Friday, July 31, 2009

The Democrats' hate campaign

Well, the USA has fallen to a new low. The House of Reps finally got a health care bill out of committee -- complete with a socialized medicine "option" -- and, during their summer recess, will be trying to sell this piece of crap to voters. According to the L.A. Times, this is how they plan to do it:
A key part of the Democrats' strategy, worked out in coordination with the White House, will be to demonize insurance companies for opposing a bill that has been backed by an array of health and consumer groups. Pelosi predicted the industry would conduct a "shock and awe" campaign in the coming weeks to block the bill.
Interesting that the insurance companies haven't really opposed reform at all. For one thing, if the government forces people to buy insurance, the insurance companies stand to benefit. For another, the insurance industry has proposed its own reforms at: http://www.americanhealthsolution.org/. So exactly what are the Democrats selling with their hate campaign? Surely not private insurance. Have they finally dropped their masks and admitted to their socialist aspirations?

Yesterday, Luke Russert, NBC, reported what was apparently Nancy (Pazzo) Pelosi's first shots at the insurance industry:

I think it is pretty clear that we want a strong public option in the legislation. Insurance companies full force carpet-bombing and shock and awe against the public option -- so much so that the American people doubt the plan or are uncertain about it, until you tell them what is in it.
QUESTION: What? The American people doubt the socialized medicine plan "until you tell them what is in it." Well, Pazzo, this sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Much more reasonable than you buttheads in Congress requiring unconditional obedience to your personal whims and fancies.

Russert continues:
Later, off camera, while walking with reporters to her office, Pelosi took it a step further and questioned the morality of health insurance companies that oppose a public option. “It is somewhat immoral what they are doing. Of course, they have been immoral all along how they have treated the people that they insure.”

In a passionate tone, she continued, “They are the villains in this. They have been part of the problem in a major way. They have been doing everything in their power to stop a public option from happening. The public has to know that. They can describe their arguments any way they want, but the fact is they don’t want the competition. They don’t even want anti-trust laws. They have had a good thing going for a long time at the expense of the American people and the health of our country. Our members have to go out there ready to take on a big special interest that has not made our country healthier and have made our cost spiral upward and for whom that is coming to an end.”
In response to Pelosi's attack, a national organization representing US health care insurers came up with this rather civilized and rational press release:
Washington, DC – America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) today released the following statement from spokesman Robert Zirkelbach.

“Health care reform is far too important to be dragged down by divisive political rhetoric from Washington, DC.

“Health plans have been working in support of bipartisan health care reform for three years. Our community has proposed guaranteed coverage for pre-existing conditions, discontinuing rating based on a person’s health status or gender, and a personal coverage requirement to get everyone into the system. We have proposed far-reaching administrative reforms to slash paperwork, reduce medical errors, and ensure doctors and hospitals can focus on patient care.

“Countless physicians, hospitals and employers, and millions of concerned citizens agree that a government-run health care plan will dismantle employer-based coverage, bankrupt local hospitals, and break the promise made to the American people that those who like their health plan can keep it.

“Health plans remain committed to working constructively in support of bipartisan health care reform.”
I looked up some background on Nancy Pelosi. Her dad was "Big Tommy" D'Alesandro and actually worked in the insurance industry -- after his career as boss of a Democrat machine in Baltimore petered out. Perhaps he was involved with "insurance" of the Tony Soprano variety; maybe that's why Pelosi regards it as something spawned in hell.

But Big Tommy wasn't the muscle in Baltimore. He was the guy who grinned tirelessly, hired patronage workers, and passed out Christmas turkeys. He was the machine's electable figurehead. Big Tommy's political pal, a guy named Pollack, was the one who paid off voters on Election Day and busted kneecaps when necessary. Oh, Big Tommy also brought the Orioles baseball team to Baltimore. Quite the accomplished statesman, no?

At any rate, Pazzo grew up learning how to twist arms and bully citizens. It runs in the family. She's not the wide-eyed babe-in-the-woods do-gooder she wants the public to believe she is. And, curiously, even Mr. Pazzo, Paul Pelosi, has a family background in the insurance industry. His family made a fortune selling insurance in California.

Funny, though, how both Pazzo and her other half pretty much owe their lives to the insurance industry, and how quickly they're ready to turn around and demonize it in order to consolidate Pazzo's choke-hold on the health care industry.

Who's the evil one here? Insurance executives and employees? Or a ruthless, manipulative, megalomanic bitch with a fixation on telling other people how to live? Maybe she's doing it for dear ol' Dad.

Apparently she understands she's one of the most despised people in Washington, and she said she doesn't care. What does bother her is that polls show that people don't trust her, either. That made me laugh.

She's so obviously a pathological liar and power-mad opportunist.... How can anyone trust her? She'd happily throw you under the nearest bus if you got in between her and whatever sparkly power symbol caught her attention.

And really, how disgusting. I mean really disgusting. Selling socialized medicine by destroying the private insurance industry. Seems private insurance is just too emblematic of political freedom, so it must be wiped out.

These hate tactics really are beneath consideration. Not to mention, socialized medicine is a losing battle when the only "positive" examples of it that Pazzo, the Democrats, and the Comrade have are the sorry messes of mismanaged health care in Canada, the U.K., and everywhere else it exists.

Again, the argument comes down to: Do you believe what you know? Do you believe what you've experienced in your life? Or do you believe the wretched lies that a desperate, arm-twisting hag like Pazzo Pelosi is peddling?

How do slimeballs like this get elected in the first place?

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

About the "public option"

Just read CNN's report on the progress of the socialized medicine bills in the House and Senate.

The Democrats keep insisting that a "public option" run and subsidized by the federal government would only make the market "more competitive."

This is such a total crock. It even flies in the face of well-known and well-established principles in international trade.

For example, a couple years ago a large paper manufacturer in the USA complained to the ITC (International Trade Commission) that certain Asian nations were "dumping" paper into US markets. That is, those countries were offering their own paper products here at a cost lower than paper made in the USA.

The ITC investigated the claims and decided that since one or two of the Asian paper companies were government-owned and funded by subsidies from their governments, that they had an unfair advantage in the US marketplace. The ITC slapped a tariff on the products from those countries to create a "level playing field."

Get it? If a product is government-subsidized, it has an unfair advantage in the marketplace. Even the United Nations recognizes and accepts this idea. But suddenly, according to the Comrade and his buddies, that principle doesn't apply to health insurance. Why not? Because it doesn't work to sell socialism?

Sounds like a certain government based in Washington DC is talking out of both sides of its mouth. (Gee, what a shocker!) Or maybe the officials occupying the executive branch simply don't have a clue about real-life economics. Perhaps they've only ever heard the marxist version. And also don't even know how their own agencies make decisions. Maybe they should double-check their own established policies before they start popping off in public forums, or maybe they could look like fools.

Must admit, too, I'm worried about the Blue Dogs. I hate to think that my freedom rests in the hands of 52 Democrats, but that's just me.

Lots of video lately on YouTube.com and run on TV news, of town hall meetings at various locations across the country, and constituents really blasting their Reps about the out-of-control spending and the threat of socialized medicine. The latest was in Missouri, and apparently the Rep in question, Claire McCaskill, was afraid to show her face at the meeting. She sent secretaries or someone. And they got told off.

Did notice that all the pork projects -- parks, walking/bike trails, lighting for basketball courts, et. al. -- haven't been dropped from the socialized medicine bills, even though they add a lot of useless expense.

Want to know why? It's pretty common practice in DC that if you want a bill to pass, you bribe the legislators by including some little perk in it for each of their districts. So they can go home and say, "See, we're robbing you of all your cash and screwing up the entire health care system, but now you've got a park with my name on it! Isn't that terrific? Doesn't that make you want to vote for me again?"

It's a pay-off. And this 111th Congress just seems incapable of refusing these kinds of bribes. I mean, look at the Stimulus Package and then the Omnibus Pork Bill, and crap-and-trade, too. Something for everyone!! Pay-offs to big donors and corporations in the districts. And guess who pays for all of it?

Oh, how I hope these jerks come home and try all kinds of meet-n-greets with their once-loyal voters. Most of them have spent way too much time inside the Beltway and apparently have forgotten that they're supposed to represent the voters -- not Pazzo Pelosi and Sad-Sack Harry Reid, not even the president.

I'm starting to think someone dropped a load of LSD in Washington DC's water supply. I don't know how else to explain how else 535 people could suddenly go barking insane. Well, not all 535 of them.... but a pretty good majority. Those who voted for the Stimulus Package and crap-and-trade.

And I still can't figure out why they want to socialize medicine. Can someone please explain the advantages? There is absolutely no real-world evidence to support the idea that a socialist system would improve care or even coverage, for that matter. Why do they keep pushing this?

Nobody wants it but the Comrade and fellow-travelers.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

The best-laid plans for socialized medicine....

I've been looking for examples of socialized medicine in the USA, that is, the programs sponsored by the states. Keep running across an article that was released on the AP wire service that claims Hawaii has a wonderful system -- covers more than 95% of the population, lowest costs in the nation, etc. On somewhat closer inspection, this seems to be a load of crap, or possibly based entirely on information gleaned from some service provider's press release.

Seems to be two major problems with Hawaiian health care: 1.) The reimbursement rates to physicians are so low they can't keep doctors in the state; and 2.) employers are mandated to cover full-time employees, so many businesses hire only part-time workers. Even the State of Hawaii employs a large number of part-time workers to keep its health insurance costs in line. Apparently in Hawaii, unlike the proposals in front of congress, the government gets the same ho-hum health coverage it inflicts upon ordinary citizens.

Hawaii's current system is actually something like the third or fourth attempt at some kind of universal, socialized system. The first one -- starting back in the 1970s and 1980s -- nearly bankrupted the state. (There's an extensive article about this in the Heritage Foundation's archives.) A key problem was that citizens and legislators kept piling on the benefits without much thought to the costs. If you had a big enough lobby or a popular enough representative, you could get your little hobby-horse illness or health service covered by the state's health care program.

More recently, Hawaii launched a program to cover children who did not have insurance, but from families with incomes high enough that would disqualify them for Medicaid. That program was canceled in October, 2008, after only seven months, because the state saw a mad rush of people giving up their other insurance and enrolling their kids for the "free" care. Costs skyrocketed.

Hm-m-m-m, so what about Tennessee? They had TennCare, which combined Medicaid funds in some kind of cooperative program involving five HMOs. TennCare seemed to work for the first couple of years, then one HMO withdrew, three went bankrupt, and the last one was taken over by the state. Now Tennessee has split up its benefits programs and is currently returning those eligible for Medicaid to Medicaid and canceling benefits for others. They have some kind of program for the chronically ill -- those who are denied insurance by private carriers -- that "ensures" they have access to care, but the program's premium price is so high enrollments have been much less than expected.

Tennessee also has/had a program that subsidizes pharmaceutical costs. Problem with that is what the state calls "doctor-shopping." Apparently many people go from one doctor to another, collecting prescriptions either to feed their own habits or to re-sell the medications on the street. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has been very busy, and very efficient, cracking down on this kind of fraud and other innovative criminal schemes. Last year, 264 arrests were made; this year, 109 so far.

One news story said the diagnosis for the revamped TennCare program isn't looking too bright. Apparently all the bankrupt HMOs and other facilities and care providers are pressing the state to make good on its unpaid bills from years back, so any new funding will probably be due to creditors instead of being invested in any expanded type of program.

Then there's Massachusetts. What a nightmare and still unfolding. From the July 11 Wall Street Journal:

Well, the returns are rolling in, and a useful case study comes from the community-based health plan Harvard-Pilgrim. CEO Charlie Baker reports that his company has seen an "astonishing" uptick in people buying coverage for a few months at a time, running up high medical bills, and then dumping the policy after treatment is completed and paid for. Harvard-Pilgrim estimates that between April 2008 and March 2009, about 40% of its new enrollees stayed with it for fewer than five months and on average incurred about $2,400 per person in monthly medical expenses. That's about 600% higher than Harvard-Pilgrim would have otherwise expected.

The individual mandate penalty for not having coverage is only about $900, so people seem to be gaming the Massachusetts system.

Do ya think?

And Barron's, July 27, reports, "Three years after enactment, the commonwealth of Massachusetts is unable to afford its dream of universal coverage. Last week, as part of a short-term fix, Gov. Deval Patrick ordered officials to stop automatic enrollment of low-income people in the state's Commonwealth Care public insurance plan."

Massachusetts is also eliminating state-sponsored health insurance for about 30,000 legal immigrants. Why just immigrants? Why not 31-year-olds, punk rockers, or Baptists? I mean, why legal immigrants? Don't they pay taxes? Maybe they just drew the short stick?

Barron's continues: "The savings are likely to be illusory, buried under a heap of cost-shifting and delayed payments. Uninsured people don't just curl up and die; they go to hospital emergency rooms, where federal law requires that they be treated, even if they don't pay. The cost falls to the hospitals."

Still? Even with socialized medicine? I'm shocked... shocked!

I had a friend a few years ago who was committed to personal liberty and free markets. He was a very happy-go-lucky, funny guy, also had a wife and kids and entirely devoted to them. We got into a discussion one time about how red tape and regulations destroy free markets and therefore also economic growth, social civility, and personal ambition. But somehow the human compulsion to thrive finds a way through the maze -- or the rubble.

Wish I recalled his exact words, but he very cheerfully said something like, "That's what I just love about the human race. No matter how hard anyone tries to control us, no matter how many laws, regulations, taxes they pile on... we always find some way around it."

We're talking about people who tamed the West, you know. Harnessed electricity and the tar oozing up in the soil. People who invented telephones and eradicated polio. Who broke Hitler's back and even in less than a decade bouncd back from 9/11. The USA made human aspiration, curiosity, greed, and imagination legal, and even nurtures and encourages them. These are our species' survival tools, and they're valued here, because they're the engines of creativity and growth. The Great American Experiment has been successful beyond the wildest dreams of the Founding Fathers. Freedom works.

Why abandon that for what can only be crappy, rationed, substandard health care -- or black markets gone wild? As long as you're free, you'll be able to get health care -- or anything else you want. People will invent it. They'll find a way to do it on their own, with or without some governing board passing out diktats. But when you give up individual rights and political freedom, you're just stuck with whatever "the powers that be" want to give you -- after they deduct the tribute you owe them.

Monday, July 27, 2009

A "right" to health care?

Taking a step back -- again -- and looking at the health care debate from a more philosophical view. Do we, as American citizens, have a "right" to health care?

I can't imagine where this would come from.

As human beings on planet Earth, we have a right to take care of our own health if we want. That is, eat for nutrition, get enough sleep and exercise and all that. You have a "right" to create or purchase and use what you feel is medicinal, a "right" to seek medical advice and treatment. But I don't see how we can have a "right" to a doctor's time and expertise or the services of a hospital or clinic without expecting to fairly compensate them for it. I mean, how are they supposed to survive?

Like, do you have a "right" to plumbing services if your toilet backs up? This is also something you might "need," but do you have a "right" to it? Try telling a plumber about this "right." Better still, write to your congressman about it.

By the way, the Osama regime's new buzzword for socialized medicine seems to be "comprehensive health care package," as of the Sunday morning political shows. However, use of the word "comprehensive" gives it away. That means "all-encompassing," and would tend to eliminate any partial and surgical -- though possibly extremely effective -- fixes to the existing system.

Anyway, apparently Osama or his Health Care Tyrant -- I mean czar -- or commissariat or local party council -- appointed to this role, would make the contract with health care professionals and facilities for American citizens. The only problem with this is, the government has demonstrated its capacity on several occasions lately that it only honors those contracts that it finds convenient for its own purposes. Consider the way the feds shafted the secured bondholders in the GM takeover. Would doctors and hospitals fare any better if the federal government claimed that their services were "needed" by citizens, and that every citizen has a "right" to those services? They'd be slaves of the state. Or they could go into teaching, maybe, or plumbing.

Anybody read or see Dr. Zhivago? He was a doctor in the civil war between the white and red political factions during the communist revolution in Russia. Dr. Zhivago was dragged out his home and sent with one or another army to the front lines of combat. They needed him. That was more important than anything else he might have wanted to do for himself. He had no redress, except to eventually run away. That's what happens when governmental power is unrestrained and does not respect the rights of the individual, but only those of one or another collective.

The idea that the opinion of six people is more important and has more weight than the opinion of one person is marxist on the face of it. The idea that what 15 people need is more important than what one individual needs is marxist. The idea that a majority can trample on the rights of the individual is totally marxist and absolutely diametrically opposed to the philosophy behind the USA and its established constitution. This isn't a democracy, but a democratic republic. There's a big difference.

The government of the USA is based on individual rights, not majority rule. In the USA, we trade value-for-value with each other, compromise where we disagree, or agree to disagree. We do not take "from each according to hs ability and redistribute according to need." Without the concept of individual rights, the lives, rights, and the opportunities of every minority of every kind in this nation would perennially be at risk. They'd have no legal protection at all. And that has in the past, and will in the future result in one type of slavery or another.

Another fallacy the Comrade and his cohorts are deploying is that the health care system is irretrievably "broken" and needs a massive overhaul. They present the argument as either "comprehensive" reform, or nothing at all.

Well, the reason the health care system is messed up is largely because of existing government giveaways -- Medicare and Medicaid. They've skewed the free market system and soak up a lot of resources without fully compensating those who provide the resources. It's kind of like they've tapped an artery and bleed out resources without giving enough back to the system to sustain itself. If it's a crisis, it's one the government itself has created.

So is the solution to this to give the federal government control over the remaining, productive and profitable part of the health care industry and bleed it dry? Establishing a system that reflects public "need" and not necessarily the facts of reality and the limitations of existing resources is absolutely absurd and totally destructive.

Solutions to improve the health care system are not necessarily all-or-nothing propositions, as those promoting socialized medicine claim. Both the Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation have proposed some useful free market solutions that can help. Newt Gingrich at the www.healthtransformation.net web site offers six points that would also solve many of the problems. We don't need a "comprehensive" approach and the nationalization of the health care system. As a matter of fact, the whole notion is counter to the idea of individual rights and political liberty.

And what do you hear from the liberals and socialized medicine advocates about this?
  1. "It's not socialized medicine. You can keep private coverage." Yeah, sure. If you make $1 million-plus a year, maybe.
  2. "Take the profits out of health care. That's where the waste is." Yeah, right. Take the doctors and hospitals out of health care while you're at it. I mean, the United State Postal Service went to privatized, for-profit operations in order to improve efficiencies and services. That should tell you something. Canada relaxed its restrictions on its single-payer system because it couldn't adequately serve citizens. France keeps hiking up the number of co-pays for more and more health care services to the extent that those French who can afford it, buy supplemental insurance on top of seeing payroll deductions for the public program.
  3. "It's all the administrative costs for insurance companies that drive up health care costs." Sure it is. Uh-huh. But you know, "Medical Billing" nowadays is a pretty good-paying career option that requires special training and in many states, certification. It can take a couple years to learn how to properly understand the federal billing system, and that system leaves a lot of loopholes for fraud and even honest error. Patients are largely unaware of this because patients don't hire medical billers, but doctors and hospitals do. And many criminals actively search out and exploit the loopholes.
  4. You tell the socialists to look at Canada and the U.K. as models for what will happen here. They say, "We aren't using those models. We'll still have private insurance." Either they lack any foresight whatsoever or the capacity to think rationally. Like, I don't believe Canada and the U.K. sat down and said, "Yeah, let's devise some system of providing mediocre-at-best, rationed care to the vast majority of the population." That's just the way it's turned out. So what the liberals are doing is denying history and reality and sticking to their story in point #1. Reminds me of Natalie Wood in "Miracle on 34th Street," when questioning the existence of Santa Claus, she repeats over and over, "It's silly, but I believe."

And I don't know what the hell "I-MAC" is supposed to be. Clever name, though, maybe the Comrade can pass it off as something coming from Apple Computer Corp. I mean, Apple's profits were up, iPods are fun, so it must be something positive, right?

Just exactly how stupid do they think we are?

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Viva Honduras!

Before getting to the main topic, I'd just like to point out that about the only argument for socialized medicine I've been hearing the last couple of days is: "The USA is the only First-World nation that doesn't have socialized medicine."

When I was little and believed I just had to have a Mousketeer hat or a poodle skirt, my mom would always ask: "If all your friends go and jump in the lake, does that mean you have to, too?"

I mean, WTF? What kind of "reasoning" is this to support wrecking the US health care industry? Those who offer don't-you-want-to-be-like-Canada? as a selling point might want to consider that the USA also has much better health care than other First World nations. Not coincidental. By the way, for info on health care from several perspectives, go to: www.pjtv.com . Very good videos.

Second, it is quite possible to reform the health care system as it is without nationalizing it and letting the government run it. Maybe try some free market solutions?

And that's all on that subject for now. I've been trying to find out what's going on in Honduras.

The removed-president of Honduras, Zalaya, walked to the border between Nicaragua and Honduras yesterday, slipped under the chain that separates the two countries, said something that apparently was supposed to inspire a Honduran border guard -- but didn't -- and then stepped back into Nicaragua. If Zalaya has any sense, he won't try to get any farther into that country.

It's a complicated story. Here's the Wall Street Journal's version:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124847775316780293.html

Reading that is actually rather cautionary, if not downright scary... But first about Honduras. It's a constitutional democracy with a single term limit on the office of the president. The military takes an oath to uphold the constitution, not the president.

Zalaya was elected, but has been unpopular -- and increasingly so as he's grown closer personally and politically to an alliance between Castro, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Chavez sells petroleum at a discount to local states that join a local coalition established to oppose US influence in South America. Zalaya joined this organization at the behest of his nation, which was going broke last year on fuel supplies. But the alliance apparently also planted some seed of ambition in Zalaya to make Honduras his private playground.

Must say, the US has a rather dotty history in South America. In the 1840s, there was that Mexican War thing, where we ended up not only with Texas, but also everything else north and west, including Eldorado. (They can have that back now, if they take Pelosi with it.)

In the 1850s, one pro-slavery American lunatic failed to persuade the US government to conquer Nicaragua to enlarge the lands available for slave-based plantation agriculture, but he did convince some rich southern planters to back his scheme. And he did conquer Nicaragua -- for about two weeks before they tossed him out. He tried again and failed.

In Guatamala, the US for years supported what amounted to a clique of rich guys who ran the country rather ruthlessly to promote their own interests and keep the peons as peons. And a similar story can be told about many of the other states in South America. Not a whole lot to be proud of.

According to WSJ, there seems to be a general trend in Central and South America for strong dictators to move into once-democratic nations and pretty much take over. This is apparently what Zalaya was trying to accomplish in Honduras. Under Honduras' constitution, presidents are limited to one term. Zalaya allegedly (they have it on video tape) stole $2 million from the nation's treasury to fund a referendum that would allow him to remain in the presidency indefinitely. Honduras' Supreme Court ruled this unconstitutional: the term limit provision cannot be changed or amended; and also under the nation's constitution, if the president won't leave as he should, the nation is compelled to remove him. So Zalaya was removed.

Castro, Chavez, and Ortega.... and our own Comrade Osama.... have called what happened in Honduras a "military coup." That infers that the Honduran military, on their own authority, toppled the head-of-state and took over the government. That's not true. An interim president has replaced Zalaya, and the military remains faithful to its oath to support the constitution.

Honduras also has been an abiding friend to the USA. However, we've cut about $20 million in aid to that nation due to the "coup." Honduras is looking to the US for support -- at least for moral support to preserve its constitutional democracy. Comrade Osama, like Castro, Chavez, and Ortega, initially said that Zalaya should be returned to his position as president of Honduras.

But now Hillary Clinton and apparently the US State Dept. also recommends that Zalaya remain in Nicaragua -- or at least outside of Honduras.

That seems advisable for his own health and safety. I don't think Honduras is willing to tolerate his crap, and Honduras is just about the only really free nation left in the region.

Especially interesting -- also in the WSJ article -- is a kind of outline for how to destroy a constitutional democracy and replace it with a marxist dictatorship. A caller on Hannity's radio show the other night suggested that our own Comrade Osama might trump up one or another crisis to 1.) not allow the mid-term elections in 2010, which more than likely will change and reduce the Democrat majority in congress; 2.) claim some kind of emergency to keep himself in office without the 2012 election.

Sean Hannity pooh-poohed the idea, but now I see where the caller got the idea. This is exactly what's happened in South America. And those dictators consolidated their power by taking over the economies of those nations and eradicating capitalism. Sound familiar?

As I've said before, I'm not a big believer in conspiracies. And for lots of reasons. Number One, usually they involve less-than-ethical participants or actual criminal types, and these are not the kind of people who will work together for very long before playing their power games on each other for their individual personal gain. They all end up wanting their own country to push around and abuse, bleed dry, and bully. They usually end up killing each other, along with lots of innocent bystanders.

But the whole thing is just something more to think about.

In the meanwhile, I hope Honduras sticks by its guns, literally. And I wish there was something I could do to help them.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Nothing up my sleeve....

Doesn't anyone else find this whole flap with Harvard's Professor Gates funny? Let me tell you a story....

I used to live in a huge old Chicago-style court building. Apparently the main plumbing pipe was under the front lawn of this building, and maybe ten feet into the lawn from the public sidewalk was a small sewer cap. I would guess this was some kind of valve to control the feed or output of the building's water or sewage. I really don't know, except that little sewer cap was there, about the size of a large dinner plate.

My apartment actually was toward the rear of the building. So I went out one day to go shopping or something, and here's this guy stretched out on the front lawn. Another guy was standing beside him. I kinda wondered what the heck was going on, but then recalled the sewer cap. And when the guy laying on the lawn turned his face up to talk to the other guy, I recognized him as the regular plumber.

Ran to the store or something -- whatever my errand was -- and maybe 30 minutes later I was heading back toward my building.... With some considerable alarm. A couple police cars and an ambulance were blocking the street. I was walking, so kept on approaching the building, really somewhat on edge, picturing a fire or something.

As it turns out, however, a neighbor or passer-by saw the plumber laying on the lawn and the other guy standing over him, but apparently was unaware of the sewer cap and didn't make the connection that this was only a plumbing situation. The passer-by called 911, apparently suspecting he was witnessing a horrendous crime.

By the time I reached the building, a couple cops, the plumber, and about a dozen tennants and neighbors were all standing around laughing about the whole thing. The plumber was actually impressed that someone had been so concerned about his well-being that they'd called for emergency services.

Anyway, this incident came to mind when I first heard about the Gates thing. Gates should be happy he has neighbors who keep an eye on his house when he's out of town and grateful for the police's vigilant response. Perhaps the prof was tired after that flight from China and, God knows, as a Harvard professor -- and really quite well-known in the academic community -- he apparently got awfully snippy when the police didn't recognize him.

And for the Comrade to translate this whole thing as evidence of unjust racial profiling -- and even before he knew the facts, as he himself stated -- was not a really very intelligent move.

The cop, Crowley, has been criticized for asking to enter Gates' house. On Fox News tonight, commentator Juan Williams noted that all Crowley knew was that someone had been seen trying to break into the house. For all the he knew, the burglar-trespassor-whatever, could been inside the house somewhere, pointing a gun at Professor Gates' head to ensure the prof would get rid of the cops.

Gates now has come out with a completely absurd version of the story. He says he was cooperating, but became angry when Crowley followed him inside the house. According to Gates, they calmly exchanged a few words, and then Crowley slapped the cuffs on Gates and arrested him. Now really, this sounds crazy to me, unless the Crowley was a rabid racist champing at the bit to arrest an old black guy.

Given Crowley's background, this seems like a pretty far-fetched scenario. Crowley actually trains people in using sensitivity with profiling. And, I mean, would even a rabid racist try to arrest a renowned Harvard professor in Cambridge, Mass? And apparently people were collecting on the street to watch. So there were witnesses.

Maybe Gates is just testing the strength of the Race Card? Since the public is beginning to see the Comrade's feet of clay, are liberals still so saturated with guilt that they'll continue to genuflect at the altar of racial victimhood? Can the Comrade still use that to promote his marxist agenda? Somehow, though, I can't imagine someone of Gates' stature helping to manufacture this type of rather ridiculous and humiliating situation to test the theory.

So it's just a minor incident blown up way out of proportion by the Comrade, apparently to divert public attention -- and anger -- from his own political machinations.

Sound a little bit like sending a bunch of SEIU out to picket AIG headquarters?

Here's a hint, when you're watching a magician, try to keep track of both of his hands. Not that I don't trust him, mind you....

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Try the regulations on Medicare/Medicaid first...

Listened to Comrade Osama's press conference tonight. He provided no new information, called doctors crooks and theives, and blamed the uninsured for all the problems in the health care system. No, really, Comrade, the costs of Medicare/Medicaid are a much greater problem in the health care system -- the fact that the federal government doesn't fund costs, at the same time offering care "for free," urging everyone to overburden the system with trivial complaints.

Might also throw in state insurance boards, and the fact that insurance carriers can't sell insurance across state lines, and a whole plethora of other regulations that also are largely only obstructive, like requiring policyholders to pay for coverage for fertility treatments when they're past menopause, and things like that.

Oh, and the Comrade's getting real tough now, even scary. He said that socialized medicine "won't add to the deficit, and I mean it!" and stamped his little fist on the podium.

Like he meant the Stimulus bill would save jobs and restart the economy, or the way crap-and-trade would make the US energy-independent? About the latter, he also said his program would result in "skyrocketing energy costs." Must have slipped up on that. Lying is hard; you always have to remember the lies you tell. Tough during the rigors of a campaign I guess. Or perhaps he was directing these comments at something McCain had proposed, like using coal -- the most abundant fuel in the USA, and the use of which actually has a shot at making the US energy-independent.

Also, interesting, the Comrade suggested that suppose you go see your doctor for a sore throat. Instead of giving you a presciption for your immediate problem, the Comrade says the doctor may prescribe a tonsillectomy, because the doctor could charge more for the surgery. I have personal experience with that. In my early 20's, for about three years, every year I got tonsillitis. I mean every year. And it was painful. One year, even my gums swelled up.

I went to doctors for it, and none of them wanted to give me the surgery because they said at my age -- 25 years old -- it would be like major surgery. My tonsils were deeply embedded. I'd have to be in the hospital for a week and it would be extremely painful and take quite a while to heal. Besides, your tonsils actually have a useful function. If I kept getting tonsillitis, they would have to do the surgery, but the recommendation was to wait and see. I never had the surgery and did stop getting tonsillitis.

Not to say that some doctors don't over-diagnose in this way -- I mean, look at the situations with Anna Nicole Smith and Michael Jackson -- but what's to keep them from doing it under socialized medicine? Do you have any idea how many people right now are collecting all sorts of stuff under auspices of Medicaid/Medicare under false pretenses? Recently there was a huge scandal in Florida -- about nine people collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars for providing HIV therapies. And none of the people collecting the money were doctors. There were no patients. It was all a big scam.

I actually think the pharmaceutical companies are more like drug pushers than manufacturers. I mean really, promoting on TV use of a drug that will make your toenails real purty.... but it may destroy your liver. And the pharmas are totally in bed with the government. They even were with the Clintons. In the early days of the Clinton administration, when Hillary was devising her own socialized medicine program, she made a killing on pharma stock in an insider trading deal. Apparently the pharmaceuticals welcome government ownership. They must be a bunch of idiots, or so whipped by the FDA that they abandoned any concept of the free market a long time ago and now just hope the sitting president likes them.

By the way, I erred in saying that under HR 3200, uninsured people who didn't buy insurance would have to pay a fine of .02% of the their annual income. That's 2.5% of their annual income -- or 15 times as much as I thought.

Anyway, all-in-all socialized medicine is still a crock. The Comrade offered no new information about it, and even seemed to not know very much about it. Apparently he doesn't care what congress cooks up, as long as the program that passes totally puts the health care industry under direction of the federal government.

And again we come back to this: Where has this ever worked? People come from all over the world to get health care in the USA. This is all just so incredibly stupid and destructive.

Oh, another interesting point. Have you ever noticed that when the Comrade talks about "playing politics," he's always talking about those who oppose him? He doesn't politicize anything. For example, he's not making the health care industry a political issue, is he? Nah... He wouldn't do that. He's too freaking godlike. A legend in his own mind.

He wouldn't make medical diagnostics and care for every patient a decision made by a bunch of politicians, would he?

He did mention setting up a board to "cut expenses" in Medicare. Apparently that's his euphemism for "rationing." And, in any case, how is saddling the health care industry with another set of "experts" on the payroll going to reduce costs? Each of these guys will need a staff, an office, probably their own laboratories, maybe a hospital or two just to double check their recommendations... that's how government always works. It grows like cancer.

Here's a suggestion: Why not apply the ace regulatory scheme outlined in the HR 3200 first to only Medicare/Medicaid for maybe the next five years? Let's see how it wrings out fraud and inefficiency there, saves costs, and provides quality care.

Let's see how well it works there first, before destroying the excellent health care we have now in pursuit of the Comrade's personal vision of a marxist Utopia.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Spaced out

Looks like the catastrophic HR 3200 hasn't got the chance of a snowball in hell, which is a good thing. I understand the Comrade had all the Blue Dog Democrats up to the White House, but apparently wasn't able to budge them. Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, asked "Why the rush?" Yeah, why?

Well, because if anyone actually reads this bill, it's goin' down.

The Comrade is doing a press conference or something tomorrow -- actually tonight, since it's after midnight. Perhaps he's going to unveil the budget numbers or whatever it's called. The nation's mid-year financial statement. It was due, but not released. Think the Comrade wants the nation to see that mess before they vote on socialized medicine?

I sincerely hope with all my heart that bill goes down. I'm still having a tough time trying to figure out exactly why anyone who proclaims to be an American would work so bloody hard to destroy the nation.

Was going to actually join the Republican party and actually do some volunteer work in 2010 to change the make-up of the House. Have to -- at the very least -- reduce the majority. The way things are right now, might be some kind of 1994-all-over-again Republican sweep.

At any rate, then the local Republicans had to put up Mark Kirk for the US Senate -- the seat now filled by Roland Burris on a deal with Blagojovich. The Comrade's old seat. Anyway, I hate Mark Kirk. He voted for crap-and-trade. I don't care about anything else he's done (and I can just imagine!), I wouldn't vote for Kirk-the-jerk for dog-catcher. I'm not in his congressional district, but his district borders mine. I have a Democrat rep. Between her and Kirk, not a lot of difference. So we'll see if the Libertarians run anyone, or I'll leave that space blank.

They should have "NONE OF THE ABOVE" as an option on the ballot, but I'm sure the major parties don't want to hear it. Or even know about it.

Happier subject.... July 20... yesterday or the day before.... was the 40th anniversary of the Moon Walk. Not Michael Jackson, the real Moon Walk. I remember when that happened. Still in my hippy days, sharing an apartment and doing factory work, and in a labor union. We had a little black and white TV. It was freakin' amazing. Just thinking, "They're on the moon!"

America's "high water mark"?

July 20 was also the anniversary of 1st Manassas, 1861. Perhaps the "low water mark," apart from this year. First set battle of the Civil War, and the Union ran like little girls. Actually more complicated, but I don't want to go into it.

What I really wanted to mention was Buzz Aldrin. Greta Van Susteren did a really good interview with him. She's a really good journalist. He must be getting pretty old, and the Moon Walk was 40 years ago... but still, when he starts talking about the moon and Mars, especially, he lights up. Honestly, you can see probably exactly the same excitement and enthusiasm he had when he climbed into the craft for the launch of Apollo 11.

Cute... Van Susteren asked him, "Did you bring back any souvenirs from the moon?"

He was sitting back in his chair, pretty relaxed, smiling, and said, "Me!"

Love him.

Where did America lose it? Now we're fighting over perks and freebies from the feds. I'm glad I was alive to see the Moon Walk. But you see, when you know what the human race is really capable of -- the greatness....

In literature, if you want to create a tragedy, you have to have the hero fall from a great height. It's something like that.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Health care "going postal"

Did have a chance today to look over the 1000+ page HR 3200 Health Care Hogwash bill. And it certainly is hogwash.

I double-checked that thing where if you lose your current insurance coverage, you'll have to go with a government plan. Not quite so simple. What that particular clause defines is "grandfathered" coverage, and these are any policies that are currently existing. Any existing private health care plan will not be able to add anyone new after the Health Care Hogwash bill goes into effect, except dependents of existing policyholders. The insurance coverage of a grandfathered policy cannot change; premiums cannot change.

They will definitely die pretty quickly, especially when all of this administration's inflation hits later this year.

However, you can still buy insurance from a private insurance carrier.... So long as the policy has been vetted by the federal government and is approved by them. This will be done through a proposed Health Care Exchange.

As far as I can tell, the Health Care Exchange reviews all the policies available from all insurance carriers, categorizes them as Basic, Premium, and Family (or something like that) and then determines if the premiums are fair or not. The policies have to provide certain levels of care, including mental health services and addiction counseling. Apparently based upon the richness of their own life experiences, congress believes that treatment for lunacy and alcoholism are services everyone needs. Or perhaps they're simply trying to create demand.

You could buy other "non-approved" policies, but these won't really count to the feds as bona fide health insurance.

So suppose you or I want to buy insurance -- and we will have to. The Health Care Exchange will be the only place you can buy it. And based on how much they think you should pay, and how much coverage they think you need, they will assign you a policy. In fact, an individual without any insurance at all will be fined .02% of their annual income if they don't buy a policy. And, of course, the Health Care Hogwash bill does set up a "public option." Gee, I wonder how often the Health Care Exchange will recommend that? Or assign it.

You won't even have to think for yourself or make your own choices! Isn't that wonderful? Almost magical.... All you have to do is pay for it. And you will have to pay for it, write them a check, as well as pay more in payroll withholding. Both. Not one or the other, but both. Estimates indicate that in about 25 states, income taxes will go over 50% when the Health Care Hogwash bill goes into effect. Any private coverage you buy will be on top of that.

The Health Care Exchange is kinda like a government-run brokerage. You can get exactly the same services -- except for the standard-setting and compulsion to buy -- at the Internet sites of about a dozen insurance companies today. They list their competitors and display comparative rates. What they don't do is try to control the coverage that's offered and force you to buy -- that's what the Health Care Hogwash bill will bring to this particular table.

Reviewing other provisions of the bill, Health Care Hogwash doesn't actually provide any useful services whatsoever, except maybe to the illiterate, who can't read insurance policies themselves and/or lack the initiative to locate a broker. All the Health Care Hogwash bill does is regulate.

Under the Health Care Hogwash bill, the federal government will hire thousands of people -- many highly-qualified professionals -- to do nothing but stand around and watch how insurance companies, doctors, nurses, and hospitals operate and tell them how to do their jobs and how much they can charge for their services. That's all these highly-trained professionals will do.

This is one huge boondoggle. That's all it is. Congress has been looking for money to fund the Health Care Hogwash bill, but they aren't funding the cost of health care -- private insurance will still cover that. What they're looking to pay for is the huge and unwieldy bureaucracy the Health Care Hogwash bill sets up.

Basically the Health Care Hogwash bill will establish a monumental bureaucracy that will employ a huge number employees armed with a nearly unlimited capacity to intrude upon the private lives of citizens and even determine who will live and who will die.

On the upside, it will represent lots of jobs.... paid for by taxpayers.

All the Health Care Hogwash bill does is add another layer of bureaucracy on top of health care services. Like, you have doctors and hospitals and patients. That's all you really need to conduct a health care transaction. You can add insurance companies. They take 10% or so of costs, but supposedly "they're there when you need them," and so far, they've been optional.

With the Health Care Hogwash bill, you'll have doctors and hospitals and patients. And insurance companies. And the Health Insurance Exchange. And all the regulators. And all the people in Washington who oversee the regulators. And if you don't pay them, you'll be fined and/or go to jail.

The Health Care Hogwash bill establishes a pimple on the butt of the health care industry. In order to pay to sustain it, you either have to increase the price of health care or reduce the services available. Reducing the services available means: long, long waits to see a doctor; fewer hospital beds at fewer hospitals; fewer diagnostics; rationing.

There is no other way to put this crap into practice. There is simply no other way. Do the math yourself.

So.... thinking about all of this led me to thinking about the US Postal Service. I'm not going to knock the level of service the USPS provides. It's really pretty good. But let's look at the way this organization developed.

The USPS employs a lot of people, more than 1 million, though I don't have the exact number at hand. They are all unionized, covered by two or possibly three large unions. They make pretty good salaries, but the real plum is the pension benefits, that and the fact that, as one USPS manager told me once, "You'd just about have to set your boss on fire to be terminated." There are only a few valid reasons for firing a postal worker, like on-the-job violence and things like that. Really pretty severe things.

So about 15 years ago or so, with the rise of the digital age, a lot of the things the USPS has always done by hand, like sorting mail, became automated. The USPS didn't really need all the people it had on staff because more and more was being done by machine. But the USPS couldn't fire these people, either. And the pensions for retirees were really beginning to pile up.

The federal government loosened its ties to the USPS and made them into a sort of half-private organization. That is, the USPS is supposed to show a profit, but it never has. And the federal government is bound to bail them out. The USPS also has to get permission from the federal government to raise rates and things like that.

One reason the feds cut the USPS loose is because it didn't want the debt of postal worker pensions to show up on the federal deficit. That is, these pensions become the responsibility of the USPS, not the federal government -- at least on paper. The feds still cut the checks.

And funny thing... about 15 years ago, when all these changes were really being felt, something like three or four postal workers in separate and unrelated incidents just went nuts and started shooting people. It was weird. It happened so often, a comedian coined the phrase "going postal" to mean just going beserk and attacking people right and left.

My theory is this: The USPS couldn't fire anyone, but they needed to reduce the number of their employees. So they began harrassing postal workers. Nothing official that they could be sued for, just busting their chops for little things, making certain employees uncomfortable, nudging them toward quitting -- because under union rules, it's very hard to fire anyone. And those employees who were perhaps the oddest ducks among the crew went off. At one point or another, they went home and loaded up that .38 and came back shooting.

But you see, this is how federal employment works. The USPS may be a bit different now because it is under considerable pressure to pay its own costs. But every other federal agency doesn't much give a damn how much it spends on anything. In fact, the way a federal agency chief "grows" his or her little organization is to somehow finagle a bigger budget every year so s/he can go out and hire more people and expand operations.

OK.... So put this together with the pimple-on-the-butt nature of the proposed Health Care Hogwash Establishment. That agency is going to grow by leaps and bounds.... charged with safeguarding the nation's health and safety and all that other rot. And all employees will be unionized, I guarantee.

So do you really, really believe that the cost of health care is going to go down with the Health Care Hogwash bill (HR 3200)? And if people can't or won't pay any more in taxes to fund it, where do you think the feds are going to squeeze out the costs (to use Pazzo Pelosi's phrase)? They're going to reduce the level and quality of service, cut the pay of doctors, nurses, and other professionals, cut hospital staffing and services, and ration health care. The Health Care Hogwash bill itself is supposed to be redistributing $500 billion from Medicare already. Yeah... who needs the old geezers? Put 'em on an ice floe and push 'em out to sea. It just costs too damn much to keep 'em alive.

Comrade Osama is fond of telling the heart-rending story of how his mom (or grandma?) was denied insurance coverage because she was chonically ill. When the Health Care Hogwash bill goes into effect, no one who's chronically ill will be able to get any care whatsoever. A large part of the bill's provisions are devoted to deciding who gets what kind of care, and the chronically ill.... Well, let's just say they aren't worth the investment.

So, Comrade Osama, how is this working for you? Is this what you voted for?

Saturday, July 18, 2009

FYI: it's HR 3200

Spent a lot of time looking for the text of the health care bill that's getting all the attention. It's HR3200, and if you want to download 1008 or so pages of text, it's available at http://www.opencongress.org/. You can also vote Yay or Nay on it at the web site, too. When I was there, the score was 48 Yay; 266 Nay. That's a positive sign.

What I've learned about the bill so far:
  • It does include a government-run socialized medicine program. In fact, if you don't have a private insurance policy on the day this piece of crap goes into effect, you won't be able to get private insurance anymore. Same if you change jobs or something. You won't be able to buy into or be added onto a private policy. I'll take Investor's Business Daily's word on this. They said they called Congress to double-check. This means the bill is definitely a program to phase in a single-payer, government-monopoly health care system. The private insurers will simply wither away.
  • Its significant sponsors are Miller, Rangel, and Waxman -- the same Waxman who brought us that stinking crap-and-tax Energy bill. He's obviously in hock to Nancy Pelosi. Perhaps she's blackmailing him. At any rate, the man is incorrigible and probably should be charged with treason. He could claim ignorance in defense. Obviously he knows nothing about the United States of America, the principles behind it, or the purpose for which is was established. How this butthead ever got into office is something I'll never understand. Oh... he's from California, the great bankrupt idiot state of... What is it with Californians? Too much sun? Snake bite? Maybe it's the water. Or some mysterious insanity-inspiring noxious gas seeping into the air from the San Andreas Fault? They all seem to have some kind of problem connecting with reality. Pelosi, Boxer, Feinstein, Waxman.... And they all believe they know how everyone else in the world should live. Yeah, let's follow their example; California is a positive model of fiscal responsibility. Let's keep our fingers crossed for "The Big One." One big rumble and the whole mess will just drift out to sea and sink with nary a bubble. We can only hope.
  • It does "tax the rich." The idiots who wrote it obviously are unaware of the fact that the rich can rearrange their assets and even move them to the Cayman Islands. The rich don't pay any more than they want to. And those "rich" who are small business owners... all they'll do is lay people off. That'll boost the economy.
  • Uninsured individuals will be forced to buy some kind of insurance. Question: how will this be enforced? The Health Care Tactical Squad? They'll stop us on street corners and demand to see our insurance membership cards, slapping cigarettes out of our hands, busting pregnant women caught sipping coffee, leading us all in forced calisthenics at commuter train stations, chasing fat people around with liposuction devices. And who's going to be paying their salaries? And how will they function effectively in "concealed carry" states?

Other features unverified, and which may belong to other health care bills:

  • Not sure if this bill penalizes (taxes and fines) businesses that don't provide employee insurance, but I'd say that was a fair guess.
  • IF the above is true, companies who employ union workers are exempt from the penalties -- result of Obama puckering up to his cuddly-wuddly union supporters -- most of whom are government workers. Let's see if the membership supports him in the next election after all of the Comrade's fascist diktats go into effect. Well.... maybe he can count on the SEIU, but they aren't really a union anymore, more like an on-demand marxist cheering section. I can't wait until those buttheads show up at my door to ask about the census so I can push them down the front steps and watch my pitbull lock his jaws onto their ankles.
  • Congresscritters and probably other government employees -- who are 74% union members anyway -- will be able to keep their insurance rather than being forced into the government program. Not a ringing endorsement, is it? Here, you peons deal with this crap, it'll keep you alive just long enough to pay for our perks and goodies.

On the plus side, most political analysts with any brains are giving the bill not much of a chance of passing. But, you know, something I've learned is -- You simply can't under-estimate the US Congress.

Comrade Osama made a brief appearance to hawk this piece of crap legislation this afternoon. He was 40 minutes late for his own "press conference" -- not really a press conference, rather an announcement, or presidential bull, passed down to the press corps from on-high. The press was called to attend, but they couldn't ask questions. And it was hardly worth the wait, more like, "Step right up and getcher free health care!" Or we'll shove it down your throat.

Why was the Comrade 40 minutes late? After all, the press conference was his idea. No doubt he was having trouble getting that last page of the announcement faxed from ACORN headquarters in outer Mongolia, or from the HQ of some marxist crony, then loading it up on the teleprompter. Wonder if he read it before it popped up on the teleprompter. This administration is not big on reading things before endorsing them.

It occurs to me that the Comrade doesn't know anything beyond what's called "plantation politics." That is, you recruit or imprison a dependency, then whip them and terrorize them into supporting your lavish lifestyle, all the while spouting platitudes about how it's all "for your own good." He may be surprised to discover that there are many, many US citizens who don't regard themselves as victims and won't be slavishly happy to accept crumbs from ol' massah's table. And I'm thinking the Comrade's claim to being a bro' won't keep the African-American vote in his column next time, either.

Blacks actually have the most to lose. They finally get enough political recognition to exercise their rights, then Comrade Osama slaps them back down along with the rest of the population. Gosh, what will Oprah say?

Waxman isn't the only one who should be charged with treason. Forget the birth certificate. That's a bogus issue anyway. What we need are grounds for impeachment while there's anything left of individual liberty in the USA.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Who cares what Obama wants?

Just want to jot down a few things and will probably work more on this later....

Lots of talk about one or another socialized medicine bill making its way through congress. Actually, about five or six socialized medicine bills are making their way through congress. One or two of them might actually be more like "reform" than nationalization, but those aren't the ones that are getting all the attention. And the really socialist bills aren't likely to pass. Nobody wants that b.s. except Comrade Osama.

Pazzo Pelosi was on TV for a moment crowing over giving the prez what he wants. So my question is: Who cares what the president wants?

Congress's chief concern should be what the people want. The president is only there to carry out the will of congress. Makes you wonder if any of these clowns in DC ever actually read the Constitution.

So, I repeat: Who cares what the president wants? He's not king. He's a public servant. What he wants isn't any more important than what Joe the Plumber wants or what you or I want. Congress does not exist to act on the whims and fancies of the president -- any president.

Interesting that members of congress themselves are exempt from the provisions of the socialized medicine bills. That's not exactly a statement of strong support. "Here, you underlings, this socialist crap is good enough for you; but we're keeping what we got."

The CBO says that one of the major bills -- one with Pazzo's support -- will not reduce the cost of health care at all, but will increase it. Looking at the history of socialized medicine experiments in the US so far, the CBO is probably understating the problem. Did they just figure that out? At least the CBO is telling the truth.

The Dems are crowing that they've got the nurses on board -- though even Comrade Osama couldn't remember the name of the nurses' organization, which should be quite an insult to them. And now the AMA put out a news release to show support.

I wonder about the AMA. They were against anything that might threaten their incomes. These proposed bills surely do threaten their incomes. At least one of them establishes a government-run program, and as one commentator on Fox Nightly News noted, the government competes with private industry the same way an alligator competes with a duck, that is, the government will eat private insurers.

And when the government is dictating every aspect of health care, does the AMA honestly think that the doctors they represent won't be getting significant cuts in what the government will pay them? Medicare/Medicaid already underpays -- they don't pay even cost, which is one reason private insurance is overcharged to make up the difference.

As Cato Institute noted in its paper comparing health care programs among different countries, in Germany, doctors make approximately 20% of what US doctors make. I figure that to mean that German doctors make about $30,000 to $40,000 per year.

In the US, that's pretty close to the poverty line for a family.

In the US, that wouldn't pay doctors' malpractice insurance. And the Comrade does not want to put any limits frivolous malpractice suits. On the other hand, with the government running health care, there wouldn't be any malpractice suits. You can't sue the government.

Think about that, all you recipients of large punitive damages. This also won't tend to maintain high standards for medical practice. The doctors will be able to claim, "I was just following orders."

I suppose Comrade Osama or one of his minions has promised the AMA that its doctors will be allowed to survive.... but when the federal government has a monopoly on health insurance, does anyone with a brain imagine that the federal government will live up to that promise? Has the federal government lived up to ANY of its promises lately?

Curious, too, that endorsement from the AMA wasn't signed by the same person who signed the earlier statement that failed to support Osama's program when he spoke to the AMA. I just wonder about that. I mean, did the president/chairman of the AMA go on vacation, so a v.p. takes over communications and retracts the AMA's previous stand, or what? It just looks funny, that's all.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Stimulus - part deux

It never fails to amaze me how quickly the public forgets.

No one seems to recall that when the Stimulus Bill was passed earlier this year, it was supposed to be an emergency measure to jump-start the economy.

Those against it argued that it was mostly pork; many projects it funded wouldn't even get underway for almost 10 years; it would cripple an already staggering economy with a whopping huge debt.

But Comrade Osama needed it right now! Or the nation would collapse. With the Stimulus Bill, the whole economic downturn would be over by the end of this year at the latest. He sent attack dog Pazzo Pelosi out to bludgeon congresscritters into voting in favor. No one even got to debate the bill. No one even read the whole thing. The whole debacle was kinda like watching a herd of lemmings running over a cliff.

(And yeah... I'm talking about the Stimulus Bill, not crap-and-trade, which admittedly, bears a striking resemblence.)

And now, well, look around. You see any impacts from the Stimulus Bill except an increasing unemployment rate? The Stimulus Bill doesn't do anything for the private sector, which is where the jobs are created in the US. However, I understand that if a major, major project gets underway in Oregon or someplace in five or seven years, turtles will have a tunnel under a major highway. Nice. What is that all about? If you cross the bridge, you collect $200? Now that would be stimulus.

And if you criticize the useless waste of this huge debt vs. the impact an immediate and deep tax cut would have had, Democrats talk about the whopping huge tax cut in the Stimulus Bill -- an average of $13.00 per week, isn't it?

You know what? With the increased tax on tobacco alone, $13.00 will just about pay for two or three packs of cigarettes -- depending on which state you live in. Three bags of potato chips. Two complete meals at a fastfood place. Get out of the way... here comes recovery!

So here's a better idea: Rescind the rest of the Stimulus Bill -- no one read it anyway. No one knows what's in it. It could contain a clause that promises to turn over the entire continental USA to the King of Madagascar at the end of 2011 for all anyone knows. Rescind it on that basis -- "Hey! It was right after New Year's. I was still hungover and the Comrade insisted we pass this piece of crap without reading it!" Reason enough to rescind.

Or, you could argue that it was absolutely brain-dead reckless and irresponsible in the first place. That works too.

Then eliminate payroll taxes for the rest of this year. Just cut them out entirely. No need to file with the IRS next April. The federal government will lose money, but not as much as they're losing with the Stimulus Bill. And it would be absolutely terrific to shut off the funds going to Washington. Put those SOB's on a budget for a change, including IRS staffers. Let them all take the rest of the year off, with an attendant cut in their pay -- sorta like what they're dumping on private citizens now.

And I guarantee, the economy will pick up overnight, like a launch from Cape Canaveral.

The only trouble is.... the buttheads in Washington couldn't control this kind of stimulus. It targets the free market and is a boon mainly to individuals rather than big political donors and fascist-leaning multinational corporations. So it will never go anywhere.

But it would work.

So... would you rather have more than $1 trillion in useless wasted debt, or do you really want to jump-start the economy? Simple choice. Take your pick.

Don't listen to what the blockheads in Washington say. Watch what they do and you'll begin to understand their true motives. It isn't complicated.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Gag me with a spoon

I didn't watch the Sotomayor senate screening thing today. Up all night trying to make a deadline, so went to bed this morning about 30 minutes before they were supposed to begin. However, I did hear about them and saw a couple clips. Senator Lindsey Graham was on Greta Van Susteren tonight and he mentioned that the hearings could be used to torture the terrorists at Guantanamo. "Nineteen senators talking for three hours," he said. So I didn't miss much.

A couple clips I did see were pretty disgraceful. Most notably Diane Feinstein (D-Calif) fawning all over Sotomayor, talking about the judge's wonderful background and all that. So syrupy, so condescending and patronizing. If I was Sotomayor, I probably would have got up and walked out.

In the book, Vision of the Anointed, Thomas Sowell says that liberals treat blacks -- and apparently other minorities, too -- like mascots. And, by the way, I totally recommend this book. I don't have a copy anymore because I gave it to someone else, and they tell me that certain phrases and thoughts from it keep coming back to them. Same with me. It's a terrific outline of the differences between liberals and conservatives.

Anyway, Feinstein at least treated Sotomayor like a mascot. Worse, even. More like a cocker spaniel puppy. "Isn't she cute? Isn't it marvelous that she came so far?" I didn't see too many of the other sentor's statements. Maybe Sessions offering his version of being a ruthless interrogator or something. The real hearings don't start until tomorrow. Today was just get-your-face-on-TV for the senate.

Been thinking all day about how disgusting Feinstein acted. I just can't imagine talking to someone the way Feinstein talked to Sotomayor in public. Feinstein looked so.... bigoted. Like she was overcompensating for her bigotry by going way overboard in the other direction. Yet I don't want to feel sorry for Sotomayor.

In fact, I kinda wonder about the richness of Sotomayor's experiences as a Latina woman, or the authenticity of them. After all, how many Latino kids from the projects in the Bronx get a scholarship to Princeton and then go on to Yale Law School? I mean, is that typical? Does Sotomayor's background reflect any particular hardship? More like she had enormous good fortune and, as Jefferson would say, the harder you work, the luckier you get.

And I really don't think Sotomayor had that difficult of a background to overcome. My dad died when I was a kid, leaving my mom with two young daughters (I was 11, my sister was 12) and three sons who were grown and out of the house with families of their own. My mom had to work, too, and had never worked before outside the home. Her jobs were not exactly executive level, but we got by. We were never on welfare and didn't live in the projects. I went to school on a scholarship, graduated cum laude, but didn't go to law school. Didn't want to be a lawyer, really. A lot of people come from a similar situation, and I would guess that most don't qualify for racial or minority affirmative action programs.

So what's the big deal? Where's the "richness of experiences" that sets Sotomayor's judgment apart -- and puts it above -- a white man's?

Very few people actually get anything easily in the USA. It's a rich country, sure, but there's no free lunch, either. Drop dead in the street and you can count on the fact that most people will probably just step over you.... if they don't empty your pockets first. No matter what color you are. In the cities, anyway.

The big flap over Sotomayor's background seems to suggest that being a Puerto Rican woman is a difficult thing to overcome. And that seems to reflect a really nasty prejudice. Why shouldn't Puerto Ricans and/or women succeed?

Every nationality who arrived here got dumped on one way or another. The Irish were mistreated very nearly as bad as the blacks. The Irish were Catholic, for one thing, and rowdy for another -- forever joining unions and involving themselves in politics.

The Poles and other Eastern Europeans, Italians, Jews, Chinese -- just about any nationality or other type of minority that arrived in the USA in numbers large enough to have any kind of impact were treated like dogs, exploited, abused, ripped-off, etc etc. What's new? And I must add, the mistreatment only lasts as long as the people put up with it. Once they figure out that they have as many rights as anyone else -- that is, assimilate -- they do just fine. As long as you're free, it doesn't matter if others accept you. You could still do what you wanted for yourself.

The thing is, you have to be free. You have to work with that, not stand on line and wait for a hand-out.

Success is not extraordinary in the USA. What is extraordinary is allowing others the same freedom and independence to rise or fall on their own instead of trying to make them your pets.

It's mainly liberals like Feinstein who would find something amazing in the fact that someone who doesn't look like her (Feinstein, that is), talk like her, etc. etc., someone who doesn't understand that freedom works for all people -- only the stupid biased liberals would be surprised that nearly anyone can find or create opportunities for success in America.

Feinstein doesn't strike me as being overly bright, anyway. She was mayor of San Francisco when the Night Stalker, a really scary serial killer, was on the loose. The Night Stalker would break into peoples' homes when they were there and rob, torture, and kill them. He wasn't particular about his victims, they were men, women, kids, adults, and he'd killed maybe a half-dozen people and had left no clues to his identity whatsoever.

Finally at one crime scene -- the Night Stalker had tried to break into a cop's home, if I recall correctly -- he left a footprint in soft soil. The footprint showed the design of the sole of a particular type of running shoe, and the cops were trying to track him down through that. So Mayor Diane Feinstein gets on TV and blabs all over the Bay Area that anyone wearing this particular type of gym shoe was being sought by police.

The Night Stalker tossed the shoes. The cops had to start over.

Anyway, I really don't have such a great opinion of Feinstein anyway. But it's still rather sickening to watch her make a fool of herself the way she did today. And I imagine it made Sotomayor want to retch. It did me. I empathize.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

All the news that's print to fit

I happen to know a lot about journalism and the newspaper industry, its history and all that. The industry was more or less launched in North America by Ben Franklin, who, before he got into politics, was a printer and made a fortune selling what amounted to print business franchises in the North American colonies. You could go to Ben and he'd set you up with a press imported from England, sets of fonts, paper suppliers, and a copy of "Poor Richard's Almanack," which offered self-help axioms to use as "filler" so you wouldn't have to leave a column empty. I do believe he even offered training.

The first newspapers were not much more than broadsides, kinda like little posters printed only one side and pasted up all over the place. They served as ads for printing services and other local businesses who would buy space in them to advertise. That's how printers made a living between other, larger jobs. Some printers still do this. And the weekly bundle of grocery store ads and coupons folded into the Sunday paper is the same type of thing.

Anyway, back in the colonies, printers began adding local news to their broadsides, commentaries from local politicians, accounts of the Governor's Ball, letters from travelers in France and Spain. People began paying for the information. These "newspapers" were sold by subscription.

By the time the US became a nation, the newspaper industry was well underway. For example, Jefferson was rather unhappy that he was compelled to "buy" or sponsor a newspaper to present his side and counteract the "news" spread by his political opponents.

When high-speed, steam-powered web presses came into being, along with them came the rise of mass circulation newspapers. At the time, these were most notably New York papers. You've heard of Horace Greeley? ("Go west, young man....") He was the very powerful publisher of the New York Tribune, which began offering nationwide subscriptions and also was one of the papers that founded the Associated Press wire service. His steam-powered rotary (web) press could crank out thousands of copies of a paper overnight. This was unheard of previously.

The New York Herald, Greeley's most competitive rival that eventually eclipsed the Trib, began selling newspapers on street corners rather than only by subscritpion -- considerably broadening its local circulation -- and also began running lurid crime stories and social scandals.

You can gauge the power of these newspapers pretty simply. Greeley was one of the people who founded the Republican Party. And at the time, his was the only newspaper with a nationwide circulation. In addition, the wire services allowed for newspapers all across the country to pick up and reprint stories from the Trib, Herald, and a few others on their own pages. The Republican Party went from zero to getting Lincoln elected to the presidency in about 15 years. Of course, there were some pretty hot issues at the time, too. But Lincoln was a Nobody from Podunk -- famous only for opposing Stephen Douglas for a Senate seat -- until Greeley took notice of him and began to promote him across the country as one of a field of anti-slavery Republican presidential candidates.

Radio and TV hadn't been invented yet, neither were telephones. Newspapers, private letters, and stories carried by travelers were the only way anyone knew what was happening outside of their own communities. And the newspapers were all extremely and forthrightly biased, unashamedly editorializing on the front page, promoting one or another candidate for public office, taking sides on issues like slavery, secession and on and on. Many of them also routinely published poetry and short stories.

The idea of unbiased reporting was born only during the Civil War, and then just barely. But the folks back home had husbands, sons, brothers on the front lines and they wanted to know -- really know -- what was going on. So the papers began to focus on publishing factual information, usually with either some element of rah-rah! cheerleading or sharp criticism still intermingled. For example, it was the newspapers that published the casualty lists after the battles, and before any soldier's mother got a letter from the State Dept. For all of the above reasons, newspapers are an interesting source of information on "color" in history, or public opinion, but they aren't really useful sources of factual historical data.

Newspapers and news as a source of some kind of unvarnished truth without personal opinion is largely a creature of the 20th century. I've worked as a journalist and an editor, and I believe "objective reporting" to be a crock. No matter how hard any individual tries, you cannot tell a story and keep your personal slant out of it. The bias comes out not only in word choice (was it a "mob" or an "assembly of concerned citizens"?), but also in what an editor or publisher chooses to publish.

For example, there are only two known photographs of Franlin Delano Roosevelt in a wheelchair, and those were taken by friends, not members of the press. A lot of people still are unaware that FDR had polio and couldn't walk or stand without assistance. And I've never seen any photos of Comrade Osama with a cigarette in hand, either.

So, you're the publisher or editor. Do you go with the story about Michael Jackson's death, or about passing the cap-and-tax bill through the House of Representatives?

The press says the public dictates what they publish. To some extent, this is true. The public buys the papers, and this income covers part of the cost of production -- but only part. Most of the costs are still covered by advertisers, the same as in Ben Franklin's day, and this is true of TV and radio as well as printed media.

And the public doesn't have a whole lot of choice in what it reads or sees on TV news, either, does it? For the public, the news is like a buffet. They might be able to choose from the baby back ribs and cornbread or the spaghetti and tossed salad, but although steak and potatoes exist, they may not be on the menu.

I've been an editor. Periodically you assemble all the "news" that might be "important" to readers in one way or another. Then you pick what you think is really important -- because you've got limited space and you can't run it all. The really, really important stuff goes up front where most people will see it. The rest is kinda tucked into various departments or on the bottom of page six. These choices are pretty much driven by your own judgment, which includes your own biases. There's just no way around it.

The alternative, particularly in a field like politics where differing opinions proliferate, is to present as many different perspectives as you can gather. That's why I like Fox News. They go back to the original paradigm, when newspapers called themselves the Hoboken Democrat, the Pittsburgh Whig, or the Cincinnati Advertiser. You know where the guys at Fox are coming from. And they invite the self-identified advocates from the other side to argue and debate their views -- honestly. My one beef with Fox is that they often take on major, very complicated issues without enough time to fully air both sides. But at least they try.

That's about as fair as it gets. Much fairer than those news outlets that sincerely believe they have a lock on "truth," then proceed to tell the story through their eyes only, with commentary from people with similar and supporting opinions.

Most of the very sophisticated and better known journalists live in a world where they all pretty much believe the same thing: religion is the "opiate of the masses"; socialism is historically inevitable; anyone who was raised west of the Mississippi, or really, west of the Appalachians, except California, is probably an ignorant hayseed; and they have better biases than anyone else. Oh, and anyone who labors in the vineyards of the Ivy League is probably an omnipotent genius.

Anyway, since the Washington Post has long proclaimed that it has a lock on truth, I was really stunned to see that they were offering to sell access to their reporters and to apparently "unnamed highly-placed sources" in the administration at a series of proposed $25,000-per-plate soirees. And these would all unfold in a friendly and non-confrontational atmosphere. Sorta like you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours? Sorta like selling out to advertisers, or to whomever can pay the price of admission?

I mean, really, is it any wonder that Comrade Osama was elected? We're talking about an exclusive insider club of media professionals who have access to nationwide information channels and who, by and large, probably all suffer from liberal guilt to one degree or another. Let's pay no attention to the fact that the man is a socialist; he's part black, so that must be good for the country, which has ever been torn by racial conflicts. Beside that, most of those in the insiders' club got there because they pander to the elitest drivel that embraces socialism as "enlightenment."

It's all a bunch of hogwash. The very fact that the Washington Post wasn't bothered about selling their powerful megaphone to the highest bidder is sort of a tip-off. They were probably thinking, Well, those who pay for these soirees can tell us anything they like, but we'll ferret out the "truth." The Post seems to be blind to the fact that at these soirees, they'd only hear one side of any story. But apparently all they need is one side, if that side agrees with their own biases.

For most of them, only one side really exists. After all, we all know what's "good," what's "right," and what everyone should believe in. If you have any questions about any of this, I'm sure Sally Quinn and Paul Krugman will be more than happy to explain it in language you can understand.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Ego-politics

I really don't mean to go on and on about Sarah Palin, but apparently David Letterman just won't let her rest. Over the last couple days, Letterman has made several jokes about Palin. He's beginning to look like an awkward prepubescent boy who's got a secret crush on the Cute Girl in the senior class, but doesn't know how to communicate this -- except by punching her or calling her names. Or maybe it's male menopause.

More interesting, really, is Pazzo Pelosi's ongoing conflict with the CIA. Now she has other congresscritters making things up about the CIA. What kind of an idiot is Pazzo Pelosi? Let's review.

She tells a reckless lie to cover her butt, simultaneously smearing the CIA.

Her lie is exposed.

Now she's apparently actively recruiting her friends to support her lie, as if that would make her story true. I suppose every time any one of them passes the CIA HQ in Langley, they honk and stick out their tongues. Mark my words, one morning all the trees outside the building will be draped with toilet paper.

I haven't seen so much drama since my freshman year in high school. And Pazzo Pelosi's reputation surely is much more important than the United States Central Intelligence Agency. It's ego-politics. Save her butt at the expense of the nation. Like good ol' boy Bill Clinton, a living monument to sociopathy.

Pazzo should probably get together with David Letterman. They could exchange information about their neuroses and discuss their medications.

Anyone else suspect that Warren Buffet, who is calling for a second Stimulus, is getting just a leetle bit senile? Or maybe he's cashing in on the down stock market and wants to keep it down. That is where hedge funds cash in.

Another compatible couple: Warren Buffet and George Soros. They can sit together in the park by the lily pond and play checkers until their attendents come and gently guide them to the dining room for a supper of overcooked chicken, mashed carrots, and tapioca pudding.

Anyone notice that Comrade Osama has been overseas? Anyone miss him? See what I mean about the government becoming irrelevant? Who needs him? In fact, he represents such an onerous burden on U.S. citizens, we're much better off without him. What would it take to keep him in Italy?

Watched C-SPAN coverage of the House for a while. Steve King (R-Iowa) and Gohmert or something like that (R-Texas). They railed about socialized medicine and raised some very good points. King talked about going to Arizona and looking for health care facilities. He says most of them south of Tucson are closed. Mainly they served illegal aliens for "free," so they went out of business. He also told a story about a Mexican gang-banger of some kind who was knifed in a fight in Mexico, brought to Tucson for emergency care, then flown to a hospital in Phoenix via helicopter for longer-term care. All at the expense of US taxpayers.

Gohmert -- and I probably don't have his name correct, but he represents Tyler, TX -- said that last year, the US government spent enough money on Medicare and Medicaid to give every household in the US more than $9,000. He suggested that the feds actually give every household something like $9,000 and let them buy an HSA (health savings account) and catastrophic insurance. And you know what? It wouldn't cost $1 trillion, and they'd still have money left over.

Sounds better than Ted Kennedy's plan. Speaking of getting just a leetle bit senile....

Why do people respect Teddy Kennedy? I guess memories are short. I clearly recall the time he went some on kind of drunken bender with a campaign worker named Mary Ann Kopechne. They were drving -- apparently drunk and recklessly -- and Darling Teddy ran the car off a bridge.

Then apparently he panicked and dog-paddled like a madman to the closest shore. Leaving Mary Ann to drown.

As if that doesn't paint a scuzzy enough portrait of Darling Teddy, he refused to admit that he had anything to do with the whole event. I mean, he was still married at the time. And his mom was Catholic. Apparently the family lawyers finally convinced him that even if he was a Kennedy, he couldn't hide at Hyannisport forever, so he finally 'fessed up. Gosh, he was sorry.

Nothing happened. Mary Ann Kopechne was still dead. Teddy went back to Washington. Apparently the good citizens of Massachusetts actually like lamebrain idiots; they've re-elected him continuously for more than 40 years. Or maybe it's just their way of keeping Teddy in Washington and away from their daughters.

I suppose the Kennedys paid off the Kopechne family in some way. They should at least have paid for Mary Ann's funeral.

Teddy was a drunken lout all his life. The quintessential spoiled little rich kid whose daddy and family connections were all that kept him out of the penetentiary. His wife finally got fed up and dumped him. Then apparently he woke up in an alley with his wallet and shoes missing or something (I'm making this up) and got religion. Joined AA or something. When he was like 70 years old. Took him a while to figure things out. Darling Teddy always was a little slow....

So now he's an elder stateman and we're supposed to believe his opinions have credibility. Darling Teddy never had any credibility. And now the man has brain cancer, for pity sake. That's not a compelling argument in favor of the lucidity of his thoughts and ideas. And I wonder who's paying for his health care. Experimental treatments, no? Think he could get that under socialized medicine?

Enough is enough.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Run, Sarah, run

On Friday, Sarah Palin resigned from her office as governor of Alaska, effective July 26. Everyone in the media has been running around asking why. I thought she explained why -- because her critics are making all kinds of ridiculous claims against her that must be at least investigated and perhaps defended at considerable expense to the state. She doesn't like these critics attacking her family, either. Does she need more reasons?

I looked up at least one critic, an Alaskan woman and self-proclaimed "progressive to the core" who writes a blog called Celtic Diva or something like that. For several reasons I won't go into, lest I be accused of less than civil commentary (actually, that ship has sailed), I'll just say Celtic Diva's major problem with Sarah Palin very well might be envy in all its nasty manifestations. See my blog for March 8, "The mediocrity of evil."

Personally, I don't know where Sarah Palin stands on every issue, only those that were debated during the presidential campaign. I do know she favors free markets over government control, although she understands that governmental power can be used well; she believes in limiting government to preserve individual liberty; and she doesn't like the corruption of the typical "good ol' boys network" in politics. And I believe she's honest. She's not in politics to make a million or to accumulate adoring fans, but because she feels like she can do something to help the country, and that's important to her.

More than being just physically attractive, Sarah Palin is able to think and speak on her feet. That usually results from understanding and holding certain clearly defined principles and being able to apply them to real life and real issues, rather than simply memorizing talking points.

So I like Sarah Palin. Even if I couldn't agree with her on everything, I would have to respect her. Not too many other politicians in that category.

The socialists hate her and, to my way of thinking, that's a real plus. I'm sure most socialists haven't got a clue what Sarah Palin believes in -- they can't afford to consider any other point of view but their own. Their hatred is just a kind of knee-jerk reaction to Sarah Palin's attitude, her honesty, intelligence, and most of all, her self-assurance.

If there's one thing socialists can't tolerate, it's self-assurance. Self-assured people don't need the socialists or their approval, so the socialists can't bully them. Socialism is fueled by a few key things, depending upon whether you believe you'd be among the elite who run it or one of the "great unwashed" collecting the benefits:
  • The elite believe, like ancient monarchs, that they're better than most people and therefore deserve to rule. They honestly think they're morally and otherwise superior, so everyone else needs and should be forced to take their advice. Their arrogance is literally Hitlerian.
  • The great unwashed are afraid they can't make it on their own, or they want a reason to not try so hard. In an essay in Imprimis, a newsletter published by Hillsdale College, journalist Mark Steyn noted that socialism tends to "infantalize" a population. That is, they aren't quite adult, refuse to accept the responsibility for their own lives, and seek Big Daddy or Mommy or a Nanny State to rely on. They're perennially dependent, emotionally and every other way.
Neither of these groups would care for someone like Sarah Palin. They probably feel threatened by her. She doesn't play their game and is likely to blurt out some uncomfortable truth without worrying over much about inspiring their disapproval or hurting their feelings. I don't know of any other reason for the really vicious and so far baseless attacks against Sarah Palin. It's almost sociopathic. If the socialists truly believe that Sarah Palin is a non-entity, they'd just leave her alone.

Right now, so many people are deeply outraged at the direction the nation is taking, like the Tea Party protesters. But so far, their anger and indignation has had very little impact. Those in power seem to think they can just steamroller any dissent, just ignore it... and once they legislate all the crap they want to legislate, they can just put those people in jail, or threaten to.

I think Sarah Palin can galvanize this discontent, perhaps more than anyone else can right now. Whether or not she runs for the presidency in 2012, she can unite conservatives around the principles of freedom and free enterprise. And it's leadership that is lacking right now. Her major problem is that she might be pushed into running for the presidency or some other office before she's ready for it, or that her "star power" might overwhelm the issues -- which is exactly how Comrade Osama got elected.

I hope she does act somehow to develop these fragmented groups of disaffected voters into a unified block of voters. Not necessarily Republican, either. It's the independent voters who are falling away from the current regime in droves.

By the way, Comrade Osama is supposed to be on his way to Moscow.... If it were 20 years ago, he'd probably feel right at home there, or might be forced to confront the nightmare reality he's hoping to re-create in the USA right now. But more like he'll just come back with a bunch of new (to him) ideas and rationalizations for suppressing human rights.