Recently in Socialism Sucks Category

Drew Carey and The Reason Foundation decided to look for ways to save Cleveland from its aggressively stupid political leaders and their refusal to heed the first rule of holes. The result is a video series called "Reason Saves Cleveland":

Keep checking back as new episodes premiere, because I'll add them to this playlist.

If Barack Obama's agenda isn't socialist, then what is it? For reference, please consult the Socialist Party USA's platform and the official program of the Communist Party USA

Just look northward to Canada for a death panel example that will give any honest person reason to doubt the wisdom of enacting Obamacare.

Rep. Betty Sutton just introduced a warm-and-fuzzy-sounding piece of legislation. It's called the Foreclosure Mandatory Mediation Act of 2010:

Rep. Betty Sutton (D-OH13) joined Ohio Reps. Marcia L. Fudge (D-OH11) and Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH15), as well as Reps. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Kendrick Meek (D-FL) to introduce H.R. 4635--a measure to combat foreclosures. Ohio has been particularly impacted by the foreclosure crisis and projections indicate no signs of change. In Ohio's 13th Congressional District alone, 17,555 homes are projected to be foreclosed upon over the next four years. This legislation will require lenders of Federal loans or guarantees to enter into mediation with homeowners prior to placing the property in foreclosure or a sheriff's sale.

Since anything advocated by Maxine Waters automatically gets my antennae twitching, I went to the bill's text, which contains this key nugget (the emphasis and links are mine):

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, before a qualified mortgagee may initiate a foreclosure proceeding or a sheriff sale, the qualified mortgagee shall conduct, consistent with any applicable State or local requirements, a one-time mediation with the affected mortgagor and a housing counseling agency, at the expense of the qualified mortgagee.

For purposes of this section the term 'housing counseling agency' means a housing counseling agency certified by the Secretary under section 106(e) of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968 (12 U.S.C. 1701x(e)); or a neighborhood housing services program established by the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation under section 606 of the Housing and Community Development Amendments of 1978 (42 U.S.C. 8105);

The parties are forced into mediation (even if it's a slam-dunk case of delinquency by the borrower), and look who foots the entire bill for the mediator's fees: the lender trying to foreclose on the delinquent borrower. When the government keeps forcing a company to incur new costs, the company must eventually pass on those costs to its customers. Otherwise the company will go bankrupt.

If this law passes, it will end up costing you more to get a mortgage. Care to guess which legislators will then wail and gnash their teeth about "predatory lenders screwing the poor" and "fat cat bankers jacking up fees" when those inevitable effects occur? Now, this is par for the course among politicians who have no clue how a free market works. They think the solution to every government-imposed problem is more government regulation and spending. What's unusual is that this isn't the worst part of the bill.

The hard-working folks over at Recovery.gov, ever on guard for that rare instance of government inefficiency that occurs only once in a decade or so, have responded with commendable speed to news reports of erroneous/incompetent/fraudulent data in the records of stimulus money spent to save (or "create" jobs). No longer does their database report on taxpayer funds wasted invested in places like the nonexistent 99th U.S. Congressional District of Puerto Rico. No, sir. Everything's been scrubbed squeaky clean, and the original records now show each offending transaction taking place in an "unassigned congressional district."

What's that you say? You want to know what the original data showed? Oh, c'mon. You can trust faceless, nameless bureaucrats in Washington to behave with the most scrupulous ethical standards. They're from the government, and they're here to help you.

Pardon me? You still don't trust them? You must be one of those bitter people clinging to their Bibles and their guns out in the sticks. Besides, it's too late now. The original data's gone. Unless you know someone who scooped up some of the data before it was altered erased corrected, you're out of luck.

Hey, wait a second. Guess who snagged the original data for Ohio, put it in Excel spreadsheet format, and sorted it all by district?

I just looked up the summary of Ohio data on Recovery.gov and here's some of what I found. Compare the numbers for jobs created/"saved" and money wasted spent for Ohio's 18 congressional districts, and the numbers for the ten nonexistent districts that turned up.

$5.3 million went to nonexistent congressional districts, creating (or maybe it's "saving") 11 jobs. That's $482,174 per job. How do I sign up for that sweet deal? Then there's the average waste stimulus per job in our actual 18 districts, which works out to $294,758 ... still not too shabby. If I can snag one of the 149.5 jobs here in the 13th District, I will have cost America's taxpayers a cool $1,026,735! Betty Sutton, call your office. I want a job.

That's "transparency" in the age of Hope and Change™ for ya. Is this incompetent accounting, dishonest accounting, or both?

Want more? Nineteen out of the top twenty Porkulus recipients in Ohio are state, county, or municipal government entities. The one that's not government owned is "a single-purpose environmental remediation Limited Liability Corporation dedicated to providing remediation services to the United States Department of Energy at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site." In other words, a government contractor.

Boy oh boy, that Porkulus sure did stimulate the free market, didn't it? Way to go, Governor Strickland ... you sure know how to allocate funds. I can't wait to experience the joys of Obamacare, Cap & Trade, and amnesty for illegals.

For more analysis, check out Ohio Watchdog.

Are the stated goals of ACORN substantially the same as yours ... and do you expect anyone to believe you if you deny it?

Courtesy of Kim Nettles:

More at "Patriots on the Prairie".

Sure, Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst against President Obama would once have been thought rude. Thirty years ago, shouting such an accusation at a president addressing a joint session would have been nearly inconceivable ... but this ain't 1979.

American popular culture is much coarser and cruder these days, and our politics mirror our culture. The blame lies almost exclusively at the feet of Americans who occupy the farthest reaches of the statist left wing. They've brought us the Sexual Revolution, rampant drug use, violent and sexually explicit entertainment, abortion on demand, disregard for our Judeo-Christian roots, militant atheism, and moral relativism. The left's utter disregard for anything standing between them and complete political power leads to the rise of political opportunists like our current president. He and his ilk will say and do anything to advance their agenda. Lying is just another tool in the toolbox, to be used whenever it will accomplish the left's goals.

The left bemoans the supposedly inappropriate and rude outburst by Joe Wilson for one reason only: they hope to advance their agenda by doing so. Period. Never mind that they've done far worse. Never mind that moral disapproval is supposedly evidence of the cardinal sin of "intolerance." The left will scream and wail as long as faux victimhood helps them extract money and power from American citizens.

Given that fact, I refuse to join in the Tut-Tut Chorus. We're close to enacting an irreversible government takeover of close to one fifth of the American economy, by people who have more in common with Stalin and Mussolini than with Madison and Jefferson. I'd much rather have inappropriate and rude outbursts in defense of the truth than polite silence in the face of blatant and dangerous lies.

The truth hurts the statist, so shout it if you must.

Oh, wait.

Bravo to Zach Lahn, for having bigger balls than 99% of the media! I hope this young man's ready for the Joe The Plumber treatment, courtesy of ACORN and SEIU.

President Obama spent the majority of his "answer" restating the question, then talked about "opposing" the exact kind of public option that's in the House bill. ABC transcribed some of it:

"Certainly they can't compete if the taxpayer is standing behind the public option just shoveling more and more money at it," Obama said. "That's certainly not fair. And so I've already said I would not be in favor of a public option of that sort, because that would just mean more expenses out of our pockets and we wouldn't be seeing much improvement in quality."

...

"I think there are ways that we can address those competitive issues," he said. "And you're absolutely right, if they're not entirely addressed, then that raises a set of legitimate problems. But the only point I wanted to make was the notion that somehow just by having a public option you have the entire private marketplace destroyed is just not borne out by the facts."

Read the whole thing; ABC interviewed Zach afterward, and he kept the pressure on the president for regurgitating nothing but vague talking points. Ten bucks says Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck are all over this within a week. Oh ... notice that Obama didn't accept Zach's challenge, either (wuss).

More coverage:
Politico

Stephen Glover admits that the truth hurts:

In treating almost every cancer, America apparently does better than Britain, sometimes appreciably so. According to a study in Lancet Oncology last year, 91.9 per cent of American men with prostate cancer were still alive after five years, compared with only 51.1per cent in Britain.

The same publication suggests that 90.1 per cent of women in the U.S. diagnosed with breast cancer between 2000 and 2002 survived for at least five years, as against 77.8 per cent in Britain.

So it goes on. Overall the outcome for cancer patients is better in America than in this country. So, too, it is for victims of heart attacks, though the difference is less marked.

If you are suspicious of comparative statistics, consult any American who has encountered the NHS. Often they cannot believe what has happened to them - the squalor, and looming threat of MRSA; the long waiting lists, and especially the official target that patients in 'accident and emergency' should be expected to wait for no more than four - four! - hours; the sense exuded by some medical staff that they are doing you a favour by taking down your personal details.

Most Americans, let's face it, are used to much higher standards of healthcare than we enjoy, even after the doubling of the NHS budget under New Labour. Of course, the U.S. is a somewhat richer country, but I doubt its superior health service can be mainly attributed to this advantage.

In other news: jumping into water leads to wetness, rocks fall downward, and there's no way to pick up a turd by the "clean end."

Absolutely hilarious!

Hat tip: iOwnTheWorld

Is he lying now ...

... or was he lying then?

If you have two brain cells to rub together, the answer's obvious.

It's your patriotic duty, Comrade.

Workers of the world, unite!

More on Friedman.

Hat tip: Baldilocks

Greg Coleridge (apparently a useful idiot holdover) has a question for Dear Leader:

Since President Barack Obama will be at Shaker Heights High School on Thursday, taking questions on health care, I've got one for him:

Who should have the final say on the type of health care patients receive under any reformed system?

A. Patients and their doctors

B. Insurance corporations

If A is his answer, his solution should be one that shuts out insurance corporations that make billions of dollars by denying coverage to millions of Americans.

Way to commit the false dilemma fallacy combined with the straw man fallacy, Greg! Mind-numbed Obamabots will lap this stuff right up.

Coleridge is the director of something called the "Economic Justice & Empowerment Program" of the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee, a group that has yet to find an anti-American cause it doesn't like.

I wonder if the Cleveland Tea Party Patriots will run into this tool tomorrow at their protest?

So you think health care's boring? Politics makes you zone out? Can't find the time between work and reruns of American Idol to focus your A.D.D.-riddled mind on something requiring actual rational thought?

Pop another Ritalin, sit down, shut up, and watch this. It's funny. No, really ... it is.

There! Was that so hard? In our next lesson, we'll learn how to get off our lazy butts and pimp-slap the idiot politicians who want to bring this farce here to America.

OK, you can go back to watching Jon Stewart now.

Here's a big tip o' the hat to Caleb at RedState for finding this.

The condensed version of a Cato Institute video:

You can also see the long version for more detail.

Have you ever seen a more obstinately stupid person than Bertha Lewis of ACORN?

More here.

Hat tip: Hot Air