August 21, 2009 by Tim McDowell.

President Barack Obama appeared to backtrack on a key provision of his attempted health care coup, telling a Colorado town hall audience that “the public option, whether we have it or we don’t have it, is not the entirety of health care reform. This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it.” So the president is giving in on the government-run option, right? Wrong.

While it’s a given that some on the Left are going bananas over the announcement, none other than former DNC Chief Howard “The Scream” Dean let the cat out of the bag on the strategy. “[T]he president knows very well that you aren’t really going to have health care reform without a public option,” Dean told MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough. “But he also knows he has to get this out of the Senate.” So the president is playing a cynical game of politics with health care? Say it ain’t so!

For now, 60 votes in the Senate are necessary to avoid a filibuster, and the public option is making that threshold harder to reach. If the bill were passed without the public option, it could be added back during reconciliation, at which point only 50 votes would be necessary for passage.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs spun the strategy shift by calling it a “boring consistency to our rhetoric.” Nothing’s changed, according to Gibbs. The facts, as usual, contradict the Democrats. On July 18, Obama said, “[A]ny plan I sign must include an insurance exchange: a one-stop shopping marketplace where you can compare the benefits, cost and track records of a variety of plans — including a public option to increase competition and keep insurance companies honest — and choose what’s best for your family.” But according to Gibbs, changing “must include” to “whether we have it or we don’t have it” is just “boring consistency.”

The proposed alternative to the public option is nonprofit health insurance cooperatives. However, as the Cato Institute’s Michael Tanner explains , “Government-run health care is government-run health care no matter what you call it. The health care ‘co-op’ approach now embraced by the Obama administration will still give the federal government control over one-sixth of the U.S. economy, with a government-appointed board, taxpayer funding, and with bureaucrats setting premiums, benefits and operating rules. Plus,” Tanner adds, “it won’t be a true co-op, like rural electrical co-ops or your local health-food store — owned and controlled by its workers and the people who use its services. Under the government plan, the members wouldn’t choose its officers — the president would.”

As for the public option, Jacob S. Hacker, the liberal Yale scholar widely attributed with originating the idea, denies that it is a “Trojan Horse” to sneak in single-payer, government-run health insurance behind citizens’ backs. It seems, however, that Hacker also suffers from an acute case of “boring consistency.” In 2008, Hacker sounded a different note: “Someone once said to me, ‘Well, this is a Trojan horse for single payer.’ I said, ‘Well, it’s not a Trojan horse, right? It’s just right there! I’m telling you!’ We’re going to get there [to a government-run system] — over time, slowly.” He continued, “But we’ll do it in a way that we’re not going to frighten people into thinking they’re going to lose their private insurance.”

Sounds like the frog in the boiling water to us.

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August 21, 2009 by Tim McDowell.

As the “new and improved” Government Motors prepares its 2010 launch of the electronically powered Chevy Volt, which GM claims will get 230 miles per gallon, envirofascists are singing its praises. But in order to get the promised “40 miles of electronic only, petroleum-free driving,” Volt owners must plug the vehicle into the electric grid every day. Experts on both heavily populated coasts warn of the dangers of adding to an already over-taxed energy grid. Adam Victor, president of New York’s TransGas Energy, says, “If a few thousand well-meaning dupes plug a few thousand new Chevy Volts into electrical outlets (especially in urban centers), you could actually add millions of pounds of dangerous, dirty unregulated pollution and carbon into the air we breathe — possibly more pollution than would be offset by putting the Volts on the road.”

The Congressional Research Service agrees, pointing out that most U.S. electricity is not carbon free and that use of these vehicles may actually increase carbon emissions, hence the cleverly coined term “elsewhere emission vehicles.” Indeed, even those most indoctrinated by the Al Gore’s of the world have to see that this is only robbing Peter to pay Paul. In the meantime, other automakers are jumping on the bandwagon. Nissan is planning to launch the Leaf, which it claims will get 367 mpg, next year.

Finally, as The Washington Times notes , “There is an upside in that electric cars might give automobile companies cover to continue to make gas guzzlers. Under the latest federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy requirement, carmakers have to produce vehicle fleets that average at least 42 mpg by 2016. Companies with an average below that will have to pay a tax to the government. In order to avoid that tax, they will be willing to sell cars listed as having a high mpg at a loss. Each Volt sold will let GM sell nine cars that get 21 mpg without having to face the tax.” How convenient. But, the Times concludes, “If we can still have our Corvettes and Mustangs, the government can pretend the Leaf gets 1,000 mpg.”

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August 21, 2009 by Tim McDowell.

As law professor John Yoo walked into a lecture hall at the University of California at Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law on Monday morning, he was greeted not only by students enrolled in his class, but by protestors calling for his dismissal, disbarment and arrest. The demonstrators, dressed in orange prisoner suits and black hoods a la Abu Ghraib, chanted “war criminal” before acting out Yoo’s mock arrest. Yoo did not dignify their theatrics with a response, but simply waited for police to arrive.

The 42-year-old professor has already made his position abundantly clear. While serving as an attorney for the Bush administration from 2001 to 2003, Yoo wrote several memorandums on the legality of harsh interrogation techniques of suspected terrorists. “To limit the president’s constitutional power to protect the nation from foreign threats is simply foolhardy,” Yoo wrote just last month.

Yoo has been under fire since 2004, when his memos were made public. The Berkeley City Council called on the feds to prosecute him, and convicted terrorist Jose Padilla is suing him, claiming that Yoo’s legal opinions led to his “torture.”

Yet even Berkeley, a bastion of the wacko Left, remains divided. The dean of the University has refused to dismiss Yoo without further investigation into his government work (which is impossible because it’s classified). In addition, while some students are calling for Yoo to be tarred and feathered, others are supporting him, saying he should not be penalized for his political views. No doubt his reputation as a professor has helped: Yoo’s classes are consistently a favorite among Berkeley students.

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August 21, 2009 by Tim McDowell.

On 20 August 2009, the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli released a Warden Message which reads in part as follows: “This warden message alerts U.S. citizens to avoid demonstrations and large crowds on August 20 and 21, and to maintain vigilance in daily activities.

“The Consular Section of the U.S. Embassy is located in Serraj neighborhood on the connection road with Krimia neighborhood. The Chinese Ambassador’s residence is on the same road. Our phone numbers are (091) 379-4560 during business hours or (091) 366-2696 (which is also the after-hours number for emergencies involving American citizens).”

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August 21, 2009 by Tim McDowell.

On 21 August 2009 at least two suicide bomb attacks were reported in Grozny, Chechnya’s capital. The blasts took place within 15 minutes of each other outside a café and a store selling food in the Leninsky district. The attacks targeted police vehicles, and at least four police officers were killed; other people, including civilians, were injured. Some sources are reporting that up to three additional attacks occurred, but no details about those incidents are known.

Meanwhile, the Chechen rebel group Riyadus Salikhiin claimed on 21 August that it was responsible for the attack on a police station in Nazran, Ingushetia, and the incident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric plant in Siberia, both of which occurred on 17 August. In an online posting, the group stated that an anti-tank grenade with a timer caused the collapse of the turbine room at the plant and that it was part of a larger campaign to stage an “economic war” against Russia with attacks against oil and gas pipelines, power stations and other facilities. Russian officials, however, have called the claims that the plant disaster was the result of sabotage “idiotic.”

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