Sowell Clearly Explains the Facts of Healthfare

Thomas Sowells "Alice in Medical Care" column today explains as clearly as possible why the BHO administrations Healthfare plans are the last thing we want. The key 'graphs:


"Let's start at square one. Why is there alarm about American medical care? The most usual reason given is because its cost is high and rising.

That is certainly true. We were not spending nearly as much on high-tech medical procedures in the past because there were not nearly as many of them, and we were not spending anything at all on some of the new pharmaceutical drugs because they didn't exist.

This general pattern is not peculiar to medical care. Cars didn't cost nearly as much in the past, when they didn't have air-conditioning, power steering and high-tech safety features. Homes were cheaper when they were smaller, had fewer bathrooms and lacked such conveniences as built-in microwave ovens.

We would like to have all these things without the rising costs that come with them. But only with medical care is such wishful thinking taken seriously, with government regarded as a sort of fairy godmother who will give us the benefits without the costs.

A cynic is said to be someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. If so, then it is political cynicism to point to other countries that spend less on medical care, including some countries where there is "universal health care" provided "free" by their governments.

Just as medical care, houses and cars were all cheaper when they lacked things that they have today, so medical care in other countries is cheaper when they lack many things that are more readily available in the United States."


Careful, you may get what you wish for! Comments?

An Interesting MSM Editorial Comparison

Today the Boston Globe and the Wall Street Journal both editorialized on the Supreme Courts Ricci decision and its effect on race relations in this country. Completely different takes, as you would expect.

Evaluate the tone of the writers. Is it my bias that reads many global assumptions and great negativity into the Globe and more factual presentations of both sides and a neutral tone in the Journal?

Let me know if you think it is my bias!

I do have to comment on the last paragraph of the Globe:


"What’s clear is that federal judges, like Americans as a whole, are still struggling with how best to steer the country toward a time when racial preferences are no longer necessary - while recognizing that, for now, they still are. Approaches like New Haven’s don’t help. Neither do responses such as yesterday’s Supreme Court decision."


Is this what we want from our federal judges? I thought that "steerring the country" was the legislatures job! Shall we eliminate Justice blindfolded? It is obvious the Globe believes we should - and it will cost us dearly if we let the left do this!

This makes you feel real good about GLOBAL WARMING!

CNET article explains repression of an internal EPA memo that was not too supportive of the BHO's administration's stance. Chicago politics?

You can read the article here.

Important 'graphs:


"The EPA official, Al McGartland, said in an e-mail message (PDF) to a staff researcher on March 17: "The administrator and the administration has decided to move forward...and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision."

The e-mail correspondence raises questions about political interference in what was supposed to be an independent review process inside a federal agency--and echoes criticisms of the EPA under the Bush administration, which was accused of suppressing a pro-climate change document.

Alan Carlin, the primary author of the 98-page EPA report, said in a telephone interview on Friday that his boss, McGartland, was being pressured himself. "It was his view that he either lost his job or he got me working on something else," Carlin said. "That was obviously coming from higher levels."

E-mail messages released this week show that Carlin was ordered not to "have any direct communication" with anyone outside his small group at EPA on the topic of climate change, and was informed that his report would not be shared with the agency group working on the topic."


Boy, they really want that POWER, don't they!

Good for the NYT!

The NYT publishes a column in "Tierney Lab" on "a withering critique" of the "federal report on climate change" (read about it here in the NYT of June 16, 2009).


"...Dr. Pielke, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado, asks:

[Why] is a report characterized by [White House] Science Advisor John Holdren as being the “most up-to-date, authoritative, and comprehensive” analysis relying on a secondary, non-peer source citing another non-peer reviewed source from 2000 to support a claim that a large amount of uncited and more recent peer-reviewed literature says the opposite about?"


You can read the column here.

At least it is some exposure for the other side of the story. I am actually surprised!

Healthfare and the Unions!

If you can read the below Townhall column and still support BHO's Healthfare, you have an ideological problem.

"Thousands of union members rallied for Obamacare on Capitol Hill today in a massive display of union outreach that threatened to deliver more votes for a controversial “public plan” option.

The rally came on the heels of Obama raising the possibility that unions would be exempt from taxing health care benefits. Obama said he was open to imposing new taxes on Americans who are not union members, which is a principle he adamantly opposed during his presidential campaign.



http://krla870.townhall.com/columnists/JillianBandes/2009/06/26/unions_to_get_dues_from_obamacare?page=1


So Union members will not have their healthcare benefits taxed to support Healthfare, but all the rest of us will! Aren't Union members the best paid of the working people?

There is no logic in all of this, only Dem pandering - and it is not going to work!

California

First a quote from Victor Davis Hanson - HT to Rightwingsparkle - on California:


"At some point we Californians should ask ourselves, how we inherited a state with near perfect weather, the world's richest agriculture, plentiful timber, minerals, and oil, two great ports at Los Angeles and Oakland, a natural tourist industry from Carmel to Yosemite, industries such as Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and aerospace—and serially managed to turn all of that into the nation's largest penal system, periodic near bankruptcy, and sky-high taxes." - Victor Davis Hanson


You might ask the Dems in Sacramento how this happened. Question is, as you will see in the article below, is this where BHO and the Dems are going to take the country now?


"The Albany-Trenton-Sacramento Disease" in todays WSJ explains what these "progressive" states have done and gives you statistics to show how a disaster is coming. Other states, such as Oregon and Washington, are headed down the same path with the same results now starting to show. Why is this not obvious to the Administration?

Read the column and you will understand better the downside of where BHO and his cohorts are trying to take us.

There is no cost of Government, only "INVESTMENT"

Anne Duncan, BHO's Education Secretary, has swallowed the above "koolaid" and gives the following response to a Jake Tapper question today:


"TAPPER: If this means that more students will fill out the application and more students will get student loans, do you have an estimate of how much more it's going to cost ultimately?

DUNCAN: I don't have a firm estimate on that. But, again, we think that's not a cost. We think that's an investment. We think the best thing we can do as a country is have more young people going on to college. So we think this is absolutely the right thing to do. This has to cease being a barrier to entry…."


She seems to start answering as any normal person would, then suddenly remembers where she is and who she works for and suddenly "cost" is "investment."

You can read the full transcript here.

Tell Me It Isn't True!! Dem's deny any responsibility and then this...

They are at it again! Remember Barney Franks denials of any responsibility of Fannie's and Freddie's previous problem which led to STIMULUS et al. Remember this for the next economic problem.


"Fannie, Freddie asked to relax condo loan rules: report

Mon Jun 22, 2009 10:48am EDT

(Reuters) - Two U.S. Democratic lawmakers want Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to relax recently tightened standards for mortgages on new condominiums, saying they could threaten the viability of some developments and slow the housing-market recovery, the Wall Street Journal said.

In March, Fannie Mae (FNM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)(FNM.P: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said it would no longer guarantee mortgages on condos in buildings where fewer than 70 percent of the units have been sold, up from 51 percent, the paper said. Freddie Mac (FRE.P: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)(FRE.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) is due to implement similar policies next month, the paper said.

In a letter to the CEO's of both companies, Representatives Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and Anthony Weiner warned that a 70 percent sales threshold "may be too onerous" and could lead condo buyers to shun new developments, according to the paper.

The legislators asked the companies to "make appropriate adjustments" to their underwriting standards for condos, the paper added.

In an interview with the paper, Weiner said the rules have "had a real chill on the ability to get these condos sold," at a time when prices of condos have fallen enough to attract potential buyers.

In addition to the 70 percent sales threshold, Fannie Mae will also not purchase mortgages in buildings where 15 percent of owners are delinquent on condo association dues or where one owner has more than 10 percent of units, as the firm sees these as signals that a building could run into financial trouble, the paper added.

Both Fannie and Freddie are preparing a response to the lawmakers, according to the paper.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could not be immediately reached for comment by Reuters."


You can read the article here.

The Disingenuousness of BHO is STAGGERING!

Jake Tapper posts this column today. We all know the public option in the HEALTHWARE bill will draw employers to it: our responsibility as business owners is to maximize profits (the free market which BHO and his coleagues obviously despise - regardless of their words) and therefore we will go to the cheapest option. I don't know what else to believe than that our President is lying to us to get his agenda through. Do you reach any other conclusion?


"At yesterday's press conference, President Obama seemed to clarify his pledge that if you like your health insurance plan you wont have to change it with the pending health care reform proposal.

Diane Sawyer followed up in her interview with the president.

"People have been hearing you say these words," Sawyer said, "about 'If you like your doctor -- '"

"Yeah," said President Obama.

" ' -- you'll keep your doctor, period. If you like your -- '"

"Right," the president interjected.

"' - -health plan, you'll keep your health plan, period.' Yet, I thought today in the press conference I heard you amend it to say, 'If your employer decides to change it, we don't have control over that.' So-- "

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," said the president "But, of course, there, I mean, that's, that's the case whether we pass health care or not. I mean, the, look, the, the, the fact is that right now, all across the country, people are losing their health care. Every day. You, you can travel into Washington, D.C. And you'll find somebody on the street whose employer just dropped them from health care. Or who has decided to increase their deductibles. Or increase their premiums."

Continued the president, "So, those choices are being made by employers constantly, right? I can't pass a law that says, 'I'm sorry, employers, you can never make changes to the health care plans that you provide your employees.' What I can say is that the government is not going to force you to, your employer or you to join a government plan, for example. If you're happy with it, and your employer's happy with it, keep it."

Continued Mr. Obama, "If your employer is not providing you the health care that you need, then we're going to give you a set of options to make sure that you continue to have health care. And I think that is the kind of commitment that the American people expect and, you know, it, and I think is achievable, as long as we stay focused on driving down costs, as well as expanding coverage." "

(my emphasis)

Read the whole column and comments here.

"Chicago-Style" Government

Michael Barone's column today critiques BHO's first five months with some interesting analysis and comparisons. The heart of the column:


"Third, he does business Chicago-style. His first political ambition was to be mayor of Chicago, the boss of all he surveyed; he has had to settle for the broader but less complete hegemony of the presidency.

From Chicago, he brings the assumption that there will always be a bounteous private sector that can be plundered endlessly on behalf of political favorites. Hence the government takeover of General Motors and Chrysler to bail out the United Auto Workers, the proposal for channeling money from the private nonprofits to the government by limiting the charitable deduction for high earners and the plan for expanding government (and public employee union rolls) by instituting universal pre-kindergarten.

Chicago-style, he has kept the Republicans out of serious policy negotiations but has allowed left-wing Democrats to veto a measure upholding his own decision not to release interrogation photos. While promising a politics of mutual respect, he peppers both his speeches and impromptu responses with jabs at his predecessor. Basking in the adulation of nearly the entire press corps, he whines about his coverage on Fox News. Those who stand in the way, like the Chrysler secured creditors, are told that their reputations will be destroyed. Those who expose wrongdoing by political allies, like the AmeriCorps inspector general, are fired."


Read the column here.

NYT: Our Paper of Record?

The WSJ Best of the Web Today points out the "utter confusion" on their editorial page, clearly caused by the "utter confusion" of BHO and his administration regarding Iran. If you can understand what they are saying you are a better interpreter than I am! Here are the final three parapgraphs of the editorial:


"More violence against the Iranian people will only highlight the government's illegitimacy and desperation.


If the authorities want to resolve this impasse peacefully--that must be the goal--they should call a new election, monitored by independent Iranian observers. Before last week's results were prematurely and improbably declared, a runoff was expected between Mr. Ahmadinejad and Mr. Moussavi. As a first step, authorities should set up a commission representing all major candidates to examine the election data and jointly determine a face-saving and credible way forward.


Some in Washington, meanwhile, have been complaining that President Obama hasn't been tough enough in his criticism of Iran's government. He may have to speak out more forcefully in the days to come. But given its history with Iran, the United States must take special care not to be seen as interfering. That would only give Iran's hard-liners a further excuse to blame the United States for their own shameful failures."


"Independent Iranian observers!!!!" You have got to be kidding!

We should expect more from a paper with such influence; or maybe the readers and followers of the NYT should think their attachment through!

Best of the Web analysis is here.

What is our Iranian Policy?

James Taranto in WSJ Best of the Web Today shares his perspective of BHO's comments on Iran Tuesday. Seems to me he is quite accurate in his analysis and his conclusion.


"Obama goes on to disclaim U.S. "meddling," to express his "hope" that the regime will behave in a civilized fashion, and to reiterate his commitment to "tough diplomacy"--though the timorousness of his own public comments, here and elsewhere, belie the adjective.

But we think it is very telling that the very first point he made is that there isn't a rial's worth of difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi. Let's stipulate that he's right: The election was a contest between Evildee and Evildum. We said as much Friday in arguing that an Ahmadinejad victory might be preferable because the reasonable-seeming Mousavi would be more likely to lull the West into complacency. Obama doesn't need to be lulled; he's already so heavily sedated that on Friday he was praising the "robust debate" between the candidates he now finds indistinguishable.

Our Friday analysis was predicated on the supposition that one of two outcomes would obtain: Either Mousavi would prevail in an orderly-conducted travesty of a sham election, or Ahmadinejad would. Once the regime decided to make a mockery of its travesty of a sham, it foreclosed both these possibilities. Thus Obama's analysis made no sense on Tuesday, even though it was substantially identical to ours on Friday.

Speaking very broadly, there are two possible outcomes in Iran now. The regime may succeed in crushing the opposition, enhancing its own power at the expense of whatever pretense of legitimacy it might have had a week ago. Or it may fail to do so and be weakened or overthrown. The free world has every interest in encouraging the latter outcome, and someone ought to bring the leader of the free world up to speed on the events of the past few days."


Any comments? Read the entire column here.

DEJA VU?

Michelle Malkin writes on a potential scandal rearing itself in the first six months of BHO's administration. Michelle is evidently involved, which is the reason for this post's title. I also happened to hear her on the radio this morning pushing HEALTHFARE with the kids visiting her garden (Is that what a White House garden is for?).

Key 'graphs:


"But in the wake of Johnson's [Sacramento, CA's mayor]mayoral victory and Obama's election in November, the U.S. attorney's office in Sacramento rushed to settle with the new mayor so he could avail himself of federal stimulus funds and other government money. It was, Walpin said in his special report last month, "akin to deciding that, while one should not put a fox in a small chicken coop, it is fine to do so in a large chicken coop! The settlement ... leaves the unmistakable impression that relief from a suspension can be bought."

Shortly after, the White House announced that it had "lost confidence" in Walpin. With Walpin's removal, the top management positions at CNCS [parent organization of AmeriCorps] are now open. The decks are clear to install lackeys who will protect the government volunteerism industry and its Democratic cronies. And a chilling effect has undoubtedly taken hold in every other inspector general's office in Washington.

GOP Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa is pressing Obama for more details. Tough questions need to be asked of the first lady, who has "taken the lead" in selecting AmeriCorps' managers, according to Youth Today [an independent national publication focused on the volunteerisnm sector]. Her former chief of staff, Jackie Norris, will serve as a "senior adviser" to CNCS beginning next week. What role did they play in Walpin's sacking? And why?"


We will see where this goes. Where is the CHANGE?

Darrell Issa: "Reform is Needed, But Don't Use Medicare as a Model"

Representative Darrell Issa writes in Roll Call a good analysis of the problems with the BHO Administration's approach to "HEALTHFARE" - my term for the Healthcare/Welfare being proposed.

Key 'graphs:


"The key component of President Barack Obama’s plan for change is a government-run insurance option that would provide universal coverage at a staggering cost with limited options for the poor. Under the Obama/Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) scheme, the uninsured and underinsured will be enrolled in a plan modeled after Medicare — a program that will be bankrupt by the year 2018. Not content with only running the American auto, banking, mortgage and insurance industries, the president is now positioning himself to be our physician in chief.

How’s this sound for reform? Take one of the most fiscally problematic and bureaucratically bloated federal programs in modern history and replicate it on a universal scale. Mix it up with an apothecary’s dose of rhetorical hallucinogens, and package it nicely with the label of change and hope that the country buys it."


Read the article for a good understanding of potential problems.

Newt Gingrich notes MSM bias.

Newt questions the timidity of MSM re the following quite obvious problem:


"Back in February, President Obama repeatedly argued that the need to pass the $787 billion stimulus bill was so dire that there was no time from members of Congress to read it first. Things would get worse before they got better, we were told. But without the stimulus bill, America would suffer economic Armageddon.

To make their case, the Obama Administration produced a chart showing that with the stimulus bill, unemployment would reach 8 percent by June of 2009. Without the $787 billion infusion of taxpayer funds, we were told, unemployment would hit 8.7 percent.

In fact, the May jobless data put the actual unemployment rate at 9.4 percent.

If an enterprising White House reporter bothered to do the math, he or she would reach this startling conclusion: Since the passage of the stimulus bill, the U.S. economy has lost one million more jobs than President Obama assured us we would lose if we had done nothing at all."


Of course, we all know he will get a pass from the MSM. How about you? Are you going to give him a pass?

Want to understand BHO's effort with Healthcare? Read Steve Chapman!

I print Steve Chapmans entire column "Indulging Our Health Care Fantasies" from Sunday, June 14, 2009. It is truly an IMPORTANT read:


"It's been 15 years since President Clinton's health care reform plan went down to defeat, and the problems it was supposed to fix have only gotten worse. Costs have soared, the number of uninsured has risen and public dissatisfaction has mounted.

But now, at last, we are all ready to do what must be done. As President Obama puts it, "I really think that the stars may be aligned here."

Don't bet on it. The Clinton plan lost partly because Americans were not willing to accept that you can't have it all. From everything that has occurred since then, it's apparent they are still unwilling.

The Obama administration understands this crucial point, which is why it has undertaken to assure us that everything we like about the current health insurance system will stay the same, while everything we don't like will be replaced. And, we are led to believe, it won't cost you and me anything.

Estimates of the cost of Obama care start at $1.2 trillion over the next decade. The administration believes it can cover about half that amount through tax increases on the rich and greater efficiencies in Medicare and Medicaid. But it's hard to find anyone else who shares that touching faith. When I asked Robert Bixby, head of The Concord Coalition, a bipartisan fiscal watchdog group, he said, "I don't see any plausible way of getting the savings they need to add the expanded coverage in a deficit-neutral way."

There are only three ways to pay for this expansion of health insurance coverage: increased taxes, reduced benefits or shiny gold ingots falling out of the sky. Voters emphatically prefer the latter option, so that is the one most likely to be embraced by Congress and the administration.

If health insurance were such a vital asset, you would think Americans would be more than happy to make sacrifices to get it. After all, it assures timely and adequate treatment in times of sickness, peace of mind in times of health, the prospect of a longer and happier life, and protection against financial ruin. Health care reform is supposed to make those blessings available to all.

But when most people talk about reform, what they really mean is guaranteeing the same or better coverage than they now have, but at a lower price. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard School of Public Health poll found that 49 percent of Americans aren't willing to pay more in insurance premiums or taxes.

Of those who could accept higher taxes to finance a new system, most are thinking of higher taxes on someone else. As the researchers explained, "The only options with majority support were those likely to impact the fewest people, in particular smokers and the wealthy."

Even among the uninsured, the enthusiasm for insurance is muted.

When another Kaiser poll asked uninsured adults how much they would be willing to pay to get coverage, only 64 percent would fork out $100 a month and just 29 percent would pay $200. Given that most are not poor, why is it so important to provide the uninsured with something they don't value highly?

One way to bring down the cost of health insurance is to limit access to certain doctors, treatments and medicines. But the Kaiser/Harvard poll found most people are averse not only to paying more but also to anything that would "involve government limiting or dictating their choices."

Or anyone else, by the way. Most people have forgotten that in the 1980s, the private sector devised an ingenious way to reduce medical outlays. Known as managed care, it put modest restrictions on the freedom of patients to get care from specialists, limited hospital stays and gave doctors incentives to choose less costly therapies. It saved money, and it didn't appear to reduce the quality of care.

It was a perfect remedy, except for one thing: Patients and doctors hated it. Why? Because it kept them from behaving as though cost is no object.

So managed care is history. But the dilemmas it addressed are not.

One of these days, we'll have to address them, but not now. The administration would rather pretend we can get generous government-sponsored coverage for everyone without higher taxes, higher insurance premiums or rationing of health care. In short, it refuses to treat us like grownups. I wonder why."


Would like to hear comments on his opions. They seem right on to me!

Charles Krauthammer critiques BHO's Cairo Speech

In "Hovering on High: Obama Surveys the World" Mr. Krauthammer notes the "condescension", "hunger for applause" and "willingness to distort history for political effect. ..." that BHO uses in his attempt to placate the Muslim world. It is an approach that will not work for long, if at all.

A couple of important points, the first on his comparison of women's rights:


"...On the one hand, there certainly is some American university where the women's softball team has received insufficient Title IX funds -- while, on the other hand, Saudi women showing ankle are beaten in the street, Afghan school girls have acid thrown in their faces, and Iranian women are publicly stoned to death for adultery. (Gays, as well -- but then again we have Prop 8.) We all have our shortcomings, our national foibles. Who's to judge?

That's the problem with Obama's transcultural evenhandedness. It gives the veneer of professorial sophistication to the most simple-minded observation: Of course there are rights and wrongs in all human affairs. Our species is a fallen one. But that doesn't mean that these rights and wrongs are of equal weight."


and the second is his conlusion, the second half of which I think we all need to be sensitive to (remember Rev. Wright, who has appeared again this week!):


"Distorting history is not truth-telling, but the telling of soft lies. Creating false equivalencies is not moral leadership, but moral abdication. And hovering above it all, above country and history, is a sign not of transcendence but of a disturbing ambivalence toward one's own country."


Do we want the President to be ambivalent? Have we ever had an ambivalent President? Where will this lead the country? These are questions we all must resolve within ourselves to make sure we are not enablers of an incorrect tack for this great country.

Read the whole column. An interesting perspective.

"How to Stop Socialized Health Care"

Karl Rove does a good job explaining the problems with the Dems still unpublished Health Care Plan. An important read for the coming debate, whichever side you are on. The key 'graph re the projected "public option" which all pundits think will be an integral part of the plan:


"In other words, the public option is just phony. It's a bait-and-switch tactic meant to reassure people that the president's goals are less radical than they are. Mr. Obama's real aim, as some candid Democrats admit, is a single-payer, government-run health-care system."


Read the column here.

Sotomayor Watch #9

Ruth Marcus analyzes Ricci in "For Sotomayor, a fine Line in New Haven" in WaPo today. Problem is I don't understand how the three judge panel concluded "disparate impact" in the Ricci case without a full review by the Apellate Court - even though they later refused to review the three judge panel conclusion 7-6.

It appears to be pre-judgement from the three judge panel.

Her conclusion:

"Frank Ricci deserved to have that claim examined more carefully before having his hard-earned promotion summarily set aside. But Sonia Sotomayor deserves to have her position examined more carefully than it has been by those who would use it to block her own promotion."

"Not so fast with that Fiat, Mr. President!"

WSJ's Best of the Web Today comments on the Justice Ruth Bader Ginzburg temporary halt of the Fiat-Chrysler deal. Seems the quote below is quite accurate:


"In addition to the principle at stake, the Supreme Court has an institutional imperative to intervene in this case. The administration is attempting to seize power that rightly belongs to the courts (and to Congress, since lawmakers could rewrite the bankruptcy law if they chose). We have often criticized the Supreme Court for overstepping its power, but it would be just as wrong for the court to shirk its responsibility to exercise its power legitimately.

In response, Mauro [Legal Times reporter] notes, the administration and those who would benefit from its deal argue that too much is at stake to follow the law:

"Solicitor General Elena Kagan . . . defended the sale as the only feasible alternative to liquidation. If that happens, more than 38,000 jobs would be lost, she argued.
The Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors also filed a response to the Indiana challenge to the Chrysler deal. The committee . . . argues that the sale of Chrysler, while "not perfect," stands as "the only alternative to a far worse economic and human disaster." The brief added that "the balance of harms tilts so overwhelmingly against a stay" that the Supreme Court should deny the stay for that reason alone.

The loss of 38,000 jobs is a "disaster"? Just yesterday we were reading that the loss of "just 345,000 jobs" last month was a sign of hope. In any case, this is ridiculous hyperbole. A company's failing is a hardship, maybe even a tragedy, but it is part of the ordinary functioning of an economy. A deadly hurricane or terrorist attack is a disaster. Further, prosperity depends on the rule of law. Widespread theft leads only to poverty, even if the thieves are elected politicians."


Read the whole thing here.

Sotomayor Watch #8

Shelby Steele, a black man who truly understands the race problem in the United States, weighs in on Sonia Sotomayor and BHO in his column: "Sotomayor and the Politics of Race".

A key paragraph:

"The White House acknowledges that this now famous statement[her often quoted Berkeley speech] -- both racist and dim-witted -- was turned up in the vetting process. So we can only assume that the president was aware of it, as well as Judge Sotomayor's career-long claim that ethnicity and gender are virtual determinisms in judging: We need diversity because, as she said in her Berkeley lecture, "inherent physiological or cultural differences . . . make a difference in our judging." The nine white male justices who decided the Brown school-desegregation case in 1954 might have felt otherwise, as would a president seeking to lead us toward a new, post-racial society. (my emphasis)

This column is an IMPORTANT read not only for a perspective on Sotomayor but for a truly creative analysis of race in our country.

Sotomayor Watch #7

David Brooks writes a supportive column on Sonia Sotomayor. I wish he had a few more examples of why he is so supportive and I wish he had commented on her decision in Ricci. But he is a conservative leaning columnist - before BHO I would have said he was a conservative columnist; he seems to be enamored with BHO as so many are - who believes she is a good choice.

I think he has BHO blinders on, but we will see who is correct.

"Have We Got a Deal For You at GM"

George Will explains the craziness of BHO's approach to "running" GM - of course BHO denies this is the case - which will lead to ultimate failure as it has with Amtrak, et al!

The best and most direct analysis I have read. Note his statistics on the capitalization of GM today - about the same size as California Pizza Kitchen! And BHO cannot let that fail?

Obviously a payoff to the UAW and others. It is a sad day for our economy!

William Safire explains "Straw-Man Issue"

I miss William Safire. In today's NYT he explains BHO's use of this technique. If you really want to understand what our President does in his speeches it is an important read. Not that he is the only user of this technique, but he is a master!

A summary paragraph:


"Encouraged by his reviews for eloquence, President Obama has embraced the straw man frequently (as F.D.R. liked to emphasize it, “again and again and again”) with nary a peep of criticism. Two weeks ago, the Times correspondent Helene Cooper dared to note this president’s repeated use of digs like “I know some folks in Washington and on Wall Street are saying we should just focus on their problems.” Some folks, like those who, are never named but are always wrongheaded extremists. Her “White House Memo” was headlined “Some Obama Enemies Are Made Totally of Straw”; its subhead was “Setting them up to have someone to knock down.” Cooper, as the objective reporter, gave examples of conservative politicians who speak straw-manese, although none with such fluency."


A good read to help you understand the manipulation!