You have to laugh, or you’d cry.
For longer than I care to remember, the left has shouted down conservative speakers on campuses, those bastions of free thought. Try to hold a peaceful “affirmative action” bake sale as a protest, and you could be subject to violence, certainly to intimidation. For years they’ve bussed in activists to disrupt meetings. In Madison, WI where I lived, our car was keyed (had a Bush sticker) and Bush lawn signs were stolen and swastikas burned into lawns with weed killer, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. In Milwaukee, thugs, including a Congresswoman’s son, vandalized vans Republicans had rented to take voters to the polls. In the last election, Black Panther thugs armed with nightsticks intimidated voters at polling places in Philadelphia, on camera, a crime our black Attorney General has declined to prosecute, over-ruling career DOJ employees.
Now, suddenly, protests at Town Hall Meetings of the Congresscritters are “un-American.” The White House has established an e-mail address for BO supporters to report people spreading “fishy” information (i.e., things that disagree with the Supreme Leader) about health care. Imaging if Bush had established such an enemies list? They’d have screamed “NAZI” at the top of their lungs.
White House Director of New Media, Macon Phillips, asserted that there was "a lot of disinformation out there," and encouraged citizens to report "fishy" speech opposing “your” health care policies to the White House. Phillips specifically targeted private, unpublished, even casual speech, writing that "rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation." Phillips wrote "If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."
I’d like to suggest we flood the e-mail list with self-reports, but it occurs to me that being on BO’s enemies list could jeopardize my employment. For the same reason, I think I’ll turn down the invitation I received from my Congresswoman to attend her Town Hall Meeting on Health Care. I might say something “fishy” and get on the enemies list. Or the union thugs might be there and I might get a broken head, thus increasing health care costs in America.
I’d like to ask her how we control health care costs without tort reform, to eliminate defensive medicine, which costs all of us billions each year. I was recently sent for an expensive test, to rule out cancer, a long shot in this case. But the doc didn’t dare not order the test, because a missed cancer, even one in a million, could mean a lawsuit. I considered the odds and declined at the last minute. I’d like to ask how we get tort reform with the League of Leftwing Lawyers in complete control of the White House, House and Senate. But I’m intimidated—I need my job, and my head. And now I know that asking questions of Members of Congress is “un-American” and “fishy.”
It’s not like I was going to chant, “Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, Commie Health Care Has To Go!”
Can the dogs, fire hoses and a new “House Un-American Activities Committee” (HUAC) be far behind?
OK for them?
M E M O R A N D U M
To: Democratic Members of Congress From: House Democratic Leadership
Date: Friday, July 31, 2009
Re: Strategic Communications Plan for August: Health Insurance Reform COORDINATION The Leadership is working in close coordination with the White House and outside groups (including but not limited to HCAN, Families USA, AFSCME, SEIU, AARP, etc.) to ensure complementary efforts during August. The President, Secretary Sebelius and other principals in the reform debate will be working throughout the month to hold events, promote the message in the press and move the reform effort forward. We are also working closely with supportive organizations to ensure they are implementing comprehensive plans for August that include grassroots efforts, media strategies and anything else that can add to the momentum. In addition, a list of groups supporting health reform has been provided to your offices with information on ways you can partner with them in your districts.
(If opponents coordinate speakers, they are “un-American.”)
HCAN Playbook for Thwarting Town Hall Protesters
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/documents/2009/08/hcan-playbook-for-thwarting-town-hall-protesters.php?page=1
The House Health Bill: Energy and Commerce Amendments
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/08/10/the-house-health-bill-energy-and-commerce-amendments/
Excerpt: Gutting Consumer Choice: (Stearns #9, Rogers and Gingrey #10) The President and his congressional allies routinely insist that if Americans like the health insurance that they currently have, they can keep it. But the simple fact is that this is a presidential promise that will not be kept if the House bill, in its current form, is signed into law. Under the House bill, the federal government is authorized to determine what health benefits must be included in Americans’ health insurance plans and federal officials will determine the health plans that would be considered “acceptable” coverage under the law.
True Confessions
http://bloodthirstywarmonger.blogspot.com/2009/08/true-confession.html
Excerpt: Another falsehood that I am spreading. In 2003 there must be another Barack Obama that spoke to the AFL-CIO and stated: "I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program...A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that's what I'd like to see." I think that Barack Obama should also be sent to the re-education camp to be taught the truth of Obama is not for a single payer plan. We must be indoctrinated by 'his story' and fight against those who oppose our beloved leader. (Gotta love this blog name.)
Democrats flummoxed by health care protests
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Democrats-flummoxed-by-health-care-protests-52904087.html
Excerpt: This morning we were treated to a smug USA Today opinion article by Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer. “Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American,” they write. Actually, drowning out a speaker—by the boos some Democratic members of Congress have been greeted with or by the loud cheering that greeted Barack Obama so often during the 2008 campaign season—is not un-American or illegitimate. Preventing someone from speaking altogether—drowning them out permanently—is rude, boorish and often self-defeating; but not un-American. But the more interesting part of the article is not the headline quote, but the oozing condescension toward so many American voters toward the bill Pelosi and Hoyer assert the House “will” pass in September. “Health care is complex.” To paraphrase another common saying: It’s a complex thing; you wouldn’t understand. You should listen docilely and take instruction from your betters.
Man vs. Mutt
Theodore Dalrymple on who gets the better treatment, and what this means for U.S. health-care reform.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204908604574334282143887974.html
Fishy Alert: As a British dog, you get to choose (through an intermediary, I admit) your veterinarian. If you don’t like him, you can pick up your leash and go elsewhere, that very day if necessary. Any vet will see you straight away, there is no delay in such investigations as you may need, and treatment is immediate. There are no waiting lists for dogs, no operations postponed because something more important has come up, no appalling stories of dogs being made to wait for years because other dogs—or hamsters—come first. The conditions in which you receive your treatment are much more pleasant than British humans have to endure. For one thing, there is no bureaucracy to be negotiated with the skill of a white-water canoeist; above all, the atmosphere is different. There is no tension, no feeling that one more patient will bring the whole system to the point of collapse, and all the staff go off with nervous breakdowns. In the waiting rooms, a perfect calm reigns; the patients’ relatives are not on the verge of hysteria, and do not suspect that the system is cheating their loved one, for economic reasons, of the treatment which he needs. The relatives are united by their concern for the welfare of each other’s loved one. They are not terrified that someone is getting more out of the system than they… And what I want, at least for that part of my time that I spend in England, is to be a dog. I also want, wherever I am, the Americans to go on paying for the great majority of the world’s progress in medical research and technological innovation by the preposterous expense of their system: for it is a truth universally acknowledged that American clinical research has long reigned supreme, so overall, the American health-care system must have been doing something right. The rest of the world soon adopts the progress, without the pain of having had to pay for it. —Theodore Dalrymple is the pen name of Anthony Daniels, a British physician.
Will Obama pay the price for cutting Medicare?
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Will-Obama-pay-the-price-for-cutting-Medicare-8088240-52913592.html
Excerpt: Unlike a number of experts, many of the president's Democratic colleagues apparently believe that. And in doing so, they are singing a far, far different tune from the last time Medicare was the subject of an all-out political battle. Back in 1994 and 1995, the newly elected Republican majority in Congress concluded that Medicare's costs were spiraling out of control. Then-Speaker Newt Gingrich and then-Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole proposed to slow the rate of growth of Medicare expenditures -- not cut them, just reduce the speed at which costs were rising. Democrats, from President Bill Clinton down, beat the hell of out them for it. From mid-1995 through the 1996 presidential election, hardly a day went by without some Democrat accusing Gingrich, Dole, and the Republican Congress of plotting to slash Medicare benefits and throw America's seniors on the streets. "The onslaught was unbelievable," recalls J.D. Hayworth, who at the time was a backbench GOP lawmaker from the retiree haven of Arizona. "We were ripped up one side and down the other. In my district, the AFL-CIO spent $1.8 million telling old people I was going to cut off their Medicare."
Panel sees race bias in health care bill
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/11/panel-sees-race-bias-in-health-care-bill/print/
Excerpt: The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights says some little-noticed provisions in the House health care bill are racially discriminatory, and it intends to ask President Obama and Congress to rewrite sections that factor in race when awarding billions in contracts, scholarships and grants. The commission also fears the programs, which are designed to improve health care in underserved areas, will not be effective. In a draft of a letter the commission approved Friday, the group raises constitutional questions about giving preferential treatment to minority students for scholarships, and about favoring medical schools and organizations that have a record of sending graduates to areas with inadequate health care services.
Obama to Jane Sturm: Hey, take a pill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-dQfb8WQvo
Yup.
Random Thoughts by Dr. Sowell
http://www.townhallmail.com/bfpkpntjkkcypjkjyjpftysqqzyqqjztbbfnmpcljlggdp_hmhvmvqnhhf.html
Excerpt: Different people have very different reactions to President Barack Obama. Those who listen to his rhetoric are often inspired, while those who follow what he actually does are often appalled.
New York and Chicago have both recently had their coldest June in generations. If they had had their hottest month, it would have been trumpeted from the media 24/7 by "global warming" zealots. But the average surface temperature of the earth has not changed in more than a decade, according to the Cato Institute.
Jihadis thrice attacked Pakistan nuclear sites
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/world/pakistan/Revealed-Jihadis-thrice-attacked-Pakistan-nuclear-sites/articleshow/4879235.cms
Excerpt: Pakistan’s nuclear facilities have already been attacked at least thrice by its home-grown extremists and terrorists in little reported incidents over the last two years, even as the world remains divided over the safety of the nuclear weapons in the troubled country, according to western analysts.
Gaza jihadists lob shells at Israeli border crossing as Palestinian patients enter Israel for medical treatment
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027172.php
Excerpt: The ironies abound. The headline of this Reuters story is "Israeli planes bomb Gaza tunnel." Only in the fourth paragraph do we learn that this strike was in retaliation for rocket and mortar attacks upon Israel from Gaza, and only in the sixth paragraph do we learn that Palestinians crossing into Israel in an ambulance for medical treatment were at the border crossing when the jihadists fired upon it.
Suu Kyi and American Intruder Convicted by Burmese Court
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/10/AR2009081000746.html?wpisrc=newsletter“By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me.”(I still have the copy of Kipling’s poems, held together with surgical tape, that I carried in my pack in Vietnam). My guess is she was doing something “fishy,” which is not allowed in socialist states.
White House Objects to Poster That Invokes Obama Children
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/10/AR2009081003126.html?wpisrc=newsletter
How about, “Why won’t my kids get the same healthcare coverage as President Obama’s kids?”
Republicans Go After Democratic Base in N.J.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/morning-fix/081109-morning-fix.html?wprss=thefix
Excerpt: A recent Quinnipiac University poll suggests that the RGA may find some fertile ground in their appeals to Democrats. Christie was winning nearly one in five (19 percent) Democratic votes in the survey while dominating among New Jersey's traditionally Democratic-leaning independents (64 percent to 28 percent).
We Broke The Bank!
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18306
Excerpt: Our total national private net worth, according to the Federal Reserve Board, is about $51.5 trillion. That means our federal unfunded liabilities represent 2.3 times our collective net worth. That's pretty darn broke, says Whalen.
I Accuse!
http://www.chronwatch-america.com/articles/5361/1/I-Accuse/Page1.html
Excerpt: I accuse the United Nations environmental program in general and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in particular of creating a huge hoax, “global warming,” in order to reduce energy use and to create a phony market for so-called “carbon credits,” based on the lie that carbon dioxide plays a role in the alleged warming process. The Earth is not warming. It is cooling. Meteorologists, climatologists, and solar physicists agree that it has been cooling for at least a decade and predict the cooling will continue for several decades to come. I accuse the President of the United States and politicians from both political parties for engaging in this deception for their own purposes, while ignoring the peril to the nation’s economy and future. Billions have been and continue to be misallocated to bogus “solutions” such as solar and wind power, the mandate for an ethanol mixture with gasoline, and the construction of a vast regulatory and grant-making apparatus based on the global warming hoax.
Our Unconstitutional Census
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052970204908604574332950796281832.html
The fix is in, democracy is out.
Arizona’s Budget Breakthrough
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203946904574300083865544254.html?mod=djemITP
Excerpt: Perhaps states are starting to learn the right fiscal lessons from the red-ink blowouts in high-tax California and New York. Today, the legislature in Arizona will vote on a tax reform designed to entice more employers and high-income taxpayers to the state. Sponsored by Republican Governor Jan Brewer, the plan would cut state property taxes, the corporate tax and personal income taxes, in exchange for a temporary rise in the sales tax. Most economic studies agree that states have more jobs and higher income growth when they tax consumption rather than savings, investment and business profits. This explains why most of the nine states with no income tax at all—such as Texas, Florida and Tennessee—have been economic high-flyers in recent decades…. The opponents should consult a new study of state business taxes by former U.S. Treasury economist Robert Carroll for the Tax Foundation. He examined 50 states and found that states with lower corporate tax rates have higher wage gains and more productivity over time. This tax cut sounds like a high-return investment.
Trinkets that stick it to Obama start to sell
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/11/cashing-in-on-no-he-cant/
Excerpt: The Cafepress.com store, a cultural barometer of sorts for political and social expression, offers about 3 million Obama products, she said, but now is up to about 1 million that are "anti-Obama-oriented," reflecting a "significant shift in the last couple of months than what was the trend a year ago."
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Political Digest for August 11 2009
Newt Gingrich: Go to a Townhall meeting
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Go-to-a-Townhall-meeting-8072177-52606957.html
Two-hundred and eleven years ago, the party in the White House grew frustrated with public opposition to its policies and passed a law designed to stifle dissent. The Alien and Sedition Acts made it a crime to "print, utter, or publish .. any false, scandalous and malicious writing against the federal government, including the President." The law was the reigning Federalist Party's attempt to beat back an ascendant Democratic-Republican Party led by Thomas Jefferson in 1798. It backfired. An outraged American public elected Jefferson president in 1800. No record survives as to whether the Jeffersonian protestors were well-dressed or not, but something frighteningly similar is happening today. For the first time in a long time, the President of the United States is actively trying to suppress public involvement in civic life. Americans have an absolute right to petition our government and express dissent. It's right there in the 1st Amendment to the Constitution….
He’s come to save the day!
http://boortz.com/more/video/its_barack_obama.html
More fun from JibJab
Chicago 2016 Olympics: Member of city's bid team has deal to develop land near park earmarked for the Games
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-olympics-real-estate-07-aug07,0,4603832.story
I’m shocked! Shocked, I say.
How much is that old clunker on the car lift?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-oped0807goldbergaug07,0,2787266.story
Excerpt: For starters, who says the smartest thing for people with working cars is to buy new ones? Personal debt is supposed to be a problem, so why not look at this as bribing consumers into taking out car loans they don't need? Even with the $4,500 subsidy, not all of these customers are going to be paying cash for their new cars. So they'll be swapping serviceable-but-paid-for cars for nicer cars that are owned by banks.
Are Health Insurance Companies the Villains?
http://www.john-goodman-blog.com/are-health-insurance-companies-the-villains/#more-4600
Excerpt: So, when is the last time you heard about a life insurance company dropping someone's coverage because he got AIDS? Never happens. What about jacking up someone's life insurance premiums after the insured has a heart attack? Not a chance. How about dropping coverage just because a person changes jobs or retires? No way. Ever heard of a life insurer interfering with the doctor-patient relationship — say, pleading with the providers to keep the patient on life support so the company can delay paying the claim? Ridiculous. Then why does the market for life insurance work so well while the health insurance market seems so dysfunctional — even when the same insurers are in both markets? Answer: because of politicians. Politicians who think just like Nancy Pelosi thinks.
Is Obama Punking Us? (NYT?)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/opinion/09rich.html?_r=1
Excerpt: Yet there is real reason for longer-term worry in the form of a persistent, anecdotal drift toward disillusionment among some of the president’s supporters. And not merely those on the left. This concern was perhaps best articulated by an Obama voter, a real estate agent in Virginia, featured on the front page of The Washington Post last week. “Nothing’s changed for the common guy,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been punked.” She cited in particular the billions of dollars in bailouts given to banks that still “act like they’re broke.”
Paralympics Offer Wounded Veterans a Chance to Dream
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/08/AR2009080802129.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: When Maryland native Keith Buckman regained consciousness in a Bethesda hospital last July, he knew he would never again play football, basketball or soccer, the sports he had loved growing up in Forestville. He barely survived a 2008 suicide bombing in Iraq's Anbar province that killed 25 people, including three fellow Marines. His legs and one arm were shattered.
Wounded Soldiers Cast Off Burdens as They Fish on the Bay
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/08/AR2009080802434.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: The owners of Rod 'N' Reel, whose grandfather took wounded World War II veterans fishing in 1946, paid for the chartered fishing trips and donated the use of a refrigerated catering truck. The local hardware store offered American flags. Girl Scouts wrapped silverware. One volunteer baked 22 cakes, another drove from McLean to help grill fish, while a third showed up Saturday with a purse full of mints to hand out to the soldiers.
They were Soldiers, Scottish Soldiers (Jocks) — Tribute to our recently fallen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXdS34dxS0k&NR=1
Great tribute
Congressmen Took Exotic 'Climate Change' Junket
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/congress_climate_junket/2009/08/09/245746.html
Excerpt: Diving and snorkeling at Australia's Great Barrier Reef, watching New Year's fireworks in New Zealand, and sleeping in a luxury Hawaiian hotel is the vacation of a lifetime — unless you're a member of Congress. Then it's a fact-finding mission to study climate change.
C-SPAN Caller Blasts Media's Coverage of Town Hall Protests
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/08/09/c-span-caller-blasts-medias-depiction-town-hall-protesters
Excerpt: "When I watch the news people stand here and tell me that I am a member of a hired mob, that I've been called up by the Republican Party, they only wish they could have done something like this. I've never been contacted by any organized group."
Key Democrat Feels the Heat after Voting for House Plan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/09/AR2009080902428.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- "The war's on," says Rep. Baron P. Hill, and he's not talking about a conflict overseas, but a battle over health care in his own back yard, where thousands of people are trying to tell him what to do, some not so nicely. Hill is a leader of the Blue Dogs, the caucus of 51 conservative Democrats whose hard-bargaining support is critical to President Obama's bid to overhaul the health system. He came home on recess to find himself a target of groups that want to steer the August conversation and the autumn vote.
Georgia Democrat yells at local doctor over health care
http://www.washingtontimes.com/weblogs/back-story/2009/aug/08/georgia-democrat-rages-against-local-doctor-over-h/#comments
Excerpt: Tensions are running so high at town hall meetings that Rep. David Scott, a Georgia Democrat, yelled at a local doctor concerned about health care after mistaking him for an "astroturf" political operative looking for a fight. Mr. Scott became visibly agitated when one of his constituents, a practicing doctor, asked a few questions about health care reform during a town hall meeting. The meeting was held to discuss a road project, but was opened up for questions near the end. That's when Dr. Brian Hill stood up to speak. Dr. Hill asked Mr. Scott why he was going to vote for a health care plan similar to that implemented in Massachusetts "that is shown not to work" and if he supported a government-provided health care insurance option. The congressman replied by accusing the doctor of "hijacking" his event.
Harry Reid Will Only Do Town Halls by Telephone, Media Mum
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/08/09/harry-reid-will-only-do-telephone-town-halls-media-mum
Excerpt: The most powerful man in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), announced on Friday that as a result of recent protests at town hall meetings he won't hold any such political gatherings during this month's Congressional recess. Instead, he will only do what's called "telephone town halls" where he and his staff have complete control over the questions being asked and who's asking them. Should have been big news, right? Well, according to LexisNexis and Google news searches, not one major media outlet felt it was important enough to share with the citizenry.
Mr. President, Americans are not an 'angry mob'
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Mr_-President_-Americans-are-not-an-_angry-mob_-8076144-52674832.html
Excerpt: They aren't carrying swastikas, either, contrary to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's rant about the legions of worried citizens who have been standing up in multiple town halls and congressional forums to demand straight answers from their congressmen about what they are doing under the guise of "health-care reform." Pelosi's attempt to smear honest citizens as Nazis is only the most reprehensible manifestation of a White House-directed propaganda campaign to discredit anyone who disagrees with President Obama's health-care proposal. A growing list of major national surveys suggests that the people targeted by the campaign represent a clear majority of Americans, if not something very close to it. And they are being portrayed by some in their government as its enemy.
Meet the mob
http://thedanashow.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/meet-the-mob/
Funny by telling pictures
More on this story: Black Conservative Activist Beaten at Town Hall Meeting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTXBOgPCh9w&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fconservativepunk%2Ecom%2Farticles%2F2150%2F&feature=player_embedded
By liberal thugs, wearing union tee-shirts. Kenneth Gladney, a 38-year-old conservative activist from St. Louis, said he was attacked by some of those arrested as he handed out yellow flags with “Don’t tread on me” printed on them. He spoke to the Post-Dispatch from the emergency room of the St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, where he said he was waiting to be treated for injuries to his knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face that he suffered in the attack. Gladney, who is black, said one of his attackers, also a black man, used a racial slur against him before the attack started. “It just seems there’s no freedom of speech without being attacked,” he said.
And an interview:
http://www.dakotavoice.com/2009/08/interview-with-kenneth-gladney-man-assaulted-by-union-thugs-at-town-hall/
The Chutzpah of the Town Hall Libel
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/the_chutzpah_of_the_town_hall.html
Excerpt: You would also conclude that we have been asking for an honest debate about the pending health care -- a debate that entertains all viewpoints and does not shut anyone out -- constituents as well as conservatives in Congress. We have been asking for town hall meetings and have been turned down long before the seeds for your article had been planted; we have been writing letters, sending faxes and emails and making calls to our elected officials and, if we receive a response, it is usually from an ignorant intern or a vapid form letter that regurgitates the congressperson's position and reveals that he/she will vote his/her conscience regardless of the constituents' opinions. This is why, Bill, we took to the streets in the first place.
You Are Terrifying Us
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204908604574334623330098540.htmlExcerpt: What the town-hall meetings represent is a feeling of rebellion, an uprising against change they do not believe in. And the Democratic response has been stunningly crude and aggressive. It has been to attack. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the United States House of Representatives, accused the people at the meetings of “carrying swastikas and symbols like that.” (Apparently one protester held a hand-lettered sign with a “no” slash over a swastika.) But they are not Nazis, they’re Americans. Some of them looked like they’d actually spent some time fighting Nazis. Then came the Democratic Party charge that the people at the meetings were suspiciously well-dressed, in jackets and ties from Brooks Brothers. They must be Republican rent-a-mobs. Sen. Barbara Boxer said on MSNBC’s “Hardball” that people are “storming these town hall meetings,” that they were “well dressed,” that “this is all organized,” “all planned,” to “hurt our president.” Here she was projecting. For normal people, it’s not all about Barack Obama.
Pentagon Takes Aim at Jets for Congressional Travel
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124969431303416161.html
Private jest: bad for car company execs, good for Congresscritters.
Women demand law against genital mutilation
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027157.php
But they will face an uphill battle, with opposition sure to come from Islamic clerics. "Circumcision is obligatory (O: for both men and women. For men it consists of removing the prepuce from the penis, and for women, removing the prepuce (Ar. bazr) of the clitoris (n: not the clitoris itself, as some mistakenly assert). (A: Hanbalis hold that circumcision of women is not obligatory but sunna, while Hanafis consider it a mere courtesy to the husband.)" -- 'Umdat al-Salik e4.3.
Apologists for evil
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027146.php
Caption: The inimitable Pat Condell excoriates the liberal Left, of which he used to be a part, for its abandonment of its own stated principles and embrace of the jihad. Along the way, he explains why opposition to Islamic supremacism is not racism, exposes the truth about the manipulative, cynical term "Islamophobia," and even skewers those who try to connect him to the BNP and to a race-based approach to the resistance to the global jihad.
Quote
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.- George Bernard Shaw
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Go-to-a-Townhall-meeting-8072177-52606957.html
Two-hundred and eleven years ago, the party in the White House grew frustrated with public opposition to its policies and passed a law designed to stifle dissent. The Alien and Sedition Acts made it a crime to "print, utter, or publish .. any false, scandalous and malicious writing against the federal government, including the President." The law was the reigning Federalist Party's attempt to beat back an ascendant Democratic-Republican Party led by Thomas Jefferson in 1798. It backfired. An outraged American public elected Jefferson president in 1800. No record survives as to whether the Jeffersonian protestors were well-dressed or not, but something frighteningly similar is happening today. For the first time in a long time, the President of the United States is actively trying to suppress public involvement in civic life. Americans have an absolute right to petition our government and express dissent. It's right there in the 1st Amendment to the Constitution….
He’s come to save the day!
http://boortz.com/more/video/its_barack_obama.html
More fun from JibJab
Chicago 2016 Olympics: Member of city's bid team has deal to develop land near park earmarked for the Games
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-olympics-real-estate-07-aug07,0,4603832.story
I’m shocked! Shocked, I say.
How much is that old clunker on the car lift?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-oped0807goldbergaug07,0,2787266.story
Excerpt: For starters, who says the smartest thing for people with working cars is to buy new ones? Personal debt is supposed to be a problem, so why not look at this as bribing consumers into taking out car loans they don't need? Even with the $4,500 subsidy, not all of these customers are going to be paying cash for their new cars. So they'll be swapping serviceable-but-paid-for cars for nicer cars that are owned by banks.
Are Health Insurance Companies the Villains?
http://www.john-goodman-blog.com/are-health-insurance-companies-the-villains/#more-4600
Excerpt: So, when is the last time you heard about a life insurance company dropping someone's coverage because he got AIDS? Never happens. What about jacking up someone's life insurance premiums after the insured has a heart attack? Not a chance. How about dropping coverage just because a person changes jobs or retires? No way. Ever heard of a life insurer interfering with the doctor-patient relationship — say, pleading with the providers to keep the patient on life support so the company can delay paying the claim? Ridiculous. Then why does the market for life insurance work so well while the health insurance market seems so dysfunctional — even when the same insurers are in both markets? Answer: because of politicians. Politicians who think just like Nancy Pelosi thinks.
Is Obama Punking Us? (NYT?)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/opinion/09rich.html?_r=1
Excerpt: Yet there is real reason for longer-term worry in the form of a persistent, anecdotal drift toward disillusionment among some of the president’s supporters. And not merely those on the left. This concern was perhaps best articulated by an Obama voter, a real estate agent in Virginia, featured on the front page of The Washington Post last week. “Nothing’s changed for the common guy,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been punked.” She cited in particular the billions of dollars in bailouts given to banks that still “act like they’re broke.”
Paralympics Offer Wounded Veterans a Chance to Dream
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/08/AR2009080802129.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: When Maryland native Keith Buckman regained consciousness in a Bethesda hospital last July, he knew he would never again play football, basketball or soccer, the sports he had loved growing up in Forestville. He barely survived a 2008 suicide bombing in Iraq's Anbar province that killed 25 people, including three fellow Marines. His legs and one arm were shattered.
Wounded Soldiers Cast Off Burdens as They Fish on the Bay
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/08/AR2009080802434.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: The owners of Rod 'N' Reel, whose grandfather took wounded World War II veterans fishing in 1946, paid for the chartered fishing trips and donated the use of a refrigerated catering truck. The local hardware store offered American flags. Girl Scouts wrapped silverware. One volunteer baked 22 cakes, another drove from McLean to help grill fish, while a third showed up Saturday with a purse full of mints to hand out to the soldiers.
They were Soldiers, Scottish Soldiers (Jocks) — Tribute to our recently fallen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXdS34dxS0k&NR=1
Great tribute
Congressmen Took Exotic 'Climate Change' Junket
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/congress_climate_junket/2009/08/09/245746.html
Excerpt: Diving and snorkeling at Australia's Great Barrier Reef, watching New Year's fireworks in New Zealand, and sleeping in a luxury Hawaiian hotel is the vacation of a lifetime — unless you're a member of Congress. Then it's a fact-finding mission to study climate change.
C-SPAN Caller Blasts Media's Coverage of Town Hall Protests
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/08/09/c-span-caller-blasts-medias-depiction-town-hall-protesters
Excerpt: "When I watch the news people stand here and tell me that I am a member of a hired mob, that I've been called up by the Republican Party, they only wish they could have done something like this. I've never been contacted by any organized group."
Key Democrat Feels the Heat after Voting for House Plan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/09/AR2009080902428.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- "The war's on," says Rep. Baron P. Hill, and he's not talking about a conflict overseas, but a battle over health care in his own back yard, where thousands of people are trying to tell him what to do, some not so nicely. Hill is a leader of the Blue Dogs, the caucus of 51 conservative Democrats whose hard-bargaining support is critical to President Obama's bid to overhaul the health system. He came home on recess to find himself a target of groups that want to steer the August conversation and the autumn vote.
Georgia Democrat yells at local doctor over health care
http://www.washingtontimes.com/weblogs/back-story/2009/aug/08/georgia-democrat-rages-against-local-doctor-over-h/#comments
Excerpt: Tensions are running so high at town hall meetings that Rep. David Scott, a Georgia Democrat, yelled at a local doctor concerned about health care after mistaking him for an "astroturf" political operative looking for a fight. Mr. Scott became visibly agitated when one of his constituents, a practicing doctor, asked a few questions about health care reform during a town hall meeting. The meeting was held to discuss a road project, but was opened up for questions near the end. That's when Dr. Brian Hill stood up to speak. Dr. Hill asked Mr. Scott why he was going to vote for a health care plan similar to that implemented in Massachusetts "that is shown not to work" and if he supported a government-provided health care insurance option. The congressman replied by accusing the doctor of "hijacking" his event.
Harry Reid Will Only Do Town Halls by Telephone, Media Mum
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/08/09/harry-reid-will-only-do-telephone-town-halls-media-mum
Excerpt: The most powerful man in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), announced on Friday that as a result of recent protests at town hall meetings he won't hold any such political gatherings during this month's Congressional recess. Instead, he will only do what's called "telephone town halls" where he and his staff have complete control over the questions being asked and who's asking them. Should have been big news, right? Well, according to LexisNexis and Google news searches, not one major media outlet felt it was important enough to share with the citizenry.
Mr. President, Americans are not an 'angry mob'
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Mr_-President_-Americans-are-not-an-_angry-mob_-8076144-52674832.html
Excerpt: They aren't carrying swastikas, either, contrary to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's rant about the legions of worried citizens who have been standing up in multiple town halls and congressional forums to demand straight answers from their congressmen about what they are doing under the guise of "health-care reform." Pelosi's attempt to smear honest citizens as Nazis is only the most reprehensible manifestation of a White House-directed propaganda campaign to discredit anyone who disagrees with President Obama's health-care proposal. A growing list of major national surveys suggests that the people targeted by the campaign represent a clear majority of Americans, if not something very close to it. And they are being portrayed by some in their government as its enemy.
Meet the mob
http://thedanashow.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/meet-the-mob/
Funny by telling pictures
More on this story: Black Conservative Activist Beaten at Town Hall Meeting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTXBOgPCh9w&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fconservativepunk%2Ecom%2Farticles%2F2150%2F&feature=player_embedded
By liberal thugs, wearing union tee-shirts. Kenneth Gladney, a 38-year-old conservative activist from St. Louis, said he was attacked by some of those arrested as he handed out yellow flags with “Don’t tread on me” printed on them. He spoke to the Post-Dispatch from the emergency room of the St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, where he said he was waiting to be treated for injuries to his knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face that he suffered in the attack. Gladney, who is black, said one of his attackers, also a black man, used a racial slur against him before the attack started. “It just seems there’s no freedom of speech without being attacked,” he said.
And an interview:
http://www.dakotavoice.com/2009/08/interview-with-kenneth-gladney-man-assaulted-by-union-thugs-at-town-hall/
The Chutzpah of the Town Hall Libel
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/the_chutzpah_of_the_town_hall.html
Excerpt: You would also conclude that we have been asking for an honest debate about the pending health care -- a debate that entertains all viewpoints and does not shut anyone out -- constituents as well as conservatives in Congress. We have been asking for town hall meetings and have been turned down long before the seeds for your article had been planted; we have been writing letters, sending faxes and emails and making calls to our elected officials and, if we receive a response, it is usually from an ignorant intern or a vapid form letter that regurgitates the congressperson's position and reveals that he/she will vote his/her conscience regardless of the constituents' opinions. This is why, Bill, we took to the streets in the first place.
You Are Terrifying Us
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204908604574334623330098540.htmlExcerpt: What the town-hall meetings represent is a feeling of rebellion, an uprising against change they do not believe in. And the Democratic response has been stunningly crude and aggressive. It has been to attack. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the United States House of Representatives, accused the people at the meetings of “carrying swastikas and symbols like that.” (Apparently one protester held a hand-lettered sign with a “no” slash over a swastika.) But they are not Nazis, they’re Americans. Some of them looked like they’d actually spent some time fighting Nazis. Then came the Democratic Party charge that the people at the meetings were suspiciously well-dressed, in jackets and ties from Brooks Brothers. They must be Republican rent-a-mobs. Sen. Barbara Boxer said on MSNBC’s “Hardball” that people are “storming these town hall meetings,” that they were “well dressed,” that “this is all organized,” “all planned,” to “hurt our president.” Here she was projecting. For normal people, it’s not all about Barack Obama.
Pentagon Takes Aim at Jets for Congressional Travel
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124969431303416161.html
Private jest: bad for car company execs, good for Congresscritters.
Women demand law against genital mutilation
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027157.php
But they will face an uphill battle, with opposition sure to come from Islamic clerics. "Circumcision is obligatory (O: for both men and women. For men it consists of removing the prepuce from the penis, and for women, removing the prepuce (Ar. bazr) of the clitoris (n: not the clitoris itself, as some mistakenly assert). (A: Hanbalis hold that circumcision of women is not obligatory but sunna, while Hanafis consider it a mere courtesy to the husband.)" -- 'Umdat al-Salik e4.3.
Apologists for evil
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027146.php
Caption: The inimitable Pat Condell excoriates the liberal Left, of which he used to be a part, for its abandonment of its own stated principles and embrace of the jihad. Along the way, he explains why opposition to Islamic supremacism is not racism, exposes the truth about the manipulative, cynical term "Islamophobia," and even skewers those who try to connect him to the BNP and to a race-based approach to the resistance to the global jihad.
Quote
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.- George Bernard Shaw
Monday, August 10, 2009
Understanding Your Role
This was written by my Marine buddy, Del, and is posted with his permission:
1. IF you didn't vote for Obama, you are a racist (one exception- if you're Black, then you're a damn Oreo)
2. IF you object to the Health Care plan as proposed, you are a heartless capitalist who wants poor people to suffer & die
3. IF you object to Cap & Trade, you are not only a heartless capitalist but also a willing despoiler of the planet caring nothing for cuddly Polar bears or any life forms at all that live near an existing beach
4. IF you are a smoker, you are a suicidal fool who doesn't care about giving cancer to all the innocents who ever come near you
5. IF you are a male with even a remotely masculine appearance or way of speaking, you are a chauvinist and exploiter of women
6. IF you are a female, with a strong personality and any kind of successful history of accomplishments in science, business, politics, or life in general, and you are not very publicly and passionately in the prochoice camp, or you hold some conservative views, or (heaven forfend) you might even be a Republican, you are a traitor to your gender or a sellout to the male-dominated power structure or maybe just a dizzy bitch
7. IF you have any concerns at all about the possibility of a growing fetus having some sort of status as human life, you are a total religious nutcase who is eager to deny women any sort of rights over their own bodies
8. IF you are a practicing Christian of any sort and let it be known in any way, you are very likely a fundamentalist nut, intolerant, and profoundly biased against all other religions, agnostics, and atheists
9. IF you are anything less than enthusiastic about alternate lifestyles or sexual orientations, you are a narrow-minded bigot who hates anyone not exactly like yourself and are probably prone to vicious violence against anyone different
10. IF you don't understand that all problems between peoples and cultures are merely matters of poor communication and misunderstandings, and the onus is on us Western culture people to bend over backwards and then some to respect and really accommodate, while publicly proclaiming and apologizing for most of our past history, then you are an arrogant imperialist and also almost certainly a racist
11. IF you think that immigration into this country is a significant and those who come illegally need to be found and sent back to their home countries, you are again a racist, or simply a person who has no understanding of basic human rights
IF you volunteered for the military as enlisted, you are too stupid to go to college and get a good career, if as an officer, you are one of those macho idiots who thinks war, death, and destruction are fun
12. IF you are a veteran, and not in one of the antiwar groups, you are very possibly dangerous (like Timothy McVeigh), or a sad victim of PTSD, or another one of those violence-junkies who wear torn denim, lots of chains, and ride over decorated monster motorcycles or SUVs and are often involved in selling drugs
13. IF you oppose deficit spending, you have no understanding of modern economics, and are a greedy capitalist who despises the less fortunate (let them eat cake!)
14. IF you speak out at a congressman's town hall meeting, and disagree with him/her, you are a Right Wing Nut who was driven there by fringe elements and gets money from the extremist rich people of the GOP
15. IF you think New Black Panther thugs with nightsticks intimating voters in Philadelphia should be subject to the law and face prosecution, you are either a bigot or a denier of Free Speech, or both
16. IF you think that judicial decisions should be made on the basis of the law, rather than empathy for favored groups, you are an insensitive jerk and pretty much assured of being class conscious at least, if not outright racist
17. IF you think that the separation of powers in the Constitution really meant something, and that Jefferson was right when he said "That government which governs least, governs best", you don't understand the realities of modern life and are an impediment to progress
18. IF you are concerned about becoming less oil-dependent, but think that really updating our nuclear power technology (as the French have done) and simplifying the licensing and construction of nuclear plants and removing the obstacles to safe storage of nuclear waste underground in a geologically stable region really needs to be done, you are a total fool, and don't care in the least about the safety and health of all life forms on our continent (and are probably on the payroll of the energy industry that wants to get these plants built).
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Political Digest for August 9 2009
This didn't get published on time. Sorry. ~Bob
August 7: an anniversary, mostly forgotten
http://www.loriborgman.com/Archives/Remembering%20Guadalcanal.html
On August 7, 1942, the Marines landed in the Solomon Islands. They handily took possession of the airstrip on Guadalcanal but encountered fierce fighting across the sound on Tulagi and several smaller islands. Supplies were brought ashore, but air attacks hindered unloading cargo.Early August 9th, a stealth Japanese fleet arrived and destroyed four Allied cruisers and crippled a fifth. The remaining transports, carrying supplies and additional troops, departed. “When we woke up, everything was gone, our ships with our supplies, ammunition, artillery, all gone. The Japanese owned the sea, the air and started landing troops.”
Swampscott controversy carved in stone
http://www.itemlive.com/articles/2009/08/06/news/news01.txt
Excerpt: In Swampscott, some residents said the monument appeared too commercial, promoted patriotism and was carved in China. Others in town objected because the soldier depicted carries a machine gun. The Swampscott Historical Commission spoke out publicly against placing the monument in the Monument Avenue area because members said it did not keep with the character of the historic Olmstead district. Supporters of the monument are just as passionate, including the families of those who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.
(Massachusetts) Health care agency's payroll bloated
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1189479&format=text
When government runs healthcare: The payroll at the agency steering the state’s controversial universal health care effort has swollen to more than four times its original size in just 18 months - with a top-heavy bureaucracy led by dozens of high-paid managers… There is, for example, a chief communication officer, chief information officer, director of public affairs and chief marketing officer - all at six-figure salaries.
Three Lessons from Massachusetts
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba667
Excerpt: Lessons for America. Of all these developments, the most sobering one is the soaring waiting times to see a doctor. Previously, Massachusetts enjoyed the highest number of physicians per capita of any state, and it had one of the lowest rates of noninsured in the country. If any jurisdiction could have accommodated a surge of newly insured people it should have been Massachusetts. By contrast, California has half as many physicians per capita and twice the level of uninsured. Imagine what will happen to waiting times in California if all the uninsured suddenly become insured. As in Massachusetts, if they can't see a doctor on a timely basis, patients may seek treatment at hospital emergency rooms. But California doesn't have any excess capacity there, either. Waiting times in ERs will soar. Other big states like Texas and Florida are even less able than California to serve the newly insured.
10 Steps to Free Our Health Care System
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba669
Unfortunately, personal responsibility and freedom are not good politics.
Congressman Issa excoriates Rahm
http://republicans.oversight.house.gov/media/letters/20090804EmanuelStimulus.pdf
Forwarded from a Marine with this note: This letter is from the Oversight Committee to Rahm Emanuel. He CANNOT ignore it and must comply with the request to answer it on or before August 11, 2009. If he fails to comply, he is subject to a subpoena and sworn testimony before the committee, and possible legal penalties for official misconduct.
Town hall violence -- by Obama supporters
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Town-hall-violence----by-Obama-supporters-52640632.html
Excerpt: In Saint Louis, the Post-Dispatch reports that Kenneth Gladney, a conservative activist, was distributing Gadsden Flags at a town hall meeting for Rep. Russell Carnahan, D-Mo., when he was allegedly beaten by a group of Obama supporters. One of them reportedly flung racial epithets at him (he is black). Gladney ended up in the Emergency Room, and six people ended up in jail, including a reporter for the Post-Dispatch whom police accused of interfering. Carnahan was not present at the town hall when the incident happened.
Angry Mobs Department: That was then, this is now
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/That-was-then-this-is-now-52608562.html
Excerpt: Democrats screaming to high heaven about those disrupted town hall meetings could use a little refresher on recent history concerning their partisans' conduct in 2005 in response to President George W. Bush's attempt to get Congress to move on a genuine Social Security reform.
Union leaders live it up in bad economy
http://nrtw.org/en/blog/right-work-president-mark-mix-pjtv-08052009
Have to keep up appearances
AARP Town Hall Meeting on Health Care - Dallas, August 4, 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoMNDdQ1_h0
White-haired radicals! Need to report these Fishy people to BO for his enemies list!
Tax cut for trial lawyers
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/06/tax-cut-for-trial-lawyers/
Excerpt: Congress adjourns for August recess this week. As lawmakers try to explain to their constituents back home why the world's most advanced health care system should be altered, the one special interest that ought to be targeted is the only one that may get off scott-free -- trial lawyers. In fact, the lawyers want a tax cut.
A $191 Million Question
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/06/AR2009080603918.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: The tale of their four-year relationship is an allegory for the chronic problems afflicting the government's $532 billion procurement system. Reforms a decade ago, intended to make the system more efficient and entrepreneurial, had unintended consequences: insufficient oversight, conflicts of interest, unprecedented outsourcing and an endlessly revolving door that leads government officials into the offices of contractors. (But Government-run health care will be different & save money, you know.)
With Senate Vote, Congress Refuels 'Clunkers' Program
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/06/AR2009080601656.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Congratulations, your grandkids just bought a car….for someone else.
U.S. Official: 'Strong Indications' Pakistani Taliban Leader Baitullah Mehsud Is Dead
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/International/story?id=8270116&page=1
And some folks say the MSM doesn’t cover good news.
White House: 'War on terrorism' is over
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/06/white-house-war-terrorism-over/
we elected BO, and global warming has stopped, the war is won, Wise Latinas are deciding what the Constitution really means, and life is wonderful.
"They...cut their heads one after the other and thereafter, shouted allah akbar in wild celebration accompanied with several gun shots" http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027142.php
Whoops. Guess they didn’t get BO’s memo that Terror is defeated.
Health Care Reform: A Better Plan
http://townhall.com/columnists/CharlesKrauthammer/2009/08/07/health_care_reform_a_better_plan
Excerpt: This is all quite mad. It creates a Rube Goldberg system that simply multiplies the current inefficiencies and arbitrariness, thus producing staggering deficits with less choice and lower-quality care. That's why the administration can't sell Obamacare. The administration's defense is to accuse critics of being for the status quo. Nonsense. Candidate John McCain and a host of other Republicans since have offered alternatives. Let me offer mine: Strip away current inefficiencies before remaking one-sixth of the U.S. economy. The plan is so simple it doesn't even have the requisite three parts. Just two: radical tort reform and radically severing the link between health insurance and employment.
Orders Are Easy to Give, Just Hard to Carry Out
http://townhall.com/columnists/PaulGreenberg/2009/08/07/orders_are_easy_to_give,_just_hard_to_carry_out
Excerpt: In short, the more the Obama administration studies the difficulties this president invited when he announced that Guantanamo would be shuttered, the more it comes to adopt the Bush administration's way of dealing with these hard cases.
Questions to ask at town hall meetings
http://townhall.com/columnists/PaulDriessen/2009/08/07/questions_to_ask_at_town_hall_meetings
Excerpt: Global temperatures are not increasing. Thousands of scientists say humans and carbon dioxide are not causing a climate disaster. Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts and heat waves are not increasing. Emissions from China and India will quickly replace any CO2 reductions the United States might achieve by taxing and restricting fossil fuel use, crippling our economy, and hurting seniors and poor families most. Why does Congress refuse to allow real debate? Why does it simply assume and decree that we have a global warming crisis and must enact legislation immediately?
Cash for Codgers
https://mail.google.com/mail/?hl=en&zx=1mk7cesoioeh6&shva=1#inbox/122f499982aa8ebb
This is satire. I think. It’s so hard to tell nowadays.
August 7: an anniversary, mostly forgotten
http://www.loriborgman.com/Archives/Remembering%20Guadalcanal.html
On August 7, 1942, the Marines landed in the Solomon Islands. They handily took possession of the airstrip on Guadalcanal but encountered fierce fighting across the sound on Tulagi and several smaller islands. Supplies were brought ashore, but air attacks hindered unloading cargo.Early August 9th, a stealth Japanese fleet arrived and destroyed four Allied cruisers and crippled a fifth. The remaining transports, carrying supplies and additional troops, departed. “When we woke up, everything was gone, our ships with our supplies, ammunition, artillery, all gone. The Japanese owned the sea, the air and started landing troops.”
Swampscott controversy carved in stone
http://www.itemlive.com/articles/2009/08/06/news/news01.txt
Excerpt: In Swampscott, some residents said the monument appeared too commercial, promoted patriotism and was carved in China. Others in town objected because the soldier depicted carries a machine gun. The Swampscott Historical Commission spoke out publicly against placing the monument in the Monument Avenue area because members said it did not keep with the character of the historic Olmstead district. Supporters of the monument are just as passionate, including the families of those who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.
(Massachusetts) Health care agency's payroll bloated
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1189479&format=text
When government runs healthcare: The payroll at the agency steering the state’s controversial universal health care effort has swollen to more than four times its original size in just 18 months - with a top-heavy bureaucracy led by dozens of high-paid managers… There is, for example, a chief communication officer, chief information officer, director of public affairs and chief marketing officer - all at six-figure salaries.
Three Lessons from Massachusetts
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba667
Excerpt: Lessons for America. Of all these developments, the most sobering one is the soaring waiting times to see a doctor. Previously, Massachusetts enjoyed the highest number of physicians per capita of any state, and it had one of the lowest rates of noninsured in the country. If any jurisdiction could have accommodated a surge of newly insured people it should have been Massachusetts. By contrast, California has half as many physicians per capita and twice the level of uninsured. Imagine what will happen to waiting times in California if all the uninsured suddenly become insured. As in Massachusetts, if they can't see a doctor on a timely basis, patients may seek treatment at hospital emergency rooms. But California doesn't have any excess capacity there, either. Waiting times in ERs will soar. Other big states like Texas and Florida are even less able than California to serve the newly insured.
10 Steps to Free Our Health Care System
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba669
Unfortunately, personal responsibility and freedom are not good politics.
Congressman Issa excoriates Rahm
http://republicans.oversight.house.gov/media/letters/20090804EmanuelStimulus.pdf
Forwarded from a Marine with this note: This letter is from the Oversight Committee to Rahm Emanuel. He CANNOT ignore it and must comply with the request to answer it on or before August 11, 2009. If he fails to comply, he is subject to a subpoena and sworn testimony before the committee, and possible legal penalties for official misconduct.
Town hall violence -- by Obama supporters
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Town-hall-violence----by-Obama-supporters-52640632.html
Excerpt: In Saint Louis, the Post-Dispatch reports that Kenneth Gladney, a conservative activist, was distributing Gadsden Flags at a town hall meeting for Rep. Russell Carnahan, D-Mo., when he was allegedly beaten by a group of Obama supporters. One of them reportedly flung racial epithets at him (he is black). Gladney ended up in the Emergency Room, and six people ended up in jail, including a reporter for the Post-Dispatch whom police accused of interfering. Carnahan was not present at the town hall when the incident happened.
Angry Mobs Department: That was then, this is now
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/That-was-then-this-is-now-52608562.html
Excerpt: Democrats screaming to high heaven about those disrupted town hall meetings could use a little refresher on recent history concerning their partisans' conduct in 2005 in response to President George W. Bush's attempt to get Congress to move on a genuine Social Security reform.
Union leaders live it up in bad economy
http://nrtw.org/en/blog/right-work-president-mark-mix-pjtv-08052009
Have to keep up appearances
AARP Town Hall Meeting on Health Care - Dallas, August 4, 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoMNDdQ1_h0
White-haired radicals! Need to report these Fishy people to BO for his enemies list!
Tax cut for trial lawyers
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/06/tax-cut-for-trial-lawyers/
Excerpt: Congress adjourns for August recess this week. As lawmakers try to explain to their constituents back home why the world's most advanced health care system should be altered, the one special interest that ought to be targeted is the only one that may get off scott-free -- trial lawyers. In fact, the lawyers want a tax cut.
A $191 Million Question
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/06/AR2009080603918.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: The tale of their four-year relationship is an allegory for the chronic problems afflicting the government's $532 billion procurement system. Reforms a decade ago, intended to make the system more efficient and entrepreneurial, had unintended consequences: insufficient oversight, conflicts of interest, unprecedented outsourcing and an endlessly revolving door that leads government officials into the offices of contractors. (But Government-run health care will be different & save money, you know.)
With Senate Vote, Congress Refuels 'Clunkers' Program
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/06/AR2009080601656.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Congratulations, your grandkids just bought a car….for someone else.
U.S. Official: 'Strong Indications' Pakistani Taliban Leader Baitullah Mehsud Is Dead
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/International/story?id=8270116&page=1
And some folks say the MSM doesn’t cover good news.
White House: 'War on terrorism' is over
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/06/white-house-war-terrorism-over/
we elected BO, and global warming has stopped, the war is won, Wise Latinas are deciding what the Constitution really means, and life is wonderful.
"They...cut their heads one after the other and thereafter, shouted allah akbar in wild celebration accompanied with several gun shots" http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027142.php
Whoops. Guess they didn’t get BO’s memo that Terror is defeated.
Health Care Reform: A Better Plan
http://townhall.com/columnists/CharlesKrauthammer/2009/08/07/health_care_reform_a_better_plan
Excerpt: This is all quite mad. It creates a Rube Goldberg system that simply multiplies the current inefficiencies and arbitrariness, thus producing staggering deficits with less choice and lower-quality care. That's why the administration can't sell Obamacare. The administration's defense is to accuse critics of being for the status quo. Nonsense. Candidate John McCain and a host of other Republicans since have offered alternatives. Let me offer mine: Strip away current inefficiencies before remaking one-sixth of the U.S. economy. The plan is so simple it doesn't even have the requisite three parts. Just two: radical tort reform and radically severing the link between health insurance and employment.
Orders Are Easy to Give, Just Hard to Carry Out
http://townhall.com/columnists/PaulGreenberg/2009/08/07/orders_are_easy_to_give,_just_hard_to_carry_out
Excerpt: In short, the more the Obama administration studies the difficulties this president invited when he announced that Guantanamo would be shuttered, the more it comes to adopt the Bush administration's way of dealing with these hard cases.
Questions to ask at town hall meetings
http://townhall.com/columnists/PaulDriessen/2009/08/07/questions_to_ask_at_town_hall_meetings
Excerpt: Global temperatures are not increasing. Thousands of scientists say humans and carbon dioxide are not causing a climate disaster. Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts and heat waves are not increasing. Emissions from China and India will quickly replace any CO2 reductions the United States might achieve by taxing and restricting fossil fuel use, crippling our economy, and hurting seniors and poor families most. Why does Congress refuse to allow real debate? Why does it simply assume and decree that we have a global warming crisis and must enact legislation immediately?
Cash for Codgers
https://mail.google.com/mail/?hl=en&zx=1mk7cesoioeh6&shva=1#inbox/122f499982aa8ebb
This is satire. I think. It’s so hard to tell nowadays.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Bob's Political Digest for August 7 2009
Must Read: Texas is Winning the New Economic War Between the States
http://blogs.navellier.com/all_cap/entry/texas_is_winning_the_new_economic_war_between_the_states/
Jobs fleeing high tax states: We are a mobile nation. People can move easily enough (especially if they rent), and capital can move even faster. Capital, jobs, and businesses will go where they are most welcome, while capital leaves places where it is punished by higher taxes and over-regulation. Since all 50 states have a common currency and no border guards or toll gates, relocation is purely an economic decision. Capital says to governors: “Hurt me enough and I’ll divorce you.”
Former Congressman Convicted in Freezer Cash Case
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/05/AR2009080503195.html?hpid=topnews
Part of that Republican Culture of Corruption Nancy Pelosi campaigned against in 2006. Like Rep. Charlie Wrangle and the other tax cheats in the current administration. Oh, wait, they are Democrats. My bad—all is forgiven.
Democrats Say Angry Protesters Won't Derail Health-Care Town Halls
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/05/AR2009080502780.html?hpid=topnews
Just some fine community organizers, using ACORN tactics.
Voters nix health care proposals
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Voters-nix-health-care-proposals-52530437.html
Excerpt: You don’t do an unnatural thing like going to a congressman’s town hall meeting to express opposition to a health care proposal just because you got a robocall from someone from Cigna or Aetna. They don’t dragoon poor people into buses the way Acorn does. You go because you feel really, really strongly about some issue. There are, after all, organizers on both sides. The organizers favoring the Democratic health care plans aren’t able to generate any significant. The organizers opposing the Democratic health care plans are. And, as in the 2008 Obama campaign, a lot of people are turning out of their own spontaneous accord.
Obama's dissident database could be secret -- and permanent
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Obamas-dissident-database-could-be-secret----and-permanent-52571822.html
Kids! Be the first on your block to be on Obama’s enemies list! Somewhere, Richard Nixon is smiling.
Sen. Cornyn Sends Letter To President Obama About "Fishy" Activities Program
http://cornyn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ForPress.NewsReleases&ContentRecord_id=ebc2c77d-802a-23ad-4ae4-6ccf4c7a255c
Excerpt: "I am not aware of any precedent for a President asking American citizens to report their fellow citizens to the White House for pure political speech that is deemed ‘fishy' or otherwise inimical to the White House's political interests," Sen. Cornyn wrote. "You should not be surprised that these actions taken by your White House staff raise the specter of a data collection program. As Congress debates health care reform and other critical policy matters, citizen engagement must not be chilled by fear of government monitoring the exercise of free speech rights." Read it all!
U.S. Considers Remaking Mortgage Giants
'Bad Bank' Would Wipe the Slate Clean for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac by Taking Their Toxic Loans
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/05/AR2009080504063.html
What could go wrong? They can start over giving out political loans to favored groups who can’t pay, getting big bonuses for political-appointed executives like Franklin Raines. Democrat Congressmen can promise us that it won’t cost taxpayers a nickel, just like they did before. That will create a new housing bubble, as demand from people who can’t pay goes up. Working folks (like us) who buy at the top of the bubble will get creamed, but the Democrat Congressmen will get re-elected by the groups this gives cheap housing to. Then when it crashes, the rest of us can pay more to “keep people in their homes.” Gotta love it.
Scrap Health Care Reform If It Adds To Deficit, U.S. Voters Tell Quinnipiac University National Poll; Voters Disapprove Of Obama's Handling Of Health Care
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295.xml?ReleaseID=1357
The Awakening: By a 72 - 21 percent margin, voters do not believe that President Barack Obama will keep his promise to overhaul the health care system without adding to the deficit, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University national poll finds. American voters disapprove 52 - 39 percent of the way President Obama is handling health care, down from 46 - 42 percent approval July 1, with 60 - 34 percent disapproval from independent voters. Voters say 59 - 36 percent that Congress should not pass health care reform if only Democratic members support it.
Health Politics Quagmire
http://www.patriotpost.us/opinion/tony-blankley/2009/08/05/health-politics-quagmire.html
Excerpt: Ominously, according to the daily Gallup tracking poll of presidential job approval, not only was the public lowering its regard for the president's health policy but also, as the president was sent out every day by his staff to personally make health care arguments with which only about 40 percent of the public agreed, these attitudes started branding the president personally, and his overall job approval level slid almost a point a day for several days.
Saudi imam who called Jews "scum, rats, pigs, monkeys" speaks in London -- Geert Wilders still barred
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027136.php
Excerpt: Despite his sectarian, racist incitements that Jews are "scum...rats...pigs and monkeys," the chief cleric of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Sheikh Abdul Rahman al Sudais, has been welcomed and invited to preach at the East London mosque in Whitechapel tonight, Tuesday evening, 4 August 2009.
“We want the occupation of Islam in the entire world. Islam does not permit democracy or election."
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027133.php
More of the values BO says we share with Islam?
“Moderate” Fatah applauds as heroes jihadists who killed 37 Israeli civilians
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027130.php
Excerpt: Fatah, don't forget, is the "moderate" Palestinian faction to which the U.S. and E.U. are giving money and support, dreamily hoping that it will establish a stable, secure Palestinian State that will live in peace side-by-side with Israel.
Carbon Offsets: Scam, Not Salvation
http://www.powermag.com/issues/departments/commentary/Carbon-Offsets-Scam-Not-Salvation_2069.html
Wait, aren’t “carbon offsets” how Al Gore justifies his energy-hog lifestyle?
On Health Reform, Massachusetts is the Model
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18290
Excerpt: "RomneyCare" covers a family of four at a cost of at least $27,000 -- more than twice the average cost of employer-sponsored coverage ($12,680).
Clearing the Smoke on Obama’s Eligibility
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2303258/posts
I’m not a “birther”—there are fewer Republican birthers than there were Democrat “truthers” who thought Bush was behind 9/11. But I found this an interesting discussion of the background.
Ex-Marine fends off lion with chainsaw
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31951883/ns/us_news-life/?GT1=43001
The Corps is getting soft. In the Old Corps, we would have used a nail file.
Bumper Sticker
Redistribute my work ethic!
Quote
In the end more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free.--Edward Gibbon
http://blogs.navellier.com/all_cap/entry/texas_is_winning_the_new_economic_war_between_the_states/
Jobs fleeing high tax states: We are a mobile nation. People can move easily enough (especially if they rent), and capital can move even faster. Capital, jobs, and businesses will go where they are most welcome, while capital leaves places where it is punished by higher taxes and over-regulation. Since all 50 states have a common currency and no border guards or toll gates, relocation is purely an economic decision. Capital says to governors: “Hurt me enough and I’ll divorce you.”
Former Congressman Convicted in Freezer Cash Case
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/05/AR2009080503195.html?hpid=topnews
Part of that Republican Culture of Corruption Nancy Pelosi campaigned against in 2006. Like Rep. Charlie Wrangle and the other tax cheats in the current administration. Oh, wait, they are Democrats. My bad—all is forgiven.
Democrats Say Angry Protesters Won't Derail Health-Care Town Halls
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/05/AR2009080502780.html?hpid=topnews
Just some fine community organizers, using ACORN tactics.
Voters nix health care proposals
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Voters-nix-health-care-proposals-52530437.html
Excerpt: You don’t do an unnatural thing like going to a congressman’s town hall meeting to express opposition to a health care proposal just because you got a robocall from someone from Cigna or Aetna. They don’t dragoon poor people into buses the way Acorn does. You go because you feel really, really strongly about some issue. There are, after all, organizers on both sides. The organizers favoring the Democratic health care plans aren’t able to generate any significant. The organizers opposing the Democratic health care plans are. And, as in the 2008 Obama campaign, a lot of people are turning out of their own spontaneous accord.
Obama's dissident database could be secret -- and permanent
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Obamas-dissident-database-could-be-secret----and-permanent-52571822.html
Kids! Be the first on your block to be on Obama’s enemies list! Somewhere, Richard Nixon is smiling.
Sen. Cornyn Sends Letter To President Obama About "Fishy" Activities Program
http://cornyn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ForPress.NewsReleases&ContentRecord_id=ebc2c77d-802a-23ad-4ae4-6ccf4c7a255c
Excerpt: "I am not aware of any precedent for a President asking American citizens to report their fellow citizens to the White House for pure political speech that is deemed ‘fishy' or otherwise inimical to the White House's political interests," Sen. Cornyn wrote. "You should not be surprised that these actions taken by your White House staff raise the specter of a data collection program. As Congress debates health care reform and other critical policy matters, citizen engagement must not be chilled by fear of government monitoring the exercise of free speech rights." Read it all!
U.S. Considers Remaking Mortgage Giants
'Bad Bank' Would Wipe the Slate Clean for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac by Taking Their Toxic Loans
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/05/AR2009080504063.html
What could go wrong? They can start over giving out political loans to favored groups who can’t pay, getting big bonuses for political-appointed executives like Franklin Raines. Democrat Congressmen can promise us that it won’t cost taxpayers a nickel, just like they did before. That will create a new housing bubble, as demand from people who can’t pay goes up. Working folks (like us) who buy at the top of the bubble will get creamed, but the Democrat Congressmen will get re-elected by the groups this gives cheap housing to. Then when it crashes, the rest of us can pay more to “keep people in their homes.” Gotta love it.
Scrap Health Care Reform If It Adds To Deficit, U.S. Voters Tell Quinnipiac University National Poll; Voters Disapprove Of Obama's Handling Of Health Care
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295.xml?ReleaseID=1357
The Awakening: By a 72 - 21 percent margin, voters do not believe that President Barack Obama will keep his promise to overhaul the health care system without adding to the deficit, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University national poll finds. American voters disapprove 52 - 39 percent of the way President Obama is handling health care, down from 46 - 42 percent approval July 1, with 60 - 34 percent disapproval from independent voters. Voters say 59 - 36 percent that Congress should not pass health care reform if only Democratic members support it.
Health Politics Quagmire
http://www.patriotpost.us/opinion/tony-blankley/2009/08/05/health-politics-quagmire.html
Excerpt: Ominously, according to the daily Gallup tracking poll of presidential job approval, not only was the public lowering its regard for the president's health policy but also, as the president was sent out every day by his staff to personally make health care arguments with which only about 40 percent of the public agreed, these attitudes started branding the president personally, and his overall job approval level slid almost a point a day for several days.
Saudi imam who called Jews "scum, rats, pigs, monkeys" speaks in London -- Geert Wilders still barred
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027136.php
Excerpt: Despite his sectarian, racist incitements that Jews are "scum...rats...pigs and monkeys," the chief cleric of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Sheikh Abdul Rahman al Sudais, has been welcomed and invited to preach at the East London mosque in Whitechapel tonight, Tuesday evening, 4 August 2009.
“We want the occupation of Islam in the entire world. Islam does not permit democracy or election."
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027133.php
More of the values BO says we share with Islam?
“Moderate” Fatah applauds as heroes jihadists who killed 37 Israeli civilians
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027130.php
Excerpt: Fatah, don't forget, is the "moderate" Palestinian faction to which the U.S. and E.U. are giving money and support, dreamily hoping that it will establish a stable, secure Palestinian State that will live in peace side-by-side with Israel.
Carbon Offsets: Scam, Not Salvation
http://www.powermag.com/issues/departments/commentary/Carbon-Offsets-Scam-Not-Salvation_2069.html
Wait, aren’t “carbon offsets” how Al Gore justifies his energy-hog lifestyle?
On Health Reform, Massachusetts is the Model
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18290
Excerpt: "RomneyCare" covers a family of four at a cost of at least $27,000 -- more than twice the average cost of employer-sponsored coverage ($12,680).
Clearing the Smoke on Obama’s Eligibility
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2303258/posts
I’m not a “birther”—there are fewer Republican birthers than there were Democrat “truthers” who thought Bush was behind 9/11. But I found this an interesting discussion of the background.
Ex-Marine fends off lion with chainsaw
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31951883/ns/us_news-life/?GT1=43001
The Corps is getting soft. In the Old Corps, we would have used a nail file.
Bumper Sticker
Redistribute my work ethic!
Quote
In the end more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free.--Edward Gibbon
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Bob's Political Digest for August 6 2009
Veterans groups have ‘grave concerns’ on health bill
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/veterans-groups-have-grave-concerns-on-health-bill-2009-07-31.html
Excerpt: the groups state “the legislation could limit the health care choices for veterans, increase the cost of health care for veterans, deny coverage to dependent family members of veterans, and threaten the quality of health care offered to veterans through the VA health care system.”
Police called on retirees at senator's LA office
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/07/30/state/n184320D61.DTL
Who do they think they are? Citizens?
Christian woman faces 40 lashes in Sudan for wearing trousers
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027074.php
Waiting for the outcry from American feminists.
Lashley's Letter To Crowley
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/20230991/detail.html
Excerpt: One of the major problems stemming from the events of July 16 is that I, now known as 'the black Sergeant', have had my image plastered all over the Internet, television and newspapers. Subsequently, I have also become known, at least to some, as an 'Uncle Tom.'
You can bet on it: Obama will raise your taxes
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/You-can-bet-on-it_-Obama-will-raise-your-taxes-8060649-52382632.html
Excerpt: Obama is solidly popular (64 percent job approval) with voters making less than $24,000. But after that, his support starts to slide. Among the group making between $24,000 and $60,000, it's 53 percent. In the group between $60,000 and $90,000, it's 52 percent. Among those above $90,000, it's an even 50 percent. (While that last group includes anyone from Bill Gates down to a welder who works a lot of overtime, it's safe to say that most are clustered in the lower end of the scale, sharing many of the same concerns with those in the next-lower category.) In January, Obama's job approval rating among the two highest income groups was 69 and 67 percent, respectively. Now, more than a quarter of that support has disappeared. Put another way, a large segment of the broad middle class is dropping away from Obama.
One Year after Universal Car Care
http://www.theabsurdreport.com/2009/one-year-after-universal-car-care/
Too funny
Is Race for Governor More About Obama?
Some Voters Who Backed President Disillusioned Over Economic Pledges
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/04/AR2009080402787.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: For Cleland, it was another example -- one of many this day -- of the broken promises of a president who she thought would be different. Obama pledged to change a Washington culture that favored corporations and the connected and instead lift families such as the one sitting next to Cleland out of their economic funk. Rather, she said, Obama has backed billions of dollars to banks that continue to "act like they're broke" and started the country down a path that Cleland said she thinks will lead to more grief for the middle class. "He's just not as advertised," she said. "Nothing's changed for the common guy. I feel like I've been punked." (Gee, who would have guessed?)
How to Fix the Health-Care ‘Wedge’
There is an alternative to Obamacare
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204619004574324361508092006.html
Excerpt: The health-care wedge is an economic term that reflects the difference between what health-care costs the specific provider and what the patient actually pays. When health care is subsidized, no one should be surprised that people demand more of it and that the costs to produce it increase. Mr. Obama’s health-care plan does nothing to address the gap between the price paid and the price received. Instead, it’s like a negative tax: Costs rise and people demand more than they need…. A patient-centered health-care reform begins with individual ownership of insurance policies and leverages Health Savings Accounts, a low-premium, high-deductible alternative to traditional insurance that includes a tax-advantaged savings account. It allows people to purchase insurance policies across state lines and reduces the number of mandated benefits insurers are required to cover. It reallocates the majority of Medicaid spending into a simple voucher for low-income individuals to purchase their own insurance. And it reduces the cost of medical procedures by reforming tort liability laws.
Obama Energy Policies Will Hike Prices By 20 Percent
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/04/obama-energy-policies-will-hike-prices-by-20/
Excerpt: Barack Obama recently claimed — incorrectly — that he had yet to sign a bill that raised taxes, but the worst burdens will avoid the clear label of taxation. A new study by the Energy Information Administration, an arm of the Department of Energy, determines that the cap-and-trade bill passed by the House in June would hike energy costs to consumers by 20% by 2025.
Lawyers Emerge As Winners
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18287
No surprise-- and the Congress & many legislatures are now controlled by the Lawyers’ Party.
Did Secretary LaHood lie to Congress?
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Did-Secretary-LaHood-lie-to-Congress-52514122.html
BO’s tame IL Republican.
Special interests cash in on clunker boondoggle
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Special-interests-cash-in-on-clunker-boondoggle-52473487.html
Excerpt: And who are the customers? Not poor people — they don’t shell out five figures for new cars. No, this is a middle-class to upper-middle-class subsidy, which is probably why politicians love it so much. But the real benefit to business — and harm to the economy — comes after the car sale. The law requires the dealers destroy the “clunker” engine (which, to be eligible, was drivable upon trade-in), scrap the car and shred almost all its parts. This government-required waste reduces the supply of used cars on the road. Reduce the supply of drivable used cars, and you drive up the price of all cars.
Obama would stifle military and medical creativity
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Obama-would-stifle-military-and-medical-creativity-52473217.html
Excerpt: Cases in point: Most people in the rest of the world are free riders on the productivity and ingenuity of the American military and American medicine. They get the benefits of American military protection and American medical innovation without paying, or without paying in full, for them.
MS-13 Smuggles Muslim Terrorists into U.S.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.3901/pub_detail.asp
Probably they’ll get empathy from a wise Latina judge….
Canada vs. US Healthcare
http://www.larryjohnwright.com/tvspots/HeatherSandstrom.wmv
Video by a woman who has lived under both.
Care Versus Control
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2009/08/04/care_versus_control
Excerpt: Are decisions made by doctors who have treated the same patient for years to be over-ruled by bureaucrats sitting in front of computer screens in Washington, following guidelines drawn up with the idea of "bringing down the cost of medical care"?
The idea is even more absurd than the idea that you can add millions of people to a government medical care plan without increasing the costs. It is also more dangerous.
“We want a Christian-free society!”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027127.php
Excerpt: At the urging of local Muslim leaders, police in western Bangladesh have tortured a pastor and two other Christians for legally proclaiming Christ. (Ah those tolerant Muslims we keep hearing about.)
"In principle, Jihad is an offensive Jihad, which was instated in order to spread Islam throughout the world"
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027120.php
Excerpt: An American branch of this group met recently in Chicago. No one seemed to mind. Note also that when non-Muslims point out that according to mainstream Islamic teaching, "in principle, Jihad is an offensive Jihad, which was instated in order to spread Islam throughout the world," thuggish pseudo-moderate groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations charge them with "bigotry" and "Islamophobia." But don't hold your breath waiting for CAIR's Honest Ibe Hooper or Brave Ahmed Rehab to charge Salah Al-Din 'Adhadhda or Muhammad Ibrahim with "bigotry" and "Islamophobia."
House Orders Up Three Elite Jets
http://www.rollcall.com/media/37552-1.html
Excerpt: Last year, lawmakers excoriated the CEOs of the Big Three automakers for traveling to Washington, D.C., by private jet to attend a hearing about a possible bailout of their companies. But apparently Congress is not philosophically averse to private air travel: At the end of July, the House approved nearly $200 million for the Air Force to buy three elite Gulfstream jets for ferrying top government officials and Members of Congress. (Do as I say, not as I do.)
Hand Salute for Vets
SALUTING the FLAG: Traditionally, members of the nation’s veterans service organizations have rendered the hand-salute during the national anthem and at events involving the national flag only while wearing their organization’s official head-gear. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 contained an amendment to allow un-uniformed service members, military retirees, and veterans to render a hand salute during the hoisting, lowering, or passing of the U.S. flag. A later amendment further authorized hand-salutes during the national anthem by veterans and out-of-uniform military personnel. This was included in the Defense Authorization Act of 2009, which President Bush signed on 14 OCT 08. All other persons present should face the flag, or if applicable, remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. Citizens of other countries present should stand at attention. All such conduct toward the flag in a moving column should be rendered at the moment the flag passes.
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/veterans-groups-have-grave-concerns-on-health-bill-2009-07-31.html
Excerpt: the groups state “the legislation could limit the health care choices for veterans, increase the cost of health care for veterans, deny coverage to dependent family members of veterans, and threaten the quality of health care offered to veterans through the VA health care system.”
Police called on retirees at senator's LA office
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/07/30/state/n184320D61.DTL
Who do they think they are? Citizens?
Christian woman faces 40 lashes in Sudan for wearing trousers
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027074.php
Waiting for the outcry from American feminists.
Lashley's Letter To Crowley
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/20230991/detail.html
Excerpt: One of the major problems stemming from the events of July 16 is that I, now known as 'the black Sergeant', have had my image plastered all over the Internet, television and newspapers. Subsequently, I have also become known, at least to some, as an 'Uncle Tom.'
You can bet on it: Obama will raise your taxes
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/You-can-bet-on-it_-Obama-will-raise-your-taxes-8060649-52382632.html
Excerpt: Obama is solidly popular (64 percent job approval) with voters making less than $24,000. But after that, his support starts to slide. Among the group making between $24,000 and $60,000, it's 53 percent. In the group between $60,000 and $90,000, it's 52 percent. Among those above $90,000, it's an even 50 percent. (While that last group includes anyone from Bill Gates down to a welder who works a lot of overtime, it's safe to say that most are clustered in the lower end of the scale, sharing many of the same concerns with those in the next-lower category.) In January, Obama's job approval rating among the two highest income groups was 69 and 67 percent, respectively. Now, more than a quarter of that support has disappeared. Put another way, a large segment of the broad middle class is dropping away from Obama.
One Year after Universal Car Care
http://www.theabsurdreport.com/2009/one-year-after-universal-car-care/
Too funny
Is Race for Governor More About Obama?
Some Voters Who Backed President Disillusioned Over Economic Pledges
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/04/AR2009080402787.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: For Cleland, it was another example -- one of many this day -- of the broken promises of a president who she thought would be different. Obama pledged to change a Washington culture that favored corporations and the connected and instead lift families such as the one sitting next to Cleland out of their economic funk. Rather, she said, Obama has backed billions of dollars to banks that continue to "act like they're broke" and started the country down a path that Cleland said she thinks will lead to more grief for the middle class. "He's just not as advertised," she said. "Nothing's changed for the common guy. I feel like I've been punked." (Gee, who would have guessed?)
How to Fix the Health-Care ‘Wedge’
There is an alternative to Obamacare
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204619004574324361508092006.html
Excerpt: The health-care wedge is an economic term that reflects the difference between what health-care costs the specific provider and what the patient actually pays. When health care is subsidized, no one should be surprised that people demand more of it and that the costs to produce it increase. Mr. Obama’s health-care plan does nothing to address the gap between the price paid and the price received. Instead, it’s like a negative tax: Costs rise and people demand more than they need…. A patient-centered health-care reform begins with individual ownership of insurance policies and leverages Health Savings Accounts, a low-premium, high-deductible alternative to traditional insurance that includes a tax-advantaged savings account. It allows people to purchase insurance policies across state lines and reduces the number of mandated benefits insurers are required to cover. It reallocates the majority of Medicaid spending into a simple voucher for low-income individuals to purchase their own insurance. And it reduces the cost of medical procedures by reforming tort liability laws.
Obama Energy Policies Will Hike Prices By 20 Percent
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/04/obama-energy-policies-will-hike-prices-by-20/
Excerpt: Barack Obama recently claimed — incorrectly — that he had yet to sign a bill that raised taxes, but the worst burdens will avoid the clear label of taxation. A new study by the Energy Information Administration, an arm of the Department of Energy, determines that the cap-and-trade bill passed by the House in June would hike energy costs to consumers by 20% by 2025.
Lawyers Emerge As Winners
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18287
No surprise-- and the Congress & many legislatures are now controlled by the Lawyers’ Party.
Did Secretary LaHood lie to Congress?
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Did-Secretary-LaHood-lie-to-Congress-52514122.html
BO’s tame IL Republican.
Special interests cash in on clunker boondoggle
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Special-interests-cash-in-on-clunker-boondoggle-52473487.html
Excerpt: And who are the customers? Not poor people — they don’t shell out five figures for new cars. No, this is a middle-class to upper-middle-class subsidy, which is probably why politicians love it so much. But the real benefit to business — and harm to the economy — comes after the car sale. The law requires the dealers destroy the “clunker” engine (which, to be eligible, was drivable upon trade-in), scrap the car and shred almost all its parts. This government-required waste reduces the supply of used cars on the road. Reduce the supply of drivable used cars, and you drive up the price of all cars.
Obama would stifle military and medical creativity
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Obama-would-stifle-military-and-medical-creativity-52473217.html
Excerpt: Cases in point: Most people in the rest of the world are free riders on the productivity and ingenuity of the American military and American medicine. They get the benefits of American military protection and American medical innovation without paying, or without paying in full, for them.
MS-13 Smuggles Muslim Terrorists into U.S.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.3901/pub_detail.asp
Probably they’ll get empathy from a wise Latina judge….
Canada vs. US Healthcare
http://www.larryjohnwright.com/tvspots/HeatherSandstrom.wmv
Video by a woman who has lived under both.
Care Versus Control
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2009/08/04/care_versus_control
Excerpt: Are decisions made by doctors who have treated the same patient for years to be over-ruled by bureaucrats sitting in front of computer screens in Washington, following guidelines drawn up with the idea of "bringing down the cost of medical care"?
The idea is even more absurd than the idea that you can add millions of people to a government medical care plan without increasing the costs. It is also more dangerous.
“We want a Christian-free society!”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027127.php
Excerpt: At the urging of local Muslim leaders, police in western Bangladesh have tortured a pastor and two other Christians for legally proclaiming Christ. (Ah those tolerant Muslims we keep hearing about.)
"In principle, Jihad is an offensive Jihad, which was instated in order to spread Islam throughout the world"
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027120.php
Excerpt: An American branch of this group met recently in Chicago. No one seemed to mind. Note also that when non-Muslims point out that according to mainstream Islamic teaching, "in principle, Jihad is an offensive Jihad, which was instated in order to spread Islam throughout the world," thuggish pseudo-moderate groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations charge them with "bigotry" and "Islamophobia." But don't hold your breath waiting for CAIR's Honest Ibe Hooper or Brave Ahmed Rehab to charge Salah Al-Din 'Adhadhda or Muhammad Ibrahim with "bigotry" and "Islamophobia."
House Orders Up Three Elite Jets
http://www.rollcall.com/media/37552-1.html
Excerpt: Last year, lawmakers excoriated the CEOs of the Big Three automakers for traveling to Washington, D.C., by private jet to attend a hearing about a possible bailout of their companies. But apparently Congress is not philosophically averse to private air travel: At the end of July, the House approved nearly $200 million for the Air Force to buy three elite Gulfstream jets for ferrying top government officials and Members of Congress. (Do as I say, not as I do.)
Hand Salute for Vets
SALUTING the FLAG: Traditionally, members of the nation’s veterans service organizations have rendered the hand-salute during the national anthem and at events involving the national flag only while wearing their organization’s official head-gear. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 contained an amendment to allow un-uniformed service members, military retirees, and veterans to render a hand salute during the hoisting, lowering, or passing of the U.S. flag. A later amendment further authorized hand-salutes during the national anthem by veterans and out-of-uniform military personnel. This was included in the Defense Authorization Act of 2009, which President Bush signed on 14 OCT 08. All other persons present should face the flag, or if applicable, remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. Citizens of other countries present should stand at attention. All such conduct toward the flag in a moving column should be rendered at the moment the flag passes.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Bob's Political Digest for August 5 2009
Bureaucrats
We just received the title for one of our cars here in Illinois. My wife’s name was spelled “Borrie” instead off Bonnie. Address was slightly off as well. Boy, am I looking forward to having government employees making my health care decisions.
Scam alert
For convenience and frequent flyer miles, we pay almost everything by credit card, which we pay off monthly, giving us a high bill. I scan it, but tend to think my wife made small charges. In the last couple of months, I’ve discovered two or three small charges, $15 to $230, for items I didn’t recognize. Turned out when we’d clicked “I accept” on terms and conditions on some site we bought something from, we were signing up for some web service we never used, or remembers. (Don’t kid me, you don’t read all that lawyerese either.) So if you give a site your credit card, be careful of “I accept”—and check your bill carefully. The scumbags are multiplying.
Burial as Sea
http://www.marinecorpsgazette-digital.com/marinecorpsgazette/200709/?pg=63
Having served on burial detail for a month, this is a tough piece to read
Obama's birth debate: It's about loyalty (A must read!)
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/07/obamas_birth_debate_its_about.html
Excerpt: The birth debate about Obama is real enough, but it is legally complicated, as analyzed by legal beagle Andrew McCarthy at National Review. No judge is going to question the Constitutional qualifications of an elected president. I'm sorry, but that's the practical reality. The judge is going to follow stare decisis -- the sheer weight of commitments that cannot be reversed without creating chaos. Once the political system of the United States, the voters, the media, and the politicians themselves are all committed to the proposition that Obama is president, trying to reverse it would mean riots in every city in the nation. At some point even debatable claims become irreversible. That is why Al Franken is now the US Senator from Minnesota, even if his election was corrupt and wrong. It's water under the bridge. Leave it to history.
And yet the Obama "birther" debate is important. What's important about it is the feeling a growing number of Americans have in their bones that Obama is foreign -- to our traditions, loyalties and shared understandings about the nature of America. In a way the legal debate matters less than that bone-deep sense that Obama is fundamentally "Other than American."
Mom Christens Warship in Memory of N.Y. Marine
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/01/AR2009080102289.html?wpisrc=newsletter
In a decent world, there would have been no coverage of Michael Jackson’s funeral, and everyone would know the name of Jason Dunham.
Utopia Versus Freedom
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2009/08/04/utopia_versus_freedom
Excerpt: "Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom." We have heard that many times. What is also the price of freedom is the toleration of imperfections. If everything that is wrong with the world becomes a reason to turn more power over to some political savior, then freedom is going to erode away, while we are mindlessly repeating the catchwords of the hour, whether "change," "universal health care" or "social justice."
Dems vow health bill
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32272906/ns/politics-capitol_hill/
Bipartisan mean you must do it my way.
Russia Sends Signal to Israel
http://www.foundingbloggers.com/wordpress/2009/07/russia-sends-signal-to-israel/
Excerpt: If Israel attacks Iran, and Russia attacks Israel, will President Obama watch the Jewish state die, sacrificing her in a futile attempt to position the country for a post-Israel grand bargain with the Islamists? Or will he defend our ally?
Would You Buy a Used Kidney From This Man?
They botched clunkfare. Hey, let’s let ’em run health care!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204619004574322281597739634.html
Excerpt: Higher Taxes for All! (Except Ambulance Chasers.) Democrats in Congress have finally found a tax cut they can get behind, Legal Newsline reports: Federal legislation that would afford trial lawyers a special tax break faces an uncertain future, says one of the chief lobbyists for the nation’s trial lawyers.
The proposal would allow attorneys to deduct fees and expenses up-front for filing contingency-fee lawsuits. The proposal amounts to about a $1.6 billion tax break for plaintiffs’ attorneys, estimates indicate. “Everyone wants to do it, but the problem is there is not a tax vehicle yet,” said Linda Lipsen, American Association for Justice (AAJ) Senior Vice President of Public Affairs. . . .“You cannot have a stand alone bill to help lawyers … so we have to tuck it into something,” she said
'Pelosi jobs tax' pairs up with ObamaCare
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=626022
Excerpt: Herrick says labor and health economists both have documented that health benefits are essentially part of an employee's compensation -- employers do not pay for that, workers do. That is why he contends minimum-wage workers in small businesses will be hit the hardest -- they will either be laid off, or in many cases not get the job because their skills are too marginal to afford the cost of a Cadillac health plan.
Germans Hoarding Traditional Light Bulbs
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,638494,00.html
Environmentalists hit by the Law of Unintended Consequences yet again.
Public insurance pays for 4 in 10 Emergency Room visits.
http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/statbriefs/sb77.pdf
Wonder why things cost so much?
The Triumph of Hope over Experience
http://townhall.com/columnists/HoraceCooper/2009/08/03/the_triumph_of_hope_over_experience
I’d call it the inevitable triumph of economic realities over hope.
Australia jihad bust: "The alleged offenders were prepared to inflict a sustained attack on military personnel until they themselves were killed"
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027116.php
If the jihadists kill enough Americans, it will cut the national healthcare bill. Maybe that’s BO’s plan to save money.
Muslims Persecute Christians
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027105.php
Yawn. Wake me if a Jew or Christian offends a Muslim in any way.
Iranian civilian plane that crashed was carrying arms to Hizballah
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027104.php
Excerpt: "According to the sources, the plane was meant to transfer the fuses from Iran to Armenia, and from there to Syria through Turkey, and then on the ground to Lebanon. This route was chosen, according to exiled opposition sources, so as not to draw attention." Whoops.
Pakistan: Eight Christians burned alive
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027100.php
BO’s Religion of Peace and Tolerance?
German charity for Lebanese orphans is raising cash for Hizballah suicide bombers
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027097.php
Yet another manifestation of the “religion of Peace.”
Barack Obama courts human rights abusers in Taliban fight
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/5949217/Barack-Obama-courts-human-rights-abusers-in-Taliban-fight.html
What could go wrong?
British Patients Forced to Live in Agony
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18282
In England, the government's drug rationing watchdog says "therapeutic" injections of steroids, such as cortisone, which are used to reduce inflammation, should no longer be offered to patients suffering from persistent lower back pain when the cause is not known. Instead the National Institute of Health (NHW) and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is ordering doctors to offer patients remedies like acupuncture and osteopathy, says the Telegraph.
A better model for malpractice system
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-howard_03edi.State.Edition1.1fa369e.html
Excerpt: Health care reform is bogged down because none of the bills before Congress deal with the staggering waste of the current system, estimated to be $700 billion to $1 trillion annually. The waste flows from a culture of health care in which every incentive is to do more – that's how doctors make money, and that's how they protect themselves from lawsuits.
N. Korea Says Two U.S. Journalists Have Been Pardoned
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/04/AR2009080400684.html
They released the two women to Bill Clinton. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment.
What is sustainable?
I received this via e-mail. Cannot find a web link, but presume the good doctor won’t mind. I’m rather afraid to publish it, lest the Obama Administration declare entertainment a “right” and have the government take it over.
The Dirty Little Secret about Healthcare Expenditures.
For the longest time, we have been bombarded with messages from the President and Congress about the rising costs of healthcare. It seems that we are constantly being reminded about the “unacceptability” of healthcare costs in this country and their “unsustainability.” The answer, I am told, is to reign in healthcare expenditures and slash the costs of everything healthcare, including the payment to those who perform the services. In the midst of all this political chatter, however, I find myself asking, if we are spending too much on unsustainable vices such as healthcare, then just what do we spend on the really important things in life…like entertainment?
According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average individual expenditure on health care for 2007 was $2,853.00 per year. During the same year, the Bureau tells us, Americans spent $2,698.00 on entertainment. The numbers translate to a total $858.7 billion on health care and $812.1 billion on entertainment.
Digging a little deeper, in 1995 the per capita expenditure on healthcare was $1,732.00 translating to a total national expenditure of $455.2 billion. For entertainment, the 1995 individual and total expenditures were $1612.00 and $424.0 billion, respectively. During the period spanning from 1995 to 2007, the average per capita expenditure on healthcare rose by 65%, while for entertainment the change was 67%. For the same the period, the percentage change on the total national expenditure on healthcare was 89%, while for entertainment, it was 92%...remarkably similar statistics in both sizes and trends.
After reviewing these numbers and their marked similarities one is immediately brought to the obvious question over the difference in attention. Phrased differently, if we are spending similar amounts as a country in both healthcare and entertainment, and if both expenditures categories are growing at surprisingly similar rates, then why is the expenditure on healthcare deemed to be “unacceptable” and “unsustainable” while the expenditure on entertainment is not? Why is it further, that our country’s leaders would deem it necessary to regulate the expenditures on healthcare, but not those on entertainment?
One could argue of course, that when we get sick, we don’t have the option of not spending on our health. One could also argue that when we need it, obtaining healthcare is not optional. However, it is precisely that the converse is true about entertainment that makes this argument disintegrate under any semblance of intellectual scrutiny. It is precisely because entertainment and needless spending is such an unnecessary part of our budgets that one would think we would allocate at least some of these resources to our care and less to these idle pleasures. It would further seem tempting for a social engineer to try to dissuade the country from spending as much on entertainment so that those moneys could be more wisely allocated to healthcare.
These thoughts take on extra significance under the weight of the average salaries for professional athletes. Basketball players, on the average, make in the order of $5 million, baseball players, $2.8 million, football players, $1.75 million and hockey players, $1.0 million.
In the movie industry, it is not uncommon for Tom Cruise to be paid $15 million to star in a movie while Will Smith earned $35 million for his appearance in Hitch, and Denzel Washington earned $30 million to appear in Inside Man. In the meantime the person that you call to crack your chest open in the middle of the night or to take out your brain tumor is barely making enough money to keep his or her office open and certainly not enough to entice the best and the brightest of our present generations to consider going into the profession. All the while, Hugh Laurie, portrayer of Gregory House in the successful TV series, gets paid $9 million to pretend to save a life.
So, as we continue our debate on healthcare and how we wish to pay for it, wouldn’t it be appropriate to really ask ourselves, just what is unsustainable, and just what is unacceptable? A true, introspective response will surely reveal an answer that our politicians and the media are irresponsibly refusing to touch.
Julio Gonzalez, MD
Venice, Florida
School for Judges?
I’d think I’d like to be a judge. Is there a school where I can learn to be a “Wise Latina” so I can make better decisions?
We just received the title for one of our cars here in Illinois. My wife’s name was spelled “Borrie” instead off Bonnie. Address was slightly off as well. Boy, am I looking forward to having government employees making my health care decisions.
Scam alert
For convenience and frequent flyer miles, we pay almost everything by credit card, which we pay off monthly, giving us a high bill. I scan it, but tend to think my wife made small charges. In the last couple of months, I’ve discovered two or three small charges, $15 to $230, for items I didn’t recognize. Turned out when we’d clicked “I accept” on terms and conditions on some site we bought something from, we were signing up for some web service we never used, or remembers. (Don’t kid me, you don’t read all that lawyerese either.) So if you give a site your credit card, be careful of “I accept”—and check your bill carefully. The scumbags are multiplying.
Burial as Sea
http://www.marinecorpsgazette-digital.com/marinecorpsgazette/200709/?pg=63
Having served on burial detail for a month, this is a tough piece to read
Obama's birth debate: It's about loyalty (A must read!)
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/07/obamas_birth_debate_its_about.html
Excerpt: The birth debate about Obama is real enough, but it is legally complicated, as analyzed by legal beagle Andrew McCarthy at National Review. No judge is going to question the Constitutional qualifications of an elected president. I'm sorry, but that's the practical reality. The judge is going to follow stare decisis -- the sheer weight of commitments that cannot be reversed without creating chaos. Once the political system of the United States, the voters, the media, and the politicians themselves are all committed to the proposition that Obama is president, trying to reverse it would mean riots in every city in the nation. At some point even debatable claims become irreversible. That is why Al Franken is now the US Senator from Minnesota, even if his election was corrupt and wrong. It's water under the bridge. Leave it to history.
And yet the Obama "birther" debate is important. What's important about it is the feeling a growing number of Americans have in their bones that Obama is foreign -- to our traditions, loyalties and shared understandings about the nature of America. In a way the legal debate matters less than that bone-deep sense that Obama is fundamentally "Other than American."
Mom Christens Warship in Memory of N.Y. Marine
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/01/AR2009080102289.html?wpisrc=newsletter
In a decent world, there would have been no coverage of Michael Jackson’s funeral, and everyone would know the name of Jason Dunham.
Utopia Versus Freedom
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2009/08/04/utopia_versus_freedom
Excerpt: "Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom." We have heard that many times. What is also the price of freedom is the toleration of imperfections. If everything that is wrong with the world becomes a reason to turn more power over to some political savior, then freedom is going to erode away, while we are mindlessly repeating the catchwords of the hour, whether "change," "universal health care" or "social justice."
Dems vow health bill
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32272906/ns/politics-capitol_hill/
Bipartisan mean you must do it my way.
Russia Sends Signal to Israel
http://www.foundingbloggers.com/wordpress/2009/07/russia-sends-signal-to-israel/
Excerpt: If Israel attacks Iran, and Russia attacks Israel, will President Obama watch the Jewish state die, sacrificing her in a futile attempt to position the country for a post-Israel grand bargain with the Islamists? Or will he defend our ally?
Would You Buy a Used Kidney From This Man?
They botched clunkfare. Hey, let’s let ’em run health care!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204619004574322281597739634.html
Excerpt: Higher Taxes for All! (Except Ambulance Chasers.) Democrats in Congress have finally found a tax cut they can get behind, Legal Newsline reports: Federal legislation that would afford trial lawyers a special tax break faces an uncertain future, says one of the chief lobbyists for the nation’s trial lawyers.
The proposal would allow attorneys to deduct fees and expenses up-front for filing contingency-fee lawsuits. The proposal amounts to about a $1.6 billion tax break for plaintiffs’ attorneys, estimates indicate. “Everyone wants to do it, but the problem is there is not a tax vehicle yet,” said Linda Lipsen, American Association for Justice (AAJ) Senior Vice President of Public Affairs. . . .“You cannot have a stand alone bill to help lawyers … so we have to tuck it into something,” she said
'Pelosi jobs tax' pairs up with ObamaCare
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=626022
Excerpt: Herrick says labor and health economists both have documented that health benefits are essentially part of an employee's compensation -- employers do not pay for that, workers do. That is why he contends minimum-wage workers in small businesses will be hit the hardest -- they will either be laid off, or in many cases not get the job because their skills are too marginal to afford the cost of a Cadillac health plan.
Germans Hoarding Traditional Light Bulbs
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,638494,00.html
Environmentalists hit by the Law of Unintended Consequences yet again.
Public insurance pays for 4 in 10 Emergency Room visits.
http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/statbriefs/sb77.pdf
Wonder why things cost so much?
The Triumph of Hope over Experience
http://townhall.com/columnists/HoraceCooper/2009/08/03/the_triumph_of_hope_over_experience
I’d call it the inevitable triumph of economic realities over hope.
Australia jihad bust: "The alleged offenders were prepared to inflict a sustained attack on military personnel until they themselves were killed"
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027116.php
If the jihadists kill enough Americans, it will cut the national healthcare bill. Maybe that’s BO’s plan to save money.
Muslims Persecute Christians
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027105.php
Yawn. Wake me if a Jew or Christian offends a Muslim in any way.
Iranian civilian plane that crashed was carrying arms to Hizballah
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027104.php
Excerpt: "According to the sources, the plane was meant to transfer the fuses from Iran to Armenia, and from there to Syria through Turkey, and then on the ground to Lebanon. This route was chosen, according to exiled opposition sources, so as not to draw attention." Whoops.
Pakistan: Eight Christians burned alive
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027100.php
BO’s Religion of Peace and Tolerance?
German charity for Lebanese orphans is raising cash for Hizballah suicide bombers
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027097.php
Yet another manifestation of the “religion of Peace.”
Barack Obama courts human rights abusers in Taliban fight
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/5949217/Barack-Obama-courts-human-rights-abusers-in-Taliban-fight.html
What could go wrong?
British Patients Forced to Live in Agony
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18282
In England, the government's drug rationing watchdog says "therapeutic" injections of steroids, such as cortisone, which are used to reduce inflammation, should no longer be offered to patients suffering from persistent lower back pain when the cause is not known. Instead the National Institute of Health (NHW) and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is ordering doctors to offer patients remedies like acupuncture and osteopathy, says the Telegraph.
A better model for malpractice system
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-howard_03edi.State.Edition1.1fa369e.html
Excerpt: Health care reform is bogged down because none of the bills before Congress deal with the staggering waste of the current system, estimated to be $700 billion to $1 trillion annually. The waste flows from a culture of health care in which every incentive is to do more – that's how doctors make money, and that's how they protect themselves from lawsuits.
N. Korea Says Two U.S. Journalists Have Been Pardoned
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/04/AR2009080400684.html
They released the two women to Bill Clinton. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment.
What is sustainable?
I received this via e-mail. Cannot find a web link, but presume the good doctor won’t mind. I’m rather afraid to publish it, lest the Obama Administration declare entertainment a “right” and have the government take it over.
The Dirty Little Secret about Healthcare Expenditures.
For the longest time, we have been bombarded with messages from the President and Congress about the rising costs of healthcare. It seems that we are constantly being reminded about the “unacceptability” of healthcare costs in this country and their “unsustainability.” The answer, I am told, is to reign in healthcare expenditures and slash the costs of everything healthcare, including the payment to those who perform the services. In the midst of all this political chatter, however, I find myself asking, if we are spending too much on unsustainable vices such as healthcare, then just what do we spend on the really important things in life…like entertainment?
According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average individual expenditure on health care for 2007 was $2,853.00 per year. During the same year, the Bureau tells us, Americans spent $2,698.00 on entertainment. The numbers translate to a total $858.7 billion on health care and $812.1 billion on entertainment.
Digging a little deeper, in 1995 the per capita expenditure on healthcare was $1,732.00 translating to a total national expenditure of $455.2 billion. For entertainment, the 1995 individual and total expenditures were $1612.00 and $424.0 billion, respectively. During the period spanning from 1995 to 2007, the average per capita expenditure on healthcare rose by 65%, while for entertainment the change was 67%. For the same the period, the percentage change on the total national expenditure on healthcare was 89%, while for entertainment, it was 92%...remarkably similar statistics in both sizes and trends.
After reviewing these numbers and their marked similarities one is immediately brought to the obvious question over the difference in attention. Phrased differently, if we are spending similar amounts as a country in both healthcare and entertainment, and if both expenditures categories are growing at surprisingly similar rates, then why is the expenditure on healthcare deemed to be “unacceptable” and “unsustainable” while the expenditure on entertainment is not? Why is it further, that our country’s leaders would deem it necessary to regulate the expenditures on healthcare, but not those on entertainment?
One could argue of course, that when we get sick, we don’t have the option of not spending on our health. One could also argue that when we need it, obtaining healthcare is not optional. However, it is precisely that the converse is true about entertainment that makes this argument disintegrate under any semblance of intellectual scrutiny. It is precisely because entertainment and needless spending is such an unnecessary part of our budgets that one would think we would allocate at least some of these resources to our care and less to these idle pleasures. It would further seem tempting for a social engineer to try to dissuade the country from spending as much on entertainment so that those moneys could be more wisely allocated to healthcare.
These thoughts take on extra significance under the weight of the average salaries for professional athletes. Basketball players, on the average, make in the order of $5 million, baseball players, $2.8 million, football players, $1.75 million and hockey players, $1.0 million.
In the movie industry, it is not uncommon for Tom Cruise to be paid $15 million to star in a movie while Will Smith earned $35 million for his appearance in Hitch, and Denzel Washington earned $30 million to appear in Inside Man. In the meantime the person that you call to crack your chest open in the middle of the night or to take out your brain tumor is barely making enough money to keep his or her office open and certainly not enough to entice the best and the brightest of our present generations to consider going into the profession. All the while, Hugh Laurie, portrayer of Gregory House in the successful TV series, gets paid $9 million to pretend to save a life.
So, as we continue our debate on healthcare and how we wish to pay for it, wouldn’t it be appropriate to really ask ourselves, just what is unsustainable, and just what is unacceptable? A true, introspective response will surely reveal an answer that our politicians and the media are irresponsibly refusing to touch.
Julio Gonzalez, MD
Venice, Florida
School for Judges?
I’d think I’d like to be a judge. Is there a school where I can learn to be a “Wise Latina” so I can make better decisions?
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Things I don't Understand
There’s a lot in this world that I don’t understand.
I don’t understand why kids prefer text messages to voice mail messages, which seem to me to offer more detail, clarity, speed and nuance.
I don’t understand why the deficits of the last two years, passed by the Democrat congress and signed by President Bush were a “terrible burden on future generations” and bad for the country, but the much, much higher deficits passed by the current Democrat congress and signed by President Obama are an “investment in America and the future” and good for the country.
I don’t understand how people can denigrate Sarah Palin as a quitter for giving up the governorship in her first term to do something else, but praise Obama and three of his cabinet member for giving up the senate or governorships in their terms to do something else. Aren’t they “quitters” as well? I can understand her quitting—hard to do a job when the media and liberal groups are tearing at you every step of the way. But I can’t understand how doing so will get her the Republican nomination. She’s hardly more experienced that Obama was when he started running for president.
I don’t understand how President Obama can sharply criticize President Bush for meddling in the affairs of other countries, and then go ahead and try to meddle in the affairs of Honduras, when they removed their president after he tried to overturn their constitution in defiance of their Supreme Court. Maybe he only thinks we should meddle on behalf of America’s Marxist enemies?
I don’t understand how late-night jokes about Obama’s race were off-limits, but jokes about McCain’s age were fair game.
I don’t understand what the “birthers” hope to achieve. I think they could prove Obama was born on Mars and the courts would rule he was a citizen. The courts will not overturn the results of an election, especially when doing so would result in riots in our large cities, with hundreds of deaths and millions in damages.
I don’t understand where people find the time to waste on Twitter and Facebook.
I don’t understand why Bush firing nine US Attorney’s in the middle of his term was evil, while Clinton firing all of them at the start of his term was fine. Or why Obama’s firing of an Inspector General investigating an Obama supporter isn’t much of a topic for the MSM.
I don’t understand people saying terrorists, who are not citizens of the US, deserve the protections of the US Constitution. Did the fanatical Nazi SS soldiers we captured in WWII deserve lawyers, and a Miranda warning?
I don’t understand how Republicans running on “Family Values” think they can get away with having an affair in this day and age. Back when I was in politics, a politician’s sex life was mostly off the record, thank God. Gary Hart and Bill Clinton ruined that forever.
I don’t understand why we are setting cold records this summer if the globe is warming. But then I don’t understand why Al Gore, with a huge energy-hog mansion, is an environmental hero who has made 4100M on the subject, while George Bush with a very energy efficient, green home in an environmental villain.
I don’t understand why conservatives are eager to get rid of the RINOs in the Republican Party (that’s Republicans in Name Only), when they are usually replaced with even more liberal Democrats. At least RINOs vote Republican in the motion to organize the body, thus putting the GOP in charge of the Congress or Legislature.
I don’t understand why people who hate dealing with bureaucrats at the DMV and Post Office are eager to have those same bureaucrats run the healthcare system.
I don’t understand the fascination of the public and the media with Michael Jackson.
I don’t understand why, if discrimination on the basis of race is wrong, affirmative action, minority set-asides or the appointment of Roland Burris is right.
I don’t understand who the people of Chicago put up with the Daley machine. He supported “minority set-asides” so a % of city businesses went to black-owned business, many of whom turned out to be white-owned campaign contributors. Now Daley wants set-asides for Gay owned businesses. I guess because you can tell if someone who gives a big check to the Daley machine isn’t really black when he gets a contract, but how do you tell if a Daley supporter isn’t really Gay? Short of a really interesting, Chicago based reality TV show?
I don’t understand all the movies about super heroes, but denigrating our military. We have real heroes, facing real enemies without benefit of super powers. They too often lose their loves defending our freedoms. Let us celebrate them.
I don’t understand large corporations who run advertising about their great customer service (“We drool on the toes of our customers!”), but drop you into ten minutes of voice mail hell when you call them.
I don’t understand pretty girls who get ugly tattoos. Or face piercings.
I don’t understand why some people think their cell phone or text messages are so important, they take them while driving. There was a five year old girl killed by a driver dialing his cell phone, who went through a red light. Seems to happen a lot. I hope the call was worth her life. I don’t understand why her parents didn’t kill the SOB.
I don’t understand folks with bumper stickers saying “War is not the answer.” What was the answer to Hitler? Chamberlain tried the Obama approach in the 1930s. 60 million died because he wasn’t stopped soon enough.
I don’t understand old, out-of-shape married guys chasing after young women. (Actually, this I understand perfectly. My wife made me put it in. But she never reads my blog.)
I don’t understand why people who hate lawyers and the Congress keep voting for Democrats, a party led by lawyers, so the current leaders of Congress stays in power. But the polls say that’s what happens.
I don’t understand how people can complain about government, but not have a clue as to which party controls Congress, or who their legislators are.
I don’t understand how it was decided which companies would be allowed to fail and which got bailouts. But I have my suspicions.
I don’t understand music blared at a decibel level that does damage. Maybe because my hearing is already some damaged. Too mach time near howitzer batteries in my youth, I suppose.
I don’t understand how the Democrats can blame the economic meltdown on Bush not regulating the financial industry better, when they fought off efforts by Mush. McCain and other Republicans to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac more tightly, and passed the Community Reinvestment Act, which forced banks to lean money for mortgages to people who couldn’t pay. Unless they are just lying to get elected, figuring that most voters have ADHD. Probably rightly, too.
I don’t understand how a party that claims to be for the “little guy” can pass taxes and regulations that kill job creation in small businesses.
I don’t understand how anyone could read Dr. Thomas Sowell’s terrific book, Basic Economics, and every vote for a liberal again.
I don’t understand the sick jerks who go around claiming military medals they didn’t earn. Don’t they feel disgusted with themselves when they look in the mirror in the morning? Of course, I should have gotten a Purple Heart when they took my appendix out in Vietnam—I’m sure the damn VC caused it somehow.
I don’t understand people who think their good intentions excuse bad outcomes. Liberals opposed the Shah of Iran, now Iran is stoning women, hanging gays and trying to get an A-bomb to exterminate Israel. They opposed white rule in Zimbabwe, and now black life expectancy there under black rule has fallen from 63 to about 36. They opposed DDT to save the birds, and millions of black and brown and yellow kids have died of Malaria. They opposed America in Vietnam, and the number of people murdered by the Communists in the first two years after the war ended was higher than those who died in the war. They take no responsibility for these deaths, because they had good intentions, which made them feel good, so tough beans for all the dead. I don’t get it.
I don’t understand folks hanging on “reality TV.” Reality?
I don’t understand people piously “supporting the troops” who would stroke out if their kid enlisted. And God forbid anyone asked them to wear the uniform.
I don’t understand people who get involved in churches, associations or charities purely for self-aggrandizement.
I don’t understand why waterboarding a terrorist is worse than cutting off Daniel Pearl’s head.
I don’t understand why we need the rest of the constitution, if courts can do anything they want under the “provide for the general welfare” section.
I don’t understand why the courts get to decide if what the president or Congress does is constitutional, but why no one gets to decide if what the courts did was constitutional. How about a popular vote, if people gather enough signatures? Or how about in every presidential year, the names of all federal judges, up to and including the Supreme Court justices, go on the ballot. If 50.1% of the voters vote to remove a judge, he/she is out and cannot be re-appointed to the bench. No one runs against them, and a black vote thus counts for them. Give the people some power over the courts. Or is that a little too much democracy for Democrats?
And I sure don’t understand women getting breast implants. Is it because we can’t do brain implants yet?
I don’t understand why kids prefer text messages to voice mail messages, which seem to me to offer more detail, clarity, speed and nuance.
I don’t understand why the deficits of the last two years, passed by the Democrat congress and signed by President Bush were a “terrible burden on future generations” and bad for the country, but the much, much higher deficits passed by the current Democrat congress and signed by President Obama are an “investment in America and the future” and good for the country.
I don’t understand how people can denigrate Sarah Palin as a quitter for giving up the governorship in her first term to do something else, but praise Obama and three of his cabinet member for giving up the senate or governorships in their terms to do something else. Aren’t they “quitters” as well? I can understand her quitting—hard to do a job when the media and liberal groups are tearing at you every step of the way. But I can’t understand how doing so will get her the Republican nomination. She’s hardly more experienced that Obama was when he started running for president.
I don’t understand how President Obama can sharply criticize President Bush for meddling in the affairs of other countries, and then go ahead and try to meddle in the affairs of Honduras, when they removed their president after he tried to overturn their constitution in defiance of their Supreme Court. Maybe he only thinks we should meddle on behalf of America’s Marxist enemies?
I don’t understand how late-night jokes about Obama’s race were off-limits, but jokes about McCain’s age were fair game.
I don’t understand what the “birthers” hope to achieve. I think they could prove Obama was born on Mars and the courts would rule he was a citizen. The courts will not overturn the results of an election, especially when doing so would result in riots in our large cities, with hundreds of deaths and millions in damages.
I don’t understand where people find the time to waste on Twitter and Facebook.
I don’t understand why Bush firing nine US Attorney’s in the middle of his term was evil, while Clinton firing all of them at the start of his term was fine. Or why Obama’s firing of an Inspector General investigating an Obama supporter isn’t much of a topic for the MSM.
I don’t understand people saying terrorists, who are not citizens of the US, deserve the protections of the US Constitution. Did the fanatical Nazi SS soldiers we captured in WWII deserve lawyers, and a Miranda warning?
I don’t understand how Republicans running on “Family Values” think they can get away with having an affair in this day and age. Back when I was in politics, a politician’s sex life was mostly off the record, thank God. Gary Hart and Bill Clinton ruined that forever.
I don’t understand why we are setting cold records this summer if the globe is warming. But then I don’t understand why Al Gore, with a huge energy-hog mansion, is an environmental hero who has made 4100M on the subject, while George Bush with a very energy efficient, green home in an environmental villain.
I don’t understand why conservatives are eager to get rid of the RINOs in the Republican Party (that’s Republicans in Name Only), when they are usually replaced with even more liberal Democrats. At least RINOs vote Republican in the motion to organize the body, thus putting the GOP in charge of the Congress or Legislature.
I don’t understand why people who hate dealing with bureaucrats at the DMV and Post Office are eager to have those same bureaucrats run the healthcare system.
I don’t understand the fascination of the public and the media with Michael Jackson.
I don’t understand why, if discrimination on the basis of race is wrong, affirmative action, minority set-asides or the appointment of Roland Burris is right.
I don’t understand who the people of Chicago put up with the Daley machine. He supported “minority set-asides” so a % of city businesses went to black-owned business, many of whom turned out to be white-owned campaign contributors. Now Daley wants set-asides for Gay owned businesses. I guess because you can tell if someone who gives a big check to the Daley machine isn’t really black when he gets a contract, but how do you tell if a Daley supporter isn’t really Gay? Short of a really interesting, Chicago based reality TV show?
I don’t understand all the movies about super heroes, but denigrating our military. We have real heroes, facing real enemies without benefit of super powers. They too often lose their loves defending our freedoms. Let us celebrate them.
I don’t understand large corporations who run advertising about their great customer service (“We drool on the toes of our customers!”), but drop you into ten minutes of voice mail hell when you call them.
I don’t understand pretty girls who get ugly tattoos. Or face piercings.
I don’t understand why some people think their cell phone or text messages are so important, they take them while driving. There was a five year old girl killed by a driver dialing his cell phone, who went through a red light. Seems to happen a lot. I hope the call was worth her life. I don’t understand why her parents didn’t kill the SOB.
I don’t understand folks with bumper stickers saying “War is not the answer.” What was the answer to Hitler? Chamberlain tried the Obama approach in the 1930s. 60 million died because he wasn’t stopped soon enough.
I don’t understand old, out-of-shape married guys chasing after young women. (Actually, this I understand perfectly. My wife made me put it in. But she never reads my blog.)
I don’t understand why people who hate lawyers and the Congress keep voting for Democrats, a party led by lawyers, so the current leaders of Congress stays in power. But the polls say that’s what happens.
I don’t understand how people can complain about government, but not have a clue as to which party controls Congress, or who their legislators are.
I don’t understand how it was decided which companies would be allowed to fail and which got bailouts. But I have my suspicions.
I don’t understand music blared at a decibel level that does damage. Maybe because my hearing is already some damaged. Too mach time near howitzer batteries in my youth, I suppose.
I don’t understand how the Democrats can blame the economic meltdown on Bush not regulating the financial industry better, when they fought off efforts by Mush. McCain and other Republicans to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac more tightly, and passed the Community Reinvestment Act, which forced banks to lean money for mortgages to people who couldn’t pay. Unless they are just lying to get elected, figuring that most voters have ADHD. Probably rightly, too.
I don’t understand how a party that claims to be for the “little guy” can pass taxes and regulations that kill job creation in small businesses.
I don’t understand how anyone could read Dr. Thomas Sowell’s terrific book, Basic Economics, and every vote for a liberal again.
I don’t understand the sick jerks who go around claiming military medals they didn’t earn. Don’t they feel disgusted with themselves when they look in the mirror in the morning? Of course, I should have gotten a Purple Heart when they took my appendix out in Vietnam—I’m sure the damn VC caused it somehow.
I don’t understand people who think their good intentions excuse bad outcomes. Liberals opposed the Shah of Iran, now Iran is stoning women, hanging gays and trying to get an A-bomb to exterminate Israel. They opposed white rule in Zimbabwe, and now black life expectancy there under black rule has fallen from 63 to about 36. They opposed DDT to save the birds, and millions of black and brown and yellow kids have died of Malaria. They opposed America in Vietnam, and the number of people murdered by the Communists in the first two years after the war ended was higher than those who died in the war. They take no responsibility for these deaths, because they had good intentions, which made them feel good, so tough beans for all the dead. I don’t get it.
I don’t understand folks hanging on “reality TV.” Reality?
I don’t understand people piously “supporting the troops” who would stroke out if their kid enlisted. And God forbid anyone asked them to wear the uniform.
I don’t understand people who get involved in churches, associations or charities purely for self-aggrandizement.
I don’t understand why waterboarding a terrorist is worse than cutting off Daniel Pearl’s head.
I don’t understand why we need the rest of the constitution, if courts can do anything they want under the “provide for the general welfare” section.
I don’t understand why the courts get to decide if what the president or Congress does is constitutional, but why no one gets to decide if what the courts did was constitutional. How about a popular vote, if people gather enough signatures? Or how about in every presidential year, the names of all federal judges, up to and including the Supreme Court justices, go on the ballot. If 50.1% of the voters vote to remove a judge, he/she is out and cannot be re-appointed to the bench. No one runs against them, and a black vote thus counts for them. Give the people some power over the courts. Or is that a little too much democracy for Democrats?
And I sure don’t understand women getting breast implants. Is it because we can’t do brain implants yet?
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Bob's Political Digest for August 2 2009
Comcast update
Regular readers have been following our challenges with Comcast, our cable, TV, Internet and phone provider. When Comcast installed our cable, they left the cable lying in the grass behind our condo. They promised to come back & bury it the next day. Been a few weeks and it’s still there. So I called them to report it, because as sure as God made little green apples, the lawn guys will eventually cut it.
The service person said that it would be ten days before they could get out to bury it. “What if they cut it and we lose service?”
“Then they would come immediately.”
“Wouldn’t it make sense for them to come immediately before it’s cut, and you have to replace the entire cable?
“That’s not how the system works, sir.”
This is typical of monopolies, be it a utility or a government monopoly such as the DMV, the Post Office (where the postal unions made it illegal for you kid to leave you a note in the mailbox you bought and paid for, to keep private enterprise from competing with them) or soon, healthcare.
Battle fairness
Yesterday, I had a safety conversation about guns with my 8-year-old granddaughter. She asked if I had shot anyone in Vietnam. I said no, that while I was ready to, my job was to run a radio, so I never had a chance to shoot the bad guys. "That's not fair" she said. I believe there is hope for her.
Newt on Defense
http://www.myheritage.org/media/?bcpid=18808669001&bclid=19170525001&bctid=30064111001
But is anyone listening?
Soldier Turned Journalist Finds Contempt for Military Among Classmates, Teachers
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/clay-waters/2009/07/29/soldier-turned-journalist-finds-contempt-military-among-classmates-teac
Not fit to shine his boots. When the loose “freedom of the Press” they will understand who protected it—too late.
The Gates Foundation
http://www.webcpa.com/news/Henry-Louis-Gates-Foundation-Revise-Tax-Return-51156-1.html
And
http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2009/07/a-gatesgate-at-henry-gates-bogus-charity.html
No surprises here. “obey the law? Is that what happens to a black man in America? He has to obey the law? Not if he’s a pal of BO, and can scream “racism” if questioned.
Shoe Bomber sues to resume his jihad from prison, Obama caves in
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027071.php
Yet another Which-Side-Is-Obama-On Alert
Spain: Muslim stabs his daughter 20 times in attempted honor killing
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027068.php
Gaza Muslim bludgeons his daughter to death with an iron chain because she owned a cell phone
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027069.php
The “honor” of death.
Town halls gone wild
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090731/pl_politico/25646
The right learns from ACORN. And some video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq5mWkF5zuo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOLs7Cybnqw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOdlZgMHKcQ
Probe finds new clues in AmeriCorps IG scandal
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Probe-finds-new-clues-in-AmeriCorps-IG-scandal--52109667.html
Chicago-style politics may not work so well at the national level. They ignore them here.
Lobbyist: Sneak trial-lawyer tax break through Congress
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Lobbyist-Sneak-trial-lawyer-tax-break-through-Congress-52100467.html
The Democratic Party: Government of the lawyers, by the lawyers and for the lawyers.
Here’s a website designed to please Nazis, Jihadists, and leaders like Jessie Jackson.
http://www.jewwatch.com
And here’s a petition about it:
http://www.petitiononline.com/rjw23
In Ranks of Heroes, Finding the Fakes
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/us/02imposters.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=In%20Ranks%20of%20Heroes,%20Finding%20the%20Fakes&st=cse
Good hunting.
Overwhelming the System
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6967
Seems to be working.
Cash for Clunkers
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/07/31/business/1247463760359/cash-for-clunkers.html
When government gets in the economy, always weird.
LtCol. Alan West Video
http://xroadcop.blogspot.com/2009/08/lt-col-allen-wests-video.html
Cool campaign video.
Frequent Flyer Humor
If you find yourself on a plane next to someone who's annoying you, do the following.
Take your laptop out, open it slowly and carefully. Make sure it's on, including the sound, and make sure he/she sees this. Access the internet. Close your eyes for a moment, then open them and look up for a moment.
Take a deep breath, let it out slowly, then access this site.
http://www.myit-media.de/the_end.html
Note from a Marine Friend
I find this particular incident to be pretty dramatic, and severely underreported, but what seems to me to be the continuation of down & dirty Chicago politics.
A week ago from last Friday the head of CBO, Dr. Elmendorf, stands up in the hearing on the HC bill and tells Congress that the plan as it is will not reduce costs, and will in fact increase them. This of course really upsets the apple cart, and reinforces the Blue Dog Democrats concerns about the bill. And that pretty much completed the stall on it, so Pelosi and Reid cancelled the votes until after summer break.
A few days later Mr. Obama invites Elmendorf to Oval Office for a little chat. No head of CBO has been in the Oval Office since before the Carter administration (if ever) since CBO is a nonpartisan gov't function that is supposed to stay divorced from any and all partisan contacts. Elmendorf very politely refused to say a word about what when on in the meeting, talked only about how impressed his kids would be that he met the President personally.
A few days later Obama's budget director Peter Orszag moved in as the heavy muscle, and warned the CBO in a public letter that it risked feeding the perception that it was "exaggerating costs and underestimating savings." This is pretty much the official notice that you are saying things we don't want said and you need to shut the hell up.
Looks to me like one more instance of a heavy-handed attempt at intimidation of a neutral public servant. Nobody has accused Elmendorf yet of being a closet Republican or going senile, but there's still time. Or maybe this time some advisor will decide that it'll be counterproductive to take this any further.
I think that Mr. Obama is starting to use up some of his charm credits, and more Independents are becoming at least less enthusiastic, if not disillusioned. Keep it up, baby. --Del
Regular readers have been following our challenges with Comcast, our cable, TV, Internet and phone provider. When Comcast installed our cable, they left the cable lying in the grass behind our condo. They promised to come back & bury it the next day. Been a few weeks and it’s still there. So I called them to report it, because as sure as God made little green apples, the lawn guys will eventually cut it.
The service person said that it would be ten days before they could get out to bury it. “What if they cut it and we lose service?”
“Then they would come immediately.”
“Wouldn’t it make sense for them to come immediately before it’s cut, and you have to replace the entire cable?
“That’s not how the system works, sir.”
This is typical of monopolies, be it a utility or a government monopoly such as the DMV, the Post Office (where the postal unions made it illegal for you kid to leave you a note in the mailbox you bought and paid for, to keep private enterprise from competing with them) or soon, healthcare.
Battle fairness
Yesterday, I had a safety conversation about guns with my 8-year-old granddaughter. She asked if I had shot anyone in Vietnam. I said no, that while I was ready to, my job was to run a radio, so I never had a chance to shoot the bad guys. "That's not fair" she said. I believe there is hope for her.
Newt on Defense
http://www.myheritage.org/media/?bcpid=18808669001&bclid=19170525001&bctid=30064111001
But is anyone listening?
Soldier Turned Journalist Finds Contempt for Military Among Classmates, Teachers
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/clay-waters/2009/07/29/soldier-turned-journalist-finds-contempt-military-among-classmates-teac
Not fit to shine his boots. When the loose “freedom of the Press” they will understand who protected it—too late.
The Gates Foundation
http://www.webcpa.com/news/Henry-Louis-Gates-Foundation-Revise-Tax-Return-51156-1.html
And
http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2009/07/a-gatesgate-at-henry-gates-bogus-charity.html
No surprises here. “obey the law? Is that what happens to a black man in America? He has to obey the law? Not if he’s a pal of BO, and can scream “racism” if questioned.
Shoe Bomber sues to resume his jihad from prison, Obama caves in
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027071.php
Yet another Which-Side-Is-Obama-On Alert
Spain: Muslim stabs his daughter 20 times in attempted honor killing
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027068.php
Gaza Muslim bludgeons his daughter to death with an iron chain because she owned a cell phone
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027069.php
The “honor” of death.
Town halls gone wild
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090731/pl_politico/25646
The right learns from ACORN. And some video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq5mWkF5zuo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOLs7Cybnqw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOdlZgMHKcQ
Probe finds new clues in AmeriCorps IG scandal
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Probe-finds-new-clues-in-AmeriCorps-IG-scandal--52109667.html
Chicago-style politics may not work so well at the national level. They ignore them here.
Lobbyist: Sneak trial-lawyer tax break through Congress
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Lobbyist-Sneak-trial-lawyer-tax-break-through-Congress-52100467.html
The Democratic Party: Government of the lawyers, by the lawyers and for the lawyers.
Here’s a website designed to please Nazis, Jihadists, and leaders like Jessie Jackson.
http://www.jewwatch.com
And here’s a petition about it:
http://www.petitiononline.com/rjw23
In Ranks of Heroes, Finding the Fakes
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/us/02imposters.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=In%20Ranks%20of%20Heroes,%20Finding%20the%20Fakes&st=cse
Good hunting.
Overwhelming the System
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6967
Seems to be working.
Cash for Clunkers
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/07/31/business/1247463760359/cash-for-clunkers.html
When government gets in the economy, always weird.
LtCol. Alan West Video
http://xroadcop.blogspot.com/2009/08/lt-col-allen-wests-video.html
Cool campaign video.
Frequent Flyer Humor
If you find yourself on a plane next to someone who's annoying you, do the following.
Take your laptop out, open it slowly and carefully. Make sure it's on, including the sound, and make sure he/she sees this. Access the internet. Close your eyes for a moment, then open them and look up for a moment.
Take a deep breath, let it out slowly, then access this site.
http://www.myit-media.de/the_end.html
Note from a Marine Friend
I find this particular incident to be pretty dramatic, and severely underreported, but what seems to me to be the continuation of down & dirty Chicago politics.
A week ago from last Friday the head of CBO, Dr. Elmendorf, stands up in the hearing on the HC bill and tells Congress that the plan as it is will not reduce costs, and will in fact increase them. This of course really upsets the apple cart, and reinforces the Blue Dog Democrats concerns about the bill. And that pretty much completed the stall on it, so Pelosi and Reid cancelled the votes until after summer break.
A few days later Mr. Obama invites Elmendorf to Oval Office for a little chat. No head of CBO has been in the Oval Office since before the Carter administration (if ever) since CBO is a nonpartisan gov't function that is supposed to stay divorced from any and all partisan contacts. Elmendorf very politely refused to say a word about what when on in the meeting, talked only about how impressed his kids would be that he met the President personally.
A few days later Obama's budget director Peter Orszag moved in as the heavy muscle, and warned the CBO in a public letter that it risked feeding the perception that it was "exaggerating costs and underestimating savings." This is pretty much the official notice that you are saying things we don't want said and you need to shut the hell up.
Looks to me like one more instance of a heavy-handed attempt at intimidation of a neutral public servant. Nobody has accused Elmendorf yet of being a closet Republican or going senile, but there's still time. Or maybe this time some advisor will decide that it'll be counterproductive to take this any further.
I think that Mr. Obama is starting to use up some of his charm credits, and more Independents are becoming at least less enthusiastic, if not disillusioned. Keep it up, baby. --Del
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