Obama made an appearance at the Democrats annual retreat to pledge his support for them, and his willingness to campaign on their behalf, in exchange for passage of his health care bill.

Seeking to portray themselves as hard at work rather than relaxing as millions of Americans remain unemployed, Democrats eschewed their usual three-day trip to Kingsmill Resort and Spa in Williamsburg in favor of an auditorium at the visitor center. 

That’s the description of the Democrats – “hard at work”. Normally they would be living it up, but because America is unemployed they’ll portray themselves as hard at work. Good to know they’re willing to put us first since their health care takeover clearly doesn’t.

Saying the Senate Health Care bill “pits working Americans who need health care for their families against working Americans struggling to keep health care for their families”, AFl-CIO president Richard Trumka is part of the large opposition from labor leaders to Obama’s plan. Union leaders are concerned about provisions that would tax many hard fought health care plans enjoyed by union workers. While the unions prefer House provisions that would tax “the wealthy”, the Senate version could trap union employees in it’s tax increases.

That health care bill may have trouble passing the Senate depending on the outcome of next week’s special election to fill the seat of former Senator Ted Kennedy – who passed away in August.

A Boston Globe survey released this weekend showed Ms. Coakley with a 15-point lead, but a survey by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling found the race a dead heat, with Mr. Brown up 48% to 47%. The scary prospect for Democrats is that the race is even this close on their home ideological turf, and turnout is always difficult to predict in special elections.

That’s especially true in midwinter and with a voting public that is increasingly opposed to the Democratic agenda in Washington. The Public Policy Poll found that likely Bay State voters oppose the Democratic health plans by 47% to 41% and that they give President Obama only 44% job approval. This in a state he carried by 26 points only 14 months ago. It also found Republicans much more motivated to vote than Democrats.

Mr. Brown, a state senator who is little known state-wide, has been running against Washington’s blowout spending and has called for a freeze on the wages of federal employees. “It’s not right that less-paid private sector workers suffering through a recession have to pay for expensive government salaries,” he says, noting Ms. Coakley’s many union endorsements.

The nation posted another 85,000 lost jobs this morning – keeping the jobless rate at 10%. The numbers were worse than the 8,000 lost jobs analysts had expected. The bad jobs numbers demonstrate, yet again, that the massive stimulus pack is failing to create jobs.

As “alleged” terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab heads to court today in Detroit, experts agree there isn’t much “alleged” about it. It’s fairly cut and dry when six foot flames shoot from your underwear.

Experts say that with so much evidence stacked against Abdulmutallab, his defense team is left with few options as the case moves forward.

Attorneys outside the case say the 23-year-old’s lawyers can challenge incriminating statements to the FBI, seek a mental-health exam for Abdulmutallab — and seriously consider a plea deal.

“This is not a case of mistaken identity or a whodunit. For the defense, it’s damage control,” said Joseph Niskar, a defense lawyer who was involved in a 2001 terrorism case in Detroit that fell apart for the government.

Dave Janda looks at the Obama-Pelosi-Reid health care bills, the unaccountable panels empowered to oversee them, and the frightening lengths to which the Democrats have gone to guarantee they last forever. His conclusion? This is a weapon of mass destruction worse than any Al Qaeda attack.

To make matters worse, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) identified language in the Senate version, which should make every American question the underlying purpose of this legislation. On Page 1020, referring to The Medicare Advisory Board, the Senate version states:

“It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.”

It becomes evident this legislation is not about creating affordable, available and quality based health care. It is about controlling every American’s life.

Thomas Sowell has a piece up on RealClearPolitics today. Sowell takes a look at the cynicism of passing bad health care legislation simply to say you have passed “any” health care legislation.

Supporters of government health insurance call its passage “historic.” Past attempts to pass such legislation– going back for decades– failed repeatedly. But now both houses of Congress have passed government health care legislation and it is just a question of reconciling their respective bills and presenting President Obama with a political “victory.”

In short, this is not about improving the health of the American people. It is about passing something– anything– to keep the Obama administration from ending up with egg on its face by being unable to pass a bill, after so much hype and hoopla. Politically, looking impotent is a formula for disaster at election time. Far better to pass even bad legislation that will not actually go into effect until after the 2012 presidential election, so that the public will not know whether it makes medical care better or worse until it is too late for the voters to hold the administration accountable.

The utter cynicism of this has been apparent from the outset, in the rush to pass a health care bill in a hurry, in order to meet wholly arbitrary, self-imposed deadlines. First it was supposed to be passed before the August 2009 Congressional recess. Then it was supposed to be passed before Labor Day. When that didn’t happen, it was supposed to be rushed to passage before Christmas.

Sowell rightly points out that while the costs of this folly will be felt immediately, any possible benefit (though more likely the chaos of actual implementation) was held off until after the elections of 2012. Punting responsibility down the road while frontloading costs is the worst kind of arrogance.

Jon David
Originally published on BigGovernment

On October 12, 2008, then Presidential candidate Barack Obama made a campaign stop in a quiet suburban neighborhood in Toledo, Ohio. What was supposed to be an uneventful run of the mill “Grip and Grin,” turned into something quite the contrary. Our future President and the world were introduced to Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher: a proud American who unwittingly became the symbol of the “every man” trying to escape the far reaching arm of Big Government.

Joe the Plumber….a great American….A great bald American. I do not come from a critical place when I mention the state of Joe’s hair, or the lack thereof. In fact, despite the flowing mane of the anonymous avatar under which I post here today, I too, am a follicly challenged American….but not for long.

There are a few items of interest in the news today that we’d suggest taking a look at.

First up, former UN Ambassador John Bolton takes a look at “universal jurisdiction” and the way it is being used/abused by human rights activists to bring charges against legitimate actions by freely elected governments.

It is no accident that arrest warrants never seem to be issued for the likes of Kim Jong Il or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, since the real targets of universal jurisdiction these days are Western nations. Ultimately, what it targets is the very ideas of sovereign accountability and political independence. These goals largely motivated the 1998 Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court, itself a step toward constraining states’ abilities to police their own affairs, and an institution that the Obama administration yearns to join.

Transferring accountability for decisions from democratic politics to the criminal justice system understandably intimidates policy makers from making perfectly justifiable choices, such as defending against terrorist threats. Moreover, “command responsibility” has been transmogrified from liability for failing to stop known criminal activity, to liability when officials “should have known” their subordinates were committing crimes.

There are some interesting reads today in the papers (can we call them that anymore since most are accessed online?). Obama continues to push Stimulus II, despite a cool reception from most. The Wall Street Journal covers his big gamble with your ante.

President Barack Obama pressed forward with an expansion of his $787 billion stimulus plan Tuesday, unveiling job-creation proposals that largely build on the initial package, including a hiring tax credit that his own party jettisoned as unworkable and some business owners deemed ineffective.

Meanwhile, the USA Today notes that supporters of the health care bill are jamming it full of all sorts of goodies.