Come to Oct. 18 Independence Institute Premiere of “Not Evil Just Wrong”

by Ben DeGrow | 5:52 am, October 9, 2009

Update, 10/14: Here’s a (substantially) complete worldwide listing of all the premiere showings of “Not Evil Just Wrong” — looks like there is only one other showing in Colorado, and that’s down in the Springs. Don’t miss this one!
Forget Michael Moore’s latest ironic anti-capitalist screed. If you’re in the Denver metro area on Sunday, October [...]

Things that make us go hmmm…

by Amy Oliver | 5:27 am, October 9, 2009

COST has been playing around on the Governor new transparency Web site TOP (Transparency Online Project).  We found a lot of interesting things. Below are just a few.

According to our search of expenditures by department for FY 2009, state government departments spent $32,018, 031,398.93.   That’s substantially more than the $18.7 billion that the state claims it spent.  COST [...]

Baucus health care bill: would it cut federal deficit?

by Brian Schwartz | 1:30 am, October 9, 2009

Cato Institute scholars claim the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis is skewed:
Writes Michael Cannon:
Sen. Max Baucus’s (D-MT) health care overhaul would cost more than $2 trillion.  It would expand the deficit.  But he has carefully and methodically hidden those facts – so well that he has completely hoodwinked nearly all the major media.
For details, see his [...]

SCHOOL’S FOR FOOLS!! (Obama & School Choice)

by Mr. Bob | 3:55 pm, October 8, 2009

#tcot #teaparty #charterschools
Funny Friday early.

Fort Carson’s Fallen: Remember

by elpresidente | 3:00 pm, October 8, 2009

Thanks to Michelle Malkin who has led the way in reporting on the siege at Kamdesh. Remember our fallen heroes–including the 8 from Fort Carson in last week’s attack: Spc. Stephan Lee Mace, 21 Sgt. Joshua Kirk, 30 Pfc. Kevin Thomson, 22 Spc. Christopher T. Griffin Spc. Michael P. Scusa, 22 Sgt. Vernon W. Martin [...]

Amanda Teresi’s Case for Free Market Health Reform: Not Just Provocative

by Ben DeGrow | 9:09 am, October 8, 2009

A few weeks ago, Liberty on the Rocks founder Amanda Teresi made a provocative statement to an NPR reporter about health reform after Obama’s big speech before Congress.
Today Amanda provides an extended explanation of her remarks in a special guest column for the Colorado Springs Gazette. Here’s a key excerpt:
It is true that many [...]

Josh Penry Rakes In a Strong $416,000 … 92% from Colorado Donors

by Ben DeGrow | 9:02 am, October 8, 2009

Colorado gubernatorial candidate Josh Penry is solidifying his case as the Republican frontrunner with a strong fundraising take of $416,000 during his first 10 weeks in the race. Here’s the press release from the campaign, complete with a more detailed breakdown at the end:

State Senator Josh Penry, the upstart political underdog who’s challenging two entrenched [...]

WSJ: Obama’s War on Specialists

by Rossputin | 1:10 am, October 8, 2009

In the latest of many myth-busting articles (the myth being that a majority of doctors believe Obamacare is a good idea), a Wall Street Journal editorial from Tuesday explains “Obama’s War on Specialists“.  This is just one of the early, obvious examples of how government interference will destroy our medical system. Imagine how many more ways it will happen with a “reform” bill that almost no politician will have an opportunity to read (nor will most Democrats actually care to read it) before it comes up for a vote.

Read the article, linked above, and then think about Obama’s attempt to deceive the public about how doctors feel about socialized medicine, as reported by the WSJ (also on Tuesday):

The Dear Leader of Doctors

President Obama seemed to take a page yesterday from the Asian autocrat’s book of political theater. He arranged to have assembled in the Rose Garden some 150 doctors donned in “very spiffy” white lab coats (which the president’s staff instructed them to wear) to hear the president’s bromides on rescuing the nation’s health care from the grip of evil insurance companies.

“Some of the people who are most supportive of reform are the very medical professionals who know the health care system best,” Mr. Obama insisted. Yet his audience was about as representative of doctors nationwide as the Chinese performers who masqueraded as Uighurs and Tibetans in last week’s 60th anniversary parade were representative of those peoples. Indeed, in a recent IBD/TIPP poll of physicians nationally, two-thirds of doctors opposed the president’s overhaul, and some 71% doubted his claim that his plan would cover more people at lower cost with higher quality. Nearly half said they would consider quitting medicine if Congress passes ObamaCare.

In fact, about a quarter of yesterday’s audience was culled directly from Doctors for America, which Politico.com earlier this year called “a reincarnation of [the campaign group] Doctors for Obama.” Still, if even this highly partisan group chafed a bit at the hokey stereotyping of the lab coats, it didn’t show – perhaps because the doctors were too busy cheering loudest when Mr. Obama spoke about forgiveness of medical school loans.”

Also, see THIS article showing that many of the doctors picked by Obama were donors to the Democratic Party.

And Michelle Malkin’s take on the topic…

Apple Withdraws From U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Not China, over Greenhouse Emissions

by elpresidente | 2:42 pm, October 7, 2009

The intellectual luminaries at ColoradoPols are touting Apple’s withdrawal from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as a sign that the Chamber is veering toward “far-right positions” on greenhouse gas emissions or health care reform. Too bad a quick search of where Apple operates around the world, particularly in China, where the laptop used to write [...]

Worse Than Van Jones? Obama’s Diversity Czar – Mark Lloyd – Has Problems In His Past

by Mr. Bob | 2:15 pm, October 7, 2009

#tcot #teaparty #radical #obama

Worth 7 minutes of your time CLICK HERE

Are You Excited Yet? (about meeting me?)

by Jon Caldara | 1:14 pm, October 7, 2009

I told you last week about the meet and greet KBDI channel 12 is hosting for me in downtown Golden.  Well, the time is upon us!  Tomorrow from 6pm to 9pm at the Golden Hotel, I will be live in the flesh, glad-handing, kissing babies, and signing autographs.  (8 x 10 glossies not included, please [...]

Hey, let’s put THESE guys in charge of health care.

by David K. Williams, Jr. | 8:43 am, October 7, 2009

Historical Snapshot – Davey Crockett loved the constitution more than his political career

by Mr. Bob | 8:09 am, October 7, 2009

#tcot #teaparty #founders
Crockett believed that the money government had in their possession (or would have in the future) was not theirs to give away as they saw fit…even to good causes. NOT THEIRS. NOT THEIRS NOT THEIRS.

He believed that we as human beings are personally responsible for helping each other….apart from Government. And he put his money where his mouth is…and he lost an election because of his stand for the constitution. Are there any politicians out there willing to give up political careers for the truth anymore?

Mark Alexander at The Patriot Post has a great historical snapshot of the great American Hero.

Here are some excerpts;

“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents…” –James Madison

Though he had little formal education, Crockett exuded a commanding presence and was feared, if not loathed, by his more refined congressional colleagues for his backwoods rhetoric.

But it was Crockett’s stalwart opposition to unconstitutional spending that is most worth noting given today’s congressional penchant for such spending in the trillions.

According to the Register of Debates for the House of Representatives, 20th Congress, 1st Session on April 2, 1828, Crocket stood to challenge the constitutionality of one of the earliest welfare spending bills, a benevolence distribution to the family of a military officer after his death.

While the exact text of his speech was not transcribed (not the practice in those years), the spirit of his words in regard to those proceedings was captured in an 1867 Harper’s Magazine article entitled “Not yours to give” by Edward Ellis.

According to Ellis, Crockett objected to the expenditure: “Mr. Speaker; I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has not the power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him.

“Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.”

The author then goes on to explain WHY Crockett believed this, and that story is just as interesting. READ IT ALL HERE

Thank ACORN: Subsidized by Federal Taxpayers, Teachers’ Union Dues

by Ben DeGrow | 7:54 am, October 7, 2009

I’d like to take the opportunity this morning to thank ACORN — Say what? Yes, thank ACORN … not only for exposing your own corruption but also for helping to remind us that the federal government is overflowing in tax dollars far beyond any rational sense to redistribute the money in any sensible (much less [...]

The economic insanity of global warming alarmists

by Rossputin | 1:42 am, October 7, 2009

The International Energy Agency is reporting a “surprising” and “significant” decline in worldwide CO2 emissions in 2009, versus 2008. The reason, of course, is the deep worldwide recession which has wiped trillions of dollars out of the planet’s wealth.

Now just think about the insane response of the world-government alarmists whose true goal is to regulate everything under the sun: The IEA’s chief economist said that the drop was “a unique window of opportunity” to reach an agreement at the upcoming Copenhagen climate change talks, namely an agreement to limit CO2 emissions.

In other words, the IEA’s Algore acolytes are hoping that our government and others cement in place, through regulation, the economic destruction that has just occurred.  And what else would you expect from a supra-national agency? It could only be to their benefit, in terms of increased power and increased budget, if nations were economically suicidal enough to do what they suggest. And sadly, it appears the leaders of many nations, including our own economoron Barack Hussein Obama may be ready to do just that.

Let’s put it another way: Imagine you had a child who was likely to grow to be 6 feet tall, and one day he broke his leg in an accident.  The doctor could set the bone it the usual way, following which your child would reach his full potential height, even if it took a few months longer than it might have. Imagine your response if the doctor suggested that he reset the bone in a way that would mean your child would only grow to be 5′8″ tall because then your child probably wouldn’t need to eat as much food and, really, how important could it be if he were able to play on his high school basketball team anyway?  This is the sort of thinking we get from the IEA, Algore, Barack Obama, and the author every single piece of “climate” legislation.

Actually, the legislation is even worse than this example because even supporters of cap-and-trade and similar measures don’t claim that they will have substantial impact on the climate; they’ll just have enormous costs.

It should seem obvious that if a terrible economy results in low CO2 emissions, then enforcing low CO2 emissions means a terrible economy.  Reminds me of a basic mathematical theorem that you might have learned in 6th grade.  Unfortunately, for the One World Government types and our nearly insane “science” advisors to our clueless president, a bad economy is just another great opportunity, another crisis not to let go to waste.

It’s time for citizens to stand up against this madness.  If you are represented by a Senator who seems inclined to support so-called “climate change” legislation, let him (or her) know that you will go out of your way to support a political challenger if the Senator votes the wrong way, namely if he votes to kneecap our economy so that our children stand a real chance of being the first generation in American history with a lower quality of life than their parents.

Mark Alexander: Not Yours To Give

by Rossputin | 1:28 am, October 7, 2009

Mark Alexander from the Patriot Post offers one of the best political stories/essays I’ve read in a very long time. You can read it at http://64.203.107.114/alexander/edition.asp?id=663 or just see below.  Also, I encourage you to subscribe to their informative daily e-mail.

Here’s “Alexander’s Essay”:

“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents…” –James Madison

My paternal ancestors settled in East Tennessee about 10 years before it was admitted to the Union (1796). Not far from where they settled lived a fellow who was the region’s most famous frontiersman.

David Crockett was his name.

He has been immortalized as a folk hero, known for his battles with the Red Stick Creek Indians under Andrew Jackson, and his last stand at the Alamo with fellow Patriots James Bowie from Kentucky and William Travis from South Carolina.

Crockett battled the Creek side-by-side with fellow Tennessean Sam Houston, but both men were friends to the Cherokee clans, which were composed of highly civilized native peoples living in the border regions between Tennessee and North Carolina.

At the end of his formal service as a soldier, he was elected Lieutenant Colonel of the Tennessee Militia.

Crockett is less known for the several terms he served in Congress between 1827 and 1835 during the presidency of his old commander, Andrew Jackson. Crockett’s friend, Sam Houston, had been elected governor of Tennessee. (Houston, who would later become governor of Texas, is the only American in history to serve as governor of two states.)

Though he had little formal education, Crockett exuded a commanding presence and was feared, if not loathed, by his more refined congressional colleagues for his backwoods rhetoric.

In one of his more legendary orations, Crockett proclaimed: “Mr. Speaker … the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Everett] talks of summing up the merits of the question, but I’ll sum up my own. In one word I’m a screamer, and have got the roughest racking horse, the prettiest sister, the surest rifle and the ugliest dog in the district. I’m a leetle the savagest crittur you ever did see. My father can whip any man in Kentucky, and I can lick my father. I can out-speak any man on this floor, and give him two hours start. I can run faster, dive deeper, stay longer under, and come out drier, than any chap this side the big Swamp. I can outlook a panther and outstare a flash of lightning, tote a steamboat on my back and play at rough and tumble with a lion, and an occasional kick from a zebra.”

Crockett continued, “I can take the rag off – frighten the old folks – astonish the natives – and beat the Dutch all to smash, make nothing of sleeping under a blanket of snow and don’t mind being frozen more than a rotten apple. I can walk like an ox, run like a fox, swim like an eel, yell like an Indian, fight like a devil, spout like an earthquake, make love like a mad bull, and swallow a Mexican whole without choking if you butter his head and pin his ears back.”

What I wouldn’t give to hear a tad more of *that* on the floor of the House these days!

Though his rhetoric may have been unorthodox, Crockett was a man of principle.

His fervent opposition to Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act of 1830 (forcing removal of the peaceful Cherokee tribes along the infamous “Trail of Tears”) cost Crockett his congressional seat, but he declared, “I bark at no man’s bid. I will never come and go, and fetch and carry, at the whistle of the great man in the White House no matter who he is.”

But it was Crockett’s stalwart opposition to unconstitutional spending that is most worth noting given today’s congressional penchant for such spending in the trillions.

According to the Register of Debates for the House of Representatives, 20th Congress, 1st Session on April 2, 1828, Crocket stood to challenge the constitutionality of one of the earliest welfare spending bills, a benevolence distribution to the family of a military officer after his death.

While the exact text of his speech was not transcribed (not the practice in those years), the spirit of his words in regard to those proceedings was captured in an 1867 Harper’s Magazine article entitled “Not yours to give” by Edward Ellis.

According to Ellis, Crockett objected to the expenditure: “Mr. Speaker; I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has not the power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him.

“Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.”

Ellis recounts that Crocket was later asked by a friend why he had opposed the appropriation, and he replied: “Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. In spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made houseless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them. The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business and rushed it through as soon as it could be done.”

Crocket explained, “The next summer, when it began to be time to think about election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up. When riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence. As he came up, I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly.

“I began: ‘Well, friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called candidates, and…”

His constituent interrupted, “Yes I know you; you are Colonel Crockett. I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine, I shall not vote for you again.”

Crockett replied, “This was a sockdolager … I begged him to tell me what was the matter.”

The farmer said, “Well, Colonel, it is hardly worth-while to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it in that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting or wounding you. I intend by it only to say that your understanding of the Constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what, but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest. But an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is.”

Crocket responded, “Well, my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did.”

But the farmer fired back, “It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man. … So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people.”

Thus, Crockett explained of his opposition to support the widow of that distinguished military officer: “Now, sir, you know why I made that speech yesterday.”

It is not known how much of Ellis’s account is fact mixed with the annals of Crockett legend, but it is known that the account is consistent with Crockett’s character, and his support for our Constitution.

Today, there are but a handful of Senate and House incumbents who dare support and defend the Constitution as Crockett did. But there are candidates emerging around the nation who, with our support, will deliver orations as brazen and eloquent, and stand firm behind those words.

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!

Mark Alexander
Publisher, PatriotPost.US

Bill Ritter Needs Public Shame to Ensure Ethical Disclosures from Cabinet

by Ben DeGrow | 10:27 pm, October 6, 2009

Yesterday I brought to your attention the fact that Colorado Governor Bill Ritter publicly thanked the Independence Institute — and speaking of thanks, thankfully no one (to the best of my knowledge) was hurt from overreacting to the shock while driving a vehicle or operating heavy machinery. Read Jessica Corry’s new piece in the Denver [...]

Transparency: It’s a good question

by Amy Oliver | 3:30 pm, October 6, 2009

“Why does Governor Ritter have to be dragged kicking and screaming into transparency?” asked our big boss Jon Caldara.
Investigative reporter Todd Shepherd exposed Ritter’s latest battle against transparency.  Shepherd discovered that Ritter and his administration have virtually ignored a Governor Bill Owens executive order requiring that “all cabinet members as well as senior staff members [...]

Ritter Rescinds Ethics Order

by Jon Caldara | 2:30 pm, October 6, 2009

Subtitle: Or How He Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Disclosure
Last Friday, our investigative reporter Todd Shepherd broke this story about Governor Ritter and his cabinet largely ignoring a 1999 ethics executive order for nearly 3 years.  Todd and I also recorded a podcast for iVoices.org on the matter.  I’ll let Todd’s report give [...]

Luke Korkowski Out of U.S. Senate Race … Then There Were Seven?

by Ben DeGrow | 1:15 pm, October 6, 2009

Received a press release at noon local time, announcing that Luke Korkowski has withdrawn from Colorado’s Republican primary for U.S. Senate. An excerpt:

Unfortunately, it is time to call this campaign to a close and to wish all the best to the other Republicans in the race. We have some good and decent folks competing for [...]

Media Panel: Discussion Continues

by Ari Armstrong | 9:06 am, October 6, 2009

The Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition hosted a media panel September 24 at the Tattered Cover in Denver. Previously I transcribed my opening comments and added a quick answer to a participant who asked whether she should enter journalism. Here I continue my review of the discussion.

First, though, as an aside, just yesterday I heard about the Nevada News Bureau, edited by conservative Elizabeth Crum (whom I met at the Sam Adams Alliance earlier this year). This service allows free, attributed reproduction of content. The about page states: “We’re launching this news service in part because the owners of newspapers and television news teams have, in many cases, cut back on statehouse reporting and investigative journalism which in turn has eroded their ability to be a true ‘watchdog’ for the voter and taxpayer. … The Nevada News Bureau is a non-profit project of Citizen Outreach, a 501(c)(3) exempt organization.” So, I don’t know anything about that nonprofit, and I don’t know what caliber of journalism the service will produce, but it struck me as an interesting model.

Now on with the media panel discussion. I’m pulling quotes from the longer recording, and again these quotes are slightly redacted to ease the transition to text.

Adrienne Russell added weight to my point that independent writers often conduct original journalism: “What are bloggers going to do if mainstream journalism dies [one of the questions asked]? I think anyone who knows anybody who is an online journalist knows many many cases of journalism stories that break into the larger news media landscape that actually originated in the blogosphere. And most often times, it’s not even traced back to that after the first couple hours or the first day.”

Russell continued:

I think what I want to try to focus on for my few minutes is…. [journalism's] role as a public service or a public interest. … What is the future of newspapers? But I think what obviously we really should be asking is, what is the future of journalism, and its ability to facilitate, and further, and make for a healthy public discourse, in this democracy and all over the world. …

I think those two questions go hand in hand. But recently there have been all these stats that have come out, specifically one recently from the Pew Foundation… report that says that web traffic to the highest ranked news sites has gone up 27 percent from 2007 to 2008. And so what does that tell us? I’m actually not a huge stats fan, I usually don’t throw them around. I’m more of a cultural studies person. But what does that tell us? It tells us that people are still interested in news.

And also I recently read that the Columbia journalism program, the masters degree program, got almost twice as many applicants this year as they did last year, which also signifies something about our attitude, and our understanding, and our relationship with journalism in this country.

… I think that the question of the business model has to look beyond newspapers, and has to look at all of these great examples that are actually emerging and beginning to flourish. Like, whether or not you like the politics associated with them, or you think they could be sustained in this giant model, things like the Colorado Independent, the Huffington Post, Slate — there’s all these examples of journalism that is flourishing, that is serious journalism. … One of the better examples is ProPublica…

So probably what needs to happen is, traditional news organizations need to keep paying really close attention to what’s going on with these successful models, whether they be for profit or not for profit. …

Like Ari said, this is a time of innovation and great flourishing in terms of journalism, if not the journalism industry as we know it. And one of the reasons for this is that the new media technology, which is so often framed as threatening journalism as we know it, is creating these new possibilities for people to get involved in creating media. …

So I think embedded in one of your questions was this idea of, are we just going to be inundated with this information that hasn’t yet been debunked, and what are we going to do with it, and how are we going to… function without the filters that we’ve come to depend on. An the answer to this, to me, is that we’re all, not only having an increased capacity to create media, but in that process we’re learning how to assess it. So we’re learning — we have to learn a higher level of media literacy. So, in that way, we’re so much more engaged in the media landscape than we ever could be.

And the old model was great in certain respects, but I think we all know that it also privileged particular sectors of society, it propped up the status quo, it’s failed us in major ways. In ways I’m not sure that is possible anymore, given the dynamic environment where people are actually contributing. …

Dominic Graziano feared that his classes aren’t preparing future journalists for new media. He also said he thinks more people are applying to graduate school “because there’s no jobs.” Russell said at least “they must have a faith that there will be [jobs available] some day.”

Graziano continued:

The points that we’re making about how journalism — decent, investigative journalism — can still be seen on the internet… I truly believe that. … But, my problem as a student at least, is [this.] We can take this upon ourselves. Every citizen can take it upon themselves to look into whatever they believe deserves looking into, and write a story about it. The question is where does the money come from. As a blogger… you’re not going to get corporate sponsorship. …

I can spend weeks up on weeks researching a story, and doing interviews, and stuff like that, and post it up on my blog, and it can get picked up by CNN, or the Post, and they can spend eighty bucks as a freelancer. …

The problem with getting rid of corporate journalism is you get rid of the possibility of a salary. And when everybody’s working freelance hours on freelance budgets, we will see a decrease… What happens when we’re not covering everything? What happens when we can’t be at every [hearing?] in the courtroom? … Where are people going to get this information? … That’s really what concerns me the most about the future of journalism.

Ari talks about bloggers being able to provide feedback to content that’s being published. But when that content isn’t being published, when bloggers are responsible for all that content, it’s going to turn into very partisan arguments… People will visit the websites that either completely support what they already believe, or [are] completely against what they already believe, in order just to argue with it.

We need to focus a lot more on balanced reporting, fair reporting, in-depth reporting. And my fear, as a student, and as a journalist, is that as everything moves away from these media giants, is you lose the ability to pay somebody to do a good job.

I thought of the fact that newspapers of old tended to be overtly partisan, but I never saw the opportunity to discuss this point at the forum.

Wendy Norris followed:

… I think there is a crisis in our nation around critical thinking. And that hits on the editorial/journalistic side, and that hits on the readership side. People are too willing to believe whatever is delivered to them, whether it’s in the newspaper, or a blog, or on television. And I think Tom’s example of Justice Sotomayor is a very good example of that. It’s very easy to find that speech online and learn that those remarks were taken completely out of context.

And I think that we talk a lot in this country about First Amendment rights, but there are also responsibilities with the First Amendment. And I think that if we’re going to find a new way to deliver news content — and I’m a huge proponent of blowing up what we’ve got now and starting anew, because it just simply does not work in this era — then we need to be really honest about what it is that we’re trying to do and what it is as news consumers that we want.

Norris said that even when working with a nonprofit organization, “I had to fight constantly to do the kind of investigative reporting that I thought was important for this community to have access to.” She said that readers have a responsibility to support something better than fluff and sensationalism.

Greg Moore rounded out the introductory remarks:

I’m really surprised that so many people are out tonight. I think it’s great, and to see so many young people in the audience is really heartening.

The first question was, what will become of the newspaper business model in the next five to ten years? Is there any hope for advertising as a means of supporting original reporting? And then the whole thing about public or nonprofit subsidization.

I don’t believe, first, that we’re in a post-journalism era. We are not. And I don’t think we’ll ever be in a post-journalism era. It may take on different forms or be done by a disaggregated sort of collection of people like what we’re beginning to see now. But there’re always going to be things happening that we didn’t know, or that we’re intensely interested in. We’ll always be looking for people to help us understand what’s happening.

In the next five to ten years, I think that newspapers will be still around. I think there’s something about the authentication of an event that is really important. I’ll just give you an example. When Barack Obama won the election, that was posted online. But people were lined up in our lobby to get a newspaper. Why? Because 100 years from now, would you rather have a printout from this blog or whatever, or would you rather have a 92-point headline that declares the election of the first black president? That’s simple.

If your kid runs for 350 yards for the football game, do you want a printout that could have been manipulated or whatever, or would you want it in a newspaper? You’d want it in a newspaper.

So I think there’ll be newspapers. I think we’ll be smaller. I think we probably will come out less frequently. I think it’ll cost more. I think the notion of being a paper of record, of trying to cover every city council meeting and things of that nature, will increasingly be left to bloggers and other sort of independent gatherers of news and information. …

In terms of advertising being a means of supporting original [journalism]… right now advertising provides like 85 percent of our revenue. It’s still a huge, huge, huge driver. It’s a huge source of revenue. It’s going to be probably for a while. But I think our survival — and when I say survival I’m not talking about the newspaper, I’m talking about our ability to do journalism — I think we’ll have to shift to a different model. And I think that model is that the user will have to pay for the content that he or she consumes.

I don’t think that the cat is out of the bag. I think that the record industry sort of proved that, the music industry sort of proved that you can change people’s behavior. Napster, in the mid-1990s, everyone thought that would just sort of kill everything, and they put those people in jail, put them out of business, and now people pay for music. They do it differently — they don’t buy albums anymore, they buy singles, but they still pay a lot of money for music.

So I think there’s still hope for us, that we can sort of reverse this trend. As somebody said, I think the worst decision that was made by the owners of newspapers was to sort of be stampeded into giving away their content for free. But it doesn’t mean that it’s over.

In terms of public or nonprofit subsidization, I think it’s still an open question. We’re sort of like still the nascent stages of that. I stood on the advisory board of ProPublica, and I think that it’s a really interesting experiment. We’ve published some of their stories. I think they do good work. But they look more like old media than new media. I think that’s important to acknowledge.

I also think it’s really sort of hard assess what the future’s going to be like, because the people who work for ProPublica are some of the best old media print journalists ever. And so that whole thing about a firewall between the people who pay for the news operation and the people who gather the news operation is really scrupulously adhered to. …

Second question is about the internet. Is what we see on the internet from sources other than mainstream media really journalism? I will say, yeah, it is. It’s a different kind of journalism. But, when we put together our newspaper, it’s a menu of things. While I would not necessarily describe everything that’s being done by bloggers as journalism, I think it’s content generation. And it’s interesting content. Sometimes it does lead to stories in mainstream media.

And I might add that bloggers have existed since the beginning of newspapers; they wrote letters to the editor. … There’s always them, when you write a story, somebody out there who knows a lot about a little. They know a lot. And they can finds things you left out of a story, they can find things you got wrong. So bloggers don’t bother me. I don’t have any problem with blogging. But what will bloggers do and cable commentators do? They’ll just do what they’ve been doing. And hopefully they’ll do it a little bit better.

But here’s the big distinction. And you can deride corporate journalism if you want to. But the thing about corporate journalism is that you have a support structure to do tough things. That’s my lawyer, okay? I mean, I pay him a lot of money to open doors, to stop people from trying to prevent us from publishing stories. And the question is, what’s the structure an independent blogger has? What happens when you’re trying to write a really tough story, and they say, you know, I’m going to sue your butt off? I’m going to take your house, I’m going to take your car, I’m going to take everything? Does that journalism get done? Well, it’s much more likely with the sort of support structure that we have — corporate journalism — that we can. …

What do we need to do to keep the public service component of newspapers alive? We need money. You know, what I always say is, a free press ain’t free. It costs a lot of money to do journalism that matters.

And to your point, that newspapers or journalism has supported the status quo, I vigorously disagree with that. I think that newspapers and journalism is about challenging the status quo. It always has been. …

We’re not entering a post-journalism era. We are entering a post-fact era, where facts aren’t really that important to a lot of people. And I don’t mean that they don’t care about facts, they just care about the facts that agree with their position. And there’s this really interesting book that’s out that’s called… True Enough. And it talks about sort of the belief society, where people actually won’t let in information that challenges things that they believe, and only accept information that sort of supports their point. … So we’re in a post-fact era, and I think we run the risk of getting in really deep trouble by only letting in stuff that we agree with.

I think that one of the things that sort of contributes to a vigorous democracy is finding out about things that challenge your assumptions. That make you question what you believe. And I worry about the silo mentality that seems to be developing in this post-fact society. …

I will say this about the Sotomayor quote. … The day after the story came out, when Newt Gingrich accused her of being a racist, we read the speech. We read the speech — we do have time to do good journalism. We read the speech, and we actually wrote a story that said that’s out of context. Here is what she said. Here is what she meant. Here’s what she said before, here’s what she said after. And that’s really what journalism’s about. Journalism is about the business of verification. And we as a society can’t afford to lose that.

During the questions I offered one final push (and this is where I’ll leave things here):

One big issue that we’re talking about here is this idea of impartiality or disinterestedness, versus partisanship. … I think that, as a goal, disinterestedness is completely wrong. If you’re disinterested, that just means that you’re lazy and you don’t care about the story. What you ought to be is passionately interested in obtaining the truth.

So it’s not about being disinterested versus being partisan. It’s about, are you looking for the truth, or not? And I totally agree with Greg Moore that we do need some larger media enterprises with these checks and balances, with good editors. Because there are a lot of bloggers who just don’t have the discipline to write good stuff. …

That doesn’t mean that a large organization is overcoming this partisanship. I’ve seen some what I consider overtly partisan “news” stories in the pages of the Denver Post. … You’re not going to escape the problem by having big media versus little media. The difference is, is the individual reporter going to go after the facts.

So I’m overtly partisan. I mean, that’s why I do journalism, because I’m a political activist. I’m an advocacy journalist. I’m oriented toward free markets and individual rights. That’s my thing. So, for instance, I did a lot of original research into corporate welfare in Colorado. …

Instead of having a distinction of disinterestedness versus partisanship, I would like to make another distinction, which is the straight, easy, fact-based news… versus more of the analysis, the integration of the facts. Now, with that integration of the facts, that’s a lot harder, and that’s where we get into a lot more disagreement. So that’s why I love reading Colorado Independent, Westword (some writers at Westword tend to have sort of a left-wing bent), but I love reading these publications because they look up good facts, and that’s useful to me. I mean, a fact’s a fact, it doesn’t matter if you’re a Republican, Democrat, right winger, left winger.

I’d like to briefly address the Sotomayor issue, just because that illustrates what we’re talking about. So, if you tend to lean toward the left, and you’re reading a publication that tends to lean toward the left, and it says that a quote by Sotomayor is out of context, it’s like, “Yes, we’re all right, and everybody who’s beating up Sotomayor is wrong.” But, you know what, I read that speech too… I’ve done a detailed analysis of that speech on my web page. … And the fact is that she is basically a judicial subjectivist. That’s what she is, and she repeats the point over and over again, in many different ways. So the broader point is not out of context. …

So one of the complaints is we filter the facts according to our perception. But a lot of people saying this, and beating up the other side, are doing the exact same thing, right? So it’s a mirror that we need to hold up to ourselves too. … Whether we’re partisans overtly or unnamed partisans, I think that that’s very very important.

Restoring Some Substance to the Political Junk Food Menu at Mt. Virtus

by Ben DeGrow | 8:05 am, October 6, 2009

With the nearly never-ending election cycle, those of us here in the trenches can sometimes too easily lapse into the day-to-day tussles of the news without enough time spent in more serious reflection. (Or maybe it’s just those of us with small children whose attention spans are so easily distracted.)
Earlier this year I wrote [...]

Iran: Obama’s real test may be imminent

by Rossputin | 1:45 am, October 6, 2009

Yesterday, Stratfor released an incredibly important analysis about the increasingly complex and perilous situation regarding Iran’s nuclear program, noting near-simultaneous leaks in the US and in Britain, disclosing respectively that (1) the International Atomic Energy Agency (“IAEA”) now says Iran is much closer to nuclear weapons capability than previously thought, and (2) Russian scientists have been helping Iran in that effort.

For anybody who cares about what could easily turn into a serious world-wide problem, or even a war, the analysis (copied below) is a must-read.

A couple of interesting points: First, it does appear that the Obama Administration has learned something which the Bush Administration didn’t learn. Second, Obama’s overplaying his hand at home makes him appear weak to the rest of the world, which could embolden our enemies or competitors to make very dangerous errors.  Consider how close the world came to nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis when the Russians underestimated the resolve of John F. Kennedy.  (For example, this quote from Wikipedia: “The halfhearted invasion left Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and his advisers with the impression that Kennedy was indecisive and, as one Soviet adviser wrote, ‘too young, intellectual, not prepared well for decision making in crisis situations … too intelligent and too weak.’”) And JFK wasn’t a guy who explicitly embraced dictators and enemies the way Obama has.  Yet, as much as I dislike Barack Obama, I do not think his advisors will let him try to gently thread the needle on this issue.  Indeed, the fact that he already appears so weak may increase his desire, for domestic consumption, to appear extremely strong.  In particular, career foreign service agents will tell Obama and Hillary that if the leaks in the British paper are true, Russia must not be allowed to get away with their actions.

Also worth keeping in mind: The Russians want to help Iran enrich uranium, theoretically for a power plant, under the auspices of the IAEA and with the cooperation of the US and other nations. However, I would not be surprised if the Russians went ahead with the plan even if the other nations or the IAEA said that the plan was unacceptable in terms of its risk of helping Iran make nuclear weapons.  And, the Iranians are already taking steps in anticipation of sanctions, particularly regarding gasoline (of which Iran is an importer despite its oil production because they invest so little in refining infrastructure while spending their petrodollars on a welfare state and, presumably, lining Swiss bank accounts of the ruling elite.)   Again, according to Stratfor:

 

Farid Ameri, the managing director of the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company, said on Oct. 5 it would be impossible to embargo Iran’s gasoline imports because of the need of refinery companies to produce and sell products to avoid insolvency, Iran’s energy news agency SHANA reported. Ameri added that Iran is unconcerned about securing its needed gasoline because Iran’s petrochemical industry would be able to produce it “very soon.” Regarding reports of a deal to import gasoline from Venezuela, Ameri said that a memorandum of understanding has been signed, but not a contract. He also added that Iran’s gasoline reserves increased by 50 percent since last year and are at the highest level in 15 years.

 

With all that in mind…and particularly the issue about Obama’s weakness and how that could play into the behavior of all parties, not least Israel, I urge you to closely read the following:

——————

Two Leaks and the Deepening Iran Crisis

October 5, 2009

By George Friedman

Two major leaks occurred this weekend over the Iran matter.

In the first, The New York Times published an article reporting that staff at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear oversight group, had produced an unreleased report saying that Iran was much more advanced in its nuclear program than the IAEA had thought previously. According to the report, Iran now has all the data needed to design a nuclear weapon. The New York Times article added that U.S. intelligence was re-examining the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of 2007, which had stated that Iran was not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon.

The second leak occurred in the British daily The Times, which reported that the purpose of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s highly publicized secret visit to Moscow on Sept. 7 was to provide the Russians with a list of Russian scientists and engineers working on Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

The second revelation was directly tied to the first. There were many, including STRATFOR, who felt that Iran did not have the non-nuclear disciplines needed for rapid progress toward a nuclear device. Putting the two pieces together, the presence of Russian personnel in Iran would mean that the Iranians had obtained the needed expertise from the Russians. It would also mean that the Russians were not merely a factor in whether there would be effective sanctions but also in whether and when the Iranians would obtain a nuclear weapon.

We would guess that the leak to The New York Times came from U.S. government sources, because that seems to be a prime vector of leaks from the Obama administration and because the article contained information on the NIE review. Given that National Security Adviser James Jones tended to dismiss the report on Sunday television, we would guess the report leaked from elsewhere in the administration. The Times leak could have come from multiple sources, but we have noted a tendency of the Israelis to leak through the British daily on national security issues. (The article contained substantial details on the visit and appeared written from the Israeli point of view.) Neither leak can be taken at face value, of course. But it is clear that these were deliberate leaks — people rarely risk felony charges leaking such highly classified material — and even if they were not coordinated, they delivered the same message, true or not.

The Iranian Time Frame and the Russian Role

The message was twofold. First, previous assumptions on time frames on Iran are no longer valid, and worst-case assumptions must now be assumed. The Iranians are in fact moving rapidly toward a weapon; have been extremely effective at deceiving U.S. intelligence (read, they deceived the Bush administration, but the Obama administration has figured it out); and therefore, we are moving toward a decisive moment with Iran. Second, this situation is the direct responsibility of Russian nuclear expertise. Whether this expertise came from former employees of the Russian nuclear establishment now looking for work, Russian officials assigned to Iran or unemployed scientists sent to Iran by the Russians is immaterial. The Israelis — and the Obama administration — must hold the Russians responsible for the current state of Iran’s weapons program, and by extension, Moscow bears responsibility for any actions that Israel or the United States might take to solve the problem.

We would suspect that the leaks were coordinated. From the Israeli point of view, having said publicly that they are prepared to follow the American lead and allow this phase of diplomacy to play out, there clearly had to be more going on than just last week’s Geneva talks. From the American point of view, while the Russians have indicated that participating in sanctions on gasoline imports by Iran is not out of the question, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev did not clearly state that Russia would cooperate, nor has anything been heard from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on the subject. The Russian leadership appears to be playing “good cop, bad cop” on the matter, and the credibility of anything they say on Iran has little weight in Washington.

It would seem to us that the United States and Israel decided to up the ante fairly dramatically in the wake of the Oct. 1 meeting with Iran in Geneva. As IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei visits Iran, massive new urgency has now been added to the issue. But we must remember that Iran knows whether it has had help from Russian scientists; that is something that can’t be bluffed. Given that this specific charge has been made — and as of Monday not challenged by Iran or Russia — indicates to us more is going on than an attempt to bluff the Iranians into concessions. Unless the two leaks together are completely bogus, and we doubt that, the United States and Israel are leaking information already well known to the Iranians. They are telling Tehran that its deception campaign has been penetrated, and by extension are telling it that it faces military action — particularly if massive sanctions are impractical because of more Russian obstruction.

If Netanyahu went to Moscow to deliver this intelligence to the Russians, the only surprise would have been the degree to which the Israelis had penetrated the program, not that the Russians were there. The Russian intelligence services are superbly competent, and keep track of stray nuclear scientists carefully. They would not be surprised by the charge, only by Israel’s knowledge of it.

This, of course leaves open an enormous question. Certainly, the Russians appear to have worked with the Iranians on some security issues and have played with the idea of providing the Iranians more substantial military equipment. But deliberately aiding Iran in building a nuclear device seems beyond Russia’s interests in two ways. First, while Russia wants to goad the United States, it does not itself really want a nuclear Iran. Second, in goading the United States, the Russians know not to go too far; helping Iran build a nuclear weapon would clearly cross a redline, triggering reactions.

A number of possible explanations present themselves. The leak to The Times might be wrong. But The Times is not a careless newspaper: It accepts leaks only from certified sources. The Russian scientists might be private citizens accepting Iranian employment. But while this is possible, Moscow is very careful about what Russian nuclear engineers do with their time. Or the Russians might be providing enough help to goad the United States but not enough to ever complete the job. Whatever the explanation, the leaks paint the Russians as more reckless than they have appeared, assuming the leaks are true.

And whatever their veracity, the leaks — the content of which clearly was discussed in detail among the P-5+1 prior to and during the Geneva meetings, regardless of how long they have been known by Western intelligence — were made for two reasons. The first was to tell the Iranians that the nuclear situation is now about to get out of hand, and that attempting to manage the negotiations through endless delays will fail because the United Nations is aware of just how far Tehran has come with its weapons program. The second was to tell Moscow that the issue is no longer whether the Russians will cooperate on sanctions, but the consequence to Russia’s relations with the United States and at least the United Kingdom, France and, most important, possibly Germany. If these leaks are true, they are game changers.

We have focused on the Iranian situation not because it is significant in itself, but because it touches on a great number of other crucial international issues. It is now entangled in the Iraqi, Afghan, Israeli, Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese issues, all of them high-stakes matters. It is entangled in Russian relations with Europe and the United States. It is entangled in U.S.-European relationships and with relationships within Europe. It touches on the U.S.-Chinese relationship. It even touches on U.S. relations with Venezuela and some other Latin American countries. It is becoming the Gordian knot of international relations.

STRATFOR first focused on the Russian connection with Iran in the wake of the Iranian elections and resulting unrest, when a crowd of Rafsanjani supporters began chanting “Death to Russia,” not one of the top-10 chants in Iran. That caused us to focus on the cooperation between Russia and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on security matters. We were aware of some degree of technical cooperation on military hardware, and of course on Russian involvement in Iran’s civilian nuclear program. We were also of the view that the Iranians were unlikely to progress quickly with their nuclear program. We were not aware that Russian scientists were directly involved in Iran’s military nuclear project, which is not surprising, given that such involvement would be Iran’s single-most important state secret — and Russia’s, too.

A Question of Timing

But there is a mystery here as well. To have any impact, the Russian involvement must have been under way for years. The United States has tried to track rogue nuclear scientists and engineers — anyone who could contribute to nuclear proliferation — since the 1990s. The Israelis must have had their own program on this, too. Both countries, as well as European intelligence services, were focused on Iran’s program and the whereabouts of Russian scientists. It is hard to believe that they only just now found out. If we were to guess, we would say Russian involvement has been under way since just after the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, when the Russians decided that the United States was a direct threat to its national security.

Therefore, the decision suddenly to confront the Russians, and suddenly to leak U.N. reports — much more valuable than U.S. reports, which are easier for the Europeans to ignore — cannot simply be because the United States and Israel just obtained this information. The IAEA, hostile to the United States since the invasion of Iraq and very much under the influence of the Europeans, must have decided to shift its evaluation of Iran. But far more significant is the willingness of the Israelis first to confront the Russians and then leak about Russian involvement, something that obviously compromises Israeli sources and methods. And that means the Israelis no longer consider the preservation of their intelligence operation in Iran (or wherever it was carried out) as of the essence.

Two conclusions can be drawn. First, the Israelis no longer need to add to their knowledge of Russian involvement; they know what they need to know. And second, the Israelis do not expect Iranian development to continue much longer; otherwise, maintaining the intelligence capability would take precedence over anything else.

It follows from this that the use of this intelligence in diplomatic confrontations with Russians and in a British newspaper serves a greater purpose than the integrity of the source system. And that means that the Israelis expect a resolution in the very near future — the only reason they would have blown their penetration of the Russian-Iranian system.

Possible Outcomes

There are two possible outcomes here. The first is that having revealed the extent of the Iranian program and having revealed the Russian role in a credible British newspaper, the Israelis and the Americans (whose own leak in The New York Times underlined the growing urgency of action) are hoping that the Iranians realize that they are facing war and that the Russians realize that they are facing a massive crisis in their relations with the West. If that happens, then the Russians might pull their scientists and engineers, join in the sanctions and force the Iranians to abandon their program.

The second possibility is that the Russians will continue to play the spoiler on sanctions and will insist that they are not giving support to the Iranians. This leaves the military option, which would mean broad-based action, primarily by the United States, against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Any military operation would involve keeping the Strait of Hormuz clear, meaning naval action, and we now know that there are more nuclear facilities than previously discussed. So while the war for the most part would be confined to the air and sea, it would be extensive nonetheless.

Sanctions or war remain the two options, and which one is chosen depends on Moscow’s actions. The leaks this weekend have made clear that the United States and Israel have positioned themselves such that not much time remains. We have now moved from a view of Iran as a long-term threat to Iran as a much more immediate threat thanks to the Russians.

The least that can be said about this is that the Obama administration and Israel are trying to reshape the negotiations with the Iranians and Russians. The most that can be said is that the Americans and Israelis are preparing the public for war. Polls now indicate that more than 60 percent of the U.S. public now favors military action against Iran. From a political point of view, it has become easier for U.S. President Barack Obama to act than to not act. This, too, is being transmitted to the Iranians and Russians.

It is not clear to us that the Russians or Iranians are getting the message yet. They have convinced themselves that Obama is unlikely to act because he is weak at home and already has too many issues to juggle. This is a case where a reputation for being conciliatory actually increases the chances for war. But the leaks this weekend have strikingly limited the options and timelines of the United States and Israel. They also have put the spotlight on Obama at a time when he already is struggling with health care and Afghanistan. History is rarely considerate of presidential plans, and in this case, the leaks have started to force Obama’s hand.

Tell Washington: Hands off your health care!

by Brian T. Schwartz | 8:11 pm, October 5, 2009

Yes, their grimy hands are already on it, and that’s the problem. From Patients First:
While millions of Americans spoke up during the summer against a government takeover of health care, Congress has retreated to its bubble and ignored your concerns. We need to remind them we still oppose a trillion …

Bill Ritter Thanks the Independence Institute (No Pigs Seen Airborne)

by Ben DeGrow | 4:39 pm, October 5, 2009

More than one late-morning Denver metro area commuter nearly may have swerved out of their lane of traffic and into danger today, just from the shock of what they heard on the airwaves. What do I mean? During his monthly interview with 850 KOA’s Mike Rosen, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter acknowledged that the Independence Institute’s [...]

Headline: Taxpayers don’t need more transparency

by Amy Oliver | 4:11 pm, October 5, 2009

Greeley Tribune publisher Bart Smith criticized taxpayers who demand more transparency in the face of 3A, a massive property tax increase for Greeley Evans School District 6.  In an opinion editorial urging a yes vote, Smith reveals his own naive understanding of transparency in Colorado. 
Others who say they want more transparency show their lack of knowledge of how [...]

Quote of the Day John F. Kerry

by Mr. Bob | 1:54 pm, October 5, 2009

#tcot #redco #teaparty
“Let me emphasize something very strongly as we begin this discussion. The United States has already this year alone achieved a 6 percent reduction in emissions simply because of the downturn in the economy, so we are effectively saying we need to go another 14 percent.”

This quote doesn’t need comment. If you want some though, go here to American Solutions.

The right prescription for healthcare is not government, but the market

by Jimmy Sengenberger | 1:00 pm, October 5, 2009

The following was originally published by Jimmy Sengenberger in the Regis University Highlander newspaper.

The country is now immersed in a deep debate.  President Barack Obama is advocating sweeping “reforms” to the American healthcare system that will inevitably lead down the dark path to socialized medicine.

First, President Obama’s plan would force private healthcare operations to crowd out.  Through taxes, those who are paying for their own coverage would also be paying for those who are under the new government program, eventually discouraging them from maintaining private coverage and encouraging them to switch to the cheaper government program.

Additionally, the government could initiate regulations and policies to benefit its program over competitors, and many employers will determine that it is more economical to drop their health insurance plans due to the increased financial strain the new program would force upon them.

Take Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the massive government-sponsored mortgage lenders that precipitated the current financial crisis.  Everyone knew that if something happened to either financial institution, the government would bail it out.  Government-sponsored programs and enterprises have a unique advantage over their private sector counterparts that, as inefficient as they may be, allows them to continue regardless of the results.  Risk is absent when the government is backing you up.

As the CATO Institute’s Michael Tanner wrote, “Government would compel Americans to purchase health insurance, controlling its content, how much we pay, and the relationships between insurers, doctors, and patients. Government bureaucrats would determine whether Americans received certain medical services.”

Obama argues that his plan would serve as a sort-of support system only for those who can’t afford it.  But when FDR began Social Security in the 1930s, it was intended as a supplement to personal retirement plans, not the primary source of retirement income that it is today.  In this case, a program meant as only a support system has grown to be the primary source for retirement funds.

It doesn’t have to be this way.  Our healthcare system contains the greatest innovations, the highest-quality care and some of the best doctors in the world.  The problem with our healthcare system is the disparity between those who can afford it and those who cannot.

Obama’s right.  We need reform.  The status quo is unacceptable.  But his government answer doesn’t address the fundamental reasons for such high costs.  The plan will do little more than inject more government spending and bureaucracy into the industry.  The way to fix this is not through greater government control or a new government program, but through more freedom in the marketplace.

The healthcare industry is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the country, with the net cost of regulation estimated by Duke University’s Chris Conover to be $169 billion a year.  As with any industry, in order to pay for the dictates of the government, institutions of health are forced to raise costs, which extends to consumers in the form of higher prices.

Government regulations and policies have essentially mandated a third party-based system that forces the consumer to work through health insurance companies, HMO’s, employers and other middlemen that pay the supplier.  84% of all personal healthcare spending is made through private health insurance, the government or other private expenditures that are not directly from the patient.

Human nature tells us that when someone other than the consumer is doing the paying, demand will rise.  When an individual is separated from the spending and someone else is paying, consumers are encouraged to use the service more as the incentive for individuals to save for themselves diminishes.  After all, if someone else is paying for it, why should I care?

Likewise, basic economics tells us that as demand rises and supply remains stagnant, prices (premiums) will inevitably go up, which in turn disadvantages those who pay directly, such as the self-employed.

Encouraging the third-party system are tax exemptions for employer-provided health insurance that the millions of self-employed and small business owners and workers who pay on their own do not receive.  The government incentives, policies and regulations put in place, in large part by the federal tax code, serve to do nothing more than exacerbate the problem.

The layman’s prescription for health reform is increased competition and market freedom.   Not a day goes by where we don’t see commercials for Geico, AllState and other car insurance companies competing over who provides the best service at the lowest price—competition absent from healthcare because of the third-party system.  Insurance companies aren’t competing for individual consumers—they’re contending for large corporations.

To fix this, the government must equalize the healthcare tax exemption across the board so that everyone, not just middlemen and large corporations, will benefit from it.  That means small businesses as well as individuals.  Tax-free health savings accounts need to be expanded, thereby helping individuals to purchase their own health insurance or pull from a pool of money when they need to.

Adjusting the policies and regulations perpetuating the third-party system, like the tax exclusion, would increase competition by allowing consumers to shop around on their own, decreasing costs substantially while maintaining high quality.  Furthermore, due to the high cost of regulation, deregulation is critical to opening up the market.

Of course these are just a few starting points that only scratch the surface, but one thing is certain.  The question isn’t government or status quo.  It’s whether we will cross the point of no return with a new entitlement or look to America’s greatest strength: the market.

Stossell on Government Health Care

by Mr. Bob | 12:26 pm, October 5, 2009

#tcot #redco #teaparty
I’ve seen and read many reports on the Canadian and British systems. They are still being used by proponents as the model…Stossell DESTROYS that logic. Open minded people should watch.

Hey, let’s put these guys in charge of healthcare

by David K. Williams, Jr. | 9:34 am, October 5, 2009

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