Ranger from the North

In a rational political world, this 1,990-page runaway train would have been derailed months ago. With spending and debt already at record peacetime levels, the bill creates a new and probably unrepealable middle-class entitlement that is designed to expand over time. Taxes will need to rise precipitously, even as ObamaCare so dramatically expands government control of health care that eventually all medicine will be rationed via politics.

Yet at this point, Democrats have dumped any pretense of genuine bipartisan "reform" and moved into the realm of pure power politics as they race against the unpopularity of their own agenda. The goal is to ram through whatever income-redistribution scheme they can claim to be "universal coverage." The result will be destructive on every level—for the health-care system, for the country's fiscal condition, and ultimately for American freedom and prosperity.

As Congress's balance sheet drowns in trillions of dollars in new obligations, the political system will have no choice but to start making cost-minded decisions about which treatments patients are allowed to receive. Democrats can't regulate their way out of the reality that we live in a world of finite resources and infinite wants. Once health care is nationalized, or mostly nationalized, medical rationing is inevitable—especially for the innovative high-cost technologies and drugs that are the future of medicine.

# posted by Ranger @ 11:02 AM 0 comments

1989 exemplified with rare power the resilience of Western civilization. In our time, too, there are brutal despots who imagine that their power is unassailable: that their tanks and torturers can keep them in power forever. But the message of 1989 is that tyranny is not forever - and that the downfall of tyrants can come with world-changing speed.

# posted by Ranger @ 10:38 PM 0 comments

Suddenly, Obama is, in the words of his spokesperson, "prepared to accept some Taliban involvement in Afghanistan's political future." I'm sure the Taliban thinks that's big of Obama. But one wonders whether, given Obama's apparent lack of appetite for the fight, the Taliban is prepared to accept his involvement in Afghanistan's political future.

# posted by Ranger @ 9:04 PM 0 comments

As we try to shake off the financial crisis, here's a bright idea. Take a law that has led to the writing of an enormous amount of bad mortgages and expand it. Then take enforcement away from bank examiners and give it to housing activists.

Sound like a poisonous cocktail? Well, it is what the Obama administration and Democrats are currently stirring up on Capitol Hill.

The White House and Congress want to expand a 30-year-old law--the Community Reinvestment Act--that helped to fuel the mortgage meltdown. What the CRA does, in effect, is compel banks to seek the permission of community activists to get regulatory approval for bank expansions and mergers. Often this means striking a deal with activist groups such as ACORN or unions like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and agreeing to allocate credit to poor and minority areas that are underserved.

In short, the CRA encourages banks to make loans they would not ordinarily make. What's more, these agreements often require that banks offer no-money-down mortgages and remove caps on how much debt a borrower can take on. All of this is done in the name of "financial democracy."

# posted by Ranger @ 7:01 PM 0 comments

Needless to say, the First Amendment does not contain a "compelling governmental interest" exception. Legally, of course, no statute can trump the Constitution. But that doesn't mean the Democrats can't try, and it doesn't mean that Barack Obama's intensely politicized Justice Department won't try to bring criminal prosecutions against the administration's political opponents. Indeed, that appears to be the destination the Democrats have in mind when they continually try to demonize opposition to left-wing policies as "hate speech."

# posted by Ranger @ 6:34 PM 0 comments

This would seem to be the ultimate test of whether our political system is so hopelessly corrupt that anyone--absolutely anyone, however useless and criminal--can sign up to steal your money, via the federal government. Right now, the spigot is open, and ACORN is getting your money. If you don't like that, tell your Congressman.

# posted by Ranger @ 3:22 PM 0 comments

Barack Obama is an arrogant would-be machine boss who fundamentally fails to understand representative democracy, perhaps because of his below-average knowledge of history, which we've noted on a number of occasions. Fortunately, "shut up" is not yet a winning political argument. Not in the United States of America, anyway.

# posted by Ranger @ 8:43 PM 0 comments

You could paraphrase the Democrats' complaints, "democracy's a bitch!" They are in a panic, obviously, because most Americans don't believe the falsehoods the Democrats have used to promote their health care takeover--like Obama's absurd claim that "If you like your insurance or your doctor, you can keep them." That is not what any version of the Democrats' plan says. The Democrats need to learn that repeating a lie over and over won't always snow a majority of voters.

# posted by Ranger @ 11:36 AM 0 comments

As a student of history, I think I know how this works. I want to spare my family and friends the pressure they may feel they are under to turn me in. I confess. I harbor a number of thoughts the Obama White House and Ms. Douglass deem highly fishy. I'm turning myself in.

# posted by Ranger @ 11:36 AM 0 comments