We have heard Obama blathering for so long about seven million sign-ups to the Affordable Care Act being a sure sign of success that, like the audience at a magic show, we have fallen for the misdirection that is the secret of every magician’s sleight-of-hand.
To begin with, we are being asked to ignore the fact that millions who have signed up used to pay for their own health insurance before ObamaCare forced their policies to be ruled null and void. Next, we are asked to ignore the fact that a large percentage of those people being counted haven’t even made their first payment and, therefore, aren’t actually enrolled. And, finally, we are asked to overlook the fact that, initially, we were told that 40% of the new sign-ups had to be young and healthy — the so-called invincibles — the latest estimate is that the number is closer to 25%.
Still, even if we go along with their numbers, we are still left with a question that nobody connected to the current regime has answered. Namely: what’s the big frigging deal — to channel my inner Joe Biden — about seven million? When Obama, Pelosi and Reid, were shoving this humongous suppository up our collective tuchis, they insisted it was to insure the 40 million people who had no health insurance. So even if they have seven million signed up, and even if we don’t drive the point home that this law forced six million policies to be cancelled by the end of 2013, seven million only represents a mere 18% of those 40 million.
For such dismal results, it would take a moron like Obama to invalidate the patient-doctor relationship, cripple the nation’s economy, hurt small businesses and up-end a health care program that worked just fine for the overwhelming majority of Americans.
Ah, the guttering candle of civilization! How I love it. The dwindling flames warm the cockles of a curmudgeon’s heart (whatever precisely a cockle may be): the galloping rot, the stampede to enstupidation, the gathering night of the Fifth Century.
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The signs are as clear as pigeon droppings on a martial statue. This, from UCLA, a daycare center in California which was formerly a university
Racial tensions are inflamed at the University of California at Los Angeles following several incidents — most notably, one where a professor corrected the grammar, punctuation and capitalization in minority students’ assignments.
The act of correcting a black student was “micro-aggression,” according to the members of the student group “Call 2 Action: Graduate Students of Color,” which launched a sit-in during a subsequent meeting of the class.
Wonderful! This is heady stuff. Graduate students “of color” (which never seems to include Chinese or Koreans, who can spell) can’t be expected to distinguish “its” from “it’s.” Fourth-grade English is just too hard for them, and they must be sheltered from the burden. Apparently they attend university to avoid being expected to learn anything.
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Protecting minorities (which category never seems to include Jews, men, Mensans, or Anglo-Saxons) from the travails of learning would seem more racist than requiring it of them, but never mind. Keep ’em dumb, keep ’em mad. Especially, keep their tuition. Onward into the gloaming. Let the show go on.
The inevitable inevitably happens, and it is. (You saw it here first.) Someone famously said that democracy lasts until the unworthy learn that they can vote themselves the treasury. Yes. More generally, until they learn that they can vote themselves everything. Here is the backbone of American domestic policy, if that is the right word for floundering narcissism. The inadequate and barely lettered, by weight of numbers, can simply declare themselves the equals of their betters (or should I say “there betters”?). They don’t have to accomplish anything. They simply assert that they have done it, or that doing it is elitist and therefore reprehensible.
The House Republican leadership has been confronted by devilishly difficult tactical choices over the years. But what to do on the issue of immigration right now isn’t one of them. The correct course is easy and eminently achievable: Do nothing.
The old Reagan catchphrase calling for non-action — don’t just do something, stand there — has never been more apt. Yet the House leadership is about to roll out a set of immigration principles reportedly including an amnesty for illegal aliens, and presumably will follow up with a push to pass them through the House. This is legislative strategy as unforced error.
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For now, nothing worth having can pass the Democratic Senate or get signed into law by President Obama.
But just as House GOP leaders are considering a possible immigration push for later this year, the poll shows that only 39% think immigration should be a priority for this year. It’s one of the few issues we tested where majorities of Democrats, independents, and Republicans all agree that it should NOT be a priority. Go figure.
