Mark Levin, on the potential fallout from Obamacare (courtesy of Doug Ross):
[…] The editors of Investors Business Daily — a real newspaper — write:
Social Security's chief actuary reports that the social safety net will run a deficit for 2010, nine years earlier than predicted. Put down that big gavel, Madam Speaker, we're about to hit the iceberg.
Wow. Social Security is now officially broke.
They’re expanding Medicaid. There are states that are soon to be officially broke. And yet they’re required to pay a huge amount of this Medicaid.
They’re going to be slashing Medicare, while pushing more citizens onto it, because the bill punishes businesses that are generous with prescription drug programs for retirees.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is what happens when radical, left-wing ideologues sit around and talk with each other about coming up with a Utopian proposal. Because there’s no Utopia. This is misery, and it’s only just begun, because it hasn’t really kicked in yet.
But people are planning. Small and large businesses, senior citizens, young people, they’re going to have to plan, going to have to hustle, have to figure out how to protect themselves. While the president bounces all over the place from one issue to the next, one entitlement to the next, one tax and spending increase to the next, patting himself on the back over how wonderful he’s made this country.
You know what bothers me most about this? We have a man in the Oval Office who has no respect for what’s come before him. He has no respect for what’s been tried and tested throughout American history or — for that matter — throughout world history. We know that these Stalinist-like programs are failures. We know that, rather than create food, they create starvation. Rather than clothe people, people freeze in the winter. Rather than provide medical treatment for people, people suffer.
Oh, Mark, you say, that’s extreme rhetoric: ‘these Stalinist-like programs’. Really? Soviet-style? Where does come from? It doesn’t come from the Founding Fathers. It doesn’t come from the great philosophers on whom they relied. Where does it come from?
It comes, mostly, from the same mindset. Oh, they have different degrees and levels of suffering and implementation and aggressiveness. But it’s a soft tyranny as I’ve said before and have written. This is the soft tyranny that others have warned about. This is the soft tyranny that we witness in other societies — being imposed upon us.
Obama has done nothing to cut costs in health care. He’s done nothing to increase efficiencies in health care. He’s done nothing to create competition in health care. He’d done nothing to address those who suffer — and those who will suffer. Except to make it worse.
Except to make it worse.
…So welcome to ObamaCare, welcome to the Obama recovery, as jobs continue to not be saved or created, welcome to the Obama housing boom, welcome to the Obama business boom, isn’t it great?
Isn’t Utopia hell?
This bloated, out-of-control, top-heavy federal government couldn’t run a damn weather-stripping program or “cash-for-clunkers” without billions in misery, waste, fraud and abuse. Now picture what that means for your health care.
Powerful stuff. Though were I Levin I’d avoid all that hyperbolic talk of “soft tyranny.” After all, that kind of hate speech is, well, alarming, frankly — and is precisely the kind of rhetoric that gets Tea Partiers so riled up that they’re liable to pound a keg of Busch, hop in their pickup trucks, and go looking to string them up some commies. Or, in a pinch, some blacks or Mexicans.
Because, well, you know how those kind of people are.
Tsk.
It sounds bad but just wait til Michael Steele gets started. He’ll turn it around.
You’ll see.
Another of those soft tyranny talking kinds of people.
I just happened to catch a little bit of Levin’s radio show wherein he called Obama a vampire sucking from the neck of America, or something very much like that. Maybe Media Matters has the quote.
WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!!
I THOUGHT YOU WIGNUTS HATED THE FRENCH THEN YOU LINK TOKEVILLE HYPOCRATES YOU MAKE ME SICK AS A CITIZEN WHO IS PROUD OF HELPING THE POOR!!!
I lurvs me some Mark Levin. He’s just like that Goldstein guy, except he uses small words and I can understand him more of the time.
Word.
Yeah, Steele is pretty feckless, happy. And the conservatives leading the charge on turning this around are fanatical followers of some ditzy cumsluts who want to control your snatch and double the price of tacos.
We’re pretty much fucked, I’d say. Unless there’re some pragmatic conservative voices out there that can show us the way out of the political wilderness. Teach us how to modify our speech, win over the independents with assurances that we will actively seek out and purge our side of the racists and the haters…
Meh. We can only hope for such a hero.
Tokeville? Is that a neighborhood in Berkeley?
I don’t see anyone leading a charge. Mostly I see people exploiting a very dazed and confused Team R.
Me I think Team R is still in the mean mean grip of a retching retching hangover of self-loathing and confusion what comes from nominating Meghan’s daddy as their nominee to represent them.
And the Tea Party? Bunch of cutters I think. Their brand of emo is very 2008 already.
It’s settled. President Brett Favre.
Heh.
Yeah. Tea Parties are already embarrassing me, too.
What we need is somebody who’s not afraid to stand right up to the fascistic aims of progressives and say, “you’re good people, and we most certainly don’t hope for you to fail. Also, we apologize. For whatever you need us to apologize for.”
Then he should spin around on his heels and shoot Mark Levin directly through the forehead.
That’ll show just how serious he is about conservatism done right!
Oh. To find such a leader of men…
Rod Dreher, call your office!
see, no… that is an argument you are not having with me cause of those views are views that are not my views.
I don’t think Tea Party ones are embarrassing I just think they’re silly how they flock to optimistic messagings. Silly monkeys. Your country is shit. It’s called math. You face inexorable decline. Deal.
Has Dreher ever fully recovered from Katrina?
For that matter, has Shep Smith?
Poor fucker never did get his Emmy.
What should they do, happy? Stay home with red velvet cupcakes and wait for the end days?
Shit, man. And here I was thinking they were the religious freaks.
So, where do we start, ‘feets? Or, if you prefer, now what?
Like so:
he called Obama a vampire sucking from the neck of America
Oh … at least he didn’t use a rape metaphor.
I think a long hard slog with a reward our children’s children’s children might could reap is sort of close to what should be a core message.
But the red velvet cupcake idea shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand.
Not sure that would sell, happy. Perhaps something more upbeat?
Now pragmatic conservatism. That’s something you can dance to!
… as our little country pondered weak and weary
Heh.
If we think of our country as one of them flat worms, we can just go about chopping off the bad stuff safe in the knowledge that by next biology class, a whole new bunch a parts will have grown back.
Good as new!
Give it a shot. It’s working for me. Especially when I get stoned.
Right. No one ever does that. It’s too risky.
hmmm… more upbeat
how about hey we’re going to do our best to give you people and your companies and your institutions maximal freedom to cope with what’s been done on you… and we promise to bring an abrupt halt to dirty socialist molestations.
But a Team R what can’t face up to a Princess Lindsey is an inadequate vehicle for facing down fiendishly clever and evil evil evil dirty socialists I think.
This is bleak. This whole sitchiation. And the schizophrenic can-do spunkyness/outraged horror of the Tea Party ones does get on my nerves sometimes.
Dreher/Shep 2012 – the Red Velvet Cupcake ticket!
I don’t know exactly where, but I am pretty sure it is in Humboldt County.
The ignorance is just astonding here, how can you put up with it James.
Well Frank, I find it interesting to study them like ants in a jar. I sometimes find myself getting flushed by the wiff of testosterone.
I think a long hard slog with a reward our children’s children’s children might could reap is sort of close to what should be a core message.
Don’t be a fool, ‘feets. That’s what Glenn Beck says. He’s even conducting seminars in the future to teach us how to teach others about the Republic, after it’s lost, so that someday it can be rebuilt.
oh. I don’t get to watch Mr. Beck ever.
He sounds very sensible.
Two thrusts:
1. Adopt genuine pro-growth measures such as: revamp the tax code with an focus on encouraging production, drastically cut useless regulations, untie the hands of the energy producers, steal brains from other countries with legal immigration, enact significant tort reform, etc.
2. Cut entitlements and then privatize the programs into individual tax-free accounts from retirement to health.
It’s not impossible and pretty quickly we’d once again find that economic growth has that nice little compounding effect. Yeah, maybe people don’t automatically have the political will but when has that ever been a sure thing on this planet?
There’s a difference between a tree with no fruit and a tree you can’t be bothered to pick. That should be our message, just pick the fucking apples already.
I’d add that we are not the party of political correctness, and that we abhor what the pc culture has done to our collective ability is Americans to address problems as adults. I think most people are sick of being called racists or homophobes, etc., simply because they aren’t following the orthodoxies of the various victim groups.
In fact, I’d bet on it.
I like a lot of this stuff. Tax regularion is a necessity, and has to go through channels. I think we need to start pushing the Fair Tax, it is as good a plan as you are going to find.
Some other shit I think we could do at a grass roots level, and I think it is coming. Governement regulations and lisencing boards have absolutely choked small business to death, people need to just start saying “fuck this mess” and going ahead and making a living any way they can. If enough people do it the ensuing black markets will be too big to control and reform will have to happen.
It has already happened with cheap labor.
it’s just Team R just nominated a feeb that believes none of those things you guys… and supporting that same feeb even today is far from a toxic proposition apparently… I will tell you what I will watch for.
I am talking fucking anarchy, y’all.
I will watch for whether Team R makes any significant changes in its congressional leadership when it retakes the house.
Until that happens I’m all for going V for Vendetta with Mr. Moe.
and maybe even if
Whip-carrying drunk Armadillo on the forearm. Underneath, “outlaw”
You know in some states you have to have a license to arrange flowers? Or be an interior decorator?
None of that should be mandatory, if I want to have my flowers arranged by some wanton renegade, by God, that is my right.
And there’s a whole lotta pills what should be over the counter I think.
All of them should be, fuck ’em if they can’t read a PDR.
I don’t know about all. I just meant specifically the ones I might need.
or not so gradually
Absolutely, B Moe. Now, I’m all for people simply saying fuck that noise independently but I’d also like our politicians to make that pitch.
We can offer the country cost-free benefits simply by taking our foot off the brake. Let’s make the Dems defend government regulation, frivolous lawsuits, complicated tax law and high energy costs everyday until Nov.
“This economic and liberty is easily available if you want it. Just tell the Dems to get out of your way and it’s yours again.”
“This economic growth…”, that is.
oh lordy, I just slummed through some of the comments on the last link…
back to the old “if you’re getting unemployment, SocSec, medicare, drive on roads, use the library” and are a TEA Partier you’re just a nasty, confused, moronic idiot. Shut up and hand us your money.
“…I’d also like our politicians to make that pitch.”
On that thought I wrote geoffb the other day “the moronic thought occurred to me: some of these politicians — on whom in some measure our fate depends — may happen to see themselves, in their own position vis a vis the incipient totalitarian onslaught, just as we see ourselves, that is, as citizens, about to be swallowed whole by the Leviathan. And for some reason, that moronic thought gave me hope there for a moment.”
Comment by Darleen on 3/31 @ 10:14 pm #
that makes me crazy! i just want to scream “i’m on unemployment because our president decided to make it next to impossible to find a job!!!!!” let me work and i’ll stop taking your money..otherwise i’ll just keep livin the dream man
it’s not unhopeful that people are writing the eloquent and sensible emails and such like that to each other
I wonder. By that, I mean, I wonder, as the thought hadn’t ever occurred to me.
It’s messed up that I never once thought of politicians as citizens. Our political system needs a shake up.
It’s the ease with which cooptation is accomplished that kills dead dead dead the hopes though.
Well, that and the humans being so fucking stupid.
Maybe what the right should do is every single one of us should apply for every possible government benefit ever invented. Even if you know you don’t qualify, all of us apply for student loans, unemployment, food stamps, welfare, grants, anything and everything out there. Bury them under a mountain of paper and break the bank.
Hows that for civil disobedience? We could call it Suck the Teat week…
I think you should get one of those teardrop tattoos under your eye, Jeff. Those are pretty bad ass. Maybe when someone looks close, the teardrop is actually the word “outlaw”.
But, yeah, it’s on the face. Which is like Tyson crazy.
Then there’s the politicians like Tim Ryan, who far from fearing the Leviathan, won’t meet his constituents because he thinks they will eat him. h/t Insty
Too Cloward Piven. They want it broken. Utopia is the Phoenix they see rising from the ashes of our liberty.
You know, when you think about it, Obama is a terribly reasonable guy. He really knows how to bring people together.
Btw, did everyone see Geoff’s link from the other thread?
These are our opponents. Some of them literally think that islands float and could capsize. It should go without saying that we can beat them if we actually try.
Feets: If you want to see Glenn Beck, there are some bootleg videos of his show out there. He’s on vacation this week; back next.
I’d recommend this little big of japery as they make fun of Obama’s dumb letters.
This one is not so bad, either.
And here is where he proves what a filthy racist he is.
Bunk.
For that to be true we’d have to stay on the presetn course. That’s not going to happen.
Hows that for civil disobedience? We could call it Suck the Teat week…
Or the Cloward-Piven strategy, named for those who thought of it first.
This one is fun, too, as Glenn and his staff engage in good-natured ribbing after the show is over.
Mr. Hank is a mite slow in the seeming sense….. but I can’t help thinking he intended some other kind of tipping and sinking than the strictly nautical sort: I almost detect a wry grin toward the end of his delivery. However, even if he did intend some metaphorically sociological sense of tipping and sinking, there isn’t much point to the way he’s expressed it, which is to say, this performance can still stand as evidence of his impenetrable stupidity.
Ok, I just repeated what someone else said upthread, and one of my links goes to a bum video.
I denounce myself.
Actually, Mr. Hank is a sick man, having just fought off Hepatitis C, which screwed up his liver something awful, and the cascade effect messed up his thyroid and plunged him into depression and obviously his brain isn’t getting proper nutrition.
Which means he ought to be in bed rather than attending a hearing.
I’ll grant you that as a possibility, sdferr.
With the evidence available to me, I think it’s likely he simply doesn’t realize that islands go all the way to the bottom of the ocean. The guy doesn’t know the word or a synonym for narrow. He doesn’t know what the word “level” means.
With that information, I couldn’t agree more. So… why don’t his colleagues? I find it hard to believe this was the first manifestation of his diminished capacity.
Did he vote on Obamacare? I’m guessing he did.
Oh hells yes he did. And worse, even in a weakened state he may have more on the ball than a handful of his other democrat peers in the House. Quoth Mencken, “good and hard”.
Oh, I just realized my statement that we can beat these fools needs a new idiot… let’s go with Joe Biden.
I’d recommend this little big of japery as they make fun of Obama’s dumb letters.
i can’t find this anywhere!
This video trip down memory lane by Evan Maloney fits pretty well with geoffb’s link to Zombie upthread.
In a comment at Youtube it was said he beat out Cynthia McKinney for the seat so right there is a huge improvement. Even with this clip and his weak state he could take Sheila Jackson Lee and Major Owens easy.
Does Levin tell us the cost of no reform?
Although Levin claims to be in favor of a smaller, less intrusive government, he has no problems with pouring trillions of our tax dollars into the pockets of wealthy and powerful “defense” contractors. Two-thirds of U.S. corporations pay zero federal tax these days, but Levin, as always, lies through his teeth and claims U.S. corporations face a crushing, heavy tax burden. During the Bush years, Levin fanatically supported Bush through all the outrages, from embracing torture as official state policy to warrantless wiretaps. Bush, in fact, shredded the Constitution that Levin claims to support.
The guy is a lunatic.
The Government does not intend these things to happen, the Commission on whose report the Bill was founded did not intend these things to happen, but in legislation intention is nothing, and the letter of the law everything, and no government has the right, whether to flatter fanatics or in mere vagueness of mind, to forge an instrument of tyranny and say that it will never be used.
— William Butler Yeats
How appropriate that the first comment in this thread dated April 1, bashes Mark Levin. Bravo, sir — well played! Though, it is kind of hard to catch people with an April Fool’s joke anymore.
I mean, look at the Obama Administration — the only way that one worked is it was sprung in November instead of April. Most people don’t plan that far in advance.
I’m trying to figure out if #81 operates by pulling a string or if you have to wind up a metal thing in his back.
He forgot the unnecessary war of aggression bit, otherwise a perfect ten.
Well, not fucked fucked.
WAY offtopic, has anyone noticed that the same people on the Left who groused about the peak unemployment in Bush’s first term (a whopping 6.3%) are now absolutely screaming about the unemployment rate under Obama?
Yeah, me neither. Shocking how quickly the Presidency can shed responsibility for the economy, isn’t it?
Oh, a comment under this article is one of my favorite all-time zingers:
(regarding Team O’s first-year performance)
The guy is a lunatic.
And yet he is right. Strange days, when the lunatics see clearly that which our moral and intellectual superiors refuse to see.
“Too Cloward Piven”
Hey, B Moe brought up anarchy first! I was just supplying a tactic with a sorta poetic name.
You don’t think Suck the Teat Week has a ring to it? ;-)
#81-
At the risk this may be a goof, I will just say that I don’t know the “cost of no reform”. In fact, all I’ve ever heard is that not doing it this way would be worse, strictly as an assertion without any support. Why don’t you tell us what “the cost of no reform” is, with circles and arrows and a little note on the back of the picture telling us what it is. Show your work, maybe I will be convinced.
If this is a goof, I stand pwned.
Not shredded shredded, though.
Two-thirds of U.S. corporations pay zero federal tax these days…
This isn’t true. The fact is that no corporations pay taxes. Corporations are tax collectors, much like the IRS, except that they collect taxes from those who purchase their goods and/or services. Also, they don’t have police powers to steal your stuff and throw you in prison if you don’t buy their stuff.
Corporate taxes are just sales taxes. If corporations were smarter, they’d itemize their receipts to show just how much consumers pay for taxes and regulatory compliance, in addition to the explicit sales tax line item shown now. I think it would be educational for a lot of people.
Are “jessie” and “levin” someone doing parodies? Because that was some beautiful shit.
A belated “defense” [ ;-) ] of Rep. Johnson’s query.
heh
Levin lunatic, you convinced me with your carefully thought out reasoning and linking to original sources. Why didn’t I see this all before?? So on those bastard corporations, how many of them employ people and do THOSE people pay taxes? How about taxes from the sales of products? What about the folks that bought the stock for their retirement years? Any taxes from that?