e135fig1 CHICAGO – The June 23 and July 13 testimonies of prosecution witnesses in the corruption trial of ex-Illinois Gov. Rod "Blago" Blagojevich have implicated White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and his boss, President Obama. On this matter, the defense and prosecution appear to corroborate.1  

The judge has blocked further courtroom inquiry into what Emanuel and Obama knew and when they knew it.2 Nevertheless, the two have been coated in the sleaze of Chicago politics that’s been spreading since Blago’s arrest like a sheen from a malfunctioning offshore derrick.3  

The Internet’s carried rumors for about 18 months that Blago and Antoine "Tony" Rezko, Obama's convicted Syrian friend and Windy City fixer, were going turn state’s evidence and rat out Obama to federal prosecutors. The testimony in Blago's trial so far is the closest thing to mainstream confirmation.4

We should all be amused that the dumb5 bastard,6  who got elected on an empty slogan7  that sounded like a rip-off of Sammy Davis Jr.,8  may be brought down by a pushy little white ethnic with a Nick Gillespie coif and low-class wardrobe.9  

Reading about the testimony in the Chicago papers crystallized a notion I’ve had about Obama since he and his confederates gloated about the racial implications10 of his victory on health insurance legislation11  – in a fashion I call …

e135fig2
Austin Dispatches No. 135
July 21, 2010

Obama probably won’t be devoured by actual rats12 or suffer the other grisly, dismal fates of Goines’ crime fiction protagonists who experience said moment after their big scores, and experience said fates soon after.13 Obama’s too white collar for that,14 no matter how often he unconvincingly tries to act “street” to prove he’s black enough to fellow blacks.15 Though Goines is an apropos reference for a man of some literary bent.16 Goines even wrote about one career criminal masquerading as a civil-rights leader, one step away from "community organizer,” to further his criminal ambitions.17

Obama also wouldn’t appreciate being compared to some loser ghetto thugs, but this issue’s premise is too entertaining to us at Austin Dispatches, and possibly unique on the Web. Besides, we want to get in our cracks at him before the “Justice” Department shuts down the Web site under the proposed “Kill Switch” bill.18  

The Obamites beat the usual odds against any democratically elected leader getting his agenda implemented after the first year of his term – more typically the first six to nine months.19 I myself spent several hundred dollars to help defeat “Obamacare,” for reasons of preventive health. For a time, it appeared to be dead.20 But the Obama administration and its allies on Capitol Hill managed to finally push a health insurance bill through the legislative process with an assortment of logrolling, false promises, compromises, payoffs, constituent pressure orchestrated by public relations efforts, and general arm-twisting – in other words, the usual practices when legislators venture beyond the limits of laissez-faire principles.

After decades of previous defeats,  the bill’s supporters predictably invoked FDR.21 They must’ve forgotten Roosevelt’s open reservations after six years of unhelpful New Deal programs:
Similarly, he withheld support from Robert Wagner's National Health Bill, which would have established a program of medical insurance and authorized federal aid for child and maternity care, public health services, and hospital construction. Roosevelt dodged a conflict with the American Medical Association by endorsing instead a proposal to construct fifty hospitals; a modified version passed the Senate in 1940 only to die in the House. Finally, the president looked with disfavor on additional deficit spending for social purposes. As he told Henry Morgenthau, Jr., in July 1939, "I am sick and tired of having a lot of long-haired people around here who want a billion dollars for schools, a billion dollars for public health. Just because a boy wants to go to college is no reason we should finance it."22
Roosevelt probably wanted to use the money instead to build warships that he could sacrifice at Pearl Harbor, but that’s another matter.23

Now, we’ve got a law that
takes more than 2,700 pages to make sure not just that some states will be treated differently from others because their senators offered key political support, but more importantly to codify bargains between the government and various parts of the health care industry, state governments, and large employers about who would receive what benefits (e.g., public employee unions and auto workers) and who would pass what indirect taxes onto the general public.24
Obama’s temporary appointee to run Obamacare, Medicare and Medicaid, Donald Berwick, is a fan of health care rationing.25 This means refusing to treat old, sick patients as a way of keeping health costs down when the actual government-subsidized health care costs inevitably turn out to be vastly higher than originally projected.26  

Unless and until we can defeat these most onerous sections of the new law “by any means necessary”27  – through repeal of Obamacare with the “End the Mandate Act” (H.R. 4995), sponsored by U.S. Rep. Ron Paul; repeal through the courts,28 through nullification,29 or through civil disobedience30  – tell your loved ones, the old especially, how much they mean or have meant to you. Because future mandatory federal deaths won’t be as deluxe as that shown in “Soylent Green.”31  Instead, old people will be shoved into an abattoir the size of a broom closet and garroted by an immigrant Arab on staff who shouts “Allahu Akbar” as he snuffs out another American life.32  

Now circumstances are turning against Obama, including tar babies of his own making.33 He's perpetuated bad policies of his predecessors, and his idea of “change” turns out to be making everything else worse. That's why he's losing support everywhere,34 even among die-hard anarchic, kratic statists.35 Recently on my car radio I heard a "progressive" public affairs program spend the entire time I listened bashing Obama as no better than Dubya for his pro-war, anti-civil liberties record as president. Recently, U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said publicly he supports the “birther” lawsuits challenging Obama’s citizenship, and thus his validity to be president.36

Does this mean we can thwart and even reverse Obama’s tyranny? “Yes we can!”

Obama can always console himself that at least he's not associated with the "Libertarian" Party – but that's another issue.

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NOTES
1
Korecki, Natasha, and Sarah Ostman. “Blago Prosecution Wraps.” CST 14 Jul. 2010: 12; Korecki and Ostman. "Harris: Obama Knew of Blago Plot." CST 24 Jun. 2010: 18-19; Tarm, Michael, and Mike Robinson. AP. "Obama's Gratitude Was Not Adequate." (DeKalb, Ill.) Daily Chronicle 25 Jun. 2010: A1+.
2 Brown, Mark. “Blago Trial May Be a Circus, but Judge Nixes Sideshow.” CST 2 May 2010: 2A; Davey, Monica. "U.S. Corruption Trail May Snare Other Officials." The Globe and Mail 3 Jun. 2010, Ontario ed.: 13; Korecki. “Obama Won’t Testify at Blagojevich Trial.” CST 1 May 2010: 1+; Rowland, Kara. "White House Ducks From Blagojevich Mud Pies." Washington Times 1 Jul. 2010: A1; Watergate: Chronology of a Crisis, Vol. II. Ed. William B. Dickinson. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1973: 342.
3 AD No. 121n11 (Jan. 5, 2009); Blagojevich, Rod. The Governor. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Phoenix Books, 2009: 6-11; Cave, Damien. “In Campaigns, That Gulf Spill Covers Nations.” NYT 30 Jun. 2010: 1; McKinney, Dave, Chris Fusco, and Tim Novak. “Obama Pal Part of Fed Probe.” CST 9 May 2010: 10; O'Connor, John. "Emanuel Agreed to Defend Blagojevich, Then Sought Grant." Chicago Daily Herald 22 Jun. 2010: 6; Price, Asher. "Deepwater Oil Probably Didn't Get to texas Naturally, Officials Say." AAS 7 Jul. 2010, final ed.: A1+; Truong, Michelle. “Green Image Soiled by Sludge.” DT 9 Jun. 2010: 1-2.
4 Blake, Aaron. “State by State: Illinois.” The Hill 12 Jun. 2008: 15; Eisler, Dan. “The Audacity of Mope.” E-mail to Abimbola Ijagbemi, 8 Feb. 2009; Freddoso, David. The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media’s Favorite Candidate. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2008: 211, 233-234.
5 Bock, Alan. “How Brainy Is Obama?” Antiwar.com 9 Apr. 2010 <http://original.antiwar.com/bock/2010/04/08/how-brainy-is-obama/>.
6 Cashill, Jack. “What I Learned From Obama’s Pop.” American Thinker 7 Mar. 2010 < http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/03/what_i_learned_from_obamas_pop.html>; Obama, Barack. Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, rev. ed. New York City: Three Rivers Press, 2004: 22.
7 Andersen, Christopher. Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage. New York City: William Morrow, 2009: 208.
8 Davis, Sammy Jr., Jane Boyar, and Burt Boyar. Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis Jr. New York City: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1965.
9 Blagojevich, op. cit., 8-15; Zorn, Eric. "Blagojevich's Wardrobe Malfunction." Chicago Tribune 4 Jul. 2010: 13.
10 Blow, Charles M. “Whose Country Is It?” NYT 27 Mar. 2010, New York ed.: A19.
11 The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, P.L. 111-148, 124 Stat. 119 (2010).
12 Goines, Donald. Cry Revenge. Los Angeles: Holloway House Publishing Co., 1974: 205-207.
13 Stone, Eddie. Donald Writes No More: A Biography of Donald Goines, rev. ed. Los Angeles: Holloway House Publishing Co., 1988.
14 Jason, Gary. "Obamalaise." Liberty May 2010: 23.
15 Andersen, op. cit., Ch. 1, 5-6; Corsi, Jerome R. The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality. New York City: Threshold Editions, 2008: Ch. 6; Freddoso, op. cit., Ch. 1-3, 9-11.
16 Obama, op. cit., passim.
17 Freddoso, op. cit, 147; Goines. Black Gangster. Los Angeles: Holloway House Publishing Co., 1972: 100, 107; Obama, op. cit., 131.
18 Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010 (S.B. 3480).
19 AD No. 127n25 (Sep. 21, 2009).
20 Piggott, Maggie. “Obamacare on Life Support.” Human Events 24 May 2010: 1+.
21 Henderson, David R. The Joy of Freedom: An Economist’s Odyssey. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Financial Times Prentice-Hall, 2002: 146, 195-196, 270-271.
22 Polenberg, Richard. "The Decline of the New Deal, 1937-1940." The New Deal, Vol. I: The National Level. Ed. John Braeman, Robert H. Bremmer, and David Brody. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State UP, 1975: 261.
23 Barnes, Harry Elmer. "Pearl Harbor After a Quarter of a Century." Left and Right Winter 1968: 9-132. Rpt. Torrance, Calif.: Institute for Historical Review, 1980; Denson, John V. A Century of War: Lincoln, Wilson, and Roosevelt. Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2006: Ch. 4; Greaves, Percy L. Jr. Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy. Ed. Bettina Bien Greaves. Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2010; Stinnett, Robert B. Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor, rev. ed. New York City: Touchstone, 2001; Theobald, Rear Adm. Robert A. The Final Secret of Pearl Harbor: The Washington Contribution to the Japanese Attack. 1954. Rpt. New Orleans: Flanders Hall Publishers, 1987.
24 Codevilla, Angelo M. “America’s Ruling Class – and the Perils of Revolution.” TAS Jul./Aug. 2010: 25.
25 Fritze, John. “Appointee Will Have Major Role in Implementing Health Care Law.” USAT 8 Jul. 2010: 8A; Pear, Robert. “Tough Confirmation Battle Looming for Medicare Nominee.” NYT 22 Jun. 2010: 18.
26 Henderson, op. cit.
27 Lomax, Louis E. When the Word Is Given: A Report on Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X and the Black Muslim World. Cleveland: World Publishing, 1963: 173-174.
28 “Justice Needs More Time.” WSJ 3 Jun. 2010: A16.
29 Wilentz, Sean. “States of Anarchy.” TNR 29 Apr. 2010: 5-6.
30 Albritton, Akosua K. “Civil Disobedience to Reform U.S. Healthcare System.” New York Amsterdam News 8 Oct. 2009: 6.
31 Soylent Green. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), 1973.
32 Grygar, Michael. “Terrorists in the Ranks.” Military Police Spring 2010: 11.
33 Harris, Joel Chandler. "Brer Rabbit and the Tar-Baby." The Tar-Baby and Other Rhymes of Uncle Remus. 1904. Rpt. Bedford, Mass.: Applewood Books, 2005: 3-16; Noonan, Peggy. “He Was Supposed to Be Competent.” WSJ 29 May 2010, Eastern ed.: A13.
34 Cillizza, Chris. "Democrats Hope Obama 2008 Model Will Help Stem Midterm Losses." WP 5 Jul. 2010: A2.
35 King, Michael. “Catch-2010.” AC 9 Jul. 2010: 10+.
36 McGill, Kevin. AP. “Challenger a Surprise for Vitter.” The Commercial Appeal 19 Jul. 2010: A2.