“Strange Method” of Cashiers Check Deposit Raises Questions for Stephanie Villafuerte, Ritter Inaugural Fund

by Ben | 6:56 pm, November 30, 2009

You thought Governor Bill Ritter’s ethical troubles with his inaugural fund were old news? You thought the saga of Ritter staffer and Obama US Attorney nominee Stephanie Villafuerte would only make one headline today?
Well, my friends, things may have grown much more intriguing with the revelation in a new investigation from my Independence Institute colleague [...]

Reflections on 25 Great Years

by jccaldara | 11:17 am, November 30, 2009

Our good friend and loyal supporter Ari Armstrong was one of many of you who had the honor of attending our 25th Annual Founders Night celebration. Before sitting down to great food and a keynote address by none other than P.J. O’Rourke, Ari conducted interviews with some key figures in the Independence Institute’s 25 year [...]

Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation

by Mr. Bob | 10:10 am, November 30, 2009

#teaparty #aynrand #climatechange #agw
One thing worth mentioning as I forward this article on is that over the weekend the UN, and Democratic leaders are digging in their heals on global warming…still claiming global temperatures are going up tremendous amounts over a short periods of time and it will destroy the world….so the solution is of course more taxes and control over business.

From the UK Telegraph

Our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get away with the Climategate whitewash, says Christopher Booker.

By Christopher Booker

A week after my colleague James Delingpole , on his Telegraph blog, coined the term “Climategate” to describe the scandal revealed by the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, Google was showing that the word now appears across the internet more than nine million times. But in all these acres of electronic coverage, one hugely relevant point about these thousands of documents has largely been missed.

The reason why even the Guardian’s George Monbiot has expressed total shock and dismay at the picture revealed by the documents is that their authors are not just any old bunch of academics. Their importance cannot be overestimated, What we are looking at here is the small group of scientists who have for years been more influential in driving the worldwide alarm over global warming than any others, not least through the role they play at the heart of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Professor Philip Jones, the CRU’s director, is in charge of the two key sets of data used by the IPCC to draw up its reports. Through its link to the Hadley Centre, part of the UK Met Office, which selects most of the IPCC’s key scientific contributors, his global temperature record is the most important of the four sets of temperature data on which the IPCC and governments rely – not least for their predictions that the world will warm to catastrophic levels unless trillions of dollars are spent to avert it.

Dr Jones is also a key part of the closely knit group of American and British scientists responsible for promoting that picture of world temperatures conveyed by Michael Mann’s “hockey stick” graph which 10 years ago turned climate history on its head by showing that, after 1,000 years of decline, global temperatures have recently shot up to their highest level in recorded history.

READ THE REST

Dan Haley: “Too bad voters can’t be trusted with…electing their leaders”

by Ben | 6:36 am, November 30, 2009

Denver Post editorial page editor Dan Haley and I at times certainly disagree. But one observation in his Sunday column deserves a hearty “Amen”:
Too bad voters can’t be trusted with such matters as electing their leaders. At some point, party insiders need to shed their irrational fear of primaries and realize they can actually help [...]

Iran to build new uranium enrichment facilities: How are those non-preconditions working out for you, Obama?

by Rossputin | 5:43 am, November 30, 2009

President Barack Obama is just barely willing to talk to Fox News but believes in speaking to the world’s leading dictators and terrorists “without preconditions.” While his naive leftist base and enemies of the nation might find that position appealing in its “modesty”, what it really shows to people who matter in international affairs is one simple thing: weakness.

Yesterday, Iran announced that it is going to build 10 new uranium enrichment facilities – deep within mountains so as to be impervious to attack from the air – in defiance of the UN and the toothless IAEA.

While some analysts are saying this is an essentially predictable reaction to the UN’s threats of sanctions, it’s hard to imagine Iran’s taking this action if Ronald Reagan or even either George Bush were our president. Obama exudes effete juvenile naivete and weakness. He comes away from one foreign meeting after another having offered a few more pretty words (though they’re all starting to blend together at this point) but having come away with no tangible results, even from erstwhile allies.

The ayatollahs see a guy who takes the better part of 5 months to decide whether to send more troops into a war we’re already in and who’s likely not to agree to send as many troops as his field commander requested. (For the record, I’m not saying he should have simply agreed to McChrystal’s request, but I am saying the amount of time he’s taking and the way he’s handling the issue are…let’s just say unpresidential, to be kind.) So how concerned could they be about Obama’s reaction to anything they do short of attacking Israel? What’s Obama going to do? Take 8 or 12 or 16 months to decide how to react? Seems like a decent guess.

And of course Iran doesn’t take the UN seriously, especially with such a high likelihood of Russia or China blocking for them. Iran’s only risk is an attack by Israel, but they probably expect that Obama will be able to restrain Netanyahu from such an action.

That could be a miscalculation by Iran…but probably not. It won’t be so much because Netanyahu feels the need for US permission to defend an existential threat to the Middle East’s only functioning democracy. Netanyahu already sees clearly that Obama is out of his depth when it comes to anything beyond Chicago community organizing. But Israel will need help from the US to defend itself against a near-certain Iranian retaliation if Israel were to try to attack some Iranian nuclear facilities. Furthermore, Israel might need US permission to fly over Iraq. If Obama withholds either or both of those assurances, Israel’s hands are effectively tied.

Obama’s “without preconditions” approach to international affairs has had one main effect: To massively strengthen the boldness of dictators like Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Il and Vladimir Putin while weakening Israel, Eastern Europe (i.e. Poland and the Czech Republic), and the US itself.

Obama’s foreign policy follies are remarkable if for no other reason than that they make Jimmy Carter look like a master statesman. It’s time for Democrats to realize that The One presents a Great Risk and that being young and hip and black does not give Obama a free pass to being a simply horrendous leader whose legacy of weakness could take a generation or more to overcome.

[Update: I see that Fouad Ajami has written a slightly softer version of the same analysis for the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page…]

Link to Original post at Rossputin.com.

A theory about the Washington cop killings

by Rossputin | 3:34 am, November 30, 2009

Yesterday, a month after an execution-style drive-by killing of a police officer in Seattle, four Tacoma (Washington) area uniformed police officers were shot in a coffee shop as they were doing their morning administrative work on their laptop computers.

We may or may not ever learn with certainty why this gruesome murder happened. It could have been revenge for something. It could have been cops involved in “business” dealings with very bad people. It could have been random (though that seems exceptionally unlikely.)

For what it’s worth, here’s my theory: I believe these killings are some sort of gang initiation or rite of promotion.

If the perpetrator(s) are found, I hope they are given the death penalty, and I hope that whoever is “executing” the penalty makes a mistake that causes the murderer(s)’ death to be exceptionally unpleasant for him/them. Washington state has only executed 4 people since 1976, so it’s far from clear that the death penalty would be handed out, but if there were ever a case where you’d even expect liberals to exact punishment, it is this case. After all, it did occur in a coffee shop. To liberals, that’s like shooting someone in a church.

Link to Original post at Rossputin.com.

Insurance company wrong-doing no rationale for government health plan

by Brian Schwartz | 1:30 am, November 30, 2009

The Denver Post published my letter to the editor on October 31. (Yes, I just saw it now.)
Re: “The cost of failure on health care for Colorado,” Oct. 28 online-only guest commentary.
Say your neighborhood deli rigged its scales so that customers who paid for a pound of meat left the store with less. Does such [...]

Fun Weekend Video: Climategate Deniers Get the JibJab Treatment

by Ben | 5:27 pm, November 29, 2009

Climategate deniers, unready to admit that the emperor has come undressed before their eyes, are aptly parodied in a YouTube video that’s worth the 3 minutes of sheer amusement:

Ross on the radio this evening (November 29)

by Rossputin | 7:40 am, November 29, 2009

I’ll be guest-hosting for John Andrews’ “Backbone Radio” show this evening from 5 PM to 8 PM on Denver’s 710-AM KNUS.

Please listen in if you get a chance, either on the radio if you’re in the area or over the web if you’re elsewhere.

Try THIS link, or if it doesn’t work, try the link above to the station’s web page and click on the “Listen Live” link.

Topics will include “Climategate” and its impact, if any, on the upcoming Copenhagen “climate talks” as well as other implications of that ignominious conference. We’ll also talk a bit about Afghanistan – I imagine we’ll have a spirited debate on that (me and my sidekicks in studio for the show, as well as any callers.)

Please also feel free to call in to join the conversation. The studio call-in number is 303-696-1971.

There’s no Bronco’s game this Sunday, so you have no excuse not to participate, have some fun, and hopefully learn something (or teach me something, or both.)

Link to Original post at Rossputin.com.

Shocking death toll England’s flagship hospital

by Brian Schwartz | 1:30 am, November 28, 2009

From the Independent (UK):

Poor standards of care at an accident and emergency unit in one of the country’s flagship hospitals may have contributed to the unnecessary deaths of over 400 patients, an official NHS investigation has concluded. Dirty equipment and an absence of leadership contributed to a death rate almost 40 per cent above the [...]

“Platform for Prosperity” / “Contract for Colorado” waffling on Car “Fees” reversal poses conflict for voters

by The Peripatetic Pundit | 4:11 pm, November 27, 2009

The troubled launch of the “Platform for Prosperity” (aka “Contract for Colorado”) by “some Colorado GOP leaders” at the beginning of this week in an attempt to foster party unity behind Scott McInnis as the gubernatorial candidate seems to have generated more skepticism with each passing day. Although the pre-emptive criticism by Governor Bill Ritter [...]

Read of the Day – Global Warming is to Science What Scientology is to Religion

by Mr. Bob | 10:40 am, November 27, 2009

#globalwarming #agw #ppc #
I am just retweeting this one – click here to read the article at Holy Coast

CEA Every Member Option Political Refund Available up to December 15

by Ben | 6:58 am, November 27, 2009

This post will remain at the top through December 15. Please scroll down for newer entries.
Update, 12/8: You have two chances tomorrow morning to hear me talk about the CEA’s Every Member Option political refund (December 15 deadline). At 11 AM, I’ll be on the Mike Rosen Show (AM 850 KOA). At 11:30, I’ll be [...]

One on One with Dave Kopel

by jccaldara | 5:45 am, November 27, 2009

On this week’s Independent Thinking, host Jon Caldara is joined by Independence Institute Research Director and Second Amendment expert Dave Kopel to discuss Dave’s new book Aiming For Liberty: The Past, Present, and Future of Freedom and Self-Defense. Dave and Jon also discuss the recent amicus brief the Independence Institute filed for the upcoming U.S. [...]

Health “reform” vs. medical technology & innovation

by Brian Schwartz | 1:30 am, November 27, 2009

From a new Cato Institute policy analysis, Bending the Productivity Curve: Why America Leads the World in Medical Innovation:

The health care issues commonly considered most important today — controlling costs and covering the uninsured — arguably should be regarded as secondary to innovation, inasmuch as a medical treatment must first be invented before its costs [...]

America’s First Thanksgiving almost didn’t happen – “thanks” to “spreading the wealth”

by The Peripatetic Pundit | 9:12 am, November 26, 2009

As we gather together with our families and friends on this long holiday weekend, it’s worth remembering not only that we, as Americans, have much for which to be thankful – but also why.
It is no accident that prosperity and freedom blossomed in this country like no other – before or since.
Even before the founding [...]

Democrats & AARP exploit young adults

by Brian Schwartz | 1:30 am, November 26, 2009

Excerpts from Robert Samuelson’s “Health ‘Reform’ That Burdens Our Young” in Newsweek:
One of our long-running political stories is the economic assault on the young by the old. …This makes no sense for the nation, but as politics it makes complete sense. The elderly and near elderly are better organized, focus obsessively on their government benefits [...]

Colorado Supreme Court should also show “respect for voters and the Colorado Constitution”

by Director | 7:04 pm, November 25, 2009

In today’s (Wednesday) Denver Post, editor/columnist Vincent Carroll, while taking Scott McInnis to task for “budgetary vagueness” in the ‘Platform for Prosperity’ and other campaign statements to date, lauded the platform (aka ‘Contract for Colorado’) for adherence to constitutional principles:
The best thing about Scott McInnis’ new “Platform for Prosperity” is that it shows a respect [...]

Happy Thanksgiving – Thankful for Liberty – Reagan

by Mr. Bob | 1:12 pm, November 25, 2009

#tcot #redco #liberty #reagan #thanksgiving

Al Gore Skewered by Inconvenient Truth

by Mr. Bob | 12:32 pm, November 25, 2009

#socialism #tcot #globalwarming #AGW #teaparty
Follow the money. While the lawmakers benefit from Climate Change laws they create…the American middle class family will suffer. After you watch this video go to Youtube and check out he others on this page, Al gets hammered.

Dan Maes Describes Top Five Issues

by Ari | 11:56 am, November 25, 2009

Dan Maes doesn’t have a chance in hell of becoming the next governor of Colorado. This is a guy who lists under his “public service” qualifications: “Boy Scout Leadership as a teen and in his early 20’s.” Scott McInnis, on the other hand, served in the state legislature before spending twelve years in Congress. Maes has no political credentials. He has zero chance of winning the Republican primary, and if by some bizarre chance every other possible Republican candidate died first, Maeas would have zero chance of beating Ritter.

Nevertheless, Maes did respond to a question quickly, and that counts for something.

On November 24, Maes sent out the following e-mail:

I was speaking with a county chairperson today and the subject of leadership for the party came up. He expressed his unhappiness with the lack of leadership in the republican party. I do not think he was referring to the state office but rather to our elected officials and candidates. The question is…was he issuing a challenge to me or simply stating a fact?

Lesson one when talking to me, I actually do listen. Number two, I look for those messages one is really trying to communicate. Maybe he was just venting but perhaps there was more to it all especially in light of the so called attempt to provide leadership this week by those without the authority or credibility to do so.

I jumped in this race months before others did. Obviously, I had a lot of catching up to do; but more importantly, I sensed there was a leadership vacuum myself that someone had to proactively fill. That has been my style since I was a teen. When a position needed to be filled or a responsibility taken on, it was not unusual for me to stick my hand up for the job. Ah, you might have thought I was the sucker in the old days but all those rolls prepared me for what I am doing today. Boy Scout Troop Leader, Student Council Member and President, Senior Class President, Captain of the football team, manager and owner of businesses… you get the point. Many ask, why do it? It is just how God wired me I suppose and for better or worse, I am here trying to become a leader for the Republican party.

I will suffer the slings and arrows of those who would rather be leader. That is also part of leadership. I will continue to work hard in my attempt to earn the right to be your leader. Do actions match words?

Dan Maes
The People’s Candidate for Governor
www.danmaes.com

Thinking that his campaign is rather Quixotic, I asked, “Hey Dan, I challenge you to describe five *substantive* differences of policy or ideology you have with McInnis. I will be happy to publish your reply on my web page.”

This morning he obliged (sort of):

Hi Ari,

Responding to your question regarding differences in me and Scott McInnis is a bit difficult in itself because Scott rarely articulates policy in his forums and speeches. We tend to hear about his family, how long he has been in Colorado, and railing against Bill Ritter. His failure to articulate any real policy was the main reason for the recent Contract for Colorado which had Josh Penry and Tom Tancredo helping his campaign actually develop a message of any kind. Thus, I do not see any connection between this document and his past or future behavior and thus nothing to differentiate myself on.

I will leave the opposition research to you and I will not attempt to articulate where Scott is on any issues. I will tell you where I stand.

1. Pinyon Canyon – I await the facts from the Army. I will seek a mutually beneficial resolution via willing sellers/leasers if at all possible.

2. Taxes – I am a true fiscal conservative and for downsizing government, and reducing taxes to spur growth not just maintaining status quo.

3. Social Issues – I have said consistently that we must stop preaching and start reaching out for a more diverse party yet I stand firm on a pro-life, and pro marriage between a man and woman platform. Some claim to have recent “revelations” and a come to Jesus but do their actions match their words?

4. Qualifications – people confuse experience with qualifications. The Governor’s office is an executive office not a legislative one. Legislative experience does not translate into executive experience. Scott has very little to no executive experience. I have 20+ years of managerial and executive experience. This experience is the core qualification for the office and our current president is a great example of a legislator turned executive.

5. Campaign Style – I am becoming very popular very fast because I connect with people and truly care about what is important to them. Ask anyone who has spent a few minutes with me and they can sense the genuine, honest, hard working person who wants to earn their support and work for them. This is not 1994 anymore. People want to be treated like they are the boss. They are more informed and educated than ever before. I recognize that and treat people accordingly.

Ultimately, after all the facts are considered, people perform gut checks and ultimately ask themselves, do I like and trust this candidate. They are discovering more and more that they like and can trust me. Maybe that is the reason the full frontal assault against any choice in this primary has happened so early in this election cycle.

Thank you for the opportunity to address your readers.

Dan Maes
Re-Energizing Colorado’s Economy
Republican Candidate for Governor
www.danmaes.com

Perhaps I should upgrade Maes’s chances from zero to one. But hell is a pretty big place.

If Progressives Want to Fundementally Change America, they need to be honest and amend the Constitution

by Mr. Bob | 11:46 am, November 25, 2009

The The American Thinker has some suggestions. #tcot #teaparty #constitution #liberal

Article I, section 8 of the Constitution is hereby repealed. Article I, section 8 shall now read: “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States and the citizens of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.”

Progressives should feel free to leave in the italics so the message is clear. The words in italics are not in the Constitution as it is now written.

Let’s move on to the Bill of Rights.

Progressives have been ignoring the actual words of the Constitution and have focused on one obscure line in a letter from Thomas Jefferson instead. (That’s where the “wall of separation” comes from.) So the first clause of the First Amendment of our new progressive Constitution should be amended to read:

Congress shall build a wall of separation between church and state.

It is crystal clear from the dissenting opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller that progressives do not believe that the Second Amendment provides the individual citizen of the United States a right to bear arms. (By the way, they are wrong about this.) Wrong or right, this one is easy to fix:

The Second Amendment to the Constitution is hereby repealed.

In keeping with this utopian attitude (the Kelo Decision), the new “taking clause” of the Fifth Amendment should read:

… private property may be taken for any purpose whatsoever, with just compensation.

The Ninth Amendment essentially says that the rights specifically granted (“enumerated”) to the central government in the Constitution do not “disparage” or “deny” the rights reserved by the people. The Tenth Amendment makes it clear that powers not specifically delegated to the federal government (“the United States”) belong to the individual states and the people. That’s not progressive.

Easily remedied with one amendment:

The Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution are hereby repealed. READ THE ENTIRE PIECE.

A History of the Environmental Movement’s Anti-Human Agenda

by Mr. Bob | 10:54 am, November 25, 2009

#globalwarming #agw #tcot #teaparty #socialism #marxism
Long video but well worth it.

Child Safety Standards And The Idiocy of ABC

by Julian Dunraven | 9:30 am, November 25, 2009

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Honorable Friends:

I know better. I really do. In truth, I was simply trying to be polite. Nonetheless, I opened the email from my honorable friend, clicked on the link, and suffered through a clip of ABC’s World News with Charles Gibson, a man who somehow manages to look grave while pronouncing utter rubbish.

The clip in question, “Lagging Safety Standards for Baby Products,” was not news, but rather an inexcusably fear mongering advocacy piece calling for greater government regulation in response to the recent crib recall. My honorable friend sent it along to me in the hope that I could explain why the federal government does not already set strict safety standards for baby products.

Contrary to ABC’s histrionics over what it sees as a complete lack of regulation, the federal government does indeed impose rather exacting safety standards upon manufacturers and retailers of child products. The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA) stands as just one example of such regulation. This is nothing to celebrate, however. The CPSIA serves only to impose crippling costs on business, and actually undermines the safety of the children it purports to protect. All it successfully does is increase the size, scope, and power of government. Only Mr. Gibson could breathe a solemn sigh of relief over that. Sensible people should be alarmed.

The Economic Costs of Regulation

The economic costs of the CPSIA are fairly obvious. The CPSIA requires that any product intended for the use of children under age 12 must be tested by a third party and certified for safety under standards promulgated by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (the Commission). Other than prohibiting excessive levels of dangerous substances such as lead or phthalates, the CPSIA leaves it to the Commission to define and set safety standards. Once certified, a manufacturer must affix a proper label to each of its products. Even without knowing what additional testing standards the Commission will impose, this third party testing, certification, and labeling requirement imposes enormous expense.

For a large toy manufacturer such as Hasbro, these additional expenses, though irksome, are manageable. The company will simply pass the costs along to consumers, and young parents, struggling to pay bills, will marvel at the outrageous prices of baby products while no doubt cursing the “greedy” corporate executives they mistakenly blame for the cost. The consumer suffers, but the large company may survive with less profit. A small business, however, will suffer even more.

A stay at home mother who designs and creates baby bibs for her own children, then has them manufactured for public sale, will suddenly find her business faced with expensive new testing requirements for every fabric she uses, for every fastening device and material she attaches, and for any pacifier or toy she may include with the sale of such a creation. It makes no difference that she thoroughly researched the safest types of products and materials for use in her designs. She must meet the requirements of the regulations, though the cost of doing so is greater than all the revenue of her small start-up company. The time commitment alone is more than she has as a new mother. So she closes her business. Others like her are prevented from entering the market at all. Government has just set a high wealth barrier to market entry.

Regulation’s Cost to Safety

Perhaps even more worrying than the financial costs of the CPSIA, though, is the damage it does to the cause of child safety. This may seem counterintuitive given that CPSIA is intended to do the exact opposite. Make no mistake, though, the existence of the CPSIA ensures that baby products will be less safe than they would be without the CPSIA.

If the CPSIA and its like did not exist, children would not be in any imminent danger. Rather, the safety of products would be determined by the courts. If a child were injured by any given product, and the parents brought suit against the manufacturer, a judge would look to see whether the manufacturer knew, or should have known, that the product could be expected to cause injury. A judge would hold a manufacture responsible for knowing the best practices of his or her industry. Thus, even if a particular manufacturer was ignorant of a product defect or risk which others in the industry had discovered and corrected, he or she would still be held responsible in tort (and sometimes under criminal law) for failing to maintain best practices. The beauty of this system is that the safety standard is always rising as the industry gains new information. Manufacturers have great incentive to keep up with or exceed best practices as punitive damages can put them out of business and the safest products have great marketing appeal.

The CPSIA changes all that. Under the CPSIA, the Commission sets industry standards by law. That then becomes the minimum safety level, and as long as a manufacturer meets the legal standards for its products, it cannot be held liable for the injuries its products may cause. The industry may, in fact, develop best practices far in excess of the safety standard set by law. However, as these standards are more costly and the law does not require them, many manufacturers will not use them in the production of their goods. While the Commission will attempt to issue regulations modified for industry development, it cannot possibly keep pace. It is but one underfunded government agency charged with setting standards for millions of baby products in the industry. Inevitably, its regulations will lag by many years. That is the sole point ABC correctly reported. The government, acting through the Commission, cannot possibly set safety standards as exacting or as efficiently as the industry itself through the proper operation of our court system and the market.

ABC and Mr. Gibson seem to think government must involve itself in everything we do for our own good—especially to protect the children. As I hope you see here, though, further government regulation of child safety standards actually leaves our children more vulnerable while imposing crippling costs on our small businesses. Just ask yourself: do you want the products your child uses to be subject to the highest standards the market and toy industry can offer? Or do you really want to leave your child’s safety at the bottom of a federal bureaucrat’s inbox?

Goebbels on man made global warming

by David K. Williams, Jr. | 9:18 am, November 25, 2009

Joseph Goebbels understood propaganda. His words apply to the fraud pushed by members of the Al Gore Cult of Global Warming:

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Wednesday’s Funny

by jccaldara | 5:09 am, November 25, 2009

Since today is like a Friday (thanks Thanksgiving!), here is this week’s Friday’s Funny, care of our cartoonist Ben Hummel.

Should this happen on a party-line vote?

by Rossputin | 4:38 am, November 25, 2009

Complaints by Democrats about the GOP offering nothing but obstruction miss the target for several reasons and mask a fundamentally important question about what Democrats are now trying to do in Congress.

The first problem with a charge of GOP obstructionsim is that it’s numerically impossible: The Democrats have such a large majority in both houses of Congress that Republicans are literally incapable of obstructing the Democrats if the Democrats are united…as the Senate Democrats just proved with their vote on health care “reform”.

Also, is it really the responsibility of the GOP – aside from the question of whether it’s good politics – to present one alternative plan after another while knowing that not only won’t these alternatives come up for a vote, but they also won’t be relayed to the public by the liberal-leaning media. I, for one, am satisfied with the GOP being the “Party of ‘NO!’” at this moment in time.

The issue which I think is particularly interesting and important regarding the state of the health care “reform” process is how these vote results, getting one RINO (Republican In Name Only) vote in the House (and only after the Democrats had enough votes to pass the bill) and zero GOP votes in the Senate, begs the question: Is it is OK for legislation as important as a massive government intervention into (some would argue takeover of) the nation’s health care system – and not just for the elderly or poor – to be passed along party lines?

Democrats like to argue that that’s par for the course, in terms of this nation’s history with entitlement legislation. However, that is just another Democrat lie…easy to lose among the dozens of others.

Let’s look at a little history:

The 1935 Social Security Act passed the House with 81 out of 102 Republicans voting for it. In the Senate, it got 16 “Yes” votes from Republicans versus 5 no votes (and 4 not voting.)

The 1956 Social Security Amendments which created Social Security’s disability program received 169 ‘Yes” votes from House Republicans versus 23 “No” votes, with a Senate GOP tally of 44-0 in favor.

The 1965 Medicare Act (officially the Social Security Amendments of 1965) received 13 Republican votes in the Senate (out of a possible 32) and 70 Republican votes in the House (out of a possible 140).

Bill Clinton’s 1996 Welfare Reform Act, officially the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, while not nearly as significant as these other entitlement creations and which cut back an entitlement rather than creating one, garnered 30 Democratic votes in the House and, more significantly, 23 Democratic votes in the Senate.

On the one hand, “politics ain’t beanbag”. Democrats have an unbeatable margin if they can remain united. The majority of House and Senate Democrats don’t understand just how bad this bill is, and the majority of those who do understand don’t care. They are afraid to oppose Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid, afraid to lose plum committee assignments, afraid they might attract a primary challenge funded by a leftist union. So most of them will remain united on this out of politics and/or ignorance. (Colorado’s junior senator, Michael Bennet, is the poster boy for both.)

But at some point, isn’t there even ONE Democrat who recognizes there is good reason that legislation nearly of this scale, creating a multi-hundred-billion dollar entitlement, has never been passed along party line votes – never even close, really – and never against the obvious desire of the American public (in this case the desire to focus on policies which are likely to reduce health care costs.) Nobody who has actually studied the likely effect of current Democratic “reform” proposals believes they will do anything other than substantially increase the cost of health insurance and the rate of health care inflation in America.

Isn’t there ONE Democrat who thinks that passing a bill which would be the single most intrusive, single most expensive piece of legislation in American history along party lines and against the wishes of the public would not be a legacy he or she would like to be part of, even if Harry Reid wants each and every Democrat to sell his soul?

Just ONE???

Link to Original post at Rossputin.com.

Harvard Medical School Dean: Health “reform” a failure

by Brian Schwartz | 1:30 am, November 25, 2009

Some choice words from Jeffrey S. Flier, Dean of Harvard’s Medical School. Some excerpts from his Wall Street Journal article:
Our health-care system suffers from problems of cost, access and quality, and needs major reform. Tax policy drives employment-based insurance; this begets overinsurance and drives costs upward while creating inequities for the unemployed and self-employed. A [...]

Dear Dean Singleton, Please Charge Me

by Ari | 12:04 am, November 25, 2009

Westword’s Michael Roberts reports that “Dean Singleton… plans to start charging readers for lotsa online content at select MediaNews papers in California and Pennsylvania beginning in 2010.” This is relevant to us in Colorado because Singleton also publishes the Denver Post. Are fees for the online Post in our future?

God, I hope so.

Good journalism is hard work. Good investigative journalism is especially hard and time-consuming work. People tend not do do a lot of hard work without compensation. (I imagine Roberts would confirm this.) Thus, journalism needs to pay.

Journalism can pay in one of three general ways: advertising, philanthropic contributions, and reader payments. Advertising can be direct or indirect; for example, Michelle Malkin runs direct advertising, and her entire blog serves to advertise her books. (You’ll notice that I advertise my own book, Values of Harry Potter, on my web page. And it makes a fine addition to the tree or stocking!) I would be interested in learning how much of the Incredible Shrinking Westword’s revenues come from print versus online advertising. (While the weekly’s print edition has gotten noticeably smaller, its online content has expanded dramatically.)

I doubt anybody is going to make a generous gift to the Post.

That leaves reader contributions to supplement advertising revenues. These payments can be by the piece or via subscriptions.

As I suggested earlier, I think papers (and it’s funny even to still call them “papers”) should give readers a choice: watch an annoying ad, pay a monthly or annual subscription, or pay to read a single article at a time.

How is that not the best of all worlds? Cheapskates can still read content for free, except they have to pay with their time by watching a real advertisement. Regular readers can subscribe, preferably for a low annual rate (I would seriously consider paying, say, $50 per year to read the Post online). And occasional readers who value their time can pay some token amount — perhaps an amount that varies with the ambition of the piece — to read a single article. As I also mentioned before, the key to this is to figure out a very-fast way to make micropayments (else there is no time savings).

The fact is that readers who value good content and don’t want to waste time looking at ads will be prepared to pay to read that content. I absolutely hate the Post’s online ads that pop up, block text, push text down the page, and otherwise annoy the living hell out of me when all I’m trying to do is read a spot of news. I would much rather pay a little than deal with those sorts of ads.

I think it’s worth revisiting what Post editor Greg Moore said in September:

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.

Unfortunately, rather than quote somebody who knows what he’s talking about, such as Moore, Roberts quotes some clueless blog post by Rob Burgess.

Burgess quotes survey results from NewFiction:

80 percent of consumers recently surveyed by Forrester Research say they would discontinue their favorite free print content if they were asked to pay for it. Less than 10 percent of respondents would agree to subscription models; only three percent would opt for micropayments.

Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner nicely summarize the problem with this in their new book SuperFreakonomics: “There is good reason to be skeptical of data from personal surveys. There is often a vast gulf between how people say they behave and how they actually behave” (page 7).

If you ask people if they want to pay for something they now get for free, what do you expect them to say? They’re going to give you some variant of “no.”

But if a person actually has a choice of reading a great article and paying, versus not reading that article, in at least some cases the person is going to pay up and ask for more. (Again, I think newspapers would be smart to offer a third option of spending time watching an ad, probably in the form of a short video. These sorts of ads are already common on a variety of web pages.)

So Burgess’s first argument is bunk. Let us turn to his second argument:

You ruined everything in the beginning by starting with giving everything away for free. It has now been almost 15 years since the Internet broke wide and you’re just NOW getting around to asking people to pay for your content? I don’t blame people for not wanting to pay for it anymore, why should they? Who would pay for something they can get for free?

The options are not “get free content” versus “pay for content.” The other option is “get no content,” at least as far as investigative journalism is concerned. With that as the alternative, paying doesn’t look so bad after all. People “should” pay, and they should be willing to, if that’s the only way to get hard-to-produce content they want to read. (Again, easy-to-produce content will remain free, and ads can help pay for hard-to-produce content.)

What Burgess seems to think ridiculous is Singleton’s comment, “We have to condition readers that everything is not free.” But Singleton’s comment is perfectly sensible. Moore uses the example of paying for music online. Today many people pay to receive television stations that they could otherwise get for free, because the reception is better and the broadcast stations are packaged with cable-only stations. Consumers change their behavior all the time, even (or especially) after they say they won’t.

There ain’t no such thing as free journalism. If journalists aren’t willing to work without compensation, philanthropists don’t pay, and advertising doesn’t pay enough, the only alternative is for readers to pay, if they want the benefit of the product.

Really advertising is a way of extracting a payment of time from readers. Again, I think papers should offer that alternative. I would much rather pay in dollars, as for me that would be the far less costly alternative.

SEALS Bloody the Lip of Terrorist Murderer and Face Charges

by Mr. Bob | 4:07 pm, November 24, 2009

#gwot #SEAL #Navy #tcot #liberalLunacy
Having just read Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell I understand full well what it costs our brave men and women fighting for us to have to filter every decision through wondering if they are going to face charges for doing their job. Luttrell watched his 3 buddies die because they were afraid to shoot or detain what appeared to be a couple of sheep herders who they knew were spies.

When they turned out to be a spies, the SEAL team was attacked by over 200 Taliban within 2 hours of letting the spies go.

The 4 SEALS killed nearly half of their attackers but then were overwhelmed by the terrain and the Taliban horde. This can be understood to some degree, you can’t just waste anyone you think is a spy, but the SEALS now facing charges of assault should get a medal, not a trial.

Why should we expect our fighting men and women to want to join the military if we are going to second guess every move they make in the fog of war. Bottom line is we don’t trust our sons and daughters to do the right thing….but we should.

Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.

The three, all members of the Navy’s elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment — called an admiral’s mast — and have requested a trial by court-martial.

Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named “Objective Amber,” told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it. READ THE REST at FoxNews.

Pictured borrowed from StoptheACLU.com… where the author said
With people like the one in the photo above in charge…what should we expect (paraphrase)

keep looking »

Our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get away with the Climategate whitewash, says Christopher Booker.

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