And oddly enough he’s also going to decry scare tactics:

President Barack Obama Wednesday demanded Congress act now on health reform, warning more Americans would die if Washington again does nothing to expand care and cut the costs of insurance.

He’s either the most stupid man we’ve ever had in the White House, or the most dishonest. I’m leaning more towards “dishonest”, but “stupid” is coming in a close second.

Consider this the open thread on Obama’s speech…

UPDATE: In contrast to Obama’s nonsense, Sarah Palin speaks some sense:

…How can we ensure that those who need medical care receive it while also reducing health-care costs? The answers offered by Democrats in Washington all rest on one principle: that increased government involvement can solve the problem. I fundamentally disagree.

Common sense tells us that the government’s attempts to solve large problems more often create new ones. Common sense also tells us that a top-down, one-size-fits-all plan will not improve the workings of a nationwide health-care system that accounts for one-sixth of our economy. And common sense tells us to be skeptical when President Obama promises that the Democrats’ proposals “will provide more stability and security to every American.”

With all due respect, Americans are used to this kind of sweeping promise from Washington. And we know from long experience that it’s a promise Washington can’t keep…

Indeed. Obama promises that the plan will cover more people for less money at a higher level of access and quality. Liars say such things and stupid people believe them. Sarah Palin is neither liar nor stupid. Can’t say as much for the liberals.

UPDATE II: Obama says its time to stop bickering. I agree. The people don’t seem to want a government option – so, lets stop bickering about it and ditch the idea.

Roger Kimball nails what Obama is all about:

…it would be wrong to infer that the so-called stimulus package was for naught. It really is bearing fruit. It’s just not the fruit that Obama promised. To appreciate this, you have to understand what the real — as distinct from the announced — purposed of the stimulus package was. It was not, as Sowell points out, “to get that money out into the economy as fast as possible.” On the contrary, the real purpose, Sowell explains,

was to get that money — and the power that goes with it — into the hands of the government. Power is what politics is all about.

More money and power in the hands of government officials, less money and power in the hands of individuals. That’s the real Obama ticket. Or, rather, it’s part of the real Obama ticket. For what we seeing playing out in domestic affairs is also going on in the international arena. What Obama is doing to us as individuals he is also endeavoring to do to America as a whole: to render it less powerful, less “exceptional,” more part of a housebroken collective.

For Obama and his Democrats, the whole purpose of all efforts is to secure more power over our day to day lives. They want us to lose our ability to make the major decisions of our lives – where we’ll work, what we’ll learn, how much money we’ll have, where we’ll live, what sort of transportation we’ll use…all of this, and more, Obama and his Democrats want control over. The only thing they’ll consign to our authority is the ability to get laid, as long as we have access to birth control and abortion (’cause they don’t want too many of us running around). Liberals are tired of pussy-footing around with all this American nonsense – they want us under control so that they can crush what they consider evil (ie, what we consider to be good about America) and turn us in to what we should be (ie, a carbon-copy of Europe…while, for some of them, a carbon-copy of Cuba would be better).

With victory this past November, liberalism feels it won for good and all – that there is no going back. They want to ram through as much as they can right now because they are smart enough to know that there will be a backlash in 2010 and, perhaps, 2012; but that is of small consequence…with more and more Americans dependent upon government, liberals figure they are bound to return swiftly to power…and, meanwhile, Obama will have overseen the hiring of hundreds of thousands of new government employees…people chosen for their political views and willingness to toe the liberal line. Even if a GOP Administration enters power, liberals figure they’ll control the day to day sufficient to prevent a radical, conservative overhaul.

And so, its the power, stupid – they have it and intend to use it to destroy the America we love, so that they can replace it with an America they’ll love (that it will be poor and nasty won’t matter to them – they’ll keep themselves well privileged and living the high life). Our goal then must be to wrest it from them – and I mean, all of it. We have to not just win the next election or two, but once we’ve won, we have to enact sufficient protections to prevent a future liberalism from usurping our rights.

We need to enshrine in our Constitution specific protections for what was protected in general – write in there, for instance, a securing of religious liberty in the public square. Make it so plain that only a clear overthrow of our government will permit liberalism to be imposed. We have to run through the whole bureaucracy and root out those who are determined to effect policy rather than carry out Administration orders – it is elected officials who set policy, not life-long bureaucrats, all too often hired and promoted on the basis of their subservience to liberal dogma. We have to reform the Courts – taking away from them their ability to usurp the rights of the States, or the people. We have to de-fund the left – take away all those massive taxpayer subsidies of what amounts to nothing more than leftist political propaganda (just why do we give taxpayer money to a group like Planned Parenthood? Might as well provide taxpayer funds for NARAL, while we’re at it…).

Up and down and backwards and forwards – our goal is not just to win a particular election, but to entirely break down the power of liberalism. Force them back on their heels; force them in to a rear-guard action to retain the tatters of power; force them to compromise with us just for a chance of a seat at the table. In short – remake America in to the constitutional republic our Founders intended and by so doing completely nullify the evils liberalism has imposed over the past century.

To raising our debt ceiling – and thus hold them to their own statements:

The Senate must move legislation to raise the federal debt limit beyond $12.1 trillion by mid-October, a move viewed as necessary despite protests about the record levels of red ink.

The move will highlight the nation’s record debt, which has been central to Republican attacks against Democratic congressional leaders and President Barack Obama. The year’s deficit is expected to hit a record $1.6 trillion.

Democrats in control of Congress, including then-Sen. Obama (Ill.), blasted President George W. Bush for failing to contain spending when he oversaw increased deficits and raised the debt ceiling.

“Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren,” Obama said in a 2006 floor speech that preceded a Senate vote to extend the debt limit. “America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.”

Obama later joined his Democratic colleagues in voting en bloc against raising the debt increase.

Its time to stop – $12 trillion in debt is quite enough. Other than funds needed to defend our nation, enforce our laws and provide vital necessities, everything should be on the chopping block. If we can’t squeeze it in to a $12 trillion dollar box, then we simply don’t need it.

This is really not about laying blame – all sides are responsible for this miserable state of fiscal affairs. We need, now, to get hold of things and stop digging ourselves deeper in the hole. Refusing to raise the debt limit is an excellent way to start.

At a rather astounding rate:

Data released by the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) reported 1,074,757 checks in August 2009, a 12.3 percent increase from the 956,872 reported in August 2008.

So far that is roughly 9,076,205 gun bought this year! The total is probably more as NICS background checks may cover the purchase of more than one gun at a time.

This latest jump in background checks show that Americans are solidly in-favor of keeping firearms in the hands of law abiding citizens and clearly shows that proponents claiming the USA wants more gun control are blatantly wrong.

Why are we arming? Because we note, with great care, that the “Justice” Department let thugs who intimidate voters off while setting out to investigate the men and women who have kept us safe from terrorism. Point blank: we don’t feel that our government is properly securing our rights. And so, people are taking out a bit of insurance.

This is just liberty insurance – and I like that it is happening.

Snow on Labor Day:

A dusting of snow fell on Mt. Bachelor’s mid-mountain Labor Day weekend, marking the beginning of a snow season that resort officials said should kick off skiing by the week of Thanksgiving.

Never knew the snow season began in Summer…

Question the doctor, lose your child:

PARENTS are being threatened with having their children taken into care after questioning doctors’ diagnoses or objecting to their medical care.

John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP, who campaigns to stop injustices in the family court, said: “Very often care proceedings are used as retaliation by local authorities against ‘uppity’ people who question the system.”

Cases are emerging across the UK:

The mother of a 13-year-old girl who became partly paralysed after being given a cervical cancer vaccination says social workers have told her the child may be removed if she (the mother) continues to link her condition with the vaccination.

A couple had all six of their children removed from their care after they disputed the necessity of an invasive medical test on their eldest daughter. Doctors, who suspected she might have had a blood disease, called for social services to obtain an emergency protection order, although it was subsequently confirmed that she was not suffering from the condition. The parents were still considered unstable, and all their children were taken from them.

A single mother whose teenage son is terminally ill and confined to a wheelchair has been told he is to become the subject of a care order after she complained that her local authority’s failure to provide bathroom facilities for him has left her struggling to maintain sanitary standards.

Given the zest the left already has for weakening the bonds of family and undermining parental authority, this sort of thing is to be expected. The the most advanced leftists, parents are the worst roadblocks imaginable – they keep thinking they have all this worn out, moldy authority over their children and even think they have a right to impart their morals to the children (the impudence!). Couple this natural leftist tendency with leftist control over health care and this is what you get – threats to take away your children if you question the authorities decisions about them.

Always, always, always keep in mind that health care isn’t about health care – not to the left. Its all about control – they want us as their wards so they can remake us in to what they think of as good. Obamacare is sputtering right now, but its not dead – look for the Democrats to try and shove through something vague and then hope to just tack on amendments and regulations when no one is looking. They really will risk their political power on this – because they figure that even if they lose in 2010 and 2012, they’ll gain it all back once a majority of the American people are locked in to government health care.

Don’t for a moment give up the fight – until the Democrats are out of office, we must presume that their every move is to undermine our liberty and impose their socialist schemes upon us.

UPDATE: WSJ says Obama will endorse public plan.

George Will recently called for our exit from Afghanistan. The story seems to be building that we simply cannot win – too many enemies, too weak allies, too many other things on our plate…plus, unspoken, a President who is strongly suspected of weakness in this area.

We cannot allow this to become our guiding principle – we must win in Afghanistan. The costs of victory will always pale in comparison with the cost of defeat – and anything short of outright US victory in Afghanistan is a defeat, just as it was in Iraq. Whatever the cost might be, however long it might take, we must persevere until victory is secured.

Now, how do we do that? I’m not sufficiently grounded in military tactics to work out exactly how things must be done on the ground – I doubt that anyone, as of this point, has entirely worked out what needs to be done. Various things are ongoing which probably constitute the elements of a victorious campaign, but I don’t get the impression that we’ve put together the right elements, as I was convinced we had when President Bush announced the “surge” in Iraq. I can say, however, that whatever plan we create must keep the Iranians out, keep the Taliban/al Qaeda in Pakistan pinned down and must, in the end, win the support of enough of the Afghan people that they back our side rather than back the enemy, or even stay neutral.

The troops will do whatever we ask of them. Their performance in Iraq should put to rest any doubt about that – given the time and the tools, they will hit upon the right combination of means to our end. This requires, however, that we remain staunch here at home – and calls for withdrawal, even if well meant by people like Mr. Will, just play in to the enemy’s hands…they do as much today coming from a conservative thinker as they did in 2006 coming from leftist kooks. The enemy does watch our MSM – they do search out signs of political weakness, because everyone in the world has learned the lesson of Vietnam – America cannot be defeated in the field, but only in the White House and Congress.

The task of all patriots is to insist upon victory – to stiffen the spine of President Obama and to quiet the fears of leftists in the Congressional majority who are looking for the first chance to cut and run. We must win, and we can win – all we need is to will it so.

The story:

Cheng Siwei, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee and now head of China’s green energy drive, said Beijing was dismayed by the Fed’s recourse to “credit easing”.

“We hope there will be a change in monetary policy as soon as they have positive growth again,” he said at the Ambrosetti Workshop, a policy gathering on Lake Como.

“If they keep printing money to buy bonds it will lead to inflation, and after a year or two the dollar will fall hard. Most of our foreign reserves are in US bonds and this is very difficult to change, so we will diversify incremental reserves into euros, yen, and other currencies,” he said.

China would have a stronger leg to stand on if they hadn’t recently increased their money supply by 26% and then ordered the banks to lend it on easy terms…thus creating a stock market and real estate bubble and the appearance of continued growth while China’s real economy (ie, the exporting part of it) declines for 9 straight months. No doubt about it, we’re being monumentally stupid in printing money to buy our own bonds – but China is the home of the economic geniuses, either.

The whole system of global finance is what has failed – and shooting it up with more fiat money isn’t the way to fix it. This is because it can’t be fixed – we’ve bankrupted ourselves and until we create new wealth, we can’t even begin to pay back the debts we’ve already got. This, in turn, means that any borrowing we do will be counter-productive…as will any increases in money supply as that will just drive down the real value of the already battered wealth we’ve currently got. We need sound money and all we’re getting from everyone is printing presses on steroids.

Its all going to fly apart – and quite soon. A the maximum, we can stave off disaster for two years – but I think we’ve got less than six months before all this stimulus nonsense (here and around the world) comes back to bite us.

And the big show isn’t for another five days yet:

…the sheriff’s office is reporting to us that the crowd estimate for the rally here is 10,000+ and they are shutting down a portion of Interstate 80 for traffic control do to the massive influx of people…

The linked article has some pictures – 10,000 seems about right. And this is from Illinois, good people – one of the bluest of blue States and Obama’s backyard. You liberals just keep ignoring this – it’ll make election day that much more fun for us.

Don’t forget, patriots, if you can get to DC on Saturday, do it – your nation needs you, now more than ever.

One thing I am greatly heartened by is the fact that the crowds are growing in number and intensity – remember, we’re being call racists bent on violence. This sort of thing used to be intimidating – in fact, shouting “racist” used to be the left’s most reliable tactic. Not any more – the people are just not taking it. I think we all sense that if we allow ourselves to be bamboozled now then its all over for our nation – America will cease to be the nation of the Founders and become the nation of the Socialists.

The lines are drawn, let the battle commence.

Seeing as I have to labor on this day, I’ll just put up an Open Thread (seems my employer is still living in 2006 and hopes that people will demand huge amounts of new, retail credit today…ROFL!). Anyways, have fun.