A libertarian promoting shame??

You mean there are people who can promote principles and advocate for acts of behavior considered ::gasp:: “good” and not want it legislated into Teh Law, ever???!!!

Get.Out.Of.Here!!

(h/t Walter Olson)

Not only will those young and healthy bucks and does be forced by law to overinsure themselves in order to subsidize the less young and healthy, but Barry is also going to make ‘em pay extra into the nationalized healthcare through their student loans

Yet unbeknownst to many Americans, the health care bill will also dramatically reshape the way students pay for college. To help set the record straight, here are 10 things every American should know about the government takeover of student loans.

1. It’s a government takeover. Democrats are planning to eliminate the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program, which has leveraged hundreds of billions of dollars in private sector capital since 1965 to help Americans pay for college. They will replace it with 100 percent Direct Lending, in which the federal government originates and oversees every single college loan in the country. Last year, there were more than 1,200 active lenders in the FFEL program. Contrast that with the Department of Education’s much-heralded announcement that it had contracted with a total of four servicers for its Direct Loan program. [...]

7. The government is profiting on the backs of students. One of the great myths about eliminating the FFEL program is that its “savings” are generated by reducing subsidies to lenders. In fact, a significant portion of the so-called savings is actually government “earnings” in the Direct Loan program. The government’s cost of funds is generally several percentage points lower than the rate at which it lends to students – meaning the government earns a profit on each Direct Loan, which will be diverted to new spending elsewhere – possibly, to finance the government takeover of health care.

Isn’t that cool? Government borrows money at 2%, lends it to students at 6% and voila a “profit” to go right to ObamaCare!

American students lose their choice when it comes to student loans — except in North Dakota

A new element, included in the plan issued on Thursday, would give a specific right to the Bank of North Dakota to issue federally subsidized student loans, meaning that it would be the only lender remaining outside of the Education Department’s direct-lending system.

The Bank of North Dakota is a state-owned lender that Democratic aides described as representing the type of nonprofit entity they want to encourage. Critics of the loan bill suggested the provision was designed to win the support of a key Democrat, Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.

You don’t say! Why that’s practically a bribe! A Bismarck Bribe!!!1! :::ahem:::

Now, juicebox mafioso Ezra thinks this is all peachy keen.

But some of it will be used to offset health-care reform spending, which gives the Democrats a bit more cash to play with while still hitting their deficit-reduction targets.

Part of that “play money”, too, will go to enforcing the mandate that everyone buy a Federally designed insurance policy by hiring 12,000 new IRS agents, the one area of the economy that will be showing employment growth.

Oh thank YOU, 52!

::::spit::::

      “Dude. You’re wearing my shoes.”
      “Fine. Whatever. Fucking capitalist.“

Byron York:

Of the 18 Democrats who are undecided, Republicans will have to win seven votes to prevail, provided Republicans do in fact have 209 votes now. The Democratic leadership would have to win over 12 undecideds, if in fact Democrats are at 204 now.

[...]

Of course, Republicans can’t do much to win over the undecided Democrats. They have virtually no inside game; they can’t offer lawmakers inducements or threaten to punish them like Speaker Nancy Pelosi can. But the GOP can continue to push home the message that the bill falls short on the issues mentioned above: abortion, cost control, taxes, Medicare, etc. And there are, of course, Republicans who are friends with Democrats and vice versa. While there’s no overt lobbying going on, there are a lot of “What are you hearing?” conversations taking place.

Another thing Republicans are doing is keeping tabs on the pressure groups on the left. In particular, GOP staffers are watching the whip count done at the lefty website Firedoglake. (The most recent count there is 205 yes, 209 no, very close to the GOP tally.) Republicans feel it is accurate, particularly in this sense: They believe that no Democratic lawmaker who is definitely planning to vote yes on the bill would want the activists on the left, in this case exemplified by Firedoglake, to believe he or she is still undecided. Why take a beating for nothing?

“This is a window that we haven’t seen on other votes,” says the GOP source. “It’s not foolproof, but it’s telling, when you understand that from the Democrats’ perspective, this is being driven by the left. They are the only ones who still support the bill.”

And if it passes — and then somehow withstands the legal challenges — it’s game over for this American experiment.

And that’s not hyperbole. What we’ve been witnessing is a kind of ideological coup — decades in the making — that will culminate in a takeover of a vast portion of the US economy. This takeover will lead to a proliferation of government unionized labor, which in turn will lead to a perpetual progressive majority wherein Democrats will be able to redistribute wealth in exchange for votes, essentially trading money for power in the form of legalized theft and bribery.

That’s why a short-term defeat in mid-term elections doesn’t much bother the leftwing ideologues driving this “reform” debacle (to the point where we are all of us now daily counting votes for what we all know to be a cowardly and unconstitutional procedural gambit); because in the long term, the left has set itself up for a checkmate: as the economy moves more and more toward government-run jobs, competition will die out, and the left will have a stranglehold on the means of production. They will control you — in exchange for the promises of cradle-to-grave “protections.”

For those who have read Edward Bellamy’s socialist “utopia” Looking Backward (and its sequel, Equality), the maneuvering is familiar: ultimately, “the nation is the sole employer and capitalist,” having taken over industry on the way to becoming the economy. Or in other words, liberal fascism on the way to socialism.

For the last 8-years or so, I’ve been writing here about how the takeover of language has provided the epistemological cover for the strategies of the left; and now that they are so close to winning the culture wars — the end game being a fatal blow to the horrid notion that all men are created equal and so deserve equality of opportunity, and the freedom to make their own way in the world — they are no longer much concerned with keeping up appearances: this is, we all now know, a bald attempt to overthrow the US government as it was initially envisioned in favor of a soft socialist state, run by an “elite” political class, using nothing more, ultimately, than the weapons a perversion of language and meaning provide. By infiltrating and re-forming our institutions — itself made possible by institutionalizing certain ideas about language that (by way of epistemology) led inevitably to the reinforcement of progressive ideals — the left has been able to invert core classical liberals ideas, to the point where “tolerance” is now synonymous with “giving no offense;” individual identity is only “authentic” once approved by an identity group and its official narrative; and “freedom” is only possible by way of government provision, with Natural Rights shucked off as a quaint byproduct of Enlightenment thinking — the kind of thinking that has been replaced by the postmodern lie that, because we are created and prescribed by language, and because language is man made, truth itself is an invention of mankind, and so has no permanence other than mere consensus.

I hope our grandchildren enjoy potatoes, and don’t mind standing in line for toilet paper.

Because let’s face it: this has been done before. And unless we stand up and so no right now, it’s going to be tried again.

OUTLAW!

Even the usual ankle-licking Associated Press can’t keep quiet

WASHINGTON — Buyers, beware: President Barack Obama says his health care overhaul will lower premiums by double digits, but check the fine print.

Premiums are likely to keep going up even if the health care bill passes, experts say. If cost controls work as advertised, annual increases would level off with time. But don’t look for a rollback. Instead, the main reason premiums would be more affordable is that new government tax credits would help cover the cost for millions of people.

Oh goody. The Government will play winners/losers in the healthcare game. Since now close to 50% of Fed income tax filers pay no tax at all will those tax credits translate into cash outlays, aka wealth redistribution from some families to others?

“Your employer, it’s estimated, would see premiums fall by as much as 3,000 percent,” said the president, “which means they could give you a raise.”

A White House press spokesman later said the president misspoke; he had meant to say annual premiums would drop by $3,000.

It could be a long wait.

“There’s no question premiums are still going to keep going up,” said Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a research clearinghouse on the health care system. “There are pieces of reform that will hopefully keep them from going up as fast. But it would be miraculous if premiums actually went down relative to where they are today.”

The statistics Obama based his claims on come from two sources. In both cases, the caveats got left out.

Yeah, right, that’s the ticket.

And in case you missed it, Obama’s incredibly dishonest performance.

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Related BREAKING news: CBO scoring according to Democrat GIGO parameters.

scroll down for updates

… in order to secure two more “yes votes” for nationalizing 1/6th the American economy

The U.S. Department of Interior announced yesterday that it is increasing water allocations for the Central Valley of California, a region that depends on these water allocations to support local agriculture and jobs. The region has recently been starved for water and as a result unemployment has soared. Not surprisingly, [Dennis] Cardoza and [Jim] Costa had a hand in the announcement:

“Typically, Reclamation would release the March allocation update around March 22nd, but moved up the announcement at the urging of Senators Feinstein and Boxer, and Congressmen Costa and Cardoza.”(“Interior Announces Increased Water Supply Allocations in California,” U.S. Department of Interior news release, 3/16/10)

Phone numbers for these California Democrats: Dennis Cardoza (209) 383-4455 and Jim Costa (559) 495-1620

Using the federal government to deliberately cause a drought then hold that region hostage in order to affect an even bigger government grab … The Chicago way

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UPDATE #1: Harbinger

Effective April 16, Walgreens drugstores across the state won’t take any new Medicaid patients, saying that filling their prescriptions is a money-losing proposition — the latest development in an ongoing dispute over Medicaid reimbursement.

UPDATE #2: Dennis Kucinich to vote “yes”

Maybe that’s why President Obama decided to do more than call Dennis Kucinich to change his mind on health care. He invited him aboard Air Force One to chat about it. Maybe it was an abduction. Whatever it was Congressman Kucinich left Air Force One a different man than when he boarded.

Miss Denni is as cheap a trick as a Heavy Metal groupie giving it up for a “tour” of the band bus. And I bet he brought his own Astroglide.

I really can’t tell you much about where I am exactly, because I was pretty fucked up when I got here, and I kinda kept passing out during orientation. If I had to guess, though, I’d say I’m in Heaven. Because already I was able to score several ounces of crystalized Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, and I didn’t even have to blow Carrot Top under the table at Nate ‘n Al’s to do it.

I think I’m going to like Heaven.

Not really surprising

How going green may make you mean

When Al Gore was caught running up huge energy bills at home at the same time as lecturing on the need to save electricity, it turns out that he was only reverting to “green” type.

According to a study, when people feel they have been morally virtuous by saving the planet through their purchases of organic baby food, for example, it leads to the “licensing [of] selfish and morally questionable behaviour”, otherwise known as “moral balancing” or “compensatory ethics”.

Do Green Products Make Us Better People is published in the latest edition of the journal Psychological Science. Its authors, Canadian psychologists Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong, argue that people who wear what they call the “halo of green consumerism” are less likely to be kind to others, and more likely to cheat and steal. “Virtuous acts can license subsequent asocial and unethical behaviours,” they write.

It’s not just “green”. This is just the latest example of what happens to people who “love humanity but can’t stand individuals”. A classic example is the cliched and ubiquitous Thanksgiving media attention to some Hollywood celebrity serving up dinners at a homeless shelter. The same celebrity who treats “the little people” he or she comes in contact with — from hairdresser to car valet — with undisguised contempt and entitlement.

These kind of collectivist “causes” – Save the Whales! Save the Trees! No more War! Do it for The Children! — attract followers exactly because of the “moral balancing”. They are easy macro-causes that allow someone to strut their “moral creds” — “oh look, I’m gathering signatures to ban paper OR plastic in supermarkets!” — to their neighbors and allows them to act like jerks in private. The old-fashioned practioner of Judeo-Christian principles who everyday engages in the micro-practice of small kindnesses or charities — generously tips the waitperson, does grocery shopping for the housebound next-door-neighbor, is polite with the harried cashier — doesn’t get the press even as focus on helping individuals in a pay-it-forward model makes an immediate difference in each individual’s daily life.

This is not to say that even so-called religious “leaders” haven’t succumbed to the temptation to be public paragons while engaging in private perversions. The abandonment of one of the central tenents of ethical monotheism — that God wants us to act good individually — comes first.

There is little difference between a Christian pastor preaching increased taxes regardless of the individual harm it does in the service of “social justice” and environmentalists advocating increased regulation of carbon. Both rarely figure it will affect them, only that other guy.

Individuals can be beautiful, humanity sucks.

(h/t Daily Caller via Wizbang)

cutting off your nose to spite your face.

John Bolton, on the Obama administration’s relationship with Israel, WSJ:

We are moving inexorably toward, and perhaps have now reached, an Israeli crisis with Mr. Obama. Americans must realize that allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons is empowering an existential threat to the Israeli state, to Arab governments in the region that are friendly to the U.S., and to long-term global peace and security.

Mr. Netanyahu must realize he has not been banking good behavior credits with Mr. Obama but simply postponing an inevitable confrontation. The prime minister should recalibrate his approach, and soon. Israel’s deference on Palestinian issues will not help it with Mr. Obama after a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear program. It would be a mistake to think that further delays in such a strike will materially change the toxic political response Israel can expect from the White House. Israel’s support will come from Congress and the American people, as opinion polls show, not from the president.

Mr. Obama is not merely heedless of America’s predominant global position. He is also embarrassed enough by it not to regret diminishing it. In fact, we have achieved pre-eminence not simply to preen our American ego, but to defend our interests and those of like-minded allies. Ceding America’s role in world affairs is not an act of becoming modesty but a dangerous signal of weakness to friends and adversaries alike. Israel may be the first ally to feel the pain.

Asked to expand the critique of the Obama administration’s handling of our relationship with Israel, Mr. Bolton’s straight-talking mustache, Regis, took a drawn-out belt of Lagavulin (rocks) and shrugged, “what’s to ‘expand’? Our President’s a total wad.

“But relax, he’ll be out soon. Meantime, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.”

(h/t Terry)

related: If one didn’t know better, one might suspect that President Obama was partial to Muslims — and not too altogether fond of the Jews.