“Hisssss,” go the Republicans. “In your face!” shout the Democrats. President Obama just signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. the Health Care Reform Bill).

The bill, according to the White House Web site, will help more than 31 million uninsured Americans afford health insurance while providing subsidies to tens of millions more. And what’s sweeter is that it will reduce our national deficit by $100 billion in next 10 years and another trillion within the forthcoming decade, “by cutting government overspending and reining in waste, fraud and abuse.”

However, according to Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, when we “strip out all the gimmicks and budgetary games and rework the calculus,” the health care bill will increase, not decrease, our national debt by $562 billion dollars.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the underdog. But my economic sense tells me that the health care bill signed into law on March 23 will, in the end, leave us worse off than before. For any unmarried 23-year old college student about to enter the “real-world,” you will benefit from wording in the bill that allows you to stay on your parents plan until you’re 26. Good for them… for now! But what about their future? Or, heaven-forbid, their children’s future? Will the promises made about Medicare, Medicaid, government subsides and tax cuts hold up to the test of time.

And what if in the future, you fall on hard times and cannot afford health insurance? “Tough luck,” says the bill, which doles out annual penalties of $695 for uninsured individuals and up to $2,085 for families. That’s like fining a homeless person for not having the financial ability to afford housing. WTF?

Okay, I concede. We desperately need health care reform in this country, but we’re going about it all cattywampus

Thanks to the Northern Iowan for the info and thebuttercompartment.com for the photo.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Monday acknowledged that President Barack Obama still “ocassionally falls of the wagon” when it comes to smoking cigarettes.

Gibbs was asked about Obama’s smoking at the daily press briefing after the president’s medical report released Sunday said that he is using nicotine replacement therapy. “He is occassionally falls of the wagon when it comes to that,” Gibbs said, adding that Obama “continues to chew nicotine gum.”  

Obama’s opponents and some in the press raised his cigarette smoking as an issue on the campaign trail. They noted that the president’s status as a role model and his White House’s push for healthy lifesyles warrant inquiries into his smoking habit.

Last June, Obama gave a similar answer to the press that Gibbs gave Monday. The president called himself a “former smoker” who occasionally “slips up” and has a cigarette, but never in front of his family. Gibbs said that he does not know when Obama smokes because he is not with the president 24 hours a day.

Thanks to The Hill’s Blog for the info.

On Monday, President Obama is scheduled to sit down in the library of the White House residence for his first interview since his State of the Union address.

The interviewer? The United States of YouTube.

In a first-of-its-kind group interview, Mr. Obama will read and watch questions submitted by YouTube users and answer them in a live Webcast. “It’s a way to give people access to the president that feels more participatory,” said Macon Phillips, the Obama administration’s director of new media.

YouTube, which is owned by Google, will allow people to submit questions and to vote for their favorite ones, “so we get a stronger signal about what the crowd is interested in,” said Steve Grove, the head of news and politics at YouTube and a former reporter for The Boston Globe.

The Webcast is also an example of the White House trying to bypass the traditional media, coming at a time when Mr. Obama is looking to regain popular support after a drop in the polls and the loss of a Senate seat in Massachusetts that cost Democrats their supermajority.

Thanks to the NY Times for the info.

Sometimes alcohol isn’t the answer to all of our problems. Here is a perfect example of this.

Republican National Committee Co-Chairman Jan Larimer criticized President Obama Friday for his White House meeting with a professor and a police officer, saying the president needs to focus on more important issues. “We are at war and Barack Obama is talking about beer in the White House,” Larimer said at the RNC’s Summer Meeting. “And it is wrong. It is not what our country is about.”

Larimer was referring to Obama’s “happy hour” at the White House a day earlier with Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates and Cambridge police officer James Crowley. Crowley arrested Gates at his home after responding to a call that someone was breaking into a house. The arrest sparked a national discussion on the issue of racial profiling, which was amplified when Obama weighed in on the matter.

Leading up to the meeting, there was much discussion in the media about what type of beer would be served.

Larimer, who represents Wyoming, offered the sharp critique of the president as she recounted to her fellow RNC members her feelings about watching the USS Nimitz deploy earlier that day.

Thanks to CNN.com for the info and photo.

On facebook, one of my friends showed me a video clip of Pat Buchanan and Rachel Maddow at each other’s throat on the case of the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Of course Pat makes little sense in his arguemnet and Rachel is killing him with her well-supported arguement, making him look like an old out-of-date fool. One quote that I would love to share is a special comment made by Pat Buchanan.

“White men were 100% of the people that wrote the Constitution, 100% of the people that signed the Declaration of Independence, 100% of the people who died at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, probably close to 100% of the people who died at Normandy. This has been a country built basically by white folks, who were 90% of the nation in 1960 when I was growing up and the other 10% were African-Americans who had been discriminated against. That’s why.~quote from Pat Buchanan on?Huffington Post

Did this guy ever go to school? Ha there were African Americans who fought along and helped the Union and even Indians fought in the war so clearly there wasn’t 100% of white people. Union guaranteed the African Americans freedom if they fought so they did and Indians were guaranteed more land from the Confederates. Clearly this guy is spitting nonsense and doesn’t know what he is talking about. This is one perfect reason why I hate politicians because they talk without thinking. They just say whatever and if it is the wrong thing they try to cover it up like they never made a mistake. Now… I’m not saying all politicians are like this don’t get me wrong. But where there is good… there is bad… and there is a lot of bad things that go along with politics.

Now I don’t want to spoil your viewing of this video because you will understand what I’m talking about. View this video and make a comment about your opinion on this subject… but remember… no profanity or anything like that… keep it clean.

video thanks to youtube user

info thanks to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/17/rachel-maddow-takes-on-pa_n_237146.html and photo thanks to http://static.crooksandliars.com/files/uploads/2008/02/rnc_email_maddow_buchanan_022108.jpg

MessGirl

A Portuguese Water Dog

Many people remember last November during Barack Obama’s acceptance speech that he promised his daughters a new dog to move in to the White House with them. Now, he has finally lived up to the promise. The Obama’s new dog is a Portuguese water dog named “Bo”. The dog is a gift from Senator Ted Kennedy and is expected to move into the White House on Tuesday. Malia and Sasha were the ones who named the dog.

Sources: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/12/portuguese-water-dog-named-bo-join-obamas-white-house/?????? and http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/04/12/Meet-Bo-the-First-Dog/