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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mph who wrote (75886)	12/18/2009 2:11:16 AM
From: Sully-	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

** This circus in Copenhagen makes the Wild West Show in Clint Eastwood's Bronco Billy look like it's the Cirque du Soleil of Wild West Shows The supremacy of Tuvalu By Scott Power Line John Hinderaker took a brief look at the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen here. Among the heroes of the conference are Hugo Chavez and Robert Mugabe. Andrew Bolt gets to the heart of the conference with a look at one of the lesser known figures. Bolt writes: "Nothing is real in Copenhagen - not the temperature record, not the predictions, not the agenda, not the 'solution.'" Quoting a report from the Australian, Bolt provides a good example of "how fake it all is." <<< The lead negotiator for the small island nation of Tuvalu, the bow-tie wearing Ian Fry, broke down as he begged delegates to take tough action. "I woke up this morning crying," and that's not easy for a grown man to admit," Mr Fry said on Saturday, as his eyes welled with tears. "The fate of my country rests in your hands," he concluded, as the audience exploded with wild applause. >>> Bolt comments: "So moving. But let's now learn more from Samantha Maiden about this former Greenpeace official from 'Tuvalu.'" Quoting again from the Australian, Bolt adds: <<< But the part-time PhD scholar at the Australian National University actually resides in Queanbeyan, NSW, where he's not likely to be troubled by rising sea levels because the closest beach at Batemans Bay is a two-hour, 144km drive away. Asked whether he had ever lived in Tuvalu, his wife told The Australian last night she would "rather not comment".... Still, it's a long way from the endangered atolls of Tuvalu, with his neighbour Michelle Ormay confirming he's lived in Queanbeyan for more than a decade, while he has worked his way up to being "very high up in climate change." >>> The neighbor's description of the fake from Tuvalu is also noteworthy. She says he is "very high up in climate change," as though it's a business, which of course it is.** UPDATE: Senator James Inhofe has arrived in Copenhage to deliver an authentic word: "My stated reason for attending Copenhagen was to make certain the 191 countries attending COP-15 would not be deceived into thinking the US would pass cap-and-trade legislation. That won't happen. And for the sake of the American people, and the economic well-being of America, that's a good thing." powerlineblog.com

To: mph who wrote (75886)	12/18/2009 3:39:36 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 90947

Obama's fondness for creating imaginary consensus and offering false choices to the American people has been something to behold. All the President's Mendactiy By David Harsanyi realclearpolitics.com President Barack Obama grimly warned America this week that if his health care plans fail, the nation will go "bankrupt." Sure, adding another trillion-dollar entitlement program to our $12 trillion of debt may seem like a counterintuitive way to stave off economic ruin, but who are we to argue? The president's got smarts. And as is the case with so many issues, Obama adorned his rhetoric with sharp warnings of calamity should he fail, fabricated consensus to buttress his case and a promise of rapture should he succeed. You'll remember it was Obama who cautioned that failure to pass the stimulus boondoggle would "turn a crisis into a catastrophe." He claimed that a failure to act on cap and trade will lead us to "irreversible catastrophe" and that a failure to pass a government-run health care system will mean "more Americans dying every day." It's like living the Old Testament. Scary. Holy burning bushes! Did you know that everyone -- and I mean everyone -- agrees with the president? Obama stressed this week that you can "talk to every health care economist out there and they will tell you that ... whatever ideas exist in terms of bending the cost curve and starting to reduce costs for families, businesses and government, those elements are in this bill." Not "some" or "most" or "Peter Orszag on a two-day bender" but "every" health care economist in the entire world would tell you as much. This sort of exaggeration reminds us of another whopper the president unloaded. While promoting the stimulus plan in January, he claimed that "there is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help to jump-start the economy." No disagreement whatsoever ... until the Cato Institute found 200 economists from major universities across the country who did have a disagreement -- and judging from the stimulus plan's impressive impotence, perhaps Obama should have lent them an ear. So when Obama says that "whatever ideas exist" to help with cost are featured in the health care bills, let's chalk it up to his propensity to exaggerate, embellish or worse. What about re-importation of pharmaceuticals developed and manufactured in the United States -- available now more cheaply abroad? Is that an idea that exists? (Drug companies, a group that Obama regularly condemned before cutting a sweetheart deal, made sure that idea was DOA.) What about balancing tax codes so that those with employee-provided health insurance and those with individual health insurance can benefit from the same benefits? Does that idea exist? You don't even need a staff of researchers to find economists who say it does. What about opening up health insurance markets beyond state lines to create competition and more access? What about tort reform to end frivolous lawsuits? What about expanding health savings and flex accounts instead of killing them? Let's concede that there might be a number of ideas -- both on the left and the right -- that haven't been embraced. Still, the most misleading assertion of the president is that his focus is on bending the cost curve in the right direction -- or that it's even a goal. The prevailing objective of health care "reform" has been to expand coverage to the uninsured and to throw federal control on everyone. Cost has proved to be largely irrelevant -- other than being a political consideration. Of course, ignoring the substantive ideas of the ideological opposition is not, in and of itself, new for presidents or politicians. But Obama's fondness for creating imaginary consensus and offering false choices to the American people has been something to behold. Reach columnist David Harsanyi at dharsanyi@denverpost.com. Copyright 2009, Creators Syndicate Inc. realclearpolitics.com