But, this I had to share for anyone that missed it. And because it boggles the mind so much that I needed to memorialize the back-handedness of this company and our government that owns it.

As I was watching 60 Minutes yesterday night, a commercial for GM came on, starring Ed Whiteacre, the CEO of General Motors. Mr. Whiteacre proudly claimed that GM has “repaid [their] government loan, in full, with interest, five years ahead of schedule.” Hmmm, I wondered, scratching my head. How did GM do this? They couldn’t possibly have recovered and sold that many cars in such a short period of time? My husband and I gave each other that look that says, I’m afraid to find out the answer to that question. What kind of sketchy accounting scheme did they use to accomplish that?

Well, I said that in jest, but it turns out to be absolutely true. Ed Morrissey of Hot Air picked up on the story and pointed out that GM repaid its government loan with other TARP funds that were available to it. Yes, I know it’s outrageous and confusing all in one. Here’s the story. And in case you missed it, the bogus commercial.

According to the bill, the Health Benefits Advisory Committee will be made up of “a panel of medical experts and other experts…to recommend covered benefits and essential, enhanced and premium plans.” The bill requires some diversity of background from members, specifying that the committee be made up of people from the insurance industry, employers, labor and experts in health care financing. That might be reassuring but for the fact that panel members are all appointees of the President and the Comptroller General, so it is reasonable to assume that individuals’ political persuasions will drive these appointments.

Further, here’s where there is real cause for concern for all of us who have been fearful of this type of government overreach into our health care decisions, Section 123 (b). This section establishes the objective of the panel, which is to recommend benefit standards to the Committee for execution. Benefit standards are defined as:

(5) BENEFIT STANDARDS DEFINED- In this subtitle, the term `benefit standards’ means standards respecting-

(A) the essential benefits package described in section 122, including categories of covered treatments, items and services within benefit classes, and cost-sharing; and

(B) the cost-sharing levels for enhanced plans and premium plans (as provided under section 203(c)) consistent with paragraph (5).”

Further, any private plans in existence will have to meet these same benefit standards in order to continue to exist as qualified health care plans under the new system (under Subtitle C, Section 121.) Therefore, this panel of so-called experts appointed by politicians will literally set the bar for what is and isn’t covered. The only ray of hope here that I can see is that the panel will essentially set the floor, while private insurance companies can go beyond the standards of coverage dictated by the panel — at least for as long as they’re in existence and able to comply with all the regulatory requirements set out by ObamaCare — which is a topic I’ll leave for another post.

If Section 123 doesn’t give the government the power to decide what will be allowed and paid for in terms of treatment and for what groups of people, then I don’t know what it does. So for President Obama to get back on the stump yesterday in Iowa and make light of people’s concerns, is simply appalling. With 55% of Americans and 59% of Seniors in favor repealing the bill, and 64% of Americans believing the bill will be bad for the country, the President mocked his critics rather than address legitimate concerns about the bill.

“There’s been plenty of fear-mongering, plenty of overheated rhetoric. You turn on the news, you’ll see the same folks are still shouting about there’s going to be an end of the world because this bill passed. (Laughter.) I’m not exaggerating. Leaders of the Republican Party, they called the passage of this bill “Armageddon.” (Laughter.) Armageddon. “End of freedom as we know it.”

So after I signed the bill, I looked around to see if there any — (laughter) — asteroids falling or — (applause) — some cracks opening up in the Earth. (Laughter.) It turned out it was a nice day. (Laughter.) Birds were chirping. Folks were strolling down the Mall. People still have their doctors.”

Getting back to these panels of experts, the creation of this group shows how flawed Democrats’ vision for health care is. They believe that this select few, chosen by the President, can better gauge what people need from their health care plans than the people themselves who are using the plans. This refining of standards of what is and isn’t covered could have been accomplished more quickly and efficiently if people were allowed to buy into insurance contracts with any provider of their choosing. Now, government regulation as to how consumers could purchase health insurance (which didn’t allow insurance from being bought across state lines) has lead to more government regulation to solve the problem government created in the first place. And thus government begets more government. This nearly 3,000 page bill is just the beginning.

But there I was on Sunday evening, watching the votes come in in disbelief. Since then, like so many Americans, I’ve been trying to figure out exactly what is in this bill. By now, we’re all familiar with the debate over the true cost of the bill, the double-counting, the Madoff-type accounting, as Karl Rove labelled it during his debate with David Plouffe on This Week this past Sunday. But, new facts seem to coming out about this bill daily. A good example is the surfacing of the fact that our new health care reform doesn’t cover children with preexisting conditions, despite President Obama’s assertion to the contrary yesterday. Also, if you’re worried about how states will fund a surge in the number of people dependent on Medicaid, when they already face huge deficits with decreased revenues and no relief in sight, you probably can already guess what Dems’ answer to this problem will be — more bailouts, more money, more dependence on the all-powerful federal government and a continuing erosion of states’ rights.

I’ve heard some references to conservatives’ overly inflamed rhetoric when it comes to this issue. I don’t think one can emphasize enough how far-reaching the consequences of this kind of irresponsible accounting and spending will be — and that doesn’t even begin to touch on how our health care system as we know it will be affected.

And at the end of the day, the level of power this bill allows the federal government to have over all of us is unprecedented and dangerous. This quote from a law professor sums it up better than I can.

“If Congress can require you to buy health insurance because of the ways in which your uncovered existence (affects) interstate commerce or because it can tax you in an effort to force you to do (any) old thing it wants you to, it is hard to see what — save some other constitutional restriction — it cannot require you to do — or prohibit you from doing.“

It is this sentiment that has left me with a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach all week long. More reactions to specifics in the bill to come…

Tthe changes are meant to put more information in the hands of consumers who often struggle to understand language written by lawyers in the fine print of their statements. Here are some changes that will surely be welcomed by consumers.

- Eliminating universal default. Pay one account late and the interest rate on your other accounts zooms up? Not any longer.

- Limiting interest rate hikes. For example, the APR you have on a new account can’t increase during the first year unless you have a “teaser rate,” the rate is tied to an index, or you’re more than 60 days late on a payment.

- No more pay to pay. You can’t be charged to pay your bill over the telephone, electronic transfer or any other method of getting your money in on time.

- Total payout disclosure. Clearly written on your statement will be how long it will take to pay the account if you only make the minimum required payments – and how much it will ultimately cost.

- 45 days notice of significant changes to terms. If your credit card company is going to hike your APR or fee charges, you now have plenty of notice. Even better: you can opt out of the increase by suspending the card and concentrating on repaying the balance.

Also, according to the WSJ,

“Customers can only exceed their credit limit if they agree ahead of time to pay a penalty fee. And unless a cardholder misses payments for more than 60 days, interest-rate increases will affect only new purchases, not existing balances.”

While the changes appear to be positive, the flip side is that they are likely to elicit a backlash from banks in the form of drawing down on credit lines, higher interest rates and all sorts of fees. These regulations on credit card lenders are estimated to cost the industry $12 billion annually. While these rules may stem from a desire to protect consumers, they may result in a diminishing of credit lines at a time when millions of Americans are struggling and might have planned to tap into their lines of credit. As Newton’s law reminds us, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and this case is no exception to the rule. As the WSJ warns, “get ready for higher annual fees, higher balance-transfer charges, and growing charges for overseas transactions.”

So it turns out that these regulations may turn out to be less helpful for consumers than they appear on the surface. This is what the current administration and majority in Congress can’t seem to understand; overreaching in the private sphere via this kind of regulation is not a foolproof formula for helping consumers. Sure, lenders operate according to a profit motive, but people run their own budgets similarly. The government should focus on providing incentives for businesses to expand and hire if they’re worried about people’s ability to pay off their debt, not on strangling lenders. And with lenders already hard-hit by the economic crisis and customers defaulting on their debts, they will look to make up lost profits elsewhere or decrease lending, which is bad for lenders and consumers alike.

Back in May of 2009, I wrote that Congress should tread lightly on credit card reform for this very reason. Erecting obstacles to the extension of credit is no way to get yourself out of a credit crunch. Here we are in 2010, and the Obama administration still hasn’t gotten this message. And once again, consumers will be stuck footing the bill for  their mistakes in the form of new fees soon.

The past six months have been filled with good times celebrating on the one hand, and on the other, working hard to wrap up my legal work before the baby comes. The good news is that when I don’t have my hands full with the baby, I hope to spend more time focusing on my writing. And, with a little one on the way, it gives me a new angle from which to think about many of the political issues I often discuss on my blog. Government policies on spending, taxes, health care and the overall level to which government is (or isn’t) willing to reach in to the private sphere not only affect me today, but will have a direct impact on the kind of world in which my son or daughter will grow up.

That said, I am looking forward to catching up with all of you in the blogosphere and talking politics!

-Despina

1. Paint the loss of a red state Senate seat as a continuation of the problems that fueled President Obama’s candidacy to begin with. “The painstaking campaign for change over two years in 2007 and 2008 has become a painstaking effort in the White House too.”

2. But you might say, the Democrats control the White House AND Congress, so how can this be a continuation of the same frustrations with the new administration and Congress holding all the cards? They have an answer for this too: “It’s not as if having 60 votes in the Senate has made life a walk in the park.”

3. When all else fails, blame capitalism. Whose side are you on? Greedy bankers? Corrupt oil companies? Inhumane insurance companies? Or, do you stand with us (Democrats) on the people’s side? Castigate profit generators, job generators while simultaneously touting that the bottom line is jobs, jobs, jobs.

This worked for the administration for a good part of 2009. Take the stimulus as an example. After all, the Democrats still have not been held accountable for spending nearly $800 billion on a program that failed to stimulate anything but the expansion of government. This strategy of distraction has worked so far for Democrats, so why fix something that isn’t broken?

This strategy is so shallow that were it not so arrogant and offensive, it would be laughable. It implies that the American people are uninformed and obtuse — that despite continuing job losses, a constantly ballooning deficit and continuing government intervention in the private sector, Americans’ desire for ‘change’ from the previous administration is going to perpetually buy this White House time to push forward their agenda — at whatever the cost.

It’s difficult to miss the irony here that the very same Democrats that painted former President Bush and his administration as out of touch with the American people, simply cannot understand that the debate taking place in the public arena for the last year, arguably since the passage of the stimulus and the onset of the tea party movement, cannot be won by simply switching up their PR strategy.

“[The person in charge of Palin's debate prep]  told us that the debate was going to be a debacle of historic and epic proportions. He told us she was not focused, she was not engaged, she was really not participating in the prep.”

He also said, that there were many instances in which Palin couldn’t keep her facts straight, and that this continues to add to the perception many have of Palin today, namely, that she is unlearned and inarticulate.

What has always interested me about this issue is why these McCain strategists were so quick to throw Palin under the bus. The obvious reason is that she is an easy scapegoat; bringing down Palin allows them to escape all responsibility for running a poor campaign. But, a recent comment by Democrat strategist Paul Begala on this issue has peaked my curiosity about the Palin-bashers, particularly Schmidt, once again. Politico quotes Begala as saying,

“I don’t think he has anything to gain from it. It’s not going to get Schmidt a whole lot of clients in Republican Party and he’s not selling a book. So it just may be that he is telling the truth.”

Begala’s certainly right that Schmidt’s coming out to trash Palin in the public arena can’t possibly help him with conservatives. Even former McCain supporters will likely wish to distance themselves from an individual they can’t trust to keep behind-the-scene problems out of the public arena. And, given the popularity of Palin’s populist conservatism and the rise of the tea parties, the odds are against Schmidt if he was banking on a Republican party that would reject Palin. That certainly doesn’t seem to be the direction conservatism is taking.

Begala thinks Schmidt might simply be telling the truth. I’ve followed Palin closely and read her book, and I haven’t seen any compelling evidence of the Palin that Schmidt describes. So I have to wonder if Schmidt’s goal might just be to make friends in the Democrat party? Is it possible he’s setting himself up for a Dick Morris-type jump to the other side of the political aisle? Otherwise, to what end is he putting himself out there and making these allegations? If it’s not going to further his career in the Republican party, and it’s not going to benefit him financially, what’s his purpose?

If it turns out that my imagination is just getting the best of me and this isn’t the case for Schmidt, it will certainly be interesting to watch the unraveling of this relationship and how Palin continues to handle this kind of negative attention as she moves forward in her political career. As for Schmidt, he seems to be on a losing streak, first the campaign and now the war on Palin.

But, despite his vow and the media and public disapproval of the current process, this will not be the first time that the President has broken this particular promise. Back in February of 2009, the same issue was brought up as it related to the negotiations of the stimulus package. Note in the following line of questioning, Gibbs’ answer that the President was pleased with the product and with the process.

Q I just wanted to try again on the issue of the open conference committee question. We just didn’t really resolve it the other day. I mean, on the transition website it said explicitly that the President wanted the conference committee process to be open to the public. In light of that, how does he feel about the conference committee process this week on the stimulus which was, even to apparently some members of the conference committee, not open? And going forward, does he intend to fulfill that promise?

MR. GIBBS: Well, I haven’t seen the particular comments. Obviously the President hopes for greater openness and transparency in government. Whether it’s the transparency that’s part of this bill or transparency that’s part of conference committees, whether that transparency — obviously there’s a lot of things that he believes can be improved. And I think that’s something that we’d like to continue to see.

We talked about — and something that we’re struggling to implement that we talked about during the campaign, which was putting legislation on the web — non-emergency legislation on the web for five days before it’s signed. The White House is struggling with trying to figure out how to do that in a way — when do you do it, how do you do it, what do you put up.

So I think all this is a work in progress. And as I said, it will take probably longer than a few weeks to change how this place works.

Q Was he satisfied with the process this week?

MR. GIBBS: Ask me that when the Senate finishes and we have something.

Q I mean the conference –

MR. GIBBS: Yes, I think the President is happy with the product that Democrats and Republicans put together.

Q The process, not the product.

MR. GIBBS: The process and the product.

Q Robert, some White House aides participated in that conference committee process, meeting, negotiating behind closed doors, in some sense, I guess, validating that process. I mean, could they not have been insisting upon a more open process where C-SPAN cameras come in and record that, as the President promised to do on health care negotiations?

MR. GIBBS: Unclear if Rahm could satisfy some FCC requirements. (Laughter.) But I think the President is, as I said, pleased with the –

Q Cable. (Laughter.)

MR. GIBBS: Yes, the FX channel, unfortunately, is what we’re going to do. (Laughter.)

He’s pleased with the process and the product that has come out. And I think when the process is done, I think the American people will be proud of the product that we believe and we hope will begin to stimulate the economy, get people hired, back to work, and moving things forward, and putting people — putting money back in their pockets.

You don’t have to know much about politics to note how Gibbs dodges this line of questioning from the get-go. First, he states he’s unfamiliar with any complaints about the process. Then, he emphatically states that the President was proud of the process. Then, when directly confronted with the President’s promise to allow C-Span cameras to record and broadcast negotiations, after making a few quips, he repeats the President’s satisfaction with the process and posits that despite the lack of sunshine along the way, Americans will be happy with the end results. In other words, the means justify the ends.

After all, what’s one pesky broken promise? Except that this was one of the cornerstones of the President’s campaign, ushering in a new era of openness and transparency. But now that he’s at the helm, he didn’t just break his word, he urged Democrats to push the bill through and quickly behind closed doors. In the era of Obama, speediness trumps open dialogue about legislation. When public support isn’t on your side, the need for speed to get a bill on the President’s desk becomes priority number one, taking a backseat to bothersome details like cost and a piece of legislation’s effect on personal liberty, taxes, the deficit and our health care system in general. It’s get the bill through at all costs and preferably before the State of the Union. And some of us thought things couldn’t get any worse…

Dropping the exam would bolster minority hiring and avert legal battles, according to one source, while others confirm that the exam could be scrapped to open the process to as many people as possible.

According to the article, this is the CPD’s second attempt to increase minority hiring. Their first effort involved offering the exam on the internet.

In another article on race, the Wall Street Journal reports that the country’s most liberal appellate court in the 9th Circuit recently overturned a 2000 court decision that found that preventing felons from voting did not violate the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The issues the ruling raises about racial bias in the justice system aren’t unique to Washington state, said Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C., group promoting sentencing reform. “They are issues that permeate the justice system and are relevant in every state,” he said.

In the 2-1 decision, the appellate judges concluded that “disparities in the state’s judicial system “[could] not be explained in any race-neutral way.”

In both these situations, the race card is being used as a ploy to get around the law. It is absolutely shameless. For now, let’s set aside the issue of the propriety of seeking to increase minorities in the police force to begin with. The question that remains then is, is there really no other way to increase the number of minority cops in Chicago short of entirely eliminating the entrance exam that screens potential cops on issues pertinent to their future position? And how insulting is it to suggest that the only way to help minorities is to not hold them to the standards everyone else is held to?

The same goes for Washington. The issue of whether people who have committed heinous crimes should be allowed to participate in the political system has no connection to race at all. To make it about race is to skirt around the issue. The lead attorney in the case, made the following statement.

“In this case, we have proved that the criminal justice system in this state is biased against African-Americans, and the impact has been a violation of their voting rights,” said Larry Weiser, a law professor at Gonzaga University School of Law who is the lead attorney in the lawsuit.

So, what’s the real problem here? That the system is biased against African-Americans? Or that it is a violation of prisoners’ rights to keep them from voting? These are two very separate issues that each raise their own questions, some of which have merit, but wrapping them in the cloak of the race card is futile.

In truth, neither of these situations is really about race. Making them about race just deflects attention from the real issues. It doesn’t help to get to the root of the problems, nor does it help the plight of minorities which just goes to show that no one wins by casually throwing around the race card.

Later in the afternoon, still not having read the article, I tuned in to Michael Medved to hear him praising David Brooks and agreeing wholeheartedly with his sentiments about the tea partiers — specifically citing Brooks’ comments on the tea partiers being opposed to everything the so-called educated class stands for.

Having finally read the article, I’m left astounded at Brooks’ disconnected, absurd article. The article itself just doesn’t make sense. It starts out tearing apart the tea partiers and ends with a sort of nod of respect to them that is entirely out of place given the tone of the article.

After opening with how disenchanted the public is with their government, he posits that the country is moving to the right and most importantly, that that change involves a moving away from ideas associated with the “educated class.”

He then counts off a number of issues and cites the liberal positions as those of the “educated” elite. Brooks is somehow under the impression that the 50% of the country, or at the very least the 40% that considered themselves conservative in 2009, are unschooled. Not only are they lowbrow cretins, they are defined by this opposition to their educated superiors.

“The tea party movement is a large, fractious confederation of Americans who are defined by what they are against. They are against the concentrated power of the educated class. They believe big government, big business, big media and the affluent professionals are merging to form self-serving oligarchy — with bloated government, unsustainable deficits, high taxes and intrusive regulation.”

Perhaps Brooks thinks he can get away with libel if he mixes it with a bit of truth. True, tea partiers are generally against big government, high deficits, taxes and regulation. But, tea partiers are against government intrusion in the private sector, not against business, the private sector or those who reap its benefits as he suggests. As for the media, he seems confused as to conservatives’ grievances against major news outlets which they see as biased, not because their offices are filled with the enlightened, well-educated class as he suggests.

After all this, he ends the article with a nod to the tea party, acknowledging its success and potential future influence. In what is perhaps the most bizarre of the piece, he suggests the movement could become a major force in politics; after all, it “represents arguments that are deeply rooted in American history.” I have to wonder what sort of spin Brooks himself would put on this if confronted with these statements — that the tea partiers are ignorant, yet their ideas are deeply rooted in U.S. history?

Brooks then ends the piece by pointing to “the angry direction” tea partiers could pull voters toward and states, “I’m no fan of this movement.”

I came away from the article understanding that David Brooks abhors the tea parties and nothing more. Other than that, the only thing I can surmise is that Brooks senses that the tides are changing, and he fears that this group of everyday Americans turned activists, with their ideas “rooted in American history” are on to something, and New York Times elites like Brooks may no longer be as influential as they once were.