{"id":3078,"date":"2010-03-22T13:03:37","date_gmt":"2010-03-22T18:03:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stonescryout.org\/?p=3078"},"modified":"2010-03-22T13:03:37","modified_gmt":"2010-03-22T18:03:37","slug":"a-brave-new-political-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/?p=3078","title":{"rendered":"A Brave New (Political) World"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stonescryout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/ABraveNewPoliticalWorld_B740\/whiteHouse_missionAccomplished.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"whiteHouse_missionAccomplished\" style=\"border-top-width: 0px; display: block; border-left-width: 0px; float: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border-right-width: 0px\" height=\"277\" alt=\"whiteHouse_missionAccomplished\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stonescryout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/ABraveNewPoliticalWorld_B740\/whiteHouse_missionAccomplished_thumb.jpg\" width=\"424\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>(Fake photo credit:&#160; <a href=\"http:\/\/chrisjamison.blogspot.com\/\">Chris Jamison<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>So the health care &quot;reform&quot; bill passed last night, complete with payoffs, abortion funding and fake projections of &quot;savings&quot; required to try to pass it via reconciliation.&#160; And in an entirely &quot;unipartisan&quot; manner.&#160; (Even the New Deal had bipartisan support.)<\/p>\n<p>So what does this mean for American politics?&#160; Glad you asked.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There is now a precedent for requiring Americans to buy something simply because they live here.&#160; Automobile insurance is required in most states <em>if<\/em> you own a car.&#160; Health insurance, however, is required, period.&#160; Nice work if you can get it.&#160; <\/li>\n<li>The phrase &quot;pro-life Democrat&quot;, at least (but not limited to) as it described Washington politicians, is now known to be an oxymoron.&#160; The executive order Obama promised the Stupak group isn&#8217;t worth the paper it&#8217;s printed on.&#160; (See <a href=\"http:\/\/corner.nationalreview.com\/post\/?q=ODAxYWJiMzliZjA3NGJiYjZmNDdjMzNmZDgyNTZjNjc=\">here<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/corner.nationalreview.com\/post\/?q=YjFiNGRiZmFiY2NjYTMzNGFiMDQ2NjIxZTc3ZTg4ODU=\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/corner.nationalreview.com\/post\/?q=YzQ3NWIxYTE4NWJhM2UzY2YxOTMwNjMxZmE0ZjE2NjY=\">here<\/a>, please.)&#160; An EO only applies to the executive branch, can be rescinded on a whim, and legislation <em>always<\/em> trumps it.&#160; And in spite of whatever pro-life record they may have had in the past, the entire Stupak group sold its collective souls, principles and the <em>lives<\/em> of future generations for something they must know is less a fig leaf and more tissue paper.&#160; (More on this from <a href=\"http:\/\/betsyspage.blogspot.com\/2010\/03\/what-mess-of-pottage-theyve-sold.html\">Betsy Newmark<\/a>.&#160; This is just unfathomable.) <\/li>\n<li>Democrats can no longer legitimately complain about polarization or the lack of bipartisanship in Washington.&#160; No doubt they <em>will<\/em>, mind you, but they&#8217;ve completely lost the moral authority on the issue. <\/li>\n<li>Gaming the CBO system for political gain, though I&#8217;m sure it&#8217;s been done before, has, by virtue of this massive bill, been raised to a new level of legitimacy.&#160; A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/03\/21\/opinion\/21holtz-eakin.html?ref=opinion\">former CBO head<\/a> wrote on Saturday that the numbers were so manipulated that what is claimed will be a reduction in the deficit of $138 billion is really more like an <em>increase<\/em> in the neighborhood of $562 billion.&#160; The foundation for using the reconciliation process to pass this bill was that it reduced the deficit.&#160; So the method used to pass the bill was based on a lie.&#160; And this is not even including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/livepulse\/0310\/EXCLUSIVE__Democrats_plan_doc_fix_after_reform.html?showall\">a $371 billion dollar Medicare bill<\/a> that&#8217;s coming down the pike.&#160; <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Everything about this legislation &#8212; above and beyond the usual sausage-making that is the political process &#8212; is absolutely awful, regardless of its actual contents.&#160; And its actual contents, once we have it, no matter how awful it turns out to be, is now with us for good.&#160; (Barring a repeal, which is very hard to get the political will to do in Washington.)&#160; If it&#8217;s an abject failure, or even it if just <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ordinary-gentlemen.com\/2010\/03\/predictions-about-healthcare\/\">keeps the status quo<\/a> at the cost of billions every year to run in place, it will not go away.&#160; We&#8217;re stuck with this ball and chain.<\/p>\n<p>And a parting &quot;shot&quot;, if you will, from Michael Ramirez.&#160; (Click for a larger version.)<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cagle.com\/politicalcartoons\/pccartoons\/permalink.asp?artist=ramirez&amp;date=100321\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Bullet points\" style=\"display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto\" height=\"296\" alt=\"Bullet points\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cagle.com\/working\/100321\/ramirez.jpg\" width=\"420\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Fake photo credit:&#160; Chris Jamison) So the health care &quot;reform&quot; bill passed last night, complete with payoffs, abortion funding and fake projections of &quot;savings&quot; required to try to pass it via reconciliation.&#160; And in an entirely &quot;unipartisan&quot; manner.&#160; (Even the New Deal had bipartisan support.) So what does this mean for American politics?&#160; Glad you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,27,9,15,18,275,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","category-democrats","category-doug","category-economics-taxes","category-government","category-healthcare","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3078\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}