IT'S ALL BUSH'S FAULT

Obama Asks Federal Workers to Sacrifice: "Citing the current economic recession -- and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks eight years ago -- President Obama says he will use emergency powers to cut the programmed across-the-board January increase in federal employees' pay from 2.4 percent to 2.0 percent, according to a letter he sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Monday."

It's not about Obama. It's never about Obama.

Via Instapundit, who has his own opinion on the "cuts."

LET THEM EAT CAKE

Attributed to Marie Antoinette before she was beheaded during the French revolution. In his opinion piece flacking Obamacare, E.J. Dionne quotes Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has his own "Marie Antoinette" moment.

Schumer "argues that the administration should use a simple analogy to drive home the idea that government has the capacity to expand the choices people have. 'In my state and every state, we have excellent private universities and excellent public universities,' he said. 'People have a choice.'"

Uh, Chuck, it's a good idea to engage the brain before opening the mouth.

What is the cost differential between an "excellent private university" and an "excellent public university?" What percentage of public universities can truly be rated as excellent?

And now for the $64,000 question: Which university do you think most Americans can afford to attend? The excellent private university? The excellent public university? The average public university? Or the local community college?

POST STILL PUSHING OBAMACARE

Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne is flacking Obamacare.

President Obama can still secure major health-care legislation this year if he learns from his mistakes in recent months and spends more time reminding Americans why they were once eager for fundamental change.

I've been following the debate fairly closely, and all the polls I've seen tend to indicate that most Americans recognize the system needs improvement but are not "eager for fundamental change."

[A]dvocates of the status quo filled the vacuum -- often with outright lies.

And advocates of Obamacare never, ever, lied? C'mon, EJ.

[T]he administration now needs to lay out clear and understandable goals, so it can bargain from a position of strength. Dare one say it? That was Ted Kennedy's way.

And Ted Kennedy didn't get his way, either.

AFTER 42 YEARS, FLYOVER DENIED

What's next? No flyover of the Super Bowl if "God Bless America" is played?

Obama's going to be a one-term President, unless he's impeached first (which is looking more likely every day he's in office).

VICKI TO REPLACE TEDDY?

During the funeral last night, I told my wife that I expected someone would propose that Sen. Kennedy's wife Vicki replace him in the Senate. I didn't think a Republican would join in ....

WHY I LIKE DICK CHENEY

THE DEMOCRATS ARE LOSING IT

The Senate Majority Leader is giving "Dirty Harry" a bad name.

POST TURTLE REDUX

Patrick Dorinson: "[F]rom where I sit, Barack Obama is a post turtle. What the hell is a 'post turtle'? ... a turtle settin' on top of a post! "[Y]ou know he didn't get up there by himself, he doesn't belong there, he doesn't know what to do while he's up there and you just wonder what kind of dang fool put him up there to begin with!"

I noted it back in June of 2008 before Americans set him atop that post.

Read the whole article.

ALONG THE ROAD

Driving from Austin to Houston (TX) last week, I was pelted by a “sun hailstorm” near La Grange – the sun was shining, blue sky around, and the car was being hit by pea-sized hail. I’ve been through sun showers many times – especially in Texas – but this was a first.

And some signs of the times ....

On an unused billboard along US 71: “Tall Outdoor Type Seeks Relationship”.

Another billboard nearing Houston: “We Sue Lawyers”.

IT'S BIG GOVERNMENT, STUPID!

Matt Welch discovers the real reason Americans are angry: "Americans of all stripes, it turns out, aren't very keen about the government barging into their lives .... After 11 months of federal bailouts and freakouts, Americans have become bone tired of panicky power grabs from Washington. It's the big government, stupid."

Via Instapundit.

WHY OBAMACARE?

Congressman Mike Rogers (R-MI) answers the question in his opening statement on Health Care reform in Washington DC:

SPACE CENTER USA

Taken at Johnson Space Center south of Houston, Texas. The building contains a full-scale Saturn V/Apollo command module and is visible on Google Earth. The vehicle inside is the size of the picture painted on the side of the building.


The Saturn V, taken from the base of the first stage. To give a sense of scale, there is a tour group barely visible at the other end of the building.


A "Little Joe" booster with an Apollow command module and escape system on top. The system was built as a testbed to verify the escape system in a high-altitude emergency situation. In the actual test, the Little Joe booster itself malfunctioned and the escape system functioned as designed, bringing the Apollo capsule to a safe landing.


[Personal Note] Those were exciting days, even though I was only peripherally involved in Apollo and its precursors.

EARLY RETIREMENT BURDEN

Civil service retirements in California are running 16 percent ahead of last year, suggesting that pay reductions, furloughs, diminishing resources and heavier workloads are pushing many employees to the exits.

"I've done the math," said Terry Sutherland, a Franchise Tax Board supervisor in the Bay Area with 43 years of state service. "I'll be making more retired than working. I just can't afford to subsidize my job any more."

Decrease the contributor base and increase the recipient base, that's the ticket to solvency. Given the state of the California pension funds, I'm just wondering if Sutherland can afford to live on IOUs.

Via Instapundit.

ROAD TRIP

From a road trip through Pennsylvania to revisit some old times as a graduate student/instructor at the Pennsylvania State University in 1976-77.

This is 136 Longmeadow Lane, our home in State College. It was new in 1976 (we were the first tenants) and the neighborhood has hardly changed in the 30-plus years since we left.

Sunset Park, immediately behind our duplex. The house that is barely visible in the center background belongs to Joe Paterno, the head coach of the Nittany Lions.

Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, a small town about 20 miles from State College. The older parts of the town along the river don't appear to have changed from 1977.

The river and park that run through downtown are still as pretty as ever.

Rural Pennsylvania is still beautiful country.

GALVESTON ISLAND - 1 YEAR LATER

These were taken on the western side of Galveston Island looking out into the Gulf of Mexico. There is little evidence remaining of the devastation caused by hurricane Ike just under a year ago.


The beaches are clean and almost fully restored, although there is some beach erosion in places and there are a few piers that haven't been either demolished or fully restored.


Downtown Galveston has been almost fully restored. The port area and tourist district were busy, with a cruise ship in port, and this offshore drilling platform appeared ready to be towed out into the Gulf.


Hard to believe the island was almost completely devastated less than a year ago.

IS OBAMA'S LOSS WALL STREET'S GAIN?

Jim Cramer seems to think so. Cramer plotted the Obama disapproval numbers against the S&P 500 performance index and found a nearly identical trend line since the March low. I tend to agree with Cramer, though for somewhat different reasons, as I posted as far back as last March (here and here).

Here's a chart similar to that Cramer showed. I've plotted President Obama's approval index as taken from the Rasmussen daily tracking poll against the Dow Jones Industrial Average (year-to-date) taken from the CNN Money web site. The Obama approval index is in black; the DJIA is in lighter blue behind it.

Until early March, the two indices both declined, almost in lockstep; then in March they began to diverge, and as shown, the DJIA is increasing at about the same rate that Obama's approval is declining.


And, yes, I know correlation does not imply causation.

My speculation is that it took roughly the first two months of the Obama administration for Wall Street to realize that the administration is simply incompetent and decide to "go it alone." In that sense, Wall Street was about two months behind the American people, who came to the same realization much earlier.

The tea parties and now the health care townhall debates are simply the physical manifestations of that realization.

Hat tip to Instapundit.

BAIL 'EM OUT?

From my email inbox: "Hell, back in 1990, the Government seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion and, as required by law, tried to run it. They failed and it closed. Now we are trusting the economy of our country, our banking system, our auto industry and possibly our health plans to the same nit-wits who couldn't make money running a whore house and selling whiskey!"

MILLIONAIRE CASHES IN CLUNKER

Michael Silence reports that former [TN] Sen. [Bill] Frist cashes in a clunker for a new auto. Is anyone surprised?

As commenter Joe Michels pointsd out: "Who ever said CFC was for poor people? If you though[t] that you misunderstand who buys new cars. It is not poor people. They buy... well clunkers. Instead of having clunkers to buy o[u]r government is taking that opportunity away. What then do poor people buy?"

Good question.

OOPS!

Here's MSNBC hyperventilating about an ObamaCare protestor who appeared at a health care rally outside of President Obama’s speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Phoenix, Arizona who "wore a semiautomatic assault rifle on his shoulder and a pistol on his hip."



There was only one little, teeny problem that the "news"-casters from MSNBC missed - the man carrying the weapons is black!

Here he is, in a news photo from the Arizona Republic newspaper.



Read the whole article at NewsBusters.

UNIQUE BONDS

Till Death Do Us Part

"Any man in combat who lacks comrades who will die for him, or for whom he is willing to die," William Manchester wrote of his time as a Marine in World War II, "is not a man at all. He is truly damned." A century earlier, Robert E. Lee famously remarked that it was good that war "is so terrible. We should grow too fond of it." Neither was glorifying war -- they hated its carnage. They were, rather, paying homage to the unique bonds forged in war, especially the one that enables so many to risk their lives, not only for friends but also for those they might have just met or have nothing in common with back home.

I was at a military retirement ceremony last week. Truer words have never been spoken.

CRAZY IS A PREEXISTING CONDITION

Birthers, Town Hall Hecklers and the Return of Right-Wing Rage. Rick Perlstein in the Washington Post August 16: "The lockstep strangeness of the mad lies on the protesters' signs -- too uniform to be spontaneous. They are both. If you don't understand that any moment of genuine political change always produces both, you can't understand America, where the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and where elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests."

I'll let Professor Bainbridge respond to Perlstein's nuttiness, and simply add the following picture which was part of the Perlstein diatribe in the print edition, but not available online.



Note the "crazies" in the picture - the signs in the background are all pro-Obama. The "Obama as a Nazi" poster in front is being held by an Obama supporter, and the poster itself was found to be from "LaRouchePAC.com," the political action committee website for Communist and perpetual [Democratic] Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche. No right-winger he. The poster can be found here.

Perlstein's right, of course. Crazy is a preexisting condition; he's just wrong about which side is crazy.

HOW TO TELL THAT OBAMA IS FAILING

The Washington Post is attacking the Bush administration.


(Cartoon appeared Sunday, August 16)

OBAMA'S APPROVAL STILL FALLING

President Obama's approval index in the Rasmussen daily tracking poll continues to fall.


This chart differs from earlier ones (here and here) in that I've extended the scale through December 2009, changed the trend lines from linear to a first-order polynomial fit, and projected the trends forward 90 days.

Based on the trend lines, Obama's base (strong approvals) appears to be leveling ever so slightly, but the "undecideds" (no strong feelings) appear to be moving much more strongly toward disapproval as compared to the earlier charts I posted, where the trend was for strong approvals to migrate to approvals, approvals to disapprovals, disapprovals to strong disapprovals.

Gallup is showing roughly the same trends as the Rasmussen tracking poll when strong approvals are combined with approvals, strong disapprovals with disapprovals (via Instapundit).

The Obama administration is in trouble.

WHAT’S SAUCE FOR THE SENATOR ...

In an editorial titled "More Quitters (R-Fla., R-Tex.)," the Washington Post complains about (Republican) elected officials who quit posts to which they were elected.

Donald J. Boudreaux asks a very good question: “So why no mention of Barack Obama? Not only did he quit the Senate seat to which he was elected, but during much of the time he held that seat, he was away from Washington campaigning for higher office.”

SIGN OF THE TIMES

Or something. In Maryland, traveling down a two-lane highway, we came across this sign: "Two-way traffic use headlights."

So ... if we're not returning on that highway, are we not supposed to use our headlights? Or perhaps only one?

FREEDOM ISN'T FREE

Seen on a bumper sticker today.

Rather a ubiquitous bumper sticker; even in the Washington DC metro area.

But it needs updating. Given what we know about the Obama administration plans (nationalize banks; nationalize the auto industry; nationalize health care) and cost (now estimated at $17,000,000,000,000 over 10 years), a better one would be

FREEDOM ISN'T FREE
But it's a darned sight cheaper than slavery.

A reminder:

CAP AND RAGE

From a Washington Post editorial extolling the virtues of passing the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade legislation:

Or they can entertain a carbon-based tax designed to reduce emissions and give the money back to taxpayers in an equitable manner.

Did I really read that correctly? Why, yes. Yes I did.

THE POST MISSES AGAIN

Richard Cohen, editorial writer for the Washington Post, is on the attack again. As usual, his aim is off by a country mile.

However ...

With a universal replacement of "Barack Obama" for "Sarah Palin" he'd be a lot closer to the target.

BREWSTER ROCKIT ON OBAMACARE

From the pen of Tim Rickard.

FROM THE EMAIL

Obama's health care plan will be written by a committee whose head says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it, signed by a president who smokes, funded by a treasury chief who did not pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that is nearly broke.

What possibly could go wrong?

PHOTO ID REQUIRED - BUT NOT TO VOTE

Congressman Eugene Green, Democrat from the 29th District, Houston, Texas, telling the world that if you're not from his District, you're not welcome at his future town hall meetings.


OK. Here's where it gets interesting - Congressman Green has voted (twice)against requiring photo ID to vote in elections.

So - you don't need to prove your eligibility to vote for me, but you do have to prove your ID to come to my townhall meetings. I assume it's more important to control his meetings than to control the voting process? (Or does he already control the voting process?)

From Newsbusters.

MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY

This from the "reality-based" community.

"One cannot develop cultural competency if the conversation is encouraged, but not taken in by those who need to listen and absorb the information to break down barriers."

So if I listen carefully, understand, and still choose to disagree, it's my fault?

WHERE'S MY BAILOUT?

Everyone else is getting one ...




Why can't I have one, too?

Kudos to Scott Santis.

MAINSTREAM? MEDIA

From Instapundit: "CNN decides to further alienate a large segment of America."

CNN? What's a CNN?

RANDOM THOUGHT

From Thomas Sowell: "Perhaps the scariest aspect of our times is how many people think in talking points, rather than in terms of real world consequences."

FROM THE RADIO

Clinical trials? We don’t need no stinking clinical trials: “It's possible the government will begin a public [swine flu] vaccination campaign before all of the work of the trials is complete, Dr. Anne Schuchat has said. She oversees the flu vaccination programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

On one hand, the government doesn’t need to complete clinical trials to inject you with an unproven H1N1 (swine) flu vaccine. On the other hand, the government can prevent you from an alternative (i.e., unapproved) treatment even in the face of debilitating pain or certain death.

Makes all kinds of sense, doesn’t it?

MORE CASH FOR CLUNKERS

The first round spent a billion dollars in a week - at $4,000/car, that’s equivalent to 250,000 cars, or roughly a sales rate of 13 million cars/year.

Since US sales have averaged 16.8 million cars/year over the last decade, it follows that 77% of all car sales (roughly 324,000 sales/week) in the first round were clunkers.

Ask yourself: “How many of those so-called clunkers would have been traded in without “Cash for Clunkers?”

Correct answer: most of them.

So now as Round Two (billion) gets underway, take Brian Douglas’s advice: “Benefit from our government's largesse. It's your tax money, might as well try to recoup some of it .... Then you can buy that foreclosed house with an $8,000 new buyers credit [to] park your new government-subsidized car.”

MORE: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Via Don Surber.

ABORTION RIGHTS – A HYPOTHETICAL QUESTION

Now that Sarah Palin is back in the news with her Facebook statement on ObamaCare, a new round of Palin hatred from the Left seems to be inevitable. Much of this hatred seems to be directly coupled to her obvious love for her newborn son Trig, born with Down syndrome.

Some examples from the past-

At Talking Points Memo, an article sarcastically suggested that Palin resigned because “she wants to spread Down syndrome ... because Down syndrome is just too cute to be reserved for one in 800 births.”

A Paliban Daily article titled “Sarah Palin’s Retarded Platform: More Trigs!” interpreted Palin’s outspokenness on disability rights as a political ploy to win votes. Other articles contained subtle but unmistakable eugenic overtones. More here.

Nicholas Provenzo of the Libertarian Center for the Advancement of Capitalism discussed being “troubled” by Trig’s existence because “it is crucial to reaffirm the morality of aborting a fetus diagnosed with Down syndrome.” More here.

Here’s a question I have for the left.

If, as Provenzo claims, “it is crucial to reaffirm the morality of aborting a fetus diagnosed with Down syndrome,” and if homosexuality is genetically determined as some on the Left believe, and if that “gay gene” is easily detectable in utero by some procedure similar to amniocentesis for detection of Down syndrome, will the Left continue to support abortion on demand?

THE GANGS OF DC

According to Alec MacGillis, a “reporter” on the national staff of the Washington Post, it’s all the Senate’s fault:

Wonder why President Obama is having a hard time enacting his agenda after sweeping to victory and with large congressional majorities on his side?

Look to the Senate, the chamber designed to thwart popular will.

Looks like Alec missed out on high-school civics. The United States is a republic, not a democracy. James Madison (Remember him? Founding Father? Fourth President?) defined a republic in terms of representative democracy as opposed to direct democracy.

There is much grousing on the left about the filibuster, the threat of which has taken such hold that routine bills now need 60 votes. Getting less attention is the undemocratic character of the Senate itself.

What really frosts MacGillis is the Senate’s resistance to health–care reform. Never mind that voters in all states are expressing concern; the “little people” don’t know what’s in their best interest.

Why, for example, have even Democratic senators been resistant on health-care reform? It might be because so many of the key players represent so few of the voters who carried Obama to victory -- and so few of the nation's uninsured.

Six states that are among the least populous in the country; Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, Maine, New Mexico and Iowa hold 8.4 million people -- less than New Jersey -- and represent 3 percent of the U.S. population. North Dakota and Wyoming each have fewer than 80,000 uninsured people, in a country where about 47 million lack insurance

In the House, those six states have 13 seats out of 435, 3 percent of the whole. In the Senate, those six members are crafting what may well be the blueprint for reform..

Let’s see. North Dakota has a 2008 population of 641,481, of whom MacGillis claims 80 thousand lack health insurance. That’s roughly 13%. Wyoming: population 532,668, also with 80 thousand uninsured (MacGillis again). Roughly 15%. In 2008, the U.S. population as a whole was 304,059,724, with about 47 million uninsured - about 15%.

Um, Alec, from the uninsured numbers you yourself have given, it looks like those “anti-democratic” Senators are doing a pretty good job of representing the minority interests of all States.

Go back and reread what you yourself wrote:

Look to the Senate, the chamber designed to thwart popular will.

Was this really what the founders had in mind? One popular story tells of Thomas Jefferson asking George Washington what the Senate's purpose is. "Why did you pour that coffee into your saucer?" Washington asked in return. "To cool it," Jefferson replied. To which Washington said, "Even so, we pour legislation in the senatorial saucer to cool it."

Why yes, yes it was they had in mind. Think about it – and go back and reread a civics textbook.

THOROUGHLY ANNOYED

No, make that thoroughly mad.

In the last few days, we’ve had President Obama telling us, essentially, to sit down and shut up; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid accusing conservative talk show hosts of astroturfing; Senator Barbara Boxer calling the healthcare, er, health insurance protestors “too well-dressed to be sincere;” and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi calling townhall protestors swastika-carrying astroturf mobs.

Bull (add the last four letters yourself. – Ed). Here are two items of interest to refute the “astroturf” charge.

From Talking Points Memo, a HCAN document accusing “radical right-wing” groups of funding an astroturf campaign: “The people who show up are far right-wing ideologues recruited by paid organizers. Much of this recruitment and organizing is funded by industry lobbyists and public relations firms to engage radical right-wing groups.”

Okaaay ....

Let’s see who Health Care for America Now (HCAN) is: [o]ur Steering Committee includes: ACORN, AFL-CIO, AFSCME, AFT, Americans United for Change, Campaign for America’s Future, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Campaign for Community Change, Children’s Defense Fund Action Council, Communications Workers of America, International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW), MoveOn.org, NAACP, National Council of La Raza, National Education Association, National Women’s Law Center, SEIU, UFCW, USAction, Women's Voices, Women's Vote and Working America.

Now from the other side, a quick Google search for “tea party organizations” – gives three names that seem to constitute the bulk of the hits: Tea Party Patriots, Tax Day Tea Party, and Tea Party Warriors.

A quick cruise through theTea Party Patriots website shows it to be aggregation of smaller state and local groups. (LibertyChick.com doesn’t strike me as a well-funded K Street lobbying group.) Partners (not sponsors) include Lagniapper, Sign the Petition, American Liberty Alliance, American Solutions, Freedom Works, Smart Girl Politics, Tea Party Express, Michelle Malkin, Red State, and Red Country.

Check them out – is there any one (or combination) bigger than, say, ACORN? Is any one of them feeding at the public trough like, say, ACORN?

And these Obamacrat clowns (with apologies to actual circus/rodeo clowns) have the unmitigated gall to accuse me of being astroturf? The Obamacrats are so plastic they won’t recognize actual grass until their allergy medicines are withdrawn by our votes.

[Added]
The Tea Party Movement: Who's In Charge?

[Update] Looks like I'm not the only one mad about the Obamacrats' astroturfing remarks: "And they dare to accuse me of astroturfing, in my own district, on my own dime, with a sign I made all by myself with a magic marker? If they are really that stupid, this is sure to end badly for them." Thanks to Instapundit for the link.

OBAMACARE TEST

Find a path through the bureaucracy to your doctor.



A larger version of the organizational chart is here.

DEMOCRACY IN ACTION

Lawmakers rethinking town hall strategy:

[A]fter a series of contentious town-hall meetings, some Democratic lawmakers are thinking twice about holding large public gatherings. Instead, they are opting for smaller sessions, holding meetings by phone or inviting constituents for one-on-one office hours.

And who do you think they are going to invite?

OBAMA APPROVAL INDEX

Rasmussen is now showing President Obama's approval index at -8 (favorables minus unfavorables).



Extrapolating the trends (dashed lines), it appears that the slide is continuing, and that attitudes are hardening. The "strong approval" base appears to be leveling somewhat, and the middle (no strong feelings) appears to be breaking in favor of disapproval.

If the trends continue, Obama should hit a minus-25 index by the end of his first year in office.

DO AS I SAY

President Obama: "I don't want the folks who created the mess [to] do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don't mind cleaning up after them, but don't do a lot of talking."

Hmm ....

Protest is, ... er, was ,,, patriotic.

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

So you like single-payer healthcare?

HEALTH CARE LOTTERY

Why our congresscritters won't commit to the public plan.

Play often; you could be dead before you win!

Originally found here; believed to have been created by Jerry Ballard USNRet.

PLEASE REPORT ME

The White House is disturbed that disinformation about its "ObamaCare" reform is being bandied about the internet.

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

Since it's almost certain that the White House will believe that I have posted, or linked to, disinformation about Obama's healthcare - oops, excuse me, health insurance - program, it follows that I should be reported. In order to make things easier, here are some of my posts that should be reported to the White House:

WRONG,
BUT FOR ALL THE RIGHT REASONSl

THE
POTEMKIN PRESIDENCY

HEALTH
CARE AGAIN

AGAINST
OBAMACARE? IN AUSTIN?

PAJAMAS
MEDIA HEALTH CARE FORUM – THE VIDEOS

FIX
MEDICARE FIRST

OBAMACARE?

MANASSAS
INDEPENDENCE DAY TEA PARTY

AN
INTRODUCTION TO OBAMACARE

Please report me; I need the traffic.

OBAMA IN TROUBLE?

Some anecdotal evidence. Driving down the freeway into work this morning, I was passed by another car. Nothing interesting about that; I drive slowly enough for that to be common.

But as the car passed me, the driver waved, stuck his hand out the window, and gave an enthusiastic "thumbs-up" signal. I have a TEA (Taxed Enough Already) party and a "I miss W" (as in George W. Bush) sticker on the back bumper.

In Washington D.C.

WRONG, BUT FOR ALL THE RIGHT REASONS

From an editorial in our local newspaper:

Denise Oppenhagen, the editorialist, “supports universal health care,” believes that such will lead to “healthier communities,” argues there needs to be “a buy in of all parties,” and that it should be “fair.” Sounds reasonable enough. Then there’s this:

Right now, insurance companies charge a set price for everyone that gets insured. That means it costs the same for a company to insure the young, healthy, health-conscious worker as it does the older, sedentary, smoking worker .... [T]he insurance company is doing is having the healthy person pay for the unhealthy one [which isn’t fair].

Umm ... does Ms. Oppenhagen realize that that is exactly the purpose of insurance – to spread the risk? Otherwise it isn’t insurance; it’s prepaid medical care. Prepaid medical care was the rationale for health maintenance organizations (HMO’s); which have mostly crashed and burned.

[And then there’s] Canada [which] does have universal health care. Do I want to go the Canadian route? Not a chance. While it’s great that everyone gets coverage, there is a long wait to get seen for the most routine of matters. [T]alk of universal health care goes hand in hand with talk of rationing .... I cringe at the idea of rationing health care. [I]s it fair that someone with the financial resources to pay for medical services on their own gets treated for a disease that someone without the resources would have to do without?

“Long waits” are a form of rationing. Is it fair to deny medical care solely because someone can afford to pay? And is it fair to force Ms. Oppenhagen to pay for someone else’s care (e.g., via taxation) and thus deny herself care that she could otherwise have afforded?

All the talk of expanded coverage for health care ignores one critical aspect: personal responsibility.

Well, something I can almost agree with – but doesn’t personal responsibility include the responsibility for paying for one’s own health care?

There is no reward system in place for being healthy. Insurance companies are starting to acknowledge personal responsibility in that some are paying for gym memberships or weight loss services for the overweight.

So the solution for personal responsibility is coercion (by the government) or bribery (by the insurance companies)?

So what does Ms. Oppenhagen recommend?

First, reward general practice physicians. That would create a greater supply of doctors providing basic care.

But if we’re all personally responsible and healthy, doesn’t that obviate the need for general practice physicians?

Then, insure everyone at a basic rate. Include in that rate the cost of an annual physical and routine screenings for blood pressure, cancer and diabetes — the things that a perfectly healthy person would need to stay healthy.

But the cost of an annual physical and routine screenings is peanuts in the grand scheme of health care. And mostly unnecessary.

Reimburse the doctor at a rate that allows them to spend time with their patient. That should make premiums low enough for everyone.

Huh? Paying doctors more lowers premiums? Not in any economic system I’m familiar with.

Then add a surcharge, if you will, for unhealthy habits — smoking, alcohol abuse, obesity, etc. This way the people who will statistically use more services are paying their fair share.

And I’m going to go to my doctor and say I’m a fat, smoking, drunk; I want to pay more? Again, Ms. Oppenhagen misses the difference between insurance and prepaid medical care.

And if someone is overweight, for example, the insurance company can offer incentives if the person agrees to engage in healthier activities, such as paying for a dietician to follow an eating plan.

See above; coercion and bribery.

This column has nowhere near enough space to discuss all the little nuances that would be involved. It is also one that the government needs to spend time on doing right, not just doing for the sake of doing.

At least the last sentence is right.

Look, it’s health insurance, for chrissake. Insurance. You pay a fee in order to reduce the risk of something catastrophic happening and pray the money paid is wasted. Routine stuff you pay out of pocket.

That’s the responsible approach - and it doesn't involve the government.

THE POTEMKIN PRESIDENCY

With respect to healthcare, Roger Kimball calls it the Potemkin Presidency – “It has an impressive façade, propped up by some high-gloss rhetoric and a formidable public relations machine. But at bottom, President Obama and his ideological confrères are totally out of their depth.”

If only, they reason, they can turn over enough of the productive capacity of the country to the government, then (so they think) they will be in a position to eradicate the age-old irrationalities and inequities that have beset our capitalist society from the beginning.

In his assessment of President Obama’s “public option” for health insurance, Kimball quotes Greg Mankiw, an economist and former Bush adviser:

An important question about any public provider of health insurance is whether it would have access to taxpayer funds. If not, the public plan would have to stand on its own financially, as private plans do, covering all expenses with premiums from those who signed up for it.

But if such a plan were desirable and feasible, nothing would stop someone from setting it up right now. In essence, a public plan without taxpayer support would be yet another nonprofit company offering health insurance. The fundamental viability of the enterprise does not depend on whether the employees are called “nonprofit administrators” or “civil servants.”

What leads anyone to believe that the U.S. government (in Kimball’s words,”the granddaddy of all insurance companies”) would be more honest, or efficient, than the 1300 or so companies that now compete for your business?

Like so many “community organizers” before him, Obama is a friend of humanity. He wants to make the world a “better place” — better, that is, according to his lights. The problem is, he knows almost nothing about the way the world actually works.

Continuing to quote Kimball, “It may sound noble to say, ‘Damn economics, let us build up a decent world’ — but it is, in fact, merely irresponsible.”

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

They never really mended it, so they may be forced to end it. California has proposed the previously and supposedly unthinkable: ending welfare.

Under welfare reform [in 1996], the country’s bloated caseload dropped very quickly. In its first four years, about 2.5 million families came off the dole ... This unprecedented mass transformation is an important but underappreciated element of the prosperity of the late 1990s.

The state’s political establishment and social services bureaucracy have resisted the reforms of 12 years ago at nearly every possible turn, as shown here.



And yet in a recent speech on energy policy, President Obama chose an especially odd example:

In the late 1970s, the state of California enacted tougher energy-efficiency policies. Over the next three decades, those policies helped create almost 1.5 million jobs. And today, Californians consume 40 percent less energy per person than the national average--which, over time, has prevented the need to build at least 24 new power plants. Think about that. California--producing jobs, their economy keeping pace with the rest of the country, and yet they have been able to maintain their energy usage at a much lower level than the rest of the country.

I recall California’s "rolling blackouts" in 2000-2003. Today, with unemployment approaching 12%, California's economy is hardly "keeping pace" with the rest of the country.

The fact is that California should serve as a warning to Washington political elites, as well as to the rest of us, about the efficacy of big government.

THE BERSERK EDITORIALIST

Eugene Robinson, a columnist with the Washington Post really should lay off the Kool Aid.

Writing about "birthers" - those people who have convinced themselves that Barack Obama is ineligible by reason of birth to be President of the United States, Robinson opines: "If there's been a more clinically insane political phenomenon in my lifetime than the "birthers," I've missed it."

Uh, Eugene, how did you miss Dan Rather (remember him?} on former President Bush's National Guard service? It was in your own newspaper. Or Andrew Sullivan writing about Trig Palin? Or the Post's own treatment (also see comments) of Palin mockery?

And this: "Is this what our national discourse has come to? Sheer paranoid fantasy?"

Only if it's from the right; liberals can't be paranoid.

[Update and bumped] Jonah Goldberg comments. I had completely forgotten the 9/11 "truthers."

WHAT HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING?

Er, climate change? It’s as if it was last year’s – or last decade’s – fad.

And be sure to read the comments.

“SAFE” GUNS? OR GUN CONTROL?

In an earlier post I noted (with some surprise) that a majority of Americans support concealed carry. That reminded me of a Pajamas Media post on the bureaucratic method of gun control: “safety” certification.

California created its own test, both to drive up the cost and because a manufacturer has to pay for the test. If the manufacturer is out of business (not implausible for some older handguns), there’s no way for that gun to be certified — and therefore, no way to sell it in California. Some of the standards were also designed rather obviously to prohibit inexpensive handguns ... [an] effort to disarm a certain class of persons who are a bit too dark for ... liberals to trust with firearms.

Guns for me, but not for thee ....

IF YOU LIKE "CASH FOR CLUNKERS"

You'll love ObamaCare.

[Update] The video below is from GatewayPundit at a Cash for Clunkers rally in St. Louis.

Congressman Russ Carnahan was clobbered by tea party protesters who disagreed with Carnahan. a co-sponsor of the original piece of legislation to get the cash for clunkers program started.

Protestors were forced outside of the dealership where the rally took place.

BODY LANGUAGE

“In my own dealings with the wealthy and powerful, I have always found that the way to quickly capture the moral essence of a person is to watch how they treat those who are less powerful. “

“Sergeant Crowley, the sole class act in this trio, helps the handicapped Professor Gates down the stairs, while Barack Obama, heedless of the infirmities of his friend and fellow victim of self-defined racial profiling, strides ahead on his own. So who is compassionate? And who is so self-involved and arrogant that he is oblivious?”



From Don Surber, a comparison with a former President.



These photos seem to have struck a raw nerve on the Left (here and here).

CALIFORNIA BAFFLES VICTOR DAVIS HANSON

In Thoughts on a Schizophrenic Society, Dr. Hanson admits he’s baffled by his home state (pages 2 &3 of the post).

State government is far too large. Employees enjoy pensions and compensation far above that found in private enterprise. Spending exceeds the rate of growth and inflation. Plentiful oil is not drilled; rich farmland is taken out of production; available timber is not always logged; nuclear power is shunned; key roads are delayed; natural wealth is considered nature’s, not man’s; yet men are not to live natural lives.

And who is at fault? “They” are:

This weird “they” is what killed California, the notion that somewhere in a room a group of plutocrats sits on bags on ill-gotten gold and can be dragged out and forced to cough up bullion in tough times. Do we believe that the Big Four of Huntington, Stanford, Hopkins, and Crocker are still around, hoarding half of the state’s resources?

Read it all.

A SUBSTITUTE FOR YUCCA MOUNTAIN

A Senate vote to kill funding for the spent fuel repository in Nevada shows the Democratic Party and this administration aren't serious about energy independence, economic growth or environmental protection.

But Michael Ramirez at Investor's Business Daily has the ideal solution - empty and lead-lined.

ALL THE "NEWS" DEEMED WORTHY TO PRINT

The Washington Times has a series of articles on mental illness in New Orleans following hurricane Katrina. The first article is here, the second is here; the third is yet to be published. In a similar vein, the Washington Post today has an article on one family's unemployment resulting from the current recession.

Published as "news" stories, both are dishonest,thinly-guised editorials in favor of more government-funded intervention.

The Times' series is striking for what does not appear (at least not yet) - any assessment of pre-Katrina mental illness. What was the state of mental health (both illness and treatment) in New Orleans pre-Katrina? Despite the bleakness of the article(s), my sense is that pre-Katrina, things were worse. Not from what was written, but from what was not written.

The Post article is somewhat more honest in that from the vignette, the reader can see that the wounds were self-inflicted. Not that that's any consolation to the family profiled.

Two questions arise.

First, are either of these news? Personally, I don't think so, but I'm open to differing opinion.

Second, and more important, should public policy be based on anecdote? This one I'm firm on - absolutely not. No policy is ever perfect; there are always consequences; and policy-makers must err on the side of the public good even when individual anecdotes are compelling ("Not Yours to Give").

VICTIMS OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

The Senate begins debate on the Sotomayor confirmation.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor says she is a "perfect affirmative action baby," and that she was accepted to Princeton and Yale despite her lackluster test performance compared to other applicants.

She made these comments in a video dating back to "early '90s" that she submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee last week as part of her Supreme Court nomination process.

Sotomayor admitted that her acceptance to the Ivy League schools would have been "highly questionable" if not for affirmative action.

"My test scores were not comparable to that of my colleagues at Princeton or Yale," she said on a panel for a nonprofit law organization.

My own feeling, based on her repeated “wise Latina” comments and the Ricci v. DeStefano decision (New Haven firefighter discrimination) reversing Sotomayor, is that she will become the first “affirmative action victim" appointed to the Supreme Court.

Barack Obama is, of course, the first “affirmative action victim” elected to be President.

NEWS?

Shepard Smith always starts the Fox Report with “The NEWS starts now!”

If that’s the case, then what was I watching on Special Report (just before I turned him off)?

WHY IS JIMMY CARTER SMILING?

Failing at failure – from the comments at Grouchy Old Cripple: “So, He's going to fail at being the worst Prez ?”

Via Don Surber.

OBAMA APPROVAL INDEX

Former President Bush didn't hit a -30 approval rating in the Rasmussen daily tracking poll until the last full month of his presidency. President Obama appears to be on track to match that rating in the first full year of his first term.

Who said the man isn't capable?

[Update & Bump] From another comment thread: "Maybe he can now claim he has “inherited” Bush’s poll numbers too."

WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?

An overwhelming majority of Americans support concealed-carry laws.

THE FOLLY OF HATE-CRIME LAWS

I rarely agree with Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, but this is a commentary with which I can agree. Writing on the murder of Holocaust Museum security guard Stephen Tyrone Johns by James von Brunn, an apparent consummate bigot:

The real purpose of hate-crime laws is to reassure politically significant groups -- blacks, Hispanics, Jews, gays, etc. -- that someone cares about them and takes their fears seriously. That's nice. It does not change the fact, though, that what's being punished is thought or speech.

Finally - an admission by a man of the Left that "hate crime" laws serve no purpose beyond political pandering.

[Stephen Tyrone] Johns is dead no matter what [James] von Brunn believes. The penalty for murder is severe, so it's not as if the crime is not being punished.

Exactly.

The added "late hit" of a hate crime is without any real consequence, except as a precedent for the punishment of belief or speech. Slippery slopes are supposedly all around us, I know, but this one is the real McCoy.

Yes. And exactly the reason "hate crime" should be regulated to a historical footnote.

HEALTH CARE AGAIN

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

Cash for Clunkers is a prime example of the unanticipated consequences of hastily drafted legislation.

[D]ealers are required to destroy the clunkers, which will reduce the supply and increase the price of spare parts for those low-income folks who can't afford to trade their clunkers in even with a $4,500 subsidy. So much for helping the poor.

This brings to mind a similarly well-intentioned 2000 Arizona law that paid $22,000 per vehicle to owners of cars operable with alternative fuels . Sport utility vehicle owners began installing small propane tanks and pocketing the money; the law didn't say they actually had to use the propane.

Even the New York Times has chimed in:

[T]he requirement to demolish old engines ... has bolstered criticism from the right that the program was intended for “limousine liberals.”

Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” William Kristol, the conservative editor of The Weekly Standard, said the rebates were going to middle-class people who would have eventually bought a new car anyhow.

Instead of helping the legions of unemployed, the money is going to a “bunch of upper-middle-class people who have some cars sitting around from 12 years ago,” Mr. Kristol said. “Now they’re just accelerating their purchase to get 4,500 bucks.”

Via Don Surber. I wrote on it here.

JEEZ ....

U.S. Calls Summit on Texting While Driving:

The Obama administration will convene a summit of experts to figure out what to do about the problem of texting while driving ....

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will announce his decision to gather senior transportation officials, safety advocates, law enforcement representatives, members of Congress and academics who study distracted driving ....

"When we are done, I expect to have a list of concrete steps to announce," LaHood said.

Doesn't the Obama administration have something better to do, like destroy the U.S. economy or save the world from godless communism, or whatever?

THE ELITES VS. US

Don’t miss the Elite Left vs the Populist Left:

Much of what is wrong with the many Obama prescriptions is not merely that they are leftist. They are elitist, implying a disdain for ordinary people’s ability to manage their own affairs.

Politics 2.0 is as much about populism vs. elitism as it is about Left vs. Right; and the shape of the future will depend as much upon whether the elitist Left or the populist Left prevails as it does upon the Left’s emerging power failure.

I wish this were true of only the Left, but the Right, unfortunately, is equally guilty. Witness the Palin derangement from the "elites" of both left and right.