Tag: Politics

Oh Please!

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Now the Neo-Conservative Republicans are saying that people like me, who voted for Bob Barr have no morals.

Q&O lays it out in his typical well-done manner:

Bob Barr pulled all of 511,324 votes. Statistically that’s 0% of the electorate. Had every Bob Barr voter voted for John McCain, he’d have ended up with 58,854,995 votes instead of 58,343,671 to Obama’s 66,882,230.

Apparently Clouthier believes that libertarians are a wholly owned subsidiary of the GOP and due a righteous lecture for their lack of support.

It may be time for a little reality check for the good doctor.

A) Obviously if every vote Barr got had gone to McCain, it wouldn’t have increased McCain’s final count by even a percentage point. So the attempt to blame your abysmally poor GOP candidate’s abysmally poor showing on Barr voters is technically a non-starter.

B) The reason the GOP sucked so badly in the last election has absolutely nothing to do with Bob Barr and/or libertarians.  It had to do with how poorly your party governed.  Like most libertarians I haven’t voted for a Republican since Reagan. And frankly what happened to the size of government under Reagan is one reason why. Bush compounded the problem (Medicare Part D? “No Child Left Behind”?) and the eternally squishy McCain promised more of the same.

C) The only reason libertarians even somewhat identify with your party is because it sometimes pretends to be concerned about less spending and smaller government. Unfortunately, as I imply above, the GOP mostly just talks the talk and rarely walks the walk.

D) The GOP picked John McCain, not libertarians. John McCain was the worst of all worlds and your party gave him the nod. He was a candidate who had once been considered as a VP pick for John Kerry for heaven sake! He proved he was an enemy of the 1st Amendment with his campaign finance bill. His definition of “compromise” was to give the Democrats what they want.

E) Libertarians don’t owe the GOP a damned thing. You want libertarian support?  Then quit whining and lecturing and earn it! Put up candidates that actually do what you claim to want to do in terms of spending and the size of government. Yeah, that’s right – cut spending drastically and reduce the size of government radically and then you can start asking why libertarians aren’t supporting the GOP. Then you’ll have grounds to do so. But until then – we owe you nothing.

Barack Obama sits in the White House not because of Bob Barr or the libertarian vote. He sits there because the GOP has completely and totally failed to live up to its claimed philosophy and its word for decades. John McCain’s nomination told libertarians all they needed to know about the lack of seriousness within the GOP to remedy that situation.

If the GOP wants libertarian votes, then it had better mend its ways. We don’t do “tents” and we don’t do “plantations” and we don’t belong to the GOP. You want us, you’d better do what it takes to get us – and you’re not even close right now

[….]

Fixing the GOP is your job, not ours – you need to quit trying to outsource it. Libertarians have no desire to be a part of the GOP per se because there is enough not to like to keep us away. But libertarians will support a GOP that commits itself to the principles of less spending, smaller government and less government intrusion. But only when the GOP actually does something about them – find and run a candidate who actually believes in those principles and elect Republicans to Congress who will help he or she act on those principles.

Until then libertarians aren’t going to support the GOP. You can call it “flopping around the edges” or whatever you wish, but that won’t change the fact that until the GOP actually does the hard work of recreating itself in alignment with its stated principles it can’t expect support from libertarians just because the GOP thinks the Democrat’s candidate is worse than theirs.

Well put. This is why I just do not believe that women have any place in politics whatsoever. I really wish the Doctor would do something lady-like and very Conservative; like go have a baby or something, and leave the politics to the men folk and more importantly; the adults.

Further more, when the Republican Party starts acting like it’s name, instead of the Socialist-lite, that it has been since George W. Bush took office, then I might be inclined to vote for them. Otherwise, I will continue to vote Libertrian on a National Level and Republican on the State level.

Others: The Moderate Voice, Riehl World View, Ace of Spades HQ, AmSpecBlog and The Other McCain

Please note: this posting is a replacement for one that I pulled, because I posted when I was angry. Something I should not do. Apologies to those who might have seen it. My feelings about Dr. Melissa Clouthier being a clueless oaf, remain unchanged.

Fat Ted Lies out his rather large cancerous ass again

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I just love it when the Democrats lie…:

In 1964, I was flying with several companions to the Massachusetts Democratic Convention when our small plane crashed and burned short of the runway. My friend and colleague in the Senate, Birch Bayh, risked his life to pull me from the wreckage. Our pilot, Edwin Zimny, and my administrative assistant, Ed Moss, didn’t survive. With crushed vertebrae, broken ribs, and a collapsed lung, I spent months in New England Baptist Hospital in Boston. To prevent paralysis, I was strapped into a special bed that immobilizes a patient between two canvas slings. Nurses would regularly turn me over so my lungs didn’t fill with fluid. I knew the care was expensive, but I didn’t have to worry about that. I needed the care and I got it.

Now I face another medical challenge. Last year, I was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Surgeons at Duke University Medical Center removed part of the tumor, and I had proton-beam radiation at Massachusetts General Hospital. I’ve undergone many rounds of chemotherapy and continue to receive treatment. Again, I have enjoyed the best medical care money (and a good insurance policy) can buy.

.But quality care shouldn’t depend on your financial resources, or the type of job you have, or the medical condition you face. Every American should be able to get the same treatment that U.S. senators are entitled to.

via Ted Kennedy Speaks Out on Health-Care Reform | Newsweek Politics | Newsweek.com.

Here we have a big whopper of a stupid lie. As I have blogged about and Michelle Malkin has duly noted. This Nationalized Health-care plan; is nothing more than an expanding of the already terminally screwed up Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Nice try Teddy, but we thinking Americans just are not buying it. Not today anyhow. 🙄

Video: The Southern Avenger: Ron Paul and Jim DeMint Take on the Fed

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Synopsis: Texas Congressman Ron Paul and Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina are gaining bipartisan support by going the extra mile in their efforts to audit the Federal Reserve.

Sounds like a good idea……But!

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The Founder of the Largely Neo-Conservative Owned Free Republic, writes the following, While I think it is great. I have some problems with it myself. I will quote an underline the problem areas:

Here is our recourse as declared by our Founding Fathers:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

It cannot be denied that the central government has become destructive of our unalienable rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness and our rights to live free. The government is no longer responsive to we the People. They have stretched and shredded the constitution to the point that they have illegally seized for themselves virtually unlimited powers over the citizens and act as if we have no rights and no powers of our own. They are acting without our consent.

Our Founders established that when our government becomes destructive of our rights then it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

We have reached the point where the government’s long train of abuses and usurpations has achieved absolute Despotism, therefore it is our right, it is our duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for our future security.

Therefore, We the People of America choose to exercise our right to throw off and alter the abusive government by peacefully recalling and removing from office the President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States and all U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives effective immediately.

Okay first off; why does it have to peacefully? We did not separate from Great Britain peacefully. It took a war, and people were; gulp, killed. So, why are all of the sudden the Conservatives becoming peace-nicks? Just a thought, I am not advocating violence; just trying to make a point here.

The next wonderful little issue that I have with this article is this:

Our first unalienable right is the right to life. Protecting Life and Liberty shall be of paramount importance to our central government. Roe v Wade and all congressional acts, regulations, court opinions allowing legalized abortion or the taking of innocent human life are hereby rescinded, overruled, repealed, nullified and voided. Life is fully protected by the U.S. Government.

Now this is where I am going to get into trouble with the Pro-life, Right to life, Nazi Republicans.  I just do not believe that the Federal Government has the right to tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her body. What these so-called “Pro life” Zealots call the protection of the unborn life. I call the unconstitutional exertion of Federal Governmental power. Abortion is and always should be a State Governmental issue; it never,ever should be a Federal Government issue. One cannot have it both ways. Either you believe in limited Government or you do not. Either you believe that the Federal Government has NO RIGHT to controls one’s movements, life or property; or you believe it has the right to control ALL of your life, movements and property. These Republicans who speak out of both sides of their mouths are speaking a language that borders of a bi-polar disorder. The reason ROE v WADE was decided like it was; was because it was determined that the Federal Outlawing of the practice of Abortion was unconstitutional. I am afraid, as a federalist, that I agree with that decision. Not in the grounds that I support abortion; because I do not support such ungodly practice, but rather on the grounds of Constitutionality and because of my personal convictions towards a centralized Government. When the Government supposedly protects, it is exerting powers over the people. That is centralized Government and I oppose it in ALL of its forms. If people do not want to have an Abortion, they should be able to CHOOSE NOT to have an Abortion. It simply boils down to this. When the United States Government has to “Protect”, it automatically assumes that “We the People” are not smart enough to choose the right thing. That my friends flies in the face of the founding principles of what this Nation was founded upon.

The rest of this article is border bellicose and simply aspirational in nature. But it is interesting reading.

The Liberals, of course, are going to have fit about it. Because they believe in a socialistic form of Government, which is basically a Communist-lite form of a Government. Keith Olbermann will most likely feature it in his “Head-exploding” Worst person in the World segment.

Others: Little Green Footballs, Right Wing Nut House, and Macsmind

Walter Cronkite KB2GSD has died

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….and that is the way, that it was….

America has lost it’s uncle.

Walter Cronkite has died.

Here’s a report via the AP: (H/T to Allan Combs, yes, that Allen Combs…)

Here is the CBS NEWS Special Report on it: (H/T to Freedom’s Lighthouse and thanks to Free Republic)


The Story via NYT:

Walter Cronkite, who pioneered and then mastered the role of television news anchorman with such plain-spoken grace that he was called the most trusted man in America, died Friday, his family said. He was 92.

From 1962 to 1981, Mr. Cronkite was a nightly presence in American homes and always a reassuring one, guiding viewers through national triumphs and tragedies alike, from moonwalks to war, in an era when network news was central to many people’s lives.

He became something of a national institution, with an unflappable delivery, a distinctively avuncular voice and a daily benediction: “And that’s the way it is.” He was Uncle Walter to many: respected, liked and listened to. With his trimmed mustache and calm manner, he even bore a resemblance to another trusted American fixture, another Walter — Walt Disney.

Along with Chet Huntley and David Brinkley on NBC, Mr. Cronkite was among the first celebrity anchormen. In 1995, 14 years after he retired from the “CBS Evening News,” a TV Guide poll ranked him No. 1 in seven of eight categories for measuring television journalists. (He professed incomprehension that Maria Shriver beat him out in the eighth category, attractiveness.) He was so widely known that in Sweden anchormen were once called Cronkiters.

Yet he was a reluctant star. He was genuinely perplexed when people rushed to see him rather than the politicians he was covering, and even more astonished by the repeated suggestions that he run for office himself. He saw himself as an old-fashioned newsman — his title was managing editor of the “CBS Evening News” — and so did his audience.

My Parents raised me with this sort of a philosophy; if you do not have anything good to say about the dead, say nothing at all.

On a personal note, Mr. Cronkite was a Amateur Radio operator. He held the Novice class license.  QRZ.COM has a entry up and Hams from around the world; including yours truly, are remembering him.

As a political blogger, I do not celebrate his politics. As someone who has always admired the news business, I admired him. He hearkens back to era, when there was still an ounce of integrity in journalism itself. Some may disagree with that, but I do not care. It is my opinion and that’s that.

Here’s the memorable footage of him, announcing the death of President John F. Kennedy:

cronkite

Rest in Peace old man; you have earned it.

Memeorandum has the roundup

Think that Radical Islam is on the decline? Think again.

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This is unreal.

Hizb ut-Tahrir is a global Sunni network with reported ties to confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Al Qaeda in Iraq’s onetime leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It has operated discreetly in the U.S. for decades.

Now, it is coming out of the shadows and openly hosting a July 19 conference entitled, “The Fall of Capitalism and the Rise of Islam,” at a posh Hilton hotel in a suburb of Chicago.

Hizb ut-Tahrir insists that it does not engage in terrorism, and it is not recognized by the State Department as a known terror group.

But some terrorism experts say it may be even more dangerous than many groups that are on the terror list.

“Hizb ut-Tahrir is one of the oldest, largest indoctrinating organizations for the ideology known as jihadism,” Walid Phares, director of the Future of Terrorism Project at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told FOXNews.com.

Phares said that Hizb ut-Tahrir, rather than training members to carry out terrorist acts like Al Qaeda, focuses instead on indoctrinating youths between ages of 9 and 18 to absorb the ideology that calls for the formation of an empire — or “khilafah” — that will rule according to Islamic law and condones any means to achieve it, including militant jihad.

via Islamic Supremacist Group Holds First U.S. Conference  – FOXNews.com.

The Video:

Liberals want us to believe that Muslims are our friends. Which is utter B.S.; Islam teaches their people to hate us Americans and our way of life.  We as freedom loving Americans need to take a stand against this nonsense and expose it for what it truly is and that is a training ground for Terrorism.

Other Covering: YID With LID, The Jawa Report, The Corner and Media Blog

ACU Offers support for a price, Democrats rejoice; But! Democrats do the same thing….

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Well, Maybe a little worse. But anyhow…Here’s the quote:

The American Conservative Union asked FedEx for a check for $2 million to $3 million in return for the group’s support in a bitter legislative dispute, then the group’s chairman flipped and sided with UPS after FedEx refused to pay.

For the $2 million plus, ACU offered a range of services that included: “Producing op-eds and articles written by ACU’s Chairman David Keene and/or other members of the ACU’s board of directors. (Note that Mr. Keene writes a weekly column that appears in The Hill.)”

The conservative group’s remarkable demand — black-and-white proof of the longtime Washington practice known as “pay for play” — was contained in a private letter to FedEx , which was provided to POLITICO.

The letter exposes the practice by some political interest groups of taking stands not for reasons of pure principle, as their members and supporters might assume, but also in part because a sponsor is paying big money.

In the three-page letter asking for money on June 30, the conservative group backed FedEx. After FedEx says it rejected the offer, Keene signed onto a two-page July 15 letter backing UPS. Keene did not return a message left on his cell phone.

via Exclusive: Conservative group offers support for $2M – Mike Allen – POLITICO.com.

Video via Politico:

Without missing a beat, the Democrat/Liberal bloggers all jumped up at once and said, “Ho Ho! See??!?! The Conservative are in the bed with BIG BUSINESS!”

….and the Democratic Party is without fault and never commits acts of dishonesty, right? Well, Not so much. As the Politico’s Glenn Thrush points out: (H/T to HotAir.com)

Three House Democratic leaders who were whipping members on the climate change bill gave tens of thousands in campaign cash to party moderates around the time of the 219-212 vote on June 26, according to Federal Election Commission records.

It’s impossible to tell if that torrent of cash was an attempt to schmear wavering Democrats — or just part of the usual cash dump made by leaders on the eve of the June 30 quarterly fundraising deadline.

Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) doled out $28,000 to reps who eventually voted yes on June 24, two days before the big vote — on a day when House leaders were doing some heavy-duty arm-twisting.

Clyburn recipients who voted for the bill included a who’s-who of battleground district Dems: Steve Driehaus, D-OH ($2,000); Martin Heinrich, D-NM ($2,000); Suzanne Kosmas, D-Fla. ($4,000); Betsy Markey, D-Colo. ($2,000); Carol Shea-Porter, D-NH ($2,000), Baron Hill, D-Ind. ($2,000); Alan Grayson, D-Fla. ($2,000); Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa ($2,000); Jim Himes, D-Conn. ($2,000);  Mary Jo Kilroy, D-OH ($2,000); Kurt Schrader, D-Ore. ($2,000); Jerry McNerney, D-Calif. ($2,000) and Tom Perriello, D-Va. ($2,000).

On the other hand, Clyburn also gave at least $14,000 to Democrats who voted no despite his pressure: Mike Arcuri, D-NY ($2,000); Marion Berry, D-Ark. ($2,000); Bobby Bright, D-Ala. ($2,000); Chris Carney, D-Penn. ($2,000); Chet Edwards (D-Tx.), Travis Childers , D-Miss. ($2,000); Parker Griffith, D-Ala. ($2,000) and Harry Mitchell, D-NM ($2,000).

The same pattern held true for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who gave $4,000 to yes-voting Ohio Democrat Zack Space and the same amount to no-voting Chris Carney.

House Energy and Commerce Henry Waxman gave at least $16,000 to yes-voters on June, 25, FEC records show.

A Waxman campaign spokesman said the payouts were part of the usual “end-of-quarter activity.”

Ken Spain, communications director of the National Republican Congressional Committee emails this response:

“If this was a concerted effort by the Democratic leadership to purchase votes for Nancy Pelosi’s national energy tax at the eleventh hour, then it is unconscionable at best and corrupt at worst. The sad fact for those Democrats who were seemingly bought and paid for, is that it will take a lot more money than they received to defend such an atrocious vote.”

Of course, the Democrats right away sent Glenn a list of Republicans; who supposedly have done the same thing. Mostly vulnerable Republicans who may lose their seats in the 2010 election. (But of course!)

The point of this is, both of these parties are inherently corrupt and both need a good cleaning out and need new faces and new leadership; preferably ones that cannot be bought.

Others, on both sides of the fence: The Huffington Post, Michelle Malkin, Outside The Beltway, Right Wing News, Think Progress, Zandar Versus The Stupid, Firedoglake, Hot Air, The Note, Gawker, The Volokh Conspiracy, MoJo Blog Posts, Balloon Juice, Weekly Standard, Riehl World View, Washington Monthly, Democracy in America, Salon, Reason, The Corner, Newshoggers.com, The Atlantic Business Channel, Vox Popoli, Michael Calderone’s Blog, Say Anything, Eschaton, Conservatives4Palin.com and The Washington Independent

Liberals Smear Pat Buchanan

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Over this video, in which he makes a very valid point:

Two Words for firedoglake Blog. SCREW YOU!

This is what happens when Democrats begin to get worried about their standings. It is obvious that the Democrats “Messiah” is now beginning to become the elephant in the room; so to speak, his poll numbers are dropping and now the Liberal Left is getting nervous and they’re going after one’s that are easy targets; people like Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan and others.

It is going to be interesting to watch. Girt your loins folks and be ready.

Sweet Justice: Susan Roesgen’s contract at CNN will not be renewed

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I love it, when stuff like this happens to people like her:

Breaking: TVNewser has learned CNN correspondent Susan Roesgen’s contract will not be renewed and she will be leaving the network.

Roesgen, you’ll recall, was criticized for her coverage at the tax day tea parties in April, when she said the event she was covering in Chicago was, “anti-CNN since this is highly promoted by the right-wing, conservative network Fox.”

Roesgen took a break for a few weeks after that reporting and returned to the air in May covering the Drew Peterson arrest. Most recently, she covered Michael Jackson’s death from Los Angeles. Roesgen joined CNN in 2005.

When TVNewser asked whether Roesgen’s comments at the Chicago tea party rally had anything to do with her not being renewed, a CNN spokesperson said, “I can’t comment on personnel matters.”

via Susan Roesgen Out at CNN – mediabistro.com: TVNewser.

Of course, Liberal Blogger Zander the Stupid trots out a silly straw-man argument:

Perhaps we should apply the same journalistic integrity standards to, say, FOX morning host Brian Kilmeade’s recent antics.

Nice try dude; but Kilmeade’s antics, while facepalm worthy, never rise to level of stupidity, not to mention condensation of working class in this country; of Roesgen.

Dan Riehl writes:

Actually, I hope she gets another gig. Out of work is still out of work

With all due respect to Dan; BULLSHIT! I personally hope the little harpy sits out of work, for at least a couple of year. Let her feel the pain of her Obama-Massiah! Let her experience MY WORLD for a year or so. How it feels to have NO MONEY coming in, with bills coming in and no way to pay for them. Sorry Dan, the bitch had it coming; and honestly? It could not have happened to a better person.

Others on this sweet story: AmSpecBlog, Gateway Pundit, NewsBusters.org, Pajamas Media, American Power, Chicago Boyz, Moe Lane, Founding Bloggers, The Other McCain, Macsmind,

Quote of the Day

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Oh, yes. Obama also promises everybody a college education.

Coming to America to feast on this cornucopia of freebies is the   world. One million to 2 million immigrants, legal and illegal,  arrive every year. They come with fewer skills and less education than Americans, and consume more tax dollars than they contribute  by three to one.

Wise Latina women have more babies north of the border than they do in Mexico and twice as many here as American women.

As almost all immigrants are now Third World people of color, they qualify for ethnic preferences in hiring and promotions and admissions to college over the children of Americans

All of this would have astounded and appalled the Founding Fathers, who after all, created America — as they declared loud and clear in the Constitution — “for ourselves and our posterity.”

China saves, invests and grows at 8 percent. America, awash in debt, has a shrinking economy, a huge trade deficit, a gutted industrial base, an unemployment rate surging toward 10 percent and a money supply that’s swollen to double its size in a year. The 20th century may have been the American Century. The 21st shows another pattern.

“The United States is declining as a nation and a world power with mostly sighs and shrugs to mark this seismic event,” writes Les Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, in CFR’s Foreign Affairs magazine. “Astonishingly, some people do not appear to realize that the situation is all that serious.”

Even the establishment is starting to get the message.

I was not aware that Al Sharpton was looking for help

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First off, let me say that I think Cap and Trade is wrong, will kill jobs and so on.

But this is totally disgusting:

Some of my fellow Conservatives are loving it. I personally found it to be most offensive and quite childish. The man was being outmaneuvered and instead of trying to argue the point; he chose to play the race card. How convenient.  :pissedoff:

Al Sharpton would have been proud. So would John Podhoretz possibly.

Not that I am defending Boxer, she is an idiot. But the worst way to fight idiocy; is with MORE idiocy.

Color me among those who are quite unimpressed. :smug:

Others: Townhall.com, Weekly Standard, The Other McCain, Say Anything, Wonk Room, Gateway Pundit and Weasel Zippers

Rationing Healthcare? They already do! It’s called Health Insurance.

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I saw this today on the Meme tracker and I wanted to really avoid it. Because I just do not feel that I cannot speak on Healthcare in a objective form, because it is quite the personal issue with me.

I have no healthcare insurance at all. :-((

Anyone this is in the New York Times Magazine:

You have advanced kidney cancer. It will kill you, probably in the next year or two. A drug called Sutent slows the spread of the cancer and may give you an extra six months, but at a cost of $54,000. Is a few more months worth that much?

If you can afford it, you probably would pay that much, or more, to live longer, even if your quality of life wasn’t going to be good. But suppose it’s not you with the cancer but a stranger covered by your health-insurance fund. If the insurer provides this man — and everyone else like him — with Sutent, your premiums will increase. Do you still think the drug is a good value? Suppose the treatment cost a million dollars. Would it be worth it then? Ten million? Is there any limit to how much you would want your insurer to pay for a drug that adds six months to someone’s life? If there is any point at which you say, “No, an extra six months isn’t worth that much,” then you think that health care should be rationed.

In the current U.S. debate over health care reform, “rationing” has become a dirty word. Meeting last month with five governors, President Obama urged them to avoid using the term, apparently for fear of evoking the hostile response that sank the Clintons’ attempt to achieve reform. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published at the end of last year with the headline “Obama Will Ration Your Health Care,” Sally Pipes, C.E.O. of the conservative Pacific Research Institute, described how in Britain the national health service does not pay for drugs that are regarded as not offering good value for money, and added, “Americans will not put up with such limits, nor will our elected representatives.” And the Democratic chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Max Baucus, told CNSNews in April, “There is no rationing of health care at all” in the proposed reform.

Remember the joke about the man who asks a woman if she would have sex with him for a million dollars? She reflects for a few moments and then answers that she would. “So,” he says, “would you have sex with me for $50?” Indignantly, she exclaims, “What kind of a woman do you think I am?” He replies: “We’ve already established that. Now we’re just haggling about the price.” The man’s response implies that if a woman will sell herself at any price, she is a prostitute. The way we regard rationing in health care seems to rest on a similar assumption, that it’s immoral to apply monetary considerations to saving lives — but is that stance tenable?

Health care is a scarce resource, and all scarce resources are rationed in one way or another. In the United States, most health care is privately financed, and so most rationing is by price: you get what you, or your employer, can afford to insure you for. But our current system of employer-financed health insurance exists only because the federal government encouraged it by making the premiums tax deductible. That is, in effect, a more than $200 billion government subsidy for health care. In the public sector, primarily Medicare, Medicaid and hospital emergency rooms, health care is rationed by long waits, high patient copayment requirements, low payments to doctors that discourage some from serving public patients and limits on payments to hospitals.

The case for explicit health care rationing in the United States starts with the difficulty of thinking of any other way in which we can continue to provide adequate health care to people on Medicaid and Medicare, let alone extend coverage to those who do not now have it. Health-insurance premiums have more than doubled in a decade, rising four times faster than wages. In May, Medicare’s trustees warned that the program’s biggest fund is heading for insolvency in just eight years. Health care now absorbs about one dollar in every six the nation spends, a figure that far exceeds the share spent by any other nation. According to the Congressional Budget Office, it is on track to double by 2035.

Now the Right Wing Blogs are doing some seriously loud howling about this right here. I guess that I break away from that pack. I tend to be a bit more clearer thinking about it. Hence my Moderate label. For some better perspective, Riverdaughter over at The Confluence, who is a Moderate Democrat; puts some of this in perspective:

Peter Singer is an ethicist who espouses a utilitarian view of ethics, meaning that his interpretation of general welfare extends to an economic calculation of costs versus benefits. For example, he proposes that it is acceptable to identify specific measures of when a treatment is effective enough to warrant the cost of providing such treatment.

[….]

First, it is critical to note that healthcare is already “rationed” in our country. It is “rationed” each and every day when the uninsured or under-insured are denied the same high quality treatments afforded to those without financial constraints. Anyone who has seen Michael Moore’s movie “Sicko” saw through this film the soulless rationing of treatment in our country such as how the poor and indigent were treated by a for-profit hospital that dumped them on a street corner after providing only minimal care. I will never forget the morning I broke down in tears after reading about a man in our community who had cancer, lost his job and with it his health insurance. His statement “I’m just waiting to die because I cannot afford the chemotherapy drugs” exposed the unimaginable truth that our society is willing to allow people to die with little protest from its citizens.  If this is already unacceptable, why would we want to factor such a strategy into any plan we devise?

Now, I have a great deal of respect for Peter Singer and his general view of the world, but his utilitarian ethical approach to healthcare reform in our country is one I cannot embrace; and the reason I cannot embrace it is because our political leaders do not use a utilitarian view when dealing with banks, Wall Street barons, and corporations. How does a society continue to exist when those who have little are turned away from life saving treatments while the wealthy live in a world where money is no object? There is something inherently wrong with standing before a nation and acting as though there is no limit to the funds our country should expend so that banks and Wall Street traders are allowed to continue to feed at the trough of excess, yet a discussion over saving the lives of our fellow citizens erodes into debate over cutting costs. Yet this is exactly what our legislators and president are doing to us on a daily basis — on both sides of the political aisle.

I agree with on all point, except when it comes to Michael Moore. Michael Moore, In my humble opinion; is a socialist Propaganda maker. Who yowls about the evils of a capitalistic society —- All the whole driving around in a limousine himself.  Moore is the perfect example of a Limousine Liberal; kind of like John Kerry.  However, she is correct about the whole Health-care issue. If you have good insurance, you get good care, if you have none. You get treated and released most usually.

Like I said; I do not have any sort of health insurance at all. But I just cannot get up and cheer madly about something ran by our Federal Government. I just cannot. Because this is same Government that allowed the Siege at the Waco Compound to happen; of which I have never forgiven Bill Clinton for, nor will I ever.  Also Ruby Ridge and the list goes on and on. Not to mention the Medicare and Medicaid systems, how screwed up they are.

However, the Compassionate side of me, that sees the suffering and poor getting stiffed; wants to see a better system. So far, from what I have read. Obama’s plan is STILL going to leave many people uninsured. So, what is the big change? There is not really going to be any change, of great importance anyhow. The far left and special interest people are figuring this out.

So, anyhow, hopefully I did not lose any Conservative credo in this posting. 😀 :-/

Others: Don Surber, Tammy Bruce, Say Anything, The Strata-Sphere, Winds of Change.NET, PoliGazette, Sweetness & Light and The Rhetorican

One of the reasons why I do not use WorldNetDaily as a news source

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WorldNetDaily, I have always felt; is the National Enquirer of Conservative News. Well, they have given me another reason to feel that way. They are reporting on an American Solider, who is refusing to reporting for duty, because he does not believe that President Obama is an American citizen.

Quote:

His attorney, Orly Taitz, confirmed to WND the military has rescinded his impending deployment orders.

“We won! We won before we even arrived,” she said with excitement. “It means that the military has nothing to show for Obama. It means that the military has directly responded by saying Obama is illegitimate – and they cannot fight it. Therefore, they are revoking the order!”

She continued, “They just said, ‘Order revoked.’ No explanation. No reasons – just revoked.”

Confederate Yankee is baffled:

I have no ready explanation for why the military would rescind his deployment orders, unless they plan to keep him stateside to begin a disciplinary investigation against him. Frankly, for the sake of our nation, I hope this is the case.

Because if the Pentagon allows soldiers to simply declare Obama an an illegitimate Command in Chief—as the article would have you believe—it would seem to set a precedent that would lead to chaos in the military, allowing service members to question all orders for the executive branch. It would be anarchy.

WorldNet Daily simply must have this wrong. The larger ramifications of the case being dismissed for the reasons alleged by the attorney are too terrible to consider.

John Cole, A blogger on the left, that I happen to respect; is a bit more direct:

This guy is going to get court-martial-ed so quickly, brutally, and publicly that it isn’t even funny, and his lunatic lawyer thinks they have won something. It hasn’t even occurred to them that the order to deploy was rescinded because they are about to hammer him with disciplinary action.

I think I tend to agree with John here. That this ol’ boy is about get put through the meat grinder with the Military. 😯 :hypnotized: 😮

Congress Delivers a Healthcare Bill

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You can read about it here.

You can read the details here. (Adobe Reader Required)

Commentary up the wazoo here.

A couple of rubs:

The proposal would also impose a “play-or-pay” requirement on employers, who would either have to offer qualifying insurance to their employees and contribute  a substantial share toward the premiums, or pay a fee to the federal government that would generally equal 8 percent of their payroll. Small employers (those with an annual payroll of less than $250,000) would be exempt from those requirements. As a rule, full-time employees with a qualifying offer of coverage from their employer would not be eligible to obtain subsidies via the exchanges, but an exception to that “firewall” would be allowed for workers who had to pay more than 11 percent of their income for their employer’s insurance. In that case, the employers would have to pay an amount equal to the per-worker fee due for firms subject to the “play-or-pay” penalty. Firms with relatively few employees and relatively low average wages would also be eligible for tax credits to cover up  to half of their contributions toward health insurance premiums.

Comment on the underlined part: Which would of course, run some Businesses out of business. Either you play along or pay taxes out the nose. The small Employers part is nice. But this would put the squeeze on the Medium to large businesses.

Of course, you’ve got your “Let’s Cover our backsides” Caveats:

Important Caveats Regarding This Preliminary Analysis

There are several reasons why the preliminary analysis that is provided in this
letter and its attachments does not constitute a comprehensive cost estimate for
the coverage provisions of America’s Affordable Health Choices Act:

• First, our analysis was based on specifications regarding insurance coverage that were provided by the tri-committee group and that differ in important ways from the “discussion draft” version of legislative language that was
released on June 19, 2009. The specifications that we analyzed are supposed to be reflected in the draft language released by the three committees today, but we have not yet been able to analyze that language to determine whether it conforms to those specifications. Our review of that language could have a significant effect on our analysis. More generally, as our understanding of the specifications improves, that also could affect our future estimates.

• Second, some effects of the proposal have not yet been fully captured in our analysis. In particular, we have not yet estimated the administrative costs to the federal government of implementing the specified policies, nor have we
accounted for all of the proposal’s likely effects on spending for other federal programs. We expect to include those effects in the near future, but we also  expect that they will not have a sizable impact on our analysis.

• Third, the budgetary information shown in the attached table reflects many of the major cash flows that would affect the federal budget as a result of implementing the specified policies, and it provides our preliminary assessment of the proposal’s net effects on the federal budget deficit (subject  to the caveats listed above). Some additional cash flows would appear in the budget—either as outlays and offsetting receipts or outlays and revenues—but would net to zero and thus would not affect the deficit. CBO and the JCT staff have not yet estimated all of those cash flows but expect to do so in the near future.2 Those additional cash flows would include the premiums collected by the public plan and its outlays as well as risk-adjustment transfers from plans with relatively healthy enrollees to plans with relatively unhealthy enrollees.

The Requirements:

The proposal’s major provisions—including the establishment of an individual mandate to obtain insurance, an expansion of eligibility for the Medicaid program, and the creation of new insurance exchanges through which certain people could purchase subsidized coverage—would be implemented beginning in 2013.

All legal residents would be required to enroll in a health insurance plan meeting certain minimum standards or face a tax penalty (described below). Individuals not required to file a tax return would be exempt from the penalty; exemptions for hardship and other  reasons would be determined by a new and independent federal agency overseeing the health insurance exchanges (also described below).

The penalty assessed on people who would be subject to the mandate but did not obtain insurance would equal 2.5 percent of the difference between their adjusted gross income (modified to include tax-exempt interest and certain other sources of income) and the tax filing threshold. The amount of the penalty could not exceed the national average
premium for plans offered in the exchanges.

New health insurance policies sold in the individual and group insurance markets would be subject to several requirements regarding their availability and benefits. Insurers would be required to issue policies to all applicants and could not limit coverage for people with preexisting medical conditions. In addition, premiums for a given plan could not vary because of enrollees’ health but could vary because of their age by a factor of two (under a system known as adjusted community rating). Individual policies that were purchased before 2013 and maintained continuously thereafter would be “grandfathered,” meaning that they would not have to conform to the new rules but would still fulfill the individual mandate. Existing group policies would have to conform to the new rules by
2017.

In order to fulfill the individual mandate, policies that were not grandfathered would have to cover a broadly specified minimum benefit package (which was assumed to have the same scope of benefits as seen in a typical employer-sponsored plan) and would have to have a minimum actuarial value of 70 percent and a limit on out-of-pocket costs no
greater than $5,000 for individual coverage and $10,000 for family coverage. (A health insurance plan’s actuarial value reflects the share of costs for covered services paid by the plan.) After 2013, the maximum levels of those out-of-pocket caps would be indexed to general inflation.

The proposal would establish a national exchange through which certain individuals and employers could purchase health insurance; states could also opt to operate their own exchanges (either one per state or one covering several states). All insurance plans sold  through an exchange would be required to cover the “basic” benefit package described above. “Enhanced” plans would have an actuarial value of 85 percent, and “premium” plans would have an actuarial value of 95 percent.

Except as specified below, individuals and families who enroll in exchange plans and have income between 133 percent and 400 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) would be eligible for premium subsidies and cost-sharing subsidies (see table below).

Federal premium subsidies in a given area would be tied to the average premium of the three lowest-cost plans providing basic coverage in the exchange in that area. The subsidies would limit an enrollee’s contribution to a percentage of income ranging from 1.5 percent to 11.0 percent (see table); those caps would not be indexed over time. The federal government would fully fund cost-sharing subsidies, which would increase the actuarial value of enrollees’ coverage to specified tiers based on income.

Say goodbye to your freedoms folks. Because in a socialist society. You have none, at all.

Besides all that, how the hell are we going to pay for all this? Seeing our Economy is in the toilet and all. Stupid is, stupid does, I guess. :struggle: :silly:

Update: Ed Morrissey, As always, does a bang up job analyzing this new Bill and as I suspected; There’s some crap in it. :pissedoff:

Oh Wonderful….: The Economy is screwed to hell, worse than originally thought!

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Hope and Change……and Unemployed:

The recent unemployment numbers have undermined confidence that we might be nearing the bottom of the recession. What we can see on the surface is disconcerting enough, but the inside numbers are just as bad.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics preliminary estimate for job losses for June is 467,000, which means 7.2 million people have lost their jobs since the start of the recession. The cumulative job losses over the last six months have been greater than for any other half year period since World War II, including the military demobilization after the war. The job losses are also now equal to the net job gains over the previous nine years, making this the only recession since the Great Depression to wipe out all job growth from the previous expansion.

Here are 10 reasons we are in even more trouble than the 9.5% unemployment rate indicates:

  • – June’s total assumed 185,000 people at work who probably were not. The government could not identify them; it made an assumption about trends. But many of the mythical jobs are in industries that have absolutely no job creation, e.g., finance. When the official numbers are adjusted over the next several months, June will look worse.
  • – More companies are asking employees to take unpaid leave. These people don’t count on the unemployment roll.
  • – No fewer than 1.4 million people wanted or were available for work in the last 12 months but were not counted. Why? Because they hadn’t searched for work in the four weeks preceding the survey.
  • – The number of workers taking part-time jobs due to the slack economy, a kind of stealth underemployment, has doubled in this recession to about nine million, or 5.8% of the work force. Add those whose hours have been cut to those who cannot find a full-time job and the total unemployed rises to 16.5%, putting the number of involuntarily idle in the range of 25 million.
  • – The average work week for rank-and-file employees in the private sector, roughly 80% of the work force, slipped to 33 hours. That’s 48 minutes a week less than before the recession began, the lowest level since the government began tracking such data 45 years ago. Full-time workers are being downgraded to part time as businesses slash labor costs to remain above water, and factories are operating at only 65% of capacity. If Americans were still clocking those extra 48 minutes a week now, the same aggregate amount of work would get done with 3.3 million fewer employees, which means that if it were not for the shorter work week the jobless rate would be 11.7%, not 9.5% (which far exceeds the 8% rate projected by the Obama administration).
  • – The average length of official unemployment increased to 24.5 weeks, the longest since government began tracking this data in 1948. The number of long-term unemployed (i.e., for 27 weeks or more) has now jumped to 4.4 million, an all-time high.
  • – The average worker saw no wage gains in June, with average compensation running flat at $18.53 an hour.
  • – The goods producing sector is losing the most jobs — 223,000 in the last report alone.
  • – The prospects for job creation are equally distressing. The likelihood is that when economic activity picks up, employers will first choose to increase hours for existing workers and bring part-time workers back to full time. Many unemployed workers looking for jobs once the recovery begins will discover that jobs as good as the ones they lost are almost impossible to find because many layoffs have been permanent. Instead of shrinking operations, companies have shut down whole business units or made sweeping structural changes in the way they conduct business. General Motors and Chrysler, closed hundreds of dealerships and reduced brands. Citigroup and Bank of America cut tens of thousands of positions and exited many parts of the world of finance.

Job losses may last well into 2010 to hit an unemployment peak close to 11%. That unemployment rate may be sustained for an extended period.

via Average length of unemployment highest since 1948. – WSJ.com.

So much for “The One” fixing the economy. Oh, right; he misread it. Looks like this Blogging gig get might be my only job for a long time to come.  The Left is now spinning saying it will never recover.

Here’s ol’ Floppy ears talking about it:

Others: Hot Air, Pajamas Media, QandO, The Strata-Sphere, Stop The ACLU and Balloon Juice

An Aunt’s Grief

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(H/T MRC)


Watch CBS Videos Online

I wonder, what would Lew Rockwell say now?

Pssst! Hey Liberals! Sarah Palin knows what she’s talking about!

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As I am sure you all know Sarah Palin wrote in the Washington Post, an Op-Ed about the purposed Cap and Trade legislation.

Government Palin Writes:

There is no shortage of threats to our economy. America’s unemployment rate recently hit its highest mark in more than 25 years and is expected to continue climbing. Worries are widespread that even when the economy finally rebounds, the recovery won’t bring jobs. Our nation’s debt is unsustainable, and the federal government’s reach into the private sector is unprecedented.

Unfortunately, many in the national media would rather focus on the personality-driven political gossip of the day than on the gravity of these challenges. So, at risk of disappointing the chattering class, let me make clear what is foremost on my mind and where my focus will be:

I am deeply concerned about President Obama’s cap-and-trade energy plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy. It would undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage.

American prosperity has always been driven by the steady supply of abundant, affordable energy. Particularly in Alaska, we understand the inherent link between energy and prosperity, energy and opportunity, and energy and security. Consequently, many of us in this huge, energy-rich state recognize that the president’s cap-and-trade energy tax would adversely affect every aspect of the U.S. economy.

There is no denying that as the world becomes more industrialized, we need to reform our energy policy and become less dependent on foreign energy sources. But the answer doesn’t lie in making energy scarcer and more expensive! Those who understand the issue know we can meet our energy needs and environmental challenges without destroying America’s economy.

Job losses are so certain under this new cap-and-tax plan that it includes a provision accommodating newly unemployed workers from the resulting dried-up energy sector, to the tune of $4.2 billion over eight years. So much for creating jobs.

In addition to immediately increasing unemployment in the energy sector, even more American jobs will be threatened by the rising cost of doing business under the cap-and-tax plan. For example, the cost of farming will certainly increase, driving down farm incomes while driving up grocery prices. The costs of manufacturing, warehousing and transportation will also increase.

Of course, as if right on cue, every liberal in America is laughing at her and is saying that she is an idiot; and that she is trying to stay in the spotlight and so forth. Well, guess what? Not too long ago; on March 5, 2009. My own home paper, The Detroit News, wrote a similarly written editorial, basically saying the SAME THING. The Article itself is now offline, and you have to pay to get it. But luckily for me; I blogged about it.  The Article says and I quote:

President Barack Obama’s proposed cap-and-trade system on greenhouse gas emissions is a giant economic dagger aimed at the nation’s heartland — particularly Michigan. It is a multibillion-dollar tax hike on everything that Michigan does, including making things, driving cars and burning coal.

The president is asking for a system of government limits on carbon emissions. The right to emit carbon would be auctioned off to generate revenue for more government spending programs.

The president’s budget projects receipts totaling $646 billion through 2019 from the sale of these greenhouse gas permits.

The goal, according to the president’s budget outline, is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide to 14 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

Doing so will drive up the cost of nearly everything and will amount to a major tax increase for American consumers.

Such a tax will hit the Midwest particularly hard, which is why House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, told the New York Times, “let’s just be honest and call it a carbon tax that will increase taxes on all Americans who drive a car, who have a job, who turn on a light switch, pure and simple.”

The carbon tax will be paid by energy companies, manufacturers and public utilities, who will pass the cost on to their consumers. Michigan will be especially targeted. It gets 60 percent of its electric power from coal plants, and the state’s economy is still reliant on heavy manufacturing such as car and truck assembly and auto parts production.

Michigan will lose as carbon tax money is shifted to states with a greater presence of high-tech and service businesses.

The proposed tax would take effect in 2012 and has the very real potential to throw the nation back into recession, if indeed the expected recovery has arrived by then. It’s impossible to raise costs for such basics as manufacturing and energy production by more than half a trillion dollars over a decade and not have the effects felt across the economy.

The nation’s gross domestic product contracted at an annualized rate of 3.8 percent in last year’s fourth quarter — the worst economic record in nearly three decades. Is this really a good time to be talking about a carbon tax? How will such talk impact investment decisions?

Obama promises to use some of the revenues for tax relief for certain workers and some of the rest for subsidies for alternative energy. But that won’t make up for the damage this huge new tax will do to the economy, especially in Michigan.

So, maybe, perhaps maybe, Sarah Palin is not as stupid as these liberals want to make her out to be. At least, she right on point about this Cap and Trade Legislation. It would raise taxes and be a job killer for Michigan and yes, for the rest of the Country.

Others, Yes, Including idiot liberals who are mocking her: The Fix, The Atlantic Business Channel, The New Republic, The Huffington Post, Washington Wire, The Daily Dish, The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room, Ezra Klein, Boston Globe, Hot Air, Right Wing News, PERRspectives, PoliGazette, The Strata-Sphere, Wake up America, Moe Lane, The Note, The Daley Gator, Democratic Strategist, Zandar Versus The Stupid, NY Daily News, The Politico, The Swamp, NewsBusters.org, No More Mister Nice Blog, Gawker, Gathering of Eagles: NY, Sister Toldjah, YID With LID, Macsmind, Classical Values, GOP 12, Stop The ACLU, TBogg, American Power, Real Clear Politics, Green Inc., Gateway Pundit, Cold Fury, PoliBlog, Balloon Juice, Latest Open Salon Blog and Left in the West