Here is a novel idea that would help bring value back into our failing education system. Start teaching kids gun safety in schools and let the local sheriff departments and responsible community members like those in Tea Team USA help set the courses up.
Showing posts with label American Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American Politics. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Here are three important questions
Americans should think about
Commentary by James H. Shott
1. Why have so many Americans traded liberty for government control?
The federal tax code is 17,000 pages and involves more than 700 different forms. According to the IRS, Americans spend something like 5.1 billion hours each year preparing their taxes, and tax preparation drains an estimated $194 billion annually from the U.S. economy, according to the Tax Foundation.
The Code of Federal Regulations, the codification of the general and permanent rules created by Congress and the executive departments and agencies of the federal government, comprises a mind-blowing 163,000 pages, weighs more than 1,600 pounds, and stands 54 feet high.
Should government decide the kind of light bulbs we can use, or the kind of toilets we can own, or the kind of sheets hotels put on their beds, or be able to tell us we have to buy a particular item? Now that the feds have taken over General Motors, is it okay that they require us to buy a Chevy instead of a Ford or a Dodge or a VW or a Subaru? (Chevy dealers may not participate in this poll.)
The answers to those questions are: “No, no, no, no, and absolutely not.”
2. Why have so many Americans traded self-sufficiency for dependency?
In 2009 there were 37.2 million food stamp recipients, 4.1 million on welfare and 9.1 million receiving unemployment support. In 2010 Medicaid had 58 million participants. Allowing for duplications of aid for some Americans, it is likely that more than one-fourth of the people living in the U.S. receive one or more forms of financial assistance from the federal government, not including Medicare.
And, 51 percent of the households in the country paid no income taxes to support their federal government in 2010. The Atlantic magazine reports in its online edition that “about fifteen million American households, or 10 percent of all taxpayers, receive more cash from the IRS than they contribute in federal income taxes and payroll taxes. That's thanks to ‘refundable credits,’ tax credits that can bring your tax bill into negative territory.”
Since President Lyndon B. Johnson launched the War on Poverty in 1964, welfare spending increased 13 times by FY 2008, rising from $50 billion to over $700 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars.
Despite having spent trillions of dollars on the War on Poverty, record numbers of Americans get federal assistance today. Obviously, some of these folks genuinely need help, but some of them are taking advantage of the situation, and are taking advantage of their tax-paying fellow Americans. We’ve made it attractive for people to become dependent.
3. Why have so many Americans forsaken our traditional values, like marriage and family?
In 2007 nearly 40 percent of babies born in the United States were born to unwed females, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. The 1.7 million out-of-wedlock births represent an increase of more than 25 percent over five years. The Guttmacher Institute estimates that nearly half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and 40 percent of them end with abortion.
Heritage Foundation senior researcher Robert Rector wrote last year, “The principal cause of child poverty in the U.S. is the absence of married fathers in the home,” yet marriage continues to decline.
Columnist Cal Thomas wrote recently about Robert Woodson, president of the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, an organization helping people rise out of poverty. He suggests that Mr. Woodson “would probably wince if you called him a ‘community organizer.’ That's because for the last 30 years … he has not spent time organizing the poor around ineffective government programs and other addictions, he has been helping them become self-sufficient.”
Mr. Woodson subscribes to the idea that life is 10 percent what happens to us and 90 percent how we respond to it, and says unlike other approaches, "takes time-tested principles and virtues and applies them to addictions, homelessness and other conditions. We have moral consistency," he believes. He also believes that "you can't learn anything by studying failure. If you want to learn anything, you must study the successful."
Cal Thomas recounts a day “visiting housing projects Woodson's organization supports and studying his success. I met former drug addicts, dealers, prostitutes and pimps – all of whom testify to having been through failed government programs – who now say they are clean, sober and off the streets.” The keys, Mr. Thomas concludes, are discipline, and raised expectations within a family atmosphere infused with tough love, imposed morality, and yes, hope.
Robert Woodson shows that what many, perhaps most, of the poor need in order to improve their lot in life is some good, old fashioned, traditional American values, personal liberty, and self-reliance. What they don’t need, and what has failed to help them, is more expensive government programs funded by high taxation and operated by a huge inefficient bureaucracy.
Tens of thousands of pages of government regulations, people depending upon government instead of themselves, and an eroding moral base reflect a society that has forsaken the standards that built it into the bright light of the world. Our infidelity to the founding principles is reducing the United States to another failing socialistic welfare state.
Cross-posted from Observations
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
As we watch a new year begin,
let’s review some things from 2010
Commentary by James H. Shott
Here are reminders of what we don’t want to see in the New Year:
● Hey big spender - During the tenure of the 111th Congress the federal government has accumulated $3.22 trillion more in new debt than it did during the first 100 Congresses combined, according to the U.S. Treasury’s official debt figures. That equals $10,429 in new debt for each and every one of the 308.7 million people in the United States, according to the 2010 Census.
The total national debt of nearly $14 trillion as of Dec. 22 now equals $44,886 for every man, woman and child in the United States.
The 111th Congress captured this scandalous spending label from its predecessor, the 110th Congress.
● Better late than never - "It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for first-generation ethanol," Al Gore told a clean energy gathering last week in Greece. He called the benefits of ethanol "trivial," adding that "It's hard once such a program is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going."
"One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee,” he continued, “and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for President."
Mr. Gore finally has admitted that the ethanol program that has caused such turmoil, wasted so much money, and benefitted so few is primarily political, but at least he finally came “clean.”
● Compensation for 9-11 first responders - Last year saw politics being played over the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. You might expect something like this to be a straightforward bill to address a specific problem, but no.
First, it was going to be funded by raising taxes, violating stated Democratic rules that new spending would have to be funded by cuts in other spending. Further, it was poorly written and larded up with $3 billion in pork barrel spending, there were no hearings on the bill, it contained no oversight provisions and no requirement for claimants to provide evidence showing a link between their illnesses and activity at the 9/11 site.
A good purpose, but irresponsibly executed.
● The Imperial Presidency - President Barack Obama has an annoying habit of circumventing the Congress and the Constitution. Although other presidents have dabbled in similar behavior, he has raised it to a high art.
The profusion of “czars”– political decision-makers that are unelected and untouchable by the people, who report to no one but the president — has reached a new high (or low). These czars have the same power as cabinet members, but do not have to go through either a vetting process or Senate confirmation as cabinet members do. The president has authority to appoint such people, but they have no Constitutional regulatory, legislative or law-making powers. Such powers are reserved for the Congress.
The president also has authority to fill open positions while the Senate is in recess, a feature intended to foster efficient operation of the government, but which has been misused by presidents through the years to avoid the confirmation process in the Senate for candidates that are controversial. Mr. Obama will likely give recess appointments to six executive branch officials, bringing to 28 the number of such appointments in his two years. So much for transparency.
Unable to get contentious and dangerous Cap and Trade and Internet Neutrality legislation through Congress, the administration simply ignores the proper method for enacting such measures and imposes new regulations on energy production and the Internet through the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Communication Commission. The degree of regulation being imposed on Americans without Congressional approval is higher than at any time in at least 50 years, and perhaps higher than ever before.
Our government was designed specifically with power dispersed through three co-equal branches, and a system of checks and balances to prevent any single branch from having too much power.
From time to time presidents must be reminded that they are only the President of the United States, not a King, Emperor or Grand Poobah. The time for a reminder has come.
A fitting reminder can be found in the words of George Washington, who said in November of 1787, less than two months after the US Constitution was signed, “The power under the Constitution will always be in the people. It is entrusted for certain defined purposes, and for a certain limited period, to representatives of their own choosing; and, whenever it is executed contrary to their interest, or not agreeable to their wishes, their servants can and undoubtedly will be recalled.”
More 18th century wisdom comes from Daniel Webster: “It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”
We’ve had enough of masters governing us. Now we need public servants.
Cross-posted from Observations
Here are reminders of what we don’t want to see in the New Year:
● Hey big spender - During the tenure of the 111th Congress the federal government has accumulated $3.22 trillion more in new debt than it did during the first 100 Congresses combined, according to the U.S. Treasury’s official debt figures. That equals $10,429 in new debt for each and every one of the 308.7 million people in the United States, according to the 2010 Census.
The total national debt of nearly $14 trillion as of Dec. 22 now equals $44,886 for every man, woman and child in the United States.
The 111th Congress captured this scandalous spending label from its predecessor, the 110th Congress.
● Better late than never - "It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for first-generation ethanol," Al Gore told a clean energy gathering last week in Greece. He called the benefits of ethanol "trivial," adding that "It's hard once such a program is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going."
"One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee,” he continued, “and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for President."
Mr. Gore finally has admitted that the ethanol program that has caused such turmoil, wasted so much money, and benefitted so few is primarily political, but at least he finally came “clean.”
● Compensation for 9-11 first responders - Last year saw politics being played over the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. You might expect something like this to be a straightforward bill to address a specific problem, but no.
First, it was going to be funded by raising taxes, violating stated Democratic rules that new spending would have to be funded by cuts in other spending. Further, it was poorly written and larded up with $3 billion in pork barrel spending, there were no hearings on the bill, it contained no oversight provisions and no requirement for claimants to provide evidence showing a link between their illnesses and activity at the 9/11 site.
A good purpose, but irresponsibly executed.
● The Imperial Presidency - President Barack Obama has an annoying habit of circumventing the Congress and the Constitution. Although other presidents have dabbled in similar behavior, he has raised it to a high art.
The profusion of “czars”– political decision-makers that are unelected and untouchable by the people, who report to no one but the president — has reached a new high (or low). These czars have the same power as cabinet members, but do not have to go through either a vetting process or Senate confirmation as cabinet members do. The president has authority to appoint such people, but they have no Constitutional regulatory, legislative or law-making powers. Such powers are reserved for the Congress.
The president also has authority to fill open positions while the Senate is in recess, a feature intended to foster efficient operation of the government, but which has been misused by presidents through the years to avoid the confirmation process in the Senate for candidates that are controversial. Mr. Obama will likely give recess appointments to six executive branch officials, bringing to 28 the number of such appointments in his two years. So much for transparency.
Unable to get contentious and dangerous Cap and Trade and Internet Neutrality legislation through Congress, the administration simply ignores the proper method for enacting such measures and imposes new regulations on energy production and the Internet through the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Communication Commission. The degree of regulation being imposed on Americans without Congressional approval is higher than at any time in at least 50 years, and perhaps higher than ever before.
Our government was designed specifically with power dispersed through three co-equal branches, and a system of checks and balances to prevent any single branch from having too much power.
From time to time presidents must be reminded that they are only the President of the United States, not a King, Emperor or Grand Poobah. The time for a reminder has come.
A fitting reminder can be found in the words of George Washington, who said in November of 1787, less than two months after the US Constitution was signed, “The power under the Constitution will always be in the people. It is entrusted for certain defined purposes, and for a certain limited period, to representatives of their own choosing; and, whenever it is executed contrary to their interest, or not agreeable to their wishes, their servants can and undoubtedly will be recalled.”
More 18th century wisdom comes from Daniel Webster: “It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”
We’ve had enough of masters governing us. Now we need public servants.
Cross-posted from Observations
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
The drug price issue is ripe for demagoguery
Commentary by James Shott
Politicians love issues that get voters upset and they use them to attract votes. One of those is the cost of drugs and the evil, greedy pharmaceutical industry. People think they’re being ripped off when pills cost more than a few cents each, and some enterprising politician will likely use that issue to his or her advantage.
You can make the argument that a drug that is effective in treating a serious medical condition is worth whatever it costs, but that argument often collapses when someone thinks about how a bunch of powder formed into a tablet can cost more than a few cents.
In fact, pills aren’t expensive to make, so that argument is correct, as far as it goes. But as is so often the case with political issues, there’s a lot more to it.
The thing that drives the cost of medicines so high is the enormous up-front costs of research and development, and testing to get the drug approved by the government.
Pharmaceutical companies develop several drugs simultaneously, looking for the right combination of ingredients to most effectively deal with the medical need, and most of these efforts are unsuccessful. According to MedicalNet.com, “it takes an average of 12 years for an experimental drug to [get] to your medicine cabinet … Only 5 in 5,000 drugs that enter preclinical testing progress to human testing. One of these 5 drugs that are tested in people is approved. The chance for a new drug to actually make it to market is thus only 1 in 5,000,” and a U.S. State Department publication says that the cost of developing a new drug varies from $800 million to nearly $2 billion per drug.
Okay: one drug in 5,000 actually makes it to market, and it costs between $800 million and $2 billion to get it there. The company has to sell enough of that one drug to pay not only for its development, but also for the development of the ones that didn’t make it through the process, and to have enough left over to finance new research and development.
Like other inventors, drug companies patent their ideas. A patent is issued for 20 years from the date of filing, and filing usually occurs early in the development stage to prevent other drug companies from moving in on the idea. If it takes an average of 12 years to get a drug to market, the pharmaceutical company has on average only eight years to sell enough of the drug to recoup the $800 million to $2 billion in development and approval costs, plus money to finance new research. At the end of the patent period, any other drug maker can make a generic form of the drug and sell it for a lot less. Since all the work has already been done and paid for, all they have to do is just make the pills.
So, when you do the math for a drug at the low end of the cost spectrum, with development costs of $800 million, produced by a company we’ll call PharmX, you find that if PharmX charges a quarter a pill, it will have to sell 3.2 billion pills in eight years just to break even. If PharmX charges $1 a pill, it will have to sell 800 million pills in eight years, and if PharmX charges $2 a pill, it will have to sell 400 million pills in eight years, just to break even. And that pays for the pill that made it through to the market, but not the ones that didn’t. If PharmX’s costs were $2 billion, those numbers more than double.
Another aspect of this issue is when drugs made by US companies cost more at home than they do in Canada and other countries. It doesn’t seem right that Canadians can buy American drugs cheaper than Americans can. But what is the drug company supposed to do when the Canadian government, or another government, wants to buy millions of dollars of its product at lower than market price when it is trying to recoup millions or billions in costs? There are other drugs made by other companies that treat the same disease that these governments could buy instead, so should the drug company pass up that opportunity, leave the millions of dollars on the table, and perhaps suffer financially as a result, while a competitor sells millions of dollars of its product to Canada?
It’s a natural reaction to want to punish the “greedy” drug companies, maybe by removing patent protection or shortening the protection period. However, doing something like that puts at risk the continued research and development of new drugs to fight and cure disease, and even if most Americans don’t understand the economics of producing pharmaceuticals, they do understand that American companies produce some of the best and most effective drugs in the world.
Let’s hope they also understand that we would be much worse off by tinkering with this process, except to speed it up and make it less costly, and that they will tell the politicians to not to make things worse.
Cross-posted from Observations
Politicians love issues that get voters upset and they use them to attract votes. One of those is the cost of drugs and the evil, greedy pharmaceutical industry. People think they’re being ripped off when pills cost more than a few cents each, and some enterprising politician will likely use that issue to his or her advantage.You can make the argument that a drug that is effective in treating a serious medical condition is worth whatever it costs, but that argument often collapses when someone thinks about how a bunch of powder formed into a tablet can cost more than a few cents.
In fact, pills aren’t expensive to make, so that argument is correct, as far as it goes. But as is so often the case with political issues, there’s a lot more to it.
The thing that drives the cost of medicines so high is the enormous up-front costs of research and development, and testing to get the drug approved by the government.
Pharmaceutical companies develop several drugs simultaneously, looking for the right combination of ingredients to most effectively deal with the medical need, and most of these efforts are unsuccessful. According to MedicalNet.com, “it takes an average of 12 years for an experimental drug to [get] to your medicine cabinet … Only 5 in 5,000 drugs that enter preclinical testing progress to human testing. One of these 5 drugs that are tested in people is approved. The chance for a new drug to actually make it to market is thus only 1 in 5,000,” and a U.S. State Department publication says that the cost of developing a new drug varies from $800 million to nearly $2 billion per drug.
Okay: one drug in 5,000 actually makes it to market, and it costs between $800 million and $2 billion to get it there. The company has to sell enough of that one drug to pay not only for its development, but also for the development of the ones that didn’t make it through the process, and to have enough left over to finance new research and development.
Like other inventors, drug companies patent their ideas. A patent is issued for 20 years from the date of filing, and filing usually occurs early in the development stage to prevent other drug companies from moving in on the idea. If it takes an average of 12 years to get a drug to market, the pharmaceutical company has on average only eight years to sell enough of the drug to recoup the $800 million to $2 billion in development and approval costs, plus money to finance new research. At the end of the patent period, any other drug maker can make a generic form of the drug and sell it for a lot less. Since all the work has already been done and paid for, all they have to do is just make the pills.
So, when you do the math for a drug at the low end of the cost spectrum, with development costs of $800 million, produced by a company we’ll call PharmX, you find that if PharmX charges a quarter a pill, it will have to sell 3.2 billion pills in eight years just to break even. If PharmX charges $1 a pill, it will have to sell 800 million pills in eight years, and if PharmX charges $2 a pill, it will have to sell 400 million pills in eight years, just to break even. And that pays for the pill that made it through to the market, but not the ones that didn’t. If PharmX’s costs were $2 billion, those numbers more than double.
Another aspect of this issue is when drugs made by US companies cost more at home than they do in Canada and other countries. It doesn’t seem right that Canadians can buy American drugs cheaper than Americans can. But what is the drug company supposed to do when the Canadian government, or another government, wants to buy millions of dollars of its product at lower than market price when it is trying to recoup millions or billions in costs? There are other drugs made by other companies that treat the same disease that these governments could buy instead, so should the drug company pass up that opportunity, leave the millions of dollars on the table, and perhaps suffer financially as a result, while a competitor sells millions of dollars of its product to Canada?
It’s a natural reaction to want to punish the “greedy” drug companies, maybe by removing patent protection or shortening the protection period. However, doing something like that puts at risk the continued research and development of new drugs to fight and cure disease, and even if most Americans don’t understand the economics of producing pharmaceuticals, they do understand that American companies produce some of the best and most effective drugs in the world.
Let’s hope they also understand that we would be much worse off by tinkering with this process, except to speed it up and make it less costly, and that they will tell the politicians to not to make things worse.
Cross-posted from Observations
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Hubris and over-reaching hurt
Obama's job approval
By James H. Shott
The usual course for most presidents is that they lose popularity after they take office and finish their presidency less popular than when they began. Just seven months into his presidency, Barack Obama has lost the confidence of the American people, according to a Washington Post-ABC News survey released last week. It found that just 49 percent now believe Mr. Obama will make the right decisions for the country, a drop of 11 points from the 60 percent who believed in him at the 100-day mark in April, a little more than 100 days ago.
While the poll lists the president’s overall approval at 57 percent, which is 12 points lower than it was at its high in April, it shows that 53 percent disapprove of the way the president is handling the budget deficit, and the healthcare and cap-and-trade issues are taking a toll, as well.
Barack Obama was elected because of his message of hope and change, and his overall popularity is holding up fairly well, because people like him. But when it comes to job approval, evaluating how he’s really doing as president, Mr. Obama is in trouble. His radical leftist agenda is wildly unpopular with most people, once they learn the details of his proposals.
The country is likewise not enamored of the president’s incessant campaigning – does he not realize that he won the election? After he promised better government, the cronyism and lack of transparency in his administration disappoints them. And the Chicago political tactics Mr. Obama brought with him to Washington are the sort of charm that most Americans don’t appreciate.
But to make a bad situation even worse, in the face of spirited and wide-spread opposition to his initiatives, Mr. Obama is acting badly. The people who disagree with his position on cap-and-trade and health care reform are everyday Americans who simply don’t like what he is selling. Instead of slowing down the frantic pace he set to ram these measures through, and proceed in a deliberate and respectful fashion to hear objections and craft policies that respect those opinions, he has taken to demonizing the opponents, calling those who disagree with him names, denouncing them for employing "scare tactics" and "wild misrepresentations," and wanting them to just shut up.
Then, the President himself twists the truth into an unrecognizable sludge when he says things such as that there are 47 million people who can’t afford health insurance, and that someone declares bankruptcy every thirty seconds due to high health care costs. Both of those assertions are provably false. And, he packs his town hall meetings with friendly audiences, limiting the likelihood that a real dissenter will confront him with an uncomfortable question. Is the White House motto “Dishonesty is the best policy?”
In his haste to solve the country’s problems, the president has demonstrated poor leadership and produced few positive results. He campaigned on health care reform, then allowed Congress to design it, and ceded control of the issue. The health care reform measures are regarded as radical and unacceptable by a large portion of Americans, and they believe these measures will dramatically increase the cost of government. Likewise, the cap-and-trade bill that the president supports threatens established energy industries and promises hefty increases in spending for all Americans. People find these and other things intolerable, hence the president’s slipping popularity and job approval ratings.
Barack Obama had a unique opportunity as the first black President of the United States. If he were less ideological and less partisan, he could work to tune up the health care system, instead of trying to completely remake it. He could put into effect some sensible policies to relieve our dependence on foreign oil by opening up areas for domestic production while he created incentives for developing alternative energy technologies. He could put into effect tax cuts that would lighten the load on businesses, encouraging the creation of new jobs and the rehiring of laid-off employees, and speed rather than impede the economic recovery. He could have been a hero.
Instead, he tried to do everything at once, and do it before anyone had time to even find out what was being done. He tried to do more than he could do, and more than he should have done. And as a result, he has failed, so far.
Did President Obama badly over-estimate his own popularity and abilities, or did he badly under-estimate the American people’s resistance to more big government control over their lives? Either way, he has badly misjudged the political atmosphere. And one result of that bad judgment is that today the country is more divided, and more raucously divided, than it has been for decades. Is this the change so many hoped for?
The President and his supporters in Congress are hostile to their constituents’ genuine objections to these radical programs, and arrogantly regard Americans who disagree with them as annoying rabble rousers hindering their efforts to turn the nation into something it has never been, nor was ever intended to be.
That attitude and their image of America must be rejected.
Cross-posted from Observations
The usual course for most presidents is that they lose popularity after they take office and finish their presidency less popular than when they began. Just seven months into his presidency, Barack Obama has lost the confidence of the American people, according to a Washington Post-ABC News survey released last week. It found that just 49 percent now believe Mr. Obama will make the right decisions for the country, a drop of 11 points from the 60 percent who believed in him at the 100-day mark in April, a little more than 100 days ago.While the poll lists the president’s overall approval at 57 percent, which is 12 points lower than it was at its high in April, it shows that 53 percent disapprove of the way the president is handling the budget deficit, and the healthcare and cap-and-trade issues are taking a toll, as well.
Barack Obama was elected because of his message of hope and change, and his overall popularity is holding up fairly well, because people like him. But when it comes to job approval, evaluating how he’s really doing as president, Mr. Obama is in trouble. His radical leftist agenda is wildly unpopular with most people, once they learn the details of his proposals.
The country is likewise not enamored of the president’s incessant campaigning – does he not realize that he won the election? After he promised better government, the cronyism and lack of transparency in his administration disappoints them. And the Chicago political tactics Mr. Obama brought with him to Washington are the sort of charm that most Americans don’t appreciate.
But to make a bad situation even worse, in the face of spirited and wide-spread opposition to his initiatives, Mr. Obama is acting badly. The people who disagree with his position on cap-and-trade and health care reform are everyday Americans who simply don’t like what he is selling. Instead of slowing down the frantic pace he set to ram these measures through, and proceed in a deliberate and respectful fashion to hear objections and craft policies that respect those opinions, he has taken to demonizing the opponents, calling those who disagree with him names, denouncing them for employing "scare tactics" and "wild misrepresentations," and wanting them to just shut up.
Then, the President himself twists the truth into an unrecognizable sludge when he says things such as that there are 47 million people who can’t afford health insurance, and that someone declares bankruptcy every thirty seconds due to high health care costs. Both of those assertions are provably false. And, he packs his town hall meetings with friendly audiences, limiting the likelihood that a real dissenter will confront him with an uncomfortable question. Is the White House motto “Dishonesty is the best policy?”
In his haste to solve the country’s problems, the president has demonstrated poor leadership and produced few positive results. He campaigned on health care reform, then allowed Congress to design it, and ceded control of the issue. The health care reform measures are regarded as radical and unacceptable by a large portion of Americans, and they believe these measures will dramatically increase the cost of government. Likewise, the cap-and-trade bill that the president supports threatens established energy industries and promises hefty increases in spending for all Americans. People find these and other things intolerable, hence the president’s slipping popularity and job approval ratings.
Barack Obama had a unique opportunity as the first black President of the United States. If he were less ideological and less partisan, he could work to tune up the health care system, instead of trying to completely remake it. He could put into effect some sensible policies to relieve our dependence on foreign oil by opening up areas for domestic production while he created incentives for developing alternative energy technologies. He could put into effect tax cuts that would lighten the load on businesses, encouraging the creation of new jobs and the rehiring of laid-off employees, and speed rather than impede the economic recovery. He could have been a hero.
Instead, he tried to do everything at once, and do it before anyone had time to even find out what was being done. He tried to do more than he could do, and more than he should have done. And as a result, he has failed, so far.
Did President Obama badly over-estimate his own popularity and abilities, or did he badly under-estimate the American people’s resistance to more big government control over their lives? Either way, he has badly misjudged the political atmosphere. And one result of that bad judgment is that today the country is more divided, and more raucously divided, than it has been for decades. Is this the change so many hoped for?
The President and his supporters in Congress are hostile to their constituents’ genuine objections to these radical programs, and arrogantly regard Americans who disagree with them as annoying rabble rousers hindering their efforts to turn the nation into something it has never been, nor was ever intended to be.
That attitude and their image of America must be rejected.
Cross-posted from Observations
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Congress fails to hear the people’s objections
to health care reform
It is fascinating to watch Americans who are satisfied with their health care try again and again to get their elected representatives to hear their objections to America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, the bill that will “reform” America’s health care system. The message they are sending is strong enough that even the dimmest bulb in Congress and the administration ought to be able to understand it: “We don’t like the bill, so pay attention and stop trying to pass it.”
Not only do a majority of Americans not like provisions of this bill, but they also don’t like the process. The bill’s opponents expect their elected representatives to behave like mature, responsible adults, and in addition to paying attention to what they are being told, they expect them to approach passing sweeping legislation like this with thoughtful deliberation. What they see instead is a bill of more than 1,200 pages voted on without being read.
We can partially blame President Obama for this, since it was he who told the Congress he wanted this bill passed before the August recess, and the Congress, being compliant folk, tried to obey. Of course, the Congress does not work for the President, a point on which both the President and the Congress seem confused; it is a co-equal branch of government with clear instructions for how to best serve the peoples’ interests.
The objections to the government’s do-everything-fast tactics were first voiced in earnest last April with the tea parties on Tax Day, and again on July 4th, all to no avail. The Congressional leadership and the administration wrote those protests off, figuring they were just fits of indigestion that would soon pass.
Now that the August recess is underway and members of Congress have returned home to touch base with voters, the message has gotten louder. Displeased that their representatives didn’t listen to them in April when they protested profligate government spending, or again on July 4th, the atmosphere has been rather tense in town hall meetings, with messages being shouted, and citizens chanting and carrying signs, all in an effort to get these public servants to pay attention.
You might think that since protests using these tactics were created by liberals they would be somewhat tolerant of them. You would be wrong: When the shoe is on the other foot, liberals don’t like protests very much.
The reaction from said public servants in the administration and the Congress has been disappointing, if predictable. Rather than acknowledge the widespread dissatisfaction, they choose instead to insult and demonize the citizen protestors, calling them “angry mobs,” and belittling their involvement as merely the result of an organizing effort, rather than a genuine protest. But isn’t that exactly what “community organizing” is?
In town hall meetings members of Congress have been given a message in straight-forward, frank terms accented by chants of “read the bill, read the bill” and “tyranny,” and “Yes we can,” and “Just say no,” and “You work for us.” Rough stuff, that. For the most part, impertinent behavior is the worst of it, and, no, that is not the best way to behave. But this sort of behavior is somewhat understandable, since Congress and the administration haven’t gotten the message after months of objections, and, more to the point, that’s the way liberals taught us to do it.
It seems that in order to get attention, you have to be loud and rude. Back in the 1960s, both the Civil Rights movement and the Anti-Vietnam War movement were routinely marked by offensive behavior, and those protests occasionally turned violent. We certainly don’t want anything like that. More ominous is that America was born of a protest ignored by arrogant rulers who refused to listen, and it eventually was settled by armed revolution.
Protest is a time-honored exercise in the United States. It is the right of every American to criticize his/her government at any time for any reason, or for no reason at all. And it is the government’s duty to protect that dissent, however unpopular or unpleasant the criticism may be. It is not proper for the government to in any way attempt to stifle dissent, and evidence that it may be planning to do so should anger every true American.
This bill will transform the health care delivery system, which comprises one-sixth of the national economy. Whether you support this bill or maybe just think some improvements are needed to the current system, the process cannot be taken as lightly as Congress and the administration are taking it, and such a dramatic and important transformation cannot be undertaken with a thin majority of support, let alone if only a minority supports it.
Most Americans think some changes to the health care system are needed, but most do not want the provisions contained in this bill and are giving their elected representatives an ear-full by letter, phone call, email, and in person.
It would be a very good idea for our public servants to pay strict attention to the message being sent, which is that this bill had better not become law.
Cross-posted from Observations
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Palin continues to confuse her enemies
By James H. Shott
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin continues to confound political observers. The woman whose sudden entrance onto the national political stage so badly confused the liberal machine last fall has just as suddenly announced her departure, unexpectedly announcing her resignation as Governor last Friday, less than three years into her term.
You can evaluate Mrs. Palin’s political effectiveness by looking at how people reacted to her. The barrage of gutter-level personal attacks after Sen. John McCain chose her as his running mate was swift and vicious. So badly flummoxed was the opposition that they stooped to personal attacks that targeted the Palin children, which successfully demonstrated the lack of class and civility of the attackers, and actually helped Gov. Palin.
This strategy found a new low when comic David Letterman suggested that Mrs. Palin’s 14 year-old daughter had had a sexual encounter with a baseball player during a game at Yankee Stadium. He then made disparaging remarks about the Governor’s appearance.
Is this the best the left can do?
This behavior epitomizes the undisciplined mind of fringe liberals, who are so hypnotically linked to their ideology that they cannot accept the idea that everyone doesn’t agree with them, and when people don’t agree with them, they lose control.
Gov. Palin’s enemies in Alaska pursued ethics charges against her that lacked merit, but were expensive to defend, and proved to be a substantial distraction. Politics can often be a dirty game.
The Democratic National Committee committed an unforced error with this reaction: "Either Sarah Palin is leaving the people of Alaska high and dry to pursue her long shot national political ambitions or she simply can't handle the job now that her popularity has dimmed and oil revenues are down. Either way – her decision to abandon her post and the people of Alaska who elected her continues a pattern of bizarre behavior that more than anything else may explain the decision she made today."
Even if every slam against Mrs. Palin in that statement was true, you’d think the DNC would be happy that its enemy is stepping down. Message to the DNC: Sometimes it’s better to just keep quiet.
What millions of Americans like about Mrs. Palin is her basic “normalness”: She is one of us. An attractive wife and mother, college educated, a church-goer, a person with a simple lifestyle, a woman who willingly gave birth to a Down syndrome child instead of aborting it … she could be our next door neighbor. And that is what freaked out the opposition so effectively. Her broad, “normal American” appeal presented an image contrary to everything the radicals believe in, and the only way they could neutralize that appeal was to attack her personally and try to belittle her. But that tactic failed.
Would Sarah Palin have been a good Vice President? Like everyone else, she has weaknesses, and despite her natural appeal didn’t always come across as someone that could run a country. She isn’t a polished and eloquent speaker, but then, consider Joe Biden’s frequent gaffs. She doesn’t have foreign policy experience, but then neither does Barack Obama. However, unlike Mr. Obama, Mr. Biden and Sen. McCain, she does have executive experience as a mayor, the head of a state commission, and a governor. And she has proven that she will take on entrenched political factions and win.
So the jury is still out on that question. But the opposition must have been worried, given its frenzied attack strategy.
Suddenly stepping down as governor in mid-term, however, has everyone wondering what is going on, including her supporters. Even the most positive evaluations say this move is risky if Mrs. Palin hopes to have a future in politics. With the decision to walk away, she has branded herself a “quitter,” despite whatever good reasons she may have for stepping down. And, predictably, her enemies are having a field day playing guessing games.
She’s fed up with the pettiness of her opposition and with the nastiness of politics, and the toll her sudden prominence has taken on her children, who are supposed to be off limits from the normal sewer-tactics of the political game. In her statement last Friday, she said: “Political operatives descended on Alaska last August, digging for dirt. The ethics law I championed became their weapon of choice. Over the past nine months I’ve been accused of all sorts of frivolous ethics violations – such as holding a fish in a photograph, wearing a jacket with a logo on it, and answering reporters’ questions. Every one – all 15 of the ethics complaints have been dismissed.” But there are still hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills to pay. Who could blame her for wanting to escape that?
But maybe there is something ugly lying beneath the surface yet to be discovered, an actual scandal, instead of a made-up scandal. Right now, nobody knows for sure, and until something substantive actually comes to light, everyone would be well advised to keep quiet, behave themselves, and make an honest effort to be mature, responsible adults.
There is a strong feeling that those expectations are too high.
Cross-Posted from Observations
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin continues to confound political observers. The woman whose sudden entrance onto the national political stage so badly confused the liberal machine last fall has just as suddenly announced her departure, unexpectedly announcing her resignation as Governor last Friday, less than three years into her term.You can evaluate Mrs. Palin’s political effectiveness by looking at how people reacted to her. The barrage of gutter-level personal attacks after Sen. John McCain chose her as his running mate was swift and vicious. So badly flummoxed was the opposition that they stooped to personal attacks that targeted the Palin children, which successfully demonstrated the lack of class and civility of the attackers, and actually helped Gov. Palin.
This strategy found a new low when comic David Letterman suggested that Mrs. Palin’s 14 year-old daughter had had a sexual encounter with a baseball player during a game at Yankee Stadium. He then made disparaging remarks about the Governor’s appearance.
Is this the best the left can do?
This behavior epitomizes the undisciplined mind of fringe liberals, who are so hypnotically linked to their ideology that they cannot accept the idea that everyone doesn’t agree with them, and when people don’t agree with them, they lose control.
Gov. Palin’s enemies in Alaska pursued ethics charges against her that lacked merit, but were expensive to defend, and proved to be a substantial distraction. Politics can often be a dirty game.
The Democratic National Committee committed an unforced error with this reaction: "Either Sarah Palin is leaving the people of Alaska high and dry to pursue her long shot national political ambitions or she simply can't handle the job now that her popularity has dimmed and oil revenues are down. Either way – her decision to abandon her post and the people of Alaska who elected her continues a pattern of bizarre behavior that more than anything else may explain the decision she made today."
Even if every slam against Mrs. Palin in that statement was true, you’d think the DNC would be happy that its enemy is stepping down. Message to the DNC: Sometimes it’s better to just keep quiet.
What millions of Americans like about Mrs. Palin is her basic “normalness”: She is one of us. An attractive wife and mother, college educated, a church-goer, a person with a simple lifestyle, a woman who willingly gave birth to a Down syndrome child instead of aborting it … she could be our next door neighbor. And that is what freaked out the opposition so effectively. Her broad, “normal American” appeal presented an image contrary to everything the radicals believe in, and the only way they could neutralize that appeal was to attack her personally and try to belittle her. But that tactic failed.
Would Sarah Palin have been a good Vice President? Like everyone else, she has weaknesses, and despite her natural appeal didn’t always come across as someone that could run a country. She isn’t a polished and eloquent speaker, but then, consider Joe Biden’s frequent gaffs. She doesn’t have foreign policy experience, but then neither does Barack Obama. However, unlike Mr. Obama, Mr. Biden and Sen. McCain, she does have executive experience as a mayor, the head of a state commission, and a governor. And she has proven that she will take on entrenched political factions and win.
So the jury is still out on that question. But the opposition must have been worried, given its frenzied attack strategy.
Suddenly stepping down as governor in mid-term, however, has everyone wondering what is going on, including her supporters. Even the most positive evaluations say this move is risky if Mrs. Palin hopes to have a future in politics. With the decision to walk away, she has branded herself a “quitter,” despite whatever good reasons she may have for stepping down. And, predictably, her enemies are having a field day playing guessing games.
She’s fed up with the pettiness of her opposition and with the nastiness of politics, and the toll her sudden prominence has taken on her children, who are supposed to be off limits from the normal sewer-tactics of the political game. In her statement last Friday, she said: “Political operatives descended on Alaska last August, digging for dirt. The ethics law I championed became their weapon of choice. Over the past nine months I’ve been accused of all sorts of frivolous ethics violations – such as holding a fish in a photograph, wearing a jacket with a logo on it, and answering reporters’ questions. Every one – all 15 of the ethics complaints have been dismissed.” But there are still hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills to pay. Who could blame her for wanting to escape that?
But maybe there is something ugly lying beneath the surface yet to be discovered, an actual scandal, instead of a made-up scandal. Right now, nobody knows for sure, and until something substantive actually comes to light, everyone would be well advised to keep quiet, behave themselves, and make an honest effort to be mature, responsible adults.
There is a strong feeling that those expectations are too high.
Cross-Posted from Observations
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Nationalizing American Healthcare
is the Wrong Prescription
The cost of healthcare has been a major concern for a long time, and though Americans benefit from the large investment of money through advanced medical technology and new and improved medicines, these costs pose problems for consumers and businesses. Over the years, efforts to hold costs down haven’t succeeded.
In 1993, First Lady Hillary Clinton proposed a plan to address the healthcare cost situation that included a national health board, regional health alliances, employer mandates, government imposed budgets and spending caps. Her plan was so broad and intrusive that the federal government would have been making healthcare decisions that you and your doctor ought to be making. Fortunately, that plan was defeated. Unfortunately, healthcare costs are still a problem for many Americans, and a government solution is still a possibility.
President Barack Obama told a joint session of Congress recently “in the last eight years, [health insurance] premiums have grown four times faster than wages. And in each of these years, one million more Americans have lost their health insurance. It is one of the major reasons why small businesses close their doors and corporations ship jobs overseas. And it’s one of the largest and fastest-growing parts of our budget. Given these facts, we can no longer afford to put health care reform on hold.”
In bringing reform to fruition Mr. Obama proposes a system that might actually be worse than Ms. Clinton’s. Modeling a system proposed by former Senator Tom Daschle, who almost became Secretary of Health and Human Services, but for an income tax problem, the Obama plan calls for the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to monitor what your doctor prescribes for you to make sure he does what the government deems "appropriate" and "cost-effective."
Mr. Daschle suggests that doctors would have to learn to operate less like doctors and more like government bureaucrats, who know nothing about medicine, but are experts in red tape and over-regulation.
Ultimately, such a government-run system will produce inefficiencies like those found in Canada and Sweden, where healthcare systems require no direct financial contribution by the patient, which encourages overuse of the system, which in turn jams the system up, and causes unacceptably long wait periods for treatment.
In Canada, gynecological surgery is a four- to 12-week wait, a tonsillectomy is a three- to 36-week wait and neurosurgery is a five- to 30-week wait. It has gotten so bad that Toronto area hospitals now ask patients to sign a release that they will hold the hospital blameless if delays in treatment jeopardize their health, and the Canadian government spends over $1 billion each year when Canadians opt to come to the U.S. for care, where wait times are virtually non-existent.
An article published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons last year relates the plight of a Swedish man, Mr. D., who suffered from multiple sclerosis. His doctor prescribed a new drug for him, but the Swedish government refused to pay for it because it was more expensive than existing medicines. When Mr. D. offered to pay for the medicine out of his own pocket, he was prevented from doing so because the bureaucrats said it would set a bad precedent and lead to unequal access to medicine.
But Mr. Obama seems unaware of, or perhaps unconcerned with, these problems and the trade-offs the proposed system would produce.
To support his case he told the lawmakers that healthcare “is a cost that now causes a bankruptcy in America every thirty seconds. By the end of the year, it could cause 1.5 million Americans to lose their homes.”
However, Mr. Obama’s data are wrong; there weren’t 1.5 million bankruptcies last year, and medical bills did not cause all bankruptcies.
His statement is likely based on a widely cited 2005 Harvard University study that said health expenses caused a lot of the bankruptcies in 2001. As MSNBC reported in a story about the study, “illness and medical bills were cited as the cause, at least in part, for 46.2 percent of the personal bankruptcies in the study.” Notice it says that medical bills were a factor, not the proximate cause of the bankruptcies. The study’s author said “the figure rose to 54.5 percent when three other factors were counted as medical-related triggers for bankruptcies: births, deaths and pathological gambling addiction.”
A thorough review of the Harvard study’s data showed in fact that only 17 percent of bankruptcies in 2001 were due to medical costs, even though it’s a safe bet that most of those who filed for bankruptcy had some outstanding medical bills. Someone who is having trouble paying the mortgage and the electricity bill likely can’t pay the doctor, either.
Healthcare costs comprise approximately one-sixth of the U.S. economy, and for many Americans they can be a serious problem. But high costs are not a reason to nationalize the healthcare system. Indeed, government regulation and intervention are to blame for the problem as much or more than any other single factor.
The most effective action Mr. Obama could take to lower healthcare costs is to have less government involvement in it, not more.
Cross-posted from Observations
In 1993, First Lady Hillary Clinton proposed a plan to address the healthcare cost situation that included a national health board, regional health alliances, employer mandates, government imposed budgets and spending caps. Her plan was so broad and intrusive that the federal government would have been making healthcare decisions that you and your doctor ought to be making. Fortunately, that plan was defeated. Unfortunately, healthcare costs are still a problem for many Americans, and a government solution is still a possibility.
President Barack Obama told a joint session of Congress recently “in the last eight years, [health insurance] premiums have grown four times faster than wages. And in each of these years, one million more Americans have lost their health insurance. It is one of the major reasons why small businesses close their doors and corporations ship jobs overseas. And it’s one of the largest and fastest-growing parts of our budget. Given these facts, we can no longer afford to put health care reform on hold.”
In bringing reform to fruition Mr. Obama proposes a system that might actually be worse than Ms. Clinton’s. Modeling a system proposed by former Senator Tom Daschle, who almost became Secretary of Health and Human Services, but for an income tax problem, the Obama plan calls for the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to monitor what your doctor prescribes for you to make sure he does what the government deems "appropriate" and "cost-effective."
Mr. Daschle suggests that doctors would have to learn to operate less like doctors and more like government bureaucrats, who know nothing about medicine, but are experts in red tape and over-regulation.
Ultimately, such a government-run system will produce inefficiencies like those found in Canada and Sweden, where healthcare systems require no direct financial contribution by the patient, which encourages overuse of the system, which in turn jams the system up, and causes unacceptably long wait periods for treatment.
In Canada, gynecological surgery is a four- to 12-week wait, a tonsillectomy is a three- to 36-week wait and neurosurgery is a five- to 30-week wait. It has gotten so bad that Toronto area hospitals now ask patients to sign a release that they will hold the hospital blameless if delays in treatment jeopardize their health, and the Canadian government spends over $1 billion each year when Canadians opt to come to the U.S. for care, where wait times are virtually non-existent.
An article published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons last year relates the plight of a Swedish man, Mr. D., who suffered from multiple sclerosis. His doctor prescribed a new drug for him, but the Swedish government refused to pay for it because it was more expensive than existing medicines. When Mr. D. offered to pay for the medicine out of his own pocket, he was prevented from doing so because the bureaucrats said it would set a bad precedent and lead to unequal access to medicine.
But Mr. Obama seems unaware of, or perhaps unconcerned with, these problems and the trade-offs the proposed system would produce.
To support his case he told the lawmakers that healthcare “is a cost that now causes a bankruptcy in America every thirty seconds. By the end of the year, it could cause 1.5 million Americans to lose their homes.”
However, Mr. Obama’s data are wrong; there weren’t 1.5 million bankruptcies last year, and medical bills did not cause all bankruptcies.
His statement is likely based on a widely cited 2005 Harvard University study that said health expenses caused a lot of the bankruptcies in 2001. As MSNBC reported in a story about the study, “illness and medical bills were cited as the cause, at least in part, for 46.2 percent of the personal bankruptcies in the study.” Notice it says that medical bills were a factor, not the proximate cause of the bankruptcies. The study’s author said “the figure rose to 54.5 percent when three other factors were counted as medical-related triggers for bankruptcies: births, deaths and pathological gambling addiction.”
A thorough review of the Harvard study’s data showed in fact that only 17 percent of bankruptcies in 2001 were due to medical costs, even though it’s a safe bet that most of those who filed for bankruptcy had some outstanding medical bills. Someone who is having trouble paying the mortgage and the electricity bill likely can’t pay the doctor, either.
Healthcare costs comprise approximately one-sixth of the U.S. economy, and for many Americans they can be a serious problem. But high costs are not a reason to nationalize the healthcare system. Indeed, government regulation and intervention are to blame for the problem as much or more than any other single factor.
The most effective action Mr. Obama could take to lower healthcare costs is to have less government involvement in it, not more.
Cross-posted from Observations
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Suspending Disbelief
Cross posted from The Lonely Conservative
Taking in politcal news these days is like watching one of those dumb movies where preposterous events occur that would never happen in real life. Those movies are so annoying my husband and I will abandon the show rather than subject ourselves to further insults to our intelligence.
Unfortunately, the goings-on in Washington DC aren’t make believe and they effect not just our lives but also those of future generations. It’s too bad so few of our fellow Americans understand this. It’s not that millions of Americans woke up one day and decided “I want to be uninformed”. It’s just that liberalism has completely taken over and has become the new normal.
There’s a great piece up on Big Hollywood by Andrew Klavan - Why We Fight. He answers those on the right who seem to be giving up and giving in.
Mr. Klavan knows they’re liars. I know they’re liars and most of you reading this know they’re liars. My guess is that about 47 million Americans know they’re liars. Now we have to prove it.
But we won’t take back our country until we take back the Republican party. George Bush did a lot of good, but the constant verbal assault against the man seems to have taken its toll. He’s abandoned free market principles to avoid being labeled a Herbert Hoover. That’s understandable, but it appears he’s set us up for a complete socialist takeover of our country.
Other Republicans now seem to be embracing this new leftist mentality while the rest appear to be completely emasculated. A few, like Ron Paul, continue to speak out but to no avail. The best John Boehner could come up with today was “Oh my God.”
On a day the country’s experiencing colder weather than we’ve seen in a decade or more, Rep. Henry Waxman is pushing for climate change legislation to be passed by Memorial Day! Haven’t these people gotten the memo telling them we’re headed for an ice age?!? If their theory about carbon is correct, we need more, not less of it! Are there any Republicans left to stand up to this madness? Surely when the legislation makes it to the Senate we won’t be able to count on John McCain to speak for us.
Most Americans are putting our records in order to prepare our income taxes. At the same time, we learn that the man Barack Obama’s chosen to head the IRS “forgot” to pay taxes for four years, even though he received a tax allowance from the IMF and signed an acknowledgement that he would pay his taxes. It looks like the Democrats will give Mr. Geithner a pass because “we need him” to oversee the $825 billion stimulus package proposed by Madame Nancy Pelosi. If the dude can’t handle paying $34,000 in taxes, why should we trust him to oversee the biggest government giveaway in history? Yet we have Republicans telling us it’s okay, because Geithner’s really brilliant. Just look what he did for CitiBank!
If Barack Obama really had a sense of humor, when he finally settles on a dog for his family he will nominate that dog for a high position in the US government. There will be a few meek voices of protest and he will make a statement explaining the reason for appointing the dog. The dog’s confirmation hearings will be a smashing success, as he will undoubtedly make more sense than anything we’ve heard to date. The media will report how appointing the dog was really brilliant and non-partisan while ignoring the Hoovervilles popping up along Pennsylvania Avenue.
Taking in politcal news these days is like watching one of those dumb movies where preposterous events occur that would never happen in real life. Those movies are so annoying my husband and I will abandon the show rather than subject ourselves to further insults to our intelligence.
Unfortunately, the goings-on in Washington DC aren’t make believe and they effect not just our lives but also those of future generations. It’s too bad so few of our fellow Americans understand this. It’s not that millions of Americans woke up one day and decided “I want to be uninformed”. It’s just that liberalism has completely taken over and has become the new normal.
There’s a great piece up on Big Hollywood by Andrew Klavan - Why We Fight. He answers those on the right who seem to be giving up and giving in.
Look, the American media are in a bad way, a disastrous way. Movies, TV, literature–instead of illuminating vehicles for art and entertainment, they’ve become like the Matrix, replacing reality with a plausible leftist imitation. Journalists especially have so shamed themselves in their coverage of the last election–hounding Sarah Palin’s daughter and Joe the Plumber while all but ignoring Barack Obama’s ties to Illinois corruption, and his long and deep association with the racist anti-American Jeremiah Wright–that it’s going to take them years to recover. When people shame themselves that badly, they don’t admit it in a hurry. They savage their critics instead and continue their own shameful practices as a kind of defiant denial–anything rather than look in the mirror and confront what they’ve turned
themselves into.
So yeah, we’re on our own for now. But we’re not unarmed and
we’re in no way defeated. We have great politicians like Sarah Palin–who could well be president in not eight years but four–honest newsmen like Bret Baer and genius commentators like Rush–and Ann Coulter, who’s only about ten times smarter, funnier and more talented as a satirist than Jon Stewart or Bill
Maher will ever be. The left can’t out-argue these mind-warriors so they try to ridicule, disdain and isolate them, to make us feel ashamed that we admire and respect them. And they tell us they’re finished, washed-up. Why, just look, it must be true: it’s right there in the newspapers and on TV.
Mr. Klavan knows they’re liars. I know they’re liars and most of you reading this know they’re liars. My guess is that about 47 million Americans know they’re liars. Now we have to prove it.
But we won’t take back our country until we take back the Republican party. George Bush did a lot of good, but the constant verbal assault against the man seems to have taken its toll. He’s abandoned free market principles to avoid being labeled a Herbert Hoover. That’s understandable, but it appears he’s set us up for a complete socialist takeover of our country.
Other Republicans now seem to be embracing this new leftist mentality while the rest appear to be completely emasculated. A few, like Ron Paul, continue to speak out but to no avail. The best John Boehner could come up with today was “Oh my God.”
On a day the country’s experiencing colder weather than we’ve seen in a decade or more, Rep. Henry Waxman is pushing for climate change legislation to be passed by Memorial Day! Haven’t these people gotten the memo telling them we’re headed for an ice age?!? If their theory about carbon is correct, we need more, not less of it! Are there any Republicans left to stand up to this madness? Surely when the legislation makes it to the Senate we won’t be able to count on John McCain to speak for us.
Most Americans are putting our records in order to prepare our income taxes. At the same time, we learn that the man Barack Obama’s chosen to head the IRS “forgot” to pay taxes for four years, even though he received a tax allowance from the IMF and signed an acknowledgement that he would pay his taxes. It looks like the Democrats will give Mr. Geithner a pass because “we need him” to oversee the $825 billion stimulus package proposed by Madame Nancy Pelosi. If the dude can’t handle paying $34,000 in taxes, why should we trust him to oversee the biggest government giveaway in history? Yet we have Republicans telling us it’s okay, because Geithner’s really brilliant. Just look what he did for CitiBank!
If Barack Obama really had a sense of humor, when he finally settles on a dog for his family he will nominate that dog for a high position in the US government. There will be a few meek voices of protest and he will make a statement explaining the reason for appointing the dog. The dog’s confirmation hearings will be a smashing success, as he will undoubtedly make more sense than anything we’ve heard to date. The media will report how appointing the dog was really brilliant and non-partisan while ignoring the Hoovervilles popping up along Pennsylvania Avenue.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Taking Back Our Culture
Crossposted at The Lonely Conservative
The left owns American culture, from our schools, to news outlets and the entire entertainment industry. To the rescue comes Andrew Breitbart who launched Big Hollywood today!
The left owns American culture, from our schools, to news outlets and the entire entertainment industry. To the rescue comes Andrew Breitbart who launched Big Hollywood today!
Big Hollywood is not a “celebrity” gabfest or a gossip outpost - it is a continuous politics and culture posting board for those who think something has gone drastically wrong and that Hollywood should return to its patriotic roots.
Big Hollywood’s modest objective: to change the entertainment
industry. To make Hollywood something we can believe in - again. In order to give millions of Americans hope.
Until conservatives, libertarians and Republicans - who will be the lion’s share of Big Hollywood’s contributors - recognize that (pop) culture is the big prize and that politics is secondary, there will be no victory in this important battle. -Andrew Breitbart
It’s a bit like the conservative version of The Huffington Post. I wish him luck and will visit Big Hollywood often. With the likes of Ben Shapiro, John Nolte, Gary Graham and Greg Gutfeld it’s sure to be a hit!
Sunday, December 28, 2008
2008-What a long, strange year it's been
Cross Posted at The Lonely Conservative
Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals and moderates can all agree that 2008 was an interesting year, to say the least. Who would have thought the New York Football Giants would have bested the New England Patriots in the Superbowl? If you thought that would be the strangest thing to happen this year you don’t follow politics too closely.
2008 kicked off in the midst of the Presidential primary season. Democrats bickered over who cared more about the impoverished and who wanted our troops out of Iraq sooner. Republicans went back and forth, each claiming to be the most conservative, while Republican voters kept wondering how they could channel Ronald Reagan.
It was all but assumed that Hillary Clinton would be the nominee of the Democratic Party while the Republican field was wide open. Mike Huckabee did well with Christians and John McCain did well with Democrats and the New York Times. Some Romney supporters were screaming “It’s the economy stupid!” and “Never nominate the candidate endorsed by the New York Times!” but much to their chagrin, Charlie Crist spoke, John McCain became the Republican nominee and Rudy Giulianni’s Florida vacation came to an abrupt end.
In the mean time New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was brought down by a hooker. Hillary Clinton was fighting for her life against Barack Obama and the Main Stream Media throughout the spring. She vowed to take things all the way to the convention, and who could blame her? She was going up against a rival who began his presidential campaign almost immediately after being elected to his first term as a US Senator. But just as John McCain was the media’s darling before going up against the New Messiah, Hillary and her supporters finally understood what conservatives have complained about for years. There is media bias! Poor Hillary couldn’t catch a break, and Bubba didn’t help. The media helped propel Barack Obama to the top of the Democratic ticket.
Gas prices soared over the summer while the Democrats and John McCain railed against the obscene profits of oil companies. Showing how little he knows about the economy, Barack Obama swore he would fund his goodies with a windfall profits tax on the evil oil companies. Republicans spent the summer wishing for a primary do-over.
The junior senator from Illinois travelled abroad over the summer where he announced we are all citizens of the world and under his leadership America will soon become a beautiful collectivist utopia. Thousands of German concert goers cheered The One while listening to a free rock concert and swilling beer.
John McCain kept a low profile until the end of August when he announced Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. The world was stunned while conservative rejoiced! Maybe John McCain did have a conservative bone in his body! They finally had something other than his heroic war record to cheer about. Conservatives found a reason to go to the polls in November and wouldn’t even have to be drunk to do so! John McCain actually pulled ahead of Barack Obama in the polls.
McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin was so brilliant that the left was enraged and the media went into a frenzy. Reporters and investigators were air-dropped into Palin’s home town of Wasilla, Alaska to dissect every aspect of the woman’s life. They spent more time digging into Sarah Palin’s past in a week than they did to Barack Obama in two years. Feminists loathed her for not aborting her baby when she learned the child would have Down’s Syndrome.
Yes, Sarah Palin was a conservative dream. A really middle class American who put her money where her mouth is and didn’t just talk the talk. Unfortunately for Palin, she had to go on television and defend John McCain’s record in her early interviews. That would be a hard, if not impossible task for any good conservative. The networks’ editing of her answers didn’t help either. But Sarah Palin didn’t let it stop her. She wasn’t there to please Washington’s elite media.
Barack Obama’s choice of Joe Biden as a running mate really wasn’t a joke and the two went on the stump together. Gaffe after gaffe were ignored by the adoring media, while every aspect of Sarah Palin’s life was put under a microscope. Barack Obama’s “God D*mn America” pastor was ignored but it was reported that Sarah Palin speaks in tongues. Going to 57 US states was suddenly not impossible, yet a corruption-fighting, self-made governor with an 80% approval rating inexplicably became a liability.
The media’s love for their Chosen One grew deeper with each passing day. One famous commentator admitted on live television to a thrilling physical reaction when the debonnaire democrat spoke. This love affair was a sight to behold. William Shakespeare himself couldn’t have conjured up such complete devotion.
After the government rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the resulting failure of Lehman Brothers, John McCain failed to defend his and President Bush’s proven record of urging more oversight of Fannie and Freddie. Instead he blamed the whole mess on greed. Then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson appeared on TV to announce that if we the people didn’t immediately hand over nearly a trillion dollars to him that the economy would immediately collapse.
The strategy of manufactured crisis was coming to fruition right before our eyes and Republicans played right into their hands. President Bush suddenly befriended Democrats even though they persisted in calling him names. John McCain announced he was suspending his campaign until an economic rescue bill agreement could be reached in Washington. He called on Barack Obama to join him. Barack Obama and his staff had high fives all around in celebration of their upcoming victory.
Mr. McCain went to Washington and did…..absolutely nothing! He didn’t insist on an immediate reduction in capital gains taxes to keep capital flowing into the US economy. He didn’t insist on suspending mark to market accounting rules which would have eased the balance sheets of our financial institutions. Heavens no! Had he done that he may have appeared to be conservative. The maverick whose campaign theme was “I am not George W. Bush” went along with George W. Bush and sidekick Hank Paulson like a devoted puppy.
70% of the public was against the rescue plan, so naturally it passed with bipartisan support, save for a few lonely conservative republicans and moderate democrats. The economy immediately went into a tailspin and Americans watched their life savings disappear into thin air. John McCain continued to blast greed while Barack Obama’s poll numbers went up.
Barack Obama kept at it, blaming the economic crisis on the failed economic policies of the past eight years. He and the media forgot all about Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid. The drum beat from the Democrats and the media played on and on. It was the Republican’s fault and so what if Fannie and Freddie gave more money to Obama and the Democrats than anyone else? So what if Democrats were complicit in the failure of the GSE’s or made statements that caused a bank to fail and the entire US insurance industry to take a one day stock loss of 30% and up. The public had no need to know that useless information. Heck, they didn’t even know that Democrats have controlled both houses of Congress since 2006.
Yes, it was a good year to be a Democrat. Had it been reported that Republicans failed to stop the Democrats, perhaps things would have turned out differently, but alas, it was not to be.
Then Mr. Obama showed up in the yard of Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher who had the nerve to ask him a question. The media and the left went after Joe the Plumber with a vengeance not seen since Sarah Palin hit the campaign trail. They had to work overtime in their attempts to destroy and discredit two conservatives at the same time. Even coastal conservative elites with ivy league degrees joined the chorus against Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. (Let’s hope those “conservatives” are enjoying the DC cocktail party circuit!)
How dare these two regular people show up and act all normal, middle class and conservative!? What happened to the big tent? The elites even turned on their own moderate maverick John McCain when he started pretending to be conservative. Granted, he was sending mixed messages, like calling Barack Obama a socialist and in the next breath promising to bailout delinquent homeowners. But hey, he was convinced by the media and Colin Powell that Americans only like liberals.
A few maverick reporters had the nerve to ask some tough questions of Obama and Biden. Let’s just say they learned their lesson. Newspaper journalists whose editors failed to endorse Barack Obama were kicked off his campaign plane. They learned their lesson, too. But Obama promised a new transparency in government. As expected, the media lapped it up.
Sarah Palin finally broke free of the McCain campaign’s bubble of suppression at the same time Joe Biden was put in the corner after one too many gaffes. There are only so many ”paying higher taxes is patriotic” statements a politician can make before the voters start to catch on.
Conservatives flocked to McCain rallies to see Sarah Palin. Despite McCain’s mixed messages it seemed there was hope for his campaign.
The stock market rallied just before the election, only to suffer deep losses after the results came in. Job losses in November soared higher than we’ve seen in a generation. Nobody can figure out what investors and business owners know that the media doesn’t.
Barack Hussein Obama will be sworn in as the next President of the United States. The world now knows what most conservatives believed all along, that America is not a hateful racist country that would never vote for a black man who is willing to throw family members and life long friends under the proverbial bus when it suits him. Gay Americans aren’t convinced we’re now a nice nation, but again, sometimes supporters have to be thrown under the bus in the name of unity and hopeandchange.
President elect Obama wasted no time in putting together his new team. Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich also got busy trying to sell Obama’s senate seat to the highest bidder. So busy, in fact, that the poor fellow didn’t even have time to visit his barber. Democrats across the land stepped out of character to denounce a fellow Democrat caught up in scandal.
Americans were surprised again when Barack Obama announced he would appoint Hillary Rodham Clinton to be the next Secretary of State. They weren’t surprised that nobody’s concerned about former President Bill Clinton’s funny money dealings with foreigners. No, they were surprised at Caroline Kennedy’s unexpected desire to be appointed to Hillary’s senate seat. But hey, now that we’ve elected the most inexperienced candidate for President the sky’s the limit. So what if she hasn’t held a full time job, she’s a Kennedy!
We’ll have to wait and see how that plays out. The accidental governor of New York, David Paterson has bigger things to worry about. He’s presiding over an enormous budget deficit (unless you compare it to California) and wants to raise taxes on everything from iPods to malt liquor. He’s convinced that new and creative taxes will lure new business to New York State. He should just wait until Obama takes office and then stand in line with his hand out.
Bailouts continue with more to come in 2009. The Bush administration caved in to the UAW, oops…the auto companies, giving about $17 billion to GM and Chrysler to tide them over until the real Santa Claus comes to town in January. And it isn’t just the auto companies who can expect to be stimulated by the stimuli promised by our President elect. He promises to create 3 million jobs by taking money out of the private sector (aka - taxation) and “investing” it in technologies that aren’t profitable for the private sector. Let’s hope it works, since he also said he would bankrupt the coal industry. (Be sure to save your energy bills from 2008, just for the sake of nostalgia.)
Despite scientific evidence that solar activity causes our climate to change, Mr. Obama has promised to spend…oops again…invest billions of taxpayer dollars to combat man made global warming. This after the coldest fall we’ve seen in a number of years. But scientists be damned! Carbon is bad and we must stop it! We’ll have to figure out how to make plants grow without carbon at a later date, after we figure out how to pay for the trillions of dollars we need to spend eliminating carbon and ”saving” our economy.
Things aren’t all bad for conservatives. The surge in Iraq produced results beyond even Barack Obama’s wildest dreams. There are so few Republicans left conservatives no longer have to spend much time defending them. Gas prices are lower now than we’ve seen in years. (Enjoy it while it lasts as any hopes of increased domestic oil production are dashed.) And with any luck Joe Biden will receive enough media coverage to offer some comic relief for the next few years, we’re sure going to need it.
Happy New Year!
Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals and moderates can all agree that 2008 was an interesting year, to say the least. Who would have thought the New York Football Giants would have bested the New England Patriots in the Superbowl? If you thought that would be the strangest thing to happen this year you don’t follow politics too closely.
2008 kicked off in the midst of the Presidential primary season. Democrats bickered over who cared more about the impoverished and who wanted our troops out of Iraq sooner. Republicans went back and forth, each claiming to be the most conservative, while Republican voters kept wondering how they could channel Ronald Reagan.
It was all but assumed that Hillary Clinton would be the nominee of the Democratic Party while the Republican field was wide open. Mike Huckabee did well with Christians and John McCain did well with Democrats and the New York Times. Some Romney supporters were screaming “It’s the economy stupid!” and “Never nominate the candidate endorsed by the New York Times!” but much to their chagrin, Charlie Crist spoke, John McCain became the Republican nominee and Rudy Giulianni’s Florida vacation came to an abrupt end.
In the mean time New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was brought down by a hooker. Hillary Clinton was fighting for her life against Barack Obama and the Main Stream Media throughout the spring. She vowed to take things all the way to the convention, and who could blame her? She was going up against a rival who began his presidential campaign almost immediately after being elected to his first term as a US Senator. But just as John McCain was the media’s darling before going up against the New Messiah, Hillary and her supporters finally understood what conservatives have complained about for years. There is media bias! Poor Hillary couldn’t catch a break, and Bubba didn’t help. The media helped propel Barack Obama to the top of the Democratic ticket.
Gas prices soared over the summer while the Democrats and John McCain railed against the obscene profits of oil companies. Showing how little he knows about the economy, Barack Obama swore he would fund his goodies with a windfall profits tax on the evil oil companies. Republicans spent the summer wishing for a primary do-over.
The junior senator from Illinois travelled abroad over the summer where he announced we are all citizens of the world and under his leadership America will soon become a beautiful collectivist utopia. Thousands of German concert goers cheered The One while listening to a free rock concert and swilling beer.
John McCain kept a low profile until the end of August when he announced Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. The world was stunned while conservative rejoiced! Maybe John McCain did have a conservative bone in his body! They finally had something other than his heroic war record to cheer about. Conservatives found a reason to go to the polls in November and wouldn’t even have to be drunk to do so! John McCain actually pulled ahead of Barack Obama in the polls.
McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin was so brilliant that the left was enraged and the media went into a frenzy. Reporters and investigators were air-dropped into Palin’s home town of Wasilla, Alaska to dissect every aspect of the woman’s life. They spent more time digging into Sarah Palin’s past in a week than they did to Barack Obama in two years. Feminists loathed her for not aborting her baby when she learned the child would have Down’s Syndrome.
Yes, Sarah Palin was a conservative dream. A really middle class American who put her money where her mouth is and didn’t just talk the talk. Unfortunately for Palin, she had to go on television and defend John McCain’s record in her early interviews. That would be a hard, if not impossible task for any good conservative. The networks’ editing of her answers didn’t help either. But Sarah Palin didn’t let it stop her. She wasn’t there to please Washington’s elite media.
Barack Obama’s choice of Joe Biden as a running mate really wasn’t a joke and the two went on the stump together. Gaffe after gaffe were ignored by the adoring media, while every aspect of Sarah Palin’s life was put under a microscope. Barack Obama’s “God D*mn America” pastor was ignored but it was reported that Sarah Palin speaks in tongues. Going to 57 US states was suddenly not impossible, yet a corruption-fighting, self-made governor with an 80% approval rating inexplicably became a liability.
The media’s love for their Chosen One grew deeper with each passing day. One famous commentator admitted on live television to a thrilling physical reaction when the debonnaire democrat spoke. This love affair was a sight to behold. William Shakespeare himself couldn’t have conjured up such complete devotion.
After the government rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the resulting failure of Lehman Brothers, John McCain failed to defend his and President Bush’s proven record of urging more oversight of Fannie and Freddie. Instead he blamed the whole mess on greed. Then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson appeared on TV to announce that if we the people didn’t immediately hand over nearly a trillion dollars to him that the economy would immediately collapse.
The strategy of manufactured crisis was coming to fruition right before our eyes and Republicans played right into their hands. President Bush suddenly befriended Democrats even though they persisted in calling him names. John McCain announced he was suspending his campaign until an economic rescue bill agreement could be reached in Washington. He called on Barack Obama to join him. Barack Obama and his staff had high fives all around in celebration of their upcoming victory.
Mr. McCain went to Washington and did…..absolutely nothing! He didn’t insist on an immediate reduction in capital gains taxes to keep capital flowing into the US economy. He didn’t insist on suspending mark to market accounting rules which would have eased the balance sheets of our financial institutions. Heavens no! Had he done that he may have appeared to be conservative. The maverick whose campaign theme was “I am not George W. Bush” went along with George W. Bush and sidekick Hank Paulson like a devoted puppy.
70% of the public was against the rescue plan, so naturally it passed with bipartisan support, save for a few lonely conservative republicans and moderate democrats. The economy immediately went into a tailspin and Americans watched their life savings disappear into thin air. John McCain continued to blast greed while Barack Obama’s poll numbers went up.
Barack Obama kept at it, blaming the economic crisis on the failed economic policies of the past eight years. He and the media forgot all about Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid. The drum beat from the Democrats and the media played on and on. It was the Republican’s fault and so what if Fannie and Freddie gave more money to Obama and the Democrats than anyone else? So what if Democrats were complicit in the failure of the GSE’s or made statements that caused a bank to fail and the entire US insurance industry to take a one day stock loss of 30% and up. The public had no need to know that useless information. Heck, they didn’t even know that Democrats have controlled both houses of Congress since 2006.
Yes, it was a good year to be a Democrat. Had it been reported that Republicans failed to stop the Democrats, perhaps things would have turned out differently, but alas, it was not to be.
Then Mr. Obama showed up in the yard of Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher who had the nerve to ask him a question. The media and the left went after Joe the Plumber with a vengeance not seen since Sarah Palin hit the campaign trail. They had to work overtime in their attempts to destroy and discredit two conservatives at the same time. Even coastal conservative elites with ivy league degrees joined the chorus against Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. (Let’s hope those “conservatives” are enjoying the DC cocktail party circuit!)
How dare these two regular people show up and act all normal, middle class and conservative!? What happened to the big tent? The elites even turned on their own moderate maverick John McCain when he started pretending to be conservative. Granted, he was sending mixed messages, like calling Barack Obama a socialist and in the next breath promising to bailout delinquent homeowners. But hey, he was convinced by the media and Colin Powell that Americans only like liberals.
A few maverick reporters had the nerve to ask some tough questions of Obama and Biden. Let’s just say they learned their lesson. Newspaper journalists whose editors failed to endorse Barack Obama were kicked off his campaign plane. They learned their lesson, too. But Obama promised a new transparency in government. As expected, the media lapped it up.
Sarah Palin finally broke free of the McCain campaign’s bubble of suppression at the same time Joe Biden was put in the corner after one too many gaffes. There are only so many ”paying higher taxes is patriotic” statements a politician can make before the voters start to catch on.
Conservatives flocked to McCain rallies to see Sarah Palin. Despite McCain’s mixed messages it seemed there was hope for his campaign.
The stock market rallied just before the election, only to suffer deep losses after the results came in. Job losses in November soared higher than we’ve seen in a generation. Nobody can figure out what investors and business owners know that the media doesn’t.
Barack Hussein Obama will be sworn in as the next President of the United States. The world now knows what most conservatives believed all along, that America is not a hateful racist country that would never vote for a black man who is willing to throw family members and life long friends under the proverbial bus when it suits him. Gay Americans aren’t convinced we’re now a nice nation, but again, sometimes supporters have to be thrown under the bus in the name of unity and hopeandchange.
President elect Obama wasted no time in putting together his new team. Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich also got busy trying to sell Obama’s senate seat to the highest bidder. So busy, in fact, that the poor fellow didn’t even have time to visit his barber. Democrats across the land stepped out of character to denounce a fellow Democrat caught up in scandal.
Americans were surprised again when Barack Obama announced he would appoint Hillary Rodham Clinton to be the next Secretary of State. They weren’t surprised that nobody’s concerned about former President Bill Clinton’s funny money dealings with foreigners. No, they were surprised at Caroline Kennedy’s unexpected desire to be appointed to Hillary’s senate seat. But hey, now that we’ve elected the most inexperienced candidate for President the sky’s the limit. So what if she hasn’t held a full time job, she’s a Kennedy!
We’ll have to wait and see how that plays out. The accidental governor of New York, David Paterson has bigger things to worry about. He’s presiding over an enormous budget deficit (unless you compare it to California) and wants to raise taxes on everything from iPods to malt liquor. He’s convinced that new and creative taxes will lure new business to New York State. He should just wait until Obama takes office and then stand in line with his hand out.
Bailouts continue with more to come in 2009. The Bush administration caved in to the UAW, oops…the auto companies, giving about $17 billion to GM and Chrysler to tide them over until the real Santa Claus comes to town in January. And it isn’t just the auto companies who can expect to be stimulated by the stimuli promised by our President elect. He promises to create 3 million jobs by taking money out of the private sector (aka - taxation) and “investing” it in technologies that aren’t profitable for the private sector. Let’s hope it works, since he also said he would bankrupt the coal industry. (Be sure to save your energy bills from 2008, just for the sake of nostalgia.)
Despite scientific evidence that solar activity causes our climate to change, Mr. Obama has promised to spend…oops again…invest billions of taxpayer dollars to combat man made global warming. This after the coldest fall we’ve seen in a number of years. But scientists be damned! Carbon is bad and we must stop it! We’ll have to figure out how to make plants grow without carbon at a later date, after we figure out how to pay for the trillions of dollars we need to spend eliminating carbon and ”saving” our economy.
Things aren’t all bad for conservatives. The surge in Iraq produced results beyond even Barack Obama’s wildest dreams. There are so few Republicans left conservatives no longer have to spend much time defending them. Gas prices are lower now than we’ve seen in years. (Enjoy it while it lasts as any hopes of increased domestic oil production are dashed.) And with any luck Joe Biden will receive enough media coverage to offer some comic relief for the next few years, we’re sure going to need it.
Happy New Year!
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Obama's French
By Jim Simpson
“It’s embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe and all we can say is merci beaucoup.” Barack Obama, July 8, 2008.
Like his “clinging to religion and guns” comment, that statement again demonstrates Obama’s smug, condescending, arrogant attitude toward his fellow Americans, while at the same time revealing how stunningly backwards his priorities are.
For starters, the reason Europeans, Asians, Africans and others place so much emphasis on learning the English language is that they have to. Likewise, Americans have not emphasized learning foreign languages as much because they haven’t had to. Most foreigners understand that to get ahead, it is critical that they speak English.
Just as the U.S. dollar has been the financial currency of the world for decades, English is the linguistic currency of the world. Both circumstances reflect the success of the American experiment and implicitly recognize the United States as a world leader. Is Obama ridiculing that? I doubt if he understands it. And unlike certain other world powers, we welcome foreigners with open arms. We are a generous nation, willing to share our prosperity with anyone who will meet us on our terms. Would Russia, China, or even Obama’s beloved French, be so generous?
Now, should we place more emphasis on foreign languages? Certainly. A practical example can be found in the critical lack of Middle Eastern language experts available to our intelligence agencies in the wake of 9-11. Would it be nice if Americans could converse in French as well as your average Brit? Sure. Like Obama, I clearly recognize that there are severe shortcomings in American public education, of which our lack in foreign language skills is but one.
Unlike Obama, however, I believe it is much more important that our public schools teach our children the basic building blocks of learning critical to success in higher education and the workforce. These skills are reading, writing and math. Before we begin to worry about how many phrases our children can put together in French – on the off chance that their education will enable them to earn the kind of income that can afford international travel – they need to become proficient in at least these most rudimentary of skills. As it stands now, many high school graduates aren’t.
The shortcomings in public education are many and glaring. But they are the direct consequence of liberal education policy, and the iron grip exerted by the teachers’ unions – to which Obama, and every other Democrat, owes his allegiance. Since the 1970s, liberal education policy has emphasized diversity over excellence, bureaucracy over initiative and self-esteem over self-improvement, while the Democrat Party’s union paymasters have sought to insure job security and higher income instead of rigorous teaching standards, ore even any standards at all. The consequences were predictable.
Is Obama really the candidate of “change?” If so the first thing he should do is knock off the snotty, arrogant, elitist remarks so typical of run-of-the-mill liberals, apologize for the abject ruin liberal education policies have bequeathed on our children, and start talking about real change. You know, like the kind liberals have been sabotaging for years. Vouchers? Charter Schools? Real, measurable, performance standards for students, teachers and schools, and all those other great ideas that threaten the National Education Association’s power monopoly?
I won’t hold my breath.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Why the drag lines were removed from the Flight 93 crash site
Cross Posted from Right Truth
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Thanks to Error Therapy Why the drag lines were removed from the Flight 93 crash site 
“Up on Skyline Rd.,” the news shot around Shanksville and Somerset, “up by the drag lines”: 
The drag lines, as seen from what will be the center of the giant Mecca-oriented crescent that is to be planted on the flight 93 crash site. (Photo by Alec Rawls, 2006.)
It is hard to imagine a more fitting marker than these twin colossi. Before the hijackers could send Flight 93 into the White House or the Capitol building, a random draw of forty of our fellow countrymen massed a towering determination to fight back. Their effort to save their own lives ended beneath those artifacts of Pennsylvania's own native grit and ingenuity, but their success in defending their country will live forever.
Those silent sentinels could and should have endured as well, and they would have, if not for one man who was determined to see them go: architect Paul Murdoch, the designer of the terrorist memorializing Crescent of Embrace design. As the press reported at the unveiling of the crescent design:
The Flight 93 temporary memorial, the draglines and Skyline Drive will be removed to leave the landscape as natural as possible, Murdoch wrote in a narrative that accompanied the design.
The drag lines were supposed to stay
The presumption from the beginning was that the drag lines would stay. They were actually the first items of property purchased for the new national park. Support for keeping the drag lines, whatever memorial design was chosen for the crash site itself, was virtually universal. The local historical society was for keeping the drag lines:
Several draglines still stand there, idled since the crash interrupted the mine work. Randy Cooley, director of the Southwest Pennsylvania Heritage Preservation Commission, said that equipment should stay, as part of the story the memorial will tell. The excavating machines often are the first things visitors to the memorial site see, he said. The booms rise high over the field. They cast shadows, and show what the land once was. "They're touchstones," Cooley said. "For many of the people on that plane, that may well have been the last thing they saw." [2003]
They were also meaningful to the local population:
The cranes, which served as drag lines for a long-idled strip mining operation, are synonymous with the area, residents said. "When I think of (Skyline Drive), I think of those drag lines," said Erica Zeigler, president of Shanksville Borough Council. "They're something everybody around here associated with that road." [2005]
Memorial Project manager Jeff Reinbold acknowledged the hard feelings about the removal of the drag lines:
"You wish you didn't have to do it. But this was a celebration of the process," he said. [ibid.]
Why was Murdoch determined to have the drag lines gone?
Because a crescent that Muslims face into to face Mecca is called a mihrab, and is the central feature around which every mosque is built. (Some mihrabs are pointed-arch shape, but the prototypical mihrab is crescent shaped.)
Very simply, Murdoch could not allow his terrorist memorial mosque to be tainted by extraneous infidel artifacts. Those drag lines would have risen up right behind the giant mihrab, disturbing what is supposed to be an undisturbed space within which the Muslim believer can turn face his god for prayer.
Perhaps worst of all from Murdoch’s perspective was the huge American flag that coal miners attached to one of the booms the week after 9/11: 
Unacceptable: the jihadists turn to face their god, and see… an American flag? This mosque interpretation is no stretch. Murdoch provides endless redundant proof of intent, as when he repeats the Mecca orientation of his giant crescent in the crescents of trees that surround the Tower of Voices part of the memorial.
Still hoisting a flag When the hijacker is finally tackled and we have a chance to turn to less critical matters, like how to design a proper memorial to OUR heroes instead of to Paul Murdoch’s heroes, one of the costs to be accounted will be the loss of the iconic drag lines. At least Murdoch was not able to destroy them entirely, as 22 tons of steel from the scrapped machinery is being used in the construction of the USS Somerset: 
The USS Somerset will be a sister ship of the USS San Antonio (seen here), so the drag lines will still be hoisting a flag. Interestingly, the single physical requirement set down for design competition entries was that they should respect the rural landscape and leave it as it was. Paul Murdoch’s crescent design is the only one of a thousand entries that violates this lone rule, first by building a raised causeway across the wetlands (necessary to extend his crescent to the full typical Islamic crescent shape, covering 2/3rds of a circle of arc), and then by excising the drag lines, which everyone agreed were central to the historic nature of the site.
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1389 Blog - Antijihadist TechA Defending Crusader
A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever
A Liberal's Worst Nightmare
Al Salibiyyah
All American Blogger
And Rightly So
Anne Arundel Maryland Politics
apocryphal EVIDENCE !
Battle Dress U
Because I'm Right
Big Dog's Weblog
Big Sibling
Boston Maggie
Cao2's Weblog
Cao's Blog
Chaotic Synaptic Activity
Chester Street
Christmas Ghost
Common Sense Junction
Creeping Sharia
Democrat = Socialist
Dr. Bulldog and Ronin
Error Theory
EW1’s Intercept Log
Faultline USA
Flanders Fields
Flopping Aces
Four Pointer
Freedom's Enemies
From My Position On the Way!
Ft. Hard Knox
Garbanzo Toons
GM's Corner
Hoosier Army Mom
Ironic Surrealism II
Ivy League Conservatives
Jack Lewis
Jihad Press
Judge Right
Kender's Musings
Lemur King's Folly
Monkey in the Middle
My Own Thoughts
Neoconstant
Nice Deb
No Compromises When It Comes To Being Right!
Ogre's Politics and Views
Papa Mike's Blog
Part-Time Pundit
Protest The Church
Protest The Left
Publius' Forum
Right on the Right
Right Truth
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Thursday, December 06, 2007
Secure Our Future Now Report
Originally posted at Right Truth
This is the Sovereignty and Security Update for December 2007. It is critical that we remain informed activists, and the Sovereignty and Security update is a monthly e-mail dedicated to keeping you abreast of current news on national security and sovereignty issues. This issue of the Sovereignty and Security Update will discuss the Law of the Sea Treaty and the immigration policies of the candidates seeking the GOP nomination for President.
Immigration and Amnesty
With the presidential primary elections right around the corner, nothing could be more important than being educated about the positions of the Presidential Candidates on the issues. Immigration policy is one of the hottest issues this cycle, so below are links to all of the GOP Candidates' immigration policy pages so you can be more informed about where they stand on the issues.
Law of the Sea Treaty
The UN Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) has become a hot issue in recent weeks, though it is far from new. When Ronald Reagan was serving as President, he was instrumental in keeping the U.S. from ratifying LOST. Senator Inhofe opposes the treaty and contends that none of the issues raised by President Reagan, including the ceding of economic and security authority to international bureaucrats, have changed. U.S. endorsement of LOST would greatly diminish US sovereignty and empower a supranational bureaucracy - the International Seabed Authority (ISA) - with unprecedented powers to regulate seven-tenths of the earth's surface, levy taxes, govern ocean research and exploration, and create a multinational court to render and enforce its judgments.
Almost every conservative organization, from the center for Security Policy to the Family Research Council, some 75 organizations in total, is armed with facts and ready to fight the LOST treaty with Senator Inhofe. To date, GOP presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Fred Thompson, and Mike Huckabee have publicly stated their opposition to the treaty.
World Net Daily: L.O.S.T. at sea
Presently, the Law of the Sea Treaty, derided by critics as "The LOST," is like an encrusted artifact on the ocean floor just waiting to be excavated. Since 1982, it has periodically resurfaced for cloaked Senate committee debate only to re-submerge in the heat of analysis. The salvagers ?in this case the U.N. ? have the treaty in their sounding crosshairs and merely await U.S. Senate confirmation before officially implementing their oceanic redistribution of wealth from the richer nations, i.e. the U.S., to the smaller ones.
Want proof of this socialist agenda? Just look at Article 82, Section 4, which states that the International Seabed Authority "shall distribute them (payments) to States ... on the basis of equitable sharing criteria, taking into account the interests and needs of developing States, particularly the least developed ... among them."
One needs only to go so far as the treaty's preamble to see that it could be used as a Marxist primer, with the words "an important contribution to the maintenance of peace, justice and progress for all peoples of the world." In fact, the 202 pages are filled with socialist code phrases, including "just and equitable economic order," "for the benefit of mankind as a whole" and "the common heritage of mankind."
As a career professional mariner, I recognize the need for free and orderly sea passage. I understand the U.S. military's support of the treaty on the grounds of seeking a legal framework to allow clear transit on, above and below straits. However, the military's tunnel-vision support is based strictly on the "right of innocent passage doctrine" and ignores numerous flaws to their own detriment.
Article 19 outlaws the practice or exercise of any kind of weapons in state territorial waters. What if a naval or commercial ship is boarded by pirates or terrorists in these waters? How can they defend themselves without first having to petition the International Seabed Authority, or ISA? For example, the Bab al-Mandab at the base of the Red Sea and the Malacca Straits in Southeast Asia are current hotspots of piracy. In 2003 alone, there were 445 reported incidents of ship attacks worldwide. Article 20 requires all unmanned vessels ? even submarines used for mine detection- to transit territorial waters on the surface.
One tradition the U.N. is attempting to trample upon is the sovereignty of salvagers to bring up valuable artifacts from sunken treasures. Historically, wrecks on the international ocean floor have fallen under the doctrine of "finders, keepers." Private treasure hunters have been outstanding stewards of historical objects and if it weren't for them, they never would have seen the light of day. Now, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the U.N.'s watchdog body, anything more than 100 years old may only be recovered if it can be displayed in a public museum for perpetuity. With a cost of up to $50,000 per day for recovery operations, what is the incentive to find these glorious objects?
Marine scientists should be aware that, should the treaty come to pass, when working in international waters they would be de-facto employees of the U.N. In Article 144, the transfer of technology clause, the ISA has the authority to seize scientific research data and give it to other states under the power of eminent domain.
Article 150, the development of resources clause, allows the U.N. to play Uncle Hugo Chavez to oil and gas drilling companies by charging them a user fee and taxing their profits. The ISA has untrammeled power to socialize the seabed by deciding who it wants to extract resources. This is the equivalent of an international no-bid contract program. Iraq oil-for-food program, anyone? Do the accusations of Haliburton favoritism ring a bell?
Supporters claim it creates a global standard to protect living resources for future generations. However, under the conservation provisions, if nations do not harvest their entire allowable fish stocks within territorial waters, the surplus could be given to other nations, a policy that could result in forced overfishing and depletion of fish stocks.
On Oct. 31, 2007, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 17 to 4 to send the treaty to the full Senate for ratification. Though President Bush is pushing for its approval by year's end, it is not clear when that vote will take place; Spring of '08 appears likely. If it does pass, just know that a small, land-locked nation like Luxemburg and American adversary like Cuba will have as much power over the international seafloor as the U.S. - literally.
For Information about LOST See Below:
- Wall Street Journal: Environmental Peril Posed by Law of the Sea Treaty
- The Conservative Voice: Beware the Law of the Sea Treaty
- The National Ledger: Law of the Sea Treaty: LOST All Sense
Visit the Secure Our Future Now website at SecureOurFutureNow.com
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