing hardest for an extension of the income tax cuts for everyone, including the rich [!] that were passed during the presidency of George W. Bush — a move that would add to the deficit and, by extension, further weaken the U.S. dollar.”

Don’t you love it? “Including the rich,” i.e., the people who actually create the wealth the rest of us profit by. Not, I hasten to add, that by “rich” Obama seems “rich” — for him almost anyone with a middle-class income qualifies as rich, but then when he travels to India at a cost of $200 million a day, he isn’t picking up the tab.

More worries from the Times: “There is also the risk that Congress, which will be divided next year between Republican control of the House and a fragile Democratic majority in the Senate, will dissolve into gridlock.” You mean they might not be able to, you know, do anything? After the incontinent absence of gridlock these last 18 months, when the Obama administration rammed obscene, and obscenely expensive, health care legislation down the throats of the American people, despite widespread and ferocious opposition, a little “gridlock”  might not be such a bad thing. Which would you rather have: cap & trade or gridlock?  I know which I would choose.

The Times is right to worry about the sorry condition of the dollar, which has fallen some 15 percent against Europe’s fantasy currency, the euro, since June. But the dollar is depressed because of Obama’s anti-growth (and, incidentally, anti-American) policies

Article Claims “Obama Admits He Got A Shellacking”, Something Obama did not say….exactly…

…….which is the way Mr. Obama circles around sentences in which he wants to hide or soften the truth…..or his real feelings…..(As Governor Christie explains about some politicians…. ”He’s a politician who  needs  an escape hatch”…..so he can never be accused of being wrong.)

This article was written by Jon Ward and the Daily Caller”

“President Obama had a blunt response when asked Wednesday to explain how it felt to watch the Democratic Party suffer the worst electoral defeat in the House in more than half a century.

“It feels bad,” Obama said, facing the White House press corps a day after the election. He labeled the results a “shellacking.”

But while the president took responsibility for doing a poor job on a few issues, and said he wants to work with Republicans on matters such as energy, education and political ethics, he made clear that he does not regret passing the health-care overhaul that was a major factor in driving voter discontent.

“We’d be misreading the election if we thought the American people want to see us, for the next two years, relitigate arguments we had over the last two years,” Obama said when asked about Republican promises to dismantle the health-care legislation.

When he was reminded that one in two voters said they opposed the health-care bill, Obama shot back that the statistic “also means one out of two voters thinks it was the right thing to do.”

Obama signaled he is unwilling to compromise on his support for allowing tax cuts for those making $250,000 and above to expire on Jan. 1.

When asked whether he “didn’t get it,” Obama bristled.

“I’m doing a whole lot of reflecting,” he said.

He did signal he would be willing to cut a provision in the health-care bill that would require businesses to submit 1099 forms for all business to business transactions over $600.

“If it ends up just being so much trouble that small businesses find it difficult to manage, that’s something we should take a look at it,” he said.

The president said that the economy and jobs was the main reason that Democrats suffered such a stinging loss. He said that his policies had made the economy better, but that “clearly too many Americans haven’t felt that progress yet, and they told us that yesterday.”

Later Obama acknowledged that while he does not believe the economy is going backward, “what you can argue is that we’re stuck in neutral.”

The president said he had not sufficiently worked with the business community or “[made] absolutely clear that the only way America succeeds is if businesses are succeeding.”

When asked whether he is out of touch with voters, Obama said that he may be perceived as such only because he spends too much time at the White House.

“There is a inherent danger in being in the White House and being in the bubble. Folks didn’t have any complaints about my leadership style when I was running around Iowa for a year. And they got a pretty good look at me up close and personal and they were able to lift the hood and kick the tires and they understood that my story was theirs,” Obama said.

“When you’re in this place, it is hard not to seem removed,” he said. “How do I meet my responsibilities here, here in the White House … but still have that opportunity to engage with the American people on a day to day basis, and give them confidence that I’m listening to them?”

Obama said that there was also something about an electoral rebuke to keep any commander-in-chief on his toes and aware of the will of the people.

“This is something every president needs to go through,” Obama said.

He added, to laughter: “I’m not recommending to every president that they take a shellacking like the one I took last night.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/11/03/obama-admits-he-got-a-shellacking-but-shows-no-sign-of-budging-on-core-agenda/#ixzz14Gyy32Lc

Obama Never Said “I took a shellacking”…..as reported

Obama:  “I took a shellacking!     This is the headline round and about suggesting President Obama is man enough to admit a  truth even though it might be an embarrassment.

Mr. Obama is not yet that man-enough man…..for the report is false!

The following is the real quote from the rigid president:

“”the ways that we connected with folks that got us here in the first place….ah….and that’s something that we……now….I”m not recommending to future presidents that they take a shellacking like I did last night…….I am sure there are easier ways to learn those lessons.”

This is the way the president blurs his meangings in his language.  “I got shellacked” is a direct statement.   Mr. Obama never uttered such a statement.  Yet, it is being reported that he did…..that he is assertive in this mea culpa……but he isn’t…..and according to many, he is not able to be because of his arrogance and self image.

There is no qualifying…..no cirquitous path hither or thither, taken by meaning or possible meanings is the direct sentence, “I took a shellacking!”

Mr. Obama dances around language when he decides to be lofty.  And he is good at it.

Future presidents got the shellacking.  He got a shellacking as if second hand…..and he comes out a hero, because he recommends no one experience such a shellacking these future presidents got.

This man has many, many habits and they are obvious if one listens carefully to his endless speechifying……but one wears out.  

He will NOT be blamed for errors…..Others are to be blamed ….”they got us here in the first place”….

He is a Marxist, not a healer…..not someone to smooth over issues to solve the country’s problems.

Mr. Obama is a product of the “Goddamn America” crowd.  He wants to change America just like he has captured the American Health Industry for HIS government.

British Marxist, Michael Tomasky, Reviews GOP Victories

“What a jaw-dropping change from two Novembers ago. That election night, American liberals were over the moon in rapture, and American voters had proven that they could elect a black man to their highest office and put their nation’s great original sin of race behind them.

This election night, American liberals, sternum-deep in their miry slough of despond, are as depressed as they’ve been since the Florida debacle back in 2000, and Americans may be proving themselves capable of electing to high office, variously: a man who acknowledges he’d likely have opposed the landmark 1964 civil rights act (Paul, who walked the Senate race in Kentucky); another who hired a private, brown-shirt-ish goon squad that “arrested” a working journalist (Alaska’s Joe Miller, dropping in recent polls but still in the hunt as of deadline time); and a phalanx of candidates who hope to do away with public state pensions and any remotely meaningful limits on corporate power. Americans have, however, stopped short of electing their first witch.

All right, Christine O’Donnell, the losing Republican senatorial candidate from Delaware, is not a real witch. But the other things are true, and a lot more besides them. The expected Republican recapture of the House of Representatives not only shifts the power of agenda-setting in that body, but changes its ideological character markedly. Roughly half a dozen candidates will enter the US Senate, and perhaps 40 or so the House of Representatives next year, whose radical-conservative political views would have left them mocked and isolated within their own party a dozen or so years ago.

How did this sea-change in American politics happen?

The Republicans moved to the right during the Bush years. But more important, conservative rhetoric became increasingly intolerant, strident, extreme and unhinged; a 2008 book that un-ironically promoted Adolf Hitler as a “man of the left” vaulted up the bestseller charts, its lessons now taken as gospel by millions of conservatives. Long-ago Democratic president Woodrow Wilson, meanwhile, known to most of us as a modestly progressive idealist, is in the right-wing canon America’s first fascist ruler.

Throw in a terrible economy, with a high unemployment rate (9.6%), which hasn’t gone down in a year. Add a president whose background lends itself to, shall we say, exotic conspiratorial fabrication. Mix in policies that were effortlessly painted as socialist (the bailouts) or as relief for “the undeserving” (mortgage assistance). Result: the toxic brand of tea of which Americans voters have decided to partake this November.

Obama is culpable here, as well – and the Democrats generally. From the president down, they never – against the right-populist onslaught – defended their idea of what society should look like. Split between their centrist and liberal wings, they saw the lightning on the horizon and ran for cover. They flailed around for different messages this fall like a bad singer searching for the right key. Their signal achievement, the healthcare overhaul, was both a historical triumph and a political albatross, and now Republicans will try – whether whole- or half-heartedly is not yet known – to repeal it.

The big question in Washington now is how Barack Obama handles this adversity. He first needs to tell Americans that he heard what they had to say Tuesday. But next on the agenda will be a major test: an upcoming lame-duck session of the outgoing Congress will convene to consider whether to extend Bush-era tax cuts on the wealthiest households (earning more than $250,000 a year). Obama has opposed it. Republicans, with the wind now at their backs, are gung-ho for it. It will be a tense showdown.

Come next year, Obama will need to do two opposite things simultaneously. He will have to move to the middle on some issues. Independents, who backed him in 2008, left his party in massive numbers this year. If he can’t get a big chunk of them back, he will not be re-elected in 2012.

But he also has to fight. Republicans will pick fights, and they’ll think they can roll him. And they will hold a constant parade of hearings investigating the administration, trying to snare some big administration fish (maybe Obama himself?) in a perjury or obstruction of justice trap.

Republicans play for keeps. And now, Obama is going to have to, too. It’s a long and grim way from 2008.”

Comment.  Tomasky is mistaken, or misleading or both by sneering about Hitler being “a man of the Left”.   Marxists are always uptight about Hitler’s ties to Socialism.   The National Socialist Workers’ Party is what NAZI stood (and stands) for.   The fascist movement itself was sold as a Socialism plain and simple.   During the years of  disorder and starvation in Germany which followed World War I, the battle ground in the streets was between two brands of Marxism…..the Hitler National Socialists against the the Communists who took their orders from Moscow.  Both Socialist groups believed in Party dictatorships.  One preferred it be centered in Berlin and be led by Germans.   To the Left, as Tomasky asserts, this move to  Berlin absolves Socialism of spawning  National Socialist Hitler.

“U.S. Voted Against Obama and Pelosi!”

I was passing through MSNBC stuff on the way to my Inbox and came across a heading that turned my attention. 

“U.S. Voted Against Obama and Pelosi”, it read.   I had already heard Obamapoints the Democrat president gave regarding his Party’s losses at the polls.   He qualifies nearly everything in his speechifying except his attacks on his enemies.   All of his enemies are Americans.  And these Americans are all Republicans.  “I suppose I could have done……”….”Perhaps I should have……”    “Some might think”….or say”…… ‘the opposition obstructs…refuses.

I dislike Obama very much for his dishonesty, his verbal game playing, his arrogance and snied condescension toward anyone out of his ring, his quickness to corrupt  process in order to achieve his personal ends.  He seems to respect no one except himself.

In his press conference today, he expressed sorrow for those of his Party he helped defeat so he could accomplish his aims, making the country more Marxist.  His words sounded almost believeable,  but they seemed  expressed by a robot.

How is it someone at MSNBC  got the message from the voters and the president did….could not?   For during his public address about what went wrong, his avoidance of mentioning Obamacare spoke clearly what he wanted kept from his confession.   He assured all he was on the right path, but hadn’t clarified the path enough.  On the contrary the public recognized his path of bloating the power of government led by Obamacare legislation and the stench associated with its passage.  Obama and Pelosi where the targets of the Democrats’ historic losses.

I think Harry Reid is creepy.   I would prefer a different adjective….perhaps ‘wretched’.  He, too, loves to hear his own voice…..and tell stories to him self about his heroism.  In his victory speech this wimp advertised his boxing abilities….how many time he has been knocked down, but “Rocky” Reid always returns.   Quite a number of people in  public are simply embarrassing on all fronts.  You name the front Mr. Reid is embarrassing.

As an American I wanted Reid  to be defeated.   As a politically aware conservative I wanted the man to be returned to the television screen and newspaper headlines as DEMOCRAT Senate Majority leader.   (I felt the same wasy about Tom Delay, Republican from Texas, when he ran the House of Representatives in the 1990s, but for different reasons.   Mr. Reid appears to be hooked on depressants to depress all that wasn’t already depressed.  This other politico sppeared  on steroids to quiet himself down.   He is a downer for anyone, the reincarnation of Charlie Chaplin.

Mr. Obama adores himself almost as much as he adores his Marxism.  It will be very difficult for any achievement  called  ‘good for the country’  when the president is sold on something as foreign to the country as Marxism…..and its demand for government management of …well nearly everything in a culture.

Even a writer for MSNBC sees Obama as a problem.   But not our number 44 who is certain he causes problems only for his enemies.

Independents Go Right…….Have They Saved America from Marxism?

“A massive swing by independent voters propelled the Republican Party to a series of key victories, bringing the GOP back from a near-death experience just two years ago, and delivering a rebuke to the president who rode the same independent wave into the White House.

In House races nationally, Republicans won the votes of independents—voters who said they aren’t affiliated with any party—by a 55% to 40% margin, a compilation of exit polls from across the country showed.

That represents a stunning reversal from the last midterm election, in 2006. In that voting, which brought Democrats to power in the House, independents favored Democratic candidates, 57% to 39%.

In other words, independents’ preference did an almost complete turnabout over the last four years: They favored Democrats by 18 points then, Republicans by 15 points Tuesday.

Independents also were a crucial element of the coalition that President Barack Obama used to win the White House two years ago, when, according to exit polls, he carried them by 52% to 44%.

In a nutshell, these independents Tuesday made up about a quarter of all voters, and provided the margin of victory for the GOP, because voters who identify with the two major parties stayed largely in line. Some 92% of Democrats voted for the Democrat in their local House race, and 95% of Republicans voted for the GOP candidate.

But the very fickleness that independents demonstrated in these two midterm elections means there’s no guarantee they’ll remain loyal to the GOP, any more than they stuck with President Obama and his Democrats.

Even more important, Tuesday’s vote appeared to be more a protest against what Washington has been doing than a clear declaration of a mandate for a new course.

In effect, this year’s congressional election brought forth a kind of primal scream from the independents. They expressed a high level of anger at the government, and were far more likely than voters overall to say the new Congress’ top priority ought to be dealing with the federal budget deficit.

“Independents aren’t liberal spenders,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres. “They’re just not. And that, more than anything else, drove independents into the Republican camp.” For them, he said, the Democrats’ big health-care overhaul was the “coup de grace” that symbolized government grown too large.

Still, for all the decisiveness of the independents’ shift, this election hasn’t resolved the most fundamental question facing the country: What should the role of government be in the 21st century?

Instead it has simply set up what figures to be a two-year debate over that question in Washington, and ensures that it will be a focal point of the 2012 election.

Thanks to independents—along with other crucial swing blocs, such as suburban women, blue-collar workers and retirees, all of whom also shifted toward the Republicans—the GOP now has the strength to stop pieces of the Obama agenda and, perhaps in some instances, roll it back.

The testing ground figures to be the coming twin debates over government spending and the federal deficit. In the exit polling, 39% of voters overall said reducing the budget deficit should be the highest priority for the next Congress; 46% of independents said it should be the top priority.

And while this year’s campaign has produced plenty of evidence of unhappiness over government spending, it hasn’t produced many signs that voters are prepared to take the tough, specific steps that would really tackle budget deficits—or reward politicians who prescribe such bitter medicine.

When The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll asked Americans this summer about a variety of ways to cut the deficit, more than three-quarters of those polled said it would be “unacceptable” to cut federal spending on education. More than 60% said it also would be unacceptable to raise the retirement age to 70 to reduce Social Security expenses, or to gradually raise the eligibility age for Medicare.

Tellingly, the survey found that independent voters, for all their dismay with Washington, may not be any more open than other Americans to taking those difficult steps.

It’s possible, of course, that the rise of the tea-party movement, with its clarion calls to cut the size of government, will succeed in shifting public sentiment toward accepting more cuts in such prized government services as Medicare. Certainly the more expansive Republican contingents in the House and the Senate are likely to test that attitude.

In Tuesday’s voting, four in 10 of those who answered exit polls said they were supporters of the tea-party movement. Just 31% said they were opponents of the tea party.

It appears that the movement did what GOP leaders who embraced it had hoped above all: It energized core Republican voters at the grass roots in a way the party’s traditional leaders couldn’t.

Now, though, the danger for Republicans is that those tea-party activists, so crucial to creating a GOP wave, are more gung-ho about slashing the government than are independent voters.

All of which suggests that the question of how far voters truly want to venture in shrinking government will be the crux of the debate in the new Congress—and in the next presidential campaign, as President Obama seeks another term.

Along the way, the fidelity of those independent voters to the Republican cause they have just advanced will be tested as well.

“Obviously the real issue is the independents,” said Democratic pollster Peter Hart. “If they are swinging to the GOP, then their share of the electorate will increase after 2010″—which could produce a long-term shift in the fine balance of power between the two major parties.”

(The above article was found at realclearpolitics, and written by Gerald Selb of the Wall Street Journal.)

Write to Gerald F. Seib at jerry.seib@wsj.com