ObamaCare - Is the Reid Bill Unconstitutional ?

Richard Epstein: The Reid Bill Is Blatantly Unconstitutional [Andy McCarthy]

At PointOfLaw.com, the distinguished University of Chicago constitutional scholar Richard Epstein provides a painstaking, withering analysis of the healthcare legislation wending its way through the Senate. He concludes that it is clearly unconstitutional. The essay is lengthy and, in places, complex; but it is brilliantly done, accessible, and compelling. [Thanks to Roger Kimball and Glenn Reynolds.]

Most of the constitutional analyses I've read, such as this superb one by David Rivkin and Lee Casey, have focused on the limitations on Congress's power — to wit, that the Commerce Clause does not vest Congress with the authority to coerce Americans to purchase health insurance as a condition of living in our country. Prof. Epstein's focus is very different, and a heartening reminder for capitalists in the age of Obama. Drawing on the Bill of Rights protections against takings without just compensation and deprivation of property without due process of law, and on the Supreme Court's rate-regulation jurisprudence, Epstein concludes that the Constitution assures that "any firm in a regulated market be allowed to recover a risk-adjusted competitive rate of return on its accumulated capital investment." (Citing the Supreme Court's decision in Duquesne Light Co. v. Barasch (1988)).

Applying these principles, Epstein concludes:

The Reid Bill emphatically fails this test by imposing sharp limitations on the ability of health-insurance companies to raise fees or exclude coverage. Moreover, the Reid Bill forces on these regulated firms onerous new obligations that they will not be able to fund from their various revenue sources. The squeeze between the constricted revenue sources allowable under the Reid Bill and the extensive new legal obligations it imposes is likely to result in massive cash crunch that could drive the firms that serve the individual and small-group health-insurance markets into bankruptcy.

While the insurance companies have been utterly demonized by Democrats in this debate, the fact is that there is a competitive market for healthcare insurance. As Epstein explains, "to justify rate regulation" — which is titanic in the Senate bill — "there needs to be some evidence of the existence of monopoly." As there is and can be no such evidence, there is no rationale for the bill's pervasive rate regulation (and for the stifling price-controls that Epstein shows must inevitably result in delayed, reduced, and rationed services). If this bill were really about controlling costs — rather than controlling lives — Epstein observes that it would be a simple matter to repeal the federal law (the McCarran-Ferguson Act) that "authorizes state barriers to out-of-state competition. That one legislative fix should reduce prices and expand access, but not cost the federal government a dime."

For what it's worth, I think it would be worth having a vigorous constitutional argument about capitalism. A free society is only free because its people, rather than its government, are sovereign, and it only needs a Constitution to protect individual liberty from encroachment by the government. As Prof. Epstein demonstrates, that is what our Constitution does. But this is the antithesis of President Obama's vision of a new Constitution (or a new Bill of Rights) that proclaims what government must do for you rather than what it cannot do to you. Alas, as I've discussed before, while that sounds admirable it is monstrous, since government has nothing to give — it can do for one only by taking from another. If that is to be our system, we are no longer free.

Healthcare is not and has never been a "right." Why are we so afraid to say that? When the other side says, "Healthcare is a right," I want to say, "What healthcare? Abortion? Botox? 'Preventive' care?" What other "rights" do you have that I am required to pay for? A house? A job? A day at the beach? Since when? Only in Washington will those questions get you expelled from polite company. The American people are ready to have them asked and to have a real debate about them — not a 2000-page power-grab in the dark of the night before Christmas.

What you have a right to is no unreasonable government interference with your ability to purchase healthcare in a competitive market — i.e., a fair market in which government polices against fraud and does skew the playing field by interfering unreasonably with providers and insurers. That's a valuable right, and it has delivered the greatest healthcare system in human history. We are crazy to damage it more than we already have — and even crazier to allow it to be done on the pretexts the Obama Democrats are offering.

Obama places Interpol above American Law ... disturbing

What is up w/ this ????

Why Does Interpol Need Immunity from American Law? [Andy McCarthy]

You just can't make up how brazen this crowd is. One week ago, President Obama quietly signed an executive order that makes an international police force immune from the restraints of American law.

Interpol is the shorthand for the International Criminal Police Organization. It was established in 1923 and operates in about 188 countries. By executive order 12425, issued in 1983, President Reagan recognized Interpol as an international organization and gave it some of the privileges and immunities customarily extended to foreign diplomats. Interpol, however, is also an active law-enforcement agency, so critical privileges and immunities (set forth in Section 2(c) of the International Organizations Immunities Act) were withheld. Specifically, Interpol's property and assets remained subject to search and seizure, and its archived records remained subject to public scrutiny under provisions like the Freedom of Information Act. Being constrained by the Fourth Amendment, FOIA, and other limitations of the Constitution and federal law that protect the liberty and privacy of Americans is what prevents law-enforcement and its controlling government authority from becoming tyrannical.

On Wednesday, however, for no apparent reason, President Obama issued an executive order removing the Reagan limitations. That is, Interpol's property and assets are no longer subject to search and confiscation, and its archives are now considered inviolable. This international police force (whose U.S. headquarters is in the Justice Department in Washington) will be unrestrained by the U.S. Constitution and American law while it operates in the United States and affects both Americans and American interests outside the United States.

Interpol works closely with international tribunals (such as the International Criminal Court — which the United States has refused to join because of its sovereignty surrendering provisions, though top Obama officials want us in it). It also works closely with foreign courts and law-enforcement authorities (such as those in Europe that are investigating former Bush administration officials for purported war crimes — i.e., for actions taken in America's defense).
Why would we elevate an international police force above American law? Why would we immunize an international police force from the limitations that constrain the FBI and other American law-enforcement agencies? Why is it suddenly necessary to have, within the Justice Department, a repository for stashing government files which, therefore, will be beyond the ability of Congress, American law-enforcement, the media, and the American people to scrutinize?

Steve Schippert has more at ThreatsWatch, here.

ThreatsWatch.Org: PrincipalAnalysis
Wither Sovereignty

Executive Order Amended to Immunize INTERPOL In America - Is The ICC Next?
By Steve Schippert, Clyde Middleton

Last Thursday, December 17, 2009, The White House released an Executive Order "Amending Executive Order 12425." It grants INTERPOL (International Criminal Police Organization) a new level of full diplomatic immunity afforded to foreign embassies and select other "International Organizations" as set forth in the United States International Organizations Immunities Act of 1945. By removing language from President Reagan's 1983 Executive Order 12425, this international law enforcement body now operates - now operates - on American soil beyond the reach of our own top law enforcement arm, the FBI, and is immune from Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

For Immediate Release December 17, 2009Executive Order -- Amending Executive Order 12425

EXECUTIVE ORDER- - - - - - -AMENDING EXECUTIVE ORDER 12425 DESIGNATING INTERPOL AS A PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION ENTITLED TO ENJOY CERTAIN PRIVILEGES, EXEMPTIONS, AND IMMUNITIES

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 1 of the International Organizations Immunities Act (22 U.S.C. 288), and in order to extend the appropriate privileges, exemptions, and immunities to the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), it is hereby ordered that Executive Order 12425 of June 16, 1983, as amended, is further amended by deleting from the first sentence the words "except those provided by Section 2©, Section 3, Section 4, Section 5, and Section 6 of that Act" and the semicolon that immediately precedes them.

BARACK OBAMA
THE WHITE HOUSE,December 16, 2009.
After initial review and discussions between the writers of this analysis, the context was spelled out plainly.

Through EO 12425, President Reagan extended to INTERPOL recognition as an "International Organization." In short, the privileges and immunities afforded foreign diplomats was extended to INTERPOL. Two sets of important privileges and immunities were withheld: Section 2© and the remaining sections cited (all of which deal with differing taxes).
And then comes December 17, 2009, and President Obama. The exemptions in EO 12425 were removed.

Section 2c of the United States International Organizations Immunities Act is the crucial piece.
Property and assets of international organizations, wherever located and by whomsoever held, shall be immune from search, unless such immunity be expressly waived, and from confiscation. The archives of international organizations shall be inviolable. (Emphasis added.)
Inviolable archives means INTERPOL records are beyond US citizens' Freedom of Information Act requests and from American legal or investigative discovery ("unless such immunity be expressly waived.")

Property and assets being immune from search and confiscation means precisely that. Wherever they may be in the United States. This could conceivably include human assets - Americans arrested on our soil by INTERPOL officers.

Context: International Criminal Court

The importance of this last crucial point cannot be understated, because this immunity and protection - and elevation above the US Constitution - afforded INTERPOL is likely a precursor to the White House subjecting the United States under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC). INTERPOL provides a significant enforcement function for the ICC, just as our FBI provides a significant function for our Department of Justice.

We direct the American public to paragraph 28 of the ICC's Proposed Programme Budget for 2010 (PDF).

29. Additionally, the Court will continue to seek the cooperation of States not party to the Rome Statute and to develop its relationships with regional organizations such as the Organization of American States (OAS), the Arab League (AL), the African Union (AU), the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), ASEAN and CARICOM. We will also continue to engage with subregional and thematic organizations, such as SADC and ECOWAS, and the Commonwealth Secretariat and the OIF. This will be done through high level visits, briefings and, as appropriate, relationship agreements. Work will also be carried out with sectoral organizations such as IDLO and INTERPOL, to increase efficiency.

The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute - the UN treaty that established the International Criminal Court. (See: Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court)
President George W. Bush rejected subjecting the United States to the jurisdiction of the ICC and removed the United States as a signatory. President Bill Clinton had previously signed the Rome Statute during his presidency. Two critical matters are at play. One is an overall matter of sovereignty and the concept of the primacy of American law above those of the rest of the world. But more recently a more over-riding concern principally has been the potential - if not likely - specter of subjecting our Armed Forces to a hostile international body seeking war crimes prosecutions during the execution of an unpopular war.

President Bush in fact went so far as to gain agreement from nations that they would expressly not detain or hand over to the ICC members of the United States armed forces. The fear of a symbolic ICC circus trial as a form of international political protest to American military actions in Iraq and elsewhere was real and palpable.

President Obama's words have been carefully chosen when directly regarding the ICC. While President Bush outright rejected subjugating American armed forces to any international court as a matter of policy, President Obama said in his 2008 presidential campaign that it is merely "premature to commit" to signing America on.

However, in a Foreign Policy in Focus round-table in 2008, the host group cited his former foreign policy advisor, Samantha Power. She essentially laid down what can be viewed as now-President Obama's roadmap to America rejoining the ICC. His principal objections are not explained as those of sovereignty, but rather of image and perception.

Obama's former foreign policy advisor, Samantha Power, said in an early March (2008) interview with The Irish Times that many things need to happen before Obama could think about signing the Rome Treaty.

"Until we've closed Guantánamo, gotten out of Iraq responsibly, renounced torture and rendition, shown a different face for America, American membership of the ICC is going to make countries around the world think the ICC is a tool of American hegemony.

The detention center at Guantánamo Bay is nearing its closure and an alternate continental American site for terrorist detention has been selected in Illinois. The time line for Iraq withdrawal has been set. And President Obama has given an abundance of international speeches intended to "show a different face for America." He has in fact been roundly criticized domestically for the routinely apologetic and critical nature of these speeches.

President Obama has not rejected the concept of ICC jurisdiction over US citizens and service members. He has avoided any direct reference to this while offering praise for the ICC for conducting its trials so far "in America's interests." The door thus remains wide open to the skeptical observer.

CONCLUSIONS

In light of what we know and can observe, it is our logical conclusion that President Obama's Executive Order amending President Ronald Reagans' 1983 EO 12425 and placing INTERPOL above the United States Constitution and beyond the legal reach of our own top law enforcement is a precursor to more damaging moves.

The pre-requisite conditions regarding the Iraq withdrawal and the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facility closure will continue their course. meanwhile, the next move from President Obama is likely an attempt to dissolve the agreements made between President Bush and other states preventing them from turning over American military forces to the ICC (via INTERPOL) for war crimes or any other prosecutions.

When the paths on the road map converge - Iraq withdrawal, Guantánamo closure, perceived American image improved internationally, and an empowered INTERPOL in the United States - it is probable that President Barack Obama will once again make America a signatory to the International Criminal Court. It will be a move that surrenders American sovereignty to an international body who's INTERPOL enforcement arm has already been elevated above the Constitution and American domestic law enforcement.

For an added and disturbing wrinkle, INTERPOL's central operations office in the United States is within our own Justice Department offices. They are American law enforcement officers working under the aegis of INTERPOL within our own Justice Department. That they now operate with full diplomatic immunity and with "inviolable archives" from within our own buildings should send red flags soaring into the clouds.

This is the disturbing context for President Obama's quiet release of an amended Executive Order 12425. American sovereignty hangs in the balance if these actions are not prevented through public outcry and political pressure. Some Americans are paying attention, as can be seen from some of the earliest recognitions of this troubling development here, here and here. But the discussion must extend well beyond the Internet and social media.

Ultimately, a detailed verbal explanation is due the American public from the President of the United States detailing why an international law enforcement arm assisting a court we are not a signatory to has been elevated above our Constitution upon our soil.

BBC Blood Libels

[this item has nothing to do w/ Obama]


BBC Feeding Anti-Semitic Lies to Iranians [Tom Gross]

On Sunday, I noted that the British media’s slandering of Israel has gone further than ever and is no longer limited to leftist papers, like the Independent and the Guardian, but is now common in more conservative ones, such as the Times, the Daily Telegraph, and the Financial Times.

(This sensationalistic photo, of unknown origin, is highlighted on the BBC Persian website.)
In the last two days, the British print media have gone further, digging up a story from 15 years ago about an Israeli doctor who transplanted minor organs, like corneas and skin tissue, from dead Israelis — mainly Jewish Israelis, but also a few Arab ones — to suggest to readers that Israel is now, as a matter of policy, harvesting the organs of live Palestinians.

Some countries — notably China, but not Israel — do remove live organs for transplant. There is scarcely a word about this in the British media. The Iran-backed Lebanese terror militia Hizbullah has been accused of harvesting the organs of Lebanese Christians, with hardly any investigation of this charge by the so-called human-rights groups of America and Europe.

This morning, the Guardian, unlike other British newspapers, apologized, writing:

We should not have put the headline “Israel admits harvesting Palestinian organs” on a story about an admission, by the former head of the Abu Kabir forensic institute near Tel Aviv, that during the 1990s specialists at the institute harvested organs from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers without getting permission from the families of the deceased (21 December, page 15). That headline did not match the article, which made clear that the organs were not taken only from Palestinians. This was a serious editing error and the headline has been changed online to reflect the text of the story written by the reporter.

Yet as of Tuesday evening (Iran time), for a second day, the taxpayer-funded BBC Persian language service is continuing to highlight the outrageous anti-Semitic lie that Israel is harvesting the organs of Palestinians — on its home page here and in a story here.You do not see such garbage on Radio Farda, which is the U.S. government’s equivalent of BBC Persian.

BBC Persian is under the direct supervision of the British foreign office. Why British politicians and commentators (including those from the Conservative party) put up with it, is beyond me.Isn’t the Iranian regime serving up enough anti-Semitic hate on its own without the BBC joining in?

(Incidentally, many governments have considered using organs more than Israel does. For example, Britain, but the BBC hasn’t made a conspiracy theory out of that.)

ObamaCare:- Why the CBO score is misleading

Charles Krauthammer On the CBO score of the Senate health-care bill:

That CBO estimate is completely wrong, and when Obama cites it, he is being completely cynical.

Number one, the only reason it ends up with a surplus is because it strips out — well, it assumes that there will be cuts in reimbursements for doctors of 21 percent next year with no increase over a decade. It's 100 percent certain that is not going to happen, but it's in the bill because [there will be] will be a separate provision that will strip it out. So once you calculate that in, you're already in the red.

Secondly, and this is the most important, it supposedly costs $850 billion over ten years. But 98 percent of the costs of the bill are in the last six years. So it's a trick. If you actually look at real charges, you start in 2014 when the benefits kick in and you go out ten years, then the cost is not slightly under $1 trillion. It is $1.8 trillion or $2.5 trillion, which means it will blow an enormous hole in the deficit.

And everybody knows this. We heard Michael Steele say earlier, he's the head of the RNC, that these numbers are cooked because the head of the CBO was brought into the White House — I wish he hadn't said that, because that's not the reason. You don't have to corrupt the CBO. It's not. It's very honest.

You cook the books by presenting the assumption that the CBO is required to assume will happen — but what everybody understands is not going to happen. That's why the ostensible CBO number looks good. The real number is devastatingly in deficit. …

And: On the dealmaking with Sen. Ben Nelson to get the 60 votes:

That's what is so ironic about this. Remember the whole impetus of the bill was the moral imperative of insuring the uninsured, an act of compassion.

What Harry Reid is saying after he gets this monstrosity through the Senate is that if your senator[s] [were] uncorrupt in achieving it, they are going to suffer [politically] and they were naïve. . . .

I find it interesting how Lieberman was excoriated and Nelson was celebrated by the left, especially, and the Democrats. Look, if you want to hold out on a matter of principle or policy, as Lieberman did on the matter of the public option (saying it would be unaffordable), and you get it [the policy change) by holding up the process, that's called a deal. And that is a concession over a policy issue that applies to everybody in the country.

But what Nelson got — this unbelievable deal in which all the other states get three years of the federal government assuming the cost of extra Medicaid enrollees, but after that, all the other states have to chip in except Nebraska. It is the Nebraska exception. Now, that is simple corruption.

And yet what he does is countenanced as okay. In fact, Reid hails it as real good legislating, and what Lieberman did is excoriated as a betrayal. It shows you how the values of all this, which started out as a high-minded crusade on behalf of the unfortunate, [have] been twisted in a fairly radical way.

Obama's reckless release of GIMO Terrorists -- appalling

We Interrupt this Socialization of Medicine to Bring You an Abdication of Our National Defense . . . [Andy McCarthy]

Quite intentionally, the Obama administration is making so many radical moves on so many different fronts simultaneously that it's difficult to stay on top of them all, much less give them the attention they deserve. But while we argue health care and Iran policy and a civilian trial for KSM and the decision to transfer enemy combatants to a U.S. prison, it's important to notice how dangerously irresponsible the administration's obsession to close Gitmo has become, and how tawdry the Justice Department is allowing itself to appear.

Not content with the Friday bad-news dump, the administration announced on the Sunday before Christmas that it had transferred a dozen detainees out of Gitmo. On its face, this is alarming enough. The Bush administration, it is freely conceded, released many enemy combatants, including many who obviously should have been continued in detention and who have gone on to rejoin the jihad and commit horrific acts of terrorism. That's how we got from about 800 detainees down to about 200. But there's a big difference.

The original 800 included some marginal figures (to hear the Left tell it, all the detainees were shepherds indiscriminately swept up by the Northern Alliance to win bribe money from the CIA). But now we are down to a much smaller core group — detainees whose cases we've had years to study and whom we've held despite enormous pressure to release them. These are the worst of the worst. We have an absolute right under the laws of war to hold them, and when one of them gets sprung it's cause for grave concern.

But the release announced this past weekend is just appalling. The twelve detainees have been transferred to: Yemen, an al-Qaeda hotbed whose government makes common cause with jihadists (and has a history of allowing them to escape — or of releasing them outright); Afghanistan, which is so ungovernable and rife with jihadism that we're surging thousands of troops there (troops the jihadists are targeting); and Somaliland, which is not even a country, and which offers an easy entree into Somalia, a failed state and al-Qaeda safe-haven. At least one of the released terrorists, a Somali named Abdullahi Sudi Arale (aka Ismail Mahmoud Muhammad), was released notwithstanding the military's designation of him as a "high-value detainee" (a label that has been applied only to top-tier terrorist prisoners — and one that fits in this case given Arale's status as a point of contact between al-Qaeda's satellites in East Africa and Pakistan).

And then there is the appearance of impropriety. As Tom Joscelyn explains, the Justice Department has taken the lead role in making release determinations — the military command at Gitmo has "zero input" and "zero influence," in its own words. DOJ is rife with attorneys who represented and advocated for the detainees, and, in particular, Attorney General Holder's firm, represented numerous Yemeni enemy combatants. Does Justice not appreciate not only how perilous but how unseemly it appears under the circumstances for it to be leading the charge to release the Yemeni detainees? And could anyone really believe that the supposedly noxious symbolism of Gitmo is more dangerous to Americans than is deporting terrorists to the places where terrorism thrives?

ObamaCare - update

Obamacare Marches On [Yuval Levin]

The story of the day is certainly Senator Ben Nelson’s shameless perfidy—giving up his pro-life principles in return for swindling taxpayers in the other 49 states into paying all of Nebraska’s future new Medicaid costs. The deal he struck would undermine both the logic underlying the Hyde Amendment and the logic underlying the Medicaid system. There is no conceivable policy argument for the way the new bill treats Nebraska, it’s simply a case of a senator’s vote being purchased with taxpayer dollars.

But the bigger and more significant story is what Nelson’s decision now enables—that is, the larger Reid health care bill, which now looks far more likely to pass the Senate (though it still faces a tough road after that). It’s easy to get caught up in the daily tactics and forget what we’re getting ourselves into here. The Reid bill is the embodiment of the Democrats’ attitude that they just have to pass something, whatever it is. About the only thing that can be said in favor of this bill is that it is something. Otherwise, everything that can be said about it redounds in its disfavor.

The CBO assessment of the bill tells the appalling story. We are going to raise taxes by half a trillion dollars over the next ten years, increase spending by more than a trillion dollars, cut Medicare by $470 billion but use that money to fund a new entitlement rather than to fix Medicare itself, bend the health care cost curve up rather than down, insert layers of bureaucracy between doctors and patients, and compel and subsidize universal participation in a failed system of health insurance rather than reform or improve it. Indeed, this bill will make it exceedingly difficult to fix our health insurance financing system in the future, since it sucks dry the potential means of such reform but leaves the fundamental cost problem essentially untouched (and in some respects worsened.) After all the back and forth, pulling and tugging, it is hard to see what is left in this bill that any member of Congress, liberal or conservative, would want to support.

The public seems to see that, and is increasingly opposed to the bill, but for now Democrats in congress still persist. It’s no wonder Obama, Reid, and Pelosi want to rush this process through before their rank and file members can grasp what they’re doing. But it’s a bit of a wonder that those rank and file members so far seem to be playing along. Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, and a few others have been bought with taxpayer-funded favors for their states. What’s everyone else’s excuse?


Cantor: A Look Ahead [Robert Costa]

If the Senate passes its health-care bill this week, it’ll head to the House of Representatives. Once there, will Republicans have any chance of stopping it? NRO asked Rep. Eric Cantor (R., Va.), the House minority whip, for answers.

“Once in the House, it will be about what Nancy Pelosi wants to see happen,” says Cantor. “If it goes to conference, the public will have a better chance to understand what this bill means and to open up some discussion. We need to do that on a wide variety of issues, from life to the real costs inside this bill. The conference process would allow for a lot more deliberation. If not — if Speaker Pelosi tries to ram this though — that would be a real game-changer. That would be an extraordinary letdown for the American people.”

Cantor predicts that abortion would be the key issue in the House’s debate of the Senate’s bill. Pro-life Rep. Bart Stupak (D., Mich.) “has outlined very clear language” on abortion and “has made it clear that if it’s not included then he will vote against the bill,” he says. “There is a lot of reticence among many moderate Democrats. It’s unfathomable to think that pro-life Democrats would go for the Senate version. They know that the Senate’s bill is a 30-year record-breaking move to allow taxpayer dollars to fund abortion. I can’t imagine any of them supporting it.”
Cantor also notes that he’s kept a close eye on the Senate during its health-care debate. “What disappoints me is all of their deal cutting and horse trading,” he says. “They’re allocating taxpayer dollars as if those dollars belonged to the senators. It borders on immoral. Just look at the way Senator Landrieu put her vote up for sale. Senator Nelson did the same.”

Public opinion from both sides of the aisle, he adds, will be crucial going forward. “The Left knows that this bill does nothing but expand the existing system for insurance companies. The Right knows that it has nothing in terms of liability reform. In terms of a consumer health-care model, it’s an anathema to free-market conservatives. And, because it keeps insurance companies in the game, it’s also an anathema to progressives.”

For now, Cantor says he’ll be watching the 1 a.m. cloture vote at home in Richmond and rooting for his Republican colleagues in the Senate. “Mitch McConnell, Jon Kyl, and the rest of their team have put up deliberative, constant efforts to thwart this bill. They’re still at it.”

For more on the health-care battle, visit NRO’s “Doctor! Doctor!” blog.

What is Hopey Change ?

I absolutely love this little ditty, from Answers.com:

Hopey Change (from a 2008 puff slogan, 'hope and change') is the fantasy paradise that President Barack Hussein Obama expects to descend upon America, a place in which neither debts nor bills ever have to be paid, in which reason and good intentions will woo terrorists into happy allies, in which sun and wind will power everything for free... and so on, ad saccharin.


http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_hopey_change