[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Opponents to sweeping health care reform unveiled two ads yesterday that may well be the opening shots in a broad attack on health care reform legislation being negotiated between legislative Democrats and Gov. Schwarzenegger.

The two radio ads, produced by "father of the recall" GOP consultant David Gillard, raise arguments against the Nunez/Perata health care package. One is an annoying "fairy tale" that lampoons the Governor's promises not to raise taxes; the other is an "auction" that pokes fun at the financing plans to pay for the health care and "Sacramento politicians."

It's unclear if the ads are just a way for Gillard to attract business from special interests opposed to health care reform or are for real. Gillard has a track record of floating these cheaply-produced ads just to gain media attention but never following through with a substantial media buy to air them. Fortunately, most of the mainstream media wasn't fooled by Gillard's trick yesterday.

Nonetheless, they raise another question: who's paying for them?

There's more...

by auros [courtesy of Calitics: Soapblox California - Front Page]

I don't know how many people picked up on this, but there was a tidbit in Obama's speech that may be important, and I'm hoping somebody will ask him to expand on it (and I plan to dig through his website later to see if there's more info)...
He said that he would launch a carbon cap-and-trade system, and that he would auction off the credits.  One of the big arguments in regard to cap-and-trade, is whether to allow businesses that currently emit to start off in the system holding credits -- "grandfathering" them in.  (This is tied up with Bush administration's efforts to make expanding an existing dirty business not trigger "new source review".)  If folks know that in a year or two they're going to have to bid in an auction for the right to continue their current businesses, we're going to see much faster reductions in CO2 emissions.

In other global-warming news, Chris Dodd came out foursquare in favor of a carbon tax.  I guess an advantage of having no chance, is you can say things like that...