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Do I look fat in this Obamacare amendment?

"While investigating the strange odyssey of the missing nude 'posture photos,' I found that the issue is, in every respect, a very touchy matter — indeed, a kind of touchstone for registering the uneven evolution of attitudes toward body, race and gender in the past half century," wrote Ron Rosenbaum in a titillating NYT Sunday Magazine article back in 1995, "The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal." Wellesley alumna Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners, told the author she was "appalled in retrospect" that the college forced the practice on its freshmen, adding "Why weren't we more appalled at the time?" The creepiness of it all came to mind in light of the latest invasions of privacy proposed by the Federal Fat Police (see below).

Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI-3) is ogling the nation's nubile young lovelies. He wants to know the height and weight of all 18-year-olds. For their own good, of course. In a proposed amendment to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), he ventures where no man should ever go [h/t Red State]:

A bill introduced this month in Congress would put the federal and state governments in the business of tracking how fat, or skinny, American children are.

States receiving federal grants provided for in the bill would be required to annually track the Body Mass Index of all children ages 2 through 18. The grant-receiving states would be required to mandate that all health care providers in the state determine the Body Mass Index of all their patients in the 2-to-18 age bracket and then report that information to the state government. The state government, in turn, would be required to report the information to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for analysis.

"Anorexia (an-oh-REK-see-uh) nervosa isn't really about food. It's an unhealthy way to try to cope with emotional problems. When you have anorexia nervosa, you often equate thinness with self-worth," according to the Mayo Clinic website. Image from "A 2 Z of Health, Beauty and Fitness."

We guess it depends upon what your definition of "children" is. Beyond the fact that such information is none of the creeping nanny state's business, we're betting that if those 18-year-old women get wind of what Big Government is up to, they'll put their vote where their BMI is. It would be a welcome wake-up call in light of the results of a recent Pew "Political Rhetoric Test":

"Socialism" is a negative for most Americans, but certainly not all Americans. "Capitalism" is regarded positively by a majority of the public, though it is a thin majority. Among certain segments of the public -- notably, young people and Democrats -- both "isms" are rated about equally …

Reaction to "capitalism" is lukewarm among many demographic groups. Fewer than half of young people, women, people with lower incomes and those with less education react positively to "capitalism."

Open your eyes, ladies. Rep. Ron Kind and his fellow nanny-staters have revealed the slavering maw of socialism. Let's throw the bums out. Term limits by other means. Dan McLaughlin at Red State points the way:

This, ladies and gentlemen, is government without limits or a sense of personal space. It’s Michelle Obama’s and Ron Kind’s America.

Kind’s district is the classic sort of district that has been safe in years past (it went 51% for John Kerry, 58% for Barack Obama), but is rated D+3 by Charlie Cook, which puts it within reach if the GOP wave this fall rises high enough. If you’d like to help, there are two GOP candidates in the district: two-term State Senator Dan Kapanke has blasted Kind over Obamacare, and … tea party candidate, businessman Bruce Evers. However the party primary turns out, voters in Wisconsin’s Third District will have to decide if they want Uncle Sam ogling their children and nagging them to put down their cheese and bratwurst.

To get your juices flowing in the right direction, take Angela Lash's advice on Twitter:

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS? Tim Burns attacking a 50 ft. Nancy Pelosi jump started my day. LOL

See also Stacy McCain's fact-filled, up-to-the-minute, on-the-scene coverage of our own Scott Brown's guest appearance at a Tim Burns for Congress rally at 1 p.m. today at the Washington County Courthouse in Washington, PA. As Scott Brown and Tim Burns go, so goes the nation?

Update: Blog buddy Stoutcat of Grand Rants follows the logic in the comments:

Well, since they can stay on Mom and Dad's health insurance until they're 26, why not track their BMI until that age, too? What's that you say? They might not like that much intrusion? But it's for their own good, dontcha know!

Update II: We couldn't agree more with Gayle Miller's late mother:

My late mother had an iron-clad rule: "My age and my weight are my own business!" and she never wavered from that.

Crossposted at Liberty Pundits.

We're smart enough to think for ourselves, Mr. President

"And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet … And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered … And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron … And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon." Revelations 12. Above, William Blake's "The Great Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun" (c. 1806-1809, watercolor, Brooklyn Museum).

"Lacking connections with the local political machine, he connected directly with Illinois voters," a cluelessly smitten "nudgey" Cass Sunstein wrote in a puffy paean to then Senator Barack Obama back in July of 2004, guest-blogging for Glenn Reynolds. When the "well-thought-of liberal academic" was appointed last spring as head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (AKA regulatory czar), libertarian Professor Reynolds supported President Obama's selection with a caveat:

While he and I disagree on plenty, I think he’s an honest, decent and very smart guy who wants to help the country. Since I’m not going to get someone who agrees with me about everything from the Obama Administration (heck, I didn’t get that from the Bush Administration) that ought to be enough, and I think that efforts to block his appointment are both unfair and not very smart.

Sunstein's appointment was confirmed in September, and now there's talk of a Supreme Court nomination. Reynolds is skeptical, wondering "if he doesn't have too much baggage," but that's not where we're going with this post. Instead, let's focus on the idiot savant factor. How can such a razor-sharp intellect be so doornail-dumb when it comes to human nature and the way of the world? From that 2004 blogpost, "The Democrats' New Star":

Obama is a genuinely independent thinker; you can't pigeonhole him.  Like many Republican leaders, he's centrally concerned about economic growth. He knows the importance of free enterprise, and he has the courage to speak bluntly to union members about the benefits of free trade. Like the most sophisticated Democrats, he seeks ways of providing jobs and opportunities without busting the federal budget. Far from demonizing his political opponents, he compromises with them and is willing to learn from them. He's also someone of unquestioned integrity and good will.

Arggghhh! Every line cries out for a fisking, but let's focus on the one about not "demonizing his political opponents." This very day, even as dirt-digging and -manufacturing minions worked under the radar 24/7 to discredit the motives of the good people of this army of Davids, the President himself, after dropping a gratuitous reference to fringy "birthers" questioning his legitimacy as a US citizen, told NBC that "he recognizes the [Tea Party] movement involves 'folks who have legitimate concerns' about the national debt and whether the government is taking on too many difficult issues simultaneously." Too many difficult issues? It's not the number nor the difficulty of the issues that troubles us, Mr. President. It's your transparent lunge for the jugular of the nation, taking advantage of every "serious crisis," manufactured or real, to subsume our God-given liberties in a soul-deadening statist power grab.

One final note for context, from our July 2008 post "The facts are irrelevant":

Then there's "libertarian paternalism," a subliminal approach to political persuasion that has "caught the imagination of top politicians" including Barack Obama, according to a breathless London Times interview of behavioral scientist Richard Thaler, co-author with Cass Sunstein of Nudge:

So why the political interest? Because you can influence people's choices without being accused of "nannying" and it is cheap. Or, as the authors put it: "If incentives and nudges replace requirements and bans, government will be both smaller and more modest … In short, libertarian paternalism is neither left nor right, neither Democratic nor Republican. In many areas, the most thoughtful Democrats are going beyond their enthusiasm for choice-eliminating programs. In many areas, the most thoughtful Republicans are abandoning their knee-jerk opposition to constructive governmental initiatives."

Considering ourselves among "the most thoughtful Republicans," we are skeptical. So is David Gordon of the Ludwig von Mises Intitute, who notes that "Tocqueville long ago warned against the policies of which libertarian paternalismm is an example."

As we said in the punchline to that post, "We're smart enough, Barack Obama. Oh, and we're not a racist."

If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not

A witch's broom is "a deformity in a woody plant" caused by fungi, insects, viruses or other alien invaders that results in a "dense mass of shoots" growing from a single point on a normal tree. Occasionally such a deformity will result in a desirable cultivar for the nursery trade, like the dwarf Alberta Spruce. Over time, a botanical "reversion" may grow out of the cultivar, as robust normal-scale new growth (above) sprouts from the stunted parent. A metaphor for the Tea Partiers reverting to first principles as the aging statist juggernaut threatens to turn the lights out in the Shining City Upon a Hill?

"If Shakespeare wrote US History, would he one day claim slavery was the evil seed that grew into America's greatest loss of freedom?" wrote blogfiend [sic] Dan Riehl last evening on Twitter, tossing us a morsel of food for thought. Our gut reaction was no:

Obama is not a fruit of the tree of liberty but a witch's broom (see caption above). Think Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, Shelby Steele.

The evil seed came from abroad, the Gramscian march through the insitutions, for starters.

A black man happens to be at the helm of the ship of state, hellbent on turning the land of the free and the home of the brave into a Euro-style progressivist utopian nightmare, but what does that have to do with slavery? Nothing, really, given that none of the President's ancestors was ever a slave. Admittedly the First Lady presents a more "nuanced" case, having descended from a mixed union of slave girl and white man. But that is beside the point. The evil seed, as we twittered last night, was the Marxist project in its many manifestations that drifted to our shores from across the pond. Barack Obama was weaned on its toxic collectivist agenda and reaps the harvest of the "white man's burden" of guilt-ridden elites who embraced his blackness as a way of feeling good about themselves and disingenuously sticking it to philosophical opponents like us. As then Sen. Obama told ecstatic New Hampshire voters way back in December of 2006, playing the race card early and often, “Are some voters not going to vote for me because I’m African-American? Those are the same voters who probably wouldn’t vote for me because of my politics." Did Obama just call me a racist? we asked rhetorically:

Being one of those voters who probably wouldn't vote for him because of his politics, we were naturally offended at his suggestion that people like us are racists. Swept up in the locals' devotional hysteria, however, the media didn't seem to notice. Folks hear what they want to hear.

"Could a white president have so successfully pulled off shredding the Constitution to further his agenda? I think not," writes Lloyd Marcus at Big Journalism, a man after our political heart:

Like millions of my fellow Americans, I am outraged, devastated and extremely angry by the Democrats’ unbelievable arrogance and disdain for We The People …

Ironically, proving America is completely the opposite of the evil racist country they relentlessly accuse her of being, progressives used America’s goodness, guilt and sense of fair play against her.

In their quest to destroy America as we know it, progressives borrowed a brilliant scheme from Greek mythology. They offered America a modern-day Trojan Horse, a beautifully crafted golden shiny new black man as a presidential candidate. Democrat Joe Biden lauded Obama as the first clean and articulate African American candidate. Democrat Harry Reid said Obama only uses a black dialect when he wants.

Now tell us again, who's the racist here?

Note: Blogpost title is from Banquo's speech in Macbeth, Act I, Scene III.

Barack Obama likes me, right now, he likes me

"By donating $25 or more today, you'll help us get ready for the fights ahead — and you'll get our new 'Health Care Reform' t-shirt, to commemorate the incredible work this movement did throughout the fight for health care reform," spins the Conman in Chief's latest two-bit fundraiser. No thanks. Our "Scott Brown US Senate January 19" t-shirt is a much better fit.

This just in over the email transom:

Sissy, add your name to mine — as a proud health care reform co-signer today.

The bill I just signed puts Americans in charge of our own health care [and] for millions of Americans, many of the benefits of reform will begin this year — some even taking effect this afternoon.

Guess Mr. Obama doesn't follow our blog that closely. Stay tuned, Mr. President. We'll have more to say about all that on Wednesday, April 14 at 10 a.m., when Sarah Palin headlines the biggest and best ever Boston Tea Party on the Common.

Update: "Is there nothing Democrats won't try to cash in on?" asks Dan Riehl, with a link.

Update II: "Obama, the Spammer-in-Chief," writes Amy Kane in the comments:

Yesterday, SEIU asked me to send a thank-you to my representative, Carol Shea-Porter-Pelosi [We blogged about her cowardly flight to Massachusetts for a Pelosi-headlined fundraiser in the old Charles Street Jail a couple of weeks back] So I wrote about it.

She'll be getting her thank you on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2010.

Be sure to read the whole thing. One parting morsel:

Thank You, Carol Shea-Porter and all the rest of you who rammed health care through, and pretended it was a fundamental 'right.' Without you, I never would have appreciated what I have, understood what I believe in, and realized what I am willing to fight for.

Teabagging Nancy Pelosi: She asked for it!

"The Republicans have Sarah and Michele. They'll clean up Nancy's mess soon enough," we wrote in the comments to Ann Althouse's graphic answer to the question "How do we really feel about Nancy Pelosi?" wherein Althouse enlists her "resident animator Chip Ahoy" to photoshop a picture of Pelosi in her final agony glory "with a teabag dangling down her mouth," at a reader's request. Above photographic image of a stump also gets into the act. Althouse pronounces the final result "a landmark in the journey toward equality for women." Unsafe for work or play.

"The health care battle wasn't Obama's Waterloo, but it may yet be his Bunker Hill," write the Washington Examiner's editors in one of many clear-eyed, we're-gonna-win-this-thing articles, blogposts and tweets out there this morning beckoning us back to the battlefront:

By the time American patriots there ran out of ammo and succumbed to the Redcoats in 1775, they had exacted a terrible toll, leading British Gen. Sir Henry Clinton to remark that "it was a dear-bought victory, another such would have ruined us." Likewise, Obama won on health care, but he lost public opinion. Most Americans believe his signature legislation will either do nothing to help them or will actually worsen their health coverage and drive up costs. The health care debate united more Americans in bipartisan opposition to Obama's government takeover.

But Democrats can still make this November's election significantly worse. Pressing on with the same obsessively partisan agenda Obama began last year will do the trick.

Dana Loesch has facts and figures in a rousing call to arms that's rightfully gone viral, "The socialists won a battle; now it's our turn":

Last night the Democrat party died as it drove a spear through the torso of the Constitution and passed legislation that the majority of Americans overwhelmingly opposed. Nancy Pelosi sauntered into the capitol surrounded by fellow socialists, carrying the gavel used in 1965 to pass the now-bankrupt Medicare.

It was Loesch herself who was one of the early instigators of the Brown Revolution in Massachusetts, when she wrote late December:

As I mentioned on air last week, this could be even bigger than Scozzafava with the right amount of support. While Scozzafava was a stand against the establishment within the GOP, this is a fight against national socialism flown under the guise of health care.

Back to the moment at hand,"forget about flagging pessimists on our side of the debate like Charles Krauthammer," we wrote in the comments at neo's, where our good friend is admonishing her readers to "Stop the whining about 'it can't be repealed.'" As we wrote there:

The powers that be may be slow to catch on, but the Tea Party movement — today’s sons and daughters of liberty! — is not going away. Scott Brown was just an opening shot across the bow of at-sea political elites who would impose their unwanted statist utopia upon us.

Look, instead, to Bill Kristol. He was among the first to suggest Scott Brown run as 41st vote to stop Obamacare. Dems overrode that with dirty tricks, but give us time. Kristol's latest is a rousing call to battle:

"Repeal: a one word agenda for Republicans."

A taste of Kristol's savory mindfeast, and then head over and treat yourself to the whole thing:

And even on this issue, the message will have to be not just repeal but also replace — replace Obamacare with sensible reforms. What’s more, working out exactly how to repeal and replace the parts of the legislation that will already be in effect is an important task, one to which I know Paul Ryan has already given some thought.

But the details of the replacing and reforming are secondary. Repeal is the heart of the matter. It should be the heart of the message. Think of it this way: This year Obama has handed Republicans a one-item Contract with America, an item a majority of the public supports — opposition to, and therefore repeal of, Obamacare.

Update: "Repeal may be a convenient political rallying point," writes Dan Riehl, with a link, a Thomas Sowell warning and a caveat of his own:

Whether it's an effective solution remains to, hopefully, be seen. John Hawkins has another idea involving de-funding this power grab by a now purely Leftist federal government that effectively abandoned democracy and the Constitution right in front of the news media's cameras, which couldn't have cared less. So, don't look to the media as impartial, let alone an ally. We're on our own, now.

Dan Riehl: There needs to be outrage

Dan Riehl and Melissa Clouthier caught on Fox News camera during CPAC 2010 last month. "The youth are first and foremost among us in throwing off authority," writes Riehl. We agree with him that "McCain's progressivism does not represent any future for the GOP … Statism will never appeal to the silent majority of America's youth. In fact, libertarianism can. And the large presence of young political guns at CPAC demonstrated it."

Dan Riehl is a force of nature and a master of the agitator's art. The average person's reaction to news of Harry Reid's wife's and daughter's accident yesterday was to express sympathy and wishes for a speedy recovery. We were sort of there ourselves, trying to repress our visceral disgust with the Senate Majority Leader's totalitarianesque health-care-reform agenda in recognition of our common humanity when human suffering strikes. But not Riehl, who burst fearlessly center stage into the blogosphere this evening with a politically incorrect showstopper guaranteed to precipitate a social-network-a-lanche in the coming hours: 

Isn't it time to euthanize Reid's wife?

Vintage Riehl. Anyone who's been paying attention through the years knows the man has a heart of gold, but when it comes to defending this Shining City Upon a Hill, he takes no prisoners. His wilfully callous-sounding words had the usual suspects shocked, shocked at the insensitivity of it all. The point was that Democrats trying to ram Obamacare 2.0 — AKA socialized medicine, which always leads to long waits, rationing of treatment and, yes, death panels — down our throats have no intention of submitting themselves and their families to such substandard health regimes:

I'm not sure I quite understand this, given that cost is so important as a burden to taxpayers when it comes to health care. If Democrats want so badly to abort babies because of it, why are we bothering with someone who has a broken neck and back at 69? It sounds to me like she's pretty well used up and has probably been living off the taxpayers for plenty of years to begin with. Aren't we at least going to get a vote on it?

I realize her crook of a husband and his pals in Congress have excluded themselves from the mess they're going to compel everyone else to join, but we're still paying the bills, are we not? I don't see that she's worth it at this point, frankly. I can't recall her ever doing anything for me.

Come on, Harry — do your civic duty. The nation's broke and counting on you guy. Pull the plug and get back to work.

"A lot of people [are] pissed at Dan Riehl right now for saying what deserved to be said," writes Dan Cleary in a Twitter exchange among Dan, Melissa Clouthier, Leon Wolf and Cleary this evening:

Leon Wolf: I'd love to see where the people comdemning Dan Riehl right now got equally outraged at this.

Clouthier: It is taking the argument to the end, but most people won't read it that way.

Cleary: I say life's too short to waste on people who miss the quite obvious point of Riehl's post.

Clouthier: There will be outrage. Still, since Dems use the utilitarian argument, might as well use it back.

Riehl: Let them be outraged. Where's the outrage at their willingness to kill babies, many hispanic and black and they know it! There needs to be outrage, we have been civil for decades, only to lose more and more ground. When will people stand up?

Well, a "Call to action! March 16th, 2010 — Stop Obamacare 2.0," when tea-party-minded citizens from across the nation converge upon DC to speak with as many representatives as possible, encouraging them to just say no, should be a good start.

Update: Instalanche! Our secret is out:

FORCE OF NATURE? I think Sissy Willis kind of has a thing for Dan Riehl. At least a blog-crush, anyway …

Update II: A bit of advice to Gregory Koster and others in the comments:

You need to work on your sense of irony. As fellow commenter Filbert Rusco notes, your argument suggests you "probably thought Jonathan Swift really wanted to eat Irish babies too."

Neither Dan Riehl nor we are advocating death panels that would say one person's life is worth more or less than another's. Quite the opposite.

Update III: "I've always maintained that irony is the final proof of our transcendence beyond mere evolution," writes Joanofargghh in the comments:

Judging by the misguided outrage at Dan's splendid debating style, I'd say my observation stands up to the proofs.

Take that, primordial ooze!

Update IV: Joanofargghh links with a rousing "Dan Riehl: Man on Fire."

Update V: Little Miss Attila weighs in with a link: "Who doesn't have a thing for Dan Riehl?"

Thad McCotter: The problem with a government takeover of health care is not the GOP

"Will the Republicans Post their Health Plan … And When?" is memeorandum's top story, linking to a who-me? suggestion on the part of the White House that the GOP has published no plan for Thursday's "bipartisan" meeting on the subject. We guess the President's people aren't following our favorite Congressman, Thaddeus McCotter (R, MI) on Twitter. Just a couple of hours ago "Young Thad" twittered this link to the House GOP Health Care Reform Bill via his own FaceBook page. The tweet:

The problem with a government takeover of health care is not the GOP. It is the American people do not want it. http://fb.me/KuebKP29D.

First a couple of paragraphs from the White House complaint, and then a few excerpts from the GOP.gov plan:

The President believes strongly that Thursday’s bipartisan meeting on health insurance reform will be most productive if both sides come to the table with a unified plan to start discussion – and if the public has the opportunity to inspect those proposals up close before the meeting happens.

That’s why yesterday [Monday, February 22, giving us 2-3 days to read and digest -ed] the White House posted online the President’s proposal for bridging the differences between the Senate- and House-passed health insurance reform bills.

What you can’t do just yet is read about the Republicans’ consensus plan – because so far they haven’t announced what proposal they’ll be bringing to the table … As we said today, we’ll be happy to post the Republican plan on our website once they indicate to us which one we should post.

Well, we don't know what they mean by "which one we should post," but the House GOP HC plan twittered by Congressman MCotter, "Common-Sense health care reforms our nation can afford," sounds pretty good to us. [Update: Not to mention that it's been online since November!] It includes a summary, full text, "Ten Reasons to Support" and a side-by-side policy comparison with the Pelosi bill. From the intro:

Americans want a step-by-step, common-sense approach to health care reform, not Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s costly, 1,990-page government takeover of our nation’s health care system. Republicans’ alternative solution focuses on lowering health care premiums for families and small businesses, increasing access to affordable, high-quality care, and promoting healthier lifestyles – without adding to the crushing debt Washington has placed on our children and grandchildren.

Key elements include lowering premiums, ending junk lawsuits, encouraging innovative state programs and allowing Americans to buy insurance across state lines. Click here to read the whole thing.

Update: New post by Congressman McCotter just posted at Red State: "The Crisis of Consent: Republicans Must NOT Abet Obama's ShamWoW! Summit."