Clearing the Browser Tabs - Medicare Cowards Wednesday Edition

Unless you’re a spineless partisan hack, you know that both Medicare and Social Security are going to implode like the house in Poltergeist in the relatively near future unless we do something to stop them. We simply do not take in enough money to support their groaning, bloated structures and we never will. We could cut all other spending to the bone, take every dine from everyone in the country who makes more than $200,000 a year, and recycle aluminum cans and we still won’t bring in enough cash to cover the outlays.

Which is why this piece by left-winger Steve Benen, this sad excuse for an op-ed by alleged Republican Scott Brown, and the public positions by the Milquetoast Senators from Maine, are not only extremely foolish and cowardly, but dangerous. Essentially, they all boil down to “do nothing at all and be a long way from any position of responsibility when the real trouble arrives”, except that the real trouble will involve draconian rationing and old people who will not be able to get essential medical care when they need it most. If you’re looking for the people who will leave Grandma eating a bowl of Ken-L-Ration in twenty years or less, you will find them hiding among the clueless opponents to Paul Ryan’s reform plan.

And now, links!

• Michael Barone hits the nail squarely on its head on this administration and its penchant for living firmly in the grey areas of the law.
• There’s a reason that big business loves government regulation and works so hard to be part of the process; they use them to push small businesses right out of the market.
• I wish the NFL would push people like J.T. Thomas into the spotlight instead of selfish, criminal knuckleheads like Ray Lewis. I guess that nice doesn’t sell jerseys, though, does it?
• I’ve always been skeptical of The Daily Caller as “the Huffington Post for the Right” since before its founding. Its big story today is another example of lazy “write about whatever falls into your lap” journalism that, oddly enough, only targets the right. Wait…maybe they are like the Huffington Post!
• Kurt Schlichter wrote about as solid a profile of GOP Presidential candidate Gary Johnson as I’ve seen. I won’t vote for him unless he manages to be the only one left at nomination time, but he doesn’t appear nearly as squirrely as he did during the first debate.
• A general rule of thumb is that any law named after a child is likely to be very bad law. I’m sure you can think of the occasional exception, but they’ll only be exceptions.
• There’s no way that a White House position with the title Director of Progressive Media and Online Response will end up any other way than badly.
• Duane Lester has a good piece on Herman Cain’s “right of return” gaffe and what he can do to regain his considerable momentum.
• I can’t think of any good reason Disney changed “John Carter of Mars” to just “John Carter” for its movie adaptation of the classic sci-fi adventure stories. Maybe they were afraid to insult the alien minority?

Tags: Linky Love