Hat tip/Johnny Cola

Explaining why he believes a public option would not crowd out and ultimately eliminate private insurance, Obama said, “My answer is that if the private insurance companies are providing a good bargain, and if the public option has to be self-sustaining…then I think private insurers should be able to compete.  They do it all the time.  I mean, if you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right?  No, they are.  It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.”  In one brief phrase, Obama planted the image in the minds of millions of people: Government health care = Post Office.

After dropping that clanger, as the Brits say, he was roundly criticized for the analogy that was wrong on so many levels, not the least of which was that the USPS is actually a government run monopoly when it comes to delivering first class mail to your home.  UPS and Fedex are prohibited by law from offering that service.

From Reuters,

The U.S. Postal Service reported a $3.8 billion net loss for its fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, as some $6 billion in cost savings were not enough to keep pace with plunging mail volumes.

And it is not going to get any better any time soon.

Without changes to the delivery week and benefits payment schedule, the Postal Service forecast a net loss of $7.8 billion for 2010 with mail volume falling by 11 billion pieces.

Seriously, who sends letters these days since Al Gore invented the internet?  Also, by way of clarification for “benefits payment schedule”  substitute “massive unfunded pension obligations from union thuggery” and you should be good to go.  You’re welcome.

Look closely.  It says on the box “Keeps you warm and your paws free.”  Now, my dog is pretty smart but even he can’t read, yet they are marketing this product directly to the dog.  Does a dog really need his “paws free”?  To multitask?  Sheesh!

The current situation where we have a super majority in both houses is unhealthy, and would be if the roles were reversed, and are enabling Barry and his cohorts the opportunity to “remake” America, whatever that means.  In reality, it is empowering him to enact every Big Government scheme ever dreamed up by a Liberal.  It is a socialist wet dream come true.  The truth is, it would have made very little difference whether Hillary had been elected President, or even Juan McCain, for that matter.  I will grant you that The Presidunce has a far more radical agenda than both, but Clinton and McCain are virtually interchangeable when it comes to cap and trade or immigration “reform”, despite the Maverick’s bleatings to the contrary.  As an Arizonan, I will not vote for McCain in 2010 in any circumstances.  I did so, under duress, in 2008 and I still cannot get the stench out of my nostrils.  It will not happen again.  If anything, the tea parties of this past summer have shown that there is a broad swath of voters, previously silent, that are totally disgusted with both parties and their profligate spending.  Many were caught up in the fervor that surrounded Barry, but now feel they were hoodwinked, to borrow a phrase from The Messiah himself, and they will not be fooled again, either.  To the pols with an “R” after their names who sought to grab a quick ride on the coattails of this new phenomenon, it was a rude awakening to discover that they too were detested by the voters for the self same reason.  The larger problem is that pols on both sides have always sought to ramp up the rhetoric in order to pit us proles against each other in heated screaming matches supporting our side.  What we should be doing is uniting against them and holding them properly to account and voting out the ones who do not get it, or value their position as a career politician over the good of the nation.  Which pretty much means all of them.

Imagine this.  Forty Dems and forty Republicans in the Senate accompanied by twenty independents or small “c” conservatives or simply twenty folks with a dislike of big government and unbridled spending acting as a brake on an out of control legislature.  What is wrong with that?  Likewise in the House.  It does not have to be an organized third party.  People are sick of organized parties that are owned by lobbyists and unions.  If these non affiliated incumbents did no more than slow everything down, where would be the harm?  Jeebus the less the gubmint attempts, the less damage they will cause.  It’s a win-win for us.  Them, not so much. 

Friends of mine often say that what we need is term limits, and that would be swell.  However, we already have them.  That is the sole power you can exercise at the ballot box.  Vote out an incumbent every chance you get.  It certainly cannot get any worse.

More on the shifting tides over at Patterico’s.  Plus some more on the third party discussion at Hot Air.

And just as we go to publish, another timely article on the direction of the Republican Party at Hot Air.

For an excellent photo essay on how grown up leaders behave, visit HotAirPundit.

Not to be confused with HotAir that has a great video compilation.

The customary lively discussion over at Patterico’s.

Jefferson, who represented part of New Orleans, was convicted in August on 11 of 16 federal charges of bribery, fraud, money laundering, and racketeering. He was also the first sitting member of Congress to be charged with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Jefferson tried to bribe the then-vice president of Nigeria

and this,

“The defendant betrayed the public’s trust time after time by using his congressional office as a criminal enterprise to further a pattern of racketeering acts of corruption and self-enrichment,” prosecutors wrote. They noted that Jefferson had participated in “no fewer than eleven distinct bribe schemes.”

One down, 534 more to go.  This worthless slime also made headlines during Hurricane Katrina when he commandeered a National Guard boat, and several troops, even as the inhabitants of New Orleans were awaiting rescue, in a barely transparent attempt to recover sensitive documents/cash (who knows?).  From ABC News,

The water reached to the third step of Jefferson’s house, a military source familiar with the incident told ABC News, and the vehicle pulled up onto Jefferson’s front lawn so he wouldn’t have to walk in the water. Jefferson went into the house alone, the source says, while the soldiers waited on the porch for about an hour.

Read the whole sorry tale of an over-privileged scumbag pol diverting much needed assistance from his constituents for his personal gain.  A mere 13 year sentence after serially raping and pillaging the system may not seem like much, but it is a start and I will take justice wherever I can get it.  Next, we need to work on Charlie Rangel’s ouster.  Then Dodd, then Murtha, then…

Update: Welcome to Patterico’s readers, and a big thank you to DRJ.

A man in Saudi Arabia is to be beheaded and crucified after he raped five children and left one of them, a three-year-old boy, to die in the desert.

If both crucifixion and beheading seem a little excessive, the article explains,

Crucifixion in the conservative desert Kingdom means tying the convict’s body to wooden beams to be displayed to the public after he is decapitated by a professional swordsman.  Saudi Arabia has executed 56 people this year under laws that allow the death penalty for rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking.  In extreme cases, the convict is executed and his body crucified in public.

None of that languishing on death row for 25 years, either.  The death penalty for “apostasy” doesn’t quite jibe with that whole “religion of peace” look they were going for. But I’m pretty comfortable with the rest of it.

Are you listening, Polanski?

The Obama administration announced Friday that federal stimulus money had created or saved about 7,200 education jobs in Ohio as of Sept. 30.  Although a couple of hundred of those jobs were in Columbus City Schools, the district acknowledged yesterday that many of the “saved” jobs definitely wouldn’t have been lost in the first place, and others might not have been lost at all.

So, what’s with the whole “created or saved” kerfuffle?  It seems that were not allowed any other option.

Of the 212.5 full-time equivalent jobs the district said were funded with part of the $64 million in stimulus it expects to receive, about 65 percent were “saved,” including 36 principals and assistant principals.  So was the district on the verge of laying off 36 school administrators?  “No,” Dannemiller said, explaining that the reporting choices were “created” and “saved.”  “They weren’t ‘created,’ obviously, so our only other choice was ‘saved.’  ”

So, it was “all of the above” or lying to the general public.  Which option do you suppose Barry found easier to select?  That sound?  It’s the sound of another thousand “Obama ’08″ stickers being ripped from Volvos around the country, and being flung into the trash.  Get used to it.

Patterico’s has more plus a lively discussion.

As does Hot Air.