Harry Reid's crooked math

Jimmie Bise explains that the Senate health-care deal's cost projections were bogus, based on double-counting planned "savings" in Medicare.

If the federal government is actually capable of wringing $500 billion of "waste, fraud and abuse" out of Medicare, why not do that first?

Show us the "savings," and then we'll talk.

In Defense of Harry Reid

by Smitty

Look, don't go picking on Harry just because he traded some horses to get his way. You may have thought that the Information Age would bring some wild blooming of transparency, integrity, mom, and apple pie.

It did nothing of the sort.

We now have the results of Way Too Much Power sitting in DC. It's been a century brewing, and your perfect storm of debt, incumbency, and incompetence has us all in a tizzy.

Harry Reid did very little that was particularly new or outrageous. Don't hate the playuh, hate the game. Hate it at your Tea Party. Hate it while you attend CPAC2010. Hate it while you write in Instapundit for POTUS, with Stacy McCain as VP. And me as 1st Porch Manqué.

Update: Stuff like this (email tip Rob Tornoe):

is completely unacceptable. Stop, or I will say 'Stop' again!

'Right-wing Leninism'? BUMPED: Senate debates before cloture

UPDATE 3:56 p.m.: Dan at Sevens quotes Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Emagogue):

"Tumbrels have rolled through taunting crowds. Broken glass has sparkled in darkened streets. Strange fruit has hung from southern trees."

In other words, opponents of this bill are Jacobins, brownshirts and Klansmen. Some Republican Senator should make a point of order about this kind of rhetoric. It's one thing to throw around inflammatory metaphors on a blog or cable TV, but another thing entirely to bring it onto the floor of the Senate.

UPDATE 3:25 p.m.: If somebody's got video or a text of Whitehouse's speech, please let me know. That was one of the most villainous speeches I've ever heard by any Senator, and I hope to God that some of my friends who are Senate staffers will provide a Republican with a solid rebuttal to vile Adorno/Hofstadter psychoanalytic crap, which is no more valid today than when Buckley critiqued it in Up From Liberalism nearly 50 years ago.

UPDATE 3:03 p.m.: Sheldon Whitehouse is the Keith Olbermann of the Senate, and I mean that in the worst possible sense of "Keith Olbermann." The only good part of his speech? "Mr. President, I yield the floor." And not a moment too soon!

UPDATE 2:50 p.m.: For crying out loud, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) reads Richard Hofstadter on the Senate floor. In other words, if you oppose this bill, you're a neurotic suffering from status anxiety. There can be no rational opposition. Is Julian Sanchez ghost-writing speeches for Democrats now?

UPDATE 2:33 p.m.: Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) just said he's got relatives in Nebraska who are "embarrassed and ashamed" by Ben Nelson's "Cash for Cloture" sellout -- click that link, because The Boss is still fighting. She weighs less than 100 pounds, but it's all fight.

PREVIOUSLY 2:09 p.m.: C.K. MacLeod writes a lengthy defense of the radical worse-is-better approach to political opposition.

This idea was central to Vladimir Lenin's revolutionary vision: The worse real-life conditions became -- the more oppressive the czarist regime, the greater Russia's military disasters in World War I -- the greater likelihood of the kind of political upheaval in which the Bolsheviks could seize power.

Given its source and original meaning, Lenin's worse-is-better strategy is obviously not something any conservative would endorse. However, as MacLeod makes clear, that isn't the way he means it. What he is arguing is that a short-term "win" by the Democrats should not be viewed by their opponents as a demoralizing defeat, but rather as a springboard for future conservative victories. His is a message of hope, not despair:

This is a moment for sober judgment, and for confidence in one's own beliefs and analysis, whichever best keeps you in the fight. It's a moment to decide whether our message to the Obamaist progressives is going to be: "You win -- we give up" or "We're coming after you, and getting rid of your laughable, embarrassing, and repugnant health care bill (presuming you ever get around to passing it) will just be the beginning."

Indeed, and you should read the whole thing. Speaking of radical rhetoric, I notice that King Herod Harry Reid plans to kill the babies by Christmas.

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Humor Update: (Smitty) 3:13PM
Whereas I read MacLeod's piece and thought of Coleridge, by way of the Monty Python. This legislation could prove both an albatross and a career opportunity for Dingy Harry, as seen in the clip:

As a bonus, Graham Chapman's humorless Colonel prefigures the tender, loving care that government health care will embody.

The gross, atrocious irresponsibility of this bill in all aspects will be a boon to Americans. Harry Reid gives us ammunition. We will return it to him with, bonus kinetic energy.

Remember when liberals used to call Republicans 'mean-spirited'?

Maybe I'm the only one who remembers this, but circa 1995, it was a standard rhetorical weapon for Democrats and their media henchpeople: Newt Gingrich was an evil ogre leading a band of selfish hateful mean-spirited Republicans who were going to take turns crapping on Civil Society and wiping their butts with the Social Contract.

Seems like just yesterday, doesn't it? Now we have Harry Reid comparing health-care opponents to slaveholders and Ezra Klein accusing Joe Lieberman of mass murder, while Daily Kos and Jane Hamsher are trying to get Lieberman's wife fired.

Desperate much?

NEWS HEADLINES & ANALYSIS: Harry Reid tanking in latest poll

ObamaCare Dragging Down Democrat?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid continues to lag behind all potential Republican challengers in next year’s U.S. Senate race in Nevada, according to new Rasmussen Reports telephone polling in the state.
For now at least, his championing of the president’s health care plan appears to raise further red flags for the Democratic incumbent. Fifty-four percent (54%) of Nevada voters oppose the plan, while 44% favor it.
More significantly, however, those numbers include 49% who strongly oppose the plan while only 23% strongly favor it. . . .

Read the whole thing. Bottom line: All three leading candidates in the GOP primary for next year's Senate election in Nevada now beat Reid in a head-to-head matchup. Beyond the ObamaCare issue, this looks like a generic anti-Reid, anti-Democrat trend, and nothing is likely to halt it anytime soon.

Aranoff: Dem 'Cover-Up' in CrasherGate?

The evidence clearly shows that the congressional investigation of the White House Gatecrashers is being controlled and limited. Homeland Security Committee chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS), now the subject of an Ethics Committee investigation, has made it clear that he wants to limit the investigation. Is he trying to protect White House officials with something to hide?
Ignoring evidence of White House connections to the alleged gatecrashers, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, Thompson will not subpoena Desirée Rogers, the White House social secretary who is a very close friend of Barack and Michelle Obama. . . .

Read the whole thing. During my reporting on IG-Gate, I interviewed Republican congressional staffers who described the work of House Democrat investigative staff as "useless." Even if there were any desire of Democrats in Congress to investigate charges of White House wrongdoing, Democratic staffers simply don't have the skills to run a decent investigation.

Report: ObamaCare Won't Reduce Health Costs

Democrats trying to push President Barack Obama's health care overhaul plan through the Senate got a sober warning Friday that costs will keep going up and proposed Medicare savings may harm the program.
A new report from government economic analysts at the Health and Human Services Department found that the nation's $2.5 trillion annual health care tab won't shrink under the Democratic blueprint that senators are debating. Instead, it would grow somewhat more rapidly than if Congress does nothing. . . .

Read the whole thing. A free-market guy has to begin by scoffing at the idea that HHS "government economic analysts" could be expected to estimate anything accurately. The absurd claim of ObamaCare proponents --that there can be both an expansion of benefits and a reduction in costs -- simply doesn't add up.

Counting the votes on ObamaCare

Bill Kristol says Harry Reid lacks the 60 votes necessary to take ObamaCare to a roll-call in the Senate. If true, this is very good news.

Given the Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, the proper object of conservatives has always been neither a compromise nor the inclusion of some particular amendment, but simply no bill.

Any "health care reform" that could pass a majority-Democrat Congress would be, de facto, bad legislation. Whatever "health care reform" might pass a majority-Republican Congress might also be bad legislation, but that's a hypothetical we don't need to worry about now.

What we need to do now is KILL THIS BILL, and then make everyone who voted for it wish they'd never even heard the phrase "health care reform." Beat 'em so bad they won't try it again in a million years.

You might have noticed that Democrats haven't offered "immigration reform." They see what happened to Republicans after John McCain tried to push that through. Any "reform" effort in the direction of amnesty has been made radioactive, and we need to make "health care reform" equally radioactive.

Read all of Bill Kristol's article. It's very good. Ol' Bill isn't always right, but he's got this situation figured out.

Knock, Knock

Who's there?

Hate.

Hate who?

Hate to tell Harry Reid, but Danny Tarkanian is running for Senate. He's beating Harry in the polls. And he's angry about Harry's slavery remark:

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Danny Tarkanian -- a community activist with a history of working with at-risk African-Americans in Las Vegas -- called on Senator Harry Reid to apologize on the Senate floor for comparing his health care opponents to defenders of slavery.
"Harry Reid's comments comparing opponents of his health reforms to defenders of slavery are a disgrace to the institution of the Senate and an embarrassment to Nevada. If there is any dignity left in this man, he will apologize on the Senate Floor," said Tarkanian.
Danny Tarkanian has been personally active in Las Vegas' African-American community through the Tarkanian Basketball Academy which teaches young Las Vegans -- many of whom are African-American -- life lessons through sports.

Let's look at the facts:

• Tarkanian is a Republican, like Ronald Reagan.
• He's Armenian-American, like Kim Kardashian.
• Tarkanian plays basketball, like Michael Jordan.
• He writes for Big Government, like Hannah Giles.
• Danny opposes ObamaCare, like a raaaaacist.
• Tarkanian speaks at Tea Parties, like me.
• He's got a beautiful wife, like mine.
• He's supported by Sarah Palin's dad, like . . .

This is all we really need to know, except for the fact that the other main GOP candidate, Sue Lowden, is the "preferred candidate of the Republican party establishment." And if there is anything we haters hate worse than we hate Harry Reid, it's the Republican party establishment.

DANNY TARKANIAN for SENATE

Who's with me?

Hate to point this out again, but . . .

There are five A's in RAAAAACIST. For some reason, Michelle Malkin misspells (or miscounts) the word:

Crying “RAAAAAACIST:” Always the first and last refuge of left-wing scoundrels.

Maybe Harry Reid is angry because Bob Byrd has gone wobbly on health care?

The question with Reid is, which came first, the scoundrel or the left-wing? He's a shameless opportunist whose instincts are much like those of another congressional pugilist, Rep. Jim Moran (D-Mentia).

Via Memeorandum. More from Hot Air, Big Government, Riehl World View, Ed Driscoll, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Red State. and Richard McEnroe at Three Beers Later.

UPDATE: Harry Reid has a problem with all those raaaaacist people who don't support ObamaCare. You know who I mean: Nevada voters!

President Barack Obama has lost ground in the last month in getting Nevadans to embrace his health care reform package and, for the first time, opposition is above 50 percent and support is below 40 percent, a new poll commissioned by the Las Vegas Review-Journal reveals.
The telephone poll of 625 registered voters found that 53 percent of Nevadans oppose the president's attempt to provide a remedy for problems in the nation's health care system. Support for the plan is at 39 percent.

So, a 53% majority of Nevada voters are haters. And their hate, as Harry Reid suspects, is related to race -- namely his 2010 re-election race:

Nevadans aren't warming up to Sen. Harry Reid, despite plenty of early advertising designed to boost his image, a new poll shows.
Just 38 percent of respondents said they had a favorable opinion of the Democratic Senate majority leader, the same percentage as in October and 1 point higher than in August.
The survey of 625 registered Nevada voters by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research suggests the promotional bombardment that Reid launched more than six weeks ago has yet to hit its target.
"I'd be worried," said Michael Franz, an assistant professor at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, who studies political advertising. "I'd stop if I had aired ads for two or three weeks and it wasn't moving the needle."

Nine different Republicans raaaaacists are running in the primary for a chance to take on Harry, and either of the two best-known GOP candidates beats Reid in a head-to-head poll matchup.

Clearly, the Nevada Chamber of Commerce needs to come up with a new slogan:

Nevada: Where Everything Fun Is Legal,
Including Gambling, Prostitution and Hate

Remind me to bill you guys for the consulting fees . . .