Friday Funnies – Court Charades (or, “Know Your Courts?”)

by CTBC Director | 10:00 pm, September 5, 2009

Welcome to another edition of the Clear The Bench Colorado Friday Funnies – this week, a change of pace from the August “Dog Days of Summer” series (featuring cute & cuddly Colorado canine spokespup Nola) with a view from inside the courtroom.

Although the casual viewer may dismiss this clip as a mere farcical parody of [...]

Secretary of State Candidate Scott Gessler at Liberty on the Rocks

by T.L. James | 8:57 pm, September 5, 2009

Republican Secretary of State candidate Scott Gessler spoke Wednesday at Liberty on the Rocks, and People’s Press Collective was there. (Okay, so we were a little unprepared as it turned out, but we were there.) Watch as Scott explains what the Secretary of State’s vital roles are, and his own plans for the office. Part [...]

KRCX Seng Center 9/3 – Part Two

by Jimmy Sengenberger | 7:00 pm, September 5, 2009

The following is Part Two of Seng Center’s 9/3 Regis University radio show, featuring our healthcare debate and discussion with Kaleb Brooks, a single-payer advocate.

41.3 MB Download

Comments are more than welcome!  E-mailed Jimmy at Jimmy@SengCenter.com
or post on the site!  As always, please be respectful in your remarks.

KRCX Seng Center 9/3 – Part One

by Jimmy Sengenberger | 7:00 pm, September 5, 2009

The following is Part One of Seng Center’s 9/3 Regis University radio show, in which host Jimmy Sengenberger blasts the Republicans for their inconsistency of principle in the proposed “Seniors’ Bill of Rights,” discusses the problems with “Cash for Clunkers” and “Cash for Refrigerators,” and addresses President Obama’s impending speech to schoolchildren.  You’ll also learn all about the government’s exciting new “Donuts for Debt” program – only on Seng Center with Jimmy Sengenberger!

52.4 MB Download

Comments are more than welcome!  E-mailed Jimmy at Jimmy@SengCenter.comor post on the site!  As always, please be respectful in your remarks.

AARP Admits Government Programs Don’t Eliminate Poverty for Elderly

by Night Twister | 4:14 pm, September 5, 2009

The AARP has worked hard recently to deny it’s non-endorsement endorsement of the Health Care Bill HR3200. Behind the scenes they have been working hard to convince their members that this bill is in their best interest, regardless of questions by members and a declining membership. In an obvious attempt to try to [...]

President Delivers Speech to Nation’s Children: Why Many Parents Are Disturbed

by Night Twister | 12:07 pm, September 5, 2009

Please join me in welcoming Laura Stansbury to Night Twister.
This coming Tuesday, President Barack Obama will stand before a televised audience, an audience not the American Voter. Not yet that is. On Tuesday, September 8th, the President will collectively address our nation’s children on what will serve for most as their first day [...]

England: “Sentenced to death on the NHS”

by Brian Schwartz | 10:31 pm, September 4, 2009

“Patients with terminal illnesses are being made to die prematurely under an NHS scheme to help end their lives, leading doctors have warned.”
Read  “Sentenced to death on the NHS” in the Telegraph.
(via FIRM)

A Taste of Their Own Medicine

by T.L. James | 5:30 pm, September 4, 2009

In the Wall Street Journal, a Doctor’s Plan for Legal Industry Reform.
I liked this one for the snarkiness of it:

 

Discourage/eliminate specialization. Legal specialists with extra training and experience charge more money, contributing to increased costs of legal care, making it unaffordable for many. This reform will guarantee a selection of mediocre, unmotivated attorneys but should [...]

Funny Friday – Auto-tune the news

by Mr. Bob | 10:25 am, September 4, 2009

#tcot #redco #autotune
these guys are great and getting better all the time.

Obama Speaks to School Children: Sharing My Thoughts with the Post

by Ben DeGrow | 7:33 am, September 4, 2009

The Denver Post this morning has up a story by Jeremy Meyer filled with local reaction to the news of Obama speaking to school children next Tuesday. Meyeer quotes several people in the story, but my remarks to him yesterday didn’t make the cut. Here’s more or less what I said:
This has all the signs [...]

Don’t be the Obamacare frog

by Rossputin | 1:19 am, September 4, 2009

It’s being widely reported/rumored that President Obama will offer his own health care insurance reform plan next week, including naming certain items he insists on having in any bill that he’ll sign.  It’s not clear whether a “public option” (i.e. effective government takeover of the industry) will be one of those items.

It’s a smart move by Obama, and a necessary one to save his already-floundering presidency.

By taking the apparent leadership on the issue away from Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and by rebranding some of his desired policy changes as his own rather than Congress’s, Obama stands a good chance of stemming the recently inexorable tide of declining job approval poll numbers for himself, and maybe for Congressional Democrats as well.

The question now is whether anyone will believe him.  Of course, the liberal left who long ago drank the Kool-Aid, who see Obama as their political messiah, will, wide-eyed and drooling, follow wherever he leads them.  And Republicans will generally assume (correctly) that he’s just trying a detour to the same half-socialist, half-fascist destination.  The critical swing group remains the independent voters who have been the main source of Obama’s drop in popularity in recent weeks.

But here’s the real key.  The left are masters at implementing their agenda piecemeal, getting through bit by bit until they’ve implemented a European-style welfare state which only a few who were paying attention saw being built under their noses.  They have, until this Congress, particularly understood the importance of that strategy when it comes to health care.  For example, that’s why they’ve slowly but surely expanded SCHIP programs, which were supposed to cover low-income children, so they now cover moderate income children and adults in many places.

 

This piecemeal strategy is often described by the colorful analogy “boiling the frog.”  For those of you who haven’t heard it, here’s the idea:  If you want to boil a frog, you can’t just try to drop a frog in boiling water.  He’ll simply jump out.  The key is to put the frog in cool water and heat it slowly enough that by the time the water gets too hot for the frog to survive, he hasn’t noticed because the change was so gradual and, voila, you have boiled frog.

Obama will try to put the prettiest face (his) on a “new” health care reform bill.  It will contain some of the same key provisions of the widely detested HR3200, but he’ll re-word what they mean, wrap them in soft language, and try to get the public to buy into the building blocks of full-blown socialism without the public understanding that fact.  He’ll try to explain why the major provisions are good for the country, why the current system is unfair and inefficient (which it is, but not because there is too little government involvement), and why he’s going to “make the system work” for us…because he cares.

It will be classic “boil the frog” politics…again, the expertise of the patient left, with incremental socialism having been the precise strategy laid out by the Fabian Socialists in England in the 1880s and beyond.  That mantra was picked up by Barack Obama’s political inspiration , Saul Alinsky, an evil man if ever there was one.  (Thanks to Ike for reminding me of this ARTICLE from last year about Obama and Fabianism.)

Melanie Phillips, writing in the UK’s “Spectator” newspaper in an article entitled “Revolution You Can Believe In“, describes Alinsky, and therefore Obama, like this:

His creed was set out in his book ‘Rules for Radicals’ – a book he dedicated to Lucifer, whom he called the ‘first radical’. It was Alinsky for whom ‘change’ was his mantra. And by ‘change’, he meant a Marxist revolution achieved by slow, incremental, Machiavellian means which turned society inside out. This had to be done through systematic deception, winning the trust of the naively idealistic middle class by using the language of morality to conceal an agenda designed to destroy it.

During the campaign, it was remarkable to see so much of the public willing to turn a blind eye to the evidence of Barack Obama’s influences, evidence which, while circumstantial, is stronger than that frequently used to obtain convictions in a court of law.

From the Stalininst Frank Marshall Davis to the anti-White, anti-Semitic Jeremiah Wright to the proud terrorist Bill Ayers to Saul Alinsky, a man who said you may have to destroy an economy to get people sufficiently dependent on government, Barack Obama’s history and voluntary associations are with people whose views, statements, and actions are ones which the average American would find repugnant and occasionally criminal.

If it had been anyone but a smooth, hip, black guy, those associations would have caused aspirations for high political office to have been stillborn.  But Obama was Teflon then, and he hopes to be to again as he tries to boil the healthcare frog.

Although most of my regular readers won’t be fooled into sitting in the water as it begins to boil around them, I encourage you to give others the intellectual ammunition to stand up to what will likely be an aggressive push by an effective communicator to market his snake oil as a panacea.

Reality vs. Obama’s Reality on Competing Health Care Debate Ideas

by Ben DeGrow | 10:23 pm, September 3, 2009

Healthcare Horserace has obtained possession of the talking points memo the Obama White House is sending out to Congressional Democrats in preview of his big speech next Wednesday. As Ellen Carmichael correctly assesses:
Critics of President Obama’s health care reform agenda argue that the White House will again prove during next week’s press conference that they [...]

Van Jones also a 9-11 truther

by Mr. Bob | 3:00 pm, September 3, 2009

#tcot #redco #truther #teaparty
From Holycoast.com
Jones joined the “9/11 truther” movement by signing a statement in 2004 calling for then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and others to launch an investigation into evidence that suggests “people within the current administration may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war.”

You hear that? An avowed communist, advisor to the president believes that members of the previous administration wanted to go to war so they attacked their own country. what a freakin idiot….an idiot with the president’s ear.

I just recently learned also that Van Jones was the founder of CopWatch, a San Fransisco community organization which pays bums to assault cops and then gets them on video, and then edits the video to get the cops fired. And apparently, he’s a believer in Black Liberation Theology, the main proponents of government-semitic conspiracies.

ObamaCare Advocates Don’t Astroturf, They “Coordinate”

by elpresidente | 2:21 pm, September 3, 2009

Nothing to see here. MoveOn. Apparently, progressives supporting President Barack Obama and the Democrats’ plans for health care don’t agitate–they “coordinate”: More than a thousand people gathered Wednesday evening on the banks of the South Platte River in Confluence Park at dusk to mourn the dead and kick up some dust in support of national [...]

Winning (Or Losing) The Health Care Lottery in Canada–Rationed Health Care

by elpresidente | 12:18 pm, September 3, 2009

Because in Canada, there is no such thing as rationing health care: Watch the latest business video at FOXBusiness.com A waiting list for a personal physician? Only four new families added per year? Sounds like an excellent plan . . . Great health care should entail waiting–hours, days, weeks, months, years. Ingrates.

Republicans are #$$holes

by Mr. Bob | 12:16 pm, September 3, 2009

#hhrs #tcot #redco #teaparty
says the communist advisor to the president Van Jones.

Steven M. Nielson Agrees and even admits to being one. MUST READ OF THE DAY
I’d like to say that now Denis Leary’s song is stuck in my head…thanks Steven.

Free Exchange Should Set Insurance Premiums

by Ari Armstrong | 12:13 pm, September 3, 2009

Should health insurance companies charge people with pre-existing conditions or known health risks more?

Lawrence Jones of Conifer wrote a thoughtful letter for the August 25 Denver Post arguing that higher rates are unfair for conditions beyond one’s control. I thought Jones’s letter deserved a full reply.

Jones writes:

Letter-writer William Hinckley [see the August 20 letter] thinks that charging higher insurance premiums to people with pre-existing medical conditions is akin to charging higher house insurance rates to dimwitted folks who knowingly choose to live in fire traps. People don’t choose to get diabetes. People don’t choose to have genetic predispositions to cancer.

Those who knowingly make risky life choices, whether to live in fire-prone shacks or to smoke tobacco, should certainly pay higher premiums as a result of their choices. But why should the boy with leukemia, the woman with breast cancer, the young athlete with diabetes? Why should the innocent be punished for wanting access to health care just because they actually need it?

Jones’s fundamental mistake is to ignore the rights of insurers and treat insurance as a collectively owned good. Insurance is a product sold on the market that properly belongs to its producers. Insurers have every right to set the terms of insurance policies, including rates. And consumers are free to buy an insurer’s product or not. The government’s only proper role is to enforce insurance contracts and prevent fraud, whether by the insurer or the consumer.

Politically controlled insurance rates violate the rights of both insurers and their customers. The key characteristic of free markets is voluntary exchange. A producer cannot sell a product without a willing customer, and a customer cannot buy something that no producer wishes to sell. Producers and customers have the right to reach mutually agreeable terms, free from force.

What Jones ignores is that forcing insurers to charge unhealthy people lower rates means that insurers must charge healthier people higher rates, or risk bankruptcy. The typical result of Jones’s policy is that young, healthier, less-wealthy workers trying to get ahead in life must subsidize everyone else.

Jones, then, implicitly means that he wants politicians to force insurers to charge healthy people more. Such political controls are a big reason why insurance premiums cost so much today, and why both Democrats such as Barack Obama and Republicans such as Mitt Romney call for mandated insurance. Some young healthy people decline to subsidize other people’s health through politically-manipulated insurance premiums, so they must be forced to do it, the reasoning goes.

Jones misses a number of other points as well. For example, he ignores the fact that politicians have effectively outlawed long-term insurance contracts, as I point out in a recent article on pre-existing conditions.

Of course insurers should NOT charge people with health conditions higher premiums — IF those people bought long-term insurance before they developed the conditions. But long-term insurance contracts, on the whole, simply are not possible in today’s political climate. Real health reform entails restoring a free market in health insurance, so that insurers are more competitive, more responsive to customers, and more free to offer useful products.

The entire purpose of health insurance, as I’ve argued, is to allow people to voluntarily pool their resources to protect against unexpected risks. If a risk is expected, such as if somebody knows prior to getting insurance that they have cancer, then the risk is simply not properly insurable.

Jones suggests that the “innocent” are “punished” when politicians do not force others to subsidize their care through higher insurance premiums. But this presumes that healthier people are somehow guilty. They are not. A free exchange between an insurer and a customer does not somehow “punish” a party outside that exchange.

Does this mean that people with pre-existing conditions and no health insurance cannot get health care? Obviously not. The idea that all health care must be funded through health insurance is ludicrous. The wealthy may fund their own health care out of pocket. The poor may look for voluntary charity, whether provided directly by hospitals or indirectly through charity groups. (Obviously today people have access to a wide array of health welfare programs. I favor gradually replacing welfare with strictly voluntary charity.)

Jones is also partly wrong about which diseases are impacted by personal behaviors. He mentions cancer and diabetes as examples. Yet both cancer and diabetes are often largely caused by one’s choices.

The American Diabetes Association states, “Type 1 and type 2 diabetes have different causes. Yet two factors are important in both. First, you must inherit a predisposition to the disease. Second, something in your environment must trigger diabetes.” What you eat can dramatically impact your likelihood of developing diabetes, as it can dramatically impact your ability to deal with the disease.

Likewise, cancer is partly genetically determined. For example, some women have genes that make breast cancer more likely. Nevertheless, our foods, activities, and chemical exposures can dramatically impact our risks of cancer.

I have two general points to make about this. To the extent that disease is impacted by personal behaviors, it is a very bad idea for political policies to encourage damaging behaviors. Laws forcing insurers to fund pre-existing conditions reduce the incentive of people take care of themselves. The inevitable result is more disease.

The second major point is that one person’s unluckiness does not impose some sort of duty on a more-lucky person. The person without a genetic predisposition to get cancer is free to donate funds to treat cancer patients but should not be forced, under threat of imprisonment, to do so. The proper purpose of insurance is to protect ourselves against unexpected risks, not to equalize luck after the fact.

Health care is not a right. It is not some collectively owned good to be distributed by political whim. Health providers and health consumers have a right to negotiate mutually beneficial trades and to donate whatever they wish to charity. It is that right which government must consistently protect, if we value or lives, our liberties, and our health.

Van Jones advisor to the president – communist

by Mr. Bob | 9:38 am, September 3, 2009

#tcot #socialist #teaparty #marxism
I’ve been criticized recently for using the words communist and socialism in my descriptions of the ideology behind the current administration. My criticizers claims that the younger generations (35 and younger) don’t really use those words and the terms are either lost on their public school educated minds or dismissed easily as kooky. (my summation not theirs)

I will continue to use these terms however because they are perfectly descriptive..IF the people who are reading them have been properly educated as to what they mean. I’ll define them here and will continue to do so for those who are turned off or do not understand the words.

First let me say that Communism itself is an ideology, a world view that all business, property owners and rich people are just taking advantage of lower class workers and that the state itself (the government) should be the engine used to “free” them. They achieve this by eliminating all privately owned property, and seizing the wealth of those who have it, redistributing it to those who do not. The only truly rich people in a communist nation work for the government.

The fall of communism (no country has ever had this as a full form of government and been prosperous) and the rise of free nations are directly due to the fact that free nations like the United States allow ANYONE to become rich if they work hard, have good ideas and get lucky.

Communism by definition doesn’t believe people can break out of their “class”. There is also an incidious side to the ideology…they force it upon you whether you want it or not because they know better than you what you need.

Estimates are that over 100 million people have been killed under this ideology.

Socialism is compartmentalized communism. I think is best described as communism without the testosterone to man the barricades. It is the stepping stone to it and it bankrupts nations by stifling the economic engine.

Communists in the world today say that their version failed because it has never been fully tried. Fully tried to them means a full transformation from capitalism to communism. I wonder if we have enough space for the bodies… to handle the transformation. China, has been unsuccessfully trying to do both capitalism and communism recently..and slowly slipping toward capitalism in spite of their government’s crackdowns. Communism does not allow freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to bear arms or anything else contained in our Bill of Rights.

Communism

1.	a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.

2.	(often initial capital letter) a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party.

Socialism

1. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

2.	procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.

3.	(in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.

Marxism

The doctrines of Karl Marx and his associate Friedrich Engels on economics, politics, and society. They include the notion of economic determinism — that political and social structures are determined by the economic conditions of people. Marxism calls for a classless society in which all means of production are commonly owned (communism), a system to be reached as an inevitable result of the struggle between the leaders of capitalism and the workers.

The gentleman (and I use the term loosely) below is a communist…he said so himself. He named his son after a communist revolutionary. this is just a sample of his views, they are well documented. The lady who speaks at the end, also an advisor to the president expresses here deep admiration for him. The change Obama’s people want, is not the change we need. Our country is in danger.

More echoes of fascism in our schools

by Rossputin | 7:26 am, September 3, 2009

Like it or not, I can’t help but think of the 1940’s “Hitler Youth”…

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/02/wh-withdraws-call-students-help-obama

Now the Left Opposes(!) Confrontational Tactics

by Rob Natelson | 7:09 am, September 3, 2009

In recent months, we have heard voices on the Left cry “foul” at the town-hall tactics of Americans upset at current political leadership. The Left professes to be shocked — horrified! — to see Americans defending themselves passionately, unapologetically, and confrontationally. The confrontational tactics the Left now finds so troubling include such activities as holding up [...]

Michael Bennet to the Left of Barack Obama on Government Health Care?

by Ben DeGrow | 6:46 am, September 3, 2009

There’s little doubt that the respective positions are primarily being driven by anything other than political convenience, but recent events appear to have pushed Colorado’s appointed U.S. Senator Michael Bennet further to the Left on health care than Barack Obama.
Yes, let me repeat that: Michael Bennet has moved further Left than Obama on health [...]

Transparency 101: How Jeffco did it…

by Amy Oliver | 4:22 am, September 3, 2009

Jefferson County Administrator Jim Moore is a bureaucrat on a seemingly impossible mission.  He wants to re-establish trust between Jefferson County residents and their government. How? By being as open and transparent as possible.  According to a blog post from Moore:
Complete and accurate information is the best antidote to the spin and sometimes deliberate misinformation that has [...]

David Brooks doesn’t get Barack Obama

by Rossputin | 1:55 am, September 3, 2009

In yesterday’s New York Times, columnist David Brooks notes that President Obama’s popularity is declining because he’s working with the far-left leadership of Congress to push a far-left agenda.  (Let me put on my big surprise face!)  Brooks suggests that Obama needs to “rebalance”..a suggestion which shows that Brooks does not understand our President.  Following is the letter I sent to the NY Times in response:

 

What David Brooks misses when he calls for President Obama to “rebalance” away from his far-left positions is that Mr. Obama is a committed leftist ideologue who would, unlike most politicians, be willing to forgo winning his next election if it meant he could pass his pro-union, anti-capitalist, big-government agenda.  This is not just one person’s theory; it was said by President Obama himself – though obviously describing his agenda differently – to a member of Congress I recently spoke with.

To the extent that Barack Obama ever appears to move away from the left, we can rest assured that it is simply a tactic in his Saul Alinsky-inspired quest to get as many people as possible dependent on government.  Asking him to ever move truly to the center would be like asking a lion to occasionally have a salad for dinner.

 

 

Obama to benefit unions at taxpayer expense in gov’t construction projects

by Rossputin | 1:54 am, September 3, 2009

It’s no surprise that the Obama Administration will do anything and everything to funnel money to unions to pay them back for their massive spending on his election.  RedState.com is reporting on one of the latest ways Obama is doing just that: Implementing an Executive Order likely to massively increase the cost of government construction projects by requiring all workers on those projects to be union members even though nearly 8 out of 10 American construction workers are NOT union members.

Also, according to RedState, “Contractors would also be required to make contributions to union pension funds and other union programs that non-union workers will never benefit from.”

You can read the relevant OMB memorandum by Obama anti-capitalist lapdog Peter Orszag HERE.

You can read Obama’s Executive Order HERE.  Note in particular section 3(b).  And in general note the ridiculous arguments Obama makes about why construction projects need this sort of “help” from him, as if he knows anything about an actual business or industry of any sort.

Diana DeGette’s Attempted Facebook Wall Chat About Health Care Leaves Questions Unanswered

by Live Free | 7:05 pm, September 2, 2009

Colorado Congresswomen Diana DeGette (D – CO District 1) held a Health Care Town Hall chat today on her Facebook page.  What promised to be an interesting experiment to reach out to a younger demographic, who tend to be more supportive of the progressive agenda, wasn’t an effective medium at all.  There were a lot [...]

Michele Bachmann at the Independence Institute

by Mr. Bob | 1:43 pm, September 2, 2009

#hhrs #tcot #teaparty
The Independence Institute presents… Michele Bachmann

The lefty blogs are attacking a mistake (she misspoke actually) she made in the speech about making a blood bond to fight the lefties (the misspeak was 10 seconds)…but of course they ignore the other 45 minutes of facts, figures, why socialism doesn’t work and why our country is going broke…because they have no argument. GO MICHELE

Part 2

Michele Bachmann – Q & A Session

Watch Michele Bachmann’s Rousing Independence Institute Remarks

by Ben DeGrow | 11:50 am, September 2, 2009

At a well-attended Monday Independence Institute event, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann gave a rousing speech about the rapidly growing specter of socialism coming from Washington DC, and how liberty-loving Coloradans can fight back.
Lefty blogs have fixated their derision on one comment, prompting the Peoples Press Collective’s El Presidente to respond: “Stay classy, lefties.”
Those who [...]

How Republicans Can Win On Health Reform

by Ari Armstrong | 11:35 am, September 2, 2009

“Republicans suck.” I had heard that Jon Caldara began his July talk to the Denver Metro Young Republicans (DMYR) with that line, so I figured I’d repeat it when I addressed the group on August 25 about health policy.

I really like the DMYRs. It is a vibrant and passionate group on the whole truly committed to liberty. If the Republican Party of Colorado is to have a future, it needs to start with people like this.

I explained that Republicans have advocated bad policies in areas of insurance controls and health welfare.

It was Republican Mitt Romney, for example, who passed insurance mandates in Massachusetts, which the Democrats have now worked into their “reform” bill. I drew on the article by Dr. Paul Hsieh for The Objective Standard on the matter.

Michael Cannon has also written about the failures of the Romney model.

I explained that mandated insurance is inherently tied to tighter insurance controls and expanded subsidies. Moreover, Romney’s plan didn’t address the underlying problems, particularly the high costs of employer-paid insurance (driven by tax distortions) and capricious insurance controls.

The result of this GOP scheme? Skyrocketing tax costs and premiums, a damaged insurance industry, more political meddling, and doctor shortages.

Next I criticized Bob Beauprez’s endorsement of mandated insurance and Mike Coffman’s endorsement of insurance controls.

With respect to health welfare, I discussed Bush’s costly Medicare prescription drug program, Jim DeMint’s plan to expand welfare, and Michael Steele’s endorsment of health welfare as a “right.”

Then I turned to the positive portion of my talk. How can Republicans win on health reform?

First and foremost, Republicans must make liberty in medicine a moral issue. People have the right to control their own lives and resources, free from political interference. Republicans must answer the Democrats’ challenge to address the moral argument. Republicans who try to make the debate all about budgets and cost are destined to lose.

Republicans must articulate the harms of decades of political controls in medicine. They must explain how tax distortions created the expensive, non-portable, employer-paid system. They must talk about how insurance controls drive up premiums and undermine a competitive, consumer-responsive insurance industry. And they must talk about all the ways that forced wealth transfers, via taxation and politically-controlled insurance premiums, drive up costs and reduce responsibility.

Finally, Republicans must advocate true free-market reforms. Expanded Health Savings Accounts would help offset the tax distortions driving employer-paid insurance. Rolling back insurance controls will restore competitiveness and bring down insurance rates. Tort reform will weed out frivolous law suits. And welfare reform will rein in expansions of various programs, control costs, and ultimately begin to move back in the direction of voluntary charity.

Many Republicans are trying to “me too” the Democrats on health reform by advocating more insurance controls and more health welfare. But is it not now abundantly obvious that Republicans cannot win on a Democrat-lite platform?

If Republicans wish to win on health policy and other issues — and if they want to deserve to win — they should start with DMYR’s five principles:

* “The best government is a small, Constitutionally-constrained one.”

* “A strong national defense is… vital to the preservation of our liberty.”

* “Capitalism is the only moral philosophical system.”

* Individual rights and personal responsibility.

* The Rule of law.

OBAMA RELEASES TERRORIST

by Mr. Bob | 10:38 am, September 2, 2009

#tcot #hhrs #gwot #army #navy #marines
Washington, DC – Kirk S. Lippold, Former USS Cole Commander and Senior Military Fellow at Military Families United, released the following statement concerning the news that Mohammed Jawad, an al Qaeda operative who attacked American troops in Afghanistan in 2002, has been transferred from Guantanamo Bay and released in Afghanistan.

No coherent policy in the war on terror. No comprehensive plan in place to deal with the future of Guantanamo Bay detainees. No accountability for terrorists who harm our brave fighting forces. Now, in a what has become a sadly familiar pattern of decisions, the Obama Administration has released without trial Mohammed Jawad, a terrorist who attacked and wounded two U.S. soldiers and an Afghan citizen…read the rest

Quote of the Day – Capitalism vs. Socialism

by Mr. Bob | 10:03 am, September 2, 2009

#tcot #redco #ppc #teaparty
While Obama and his friends seek for “social justice” for the weakest members of society they ignore what history teaches about how to actually help them.

From my Facebook friend Miguel Sedamano.

The only way to protect the “weakest” of our society is giving them “wings” to fly in an absolute political framework of freedom. Our human nature is corrupt, that’s the favorite issue of many philosophers, economist, and historians during previous centuries. We must strive for greater freedom to any individual of this country and around the world, that’s my faith and promise for a lasting prosperity in the future.

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