“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it”. – Adolf Hitler

“Common Sense and Fresh Frozen Jumbo Shrimp”
Blog by Jack Kinsella of The Omega Letter

I’ve always thought the term “common sense” a rather amusing oxymoron, like “military intelligence” or “government efficiency.”

It’s one of those phrases like “Fresh Frozen Jumbo Shrimp” — the words “common” and “sense” nullify each other — sense is anything but common.

Another overworked oxymoron is “common decency” for the same reasons.

Fox News Channel is a worldwide enterprise. When we were in Israel last year, Fox News Channel was part of the basic cable lineup.

Fox News Channel is available in practically any country advanced enough to have cable television.

So when Steve Doocy was outlining David Axelrod’s 13-slide Power Point presentation, “Talking Points on Health Reform” it was also being broadcast to the entire Western world and a good part of the Middle East.

It made me feel ashamed for the whole country.

It was a primer for House Democrats on how to lie to their constituents, cover their own butts come November, and still pass a bill the whole country is opposed to.

You can view the entire Power Point presentation here.

It is absolutely appalling; the heading, “Giving the American People More Control — Not Insurance Companies or Government” is the first lie.

The presentation is in two parts, the underlined portion is the ‘objection’ and the second portion is the “correct” response.

“I don’t believe we should give the government or the insurance companies more control over health care in America”

“I believe it’s time to give you — the American people — more control over your own health insurance.”

This is simply a lie on its face. The vote would give the government control over health care in America, plain and simple.

There isn’t any possible way it could be interpreted differently. If the government can require a person to buy government approved insurance, then the government has control.

If the government authorizes the IRS to impose a penalty tax on persons who don’t buy insurance, then the IRS must be empowered to approve or disapprove your healthcare coverage.

What else can this mean? The next slide is entitled;

“Talking to the 85% with Insurance — Describing the Plan”.

This slide is designed to overcome the objections of the 85% of Americans that HAVE health insurance.

Let’s stop right there.

This is an open acknowledgement that not only is the health care ‘crisis’ a lie, but it openly admits that the first slide was ALSO a lie. The slide reads;

“If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. If you like you doctor, you can keep your doctor.”

(If the government wasn’t taking control over health care, why would I need the government’s permission to keep my plan and my doctor?)

Lie: Holds Insurance Companies accountable

Fact: Insurance companies are public corporations; that is to say, they exist on private investment.

If you have a retirement account, part of it, if not all of it, is probably invested in insurance companies.

Fact: Forbes published the profit margins of 100 major industries. Insurance companies ranked 86th on the list at 3.3%, way behind Big Oil (16th) and dwarfed by the number one most profitable industry in America — the health care facilities (hospitals, clinics, etc.) that they insure.

Fact: Insurance companies are regulated by the States. Costs reflect medical malpractice insurance adequate to cover limitless jury awards.

Fact: Insurance companies are already accountable to the individual states in which they operate.

Lie: Gives Americans more choices and brings down costs for everyone.

Fact: The IRS will be in charge of your ‘choices’.

The remainder of the slide show is more of the same Marxist class warfare propaganda; insurance companies are evil rapacious monoliths, health care reform is “beyond politics” etc.

The presentation is sprinkled with meaningless phrases like ‘common sense’to describe the government’s “new common sense rules of the road for insurance companies to protect consumers from their abuses.”

Good heavens! Let’s get the torches and pitchforks and storm their ivory castles! (With apologies to the ordinary folks who make their living selling insurance. Maybe they can sell vacuum cleaners?).

One of the more amusing slides is entitled: “Brings Down Costs For Everyone.” What is amusing is how it proposes to do so.

“We go after the waste, fraud and abuse in our system, especially overpayments to insurance companies — but we do this while protecting Medicare benefits and extending the financial stability of the program by nearly a decade.”

See? The solution is ‘government efficiency.’ Like the Post Office.

Why, that’s just common sense! Isn’t it?

Assessment:

The presentation concludes with slides of recent polls showing what the public will support and what it will not and how to pander to those particular voters.

Polls show that the overwhelming majority of the 85% who are insured like things the way they are.

Among the fifteen percent who are uninsured are those among the wealthiest two percent who self-insure and the twelve million or so who are illegal aliens.

That brings the number down closer to ten percent, which includes young people who don’t think they need health insurance and don’t want to buy it.

THAT brings the number down somewhere in the single digits of people who aren’t insured because they either can’t afford it or can’t get coverage.

David Axelrod knows all this — so do the House Democrats that his Power Point presentation is aimed at.

It is a primer directly from the White House to the elected representatives of the United States Congress on how to LIE to the people that elected them.

It was broadcast worldwide on Fox News Channel so the whole world can see. It was shameful. And nobody really seems to mind all that much.

Sense and decency are not common. Not at all.