Keith Jones Blog

Lions, Beavers, Otters, and Golden Retrievers...

2011-01-03T09:06:00.001-07:00

I recently took a personality profile. It is meant to help people understand what kind of personality ‘type’ they are so they can better learn about their strengths and weaknesses and how those relate to other people in their lives. It is a common profile that is used by Gary Smalley (The Two Sides of Love) and others.

The four personality types that it include are Lions, Beavers, Otters, and Golden Retrievers. They are categorized by animals to help you better understand the nature of the personality traits. Lions are leaders, dominant, they like to make the rules and tell other people what to do. Beavers are the organizers, they like things neat, and they like to know what the rules are so that they can follow them. Otters care about fun, they don’t have any concern for rules, if they are faced with the choice between a good time or work, they will choose the good time, and they have a ton of friends but they tend not to be very deep relationships. Golden Retrievers are all about relationships, they are compassionate and very sensitive to the feelings and emotions of others, they are loyal, and crave few but deep relationships.

There are obviously good and bad things about each personality type. Lions are leaders and get things done, but they also struggle intensely when things don’t go their way. Beavers are great administrators and organizers, but they don’t always remember to have fun. Otters are fun to be around and always good for a laugh, but they usually aren’t very neat or organized. Golden Retrievers are great friends to have but they don’t adapt well to change.

I took the test because I was very curious to see where I fell in the spectrum. The answer wasn’t as clear as I had hoped. I’m pretty much in the middle; a little more Lion and Beaver than Otter and Golden Retriever, but not by much.

However, I think that it provided enough information to help me as I plan out the next year (can you guess that type?). I want to develop certain aspects and learn to control others. I want to develop my lion side to be a good leader for my family and small group, and a good teacher to the kids at Mission. I really want to focus on the organizational aspects of the Beaver traits to get a handle on managing my home and my projects to get everything accomplished that I’m setting out to do. When it comes to my kids I think our relationships would benefit by integrating more Otter characteristics into our normal routine. For my friends and relationships, I would like to be more of a Golden Retriever and invest more in my good friends.

There is value in taking stock in your strengths and weaknesses. If you don’t know what they are it’s hard to use them or change them for the better. It will help you to shape your goals so that you develop your talents and discipline yourself through your weaknesses. I’m hoping that it helps make my goals for January 2011, my list of accomplishments for December.

The End and the Beginning

2010-12-21T08:19:00.001-07:00

The year is winding down and I’m beginning to think over the past year and the year to come.

There were lots of things that I wanted to accomplish this year; several of them fell into the completed column, but several of them fell into the half way done column. I finished the rough draft of my book and did a lot of editing, but have yet to complete the second draft or the final copy. I’ve lost some weight and I’m on track to keep losing, but I still have a long way to go.

As you can see I can be kind of pessimistic about these things. I like to be able to make a full check mark in the box. I like things to be finished. I get a little frustrated when they don’t quite make it, but somehow that doesn’t necessarily translate into the discipline to complete them, because my laziness at times seems greater than my desire to tie up the loose ends.

Which brings me to my resolutions for next year… I haven’t come up with them yet, but I will definitely be contemplating it once the wrapping paper is all cleaned up and the toys are all sorted.

I really want to answer some big questions. What do I really want to accomplish over the next ten years (if I’m blessed with that), and what do I need to do this next year to put me on track to get to that point? How do I not just fix one habit, but rather establish a pattern that will lead me to the successful end and the sense of accomplishment that I enjoy? How do stop being lazy and find motivation when I feel burned out and defeated? How do I cope with stress better and learn to exercise instead of eat for stress release? How do I accomplish dreams that right now seem distant and incompletely defined?

I haven’t quite figured all of that out yet, and I don’t know that I will this year. Eventually I’ll accomplish some of these things though; hopefully the ones that are actually important. The critical part is taking stock of where you’re at and where you want to go, or more importantly where God wants you to go.

As a follower of Christ, he should take preeminence in all of my decision making, and certainly in my goals and aspirations.

I’ve been trying to come up with a daily mantra for quite a while now. Something that I can start the morning with and use to help refocus me as the day becomes grueling. Here it is what I have been using:

“Today I will seek discipline and wisdom. I will be quick to listen and slow to speak. This day is a gift to be used wisely and well. I will seek God’s glory in everything that I say and do.”

I’ve also scripted a prayer to accompany it:

“God, make my plan for this day what YOU would have it to be. Make my life a reflection of your purpose. May you be glorified in all that I say and do. Amen.”

So what does God want me to do next year?

Prop 113 and 203

2010-10-21T08:25:00.002-07:00

Prop 113 is the last of the amendments to the Arizona State Constitution. It would guarantee the right to a secret ballot when voting to create or join a union. It is an active measure against a move by large unions to re-establish their hold on American industry that, until the last election, has been waning.

Let me first say that I have a fundamental issue with unions today.

Granted they have accomplished some admirable things in the past. They are responsible for ending child labor in the US. They are also responsible for employers providing reasonably safe work conditions.

However, for the most part they have out lived their usefulness. The only thing that they do now is choke businesses, extort money from hard working individuals, raise prices on everything from groceries to automobiles, and push industry out of the country.

People should be compensated for their performance and their pay should be dependent on the supply and demand for that position. If someone is a good worker, they should get paid more. If someone is a bad worker they should get fired. If someone does a job that very few people have the talent, skill, or experience to do, they should get paid more. If someone does something that a student still in high school could do with fifteen minutes of training, they should be paid less.

But this measure isn’t about whether unions are good or bad, only about whether or not someone has the right to honestly vote on whether or not to join or create a union without being intimidated by union thugs or fellow employees.

The opponents to this measure favor a system a system called card check where your vote is much more public. It opens objecting employees to pressure and intimidation.

“What, don’t you want to look out for your fellow workers?”

“Don’t you care about how they are treating people here?”

“Don’t you know what they did to Tom? Don’t you think he deserves better than that?”

It’s wrong. If people are going to vote on something, whether that is a presidential election or to start a union, they should be able to make their decision privately without intimidation. Protect the secret ballot.

I’m voting an enthusiastic YES for Prop 113!

Prop 203 is a measure that is very long and very complicated, but this is the description at its simplest. Prop 203 would create a system for the medical use of marijuana in Arizona.

I really haven’t made up my mind on the whole issue of drug regulation and how that plays into individual freedoms, drug trafficking, and the future of our country.

Here are my objections to this particular bill.

If marijuana is going to be used as a medicine, it should manufactured and distributed like any other controlled substance. A licensed manufacturer should produce, qualify, package, and distribute it through licensed pharmacies. If you are really pushing for medical marijuana, that is exactly what you would do.

However, if you are really looking for marijuana, and the idea of marijuana, to become more socially acceptable so that eventually it could be legalized entirely, then you would produce a proposition like Prop 203, which sets up an entirely specialized system for marijuana production and distribution.

I’m not saying marijuana shouldn’t be used for medicinal purposes. I’m saying that that is not the goal of Prop 203.

I’m voting NO on Prop 203.

Props 111 and 112

2010-10-19T09:09:00.000-07:00

Prop 111 and 112 are… you guessed it, amendments to the Arizona State Constitution! Shocking, yes, I know, but don’t worry there are some propositions this year that are NOT amendments, and I’ll get to those soon enough.

Prop 111 is an amendment which changes the name of the office of Secretary of State. Currently in our state constitution, if the governor cannot complete their full term, because they took a national position as Secretary of Homeland Security for instance, then the Secretary of State is the next person in line to succeed the governor. Governor Jan Brewer became the governor because she had been the Secretary of State under Janet Napolitano. This amendment would change the name of the position and how it is elected.

The Secretary of State would become the Lieutenant Governor and would be elected on a co-ticket with the Governor. The idea is that it more clearly defines the chain of command for the state and helps people to realize that the Secretary of State is actually the next person in line for the governorship. The argument seems to be that you can have a governor of one party and a SOS of another party and without an election the governorship can “change hands” so to speak.

Here is the problem with the amendment. The position of Secretary of State is an important position. If you’ve been on the website at all, which I hope you have because you’ve followed some of my links, you’ve discovered that the Secretary of State is actually in charge of a lot of things. Granted they aren’t glamorous things, but they are important things. Is a VP- type Lieutenant Governor going to do all of these things? Aren’t those things beneath a person who has the word “governor” in their title? I know I’m kind of being nitpicky here, but I think the net effect of this is going to be that the Secretary of State’s office is going to turn into an ADDITIONAL state office. We don’t need more offices and more staff members. We want smaller government on every level, not just the national level.

I’m also concerned about the entire premise of the measure. This all revolves around politicians not liking the fact that the people of the state can nominate a governor and a SOS from different parties. I’m sorry, I’m not really concerned as much about the parties as I am about whether or not someone is the best person for a certain position. Obviously I vote Republican almost exclusively, but that isn’t because I’m in love with the Republican Party, but rather because I haven’t been able to find any social, fiscal, and national security CONSERVATIVES in the Democrat Party. For that matter this bill would almost completely shut out a qualified candidate with a reasonable shot at an office like the Secretary of State, who may not be from either party.

I don’t see a significant net positive in this and I see some decent potential for negative consequences.

Prop 111 is a NO for me.

Prop 112 is an amendment to the Arizona State Constitution that brings in the deadline for ballot propositions from 4 months to 6 months before the election. The purpose is to give the government time to verify the validity of the signatures on any petitions.

Again, it’s a bipartisan measure that is supported across the board. So naturally I’m a little skeptical, but other than an urgent issue coming up that should be dealt with quickly (which the legislature could/should handle separately) it seems benign.

I hate to say this about anything, but on this one I’m almost completely indifferent. If it really does help them vet the signatures better then it is probably a good thing.

Prop 112 is a ho-hum Yes for me.

Summary:

Prop 106 – the Anti-Obamacare Prop – YES

Prop 107 – ending racial quotas in state hiring – YES

Prop 109 – protecting hunting and fishing in AZ - YES

Prop 110 – modifying the state’s ability on land trust deals – hesitant YES

Prop 111 – changing the Secretary of State to Lieutenant Governor – NO

Prop 112 – shortening the deadline for ballot measures – hesitant YES

Props 109 and 110

2010-10-18T08:50:00.000-07:00

Prop 109 and 110

We are just full of amendments to the Arizona State Constitution this election season. Prop 109 and 110 are two more.

Prop 109 is an amendment geared at protecting hunting and fishing in the state of Arizona. The premise of the bill is that wildlife will be managed in a way that protects hunting and fishing in the state for years to come.

I have a couple of opinions on this one.

I have come into more and more contact with the ‘hunting community’ recently and one thing that seems to be fairly universal among them is a deep respect for the animal populations and a desire to keep those populations plentiful and healthy. Certain hunting in the state is severely limited and for good reason, to protect the struggling species. From this perspective my respect and trust for the hunting community has increased.

My second opinion on this has to do with the animal rights community and their actions in the last couple of years in the western United States. California has had vast farmlands turned into an absolute dust bowl, killing what was one of the largest (if not the largest) agricultural area in the world. Destroying the businesses and investments of farmers in the region and pushing unemployment into unimagineable levels. All for the sake of the delta smelt, which is a tiny fish that MAY be in need of protection according to population levels, and MAY be getting killed off by pumps that push water down into the agricultural area. The whole thing is ridiculous and the more I look into this matter the more it bothers me. Oregon is in a similar boat when it comes to their fishing industry, which has been so hampered and hamstrung by fishing regulations that it is almost completely gone in many rivers. Even individual fishing has been so restricted in the state that it is shocking, especially in an area so rich in resources.

The “pro” argument is that environmentalists and animal rights activists are on a nationwide crusade to limit the rights of hunters and anglers, and from what I have read about, I have to agree.

I am voting YES on 109.

Prop 110 is a strange beast. First of all it is very difficult to discern all of the language in the amendment. That fact alone throws up some red flags. It also has to do with State Trust land which has been used for a variety of purposes over the years, some being less than above board, which also concerns me. Finally on the Secretary of State’s website there are literally NO arguments against the measure. Really? That’s even more surprising.

There are a couple of things that I am definitely in favor of. Primarily the preservation of land around our vital military bases in Arizona and the ability for the state to conduct land swaps with private parties in order to facilitate an adequate space around these facilities. That just makes sense to me.

There also appears to be several measures in the amendment to provide for disclosure to the public about the land deals that are going to happen with adequate time and information to make them fair and reasonable.

If anyone, with a history and experience with State Trust land deals would like to comment or send me a message that would be greatly appreciated. As it currently stands my position on this one is not quite clear. I am going to say a tentative Yes on 110, but would appreciate anyone with more information.

So far here is the score card:

A BIG YES on Prop 106, 107 and 109.

A tentative yes on Prop 110.

Prop 107

2010-10-15T09:37:00.000-07:00

Prop 107 is another amendment to the Arizona State constitution. It is a measure which forbids the STATE from discriminating against or giving preferential treatment to anyone based on “race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin.” In short this puts an end to any and all affirmative action measures currently in place in the state government and state agencies, including the three state run universities.

What an outrageous idea! The state of Arizona wants to put into law that for any contracts or positions of employment or education they will blindly look at candidates and pick the one who is the most qualified, talented, and hardest working. That’s just insanity!

Okay, obviously not. It makes total sense.

People don’t like to use the words “racial quotas”, because it doesn’t sound very good, but it is exactly what affirmative action and other “diversity” programs promote.

I’ve experienced this recently in one of my former employers. During a site-wide corporate meeting, one of the executives explained that they aren’t hiring enough women engineers, and that the ones they are hiring are leaving so they need to hire even more to account for the high attrition rate. He never mentioned hiring the most qualified engineers, or the most talented, or the ones with special training in specific areas, or the ones with the freshest and newest ideas. Just women. I have heard a general outrage from the company, mostly coming from… the women engineers that work there. They’ve been there for years and have worked hard to prove themselves (like any engineer has to). Now they think that any project they go on to they will be looked at as another “token female employee”. The company has backed up this policy by hiring two new female engineers. The first one was hired without interviewing ANY other candidates (in a job market with 10% unemployment) and the second one was hired WITHOUT an in person interview at all. Do you think those two will be respected by ANY of the other employees? Do you think they are going to be able to succeed on teams that know how and why they were hired? Have you suddenly CREATED a gender bias against female employees?

It’s nothing against the individuals. I hope they manage to succeed. Unfortunately management has not made it easy for them. In fact they have taken what would be a tough job (I know the company and the jobs) and have made it almost impossible. Is it a wonder why they have a high attrition rate?

Prop 107 eliminates this scenario in the state government. It will do nothing to fix the messed up situation in the company that I use to work for, but it will insure that the State of Arizona is hiring the best teachers, the best administrators, and awarding contracts to the best companies. It just makes sense.

Opponents are saying that this is a step backward for race relations and for “diversity” in the state. That somehow we are all latent racists who will automatically revert to our own biased nature and hire only the people that look like us.

I give people a lot more credit than that. I work with men and women from just about every country you can think of and out of the companies I’ve worked with I haven’t come across a single person that cares (outside of racial quota supporting management) what gender or ethnicity you are. I don’t care if you are from Sri Lanka or Indiana, as long as you know what you are doing and work hard at it. I don’t care if you are an Asian woman or an overweight white guy from New Jersey, if you don’t do your job; I’m going to have real problems with you.

If you support racial quotas to undo years of racial bigotry you have to ask yourself, how long is enough? How long do you support a group because they use to be discriminated against? How long do you give preferential treatment to a minority? Is there a limit? Is there an end?

Stop all racial preferences. Give true equality. If someone discriminates, then everyone has the same appropriate legal recourse. Let’s really be color blind. That’s how you win respect for everyone, that’s how you really make a better state moving forward.

A big YES vote on Prop 107.

Prop 106

2010-10-12T11:39:00.002-07:00

It’s election time soon and so it behooves every American to actually educate themselves on what they will be voting on. While most of us are pretty informed about the candidates in the first tier positions (governor, senator, representative…), many of us fail to educate ourselves on all of the issues and options before we go to the polls.

The Secretary of State’s office sends out ample information which most people receive well before the election and promptly discard, rather than read. This is unfortunate, but I must admit, I have to throw myself into that category since I rarely read things in print these days. Fortunately the Secretary of State’s website lists all kinds of useful information including deadlines, campaign finance information, and ballot measure arguments, for and against, the propositions.

It’s a very useful tool and should be used to weed through all of the things being thrown out to the voters on election day. Here in Arizona we have 10 ballot propositions to consider ranging from land use issues to healthcare concerns. Unfortunately the advertising and even the wording of these propositions isn’t always clear and can intentionally cause confusion.

I’m taking the time to search through the ballot options here in Arizona and give my take on each of them by looking at both sides of the equation and making a decision based on the principles that I value.

The first one on the list is Prop 106, which is actually an amendment to the Arizona State Constitution.

Prop 106 is an effort to cut the legs off of Obamacare in Arizona. It states that no person or employer should be forced to provide or participate in any healthcare plan. It also says that people or employers should be able to purchase healthcare services directly. It denies the healthcare mandate put forward by the Obama Administration and stands on the 10th Amendment principle that any power not specifically ceded to the federal government falls within the domain of the state and local government. It is one of many laws or amendments being proposed in states all around the country this election season to try and rein in the ever expanding federal government.

The opposition to the law claims that the costs of healthcare will increase in Arizona if we do not buy into the federal mandates because those without insurance will continue to use emergency rooms like doctor’s offices. They also claim that without buying into the federal mandates we are leaving over a million of Arizona’s children without healthcare coverage.

There are several issues with this. Number one, Obamacare is already increasing insurance premiums across the country. This is inherent in the bill because of the minimum coverage conditions. Several companies have either dropped healthcare coverage or are requiring their employees to cough up a much larger portion of the premiums. Insurance companies are also dropping individual plans, which many people carried on their children. Fewer options, higher cost.

The new federal mandate will increase the cost of health insurance and decrease the number of people who are covered by an employer sponsored program. We are already seeing this move across the country.

The federal government already increased SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Plan) coverage drastically in the last few years, covering people who should no longer be considered children, who have income levels several times higher than the national poverty rate.

Opponents also argue that the only thing this amendment will do is guarantee a legal battle between Arizona and the federal government.

Absolutely, I couldn’t agree more. We will join with dozens of other states who already have or will pass similar measures to fight this encroachment on the rights of states and individuals. Just because something will cause a fight doesn’t mean that it should be avoided. In this case the whole purpose is to win the battle, not concede defeat. Fight and fight hard, fight loud, an overwhelming victory on Prop 106 would send a clear message to the new group of lawmakers in Congress and to the President that the people of Arizona don’t want Obamacare.

Prop 106 is like planting a flag in Arizona and saying, “no, we will not put up with a detached and corrupt federal government coming up with an indecipherable healthcare mandate that takes liberty and freedom away from the people and makes their healthcare decisions for them.”

Prop 106 is a big YES!

Governor Christie

2010-09-23T14:30:00.001-07:00

The model has been given.

All, others, please follow suit.

This is how you lead.

At first glance, Governor Chris Christie is the most unlikely political candidate. He’s over weight, has a hint of a New Jersey accent, doesn’t mince words, in fact some would even say that he has been rude at times, and finally he advocates and even governs… based on principles - and conservative ones at that!

Surely this man could never have been elected governor, especially not governor of a bluer-than-blue state with some of (if not the) highest property taxes in the country.

Watch and learn.

You’ve got to love this guy. He’s a leader. He takes his fight TO THE PEOPLE and wins. Nothing is off the table, he just has to figure out a way to explain it to the people in plain, simple, common sense language and he hits it out of the park every time.

Teachers unions – toe to toe. Bloated state employee benefits and retirement packages – bring it on. Out of control property taxes – locked and loaded.

The latest one to fall – Planned Parenthood. He cut the funding. The state legislature countered with a bill to keep the funding and the governor whipped out the VETO pen and sent it back to them. They threatened to override, but it lost… so sorry. Now at least some of the clinics in New Jersey are closing their doors.

That’s right. How many times have we had conservatives back away from fighting abortion, or fall far short of cutting funding for Planned Parenthood.

Governor Christie – you are the man. I hope he runs for President. I hope he runs in 2012. We need a problem solver. We need a leader. We need someone to take on the untouchable issues and apply conservative principles in plain, common sense language.

We need Governor Christie.

Chaos

2010-09-20T08:47:00.002-07:00

What is going on out there?

Feels like chaos doesn’t it?

Democrats are abandoning their captain, scrambling for the life boats and salvaging whatever they can out of the churning waters as the ship of the Democratic majority sinks like the Titanic smashing into the iceberg of fiscal irresponsibility.

The career Republicans are all jockeying for their own little position at the helm of the Flying Dutchman, surging from beneath the waters of their own political demise only one election ago; at the same time trying to fight the Tea Party that is quickly taking over the ship.

While this struggle for political advancement plays out, the average American is more concerned about their next paycheck than who gets to hold what title. They are more preoccupied with trying to pay their mortgage and provide for their families than they are with which suit wearing aristocrat gets to sit in the big fluffy chair.

The country is a mess. We’ve lost sight of the very liberty that was purchased at such a great cost.

On that note, the chaos is encouraging.

People are starting to pay attention.

It’s time to pull back the curtain completely. Expose the whole system for what it has become - a giant mess that cannot be fully comprehended by the average citizen. If people don’t understand it, they can’t change it. They’ll get bogged down in the minutia and they’ll give up.

The federal government has become the hydra that many of the founding fathers feared. Patrick Henry would be plastered on the evening news right now; standing on the steps of the capital building with a musket in one hand and a sword in the other screaming for a revolt.

I know, I sound like a paranoid, aluminum hat wearing, tea party, sign carrying, crazy person.

Thanks.

There is something wrong when we elect leaders touting flowery rhetoric about hope, change, and demonizing legitimate businesses and industries.

We need meaningful changes, not fancy slogans.

We need to ignore campaigns that make an emotional appeal in order to ignore the facts behind an issue.

We need to read the bills.

We need to hold people accountable.

We need to end the days of the career politicians.

We need to push for term limits in every office.

We need people who are there to fix problems, not guarantee their political futures.

Get engaged.

I’m going to spend some time going through the propositions that are going to be on my ballot this November. I’ll explain how I researched them and why I am going to vote for or against them. Whether you agree with what I am saying or not, I hope it inspires you to look at the ballot that you will vote on. Make an informed decision. Talk to your neighbors, friends, and coworkers about their choices and educate them if you need to.

Don’t follow the rhetoric, look at the facts. Decide where you would really like to see your country, your state, your county, your city, your school board – and make it happen.

I'm back!

2010-09-01T08:08:00.000-07:00

About a year ago I stopped blogging. A year. Wow.

I really didn’t mean for it to be that long, it just ended up that way. I have been working on a book in my copious free time, and last night I finished the rough draft (and there was much rejoicing). I still have a lot of work to do, including probably two more drafts of the book, but it is a major milestone for me and I am excited about it.

Also in the last year I began gardening. The gardens that were for a long time just holes (and sometimes frog ponds) in my backyard have yielded all kinds of fresh fruits and veggies. I thought it would be fun, but I had no idea what a great experience it would be and how much I would really enjoy it.

Along with the gardening I began composting because I wanted to improve the composition of the soil in my gardens. Well the first round of compost is in the ground and it looks great!

The beds are prepared and the first seeds of the fall/winter garden are in – very exciting. This fall I will be growing a plethora of different things, including green beans, broccoli, celery, carrots, snap peas, spinach, loose leaf and head lettuce, romaine, cabbage, garlic, and onions.

Good times.

Despite a very busy year, I haven’t been ignoring what has been going on in the world or the country. There are lots of dangerous and concerning things both on the national and international stage. I’m considering how I would like the blog to look and what changes I will make from how I use to do it. We are two months away from a very important midterm election and the composition of our government is due for a shuffle. Republican hopefuls are also beginning to spend time in Iowa and New Hampshire (if they haven’t been already). We will see a handful emerge from the ever increasing pack in the next few months. The presidential election season has become a very long and tedious adventure and this one will certainly be no different.

So… I’m back!

Thanks for reading. Expect more soon.

Do they really want competition?

2009-09-10T18:11:00.002-07:00

Just watch the video and it is very clear. Wolf Blitzer understands it, David Axelrod, senior advisor to the President does not. They aren't talking about competition because they really WANT competition. They are talking about it because it sounds good and it masks the move toward single payer. Hats off to Wolf for really pushing the point.

ACORN working for...

2009-09-10T10:37:00.004-07:00

Prostitution, sex trafficing of underage girls, tax fraud... it's all good.

That's the ACORN way.

Did I mention they get tax payer funding?

What the videos, wretch into the closest trash can, then call your Congressman and ask them to pull all funding for ACORN. Election fraud was bad enough to prompt the phone call, but this is just ridiculous. How long will our tax money fund this institution?

This was just funny...

2009-09-10T08:05:00.001-07:00

The Lies and Story Behind the President's Speech

2009-09-09T21:57:00.005-07:00

The following are excerpts from the President's speech to Congress on 9.9.09 with my comments following.

Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem.

- Actually, it is a part of the deficit problem, but how is spending more money and resources going to fix the problem?

First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already
have health insurance through your job, Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA, nothing
in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the
doctor you have. Let me repeat this: nothing in our plan requires you to change
what you have.

- Unless he is talking about a new, unseen bill, this is not true. Your healthcare plan would be required to change. At the most, your plan COULD be the same as it is now for up to five years. Of course even mentioning this ignores the fact that my healthcare plan is MY business, not the business of the government. The tone of being some benevolent dictator is revolting. My healthcare is MY business and the Constitution does not give the government the right to interfere with it.

What this plan will do is to make the insurance you have work better for
you. Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny
you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. As soon as I sign this bill,
it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when
you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able
to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given
year or a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for
out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should
go broke because they get sick. And insurance companies will be required to
cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like
mammograms and colonoscopies

- See this is the problem. Sometimes politicians don’t seem to live in the real world. This is all fluff that sounds really good, but what it really means is $$$$$$$$$. Insurance companies have to show a profit. If you cover more things, you limit deductibles… you have to increase premiums. Costs don’t magically disappear. They are real. They are legitimate. And they are going to SKYROCKET! Or, your health insurance company will go out of business. Guess that could affect the coverage you currently haven’t couldn’t it?

This exchange will take effect in four years, which will give us time to do
it right

- If these are such a good idea, why not start them now? Why wait four years? Oh wait, when they fall flat or become an obvious Trojan horse for a government run plan it will be too late. President Obama’s last election will already be over.

Now, even if we provide these affordable options, there may be those —
particularly the young and healthy — who still want to take the risk and go
without coverage. There may still be companies that refuse to do right by their
workers. The problem is, such irresponsible behavior costs all the rest of us
money. If there are affordable options and people still don't sign up for health
insurance, it means we pay for those people's expensive emergency room visits.
If some businesses don't provide workers health care, it forces the rest of us
to pick up the tab when their workers get sick, and gives those businesses an
unfair advantage over their competitors. And unless everybody does their part,
many of the insurance reforms we seek — especially requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions — just can't be achieved.That's why under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance — just as most states require you to carry auto insurance. Likewise, businesses will be
required to either offer their workers health care, or chip in to help cover the
cost of their workers. There will be a hardship waiver for those individuals who
still cannot afford coverage, and 95 percent of all small businesses, because of
their size and narrow profit margin, would be exempt from these requirements.
But we cannot have large businesses and individuals who can afford coverage game the system by avoiding responsibility to themselves or their employees.
Improving our health care system only works if everybody does their part.

- Okay, just to make sure I read that right, because you are alive, you will be required to have health insurance. Now, I understand about car insurance, after all you are placing other people at risk, but you don’t have to drive it you don’t want to, and hence, you don’t need to buy car insurance. But if you are a living, breathing American you will be FORCED to buy health insurance? Why not just FORCE people to pay their emergency room bills? Garnish their wages until their bill is paid. And I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, mandating coverage does not MAGICALLY give businesses the money to pay for it. Even larger businesses that don’t insure their workers will look at the cost and say one of two things, either they have to lay off some workers to be able to afford it, or simply close up shop and move the business off shore. Oh yah, this should help unemployment.

The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts,
but prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the
power to kill off senior citizens. Such a charge would be laughable if it
weren't so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.

- Actually it’s not a lie. Of course, no government actually calls them death panels, but what the bill proposes, or use to propose before a Senate committee withdrew it, is a panel to determine guidelines for appropriate care, much like those that exist in the UK. Only they aren’t only for older people, they are for all people. Like this baby that was born premature at 21 week and 5 days. The NHS rule book for premature babies is that only babies born after 22 weeks or later will be provided for. So this baby survived for two hours while his mother begged and pleaded with doctors to help him, but he passed away without any medical attention. Now, would you call the panel that makes that decision a “death panel?” I think the name is understandable.

There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal
immigrants. This, too, is false — the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to
those who are here illegally.

- As the congressman pointed out, this is a lie. There is no stipulation in the bill that beneficiaries of any of these changes must be US citizens, therefore the door is open to all.

And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up — under our plan, no
federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will
remain in place.

- I really wish this one were true, but HR3200 makes it very clear that minimum coverage will be determined by the department of Health and Human Services and whoever is the commissioner or czar or whatever you want to title them, that is put in charge of the application of the system. Half a dozen amendments were proposed and voted down (on party lines) that would have kept the Hyde Amendment in place, prohibiting abortions. If the bill would have kept abortions from being funded then why not just approve the amendment? Well, the President and half of Congress needs to make sure they live up to the promises that they have made to Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and the rest of the pro-abortion lobby.

So let me set the record straight. My guiding principle is, and always has
been, that consumers do better when there is choice and competition.
Unfortunately, in 34 states, 75 percent of the insurance market is controlled by
five or fewer companies. In Alabama, almost 90 percent is controlled by just one
company. Without competition, the price of insurance goes up and the quality
goes down. And it makes it easier for insurance companies to treat their
customers badly — by cherry-picking the healthiest individuals and trying to
drop the sickest; by overcharging small businesses who have no leverage; and by
jacking up rates.

- This was probably the biggest lie of the night. Did you catch it? The president affirms that his guiding principle with the ‘public option’ is about competition. Now he is right that consumers do better with competition, but his plan doesn’t provide that. It provides a government option. That’s not competition, that’s a government take over. If the President wanted consumers to benefit from competition he would make the healthcare market a national one by breaking down the state and local barriers and letting all insurance companies compete in any market. End local mandates and local monopolies. THAT is competition! Not a government option.

Despite all this, the insurance companies and their allies don't like this
idea. They argue that these private companies can't fairly compete with the
government. And they'd be right if taxpayers were subsidizing this public
insurance option. But they won't be. I have insisted that like any private
insurance company, the public insurance option would have to be self-sufficient
and rely on the premiums it collects.

- REALLY!? Now even without public subsidies, would the government insurance provider have to pay the same taxes that the private companies do? No. Would they have to maintain the same capital requirements that the private companies do? No (look at Fannie and Freddie as an example). So would the government plan be undercutting the private insurance companies? Yes.

And I will make sure that no government bureaucrat or insurance company
bureaucrat gets between you and the care that you need.

- If the government is supplying insurance, then by definition, there will be a bureaucrat or panel that will decide what will be covered and what won’t. A patient may say that they absolutely have to have a sex change in order to live a healthy, normal life, but will the public option cover that? Or that they have to have an abortion because they can’t afford a baby. Will that be covered? Who is going to make that call?

Here's what you need to know. First, I will not sign a plan that adds one
dime to our deficits — either now or in the future. Period. And to prove
that I'm serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to
come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don't
materialize. Part of the reason I faced a trillion dollar deficit when I walked
in the door of the White House is because too many initiatives over the last
decade were not paid for — from the Iraq War to tax breaks for the wealthy. I will not make that same mistake with health care.
- Quite frankly he is already predicting TRILLION dollar deficits EVERY year, so there is very little integrity to back up this statement, but in any case, how can you extend insurance to another 30 MILLION people without costing any more money? Again, I think we need to remember this is the real world, not fantasy land.

Second, we've estimated that most of this plan can be paid for by finding
savings within the existing health care system — a system that is currently full
of waste and abuse. Right now, too much of the hard-earned savings and tax
dollars we spend on health care doesn't make us healthier.

- Can you really say that you are serious about this if you are not asking for tort reform? The extra tests that most doctors do are to cover their bottom lines if and when they get sued. If you aren’t talking tort reform, then you really aren’t serious about bringing down these costs.

Now, because Medicare is such a big part of the health care system, making
the program more efficient can help usher in changes in the way we deliver
health care that can reduce costs for everybody.

- Didn’t the President just expound on the fact that government run insurance will be so much cheaper and more efficient than private insurance companies? Now he is saying that the system that the government already runs and controls needs to be improved to be more efficient? What he doesn’t mention is that the cost cutting measures in Medicare include reductions in fees paid to physicians, which will cause more physicians to refuse to treat Medicare patients, or up their costs to their non-Medicare patients.

Finally, many in this chamber — particularly on the Republican side of the
aisle — have long insisted that reforming our medical malpractice laws can help
bring down the cost of health care. I don't believe malpractice reform is a
silver bullet, but I have talked to enough doctors to know that defensive
medicine may be contributing to unnecessary costs. So I am proposing that we
move forward on a range of ideas about how to put patient safety first and let
doctors focus on practicing medicine. I know that the Bush Administration
considered authorizing demonstration projects in individual states to test these
issues. It's a good idea, and I am directing my Secretary of Health and Human
Services to move forward on this initiative today.

- Lip service to tort reform. Read it this way, “I know you want me to say the words tort reform, but I just can’t bring myself to do that, so I’m going to tell you that my Health and Human Services Secretary will look into this problem. I’m brushing tort reform off, but hey at least I kind of mentioned it.”

And if we are able to slow the growth of health care costs by just one-tenth
of one percent each year, it will actually reduce the deficit by $4 trillion
over the long term.

- CBO numbers do not back this up. Not even close. They predict a deficit in the hundreds of billions of dollars related to HR3200.

Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing. Our deficit
will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More
Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most. And more
will die as a result. We know these things to be true.

- Read it like this, “I don’t like scare tactics unless they help me.”

One of the unique and wonderful things about America has always been our
self-reliance, our rugged individualism, our fierce defense of freedom and our
healthy skepticism of government. And figuring out the appropriate size and role
of government has always been a source of rigorous and sometimes angry debate.

- This is in the middle of a section where he uses the memory of the late Ted Kennedy to drive home the emotional aspect. I completely agree with the statement, but it runs counter to the government based plan that the President just laid out.

I understand that the politically safe move would be to kick the can further
down the road — to defer reform one more year, or one more election, or one more term.

- That must be why the plan takes four years to kick in.

Basically the President gave a good speech that laid out the same things that he has been saying all summer. Looking at the legislation, many of his points are misleading, disingenuous or out right lies. The speech was more of the same and was really just about reasserting himself into the center of the debate.

Inappropriate

2009-09-09T18:52:00.003-07:00

Am I a fan of the President's policies? Obviously not.

Do I believe that he has lied repeatedly during some of his speeches on healthcare? Yes. At the very least his comments have been very misleading half truthes.

In this case about illegal immigrants, there is nothing in the bill that requires verification of citizenship to receive benefits. In the past and present, this has been an open door to illegal aliens. So, the President is being very deceiving.

That being said, do I think it is appropriate to yell out "You LIE!" or "Liar!" during a presidential address to Congress? No.

Of course, I don't think the President's comments were appropriate either, but I will comment more on that later.

Here's the video

The Expectation is KILLING ME... okay, maybe not

2009-09-09T08:12:00.000-07:00

So, what are we going to hear tonight? That is, if we are watching. The President’s prime time press conferences have gotten a decreasing number of viewers each time. I think tonight is a little different considering the tremendous hot button that the healthcare debate has become, plus this is a speech to Congress so it carries a lot more weight than just your average press conference.

Will he say that healthcare reform must include a public option? Will he give an unreasonable deadline, considering the real bill hasn’t even been made public yet, or possibly even been written? Will he announce that his own team, rather than Congressional leadership, is crafting the bill? Not a question of if, but how often, will he mention the late Senator Kennedy?

This could be a huge opportunity to win public favor and convince the American people that he is taking the reigns on this issue and he’s going to do it right. If he announces that they are going to slow down and really weigh their options because healthcare reform is too big and too important to get it wrong, he will get broad support and unanimous approval. His ratings would spike. The far left would be critical, but he would win over independents, a group that he is losing in droves right now.

There are lots of things that could be done with this speech, but will any of it make a difference. An address to Congress carries a lot of weight, but also a lot of expectation. This is a rare occasion. If treated lightly it will hurt his credibility. People are tired of platitudes and generalities. The average Joe has heard more about healthcare in the last 40 days than they ever want to hear about again. They want the specifics. They want the nuts and bolts. No more messing around and vague generalities. Unfortunately, the President has notoriously lacked details in any of his speeches up to this point, and those that he has provided have been demonstrably contrary to the current legislation.

So what will we see and how many will watch?

The speech is scheduled for 8pm eastern time if you are interested.

Our Current and Escalating Economic Mess

2009-09-08T08:02:00.002-07:00

As we are all distracted by the mess that is healthcare reform we need to keep one eye on our economy. Unless you are the Vice President, or a lobbyist for a labor union, you probably realize that the $787 BILLION stimulus package so far has been a bust. Millions more jobs have been lost, unemployment in most areas is hitting levels not seen in a quarter of a century or more, and the US government is borrowing almost half of every dollar they spend. Deficits are planned for more than 10 years out of approximately $1 TRILLION per year. That’s planned spending that doesn’t even include the full impact of healthcare reform (if that survives in any form). This cannot go on forever. Unlike what some in congress may say, we cannot borrow our way to prosperity. The United States is not immune to reality.

The Fed continues to print money to buy up debt from the Treasury and our lenders are getting tired of it. China has said that they will start to diversify their foreign reserves. Of course when they say that, they mean that they are going to start dumping the $2 TRILLION dollars that they hold in US currency. Certainly this is one of the reasons gold has come back up to $1000 an ounce as China and other countries move away from the dollar towards investments that will provide protection against American inflation. For us that means an uptick in inflation considering $2 TRILLION will start floating back into the system.

Economists have started to say that we are pulling out of the recession, which is true, we are pulling out of the latest trough. But was that the bottom? Cash for clunkers spurred an artificial boom of 700K cars sold, but what will an artificial boom do to demand in the next two quarters?

The method deployed for the stimulus has never worked and is not going to work for us long term. The government can’t borrow and spend the country into sustained prosperity.

What’s worse is that the backlash against these monstrous deficits will not result in a cut back in spending, but rather an increase in taxes. This will only force more jobs and more companies off shore or out of business. Throw in a health insurance mandate and you’ll crush the small businesses that make up half of the economy. Mandating insurance coverage doesn’t magically give companies the ability to afford it.

The dollar just hit a new low for the year. Gold is soaring. High unemployment.

Have we paved the way for a solid, sustained recovery, or are we going through a sugar spike that is going to leave us worse than how it found us.

Cut spending. Cut taxes. Pull some money out of the system. Stop lending money to ourselves. Restore investor confidence in the US dollar.

Friday Rant

2009-09-04T08:31:00.001-07:00

Just a quick rant list for Friday:

- Van Jones the “Green Jobs” Czar. This is just one more example of the kind of people that the President chooses to associate himself with. This week Van Jones made news by referring to republicans using a cheap, school yard expletive. But more research into Van Jones reveals several odd things. Number one he is a self described communist. Ok, that’s a little different. He also signed on to a 9/11 “truther” petition that demands investigations into the US government and makes claims that the Bush administration at the very least KNEW about the 9/11 attacks and did nothing to stop them. Oh yah, definitely cabinet level material here.

- Rep Charlie Rangel. Under investigation by the ethics committee for failing to correctly report his income from rental properties around the world, Congressman Rangel, the Chairmen of the House Ways and Means Committee (you know the one that is responsible for tax law), gave campaign contributions to members of the ethics committee that were investigating him. Hmmm…. sounds kind of fishy to me.

- Sen Harry Reid. Recently the Senator Majority Leader endeared himself further to his constituents by telling the largest newspaper in Las Vegas that he hopes they go out of business. The paper responded with this scathing editorial that left me laughing and cheering. Combine that with the fact that Reid trails either of his republican challengers significantly, I would say the Senator Majority Leader will be looking at unemployment come 2010.

- Vice President Biden. Well, just saying Vice President Biden kind of explains everything, but this week he said that the economic stimulus package had exceeded their expectations. REALLY!? I hope someone on his staff showed him the new unemployment figures. Of course unemployment figures stop counting people who have given up looking for jobs. The official number is 9.7, but some say that real unemployment may be as high as 16%.

- The Presidential address to the school children of the nation. My first thought was, “wow, has the President already run out of groups that want to hear him speak?” Then when I read the “accompanying materials” that encouraged teachers to prepare for the speech by reading books about presidents, or a book about Barack Obama, and included all kinds of activities for kids to discuss how they are going to help the President. I don’t know the whole thing just seems creepy. My kids say that their school hasn’t even mentioned it. Personally I think the whole thing is going to back fire and the kids that do see it will mock, rather than admire, the effort.

Health Care Reform Goes Hand in Hand with Tort Reform

2009-09-02T09:53:00.000-07:00

As politicians head back to Washington and start reviewing and debating the latest version of what will be the Kennedy Healthcare Act or some version thereof, I thought it would be good to look at something this bill is guaranteed to miss, tort reform.

It’s one of those political, Washington sounding phrases that basically means we need to get a hold of the trial lawyers who troll around outside doctor’s offices waiting for them to make a mistake. Don’t get me wrong; just like anything that has been abused, there are legitimate cases against irresponsible doctors. The system should be set up to deal reasonably with those and discourage and weed out the vampires that bleed the system.

These frivolous lawsuits cost you money and drive up the over all cost of healthcare. Malpractice insurance isn’t cheap! It varies by region and the type of practice you have, but it can easily run into the six figure range for an annual premium, especially for more high risk type specialties like OBs and nuerosurgeons. But the costs aren’t all direct. Every time a doctor meets with a patient they not only have to focus on treating a condition, or finding the cause of a problem, they have to think about what tests they need to run just to cover their backside in case of a lawsuit. The costs for people in rural areas are even more significant because many times a doctor can’t make enough money with a rural practice to cover his costs, so many communities don’t have a doctor, forcing them to commute to the doctor’s office. Sound familiar?

Now lets look at the scenario that occurred in Texas.

According to an Op-ed by the Texas Governor, Rick Perry, they were faced with a serious issue six years ago. Doctors were leaving the state in droves. 13 out of 17 liability insurers (providing malpractice insurance) left the state. Costs to doctors were going through the roof, which elevates the costs to the patients. 24 counties had no primary care doctors at all. 2/3 of the counties had no practicing obstetricians and 6/10 had no pediatricians.

Sounds like a mess doesn’t it?

So they reformed it, capping non-economic damages and put and end to law suits dragging on for years that do nothing but rack up lawyer’s fees.

And the market responded.

Ten insurance companies came into the state and malpractice insurance costs plummeted by an average of 27%. Over 14,000 doctors have come back to, or started up their practices in Texas in the first five years since the reforms. More OBs, pediatricians, and general practitioners are moving into areas that have never had these services in their communities.

In all fairness, there is one group that is very unhappy with the changes; the trial lawyers.

So why doesn’t the President’s healthcare reform plan include tort reform?

Take a look at this list of donations of trial lawyers to politicians, then take a look at the fact that lawyers/law firms gave over $178 million dollars to Democrats during the last election cycle ($54 million to Republicans). $eem$ like a pretty $trait forward an$wer to me.

Tell your reps you don’t want ANY healthcare reform without TORT reform. Let’s fix the system.

A healing elixir

2009-08-28T05:39:00.000-07:00

It’s been quite the week. After a very busy weekend I went to bed early Monday night with a sore throat. Other than a trip to the doctor’s office, an occasional visit to the rest room, and two occasions where I became so hungry the pain woke me up, I stayed in bed until Wednesday morning. Nothing like a week’s worth of sleep and some antibiotics to clear things up.

The funny thing is I tried herbal teas with honey, Advil, Tylenol, and even a special prescription mouthwash that is suppose to be great for sore throats, but none of it made my throat feel any better. Non-contagious I came into work yesterday with my throat still killing me and poured myself the first coffee I had had in three days. It worked beautifully. My throat felt better for hours. I honestly thought it was going to make it worse, but it was like a magic salve of goodness running down my throat. I’ve had strep before and coffee has never helped, but I’ve never tried French press coffee with strep. I think there must be something about the oils in it… I don’t know, but it was beautiful. Later in the afternoon it started bothering me again and I poured myself another cup and it got better with every sip. I highly recommend.

Of course, I highly recommend the press anyway, especially if you are a heavy coffee drinker and want to cut back. Huh? Oh yes, I use to drink pots, if not gallons of coffee a day. Now, just two to three cups a day and I am gooooood. If you don’t like coffee because of its bitterness, but you really like the smell of coffee, you have to try the press. It’s all the beauties of coffee and none of the draw backs. I’ve been on the press for a couple of years now and have even converted my wife. In fact… we don’t even OWN a drip coffee maker right now. The two that we had both busted and we have no desire to replace them. I am in the market for a bigger press, just in case we have guests who want an amazing cup of coffee.

I still have some drip coffee on occasion and in a pinch it gets you through, but why someone would be willing to subject themselves to that on a regular basis, knowing the rich, bold, flavorful goodness of the French press, is beyond me.

Speaking of which… I think it’s time for some right now.

Outrageous!!!

2009-08-20T09:45:00.001-07:00

I’m a fan of the second amendment, just like I’m a fan of the first amendment, but I don’t own a gun and I certainly don’t carry a gun. Recently at an anti-Obamacare rally in AZ, one of our many gun-toting citizens decided to appear at the rally armed; a gun on the hip and an assault rifle over the shoulder - all of it perfectly LEGAL.

Do I think it was necessarily a good idea? No. It’s not something that I would do. But I am not about to tell someone else that they can’t. Especially when it’s legal and… well… they have an assault rifle. J

Now here is the interesting part that I wanted to talk about. The American Thinker has a clip of the man (obviously cropped like mad) that was played on MSNBC. The reason MSNBC played the clip is so that they could go on a long rampage about how all of this healthcare protesting has a racist tint to it. REALLY!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

Here is the best part…

Are you ready?

The part that they cropped out of the video is the part that shows that the man CARRYING the assault rifle… is BLACK.

Go to American Thinker and watch the video then look at the full picture below it. Ridiculous.

Once again. This has nothing to do with race. It has everything to do with a BAD IDEA and a BAD BILL. By calling it racist or even strongly hinting that this is racist, totally diverts people from the real issue, which of course, is the goal. How dishonest of MSNBC to do that. It just goes to prove… once again… how IN THE TANK they are for this administration that they would sacrifice any shred of professional integrity that they might have one time had, in order to smear people that oppose the administrations agenda.

Shame on you MSNBC!

BTW... if you watch the video, the MSNBC egghead says "a Mark Hinckley figure", but obviously, being a moron, he messes it up. The man who tried to assassinate President Reagan was mentally deranged, JOHN Hinckley. Seriously, where do they get these people?

Poll Comparisons to Past Presidents

2009-08-20T06:26:00.002-07:00

It’s been a rough start. Just my personal opinion. I think it’s a combination of the speed with which he is moving combined with the far left policies that he is pushing that have translated into this sudden move downward. Peter Wehner has a poll comparison between the initial approval rating of Presidents since Eisenhower to their average during August. Some of the numbers are very impressive, some for good reasons... others for bad.

Eisenhower +6 (from 68 to 74 percent)
Kennedy +4 (from 72 to 76 percent)
Nixon +3 (from 59 to 62 percent)
Carter -3 (from 66 to 63 percent)
Reagan +9 (from 51 to 60 percent)
George H. W. Bush +18 (from 51 to 69 percent)
Clinton -14 (from 58 to 44 percent)
George W. Bush -1 (from 57 to 56 percent)
Obama -14 (from 68 to 54 percent).

The numbers aren’t really that important at this point in the game. The real key is that conservatives need to keep good solid pressure on the administration and bring out the information that the media is ignoring. Read the bills. Watch what is going on. Keep the information flowing.

A letter to Congressmen Waxman and Stupak

2009-08-19T20:08:00.001-07:00

Congress is on a witch hunt to try and embarass executives at all of the major insurance companies and gather information about their business.

This is ridiculous.

So, I drafted the following letter which I will be sending to my reps and to Congressman Waxman and Congressman Stupak.

Congressman Waxman and Congressman Stupak,

Recently the Congress sent letters requesting information from insurance companies regarding executive pay and bonus structure, bonuses and salaries paid, along with information regarding profit from different aspects of their business. As an American I am always encouraged when the government supports transparent and open policies.

It is in that vein that I would like to request documentation from the Congress regarding the following items. Please include all requested information for all years encompassing the 105th through 111th Congresses.

(1) Information regarding earmarks. Including, but not limited to
a. Which congressional member requested all earmarks whether finally approved or not.
b. Which congressional member received campaign contributions directly or indirectly tied to companies, firms, or organizations who received any earmarks or other forms of government assistance.
c. As well detail any travel, dinners, parties, or fundraisers that were hosted or sponsored by any organization, company, or firm which received tax payer funds.

(2) Information concerning Congressional travel. Include detailed and itemized information in regards to all of the following:
a. Per diems received by Congressional members. How and where those per diems were spent and a detailed list of excess funds which are required to be returned if not needed.
b. A list of congressional trips taken during the 105th – 111th Congress, including all trips that were funded through public or private means. Any travel that may have already been detailed in Section (1) should be noted again here as well.
c. Please clearly state all congressional members, family, and friends who were also present during such trips and the purpose for each attendee.
d. As well state the over all purpose for each congressional trip and provide justification for repeated trips to and from Washington D.C. in excess of one round trip per month. Please include all travel and provide dollar approximations for accommodations made to Congressional members through the Air Force and give written justification why Congressional members needed Air Force assistance, rather than taking readily available commercial transportation.
(3) A detailed accounting of all funds associated with Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and a detailed plan for returning all of the funds that have been “borrowed” from these accounts for the last seven decades.

Being an understanding member of the electorate, I will allow you until the end of the calendar year to provide the above information. I may request further information from you on all of the included topics, after all, we are all interested in finding and eliminating wasteful spending during this financial crisis.

I would like to state that in the future all such information should be readily available and included in one of the governments myriads of web pages. As a concerned citizen I am sure that you will understand our desire for brilliant light to shine into the practices of our elected officials.

Best regards,

Keith Jones
www.keithjonesblog.com

Pre-existing Conditions

2009-08-19T08:48:00.000-07:00

This is a hot button, I understand that, but read and keep an open mind.

I have some family members who are not employed where they get healthcare coverage. They have tried to seek private insurance, willing to pay the premiums themselves, and they have been denied because of certain chronic health factors. At the same time they don’t qualify for state assistance. This means when they go to the doctor they have to negotiate a price and pay out of their own pocket. That’s not too bad, but a trip to the ER ends up costing them huge and there just isn’t much they can do about it.

In this case it seems only right to say that insurance companies cannot deny someone coverage because of a pre-existing condition.

I hope that this exact scenario is the reason for Section 111, of HR3200, which across the board prohibits insurance companies from denying coverage because of a pre-existing condition. I hope. But sometimes things that are put in place for good reasons have ‘unintended’ bad consequences.

Now, let’s think for a minute. Say Jane is in her thirties. She’s self employed and relatively healthy and only goes to the doctor every couple of years, so when it comes to insurance she decides to pass and pocket the money. One morning, Jane finds a lump. She goes to the doctor and finds out that she has an aggressive form of breast cancer. Facing huge medical costs as well as the personal and emotional trauma of the situation she goes and applies for insurance, which they cannot deny. She gets her coverage and begins treating her cancer. She has a mastectomy, but finds a lump in the other breast resulting in another mastectomy. She goes through chemo and radiation and is in remission. Things are improving. The insurance company is also required to cover breast reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy, so she decides to have that as well. She’s finally recovered from this personal struggle and she finally hears the words from the doctor that she has been waiting for, a clean bill of health. Fantastic! But, it’s been two years of struggle and she wants to do some things to have fun, go on vacation, buy a new car, live life again. So, she looks at her expenses and decides to drop her medical insurance since she really doesn’t need it anymore.

The insurance company has just fit the bill for two years of treatments, including multiple surgeries, very expensive treatments and medications, and has collected a tiny fraction of that money back in premiums. They are literally tens of thousands of dollars in the red for just one case. They are a company, with stockholders and investors, they have to show a profit, so they increase premiums across the board. Naturally that causes other people who aren’t in the midst of a personal tragedy to drop their insurance, knowing they can pick it up again should a tragedy occur.

Realistically speaking, how can the insurance company stay in business? Insurance companies don’t really make money off of sick people, they make money off of healthy people.

So then do we start bailing out insurance companies?

Undoubtedly you suddenly have people being dropped as insurance companies go out of business. Amid the national outcry to help the average family that is suddenly without coverage, the government steps in with a plan to help those who have been hit hard by this unfortunate turn of events.

Hmmm…

Public option or no public option, this bill has some good intentions with some very negative possible consequences.

Are you serious? Predictions for 2012?! Yes! It's Entertaining!

2009-08-18T09:45:00.001-07:00

A recent poll showed that the country is moving to the right, despite the fact, or maybe even because of the fact that we just elected a far left president. Certainly the push towards bigger government, higher taxes, and increased government intervention into EVERYTHING has spawned right wingers like a virtual conservative ideological baby boom. Conservatives and the Republican Party are now looking at the 2010 election with mouths watering. Some estimate that as many as 70 congressional democrats could be on the chopping block. Ouch.

With that in mind, I recently got an email asking about 2012. Granted in politics, three years can be a life time (the last seven months have certainly dragged by). But really over the next probably 12 to 18 months you are going to see a field of Republican leaders emerge.

This far out, these are my best guesses of who might be in it and what I think their chances are… just because it’s fun to do.

Some familiar faces:
- Mitt Romney. He’s never left the public eye with frequent appearances on talk shows, radio, and even a tour around the country. He’s got plenty of money and a solid understanding of economics, which, if things continue to circle the bottom of the toilet, may still be a major issue in 2012. He also carries a lot of baggage with the MA healthcare system sucking wind, but, I think he would be a solid candidate.
- Sarah Palin. First let me say, I like Sarah Palin. She is a very likeable person. In hindsight I think she was thrust onto the national stage too early. She needs more exposure, which she is getting VERY cheap right now, winning some body blows against the healthcare mess by posting messages on FB. Ouch. She energizes the base and I think will be a huge asset in raising funds for conservatives if she chooses to. That being said, I don’t think she would make a very good Presidential candidate yet, if ever. I do think she would be a great person to replace Michael Steele as head of the GOP, since she could really bring in the funds from the base and people trust her to back conservative principles.
- Mike Huckabee. The former governor is somebody else that I really like. I like listening to him, he is an excellent speaker and did very well in most of the large debates last time around. We’ll see if he has honed his international policy portfolio at all, which last time really hurt him.

Some newer faces:
- Tim Pawlenty: The current governor of Minnesota is poking his face out into the national scene more and more. He was rumored a possible VP candidate last time around and holds some fairly decent conservative credentials. He has also been a sane voice in state that was once run by a former professional wrestler and recently elected an SNL character to the Senate. I like Minnesota, but there is just a lot of crazy up there.
- Rick Perry: The current governor of Texas may be in a prime spot if the economy is still in the tank, considering he is leading a state with a thriving economy, a growing business environment, and a stable housing market. He has also recently been making some international house calls to Israel, promising a close relationship between the loan star state and our only real ally in the Middle East. He is actively recruiting foreign businesses from allied nations to come set up shop in Texas, rather than driving businesses away with ever increasing taxes. What a novel concept! At the same time he has said some really stupid things in the last six months, which may fly well in TX and win him another term as governor, but don’t sound too good on the national stage. He’ll need to taper his TX rhetoric a bit to win the country.
- Piyush Jindal: I know you probably said, “who?” Piyush is actually Bobby Jindal’s real first name. At 37, the LA governor is young. Very young. But if anybody could pull it off, I would be betting on him. Educated as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, Jindal is nothing short of brilliant. Even though he underwhelmed at his first major national speech, he is a gifted public speaker and very good off the cuff. Throw that on top of the fact that he was very easily elected governor of LA, without a typical run-off election. He enjoys an approval rating in a historically liberal state 11% above the current liberal president and he is doing amazing things to turn Louisiana around. He has already pledged to run for re-election in 2011 which I think is a great move. I really think he would be a better candidate in 2016 or even 2020. After all, he’s so young, he has plenty of time and he is on track to build up a great record. Whenever he runs, I think you are looking at the first President of east Indian immigrants.

And the wild card:
- There are a few politically entrenched people out there that have the ability to jump into the race and make an impact. People you might not think of until they actually announced and then you’d go, “oh yeah, sure!” Some random names come to mind, like Newt Gingrich and even Rick Santorum, but I think either of those would be long shots.

In any case, I think there is a great possibility that someone with some national exposure, though not widely considered could still come to the front and be a major force. Maybe even some Hollywood type like a Kelsey Grammer or Gary Sinise, should they decide to put their careers on hold to put their hat into the political ring. In any of these cases they would need to start hinting at their intentions with speeches and appearances just to get themselves as at least an option in people’s minds.

In any case, for political junkies like me the next two elections are going to be very interesting. Of course, in the meantime we’ll be enduring some very interesting… if not trying times. We should probably consider the “fasten seatbelt sign” radiantly illuminated.

God's blessings

2009-08-17T22:17:00.001-07:00

I don’t talk about it nearly as much as I should, but I am a very blessed man. Really in too many ways to count God has just filled my cup to over flowing. One of those ways that just hits me every single week is at my church home. It’s not the sermons, although those are outstanding. It’s not the worship, although it is powerful and moving. It’s not any of the things that happen during the normal adult worship experience. It’s when I get a chance to go help teach kids in our Kidzone Large Group at Mission.

It really is an amazing experience. For an hour each week I get to come together with my truly amazing wife, Brandi, our good friend and fellow goofball, Kevin, one of the teens who doesn’t say much but keeps the whole thing rolling in the tech booth, Matt, and somehow God takes all of our talents or lack thereof and makes something really great. I hope that it makes half of the impact on the kids that it makes on me.

Seeing my wife up there praising God and getting fifty kids at a time to join her in singing and worshipping and celebrating God is just so awesome. Then to see her turn around and sit down with kids. She has this heart of gold that the kids just pick up on and… I can’t describe it, I can get the kids to give me five, but she gets them to pour out their hearts for five minutes. She hears about the hurts and fears and then prays with them and ministers to them – it is truly awesome to witness.

Then Kevin, my goofy twin separated at birth, gets up there and gets the kids totally involved with his jokes and stories and completely gets their attention, and then after it’s over he completely flips the switch and so many times will sit down and give a personal testimony to the kids and the adults, of how he has seen God work in his life. It’s powerful stuff. I know he connects with the kids, but that guy also blows me away on a regular basis.

Somewhere in there I get to get up and tell a story. Usually one that I heard a hundred times growing up, or one that I’ve read fifty times, and even some that nearly bring me to tears because they so clearly convey the love and mercy of Jesus. I have a script, but I never follow it exactly. The points all seem to come out at one time or another, but I just feel like God is taking the small gift he has given me and used it to plant some seeds, water some seedlings, and reinforce the footholds that God is making in kids’ lives. It’s moving to me. I think I get more out of it than the kids do. I love it.

10:30 on Sunday morning has become one of the highlights of my whole week. Definitely one of, if not the most, uplifting hour of my whole week.

If you don’t have a church home, you need to get one. More importantly, if you don’t know Jesus, you need to seek him out. I’d love to introduce him to you. I might have to tell you a couple of really cool stories to do it, but hey that was Jesus’ method too.  I’m KeithJonesBlog on FB.

If you have a church home, but you aren’t serving, or you aren’t serving in an area where you really feel you are using the talents that God has given you; then please find your spot. There is room for everyone to serve in God’s kingdom, and the experience and fulfillment that God can bring through that can really shed some important light on life.

An interesting development indeed…

2009-08-17T17:21:00.001-07:00

It is true that you really can’t believe everything that you read. Some sources are saying that a public plan is ‘off the table’. While other Democratic leaders (Speaker Pelosi) are saying that the public option is alive and NEEDS to move forward. This has become the essence of a rock and a hard place.

If the Democrats abandon the public option, then their base will be livid, feeling like they’ve missed a huge opportunity considering they have a liberal president and overwhelming majorities in the House and Senate. If they move forward with the public option they anger a majority of their constituents and resign themselves to a possible landslide defeat at the polls in 2010.

What to do?

This all just adds to the fact that we have no idea what will be in the final healthcare bill, which means when it finally does come out I am anticipating a 1500+ page behemoth of a bill that will be shoved through congress as quickly as possible. If that is the route they attempt then it will be essential to bombard the capital switch board with angry calls to slow down. There have been some encouraging developments, but we don’t know what we are actually going to get until we see the legislation. It is essential that we see it for an appropriate period of time.

This whole exercise has been a testament to the power of the people’s voice. But don’t go quiet now. We don’t have a bill and we have very vague answers on what is going to be in the bill. Stay on top of it.

Jail for Prayer?

2009-08-15T11:49:00.002-07:00

Six months in jail for saying a prayer. Is this Iran... no, wait it's Florida.

Read it here.

Kind of funny that when people read the first amendment,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

they see the part about "respecting an establishment of religion" but they miss the part about "prohibiting the free exercise thereof".

Sarcasm and straight talk

2009-08-14T07:51:00.001-07:00

(warning! sarcasm ahead)

What are our expectations on healthcare reform? The President tells us that his bill will give us the best care in the world, cover everyone, help us get the deficit and spending under control, get rid of waste, bring lower premiums, more coverage, outlaw denial for pre-existing condition, and eliminate huge premiums and out of pocket expenses.

Wow! Where do I sign!

He also promises that it won’t lead to government rationing, long lines, long wait times, denied care, euthanasia, or tax payer funded abortion.

Wow! Perfect! I love it. It sound almost too good to be true!

Wait a minute… didn’t my parents tell me something about things that sound too good to be true… hmmm… oh yeah - they usually are. But come on, this is a smooth talking politician that is telling me this. It’s GOT TO BE TRUE! That’s why the bill is so BIG, it has to encompass all of this GREAT stuff. Of course it needs to be passed quickly, we want that great care and reduced cost to start as soon as possible. This is going to SAVE OUR HEALTHCARE SYSTEM!!

Kind of like the stimulus saved our economy and kept us out of 8% unemployment. Wait, what is unemployment again?

But come on this isn’t like that boondoggle of a stimulus plan. I mean that bill was RUSHED through before anyone read it. It was over a thousand pages. That’s totally different than this one… oh wait.

(sarcasm stops here)

Here is what we know so far about the ‘proposed healthcare reform’.

- The bill isn’t finished. What is available now in the form of HR3200 has already changed and we don’t know what all of those changes are. Even in its current form it is over a thousand pages long and not exactly easy reading.
- We’ve had a bunch of promises and assurances made by the President and members of congress that are obviously not reflected in the current bill as written.
- We’ve heard some very scary stuff that can be seen as a logical progression or interpretation of what is in the current bill.
- Both the bill and the promises made by the administration would grow the government, cost huge amounts of money that we don’t have, and push us further and further into red ink, rather than balance the budget.
- Some changes to healthcare systems are irreversible. Look at the UK, they have a population of approximately 61 million people. Their NHS employs over 1.4 million people and they are constantly complaining that it isn’t enough. They have almost as many ‘administrators’ as they have healthcare providers. How many will the US, a country of 330 million, need? Exactly. Once you go public it’s hard, if not impossible to change course.

If you haven’t attended a town hall event, or called your congressmen, or written them an email or letter, then you need to. Tell them to stop the current reform and if nothing else, DO NO HARM to the current system. Propose changes, but make them clear and reasonable changes that get the government out of healthcare, reduce costs, and expand insurance options. Don’t shove some mammoth, government run overhaul down our throats and don’t lie to us. We’re tired of it.

Are you afraid?

2009-08-12T21:55:00.002-07:00

Do you fear your government yet?

I know, fear tactics from a right-wing, reactionary conservative, but I submit a couple of videos for your consideration.

Here is the first. It’s an interview with the deputy White House press secretary who fails repeatedly to answer the question. Fortunately Fox seems to have a few more legitimate journalists on staff and she makes him squirm… a lot. But as you watch this think for a minute. If the purpose of all of this “fishy email” stuff was to get “misinformation” on the healthcare system and “correct the mistakes” then they could have had a dozen or so White House staffers cover twenty or thirty of the top right-wing blogs and then put together a webpage that gives the “myths” and then their side of the story. Then there would not have been any issue with retaining emails or giving the “big brother” appearance. For all of their faults, these are smart people, I’m sure that came up. So why have people send in emails?

You know I went to a class on running for political office a while back and one of the things that they really emphasized was building databases of voters. Both those that will vote for you and those that will vote against. It can be useful information. If a junior staffer hasn’t been told to list and catalog the email addresses they have received I would be SHOCKED.

But watch.

Hmmm….

This next one I really have no explanation for. I’m not a huge GB fan, although I agree with most of the stuff that he says. This, quite frankly, is just strange and at the very least, extremely disturbing. Please do not try this at home. Just think of all of the things that you have on your home computer from TurboTax records to personal emails… even fishy ones.

The 'Thinking Liberal' Chimes In

2009-08-12T06:39:00.002-07:00

Paglia, the ‘thinking liberal’ that I have talked about before has, well, a scathing piece for President Obama, the Democratic congress and especially Speaker Pelosi. She starts off saying that she does not have buyer’s remorse over Obama, but she is obviously not happy with what is going on. She was also in favor of the Hillary-care back in the nineties, but isn’t happy about the current scheme. I really couldn’t have said much of this better myself, so grab your dictionary, here is a quote:

But who would have thought that the sober, deliberative Barack Obama would have
nothing to propose but vague and slippery promises -- or that he would so easily
cede the leadership clout of the executive branch to a chaotic, rapacious, solipsistic Congress? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom I used to admire for her smooth aplomb under pressure, has clearly gone off the deep end with her bizarre rants about legitimate town-hall protests by American citizens. She is doing grievous damage to the party and should immediately step down.

There is plenty of blame to go around. Obama's aggressive endorsement of a healthcare plan that does not even exist yet, except in five competing, fluctuating drafts, makes Washington seem like Cloud Cuckoo Land. The president is promoting the most colossal, brazen bait-and-switch operation since the Bush administration snookered the country into invading Iraq with apocalyptic visions of mushroom clouds over American cities.

You can keep your doctor; you can keep your insurance, if you're happy with it,
Obama keeps assuring us in soothing, lullaby tones. Oh, really? And what if my doctor is not the one appointed by the new government medical boards for ruling
on my access to tests and specialists? And what if my insurance company goes
belly up because of undercutting by its government-bankrolled competitor? Face
it: Virtually all nationalized health systems, neither nourished nor updated by
profit-driven private investment, eventually lead to rationing.

I just don't get it. Why the insane rush to pass a bill, any bill, in three weeks?
And why such an abject failure by the Obama administration to present the issues
to the public in a rational, detailed, informational way? The U.S. is gigantic;
many of our states are bigger than whole European nations. The bureaucracy
required to institute and manage a nationalized health system here would be
Byzantine beyond belief and would vampirically absorb whatever savings Obama
thinks could be made. And the transition period would be a nightmare of red tape
and mammoth screw-ups, which we can ill afford with a faltering
economy.

As with the massive boondoggle of the stimulus package, which Obama foolishly let Congress turn into a pork rut, too much has been attempted all at once; focused, targeted initiatives would, instead, have won wide public support. How is it possible that Democrats, through their own clumsiness and arrogance, have sabotaged healthcare reform yet again? Blaming obstructionist Republicans is nonsensical because Democrats control all three branches of government. It isn't conservative rumors or lies that are stopping healthcare legislation; it's the justifiable alarm of an electorate that has been cut out of the loop and is watching its representatives construct a tangled labyrinth for others but not for themselves. No, the airheads of Congress will keep their own plush healthcare plan -- it's the rest of us guinea pigs who will be thrown to the wolves.

She also was not real pleased with the ‘fishy email’ business.

But somehow liberals have drifted into a strange servility toward big government, which they revere as a godlike foster father-mother who can dispense all bounty and magically heal all ills. The ethical collapse of the left was nowhere more evident than in the near total silence of liberal media and Web sites at the Obama administration's outrageous solicitation to private citizens to report unacceptable "casual conversations" to the White House. If Republicans had done this, there would have been an angry explosion by Democrats from coast to coast. I was stunned at the failure of liberals to see the blatant totalitarianism in this incident, which the president should have immediately denounced. His failure to do so implicates him in it.

Ouch.

So what SHOULD we be asking our Reps for?

2009-08-10T10:58:00.001-07:00

I have asked repeatedly for anyone reading this blog to call their representatives and tell them that we DON’T want this massive government overhaul of the healthcare system, but I have been very limited in chiming in on what we SHOULD be requesting. Our healthcare system works for a majority of the people right now. But it isn’t perfect and it probably never will be. Any system encompassing one sixth of the US economy and affecting the lives of every single citizen is going to have some flaws here and there and some things to complain about. There are some very easy, straight forward, and extremely effective things that we can do to improve the system and drive down the cost for EVERYBODY.

The first thing is competition. Competition is our friend and a huge, untapped gold mine in driving down healthcare costs. Right now federal and state laws limit competition in the insurance market. They do this in a number of ways, primarily by limiting the players in the game. Break open the gates and allow every market in the country to be open to any insurance company willing to compete in it. When you have more companies competing for business you have lower costs and you get improved service because companies try and set themselves apart from their competitors. With a more competitive market companies are forced to control their costs more and they become more efficient as a matter of necessity. It’s a beautiful thing.

The next step is to kill mandates. Mandates are required coverage on any insurance plan. They sound really good; like requiring insurance companies to cover mammograms for all of their clients. The problem is that half of their clients will never need a mammogram. Why should plans that only cover men have mammogram coverage? Leave certain things as an option that people can add to their plans for certain members.

Another one is cost limits, which are also included in HR3200. This means that insurance for someone that is going to use it extensively can only cost ‘x’ (usually x = 2) times as much as someone who will need very little coverage. For instance you have a college that is near a retirement community. There are laws in some areas that say that the cost for the college student, who may never even use his insurance, has to cost no less than half the price of the insurance for the person in the retirement community who may use their insurance every week. This may drive down the price of insurance in the retirement community (to a very small degree), but it sends the cost of insurance for college students through the roof.

Change the tax laws to disconnect health insurance from the employer. This is a HUGE one, because it allows people to be directly responsible for their healthcare choices and allows them to choose the plan that is best going to suit their family. This is also huge in opening up the market and encouraging companies to offer more reasonable packages for different situations.

Start early. Young people should be able to start early with healthcare savings accounts, which are like ultra low risk investment accounts; small yield, no principle risk, completely portable, and need to be federally insured. The money going in should be tax free and employers should get a tax break for contributing to it. Hand in hand with this is catastrophic coverage, which only covers that scenario. You go to the doctor, you pay directly from your HSA. Most doctors will give a discounted rate for people who pay immediately and directly without having to file insurance claims - lower cost. Plus, because you are managing it yourself you are only going to go to the doctor for things that are significant. You think you have strep, you go to the doctor and pay for it out of your HSA. You fall and brake your arm - it comes out of your HSA. You are diagnosed with lymphoma - your catastrophic coverage kicks in. For younger, healthy people, this is really the best type of care; lowest cost, you get to use whatever doctor you want, you are covered for the unexpected, and you have control over your healthcare.

True mutual plans. Mutual plans are basically insurance companies owned by the members of the plan. These are NOT the government subsidized, government regulated plans that some congress members are talking about. They are truly independent bodies of people that all get together and share healthcare costs like any type of traditional co-op.

Pooling plans. This could be a great option for small businesses who can pool with other small businesses to get the best deal on insurance plans for their employees. The more people covered, the best deal possible. It gives small businesses the same leverage that big businesses have.

For me these are the best options going. Some of these things are available in some markets and some are not. They need to be available EVERYWHERE. When we open up competition, extend the number of options for patients, and get government regulations and bureaucracies OUT of the way, costs go down and coverage improves.

The next thing to tackle after these changes is tort reform. None of the bills proposed so far even touch this issue because too many congressman receive too much backing from ambulance chasing trial lawyers (sorry, I was doing so good at not ranting in this post too..). Quite frankly both parties, but primarily the Democratic party receives HUGE donations from tort lawyers NOT to fix the system. This has to be addressed to deal with costs.

Medicare and Medicaid HAVE to be reformed. I’ve mentioned it before but I’ll say it again, because they limit fees to the doctors, that are BELOW costs in some cases, they drive up the costs for the rest of us. These are CRUSHING plans. The good thing is that if we make the changes I’ve already suggested then the overall cost of insurance coverage will go down and you will have fewer people on either Medicare or Medicaid. Just imagine a couple who have not had to deal with significant health problems in their family, but they and their employers have been contributing to an HSA for thirty or forty years- that’s huge. If they pass away without using up the funds, let them pass that on to their children tax free.

These are the things that we need to be pushing for. They don’t all have to go into one MASSIVE, unreadable bill. They can be individual and they can be over months or even a couple of years. Don’t crush the system and reform it, just make improvements that are REALLY going to make a difference in the positive direction for EVERYBODY.

Capitation

2009-08-08T20:35:00.001-07:00

Capitation.

I know it sounds like a horrible term, and it is, but not in the way it sounds. Capitation is mentioned numerous times in HR3200, the current and only published bill on healthcare reform. It is mentioned on page 125, 333, 451, 452, and 778 as one scenario that they will be exploring to drive down costs.

Capitation is where each doctor has a certain number of patients, given out in a number of ways, either by geographic area, patient preference, whatever. The doctor is paid based on how many patients he has. Not how many he sees, but how many he has.

See any problem with that?

Sound familiar to anyone?

This is a very similar program to the way that HMOs use to operate. Doctors are not rewarded by how many patients they actually help, in fact the fewer they help the more attention they can give them and quite frankly the less stressful it is. The rest of the patients are simply told to wait. Doctors are encouraged to handle the patient issues as much as possible on their own; if they refer a patient out to a specialist then the normal payment that they receive is actually reduced; repeating a lot of the issues that made HMOs so infamous.

Some refer to this as the “Walmart” method of healthcare. Not only do the doctors not have any incentive to actually see patients but the more patients that they see the more money it will cost them and hence LESS money that they receive. That means there is actually an INCENTIVE for them to see fewer patients, perform fewer tests, less lab work, and refer patients to specialists less often.

That doesn’t mean that doctors are suddenly going to turn into these money hungry people that deny patients healthcare, but they would basically be punished for doing a better job and rewarded for being lazy. That’s a recipe for horrible healthcare.

IT'S NOT ABOUT RACISM!!!!!!

2009-08-08T13:16:00.004-07:00

I am so tired... let me say that again, SO TIRED, of being labeled racist because I don't agree with someone's policies or agenda.

It has nothing to do with race!

It has everything to do with economics, liberty, small government principles, concern for family and future generations, and what's that other thing... oh yeah COMMON SENSE!!

The race card has been played and over-played. No body's buying it any more. Give it up and move on to a real debate about ISSUES, IDEAS, and POLICY.

People Are Mad

2009-08-07T08:11:00.002-07:00

Well, despite the push by the White House to tamp down on the “disinformation” that comes from people actually reading the current healthcare legislation, the word is getting out and getting out big. At townhall events around the country (which you can find a list of here) representatives are hearing from their constituents, both for and against these sweeping reforms.

And people are mad.

I don’t advocate violence at any of these meetings. I really don’t think that this is the most effective of way of being heard. Debate passionately, but act gently. I can’t say that the President has helped in this regard considering that he has been advocating for the ‘in your face’ approach since before the election.

Quite frankly, I understand why people are passionate about this and I understand why people are so mad. I’m mad. Not just at the legislation but at the treatment of voters who are opposed to the legislation. I thought under President Bush dissent was patriotic. Why has it suddenly become racist? People are mad at healthcare reform and the President is pushing it – and hard. Why wouldn’t he and his staff EXPECT that people would be mad at him for doing this?

Unless there is going to be new legislation suddenly sprung on us after the July recess that is DRASTICALLY different than the 1000+ page HR3200 that is already out there, then the President is being very deceptive in what he is telling the people. That upsets me.

Where do all of the new, breakthrough drugs in the world come from?

Where do all of the new procedures, technologies, and therapies in the world come from?

So… where will they come from when the incentive is gone and the government is driving the bus?

Find your reps. Find their townhalls. Call their offices. Make your voices heard.

*****Update: Great column by Peggy Noonan today along these same lines.

Welcome to the AARP 'Listening' Session

2009-08-06T17:02:00.003-07:00

Nancy Pelosi says that all of these concerned people at town hall meetings are paid stooges from insurance companies. Actually her exact words were that they are "astroturf". Nice, eh?

Big Brother Wants to Know...

2009-08-06T06:40:00.003-07:00

The White House recently asked that if you see a “fishy” email about healthcare that you should forward this email to them at a specified email address(flag@whitehouse.gov). Hmmm… you know the more I think about that one, the more it REALLY bothers me, and I’m not the only one. It makes me ask myself several questions.

What are they going to do with the email addresses? Really. I mean, are they going to make up some form letter to try and dissuade the person from forwarding more “fishy” emails? Are they going to answer the issues brought up in the “fishy” email? If they take ANY action on this how can that not be viewed as some type of intimidation tactic? Not that you expect Rahm and Robert to show up at your front door and brake your thumbs or anything, but… getting an email from the White House saying that you don’t seem to understand what they are trying to do… that’s kind of a big deal. It’s very much, hey we’re watching what you are doing and we know that you don’t understand this, so we are going to… set you straight here. Can you imagine if you had gotten an email from George W. Bush’s White House for sending out ‘truther’ emails about the 9-11 attacks? Or dissenting emails about the Iraq war? Can you imagine how fast the ACLU would be suing the White House for that? Of course, crazy, small government conservatives like myself would take such an email and plaster it all over blogs, facebook, forward it to news sources, and basically blow the whistle long and loud, which in the end would be bad PR for the White House. So… I really don’t think they will be sending out emails on this.

Are they going to research the email addresses and see where it originated? Are they looking for information that this all comes from the insurance industry and they are trying to tie it back to a common source? Even if they could do that, which, they just can’t because all of this doesn’t come from one source, it comes from educated people reading bills that Congressman can’t seem to find time to read, what would it prove? If a company comes out, really any company for that matter, and says “hey, the government is trying to put me out of business” I’m going to look into it and if I think they have a valid point I’m going to talk about it, blog about it, email about it, and maybe even talk to my representatives about it because that is over stepping the bounds of the government. That’s a good thing to get upset about. The government doesn’t need to be putting any businesses out of business. We need more jobs, not less. Insurance companies making profits is a good thing. When industries are profitable it attracts other people to the market, which means more competition and lower prices. Not to mention that they grow and employ more people. What’s not good about that?

Quite frankly, I really don’t know what the government hopes to do with this. I can’t think of any scenarios where this really turns out good for them. If anything it will only spur on the conspiracy theorists and has already gotten them a letter from at least one member of congress. Talk radio is going to get even more crazy about this… and I think some weird people might even be blogging about it.

Of course, if any of you think this is “fishy”, or if any of my other dozen or so blog posts on this messed up, government nationalization of healthcare are “fishy” then you should probably do your civic duty and turn me in by sending a link to my blog to flag@whitehouse.gov. No, really… the curiosity about what they are going to do with this information is just killing me! I want to know! I’ve got to know! I may turn MYSELF in!

Of course, maybe that is what they are trying to do… take any attention possible away from healthcare legislation with a distraction… hmmm….

*****Update: Greate video from NC about how the administration has been handling dissent about healthcare.

A little mid-week humor

2009-08-05T09:05:00.000-07:00

The White House Attacks Drudge over the President's Statements

2009-08-04T14:55:00.003-07:00

The White House is fighting back against the DrudgeReport because Matt Drudge and some bloggers had the NERVE to pull up video of the President describing his plan before he was elected. Watch and listen

Here is the video she was referencing. It is a combination of videos where the President very clearly describes wanting a single payer system and the process that will help him get it. Eliminating private health insurance. Your insurance.

Now the White House video shows the President making the same promise that he has made over and over and over during this healthcare “campaign” that he is on.

If you look at the bill, you can see why some, including myself, claim that the president is not telling the whole truth, and that the goal is in fact that the bill would cause more and more people to go towards the public option and away from their private insurance.

The President says that if you like your insurance and you like your doctor then you will get to keep them. Unfortunately he leaves out the rest of the information contained in HR3200, which says that you can keep them if you want to. Of course after five years (at the MOST) YOUR insurance plan is required to change to be just like the public option, only more expensive of course because your insurance company has taxes that don’t apply to the government, they have to show a profit (unlike the government), and they can’t fix prices paid to doctors like the government can, in fact they end up eating the loss that doctors endure from accepting the public plan. If the president was honest he would say that “you can keep your insurance… for up to five years.”

Like the bill says…

The Commissioner shall establish a grace period whereby, for plan years beginning after the end of the 5-year period beginning with Y1, an employment-based health plan in operation as of the day before the first day of Y1 must meet the same requirements as apply to a qualified health benefits plan under section 101, including the essential benefit package requirement under section 121.

Sorry, that’s not twisting the president’s words. That’s reading the bill. After all, the President’s speeches don’t become law, bills do.

Which reminds me… have you called your representatives about this? I’m just telling mine very simply that this plan is no good. We don’t need more government in healthcare, we need less. If you vote for this reform, or for ANY MAJOR overhaul of the healthcare system, I will not be voting for you. Let’s make small improvements and see if they work.

A short break from healthcare

2009-08-04T08:43:00.001-07:00

I needed some light reading to detract from the insanity of this healthcare debackle, so...

I am currently reading Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman. It’s an older book, but from a historical perspective, that’s fine. Friedman is an interesting character. An American Jew, he became fascinated with the holy land during his teenage years and studied Jewish and Arab culture during high school and college. He became a reporter and went to Beirut to live during the late seventies and stayed there for five years before being reassigned to Jerusalem. Imagine a Jewish reporter, living in the middle of a civil war between the Druse, Shiites, Sunnis, Christians, Maronites, Palestinians, and half a dozen other sects or ethnic backgrounds, who are at times battling each other and at times battling the Israeli army. Throw in international peacekeeping forces from the US, France and a hand full of others and you can see the dangerous world of chaos that Thomas Friedman found himself in.

Although he is Jewish, he lived extensively in Muslim dominated areas (of course not really advertising that he was Jewish), and gained some interesting perspective on the conflict inside Lebanon and throughout the Middle East as a whole. While he has some fascination with the Zionist movement that resettled Jews in their ancient homeland, he is critical at times of Israeli action and takes a fairly even handed approach. If nothing else the stories are fascinating although obviously on the macabre side considering he is constantly surrounded by car bombs, shootings, kidnappings, random checkpoints from forty different militias, ethnic cleansing, and people generally overwhelmed with the situation that they are in.

One story he relates is a dinner party where machine gun fire opens up in the street right outside the home, which obviously is not in the plans of the hostess. As she feels her guests becoming more and more uncomfortable she finally asks, “should we eat now or wait for the cease fire?”

I still have about half of the book to read, but Friedman’s observations are extremely insightful and give you a very interesting picture of what military forces are up against when you go into a country occupied by several contingents of rival ethnic and religious groups. This is the first book of his that I have read, but have had others recommend his writings numerous times. If you want to get at least a decent understanding of the Middle East mindset I highly recommend it. Unlike many books on the subject it is an easy read.

This is what we have to look forward to?

2009-08-03T13:22:00.003-07:00

Imagine this letter came to you? Or your mom? Maybe your spouse?

This is government run medicine.

Is this the "right to healthcare" that everyone is touting.

Now imagine this across the country in a single payer system, where you have no alternatives... welcome to Obamacare.

20/20 Health Care Story

2009-08-01T09:59:00.001-07:00

Stossel is right on the money. Must see.

Environmentalists Created a Drought That is Going to Cost All of Us

2009-07-31T13:32:00.003-07:00

As if the economic downturn wasn’t enough, environmentalists have created a dust bowl. The San Joaquin Valley in California is the largest agricultural area in the world, it provides half of the vegetables for the entire country, and it’s gone bone dry in order to improve the chances of saving the delta smelt.

The delta smelt is a fish and was listed as ‘threatened’ on the endangered species list. As a result an environmental lobby went to court and asked the court to shut down the turbines that pump water into the irrigation system for the San Joaquin Valley. Not 'reduce' or 'cut back', but turn off.

And that’s what the court ordered.

Now there is a 41% unemployment rate in the valley. An estimated 80,000 workers have lost their jobs. Every business in the area is suffering. Farms and houses are being foreclosed on. The ground is dry and the crops are dead.

Don’t just think it’s bad for the farmers. It’s going to affect food prices across the country. Vegetable prices are going to go up.

All for the sake of a smelt that MAY be getting injured or killed in the pumps.

The Pacific Legal Fund is fighting this and putting pressure on Washington to convene a committee to look into the issue and turn the pumps back on. Their website is here. You can sign their petition here.

Public Health Insurance Option Will Lead to a Single Payer System

2009-07-31T06:33:00.004-07:00

I made the case, again, early this week that the public option being pursued would eventually lead to nationalized healthcare in the form of a single payer system.

Some creative bloggers, who are actually in favor of a single payer system talked to Rep Barney Frank about the public option and a single payer system, asking him why he didn't just want to go with a single payer system now. He explains that they don't have the votes to get that passed, but that they have the public option and he believes that will lead to a single payer system. Past history tells us that you certainly cannot trust Rep Frank a good portion of the time, but in this case I think it's safe to believe him.

Is Obama the Antichrist?

2009-07-30T08:39:00.001-07:00

Okay, I do not make a habit of interpreting end time prophecies. The thing about prophecies is that they are usually very obvious right AFTER they are fulfilled. So someday when I am in heaven I’ll go… “oh, yah, I totally see that now!” And I have read the book of Revelation many, many, many times and I have yet to find the word “antichrist” in it. I’m not completely familiar with the whole pre-millennial, post-millennial, yada, yada, yada… quite frankly it really doesn’t matter too much to me how God shakes everything out in the end. I have my faith and trust in Him, I’m living for Him every day, and I’m doing my best to fulfill the purpose that He has given me. So any way it goes down… I’m okay. I know I’ll win because I’m with God.

That being said I have heard from several of you out there that Obama is the antichrist. The Bible speaks of anyone being against-Christ as the antichrist (kind of obvious from the name) and there have been many people in history that fit this bill quite nicely. Is President Obama one of them? Well, personally he doesn’t really seem to fit the bill. I think his actions seem anti-United States sometimes, but anti-US does not make him antichrist. He’s definitely anti-logic, anti-common sense, anti-free market, anti-truth, and anti-fiscal responsibility, but the man says he believes in Christ and has his faith in him and I am not about to jump into the spiritual judgment seat. I’m not going to sit in judgment on the man’s soul; his presidency on the other hand is entirely fair game…

In any case, there seems to be a strong desire out there to condemn the President as the antichrist (whether that means the beast or the prophet of the beast in Revelation, I don’t know), but this video shows what I consider to be an interesting play on words. Whether it is anything more than that is really not my call.

Nationalized Healthcare Part 2

2009-07-29T06:54:00.001-07:00

I know, yesterday I went on about the trials and mess associated with nationalized healthcare and that isn’t what is being proposed in these bills. Yes, I understand that, but that is where these bills are leading us. Granted they wouldn’t take us there next week. It may even take years, a myriad of lawsuits, and a lot of jobs lost and businesses destroyed, but it would take us there.

What these bills are doing is requiring certain levels of coverage and mandating that employers provide coverage. (Let’s ignore the fact that this would cripple small business and completely drive some of them out of business. I know, I was talking to a small business owner this weekend who is already struggling and views this change as the gallows.) This minimum coverage level is a political tool. Lobbyists are already raking in the dollars pushing the right people to include their industry in the minimum coverage. Of course existing plans would not have to up their coverage for five years, unless of course they make a change in coverage, premium, or pretty much a letter in their plethora of paperwork. If they changed anything, they have to switch to the minimum coverage. Naturally this increased coverage (not increased benefit necessarily) of course costs more. So now private insurance companies have to adjust their rates for this adjusted level of care and they won’t be going down.

At the same time you have the “public option”, which is where the government comes into the game. Number one they aren’t a ‘for profit’ entity, so they aren’t trying to maintain the margins that the private insurance companies do. They also aren’t subject to the same tax laws as the private companies, and as we’ve already discussed, they have a huge percentage of the market and dictate what they will pay. The resulting decrease in government rates from the “public plan” now increases the rates on the private insurance companies, as I mentioned in part 1.

Now companies are in a struggling economy looking at their medical insurance costs shoot through the roof. So, they lay off some employees and take a look at their alternatives. They are spending a significant amount per employee to have insurance coverage and it is increasing all of the time as the Secretary of Health and Human Services decides on new additions to the minimum coverage. The law says that you have to provide coverage or pay a fine, but the fine is less than what the coverage is costing per employee. It doesn’t take a very creative bookkeeper to discontinue coverage and dump every employee into the “public option” to opt for a government fine that is lower and more stable than providing coverage at the minimum level.

So after all of the private insurance companies have been driven out of business, you will have socialized medicine on a single payer system. That’s when the fun we’ve already discussed in part 1 kicks in. It’s not an immediate take over, but it is a take over and a big one considering healthcare makes up approximately 17% of the US economy.

There are other issues that need to be considered as well and I need to actually dig through the nuts and bolts of this bill. There HAS to be some very creative wording in here regarding law suits and I’m very intrigued as to what it says. When it comes to providing health insurance there is always the risk of law suits, some legit, some not. However will the government ALLOW themselves to be sued if they wrongfully refuse coverage or will they be able to claim sovereign immunity? Hmm… I’m very intrigued. Since it is the government writing the bill you would think that they would specifically express that sovereign immunity applies, but since it is being written by liberals who have been on the receiving end of millions in campaign contributions from trial lawyers, they might specifically deny it, just to throw their loyal contributors a bone.

Either way… it’s not good for any of us.

… and on a side note, it will never apply to those who are voting for it. Their fluffy government insurance stays put for life.

Nationalized Healthcare Part 1

2009-07-28T12:13:00.001-07:00

This is the first in a two part series on healthcare reform.

You are hearing people screaming (me included) about national healthcare and going down the slippery slope of socialized medicine. A lot of people are quite frankly indifferent about the whole thing. Maybe that’s because you don’t really understand the concept. You also don’t realize that at some point in your life, your healthcare and how it is handled is going to be very important to you.

Right now the government controls, through Medicare and Medicaid, between 40 and 50% of all medical dollars spent. That is very significant, and growing. The Baby Boomers are starting to become eligible for Social Security and will soon be eligible for Medicare. That generation comprises approximately 77 million people. There are only a little over 300 million people in the country as a whole. Think about those numbers for a minute because they are very important. You are talking about a massive number of people already in a government run system. So why can’t the government implement their cost reductions and improvements on their existing system? After all they have a lot of leverage with the number of people and money that they manage.

What they are not telling you is that Medicare and Medicaid are number one, a HUGE, CRUSHING financial nightmare that is right around the corner, and that they are already driving up your healthcare costs. Medicare/aid sets rates that they will pay doctors for services. Those rates are naturally lower than the doctors would like them to be; occasionally they are even lower than the doctors can afford them to be. If a doctor is not getting properly reimbursed for services from half of his patients, what do you think he has to do to the other half to maintain a profit? Raise rates. Ask more from private insurance companies and individuals who on their own make up a small percentage of his clients.

It’s a similar story for hospitals, but they get an extra whammy thrown in. Hospitals are required to treat patients that come into the emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay and regardless of their citizenship. Now don’t get me wrong, if an illegal alien is involved in a car accident and seriously injured, I really hope that a hospital would administer care to the patient. The fact that they are in the country illegally in the first place is what I have a problem with, but the impact on private industries from the federal government NOT enforcing our boarders is a separate issue. In any case, these emergency room cases cost hospitals money.

The point is that anytime someone doesn’t pay, or under-pays, the difference doesn’t just dissolve into thin air. That money has to be made up somewhere and it is from the people that either have insurance, or are actually paying for their service out of their own pockets.

Nothing is free. Someone pays for it.

Well, then why isn’t the government taking it over the best solution?

The best way to answer that question is with a question, or maybe a series of them.

If the incentives for something decrease, then does it become more popular or less popular? Obviously less.

If college and medical school tuition is steadily on the rise, are people going to be willing to go HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of dollars in the hole to get jobs that pay less and less? I wouldn’t.

Are you going to pay the extra money and spend the additional years of time to become a specialist? You know, an oncologist, pediatric neurologist, cardiac surgeon… The answer in the countries that have already tried this is a resounding NO. They have fewer doctors, fewer specialists, and LONGER wait times. That’s why Canadians who need a specialist often come to the US. Sometimes they are even sent here BY THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT.

So you go this route. People hear that wait times are up and they start to feel a little sick. What’s the first thing they do? Run to the doctor or at least make an appointment. Before they would have waited and tried a couple of things, but now they are worried that they won’t be able to get in if they don’t make an appointment immediately.

So now you have fewer doctors, fewer specialists, and more people going to the doctor when they could have/would have stayed home. Wait times for appointments can be months long. People literally start suffering and even dying on the waiting list. What would have been treatable cancer is now terminal. What would have been managed glaucoma now means blindness.

Understandably people get upset and they start complaining to their elected officials, after all, they are the ones who control the system. So now they create a health review panel to limit the number of things that are covered by the system since costs are skyrocketing and people are complaining. Now they ask people to start self medicating for certain conditions. Sure, they won’t be as comfortable as they would have been with appropriate care and an expensive prescription, but it costs less and frees up physicians.

All the while people who are in school and considering going into medicine look at the mess and the limited benefit to them and they decide to become lawyers instead. Medicine just isn’t worth it.

So the problem continues to build.

These aren’t hypothetical scenarios. People in the UK and Canada go through this every day. Cancer patients who reach certain stages or who have certain types aren’t treated because the chances of survival are too low and the cost too high. The elderly are denied services that could drastically improve their quality of life, like certain medicines or pacemakers, because they are too old and the money wouldn’t serve the ‘greater good’. Those who suffer are those who need care the most but are deemed the least valuable to society.

For a country that values the individual and the beauty of human life, this is the wrong direction.

The Debt Visualized

2009-07-28T11:41:00.002-07:00

I'm a visual guy, which is why I love PoliticalMath.

BTW, these numbers were before the health care reform debate.

HT : HotAir

Just for fun

2009-07-26T21:14:00.001-07:00

I have no idea if this is legit or not, but it certainly looks it.

You know of all the things that you can take into a marriage a healthy sense of humor is definitely near the top of the list.

I think this couple has that one in the bag.

When you're in a hole...

2009-07-24T13:35:00.003-07:00

STOP DIGGING! Wow! This is the most LONG WINDED, NON-APOLOGY, borderline chastisement I have ever heard! Well, you know, this is all the press' fault in the first place. They really need to provide all of their questions, verbatim, upfront so that the President's staff can put a well scripted answer on the teleprompter.

How do you fight for a leader who can't use the word "victory"?

2009-07-24T13:19:00.004-07:00

Concerning the war in Afghanistan:

"I'm always worried about using the word 'victory,' because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur," Obama told ABC News.

Did he just reference MacArthur like his REAL victory was a bad thing? I wish we HAD MacArthur in their right now as our C-in-C!

Really? Wow.

2009-07-24T06:42:00.003-07:00

Up until this point I have credited President Obama with being a very savvy politician, and he may still prove himself again in the future, but I must say, as a politician and a leader, he’s wearing a lot of egg right now.

A few days ago police were called to a neighborhood in Cambridge, MA when someone called to report a possible burglary. Police arrived at the house and found a man inside who affirmed that he was the owner of the home and became belligerent with police. They requested to see his identification to confirm that he was the rightful owner and he refused and instead accused them of being racists. He yelled at them, apparently demeaning the arresting officer and even the officer’s mother. The man continued his rude behavior and was eventually arrested for disorderly conduct after the officer repeatedly tried to calm the man down.

Three things about the man: he is a Harvard professor, he is black, and he is a friend of the President.

Not uncommon in disorderly conduct cases, the man was released and the charges were dropped.

Wednesday night during President Obama’s press conference on health care reform (now being called health INSURANCE reform… a little rebranding) the president was asked about the arrest in Cambridge. He replied,

”I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that. But I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there's a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.”

So, while acknowledging that he doesn’t have the facts in the case, the President goes on to refer to the officer’s actions as stupid and strongly hints at the officers being racists.

Really? On national television? Without knowing the facts in the case you immediately blame and disparage the public servant and really ALL of law enforcement?

Most people have a healthy and well earned respect for police officers and this particular officer in question has been held up by his fellow officers and everyone in his community as above reproach in this area. In fact he was actually hand picked to teach classes to law enforcement on avoiding racial profiling.

The President has been back peddling but has not apologized for his comments.

Rasmussen (currently considered the most accurate political pollster) is going to report this morning (according to Drudge) that the President’s approval numbers have dropped below 50% for the first time this week.

On a side note, I have heard NUMEROUS times people quoting the fact that blacks and Latinos are stopped more by police officers. Why is this an issue? I really don’t care what race a person is, if they are suspected of committing a crime, I HOPE that police officers are confronting them. I hope they are stopping all people they suspect of a crime, regardless of their race, and the LAST thing I want an officer to be concerned about when he confronts ANYBODY is whether or not he is going to be called a racist… especially by the President.

Sorry, it’s Friday, I had to rant just a… little bit…

Some Legitimate Questions About Health Care Reform

2009-07-23T07:28:00.004-07:00

Let me play a non-partisan roll for a minute. This isn’t easy because I have some VERY strong feelings on this subject, but I am going to do my best just to lay out some evidence and ask some questions to make a point. I am not going to address the elephant of whether or not the GOVERNMENT should be involved with making healthcare decisions.

On that note…

There are some very concerning things about all of the current revisions of health care reform going through congress right now and being prodded on a daily basis by the administration and specifically by the President himself.

The first question is one of cost. The CBO estimates, and states that this is basically a guess because legislation is not hammered completely out yet, that this would add $1 TRILLION to the deficit over the next ten years. That is a shocking number especially when you consider that we are already BUDGETED to be in the red EVERY YEAR for the next ten years. How on earth can we afford to go another TRILLION down over and above that! Concerning this estimate the President actually called and asked to meet with the head of the CBO. Now the Congressional Budget Office was created in the 70s to be completely non-political. Their whole purpose is to look at bills and give a number cruncher perspective. The CBO reports to Congress, not the President. Whether it is intentional or not, how can the President summon someone to the Oval Office and NOT have some type of influence on them? I am not questioning his motives, I am just pointing out that it is a very strange and unprecedented move, regardless of the intent.

The second question is the speed and enormity of this bill. Obviously if you read this blog at all you have seen that I am completely opposed to HUGE legislation. Bills should never be in the thousand plus page range - completely unnecessary. Then to be pushing a bill of that girth, which will have a HUGE impact on 17% of the American economy, demanding that it be passed in a couple of weeks is completely outrageous. EVERY American should have plenty of time to sit down and read this behemoth and decide whether or not this is really going to be the best thing for the country. They should have time to contact their congressman and voice their concerns. We have had our current system for DECADES. Why the rush? This is not going to have an immediate impact on families struggling with medical bills. This issue is too important and too big to push through on a moments notice. It needs time to simmer. It needs scrutiny.

The last question is actually one of the big ones that is bringing many so called “blue dog” democrats to come out against these plans, and that is whether or not the government should be using tax dollars to fund abortions. Since 1976 the Hyde Amendment has made it illegal for federal tax dollars to fund abortions inside the US. These plans would basically scrap that.

Can we afford this?

Do we need this rammed through RIGHT NOW?

Are we willing to scrap over three decades of precedent and force tax payers to fund a procedure that over 50% of the citizens believe is morally wrong?

That’s the tip of the ice berg, but they are some of the questions that every American should be considering as our elected officials are on the move.

*****UPDATE : Here is the link to the current text of HR3200, which is the leading version of the bill right now. Get comfortable, it stands at 1017 pages.

*****UPDATE: The President got subpar marks for honesty from the NEW YORK TIMES in his press conference.

*****UPDATE (yes, ANOTHER one) : The AP found their own issues with the President's statements.

Clarity... Simplicity... Consideration

2009-07-22T06:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I emailed my Senators and Representative and voiced my concern that there is a fundamental flaw in the system being followed right now in Washington. Bills are too big, they lack focus and clarity, and are being shoved through the system so fast that no one has time to read them. Waxman-Markey is a great example. I even put a video on the blog a while back where Waxman admits that HE didn’t know everything that was in HIS cap-and-trade bill. It’s frightening. These bills have far reaching and extremely significant impact on every American family and the people voting on them don’t even have a chance to read them. The citizens that these bills effect barely know they exist before they are being voted on by our elected officials. These things need to be out in the open, they need to be clear, they need to be limited to the subject at hand, and they need to be available for everyone to see and consider for at least some period of time.

Based on that I urged them to pursue the following reforms:

- Bills should be limited in scope to the actual issue that they are addressing. If a bill is about funding federal highways it shouldn’t contain ear marks for sea otter research. If sea otter research needs to be funded it should be able to stand on its own. No ear marks. No add-ons.

- Bills should be limited in length. Our elected officials are hopefully intelligent enough to be able to articulate their legislation in a hundred pages or less. Certainly some things are complicated and should require more details to truly be useful, therefore rare cases should be allowed to go upwards of five hundred pages, however…

- The length of the bill should be considered before voting. Bills that are a hundred pages or less should be in their completed form and available to the public prior to voting for at least a week. Bills exceeding a hundred pages (but still less than five hundred pages), should be completely compiled and available to the public for at least two weeks prior to a vote in either the House of Representatives or the Senate.

These three changes of limited scope, limited length, and minimum time, would allow the congressmen to be well informed and would give the public enough time to get involved in the process and contact their elected officials regarding bills that are important to them.

This is an important reform that needs to be made. Laws that are straight forward are hard to misinterpret and twist. Bills that are short and focused on a single issue don’t have room for loop holes, pork projects, or political favors. Ideas should be able to stand on their own merits.

Please email your elected officials and urge them to move forward with similar reforms. Here is the list of Senators and webforms to fill out requests. Here is a similar page to find your Representative and send them a message.

Back in the Saddle and Looking for a Change

2009-07-21T10:49:00.001-07:00

A week off from work and news is a good thing. A week spent with family and friends is an even better thing. We had the good fortune to do both last week. You would think that four children in a car for four days of driving would be rough, but the boys did great and the van survived the trip, although it took hours to detox it when we got back.

I did some thinking while I was there and I might try a few different things in the future here, just normalizing some of the behaviors that I’ve already been doing sporadically.

I have also been thinking about how best to win people over to certain ideas and concepts. A lot of politics is name calling and mud slinging, which can be extremely entertaining, but rarely gets people to rethink their positions. Rethinking is a good thing.

Of course to rethink you really need to think about something in the first place. It occurred to me that a lot of people just don’t think much about politics. They vote for people that seem likable or for people that have the best rhetoric, in spite of what they are actually proposing.

Politicians have capitalized on this by making policy nearly undecipherable. Bills exceeding a thousand pages are rarely read by the members who vote on them let alone by the people who only pay attention to politics for an average of six minutes a WEEK. The tax code is a painful example, considering lawyers build lucrative businesses on the mere fact that they actually know and understand the ins and outs of the tax code. Lobbying firms make millions of dollars every year to push their clients’ interests into bills. That’s not saying anything against lawyers or lobbyists; quite frankly they are just playing the established game for their own causes and profits. As long as they are ethical in their practices, I really don’t have a problem with their behavior.

Of course I have a huge problem with the system.

Openness and transparency are great buzzwords, but they need to be actual policy, not just lip service or campaign slogans. Bills need to be straight forward, clear, and they need to be public with ample time for elected officials and average Joes to take some time to read them. They should be written about a single issue. No “omnibus”. No earmarks. No footnotes to be filled in later. Clear, simple and straight forward. Every Senator or Representative should have full confidence that they know what they are voting for and every citizen should be able to look at a bill and the vote of their representative and decide whether they agreed with the vote or not.

I need to do some more thinking on this, but this needs to be part of the conservative movement of limited government. A government that is strewn with loopholes, voluminous bills, and incomprehensible laws, is a government that is working against the people. There needs to be a healthy skepticism throughout the process. Argue your ideas, write bills to propose you ideas, but write it clear and let your ideas stand on their own merits, not tagging along something else.

Pre-Vacation Rantings

2009-07-09T07:33:00.002-07:00

Well, forced vacation/time off is right around the corner and fortunately I get to spend a good chunk of that time with friends and family from around the country, so today just a quick hit list of all of the crazy stuff going on.

- House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Dem) was asked if he would support a pledge that every member of the House actually READ the health care bill before they vote on it. I mean, what a NOVEL concept! Wait, isn’t that their JOB! The only thing more preposterous than the concept that a pledge like this would have to be proposed is Hoyer’s reaction to it, “If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn’t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes.” Okay, I understand that the bill will probably approach TWO THOUSAND pages. I also understand and have stated REPEATEDLY that if a bill is too long, then the people are getting hosed by something in it. Wouldn’t you think as a congressman you would want to be looking out for your constituents? Three words: READ THE BILL! Call your congressman and tell them if they vote for a bill they didn’t read, then you won’t be voting for them because they aren’t doing their job!

- “Every dime” of the stimulus was supposed to be tracked on the Recovery.gov website so that the American people could see exactly where their money was going. The idea was that people would be so encouraged by the administration’s openness and effectiveness in turning the economy around that it would change the whole tenor of the country and renew the trust of the people in their government. It’s failed and failed badly. Quite frankly you really can’t see where much of the money is going yet. Only 10% of it has actually gone out despite the urgency in passing the bill and the assertion that these were all “shovel ready” projects. They are even talking about ANOTHER stimulus package, but fortunately there have been some reality checks here, so hopefully THAT won’t happen. However, let me draw your attention to the Recovery.gov website itself. Despite spending millions on the site, it is nearly useless. So, what are we going to do? You guessed it! We are going to shovel more money at it. $18 MILLION MORE!!! Are you kidding me?

*****Update: HotAir.com has the connection between the website contract and... Congressman Hoyer who doesn't like to have to read bills. Classic. Looks like the web company got a thousand to one return on their contributions. Not bad. Don't worry though, when Obama is President all of this pandering, cronyism, and back scratching will be OVER... oh wait.

- According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Federal deficit for the first nine months of the fiscal year is $1.1 TRILLION. Let that sink in for a minute. Federal revenue for the year is estimated to be $1.5 TRILLION. We have already spent 73% MORE MONEY than we will take in for the whole year, and with three more months to go. Do we really want to start talking fiscal responsibility?

- Czars. This “non-cabinet” cabinet post is accountable only to the President. They have no accountability what-so-ever to congress or the people. There are 15 cabinet positions (Secretary of…). There are over 20 Czars and growing all of the time. And they don’t come solo. They have a whole staff. And YOU are paying for each and every one of their salaries. Just think, more and more power being consolidated in one place, further away from the people, further away from accountability. Is that the change we need?

- There is an AMAZING phenomenon that is starting to happen. People are actually starting to tie this hurricane of bad policy to the President. President Obama’s Presidential Approval Index (Percentage Strongly Approving – Percentage Strongly Disapproving) has gone into the negative and today hit -8. 38% of the people now Strongly Disapprove of the job the President is doing. Which really begs the question, “why aren’t the other 62% paying attention?” Actually they probably are paying attention, but they either already work for the government or they think their best job prospects are getting a job working for the administration. Hmmm… I wonder if I could be like the “Snippy Comment Czar”. I like it.

A Liberal Columnist Worth Reading (75%)

2009-07-08T10:02:00.001-07:00

Obviously I am a conservative, but I hold to conservative positions because I like to think, reason, learn from history, and rationally approach subjects.

Reading those on the right or the left that do not approach subjects in such a manner usually leaves me with a bit of heartburn. If you are opposed to something you should be able to give a reasonable argument WHY you are opposed to it. Obviously the same is true for something that you favor. Yelling and name calling without facts or reasoning is tedious. That is why there are some radio talk show hosts that I cannot stand to listen to, even though I may agree with their conclusions. I prefer listening to some that I may disagree with every now and then, but they’ve arrived at their conclusions in a reasonable manner.

All that to say, there is one liberal columnist that I enjoy reading. Let me change that, I enjoy reading 75% of her work, even though I may not agree with it. The other 25% is artistic, cultural, and/or moral commentary that I don’t care to hear her views about.

Her name is Camille Paglia.

Politically speaking, she is a thinker. Sometimes she comes to good conclusions (meaning ones I agree with of course) and sometimes she comes to the exact opposite conclusion than I do, but at least she is THINKING about it. Unlike most liberal columnists she doesn’t seek to demonize the opposition and rarely begins her political arguments with the phrase, “I feel”. For instance she is a huge supporter of President Obama, but she has significantly disagreed with some of his positions and speeches.

In any case, her column is always an interesting read. I rarely finish them because the last page or two just doesn’t interest me. Her column today has two pages of very interesting political commentary that give you a great example of what I am talking about. I would strongly advise stopping before the last page.

I would also advise opening another browser window with dictionary.com pulled up. Being a former teacher of a variety of subjects, Ms. Paglia has quite an extensive vocabulary.

Health Care Visualized in Legos

2009-07-07T07:01:00.001-07:00

Okay, even I can understand this one. From politicalmath.wordpress.com.

Helen Thomas

2009-07-01T15:11:00.004-07:00

Helen Thomas is a self proclaimed liberal. She has been a member of the White House Press Corps since President Adams first moved in... okay, maybe not quite that long, but pretty close. She has been enamored with President Obama and the Democrats. That is why this video is truly shocking.

Deep down somewhere in Helen Thomas she remembers what it means to be a journalist. Robert Gibbs and the Obama Administration seem to be coaxing it out of her... unintentionally of course.

***** Update: I guess Helen Thomas had more to say. You can see all of her remarks here. These are my favorites. I have ... out the more 'colorful' words.

“What the ... do they think we are, puppets?” Thomas said. “They’re supposed to stay out of our business. They are our public servants. We pay them.”

“Nixon didn’t try to do that,” Thomas said. “They couldn’t control (the media). They didn’t try."

“It’s blatant. They don’t give a ... if you know it or not. They ought to be hanging their heads in shame.”

South American Politics

2009-07-01T07:32:00.000-07:00

South American politics are tricky, in some cases violent, many times corrupt, and almost always difficult to judge without being intimately involved on the ground.

The President of Honduras was forcefully deported from his country on Sunday by the military. Sounds like old school South American politics. Accept in this case the military was acting on orders from the Honduran Supreme Court and with backing from their Congress who appointed a provisional President. Hmm… not so old school South American politics.

On top of that allegations have surfaced regarding President Zelaya’s involvement with drug trafficking, political intimidation, and an attempt to re-write the countries constitution to eliminate term limits for the President. As a socialist leaning president the move appeared to be a power grab at an all out dictatorship. The fact that Zelaya was immediately supported by Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro did not bode well. President Obama also immediately stepped in, echoing Chavez and Castro and demanding that Zelaya be returned to Honduras and reinstated as President.

Hmm…. a military coup is a bad thing, but is that what this is? Or is this a move by the balance of power within the Honduran government to keep their country from going the way of Venezuela? Tough call.

Personally I think this falls into the ‘too soon to make a judgment call’ category.

The question that I have to ask is, why was President Obama so quick to condemn the Honduran government and side with the ousted President?

I would hope he is acting on a plethora of information from our intelligence resources, but is that the same information that Chavez and Castro have? These are leaders that do not typically act in the best interests of democracy, individual rights, or the United States. Why is this situation different?

At the same time I am shaking my head wondering how President Obama can be so quick to condemn this action and stand behind ousted President Zelaya when he was so slow to speak out against the fraudulent Iranian presidential election and support the massive protests by the people of Iran calling out for justice and freedom?

Gagging on Cap-and-Trade

2009-06-26T15:36:00.001-07:00

Why is everything so rushed?

The mantra of the “stimulus” bill was that it had to be passed immediately to avoid economic meltdown.

President Obama said that health care reform has to be passed this year.

Now a gargantuan energy tax, designed specifically to HURT taxpayers so that they use LESS energy, is on the house floor getting rammed through with pieces of the bill listed as ‘place holders’ and deals being cut into the bill even while debate is being limited.

Are you kidding me?

The bill is over 1200 pages and there was an amendment filed at 3am this morning that was an additional 300 pages. The bill is yet to reach a truly completed form, but they are seeking to limit debate and push for a vote now.

Just a sanity check here. Congress, on both sides of the aisle, messes things up on a regular basis. Even when they take their time and really look at something it can have adverse effects that were unplanned. What happens when you are talking about a $4 TRILLION dollar hit to the economy, effecting every household in America with a tax in excess of $3 THOUSAND dollars, at a time when the economy is still deep in the trough of a significant recession?

Any representative voting for this piece of junk, based on bad science, defying reason, common sense, and spitting in the face of fiscal responsibility, should just go ahead and withdraw their name from the ballot for the next election.

This is why American’s don’t trust their elected politicians. And for good reason.

*****Update: Rep Boehner from Ohio is going through the late night amendment page by page pulling out all kinds of things that are horrible about this bill. The problem is that he has to stop every page or every other page; everything from requiring small communities to hire full time building inspectors to prohibiting the sale of homes that fail to obtain a predetermined energy score. It also gives the Sec. of Energy full authority to circumvent the rules and bylaws of private agreements and home owners’ associations. Can you say, “power grab?”

***** Double Update: If you haven’t read Atlas Shrugged you need to. You’re living it.

***** The vote. Check here to see how your rep voted. The bill passed 219-212. Mine missed the vote. Harry Mitchell and Kirkpatrick from AZ both defected against the Dems and voted NO.

Contempt

2009-06-19T05:44:00.004-07:00

I have a healthy respect for our military and rightly so. These people endure pain, every environmental condition known to man, and months or years away from their families as they tackle problems and issues that no one else can.

The Army Corps of Engineers is no exception. These people spend their lives building, fixing and improving infrastructure and waterways to better serve the cities and communities.

That's why this video irritates me so much.

Don't get me wrong, you should address a senator as senator, however, it is really about respect. I heard other audio yesterday of the General addressing other senators and he intermixed senator and sir/ma'am. It was appropriate. It was respectful.

Senator Boxer was not. I certainly hope during the rest of her questioning she respectfully referred to him as General, since he has obviously worked so hard, not for the title, but for the PEOPLE of this country.

The President Did the Right Thing

2009-06-18T06:52:00.002-07:00

I just want to go on record here saying that the President absolutely did the right thing and I support his actions in this instance 100%.

So what did he do?

Click here.

Unfortunately for the President, his actions have angered a portion of his base.

One more thing that absolutely needs to be talked about and discussed.

Never mind that North Korea is threatening nuclear war. Don’t pay any attention to the massive election fraud, murder, protests, and screams for reform in Iran. Especially don’t pay attention to the multi-trillion dollar take over of the healthcare industry by the government (estimates now approach $2 TRILLION and they aren’t even finished writing the bill!)

No. No. No. No. No.

Watch the fly. Don’t swat the fly. Keep your eye on the fly…

Inspector Generals

2009-06-17T06:26:00.003-07:00

IGs are the watch dogs of government. They don’t make rules, they just watch and report, or at least that is what they are suppose to do.

Sometimes they do it too well and are fired for having the nerve to be impartial and investigate even people who are friends of the president, oooh, the nerve of some people. (This one continues to brew. There will be more coming...)

Unfortunately sometimes it appears that the IGs don’t do their jobs at all.

Do you feel safe now?

Open and accountable government… right.

BIG ISSUES to pay attention to

2009-06-16T09:57:00.004-07:00

It seems like you have to check the news every 30 seconds in order to actually keep abreast of what is going on. After three days of virtual isolation, I can say I am blown away.

Iran elected the same puppet it had before, miraculously counting millions of paper ballots in an instant. Shocking. Just remember that Ahmadinehjad is the president because the Ayatollah Khamenei picked him to be president. The Ayatollah is the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic and he and the other Imams like Ahmadinehjadbecause he speaks for them. The election was a formality. The unrest that you are seeing right now should be fueled, funded, and guided by the US, but under the current administration I am afraid that we are no more than spectators. Unfortunately the only real outcome of this will be a lot of bloodshed.

North Korea makes threats and we back off. Again, shocking. Don’t worry, I’m sure Kim Jong Il will be so overwhelmed by our passivity that he will lay down his arms and open up free elections across North Korea, expelling his own communist dictatorship… or he may nuke South Korea. Either way our response will be similar and irrelevant.

Given all of that pesky “national security stuff” the real drum that the administration is beating like a dead horse is healthcare reform. The President has asserted over and over that part of the financial crisis we are in revolves around healthcare. While that may be true in individual circumstances, it is laughable on the national scene. Yes, healthcare costs are growing irrationally and in some cases crushing families. Trust me when I say I understand that. However, it did not contribute to the national financial meltdown. Throwing it into the mess is only the excuse the administration is using for pushing huge reforms right now.

According to the Organizing for America email that I received, the President has three goals for healthcare reform, “it must reduce costs, guarantee choice, and ensure quality care for every American.” These are great goals, none of which are attainable under the plan that administration is backing, but they are great goals.

The first goal is to reduce costs. Sounds great, who doesn’t want lower costs on healthcare? That’s a no brainer. Everybody wants the best healthcare imaginable at the lowest price. The President claims that by pushing electronic records and by using the “group discount” approach to healthcare we will be able to drive down costs. Really? Then why isn’t the government saving all kinds of money on Medicare and Medicaid? Why haven’t they implemented complete electronic records on the systems that they already run? Why haven’t they implemented the cost saving miracles in these programs first? These two programs alone are threatening to crush the budget as the ranks swell with the baby boomers over the next eight years. How will adding literally hundreds of millions more people help the cost?

The second goal is by far my favorite, “guarantee choice”. The President has been fond of saying that if you like your doctor and you like your insurance plan, then you can keep it. Really? Let me give you a clue to how this is going to work. The government is going to set up minimum coverage standards that have to be provided. It will probably include things like dental, vision, and mental health coverage; things that many employers or employees take a pass on right now. Employers will shop the cost through their current systems and will be a little frustrated by the cost increases, but then they will be given their out, the government option. The government will penalize employers who don’t offer coverage at the level that they are mandating. But the cost of the penalty will be less than providing the mandated coverage. Presto! Companies drop their private coverage, pay the government penalty and you are now on the government system! Did you get to keep your program? No. Did your employer at least have the option to go private? Sure, but why would they when it didn’t make fiscal sense? Pretty soon the “government plan” has forced the private insurance companies out of business. Oops… sorry.

The third goal of course is “quality care for every American”. That’s ingenious really. What was the alternative statement, “we want a system with long wait times, limited resources, and denied services?” Please! These are the same people who run the VA, Medicare, and Medicaid now. Do you think they are going to improve when they are flooded by another hundred million subscribers? What they don’t mention are the healthcare related companies that this bill will KILL. How many new drugs do you see coming out of countries that currently have state run healthcare? Is it any coincidence that the new medicines almost exclusively come from US companies? What about companies that provide medical technologies? How are they going to fund research and development when the government is controlling their prices? Why would anyone start a medical related company? Why would a doctor become a specialist? Socialized medicine means long wait times, limited medicines, limited numbers of available services, fewer physicians, less equipment, fewer medical advancements, and ultimately government boards deciding whether or not it is fiscally responsible to provide care for particular ailments. It happens every day in Canada and the UK. Minimal care for most Americans, but QUALITY care for no one.

This is a huge issue. Our Representatives need to hear from us. Our Senators need to be sick of hearing our voices.

Don’t be distracted by Letterman and completely USELESS stuff. Focus on what matters.

This bill will KILL small businesses.

This bill will cost TRILLIONS of dollars.

This bill will cost lives and quality of life for everyone and anyone who has medical issues.

Entertaining Interviews

2009-06-12T07:01:00.000-07:00

Kind of strange, but I love it when interviews go bad. Classic stuff.

John Ziegler is a radio show host. He is conservative and had the opportunity to interview Sarah Palin and ask her about comments that David Letterman made on his show. MSNBC being the crack journalism team that they are decided they would interview the guy, who interviewed the girl, that was insulted on national televised late night comedy show… now if that isn’t digging to the heart of the story, I don’t know what is!

Did I mention John Ziegler quite openly HATES MSNBC?

For some reason that did not stop them from inviting him on the show…

This next one is Representative Barney Frank (who I can barely stomach to hear speak). What they are talking about are different measures that Congress and the Administration are considering to limit the pay of ALL executives in publicly traded companies. The funny thing here is that the interviewer refuses to sit back and listen while Representative Frank sets up a straw man argument about the host wanting to “do nothing”. If you aren’t going to play by Barney’s rules, then he’s just going to go home. Just think, this man who can barely put together coherent sentences, has been at the heart of the whole financial meltdown with Fannie and Freddie, now wants to dictate how much corporations can pay their executives.

The NEXT Big Crisis

2009-06-11T07:02:00.001-07:00

The next crisis is coming…

I know, you are thinking, “well that stinks because I’m still stuck in the LAST crisis!” Unfortunately the new crisis is only going to exasperate the last crisis.

Sorry.

The new one is oil. OPEC has been lowering their output to try and boost their profit by lowering the supply to just barely meet the demand, which had fallen due to the recession. However, given the lower oil prices and a perceived bottoming out in the economy, demand has increased. China in particular has started to pick back up significantly. Combine increased demand and a falling dollar and you get… higher prices. OPEC couldn’t be more thrilled as oil prices go north of $70 a barrel. The Saudis are talking about increasing output once the price goes above $100 a barrel. You may not be following the oil prices, but I’m positive that you have noticed the gas prices. I paid over $2.50 a gallon this morning and was none too thrilled to do it. At their last peak oil was around $150 a barrel and some are predicting that it will reach $250 a barrel this time. How about $4 gas… maybe $5 or more? That’s a huge chunk of the average family’s pocket book. People will start screaming and complaining. They will start blaming Big Oil for all of their greedy, evil profits.

And that’s when the government will move in to save the day. Well, much like they saved the day on the housing market, the automobile industry, and the credit card companies. You know all of those glorious government programs! That doesn’t mean that they will actually do anything that is going to help you, but they will try and make you feel better because they are doing SOMETHING, regardless of how inept and unhelpful it is.

All the while they will ignore people screaming slogans like, “Drill here! Drill NOW!” They will use platitudes like, “that oil won’t have any effect for five or more years.” Completely ignoring the fact that if they acted even two years ago, we would be less dependent on OPEC TODAY! So think about it, even as we are developing and discovering some incredible new GREEN fuel, we could be tapping into our oil reserves, just in case the next fuel doesn’t hit the market in two, three, or even ten years.

But tapping into our natural reserves would help the problem, and quite frankly, why would they want to do that? After all, Rahm Emanuel will tell you, that you need to take advantage of a crisis, and right now the government “needs” the money. What better way to win favor with the average guy, than to take revenge on the greedy Big Oil companies and slap them with a windfall profit tax? You can say that you are fighting the big corporations for the little guy. You can say you are being fiscally responsible by decreasing deficits (well, short term ones anyway). Or you could say that you are going to take that money and provide funding for new GREEN technologies. Sounds like a winner either way right? The government fights the solution to the problem (expanding supply through drilling) all the while blaming Big Oil, and taxing their profits out the wazzoo in order to fund outrageous and irresponsible spending.

Way to take advantage of the crisis.

Of course eventually the people will wake up and realize that all that is happening is that they are being slapped with a HUGE tax, that gets filtered through the oil companies and finally passed on to the government who takes a penny from the pot and passes that back to the people through different social programs or ‘tax cuts’, and expects the people to love them for it. When they do finally follow the money, maybe they will head to the ballot box and pick the guy talking about lower taxes, smaller government, more drilling, and REAL fiscal discipline.

The next possible time for that is still more than a year away. A lot can happen in a year. Just look at the last five months. During that time the government has seized control of two of the Big Three, nationalized a good chunk of the mortgage industry and a few of the financial institutions, and now is looking to nationalize our healthcare system. Along the way they have borrowed HALF of every dollar they have spent.

Let me look into the crystal ball of my own nightmares and make a rash prediction. Cap and trade will die the way it is right now. It will go quiet and will not see a vote. Six months from now gas will be approaching $4 a gallon and people will be mad. That’s when they will revive cap and trade but as part of the measure they will nationalize the oil companies to “return the resources of the people back to the people”. They won’t use the word “nationalize” they will call it something like “more stringent and responsible government management of our natural resources”, but it will effectively be nationalization.

2010 can’t come fast enough.

The Stimulus Failure - Visualized

2009-06-10T12:11:00.002-07:00

I understand things a lot better when I see them. Despite my HUGE ears, I need visuals.

This video does a pretty good job breaking down the failure of the stimulus. I didn't fact check the numbers but they sound ballpark-ish.

HT : Hotair

Climate Change and Skipping Summer

2009-06-10T06:42:00.001-07:00

If you are listening to the Liberals pushing the cap and trade bill through the process in Washington, we are teetering on the brink of a Global Warming disaster, with droughts, rising sea levels, and dead animals EVERYWHERE.

Of course if you are in Canada right now you might be praying for global warming as they are experiencing wide spread frost.

AccuWeather ran a story yesterday (that it won’t let me access now without a premium membership) talking about how much of the northern United States and Canada will not really see a summer this year.

Even this week in AZ has been really nice and it’s not often that we can say that in June. Swim classes started for my kids this week and everyone is complaining that the water is cold. Usually it’s 90 (that’s the water in the pool, not outside) by now. If this is global warming, I’m LOVIN’ IT!

If you are looking for some actual science on the subject the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change just released Climate Change Reconsidered. You can purchase the book for $154 (choke) or you can download it for free from their site.

I think you can officially say that the appropriate response to someone freaking out about climate change is to laugh… and then club them over the head with this 800+ page book of scientific evidence. But make sure you put a blanket over their peacefully resting, unconscious body… because evidently it’s cold out.

Everybody needs a laugh sometimes...

2009-06-10T06:11:00.001-07:00

Dilbert usually fits the bill.

This one is from yesterday.

The Economy and Jobs

2009-06-09T09:10:00.001-07:00

There have been a host of scathing articles on the economy. May job numbers show job losses are continuing to mount, although the rate they are mounting is slowing a bit. The President took the opportunity to claim that 150K jobs have been created or saved and promises a 600K job summer. This just opens up a whole can of worms, 1) the President continues to use the term created or “saved” which is a metric that can’t be measured and was even pointed out by Democrat Max Baucus, 2) will the jobs that are created be useful and permanent jobs or will they be government jobs that are created merely for the purpose of saying that a job has been created.

Here is a list of articles that get into a lot of these convenient numbers and hammer home some hard truths.

- Tough words from the AP blowing wholes in the “accelerated plan” that the administration was touting.
- “Saved jobs” from the WSJ
- The President doesn’t like business, particularly American businesses from the WSJ.
- Three Indiana pension funds have delayed the sale of Chrysler to Fiat. Could this force them into liquidation?
- Temporary and part time work mask the real unemployment numbers
- Geithner didn’t really reassure China very much.

Wow... just... wow... Read all the way to the end

2009-06-08T11:14:00.004-07:00

I think a lot of us can remember President Reagan's D-Day speech. If you can't, you can listen to it below. Even if you can, you should listen to it again... it's worth it.

President Obama also commemorated the D-Day landing. Here is a good portion, and the best part, of his speech. Listening to the two it lacks a genuinous that President Reagan's had. It's not nearly as moving for sure. But it's a good speech and well delivered.

But I didn't put this post up hear because of either of these speeches, but because of MSNBC's response to President Obama's speech, which aired on Hardball.

Their reaction is... well... horrifying...

Watch for lightning at the MSNBC studios...

Business and Government

2009-06-05T08:42:00.000-07:00

Business is crucial. As much as they have been derided and excoriated on every level, businesses are exceedingly important to the economic well being of this and every other country. Don’t make that sound like a trivial thing. A country with a healthy economy has jobs, and people with jobs can feed themselves, take care of their families, and even contribute some of that economic health to other countries through charity.

Healthy businesses are a good thing because they focus on making a profit. And business profit is THE VITAL NUTRIENT to a healthy economic diet.

Government does not focus on profits. They focus on elections. An election to a politician is their future, their career, their public approval, and their priority.

Of all of the multitude of reasons why government should NEVER get involved with managing, owning, or running business, the fact that their focus is elections is probably the most important.

Case in point. GM is being run by the government right now. GM management wanted to relocate their headquarters out of the city of Detroit for a multitude of BUSINESS reasons. The government said… NO. In fact President Obama, who has said repeatedly that he does NOT want to run a car company, called up the mayor of Detroit to tell him that he WOULD NOT LET GM move their headquarters out of the city.

Business decision?

Yes.

Made for business reasons?

No.

But this is just the TIP of the ice berg, and quite the berg it will turn out to be. GM announced several closings with its bankruptcy, including a warehouse in New York, where Representative Charlie Rangel is from. Representative Rangel’s constituents didn’t like that at all, after all, who would? So they called up Representative Rangel, who called the CEO of GM to give him a better idea of the “value” of the warehouse. Wouldn’t you know it… the warehouse will stay open!

Get the picture?

GM went into a much needed bankruptcy; something that would finally let them get out from under UAW contracts and onto an even footing with other successful and even profitable car companies like Honda. There is only one problem with the way they did it. The government is their reorganization financer with $50 BILLION dollars of tax payer money. The UAW invested in President Obama’s campaign because he is favorable toward unions. Yes, I said “invested” because they just saw a “return on their investment”. The bankruptcy negotiations left the UAW contracts for current employees in place. It also left GM saddled with under funded pension funds that will cost them tens of BILLIONS of dollars. These are two MAJOR things that they should have been able to get out of in bankruptcy.

So even after going into bankruptcy, will GM be able to get through the recession and come out profitable on the other side?

How can they when the government is making BUSINESS decisions for POLITICAL reasons?

Unfortunately it doesn’t end there. The President has an extensive list of political measures that he would like to fund and he needs money to do it. Specifically, he will need additional tax money from businesses which led him to suggest changing some “tax loopholes” that allowed businesses to reinvest money offshore that was made offshore in order to keep from paying that outrageous 35% tax to bring it back into the US.

So, businesses, making BUSINESS decisions, have announced that if these measures go through, they will have to make the appropriate BUSINESS decision and pull up stakes and go elsewhere. Not little companies with only a few employees, but big companies like, Microsoft.

The problem here is that people don’t think things through. People hear a politician say things like, “I’m going to help families”, “Everyone has a right to healthcare”, “I’m going to punish big businesses that soak up big corporate profits and I’m going to put the money back into the hands of the real owners”, or “Everyone is entitled to a college education.” These all sound real good on their face, but the fact is that the government is not and should NOT be responsible for providing you with healthcare, they should NOT be looking to PUNISH anyone but criminals, they should NOT be responsible for YOUR education, and nobody should be looking to the government to help their family. Freedom does not mean that you get everything for FREE! Freedom means you are free to go out and WORK to provide for your family and determine your OWN educational and economic future. The BEST thing that the government can do is to get out of the way and maintain a fair marketplace with small but effective regulations.

When people start looking to the government for a hand out and to the government as the solution to all of their problems, is when they are working against themselves.

A New Kind of Diplomacy

2009-06-04T07:08:00.001-07:00

The President is on another good will tour of the middle east, this is all a part of the position that the President holds that America needs to restore the good will of the world that we squandered since 9/11.

This means that we should deny that America is a Christian nation, but rather make false claims that we are a Muslim nation.

It means that we should applaud the efforts of the Palestinian government that is controlled by the terrorist group Hamas and at least in part and proxy by Iran, while deriding the Israeli government and exerting pressure on them to bow to our desires for how their country should be run. We should embrace our enemies, but hobble our allies.

We should open the doors to Cuba and breathe new life into their economy, essentially propping up the corrupt and crippling government, all the while ignoring the heinous and outrageous violations of human rights that they have been continuously guilty of for over fifty years.

We should embrace Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, even as he does more and more to shut down and silence political dissent, choking out democracy and freedom of speech.

We should open the door for China to be a key player and decision maker in the economic markets of the world, even as they deny the massacre and memory of over two thousand of their own people.

We should ignore the outrageous, dangerous, malicious, and brutal actions of our enemies, but criticize the reasonable moves of our allies. We should prefer favorable relations over promoting human rights.

I don’t understand this kind of diplomacy.

For being a gifted orator, the President seems to be lacking for an appropriate message.

Secretary Geithner's Trip to China

2009-06-03T07:21:00.001-07:00

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is in China this week, trying to calm the fears and concerns of America’s biggest creditor. China has been making news recently after expressing their concern in the monetary policy of the current administration. They’ve been asking President Obama to stop spending money that we don’t have and for the Fed to stop lending money to the Treasury. Two reasonable requests from a lender who has over a trillion dollars invested in our economic future.

During a question and answer session today, Secretary Geithner tried to reassure the crowd that Chinese investments in American debt are safe and that the administration believes in a strong dollar and will return to fiscal responsibility soon.

They laughed.

Not metaphorically or even to themselves… they laughed out loud.

Evidently the crowd understands economics and monetary policy better than our Treasury Secretary, who went on to detail some things that the administration will pursue moving forward.

Now, our Treasury Secretary is either a liar, a fool, and/or there is something up his sleeve that the government isn’t telling us yet.

Not to be too conspiratorial, but let’s look at what he said.

He promised that the administration would cut fiscal deficits and pursue very disciplined future spending. Hmm… sounds good on its face, but fiscal discipline can come from a couple of different directions. You can either stop spending so much money, or you can suddenly start making a lot more money. For the government this means tax increases. Now don’t get me wrong, the only real tax increase that the administration has pushed through so far was the cigarette tax to increase funding for the drastic expansion in SCHIP. The President has promised to undo a good portion of President Bush’s tax cuts including raising the tax rates on upper income families, reviving the death tax, and cutting numerous tax loop holes for things like charitable giving. But those don’t take effect until 2010 and all of that still won’t fund the deficits that are being predicted, even if you use the rosy estimates for the economy that the Obama Administration has been using. So where would extra income come from.

Well a couple of things have been floating around. The first would be the cap and trade tax plan which would be a huge boost in government revenue in the short term because the government could auction off the carbon credits. FREE MONEY, that would magically disappear from your wallet and show up at the Treasury. The second thing (heaven forbid an ADDITIONAL THING) could be a national sales tax or VAT (value added tax… haha). This could add another 10-20% onto virtually every purchase you make. Obviously this would also be a huge boon to the government and a further kick in the head to the economy.

But both of these things would increase revenue to the government, technically speaking. Of course it wouldn’t last long, because either one of these things would be like a fast ball to the groin of the economy. History tells us over and over that the real way to spur the economy and in the long run INCREASE tax revenue, is actually to cut tax rates and get people moving on their own. Higher taxes and heaven forbid, new taxes, only strangle the economy and very quickly decrease revenues.

Of course, since I went down the conspiracy route, can we really rule this out as a goal? Is the administration seeking a reduction in the economy? I know it sounds crazy and any normal person would scoff at the thought, but normal people would also not be talking about an additional sales tax right now.

Look at something else the Treasury Secretary said, ‘Purchases of U.S. consumers cannot be as dominant a driver of growth [for the Chinese economy] as they have been in the past.” Basically saying that the US won’t be the big buyer of Chinese goods that they have been in the past. Of course the policy that the US is pursuing domestically with higher taxes has been shown to choke off new domestic industry, so… is he saying that the US is just not going to be buying things? The US consumer won’t be ABLE to buy things?

That could be a problem.

Maybe the Chinese were laughing for an entirely different reason…

Hear the words, but pay attention to the actions

2009-06-02T07:13:00.001-07:00

I’m sensing a pattern here.

It’s either really deceitful or really naïve. One of the two.

Either way… it’s not good.

Let me show you what I mean.

The President has stated on numerous occasions that he wants to DECREASE the number of abortions. So to accomplish this goal he has increased the availability of abortions, increased government funding of abortions on a global scale, and hinted at removing protections for physicians who have a moral issue with abortion.

Ad this is supposed to decrease their frequency?

The President has also stated numerous times that he wants to stimulate the economy and produce jobs. In fact to back that up he pushed through a $787 BILLION dollar stimulus package. He also pushed toward tax penalties for companies that use off shore profits off shore. Of course he has not removed or reduced tax penalties for companies that make off shore profits and bring them back to the US, either. The only real alternative then is to move ALL operations off shore. Some companies, like say the one I work for, have over 50% of their business in Asia now thanks to the highly capitalistic movement by the Chinese. At the same time he has increased taxes on the upper income earners, making it even more appealing for companies to move their ENTIRE operation off shore.

If that weren’t enough the administration has been pushing for an economy killing cap and trade tax that everyone involved has admitted will lead to smaller profits for businesses, cuts in employment, and higher prices for the average American suffering through some very difficult economic times.

To put an exclamation point on this oxy-moronic position, you can look at the car companies. GM and Chrysler were both being CRUSHED by the UAW. So, what does the President do to stimulate the economy and produce or save jobs? He hands a majority of Chrysler over to the UAW along with a huge share of GM. He also says that he does NOT want to run a car company while firing the CEO of GM, buying up over 70% of the company, telling the car companies what kind of cars they are going to build by implanting new efficiency standards, and appointing a non-auto, auto task force to oversee the reorganization of not ONE, but TWO car companies who are now both in bankruptcy. To further create jobs he makes the car companies close thousands of dealerships and manufacturing plants

And this is supposed to save jobs?

Fortunately the President is honest and straight forward in some of his dealings. For instance he has promised that we will take a softer stance around the world and that we will bring our enemies to the table rather than confronting them head on. Along this line he has almost ignored the fact that North Korea detonated a nuclear bomb, launched several missiles and is preparing more, all while pulling out of the armistice that has been in place for over five decades. Iran as well has been backing up their rhetoric with actions and appears to be on the brink of achieving a nuclear weapon, which they insist they aren’t building, although they seem to speak of nothing else but obliterating one of our greatest allies in the world, Israel, from the map. The President now asserts that it is fine for Iran to continue this nuclear program and asserts that he understands that they have energy concerns that they need to deal with. Unfortunately it appears that none of his aids have informed him that Iran sits on BILLIONS of barrels of oil that it could be using to address any energy concerns. He also seems to ignore the anti-Semitic tripe coming from the President of Iran, but is willing to believe that they are doing all of this just so that they can develop peaceful nuclear energy.

Fortunately, the president never claimed that this strategy would make the world a safer place by undercutting or overwhelming our enemies.

Once again, hear the words, but pay attention to the actions.

Voter Intimidation Charges Dropped Against Members of Racist Group

2009-05-29T07:55:00.002-07:00

Charges were dropped today against members of the KKK who stood outside polling booths in Philadelphia intimidating voters with racially charged comments and brandishing a baseball bat. The three men dressed in white robes and stood outside a polling booth during the November presidential election in a position where everyone coming to the polling place had to pass. Other election observers were intimidated by the brandished weapon and had racial slurs hurled at them.

Despite the testimony of numerous witnesses (including a YOUTube video) and the statements by many of this being the worst case of “voter intimidation” they had ever witnessed, the Feds dropped all charges against the three members after winning an injunction against the man brandishing the bat.

Does that rub you the wrong way?

Does that make you say, “WHAT!?”

It happened just like that this week. Accept the men were not members of the KKK, but of the New Black Panthers. They were not dressed in white robes but in black from head to toe. It wasn’t a baseball bat, but a night stick. The racial slurs included one testimony of whites being told “you are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker.”

It was appalling when it happened.

It’s appalling that it is being dismissed.

If you believe racism is wrong, as I do, then it is wrong no matter what race it is directed against. If you believe voter intimidation should not be tolerated, as I would affirm, then you can’t pick and choose who it is okay to intimidate.

The law is there for a reason. It should be enforced.

The Automobile Task Force

2009-05-28T06:30:00.002-07:00

Recently it was announced that part of a government approved restructuring plan Chrysler would be shutting about 25% of its dealerships and cutting its advertising budget in half. I can understand cuts, but cutting the availability of a product and the advertising for a product, doesn't usually help you sell MORE of a product.

But a better question is, who in the government negotiated and 'approved' this restructuring? In fact who has been working with the car companies on all of the bailout mess? Surely this must be some super group of former car company CEOs and execs who have successfully restructured and led car companies in the past, Lee Iacocca type figures.

Evidently not.

In fact the sum total of their car experience (a couple dozen people) is about... well... zero.

But don't worry, they all OWN cars... well, okay... maybe NOT ALL OF THEM OWN cars.

That's right.

They aren't even all car OWNERS. No dealers. No designers. No automotive engineers. No automotive execs. No car people on the automotive task force.

VAT, Inflation, and White Paint?

2009-05-27T06:52:00.000-07:00

I’m going on very little sleep here, so I can’t say I will have the best tone today, just to warn you right off the bat.

As I look at the news the same question keeps coming to mind over and over :

What! Are they stupid?!

I know, a little juvenile at best, but… then again…

The first one that sticks out is our Nobel Prize winning Energy Secretary; obviously a man of incredible mental acumen… until he opens his mouth. Secretary Chu claims that global warming has reached a “crisis situation”. Really? Are we looking at data here or does someone have Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth looping over and over again on his DVR. What is even more mind boggling is that not only do we have to do all of the already proposed insane ideas that would crush our economy and send us into the Greatest Depression, but we also need to go up on our roof with a five gallon bucket of white paint and cover the whole thing. That’s right! Our brilliant energy secretary claims that if we painted all of our roofs white it would effectively take all of the cars off the road for over a decade. I’m not sure how on earth he came UP with that number, but as long as he is pulling random numbers out of orifices, maybe he could give me the winning Powerball numbers for tonight.

The second one is a little more wide spread. Last week a handful of ballot measures in California went down in flames after people realized that the only solution that their law makers had come up with to solve their massive budget shortfall was to create new ways to tax them to death, all while they have been giving themselves pay raises and spending BILLIONS of dollars on state programs for illegal aliens. Unfortunately this particular stupidity isn’t limited to California, in fact it is rampant in Washington. Evidently the President and the Treasury Secretary (don’t get me started on THAT guy) are hearing from “tax experts” that we really need to have a Value Added Tax (VAT) to help make up for our SOARING deficits. If you aren’t familiar with the VAT let’s just say it is ONE more way for the government to take the money out of your wallet a little bit faster. It’s also known as a national sales tax. Now, I’m not opposed to a national sales tax… just get rid of the income tax first. I’ll be the first to admit that I am not a “tax expert” but I’ve got an even better idea to make up for the massive deficit that we have… STOP SPENDING MONEY, MORONS!!!! Okay, I feel a little better now.

It’s one thing for the average Joe like me to get upset with my government and yell at them for doing stupid things, but you would think they would pay a little more attention to the people that are actually lending them money (they just TAKE mine). Evidently the Chinese aren’t really happy with our monetary policy lately. For a while now they have been yelling at us to cut off the bailouts and stop spending money, but they seem to be even less fond of the fact that the Federal Reserve is buying Treasury debt. That’s right, the Fed is buying debt (or lending money) to the Treasury.

Let that process for just a second.

Got it?

Yes, that’s called printing money out of thin air. We are loaning ourselves money and if I were the Chinese (who own a HUGE portion of our debt), I wouldn’t be talking with people about this problem I would be smacking them senseless. In fact, we should all be smacking them senseless! This is a recipe for DISASTER. Can anyone say inflation?

Okay, believe it or not, I haven’t had my coffee yet. I was afraid that if I drank that first I would just throw the computer off the desk and end up on some security video, spam email that you end up getting four dozen times.

Ugh… stupid people.

Sorry, I’ll try and make the next post a little more civil.

Race, Sex, and Justice

2009-05-26T10:58:00.001-07:00

Here is a quote from the Republican Supreme Court nominee, “I would hope that a wise white man, with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Hispanic female who hasn’t lived that life.”

Oh wait, that’s not what happened. But what if it had? Is that a racist statement? Is it a sexist statement? I would certainly say so.

Now here is the real quote from President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” — Judge Sonia Sotomayor, in her Judge Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Lecture at the University of California (Berkeley) School of Law in 2001.

Any way you slice it, the statement is racist, sexist, and has NOTHING to do with the rule of law. In fact it is clear that not only does the Judge Sotomayor believe that the race and background of the two parties should be considered, but that justice itself may be different depending on the race, sex, and background of the judge trying the case.

Can we go ahead and redesign any statues of Lady Justice and have them strip off the blind fold and throw the lopsided weights of race and sex into the scales.

Unfortunately this isn’t just talk for Judge Sotomayor, she was actually admonished by a colleague (and President Clinton appointee) for her judgment (or lack there of) in a case where white, male firefighters were being passed over for promotions based on their race.

Justice?

The crazy world we live in

2009-05-26T06:48:00.001-07:00

Hold on to your seats, things are bumpy, crazy, and just plain dizzying. Here is a quick list that will make your head teeter on the brink of exploding.

- The first of the two big stories is North Korea. Kim Jong Il is about as loopy as they come. The man appears to be going through some substantial physical struggles and this whole show that he has been putting on for the last couple of days is probably aimed toward his own people and having the backing of senior military leaders to be able to name one of his sons as his successor. Still it is further testament to the fact that the man is crazy. Obviously just the kind of person that we need to sit down and hold talks with.

- You’re the president, it’s Memorial Day, you laid your wreath and followed tradition, one of the biggest psychopaths in the world just tested a nuclear weapon… and you’re… off to play golf? Seriously, if President Bush had done this in the same situation you wouldn’t have been able to find ANYTHING else on the news.

- The second big story is that the President will be announcing his pick for the replacement of Justice Soutor. In fact as I typed this Drudge just updated to say that he has picked Sonia Sotomayor, which is not a surprise and has been on the short list. Unfortunately she has been chosen for three reasons, only one relating to her real qualifications. Number one, she is a she. The President made it very obvious from very early on that he would be picking a woman. She will also be the first Latina appointed to the Supreme Court. Quite frankly I don’t really care about either of these “qualifications”. I don’t agree with picking people because they meet a certain demographic, it demeans the office and leaves you guessing about the person’s actual qualifications. Pick a Philippino-Hungarian hermaphrodite for all I care, as long as they are really the best person for the job. The third and final reason that she was picked is that she is a holds a liberal activist line and meets Obama’s requirement for being empathetic. The AP is already heralding her as bipartisan (shocking) because she was given an appointment by President George H. W. Bush, but just remember, so was Justice Souter who turned from somewhat conservative to extreme liberal on the bench.

- The President is adding to his long list of new ‘czar’ positions by creating the post of cyber czar. Unnecessary and even frightening in some respects. The cyber czar responsibilities are fairly broad and focus on the vague term of ‘security’. Nice to know that this unelected official could possibly exercise authority over public and private networks… all in the name of ‘security’. Seriously how many people does the President need to report to him and how many things do we need government putting their foot into. How much is this going to cost the taxpayers? You know this isn’t just some hacker sitting in a room of supercomputers but an entire STAFF of people. Great, just what we needed.

- Gas prices. Ugh. No one seems to care about the dollar falling compared to other world currencies… until of course they start to understand what that means. It means higher gas prices and inflation on the billions of things that we import. This is the tip of the ice berg. Interest rates on treasury certificates are going up because of the HUGE debt load. Rising inflation, rising interest rates, and rising unemployment. Welcome back Mr. Carter! Oh you may not be feeling it yet, or just starting to notice, but it’s here and it’s growing…

- The US is on the brink of losing our AAA credit rating. That means… refer back to my previous point.

- And finally, a California court will decide today whether or not the Constitutional Amendment that was passed by the voters is really legal. Huh? I thought that was the whole point of passing a Constitutional Amendment. Doesn’t the Constitution DEFINE the law?

Coffee time.

Waxman - Markey Cap and Trade

2009-05-21T10:35:00.004-07:00

Here is a pdf of the Waxman-Markey Cap and Trade bill if you would like to read it.

Only 932 pages and a real page turner at that.

Remember what I've said about bills that are this big... they are intentionally written this big so that you will never read them, so that you will not know all that they are trying to do, and so they can create loop holes for all of their big donors and constituents.

This is a mess.

The mere fact that the following amendments were proposed, let alone voted down, should scare you. (From the Heritage Foundation)

The first was an amendment that would void the legislation within a year without a deal with India and China. A second would have voided the bill if gas prices surpassed to $5-a-gallon. The third would void legislation if unemployment reached
15 percent. And a fourth provision would have repealed “the entire law if the average retail price of electricity sold to residential sector goes up by more than 10 percent in one or more census divisions.”

All of this for a "possible" reduction in global temperatures (mind you these are the same people that predict the weather) of less than .05 degrees C in the next 40 YEARS.

There is NO SCIENCE to back this up.

This is an economy CRUSHING bill.

This will cost YOU thousands of dollars... if it doesn't cost you your job because of the impact that it will have on your business or company.

Anybody want to make a phone call? Can I suggest the capitol switchboard so you can contact your Reps and your Senators?

(202) 224-3121

****UPDATE: Talk about a bill that is so big it is MEANT to confuse people. This is Waxman, of Waxman-Markey aka the AUTHOR of the bill being asked about the contents of the bill. Nice.

Killing One Business Owner at a Time... all for the greater good... of course

2009-05-21T09:58:00.003-07:00

Read this letter to the editor from the owner of a Dodge dealership in Florida.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness... really?

What should the GOP do?

2009-05-21T06:27:00.000-07:00

If you listen to talk shows and the mainstream press, you may have heard an increasing amount of banter by liberal thinkers that the GOP is dead; that as a party the Republicans have lost their way and need to reinvent themselves. Some official members of the Republican Party have echoed this same sentiment. General Colin Powell has talked recently that the GOP needs to moderate on issues and that we basically need to take a good few steps to our left.

At the same time, others in the party, such as former Vice President Cheney have said that we need to stick to conservative principles and that General Colin Powell has basically left the Republican Party.

What should we do?

The answer is pretty obvious when you take a step back. The Republicans blew a prime opportunity when they had it and when the economy tanked they were the ones left holding the hot potato. Hence, they had two very bad elections. They didn’t lose by landslides, but they did lose handily.

However, the Democrats have come to power and have done exactly the opposite of what the Republicans did when they were in power. The Democrats have stuck to their liberal ideology. They’ve held to their principles and are moving in lightning fashion to the left.

And the country is starting to realize this might not be the way to go.

In a recent poll, which is a regular Rasmussen poll repeated every month or so, the country seems to be rejecting the liberal ideology and starting to favor Republicans.

However, the Republicans are the minority party. The candidate that we had for president was not the candidate we needed. Although he is the type of candidate the Gen. Powell says that we need (although he supported President Obama). We have no clear leader at this point. We have several promising, conservative prospects, but nobody has emerged as a clear leader of the party.

Fortunately Republicans are gaining ground without a clear leader to rally around, and conservatives are becoming more dominant within the party. This is good news.

The smart players in Congress can see the writing on the wall. They know they are facing some tough elections and while so many (mainly OUTSIDE the party) are telling Republicans to take a step to the left, the Democrats in Congress are finding that they need to take a few to the right… just to survive.

One of the first things that President Obama did when coming into office was sign an executive order to close the prison in Guantanamo within a year. It doesn’t look like he is going to be able to do that. While it is in his realm of authority to do this he has to go to Congress to get the funding. And yesterday his Democrat led Congress said – NO. Overwhelmingly, NO. By a vote of 90 to 6 the Senate voted to REJECT an amendment to a war funding bill that would have funded the closing of GITMO and the movement of the prisoners to US soil. In fact they also stipulated that no funds already approved could be redirected toward this effort. Ouch.

Despite a still fairly rosy opinion of the President, he is not winning any policy victories with the people.

On top of the tide moving against the liberal policy flood, the country is also moving toward a more conservative moral stance on abortion. 51% of people now call themselves pro-life.

So in an increasingly favorable climate, why on earth would the Republicans move toward a more moderate position?

Forget the fact that I firmly believe that conservative principles are the only moral, intelligent, and historically proven way to run a country successfully. Look at it from a strategic perspective. The country is shifting in your favor, against your opponent. Do you take this opportunity to grey the lines between you, or do you pull out the Sharpie and make that line as clear as possible.

Fortunately this is not the first time we have seen this. Or the first time that the Republicans have been told that they need to moderate. It has happened repeatedly and there is an appropriate response:

"Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors, which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?" Ronald Reagan 1976 CPAC

Don’t pull out the pale pinks and mint greens now. Listen to the man who won real landslides with a Democratic congress and a hostile press.

Bold colors.

Maricopa County Board of Supervisors

2009-05-20T06:28:00.004-07:00

If you live in Maricopa County then you need to look into a couple of things.

#1 We have an awesome County Attorney who won re-election EASILY. He's on the ball. He works hard. Andrew Thomas is a stand up guy.

#2 The Board of Supervisors is out of control... BIG TIME. They need to go. At least one of them needs to, and probably will be, going to prison.

Sonoran Alliance has a bit on their latest shenanigans of pulling the funding from the County Attorney that YOU elected and giving the money to an attorney that they chose. Nothing like usurping authority that isn't yours to take.

Channel 5 sums it up here.

BTW: If you are looking for AZ political info, Sonoran Alliance is one of the best.

The Notre Dame Commencement

2009-05-19T10:17:00.001-07:00

The President’s recent speech and accompanying honorary degree at Notre Dame was controversial and highly publicized. As always, the president conducted himself well and read his speech very smoothly with a comfortable and relaxed demeanor. He is after all, a very talented orator. As with all of the president’s speeches, if you enjoy the moment and ignore the words you miss a lot of what was said, both good and bad. So here is a break down.

First the controversy.

The fact that the president was speaking at the commencement was not controversial; he is after all, the president. The controversy revolved around the honorary degree that the university was giving him and a particular edict issued from the Catholic church relating to political figures who support abortion. Catholic institutions are strongly discouraged from giving awards or honors to politicians who hold a ‘pro-choice’ viewpoint. This would apply particularly to President Obama, who holds a more ‘pro-abortion’ viewpoint than any of his predecessors. Many students, staff, clergy, and other invited guests protested and even boycotted the graduation to voice their disapproval.

In the midst of this controversy, the president did quite well. Of course, he didn’t do what I would have thought was the best thing, but what he did, he did well. He acknowledged and addressed the issue in his speech. The speech itself was an encouragement to engage on difficult issues and try and find common ground. A very admirable approach to any ‘gray’ issue.

Unfortunately abortion is not one of those issues. There is nothing ‘gray’ about abortion. There is no common ground to be found on murder.

And the President acknowledged that too, I was surprised to find. He said, “… the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.”

Fair enough.

He went on to discuss a variety of issues including giving a powerful example of how the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was actually created. It is an example that you don’t normally hear from the Democrats. Not to say they don’t talk about the Civil Rights Act, but they rarely give credit where credit is due. The President quite admirably gave kudos to President Eisenhower, who did more to advance the Civil Rights movement and dialogue than his Democratic successors, especially President Johnson, who merely signed the measures that President Eisenhower spent years assembling.

These were definitely the highlights of the speech, but closer inspection on some of the finer points does show some interesting bits.

A common theme throughout the speech is a sense of ‘fairness’, not so much from a perspective that you would expect at a commencement. Instead it carried the constant drumbeat of a latent hostility against success; an encouragement for service given by the students and a rebuke of the affluence that many of them are aspiring to, an affluence that the President himself has attained.

In the middle of the encouragement to deny yourself, the President, who had just assailed selfishness, pride, and ego, holds himself up as an example and repeats the story of what led him to become a community organizer working to lift up South Side neighborhoods. All while making no mention of the millions of dollars of success that the President has enjoyed after writing two best selling books. He goes on and on about the people that he has learned selflessness from and speaks of the wonders of non-profit ventures and being generous towards others, all while his wallet and his checkbook are telling a remarkably different story.

An odd commencement speech indeed.

I applaud the President for addressing the very issue that brought such controversy to the occasion, though it seems it would have been less self serving and more understanding if he had graciously asked not to receive the honorary degree in order to honor the Catholic heritage of those present.

I fully acknowledge that personal sacrifice, charity, and generosity are great and wonderful things that should be practiced by everyone, including the President, Vice President, and every member of his administration.

I would also encourage everyone to realize that class warfare, rather than helping the whole, actually hurts the whole. If we’ve learned anything from history it is that when you try and ‘level the playing field’ (i.e. promote a socialist doctrine) all you succeed in doing is dragging all but the elite in government DOWN to a common lower standard. When you practice liberty and encourage people to dream and succeed, then give them the freedom to do just that, then everyone is elevated by the success. Yes, naturally a few will rise above the others, but the level of the whole is higher. Our country was not established on equality of results, but rather freedom of opportunity.

When we celebrate the greatness, talent, ambition, creativity, and intelligence of the individual, we inspire the call to greatness within us all. We should not strive to covet the things that our neighbor has, but rather to develop the talents and abilities that God has given each one of us.

A Tangled Web Indeed

2009-05-15T07:29:00.001-07:00

Wow, what a mess.

So here it goes. After September 11, 2001, the US captured some very mean, nasty, and high ranking members of the Al Qaeda network. Evil men by all accounts. It was believed that these men were in a position to know information about possible attacks that could be significant. The Bush administration asked their legal team about the possibility of “enhanced interrogation techniques” and the team weighed in on a number of techniques including waterboarding. The time came, the order was given, the technique was used, useful information was gained, and innocent American lives (possibly hundreds of thousands of lives but the current administration won’t release that info) were saved and no permanent damage was done to the bad guys.

The far left base of the Democratic Party has been apoplectic about this for years now, so when Barack Obama became president they started lobbying for him to prosecute President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and whoever else might have been involved. He very quickly ruled out prosecuting the executive leadership, for good reason; the whole idea is absurd and it would set a very bad precedent. He also very quickly ruled out prosecuting the CIA agents that actually performed the waterboarding. All of this enraged the leftists who worked so hard and contributed so much to Democratic campaigns. So the administration opened up to the idea of prosecuting, get this, not the people who gave the ORDER to do the waterboarding, or the people who DID the waterboarding, but the LAWYERS who gave a legal opinion to the President, that waterboarding was not illegal.

Well, it became obvious very quickly that this strategy was not going to work, would put egg all over the face of the administration, and would fail to appease the base. So… they appealed to the home state Bar Associations of these lawyers for them to consider ethical complaints against the attorneys. In the view of those searching for blood, President Obama failed to deliver.

So… here comes the queen of the leftists, Speaker Pelosi. She demands a truth commission be set up to find out who was involved and bring them to justice. One problem; the CIA says that they briefed her on this subject repeatedly since 2002 and she never raised any concerns about the techniques being used. Oops. She denied, then says that she new they thought the technique was legal, but that it wasn’t being used… oh wait she knew it was being used but not until 2003 and only because some random staff person told her… no wait it was another member of congress that told her… spinning, spinning, spinning…

Then yesterday the wheels came off the bus and the Speaker’s finger pointing was everywhere. She was flustered and had to read repeatedly from her prepared statement because it was obvious that she was lying through her teeth and turned abruptly and unexpectedly on the CIA saying that they had lied to Congress in the past and were lying now. Here is a quote from the press conference:

QUESTION: Madam Speaker, just to be clear, you're accusing the CIA of lying to you in September of 2002?

PELOSI: Yes, misleading the Congress of the United States, misleading the Congress of the United States. I am.

QUESTION: And also -- and doing it again now, as they've released this list of briefings that says you were briefed on the interrogation tactics that were used.

PELOSI: I'm saying -- I'm quoting what the head of the CIA has said. This is -- we don't know if this information is accurate that he's talking about.

What they briefed us on -- and perhaps they should release the briefings. I would be very happy if they would release the briefings. ...

But I'm telling you that they talked about interrogations that they had done and said, "We want to use enhanced techniques, and we have legal opinions that say that they are OK. We are not using waterboarding." That's the only mention, that they were not using it. And we now know that earlier they were.

So, yes, I am saying that they are misleading -- that the CIA was misleading the Congress.

Now the Speaker has lost her credibility (with the few people that still held her in any regard).

Pundits are now taking bets on how long she will last.

Unfortunately I’m not sure that it is going to work that way. The Democratic Party doesn’t have the same kind of ethics standards that the Republicans have. I think Speaker Pelosi will be there for some time to come.

But I hope I’m wrong. She needs to go.

Falling In and Out of Love... Aw

2009-05-14T08:45:00.001-07:00

There haven’t been many, but I have read a few articles now by the typical main stream media, that do a pretty decent job of reporting what is said by the administration and then actually checking to see if those things are true.

Shocking, but very encouraging.

Recently Vice President Biden reported on the economic effects of the stimulus and the report was all fluff. More impressively, the AP picked up on the fact that it was fluff and wrote a decent piece picking apart the misleading statements. It’s a good read. They even finished up the piece in a decent fashion.

Spending money will put people to work. But spending has a cost. At some point,
Washington will have to pay for this program, either by raising taxes or interest rates, and those policies typically hurt job growth. The Obama administration's job data do not take into consideration this back-end cost, an omission some economists, particularly conservative economists, say is a flaw in the analysis.

This is encouraging.

At the same time it appears that the White House press corps seems to have lost some of their… let’s say respect for Press Secretary Gibbs, who seems a little frustrated by this new found contempt.

While these marks of true journalism and reporting are starting to shine through, by and large the President still gets a pass on most tough questions, as evidenced by the ‘enchanted’ primetime questions he fielded a couple of weeks ago. His administration, however, is starting to feel some heat. As they should.

I wonder how long it will take the flames to spread and pass the warmth on to the Oval Office.

Faces of Nationalized Health Care

2009-05-13T06:19:00.000-07:00

Our healthcare system has issues. I understand that. I admit that. The government is not the answer to the problem. I also understand that. There are some good solutions out there that involve modernizing our system, increasing competition in health insurance, health savings accounts, and a variety of new ideas that once you hear them make complete sense.

The president has said repeatedly in the past that if he could do what he wanted we would have a single payer nationalized healthcare system. Democratic law makers are on video saying that what they are doing now is the first step toward a single payer system and the goal is to drive private insurance companies out of business.

So what are they trying to get us into?

Read some stories of people living under this ‘dream’ of nationalized healthcare.

Having government control your healthcare is a game changer. It is a fundamental change in the relationship between the citizens and their government.

This brings dependency to a whole new level.

There are solutions.

This is not the one we want.

'They Owe Me' Culture

2009-05-12T08:33:00.001-07:00

The culture of a country is absolutely critical. Throughout our history the culture of America has been one of self reliance. Personal responsibility goes hand and hand with liberty and freedom. You have the liberty to make your own choices. Work hard and you’ll eat. Slack off and you’ll starve. It’s a naturally reinforcing system.

Unfortunately I think we are losing that. Certainly it isn’t gone and I hope that all of us can think of at least one person that they know who has struggled and persevered and advanced themselves through struggle and hard work. The problem is that changes like this don’t happen all at once, they happen over time and as you continue to feed and nurture the problem it continues to grow.

America is the land of opportunity! And everyone has an opportunity in America to do what they dream of doing. That’s part of the beauty of liberty and freedom; you have the ability to make decisions for yourself. Inherent in that liberty is the freedom to succeed and to fail, and that is a good thing. People need to be able to fail. Businesses need to be able to fail.

Being the father of young kids you learn that you don’t jump up and catch them when they are about to fall. You watch and you monitor so that they learn what is safe and what is dangerous. They learn to manage their own risks and as they get older you monitor less and less. If you follow them around every day and live in a state of paranoia and fear that they are going to hurt themselves, then a) the child isn’t going to understand risks and b) you’ll only wear yourself out in the process.

The situation is actually directly applicable to what we are seeing now. People and companies have over spent and taken some unwise risks; unfortunately the government is following them around and holding out a hand to catch them every time they stumble. Instead of taking their lumps and growing wiser for it, they continue on exactly as they did before, believing that someone will always be there to catch them. Instead a character of self reliance and strength it breeds dependence and entitlement. In the meantime the government will bankrupt the country with out of control spending and endless red ink.

Instead of dreaming of what you might be able to accomplish, you dream of what might be handed to you. Instead of looking within yourself to see where you need to grow and change, you look for a government program to give you a leg up. The shift can appear minor at first and it happens over time, but the long term effects are crushing both personally and on society as a whole.

A person that thinks that the world OWES them something will never accomplish the things that their God given ability and talents would have brought them to. They will never realize their potential because they can’t fuel their own engine of ambition. This country could not have been built by people holding out their hands to the government; it had to be done by men reaching out their hands to take hold of what their dreams and desires told them was possible.

We’re losing that ambition. We’re driving it out of our culture by our actions. People who are carried by their government will eventually lose the ability to carry themselves.

Organizing for America

2009-05-08T07:48:00.004-07:00

Last year when then the President’s campaign was touting his sacrifice to become a community organizer instead of taking some high income position, we should have been paying more attention. The roots of union labor and community organization run deep and are very closely tied. Even after the election President Obama has continued to have his organization send out email updates to supporters under the tag line “Organizing for America”. Maybe a more appropriate line would be “Unionizing America”. The Union President seems to have drawn his line of allegiance very clearly.

The first shot was the DC voucher program which I mentioned yesterday. The obvious point of this is that the teachers’ unions are very much against school choice or voucher programs, charter schools, and home schools. These alternate sources for education cut down on head count and in some cases cut down on funding available to the public school system. For instance, in the DC voucher case each voucher recipient was given $7500 a year to use at the school of their choice. Likewise in many states charter schools receive their state funding based on their headcount. In all cases that I have read about or studied, the funding sent to the charter or voucher program is significantly less than the normal state funded institution spends on a per child basis. It actually saves the tax payers money. But it is money that doesn’t go to the state educational system, where the teachers’ unions have real influence. Yesterday I mentioned the 160 “teachers” in LA that are paid not to teach. This is just one example of the negative affect that these unions have; schools find it nearly impossible and EXTREMELY costly to fire a bad teacher.

Let me give you another example of the teachers’ unions at work. This story also comes out of CA, but it does take too many Google searches to see that this problem is wide spread. This particular example is just out right heinous. An eighth grade student was responding to questions from his teacher about his recent absence and he finally admitted that he had been in the hospital because he tried to commit suicide by slitting his wrists. The teacher took a look at the cuts and said that they “were weak” and that he should “carve deeper next time.” The principle requested that he be terminated. The school board voted to fire him. A review commission said… no. He still has his job. They said he was “misunderstood”. According to a former principle, “You’re not going to fire someone who’s not doing their job. And if you have someone who’s done something really egregious, there’s only a 50-50 chance that you can fire them.” Obviously they have the best interests of the kids in mind.

Unfortunately our Secretary of Education and President are on the side of the unions.

Take a look at the recent Chrysler bankruptcy situation. Normally when you are investing in a company, there are different levels of investment involving varying amounts of risk. Unsecured investments are the riskiest because there is nothing standing behind the loan. That’s like if you went to the bank and got a signature loan or any other type of loan where you don’t have to put up collateral. Then there are secured investments. This means that there is an agreement that no matter what happens to a company, that money will get returned or certain property or capital will be forfeited. In normal bankruptcy proceedings those who hold secured debt get paid as much as possible. Those with unsecured debt get whatever is left over. That is the nature of the investment. In the recent Chrysler bankruptcy that was not the case. The union got 50 cents on the dollar for their UNSECURED investment, while those holding SECURED loans received 33 cents on the dollar. Obviously some resisted this flip in bankruptcy practices which truly violates the established contracts. One of the lawyers who had represented the secured bond holders reported that his clients had been threatened to accept the proposed deal or risk the wrath of the White House and their minions in the press. The bond holders were then derided by the President himself at a press conference who denounced them as “speculators”. Since then these investors have been receiving death threats for causing the down fall of Chrysler. All for investing in a company that needed help and was offering secured notes. What do you think that will do for other companies seeking outside investors, especially if they already have debt held by large influential unions? What a great strategy to “get credit flowing again”!

Of course that’s not the only deal that the UAW has made out on since President Obama came to power (in a very real sense). With the government at the helm of GM, after dismissing the CEO, they recently cut a deal with the UAW, exchanging debt for 39% of GM, more of GM than the Ford family owns of Ford Motor Company. In a similar deal the UAW received 55% of Chrysler before the bankruptcy. They get to appoint board members and have influence over who is chosen as CEO; any guesses on how the labor negotiations at GM will go now?

But wait, there’s more!

President Obama just proposed $17 BILLION in budget cuts, most of which will be ignored by congress. One that I am sure they will probably NOT miss is a cut in funding at the Department of Labor. Not to the department as a whole, but in a certain division, the division that investigates union corruption. The Labor Department's Office of Labor-Management Standards investigates allegations of corruption against union officials. Let me ask a rhetorical question here, but why would the President propose cuts to the government body that regulates unions? Hasn’t he called for more government oversight in almost EVERY area? The administration stated an insufficient workload. Obviously there just isn’t anything for them to be investigating, despite the 929 convictions of corrupt union officials that they have won and the $93 million dollars they have been able to return to union members. Maybe President Obama will be investigating any corruption charges himself, since he obviously spends a lot of time with them.

Card check legislation will be coming up soon. It is one of the major goals for the administration and the Democrat party as a whole. It will enable union leaders to coerce new businesses and groups into unions, which of course should have a hugely beneficial effect on the union coffers, which will naturally want to reward the administration that has been so favorable to their cause.

Welcome to the Obama Administration, “Organizing for America”.

****Update: Another union gets in on the action this morning. The president threatens to hold back stimulus dollars if CA doesn't rescind some union wage reductions. Great message! Don't do ANYTHING to cut spending!

Thank your local teachers’ union.

2009-05-07T07:17:00.000-07:00

I’ve mentioned before that I think unions have by and large outlived their usefulness in the U.S. Teachers’ unions are definitely on that list.

In Los Angeles right now they are paying “teachers” approximately $10 million dollars a year NOT to teach. That’s right, they are being paid NOT to teach. These people are “housed” for different reasons including, “sexual contact with students, harassment, theft or drug possession.” But they still get a paycheck while their cases are under review. Some reviews take months; some take years. Union rules.

Isn’t it great to see your tax dollars at work!

Education Reform That Works, But Not for the Kids

2009-05-07T06:42:00.000-07:00

Beholden to Unions

This is the most heartbreaking, convincing, accurate, and informative video I have seen on this topic. The only thing it leaves out is the answer. Why would the President do this?

Simple: Teachers’ unions. That’s his real litmus test for education.

***Update: President Obama has proposed some budget changes including a renewal of the DC voucher program, but only for kids already enrolled. No new students admitted. Quite the change to believe in.

Bigger Isn't Always Better

2009-05-06T06:37:00.001-07:00

The key to effective and efficient government is small government. Government that is large and bloated is by nature inefficient and throughout history has been shone to lend itself more easily to corruption.

As I mentioned yesterday, once government expands, it is very hard to contract. Once additional government positions are created, they are very hard to remove simply because they are not measured by efficiency and productivity on a normal basis, like any private industry position. This fact alone means that governments are bloated beyond reason; restricted and governed by rules that were created without logical intent. The systems are inefficient because they are not judged by their efficiency, nor in many cases even there effectiveness.

The recent financial collapse is a perfect example. Government regulators at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac blew the whistle years ago and said that these institutions were acquiring too many subprime loans and they were operating from a very week cash position. Quite frankly they were headed for the devastation that we all witnessed with great horror. However, the regulators soon found that their authority was very limited. In fact, they were completely dependent on the congress to actually take action. The system was then crippled by congressmen who were receiving campaign contributions and “special loans” with below market interest rates. Not that the government should have been nor should be, involved in the mortgage industry, but the system that they created to regulate the industry was weak, ineffective, and easily subverted by executives and congressman who benefited from the sheer idiocy of the system.

This is just a brief and very painful example of how government systems work. Why have regulators if they have no real authority? Why allow for a feedback loop between the industry that is being regulated and the elected officials with the ultimate authority over that industry?

The conservative answer would be to dissolve Freddie and Fannie, or force them off into the private sector economy. Government has no business being in business. No bailouts. No government intervention. That would eliminate the need or temptation for these industries to try and court political favors and it would require them to stand on their own merit. They would be forced into efficiency or forced out of business. You could then dissolve the position of the regulators, which weren’t effective to begin with. In the end you have a company that will either thrive or bust, a government that is no longer meddling in private affairs, and you have now decreased the size and cost of the government.

The liberal answer to this problem exasperates the problem. Instead of privatizing, you nationalize. Instead of removing the regulators, you increase the regulators but don’t increase their authority. Instead of realizing that the government was a big part of the problem, the belief is that the government is the only solution to the problem. A government trying to improve the efficiency, stability, and liquidity of an industry, all while running a crippling and irresponsible deficit of their own, makes no sense. More importantly the main issue of ineffectiveness and corruption was never dealt with. No accountability, no repercussions, and nothing to prevent it in the future.

Acknowledging this, why would a conservative, who believes in smaller, limited government, ever become a part of the government? To move into the public sector, all the while decrying the size and scope of the public sector almost seems hypocritical.

True.

This is the problem and the struggle that many conservatives have. It is also one of the things that prevents some conservatives from getting involved.

Unfortunately they are sorely needed. Conservatives that do it well move in and make or at least propose sweeping changes that center around smaller government, lower costs, lower taxes, federalist principles (restoring power back to the states rather than centralizing it), and above all liberty for the people. Along with that is a desire not to become part of the problem and so many impose term limits upon themselves. Which is a noble but crippling measure when you have well connected moderate and liberal politicians who stay in positions for decades sinking roots of influence that expand ever deeper into the Washington soil.

We need conservatives that will hold their ground because we are in a constant struggle between ideologies. We need people that can get into the system, but not become a part of the system. People who can point out the inefficiencies and slowly dismantle them; stripping away public sector jobs while cutting taxes to encourage the private sector to expand.

The change we need is not a big government solution, but a smaller government revolution.

Public Sector vs. Private Sector

2009-05-05T07:03:00.002-07:00

I would like to take a couple of posts and explain further the purpose and implication behind one of the main tenants of conservatism, limited government. President Reagan once said it best, “in this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government IS the problem.” An unspoken message from President Obama is, government is the solution to this problem, and every problem.

The government is the solution mantra has led to an explosion in the scope and size of government. We’ve created whole new government positions for advisors, regulators, and administrators that haven’t been needed for the last 233 years, but now are crucial to the survival of our system and our country.

The jump start to the government solution was the $787 BILLION stimulus package which dumped huge amounts of resources into areas that didn’t have the personnel and infrastructure to handle this influx. The choice then becomes to deny the funds, which thankfully some have done, or expand and create an organization that can handle this waterfall of funding.

The theory behind this is that any spending is stimulus and any job created is beneficial to the system. This is true to a very small degree and for a very limited time. The problem with public sector, or government jobs, is that they don’t make money. Think about it. What are public sector jobs? Teachers, fire fighters, police officers, the Motor Vehicle Division, social workers, politicians and their expanding staffs, and the increasingly popular regulators of everything from environmental conditions to bank health and welfare. These of course are just the tip of the iceberg; quite frankly the list is growing every day. All of these are fine and good and yes we need and are thankful for all, well okay, most of these positions, when they are in the correct proportions. But take a look at the list for a minute. Do any of these positions generate money? I don’t mean, do they bring home a paycheck; of course these positions are paid, but do they generate money?

The answer of course is no. These are not profit generating positions. I know that seems to be a bad word these days, “profit”, but it is not a bad thing. Profit is a good thing; a necessary thing.

While none of these positions actually generates a profit, they all COST money and to have them we have to get the money from somewhere. Money doesn’t just fall from the sky and the government just can’t print all of the money that it needs. I have been shocked at the people that I have talked to that seem to think that this is exactly what happens. That’s not the case. The government brings in money in the way of taxes and then spends that money on the critical things including all of the necessary public sector jobs. The problem is that money has to first come out of the private sector. This means that people have to hold private, profit generating positions in order to fund the public sector positions.

Now do you understand my concern, and the concern of many others, when we see the size of the private sector shrinking and the public sector growing? Where does the money come from when you are pulling more and more money from an ever shrinking pool?

You are seeing the answer to that question as well in the form of deficits and debt, which carries its own implications and burdens that I won’t discuss right now.

The problem is magnified when hard times hit and suddenly the private sector is not producing the profits that it use to. A recession in the private sector means layoffs, cutbacks, even companies folding and going out of business. The public sector doesn’t quite work like that because they don’t get funding based on their output, sales, or profit. Their funding is provided through taxes and administered by politicians and other public sector workers or appointees. Instead of decisions made on economic realities, they become leverage for political campaigns.

Ever hear slogans like this:

“We need to fund education!”
“My opponent voted to slash welfare benefits”
“I care about the children, so I will push for increased after school programs.”
“My opponent will slash you Medicare benefits!”
“My opponent wants to get rid of your Social Security!”
“I will push for a universal healthcare”

Understand now? Instead of finding a way to fund a new program but cutting an old one, they just get stacked on top of each other until it becomes a burden that the private sector can’t support.

That is why is hard to cut funding in these areas. That is why public sector jobs are harder to reduce than private sector positions. That is why they need to be created slowly, with great thought and long term consideration, not under the guise of stimulus and unsustainable budgets.

The fact is that we need to reduce the number of public positions to the point where they are sustainable under the worst economic conditions and funding should come, as much as possible, from local and state sources.

This public sector explosion can’t last and more importantly it shouldn’t have started.

Just one reason and one example of why conservatives believe in limited government.

Videos of the Week

2009-05-01T06:51:00.002-07:00

I was up late last night reading some of the latest bills in congress. Several hate crime bills. One bill called the "Rangel Rule" for Rep. Charlie Rangel from NY who is in the middle of a tax mess (not that you can read about it in the paper). The bill says that any US citizen will be able to avoid penalties and interest on his taxes if he writes "Rangel Rule" on the top of his form. Classic.

Anyway, here are some vids and brief comments. Enjoy.

After Joe Biden said that he wouldn’t ride in a train, plane, or subway right now and was telling his family members the same thing the travel industry of course freaked out. Evidently Joe forgets that he is the man one heartbeat away from the Presidency and people might actually take his words seriously. BTW… WHO says that there are 10 world wide deaths from swine flu. 10. As a side note, Jake Tapper is a phenomenal journalist. He asks real questions and expects real answers… but I don’t think that he is very popular with Mr. Gibbs.

The newscasters really try and keep a straight face, but you have to admit it would be tough. A two part series : Shadow Hare, the Cincinnati Superhero!

Surprised? I’m surprised that this passes for a press conference. Troubled? I’m troubled with the fact that THIS is the type of SOFTBALL question the press is asking the president at a prime time news conference.

A video of the panic that the White House caused with the “fly by photo op” that cost you $328,000.

Crazy times.

The Buck Stops... over there

2009-04-30T06:57:00.002-07:00

Welcome to the “Pass the Buck” presidency!

President Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that said “The BUCK STOPS here”, meaning that he is the person who is ultimately responsible. It was a statement and a testimony to his strength of character. We all know that there were some tough decisions made during his presidency and President Truman took the credit and the blame.

I’m not seeing that same sense of responsibility in the current administration.

Of course, we didn’t see it in his candidacy either.

We all remember the host of people that were “thrown under the bus” during his campaign. Some have actually resurfaced, including Samantha Powers who was originally put under the tires for her anti-Israeli comments.

There was the recent horrible memo put out by the Department of Homeland Security. When asked about it, President Obama pled ignorant and referred any questions to the Secretary of Homeland Security. Napalitano should have seen it coming.

This week there was the flyby of Air Force One escorted by fighter jets over New York City as people ran from buildings in a panic, reliving 9/11 all over again. Louis Caldera got the finger pointed at him for that one and a statement from the Whitehouse Press Secretary Robert Gibbs that the President was “furious”. Just as a side note, the President should probably point the “fiscal responsibility” finger at him as well, considering the New York “fly by” pictures cost the tax payers over $328 THOUSAND. Nice.

The entire first hundred days, the president has traveled the country touting his economic changes and embellishing the record by his claims of, “The deficit that I inherited.” True, the Bush administration handled the economic challenges last year very poorly in my opinion, but as a Senator, President Obama helped shape that deficit. The link above is from the AP, shockingly enough, and calls the President on his stretching of the truth finger pointing.

The ONE case that the President claimed full responsibility for is when half a dozen of his cabinet appointments turned up with tax issues and I did give him credit for that. But with all of the finger pointing at the people around him, you have to conclude that a) he doesn’t know what is going on in his own Whitehouse b) the people that he has picked to be responsible for key areas of importance and expertise aren’t up to the task, or c) no one has informed the President that he’s actually the one in charge.

Okay, that was a little snippy, sorry, I’ll take all of the blame for that one.

It is very humorous to see that the very same people who will accept the shift in blame from President Obama to pretty much ANYONE else, are the same people who blamed President Bush for ANY and EVERYTHING that happened during his two terms.

But the buck can only pass for so long. To paraphrase one of the many thrown under the bus during the campaign, eventually the chickens will come home to roost.

*****Update: I thought this video went along nicely.

A Contrast in Character

2009-04-29T08:10:00.001-07:00

There has been a tremendous contrast that happened in the last couple of days. Two very different people, faced with difficult decision, came to two very different conclusions. One person chose what was popular in hopes of furthering his career and his ambitions. In exchange he was lauded by the President and “welcomed” into his political party. The other person is a person of character who chose to step out of the lime light and hold fast to her principles rather than compromise her beliefs and be the cover for actions that were contrary to her faith and her convictions.

The first person of course is Senator Arlen Specter, a man who faced a very tough primary battle in his last election and won after President Bush supported him and helped in his campaign. During that same term he has now switched his political affiliation from Republican to Democrat, despite the fact that just a month ago he claimed he would not. His stated reason for switching parties is that he has looked at the polls and determined that he will lose a Republican primary bid.

Better to change sides, than to lose an election.

Senator Specter claims that this will not change the issues that he takes a stand on, particularly the upcoming card check legislation that he currently opposes. Of course that might be the case and I certainly hope that it is, however at this point it doesn’t seem that Senator Specter can be trusted to keep his word, after all, a month ago he said “I am a Republican”. Senator Specter has an election coming up that he obviously desperately wants to win. He will be relying heavily on funding from his national and state party to get the funding he needs for this election. You would hope that he would return the MILLIONS of dollars that the state Republican Party has already given to his campaign, but that would mean he will need that much more support from the Democrats. If the Democrats are close on the card check legislation, you can bet that they would pressure Senator Specter to vote with his party, after all, they control the purse strings and Senator Specter has already demonstrated that he will do anything to win this election.

Senator Specter has never been a conservative and the Republican Party will be better without him.

The second person is Mary Ann Glendon, a lawyer of considerable note and a strong advocate for the rights of unborn children. She was picked by the University of Notre Dame to receive a very prestigious award, the Laetare Medal. As part of receiving this medal she would be giving an address at the university commencement ceremonies, also a great honor. The university also requested the President attend and speak at the commencement. He agreed and they have decided to present him with an honorary degree despite the fact that Notre Dame is a Catholic university and is naturally opposed to abortion and the pro-choice agenda. President Obama however is perhaps the most strongly pro-abortion president in history. They have received considerable criticism for their decision and just this week, Mary Ann Glendon wrote a letter that included the following:

First, as a longtime consultant to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, I could not help but be dismayed by the news that Notre Dame also planned to award the president an honorary degree. This, as you must know, was in disregard of the U.S. bishops' express request of 2004 that Catholic institutions "should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles" and that such persons "should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions." That request, which in no way seeks to control or interfere with an institution's freedom to invite and engage in serious debate with whomever it wishes, seems to me so reasonable that I am at a loss to understand why a Catholic university should disrespect it.
Then I learned that "talking points" issued by Notre Dame in response to widespread criticism of its decision included two statements implying that my acceptance speech would somehow balance the event:
• "President Obama won't be doing all the talking. Mary Ann Glendon, the former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, will be speaking as the recipient of the Laetare Medal."
• "We think having the president come to Notre Dame, see our graduates, meet our leaders, and hear a talk from Mary Ann Glendon is a good thing for the president and for the causes we care about."

Rather than serve as cover or as “balance” for the event and for actions that she obviously opposes, she has decided that she will not be attending the commencement and also will not accept the Laetare Medal from the university.

Mary Ann Glendon is a person of principles and Notre Dame University has a lot it could learn from her.

100 Days

2009-04-28T09:14:00.002-07:00

President Obama will celebrate his first 100 days in office tomorrow. A modern milestone with little real significance but it is an opportunity for people to comment on his progress.

Personally I have a lot of issues with what has gone on in his first days as President. For that matter I have a lot of issues with what when on during the 120 days before he was President, from a fiscal perspective. I have been dismayed on almost every element of President Obama’s agenda accept for his troop build up in Afghanistan, which I think is necessary to restore order to that country and I believe Gen. Petreaus is exactly the man we need to oversee that conflict. On almost every other issue I can think of I would have to disagree with the direction the President is taking.

On foreign policy matters, the President has upset some of our most fervent and important allies, including, but certainly not limited to Israel. At the same time he has capitulated and apologized to nations who are bent on our destruction including Iran and Venezuela.

On fiscal matters he took the mistakes of the Bush administration and recommitted them on a whole new scale. During the campaign he talked about fiscal responsibility and stated that he would account for every cent of increase in spending with reductions in other areas. Unfortunately his first budget spends 90% more money than the government will see in revenue and quadruples the worst deficits of the Bush administration. He has already broken his promise not to increase taxes on those making under $250K a year by passing the SCHIP bill. He passed a stimulus bill laden with pork that has no hope of stimulating the economy, but rather paves the way for socialized medicine and completely strips away the welfare reform that was achieved under President Clinton.

On matters of life, that should concern every American, he has quickly removed restrictions on foreign aid for abortions, hinted at removing protections for doctors who have a moral objection to abortion, and opened up federal funding of embryonic stem cell research which requires the destruction of a living baby to ‘harvest’ the cells.

In all these first hundred days have been rough and will get worse. The main accomplishment of the administration is that they are moving at break neck speed, having the support of both houses of Congress.

In the near future there will be a big push for the following things:

- Health care reform. The goal long term is to put private insurance companies out of business and go to the single payer system. The first move will be a giant leap in that direction. If you don’t believe me, just listen to a Rep from the President’s home state.

- Cap and Trade. I know, I write about this one every day it seems, but it is an economic crusher. If this gets through it will put us into a depression that will take years and a complete reversal to bring us out of. Former Vice President Al Gore was on the hill this week testifying that this is the most important piece of legislation in our history and that it must pass. All for something that can’t hold up to scientific scrutiny. Shameful.

- Amnesty for illegal aliens. For years I have been hearing that there are 12 million illegal aliens in this country; people are pouring across the boarder and still there are only 12 million illegal aliens here. Hmm… sounds kind of fishy to me. Or the real number is really 2 or 3X the 12 million number that we are given. It won’t be called amnesty, it will be called “comprehensive immigration reform” or even something having to do with “refugees”. Immigration is great. Illegal immigration is, well, ILLEGAL! That’s the law! As the Chief Executive, our President should be enforcing it!

- Freedom of Choice Act. This is the anti-life bill that the President has pledged to sign. It will allow abortion at ANY POINT prior to actual delivery. It will remove parental notification laws, partial birth abortion bans, and will supersede any state restrictions that are in place. Tax dollars will fund it. It will undo years of incremental gains against abortion. It is sick and it is morally reprehensible… and it’s coming.

The first hundred days have been an expected mess. The next three years and 265 days aren’t going to be any fun either.

Remember your voice can make a difference. Call your Representatives, Senators, and the Whitehouse switchboard and tell them this is NOT the change you want to see in Washington.

It's all about...

2009-04-28T07:10:00.001-07:00

Hubris is a dangerous thing, as a multitude of Greek and Roman myths will explain in endless detail. It blinds the subject to their own weaknesses, which can then be exploited.

I’m going to do something a little different today and just throw out a few things. You look at them for what you will.

- As a gift to the Queen of England who has sat on the thrown of one of the oldest surviving monarchies (of sorts) for decades, our President gave an IPod preloaded with pictures from her trip to America and some of the President’s more memorable speeches.

- As a gift to Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s sons, the first lady gave toy models of Marine One, the President’s helicopter.

- Yesterday Air Force One flew low over New York City with a military escort in order to get new updated photos of the President’s plane, sending people scurrying from buildings and running through the streets, reliving the panic and fear of 9/11.

- The President and First Lady donated magazines, featuring them and signed by them, as items for the charity fundraiser at their daughters’ school.

- The Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently released a revised copy of his book that included a story about the President. After a speech that Senator Obama made he was complimented by Senator Reid and in reply Senator Obama said, “I have a gift, Harry.”

Hmmm….