With the House version stacked bigger than Dolly Parton at about 2,000 pages, anybody who says they know for certain is lying. It’s not just the verbiage but how it will be interpreted in the years to come. Still, there’s more than enough to be alarmed enough to want to kill the bills off.
“Rather than overwhelm you with arcane details of each bill,” writes Robert Bidinotti in an engaging and highly annotated essay, “it is more important that you understand in principle what ObamaCare will mean for you and your family.” Going into detail (but not too much), he says they include:
- Outrageous Costs.
- Soaring Taxes.
- Perverse Incentives.
- Government rationing.
- Broken promises.
He states:
A single-payer, government-run program of socialized medicine is the stated objective of those who designed this legislative monstrosity—from President Obama, to the vast coalition of unions and advocacy groups, to the congressional leaders who drafted these bills. They explicitly intend to bankrupt the private-insurance marketplace, so that only the government option remains. Far from adding “choice and competion,” then, ObamaCare aims at imposing on us a government health-care monopoly.
Urge your congressman to vote for Dolly Parton instead.
O’Reilly writer Andy Oram makes the case that the assertion President-elect Barack Obama’s victory is in large part due to his campaign’s effective use of the internet is an overstatement, to say the least. Oram counters that when all is said and done, the mainstream media is what had the most significant impact on the elections.
I feel I have to temper the hype over how the Internet has changed elections. There’s no doubt that the Internet provides enormous potential, and that people have been using it in burgeoning numbers over the past four years to search for information, share ideas with friends, and form online coalitions. But several key observations show that the tipping point hasn’t arrived.
He goes on to give three points that illustrate why he feels this is the case:
1. Fund-raising proves the primacy of the mainstream media
2. Viral videos also prove the primacy of the mainstream media
3. Elections themselves have no Internet component
[click to continue…]
During the presidential primaries and in the campaigns, there was a lot of rhetoric about the need for “fair” trade instead of free trade. Candidates were in a populist mode, catering to critical manufacturing states that have lost jobs and serving up trade as the villain.
Now that Senator Barack Obama is the President-elect, there is renewed speculation on what path his administration will take on international trade. Will he make good on his campaign rhetoric that echoed the Democratic platform’s call for renegotiation of trade agreements to include even more stringent labor and environmental standards? Will he continue to hold up pending trade agreements with close U.S. allies? Will he embrace isolationism and protectionism or adapt to geopolitical realities?
In a new C:\Spin publication, I provide some perspective on the outlook for trade in the Obama Administration. I opine that President Obama will face enormous pressure to make good on some of his campaign promises on trade. But, with his top-notch economic advisers, he may pull back from drastic anti-trade actions that would harm the fragile economy and alienate U.S. allies and trading partners.
The presidential campaign of a certain U.S. senator has just expanded the bounds of the political advertising universe with in-game ads inside popular EA gaming titles.
Racing towards hope? The ads can be seen in nine popular titles, including “Madden NFL 09,” “Need For Speed: Carbon,” “Burnout Paradise.” I’m assuming this is the first time the campaign has intentionally associated itself with that last phrase.
For U.S. senator Barack Obama, that means being the first presidential candidate to buy ad space inside a video game.
According to the Associated Press, Obama’s mug can now be seen in nine different EA games connected to the internet, including Madden NFL 09 and Burnout Paradise, in an effort to appeal to the hard-to-reach 18 to 34 year-old male demographic.
“What we’re trying to do is offer ads in games where we’re simulating a real-world environment, so our racing games, our sports games lend themselves to that,” EA spokeswoman Holly Rockwood told the AP on Tuesday. “That’s very appealing to our advertisers.”
We don’t know how much money EA is making off of this deal, but it certainly seems likely to expand in the future.
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