'Obama Is Average'

The German news magazine 'Der Spiegel' presents an interview with noted conservative collumnist Charles Krauthammer.  Here's a teaser where Dr. K offers an opinion of Obama's foreign policy:

SPIEGEL: You famously coined the term "Reagan Doctrine" to describe Ronald Reagan's foreign policy. What is the "Obama Doctrine?"

 

Krauthammer: I would say his vision of the world appears to me to be so naïve that I am not even sure he's able to develop a doctrine. He has a view of the world as regulated by self-enforcing international norms, where the peace is kept by some kind of vague international consensus, something called the international community, which to me is a fiction, acting through obviously inadequate and worthless international agencies. I wouldn't elevate that kind of thinking to a doctrine because I have too much respect for the word doctrine.

 

SPIEGEL: Are you saying that diplomacy always fails?

 

Krauthammer: No, foolishness does. Perhaps when he gets nowhere on Iran, nowhere with North Korea, when he gets nothing from the Russians in return for what he did to the Poles and the Czechs, gets nowhere in the Middle East peace talks -- maybe at that point he'll begin to rethink whether the world really runs by international norms, consensus, and sweetness and light, or whether it rests on the foundation of American and Western power that, in the final analysis, guarantees peace.

 

SPIEGEL: That is the cynical approach.

 

Krauthammer: The realist approach. Henry Kissinger once said that peace can be achieved only one of two ways: hegemony or balance of power. Now that is real realism. What the Obama administration pretends is realism is naïve nonsense.

"What Were You Thinking?"

Pay Cuts!

"What Were You Thinking?"

Black Scholars speak to Our Times

Allan Erickson, on his "Goodness World Life Blog," recently posted a letter written shortly after the 2008 presidential election by Dr. Anne Wortham, an associate professor of sociology at Illinois State University.

 

Read Dr. Wortham's letter here: http://allanerickson.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/two-black-scholars-speak-to-our-times/ 

This blog post also includes the text of a speech by Justice Janice Rogers Brown given to the Federalist Society at the University of Chicago back in 2000.  Also included are links to relevant articles by columnists Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, and Larry Elder.

 

Here's a quote from Justice Brown to whet your interest:

         "Writing 50 years ago, F.A. Hayek warned us that a centrally planned economy is 'The Road to Serfdom.' He was right, of course; but the intervening years have shown us that there are many other roads to serfdom. In fact, it now appears that human nature is so constituted that, as in the days of empire, all roads led to Rome; in the heyday of liberal democracy, all roads lead to slavery. And we no longer find slavery abhorrent. We embrace it. We demand more. Big government is not just the opiate of the masses. It is the opiate. The drug of choice for multinational corporations and single moms; for regulated industries and rugged Midwestern farmers and militant senior citizens.

         It is my thesis today that the sheer tenacity of the collectivist impulse - whether you call it socialism or communism or altruism - has changed not only the meaning of our words, but the meaning of the Constitution, and the character of our people."

Here's a quote from Dr. Sowell regarding the government-based health-care/medical insurance debate:

         "Politicians are already one of the main reasons why medical insurance is so expensive. Insurance is designed to cover risks but politicians are in the business of distributing largesse. Nothing is easier for politicians than to mandate things that insurance companies must cover, without the slightest regard for how such additional coverage will raise the cost of insurance.

         If insurance covered only those things that most people are most concerned about-- the high cost of a major medical expense-- the price would be much lower than it is today, with politicians piling on mandate after mandate."

You can find the Thomas Sowell archives here, the Walter Williams archives here, and the Larry Elder archives here.  I commend them to your reading if you would understand more of the direction in which our country seems headed.

 

"What Were You Thinking?"

Cash for ... Golf Carts?

Did you like the "Cash for Clunkers" deal that Congress came up with for us?  Did you replace your old car with a new one?  Did you know that a golf cart qualifies as an "Electric Car" under new government regulations and that you can get a tax credit when you buy one?  Just one more example of the Unintended Consequences that happen over and over again when Big Government tries to use taxpayer money to curry favor.  Is this really the bunch you want in charge of your health care?

 

Read the Wall Street Journal article here.  Then go out and find yourself an "electric car."

 

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Obamacare and Abortion

In Thursday's article, the fourth in a week-long series on "Obamacare," the Heritage Foundation discussed what some might call dishonesty coming from the White House.

 

While Obama has made public promises -- "Under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions" -- no specific language has been put into the legislation currently being considered.  White House spokesman Robert Gibbs has been less than forthcoming on the issue.  a quote from the article:

"Conservatives introduced amendments in all five committee markups (three in the House and two in the Senate) that would have specifically prohibited federal funds from being used to cover abortion. None of them passed. Worse, the "compromise" the White House has adopted is an amendment sponsored by Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) who has a 100% pro-abortion voting record according to the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). Not only does the Capps amendment allow for federal money to subsidize abortions in private plans and mandate federal funding for abortions in the public option (this according to FactCheck.org), it also requires that at least one insurance plan cover abortion in every geographical region in the country."

Friday's article discusses another ramification of the so-called health-care reform, the way that such reform will be implemented.  They expect to reduce the number of uninsured by 29 million, but the devil is, as always, in the details.  Here's a quote:

"..of those 29 million with new insurance coverage, almost half (14 million), will get their coverage through the welfare programs Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).  That is equivalent to adding every resident of Ohio and Nevada to the welfare rolls.

 

In other words, for half of those Americans who are being promised health reform, they are going to be stunned to find themselves in a welfare office applying for Medicaid. Under the current baselines for Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), there will be 76 million individuals served by these programs for at least some part of the year in 2019. If the SFC proposal becomes law, the number on Medicaid/SCHIP will top 90 million. So why do Obamacare supporters want to put 90 million Americans on the welfare rolls? It is cheaper than providing them with real quality health care."

This is nothing less than cost-shifting, plain and simple.  Another quote:

Medicaid was originally created to provide access to health care for families on welfare. Medicaid pays providers 20-25 percent less than does the private sector, forcing doctors and hospitals to subsidize Medicaid through lower rates. This deters doctors and hospitals from participating in the program, creating a lack of access that itself is a form of rationing.

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The Cost of Health-care Reform 2 & 3

You can find subsequent parts of The Heritage Foundation's week-long series on the costs of health-care reform at their blog, The Foundry.  They have an entire category of health care, with articles they have generated as well as links to enough other sources to give the interested reader an admirable breadth of information on the issues involved with the current debate.

 

Part Two is titled "Obamacare sends Deficits Off Cliff" and quotes an article at the Washington Post titled "Health Reform Shell Game." The Post article cites "smoke and mirrors" in the Baucus bill that you should find interesting. Neither are long reads, both are well-researched and have enough evidential citations to satisfy even the most discriminating (or biased) reader.

 

Part Three is titled "It's All Downhill From Here."  Here's a quote:

"The scariest part about yesterday's Senate Finance Committee vote passing its version of Obamacare, is not what is in their bill (to the extent that it even exists), but that the Finance Committee bill promises to be the high water mark for "bipartisanship" in health care reform.

 

Now all of the other bills will be merged together behind the closed doors. All the bills are fundamentally flawed and will only get worse as the leaders in the House and Senate have to commit to actual details."

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The Baucus Bill

The Senate Finance Committee has passed chairman Max Baucus's pet bill out to conference. Now a small group of politicians will try to bring about a resolution between this and HR 3200 and whatever ideas that Obama and his White House cabal see fit to bring to the table.  What do these proposals portend for the people of the country?

 

Here's a quote for your consideration:

"Remember when health-care reform was supposed to make life better for the middle class? That dream began to unravel this past summer when Congress proposed a bill that failed to include any competition-based reforms that would actually bend the curve of health-care costs. It fell apart completely when Democrats began papering over the gaping holes their plan would rip in the federal budget.

 

As it now stands, the plan proposed by Democrats and the Obama administration would not only fail to reduce the cost burden on middle-class families, it would make that burden significantly worse."

Here's another line from this Wall Street Journal editorial:

"The Joint Committee on Taxation indicates that 87% of the burden would fall on Americans making less than $200,000, and more than half on those earning under $100,000.

 

Industry fees are even worse because Democrats chose to make these fees nondeductible. This means that insurance companies will have to raise premiums significantly just to break even. American families will bear a burden even greater than the $130 billion in fees that the bill intends to collect. According to my analysis, premiums will rise by as much as $200 billion over the next 10 years - and 90% will again fall on the middle class."

It is amazing to me that seemingly intelligent people will ignore evidence such as this and still believe that they will benefit from this massive  new entitlement program.  Read the entire article here.

 

"What Were You Thinking?"

 

The Cost of Health-care Reform

The Heritage Foundation begins a week-long report on how "ObamaCare" will affect each of us.  This first segment makes interesting reading, even for those who support this political initiative into the private sector.  Here's a teaser for you:

The Senate Finance Committee bill written by Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) (the Baucus bill) first drives up the cost of health insurance for all Americans and then forces everyone to buy it or face tax penalties or jail time. While the Baucus bill does cap out-of-pocket costs based on a person's income, the effect on American families is still staggering. According to the Center for Data Analysis, the Baucus bill would:

• For individuals making $34,140 (three times the Federal Poverty Level) the Baucus health care proposal could mandate up to $4,097 in annual premiums, a sum which could have been spent on over nine months of food, almost four months of housing or well over a year of utilities.
• For a family of four making $69,480 (300% above poverty) the Baucus bill mandates annual health insurance premiums of $8,338, which would be worth the equivalent of over ten months of food, four months of housing or almost two years of utilities.
• For individuals earning $45,520 (400% above poverty) Baucus mandates $5,462 for health insurance, or over a year of food, four months of rent or a year and a half of utilities.
• For families earning $92,640 (400% above poverty) Baucus mandates $11,117 in health premiums, the equivalent of over a year of food, five months of housing or two years of utilities.

And those numbers include the subsidies for health insurance in the Baucus bill. To pay for all this new health care spending, plus the massive expansion of Medicaid, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Baucus bill will collect $4 billion in fines from those who do not purchase insurance, $200 billion taxing health insurance companies with generous health plans, and $25 billion in taxes on employers. Not to mention the billions in cuts to Medicare payments to hospitals which will result in significant cost shifting to consumers.

Read the article at http://blog.heritage.org/2009/10/12/morning-bell-obamacare-invades-your-wallet/  or  http://bit.ly/nnYOU and then ask yourself, "can I afford free health care?"

 

"What Were You Thinking?"

Global Climate Change

What's your take on the issue? Do you believe, as that great climatologist AlGore preaches, that we are in a man-caused time of warming that requires us to drastically curtail our economy in order to "save the planet?" Or do you perceive climate change as naturally occurring, a cyclical series of warming and cooling that has been going on since God created the earth?

Well, you might be interested in an interview with someone who has vastly more credibility than AlGore, a man with years of experience in the field of climatology. It may well be that this man is right, and that the public has been fed a 'bill of goods' for less-than-honorable purposes by politicians eager to control their lives. Read the interview with Dr. Reid Bryson, a man who holds the 30th PHD ever granted in the field of Meteorology. Read his credentials, consider what he says, and then ask yourself why Al Gore refuses to debate anyone who holds an opinion at odds with his own.

You might also, if you're a thinking person who would rather make up your own mind, consider this article at the American Thinker that calls into question the motivation of those who would lead us back into the dark ages. Oh, and be sure to read the comments.

"What Were You Thinking?"

The Role of Mothers in Society

There were three special ladies on the Glenn Beck show today.  Three mothers who are, as are many of us, concerned about the future we will leave to our children and grandchildren.  Each of them has established a blog or website where they share their opinions on the great issues that face our nation, it's citizens, and our leadership.  Each of them offers the perspective of a mother on these issues, and I commend their writings to you.  I also suggest that you consider joining the "Sisterhood of Mommy Patriots."

 

Mary Baker - http://marymbaker.blogspot.com/

Mary is a mother of seven, a Christian Conservative who says, "This blog has been created to bring a Christian Biblical and Conservative prospective about events and issues of the day."

 

Mary Conley - "As A Mom... A Sisterhood of Mommy Patriots" - http://asamom.ning.com/

 

Barbara Curtis - "Mommy Life" - http://mommylife.net/

Barbara, who is a mother of twelve, says, "..I'd judged Christians harshly all my life. But I discovered being a Christian wasn't about following Christians - it's about following Christ."

 

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Busy, Busy, Busy!

"What Were You Thinking?"

Medicare and Gag Orders

A short, interesting bit in the Wall Street Journal this morning, one you likely didn't hear about if you only pay attention to what was once the "Mainstream Media." Here it is, in its entirety, for your edification. It is sad enough that our elected legislators do not read the bills they vote on; it is truly unfortunate that those who write the laws for our country don't think that we have the right to find out the truth from other sources. Do yourself a favor; read the first and last paragraphs a couple of times. The article is sub-titled "Humana gets whacked for telling the truth; AARP gets a pass for spreading falsehoods."

Maybe Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus should put a gag order on Douglas Elmendorf too. On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office director told Mr. Baucus's committee that its plan to cut $123 billion from Medicare Advantage - the program that gives almost one-fourth of seniors private health-insurance options - will result in lower benefits and some 2.7 million people losing this coverage.

Imagine that. Last week Mr. Baucus ordered Medicare regulators to investigate and likely punish Humana Inc. for trying to educate enrollees in its Advantage plans about precisely this fact. Jonathan Blum, acting director of a regulatory office in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), said that a mailer Humana sent its customers was "misleading and confusing to beneficiaries, who may believe that it represents official communication about the Medicare Advantage program."

Mr. Blum has also banned all Advantage contractors from telling their customers what Mr. Elmendorf has just told Congress. Mr. Blum happens to be a former senior aide to Mr. Baucus and a health adviser on the Obama transition team.

Meanwhile, we have the case of the Association for the Advancement of Retired Persons (AARP), and its fanciful Medicare claims. The self-styled seniors lobby is using all its money and influence to cheer on ObamaCare, even though polls show that most retired persons oppose it. AARP has spent millions of dollars on its TV ad campaign and bulletins and newsletters to its members, including eight million direct-mail letters over Labor Day. The AARP Web site claims that it is a "myth" that "health care reform will hurt Medicare," while it is a "fact" that "none of the health care reform proposals being considered by Congress will cut Medicare benefits or increase your out-of-pocket costs."

So why hasn't AARP also come under CMS scrutiny? Could that be because AARP, which markets its own branded Advantage plans with United HealthCare that have 1.7 million enrollees, is a reliable liberal ally? Certainly its claims are "misleading and confusing" - given that in this instance it is empirically untrue, unlike Humana's attempt at edification. Seniors might even think AARP's falsehoods represent official communication about the Medicare Advantage program. But don't expect Mr. Baucus or CMS to impose its gag rule on the AARP's pro-ObamaCare advocacy.

We don't think AARP should be muzzled in a political debate, but neither should the insurance industry - especially by an influential Senator getting favors from his crony in a supposedly impartial regulatory agency that has enormous power to harm or destroy private companies. Seniors have a right to know how they may be affected by Washington's health-care planning.

So, for the record, CBO's Mr. Elmendorf says that cuts to Medicare Advantage "could lead many plans to limit the benefits they offer, raise their premiums, or withdraw from the program."

"What Were You Thinking?"

Economic Vandalism

Probably not a lot of folks on this side of the pond read The Economist, one of Britain's premier news and business magazines. That's a shame. The current issue (September 19th-25th 2009) has an article entitled Economic Vandalism, investigating the potential cause and effects of the President's recently enacted 35% tariff on tires imported from China. The Economist calls this "A protectionist move that is bad politics, bad economics, bad diplomacy and hurts America." How about a few teasers before you click the link to read the entire article?

You can be fairly sure that when a government slips an announcement out at nine o’clock on a Friday night, it is not proud of what it is doing.

In every other way the president’s decision to slap a 35% tariff on imported Chinese tyres looks like a colossal blunder, confirming his critics’ worst fears about the president’s inability to stand up to his party’s special interests and stick to the centre ground he promised to occupy in office.

..no one can seriously imagine that any American tyre-making job will be saved; firms will simply import cheap tyres from other low-cost places like India and Brazil.

The tyre decision needs to be set into the context of a string of ominously protectionist policies which started within weeks of the inauguration with a nasty set of "Buy America" provisions for public-works contracts.

Besides these sins of commission sit the sins of omission: the president has done nothing at all to advance the three free-trade packages that are pending in Congress, with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, three solid American allies who deserve much better.

In a section headed "Dumb and Dumber" are these comments:

Evidence of a weak president being pushed leftward might cause investors to worry whether he will prove similarly feeble when it comes to reining in the vast deficits he is now racking up; and that might spook the buyers of bonds that finance all those deficits. Looming large among these, of course, are the Chinese.

Under the relevant trade laws, Mr Obama had the absolute discretion not to impose the recommended tyre tariffs on the grounds of overall economic interest or national security. Given everything that is at stake, his decision not to exercise it amounts to an act of vandalism.

If you think, "well, that's just one tariff. What harm could that do?" Here's another article, this one in the Wall Street Journal today, that talks about a similar tariff enacted in the early 1960's that still causes problems and significant waste as businesses find ways to get around the onerous tax that are still in place long after the situation that brought it about has been made moot.

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Medicare for All?

The Top Ten reasons Medicare should not be a model for Health Care reform:

1. Medicare is going bankrupt.
2. Private payers are bailing out Medicare.
3. Expansion of entitlement programs threatens our economic security.
4. Low administrative costs are a mirage.
5. Medicare is rife with fraud.
6. Medicare short-changes seniors.
7. Medicare's model is obsolete.
8. Payments are too low.
9. Medical decisions are made in Washington.
10. No one is running the show.

Read the article, which includes an explanation of these reasons, in the September 11, 2009 issue of the Wall Street Journal.

When Obama made his statement about number five in his speech to congress, I immediately asked, "If you know there's fraud, why aren't you doing something about it now? Why must you wait for this obscenely abusive "reform bill" before acting?" Estimates of fraud range from three to ten percent of all health care spending.

"What Were You Thinking?"

The President's Promises

Obama made a lot of bold promises during his speech to Congress last week. He will likely make more on Sunday, when he hits every morning talk show except the one place where he might be asked some probing questions. The question we need answered is, was Joe Wilson right? Is this guy telling us the truth or not? Perhaps you're not one of those "true believers" who accept every word from his mouth. Perhaps you prefer to look at the evidence and make up your own mind. This Editorial at Investor's Business Daily a week ago examines those promises and points out some significant discrepancies. I find it interesting that while Obama spoke all evening about "My Plan," he hasn't revealed any of the details of it. The only bills we can examine are HR 3200 from the House of Representatives, and the proposal by Max Baucus (D-Montana) from the Senate. This one has no Republican endorsement; neither have any endearing features to this reader.

So take a look at the IBD examination of Obama's speech. Make up your own mind. Don't let anyone; politician, personality, reporter, whoever; tell you what you should think about this important issue. If the provisions of HR 3200 and Baucus's bill are passed by congress, get signed into law, and you should happen to live long enough to have to deal with the consequences, you want to at least be able to say "I knew what was coming. I told you so!"

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Are we indeed Ignorant?

Nobel laureate Friedrich A. Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty:

"All political theories assume, of course, that most individuals are very ignorant. Those who plead for liberty differ from the rest in that they include among the ignorant themselves as well as the wisest. Compared with the totality of knowledge which is continually utilized in the evolution of a dynamic civilization, the difference between the knowledge that the wisest and that the most ignorant individual can deliberately employ is comparatively insignificant."

This should give us all hope, eh?

Whose Decision?

"Some lives may indeed be impossible to save. But what we have here is a government bureaucracy that has the power to determine—as a matter of policy—not to save lives thatcould be saved. In essence, determining whose life is worth the expense.

The proper, biblical role of government is to protect the well-being of its citizens—to provide security and promote justice, not to usher them into the next world by denying them medical care.

Do we need health care reform? Of course we do; I've said so before. But as Christians, we must not assent to giving unaccountable bureaucrats the power to determine the value of a human life—or to withhold medical care from those whose survival is somehow deemed outside the national interest."

From Charles Colson's Breakpoint column, Sept 18, 2009.

http://www.informz.net/pfm/archives/archive_849993.html to read the entire column.

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Lloyd Marcus, American

Read the experiences of a black conservative here; then watch the video.

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"Government Can Fix It"

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Cancer Treatment or Assisted Suicide?

Who is more sympathetic to the plight of the patient, Big Government or Big Business? Watch this video to the end before you decide.

This is "health-care" in the state of Oregon, a pattern many in the Federal Government think ought to be extended to the rest of the country. Government makes the decisions about treatment, not the doctor, certainly not the patient. I don't think I care to participate, thank you very much. Is this the sort of "health-care" that our president says we are owed as a right? The Declaration of Independence says we have a right "to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." Notice that Life comes first; without Life, the others don't mean much.

"What Were You Thinking?"