Showing posts with label Pelosi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pelosi. Show all posts

Thursday, December 24, 2009

A Merry Christmas for Congress from Victor the Contractor

By Victor the Contractor

The United States Senate will have a very Merry Christmas this year as it gifts itself around eighteen percent of the economy. The Health Care Reform Act will effectively nationalize a sixth of the economy while offering fines and imprisonment for violators.

No one really understands what the bill in its entirety means because every time an item is revealed it creates a firestorm of controversy and resistance by one faction or another. Suffice to say this unconstitutional exercise will create a cabal of governmental institutions designed to take a fledgling medical bureaucracy and metastasize in into a 'Health Care Command and Control Administration' that progressively plans larger and larger parts of the economy.

It is not that far-reaching to imagine the FDA controlling and regulating food as drugs because consumption -- or lack thereof -- has some demonstrable effect on health. Certain foods and drink will invariably be banned as poisonous and anything seen as 'not green enough' will be rationed. The cross enforcement of anti-pollution laws and green technologies will bring the EPA to the party as an enforcement arm tailored to regulating all manner of pollution producers. Think of banning riding mowers as creating pollution and a sedentary lifestyle, thus running afoul of the 'Green AND Obesity Police.' Want to smoke a cigar with your goombahs at the local pizzeria? Fuggedaboudit!

Pizza will, of course, be banned or regulated as a major cause of obesity. Those ovens that pump out CO2 by the cubic yard have got to go, too. And cigars? Not only do they cause cancer, global warming and spew aroma pollutants, but the second hand smoke is a weapon used to assault other peoples' health. Now fur-wearing can be rightfully banned as the glorification of sport hunting among otherwise 'civilized' people. The practical implications of amassing policy-making power in one central administration is almost endless as more and more regulatory commissions join forces for the synergies each affords.

While my examples could be viewed as farcical there are many who are chomping at the bit to do away with the pastimes I have noted and this legislation is a backdoor method for doing so. I can for see a world where citizen behavior will be controlled, "To provide for the general welfare." Hell, if Congress can push Health Care through, then a Cap-and-Trade bill is small change and "Card Check" should be passed almost unnoticed. Nobody mention a $20 minimum wage, please...

Of course the American people are screaming at their televisions every night and swamping their respective legislators with opposition but the Government seems to be on a Communist autopilot of late. Our democratic form of Government is morphing into a Politburo with a Central Planning Committee right before our very eyes. And and all the press can do is applaud Michelle Obama's choice of evening-wear and those 'cute as a button' daughters who don't know which fork to use with salad but eat with their hands so gracefully.

I'm so sick of watching the mainstream media dally on about 'The New Kennedy Family' while our Constitution succumbs to the 'Second Bill of Rights,' first proposed by FDR and is in the process of being made into law as we speak. Its a blessing that the founders of this great nation did not linger long enough to see this sad turn of events.

It is also troubling and a sign of the times that Americans don't know what is 'Constitutional' and what is not. That politicians can appear in the media and even suggest that 'health care is a human right' is an affront to all who know The Bill of Rights. And for anyone to claim compassion on the poor is doomed to be poor someday. For we are spending our childrens' prosperity so that one party may be re-elected by the masses for whom they have purchased new welfare programs.

The next generation will be in the unenviable position of saying 'No' to the entitlements as the Treasury is depleted and China loses its taste for American bonds and the avarice which accompanies it. The rich will always have health care and the average American citizen will have dirty clinics with alcoholic 'pseudo-docs' to provide substandard services. Ask anyone who's actually had to go to a clinic: They'll tell you horror stories.

Yes, boys and girls, there is a Santa. And he has given himself the best Christmas present ever. Control. 'Santa Congress' has engineered a plan to nationalize the entire economy and the first step is the health care industry. They did a dry-run with the finance industry and a few car companies, and seeing little protest from its citizens, the government has upped the ante. The Senate voted for cloture on Christmas Eve. Such irony is not lost on me as the Government has finally grasped the spirit of Christmas! But woe to all that this is a selfish spirit; filled with avarice, self-dealing and hypocrisy. Congress will rue the day that it opted to declare a dictator in President Obama, even as it denies the fact.

For even with a change in leadership in both Houses next November, the fix is in. The infrastructure will be in place for a 'Democratic Dictatorship' and the new members will yield to the temptation of pork for prurience. Elections have less and less impact as Democrats are increasingly corrupt and Republicans apologetic for having just a hint of morality.

If I hear about shivers running up a leg at the mention of someone's name again my head will rend the tattered duct tape that hold its contents in and I'll have to wipe my laptop down once more. For the press is now the gossipy sophomore at the high school dance; spreading rumors about what she just heard, as if it was fact, while not understanding the full impact of her words. And woe unto all of those who mistakenly believe that there is any dignity in forcing the productive to support the lazy, or unlucky. That just creates more lazy and unlucky people.

I wonder if the people in Rome started investing in villas in the countryside with high walls towards the end of the empire. Or maybe just a few got out before the treasury was empty and the hoards invaded for the crumbs. There have been ten great empires the earth has been graced with or has suffered, depending on your outlook. And they all started crumbling from within when more people sat and held their hands out while fewer people got up at three AM to make the donuts. Just saying...

Have a Holy Christmas and Happy new Year,

Victor The Contractor


Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Transcript: Calling the DemCare Emergency Help Line

Welcome to the National Health Care Emergency Help Line!

For Espanol, press 1.
For Urdu, press 2
For Arabic, press 3
For Farsi, press 4
For Hmong, press 5
For all other languages, press 6

6

Thank you! Did you press 6? If yes, press 1. If no, press 2.

1

Thank you. To speed processing of your call, please key in your 9-digit social security number, whether it was illegally obtained or not.

5 5 5 4 4 3 3 3 3

Thank you. Did you enter five five five four four three three three three? If yes, press 7, if no, press 3.

7

Thank you. Please enter the nature of your ailment, condition or problem.

For Achondroplasia, press 1-0-0-0. For Acne, press 1-0-0-1. For Acrodysostosis, press 1-0-0-2. For Acromegaly, press 1-0-0-3. For Adenoids, press 1-0-0-4. For Adrenoleukodystrophy, press 1-0-0-5. For Age-related macular degeneration, press 1-0-0-6. For Agoraphobia, press 1-0-0-7. For Albinism, press 1-0-0-8. For AIDS, press 1-0-0-8. For Alcohol poisoning, press 1-0-0-9. For Alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency, press 1-0-1-0. For Alport syndrome, press 1-0-1-1. For Altitude sickness, press 1-0-1-2. For Alzheimer's disease, press 1-0-1-3. For Amyloidosis, press 1-0-1-4. For Anaemia, press 1-0-1-5. For --

*

Thank you. To enter the nature of your ailment, condition or problem by name, use the touch-tone keypad to spell the name, then press the pound sign.

4 (h) ... 3 (e) ... 2 (a) ... 7 (r) ... 8 (t) ... 2 (a) ... 8 (t) ... 8 (t) ... 2 (a) ... 2 (c) ... 5 (k) ... #

Did you select HEART ATTACK? If yes, press 2, if no, press 9.

2

On a scale of 1 to 9, with 9 being excruciating pain, how much pain are you in?

9

Enter your age, followed by the pound sign.

7 4 #

I'm sorry, the maximum age of treatment for this condition, as determined by Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research is Seventy-three. Thank you for calling.

Good-bye.

7 2 # ... 7 2 # ... 72 #

*** Click ***

[Call recording terminated]


Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Tyranny: The Reid WelfCare™ Bill Installs Itself Permanently

Red State's Erick Erickson observes that the Senate's health care bill includes language to guarantee its own permanency, an outrageous violation of the Senate's own rules.

Democrats... ignored 200 years of Senate precedents to rule that Senator Sanders could withdraw his amendment while it was being read.

It was Reid leading the Democrats who has determined again and again over the past few days that hundreds of years of accumulated Senate parliamentary rulings have no bearing on the health care vote... [but o]n December 21, 2009... Harry Reid sold out the Republic in toto.

Upon examination of Senator Harry Reid’s amendment to the health care legislation, Senators discovered section 3403. That section changes the rules of the United States Senate.

To change the rules of the United States Senate, there must be sixty-seven votes.

Section 3403 of Senator Harry Reid’s amendment requires that “it shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.” The good news is that this only applies to one section of the Obamacare legislation. The bad news is that it applies to regulations imposed on doctors and patients by the Independent Medicare Advisory Boards a/k/a the Death Panels... [and] Section 3403 of Senator Reid’s legislation also... sets up a rule to ignore another Senate rule.

In truth -- it's all bad news. What prevents these megalomaniacs from installing similar language in any future "law" to ensure its permanency?

This Democrat Congress has set the Constitution afire. Its has spit upon the Declaration of Independence and urinated on the founder's graves. Could anyone imagine what the framers -- James Madison, specifically -- might say if they were alive today?

Did the states really throw off the yolk of the British crown and its authoritarian, centralized government only to become enslaved to an all-powerful, centralized federal government?

To watch Senators sell their votes for hundreds of millions of dollars of our money, which our children must repay with interest?

To watch an utterly corrupt Democrat leadership pass legislation on Christmas Eve in the hopes that no one will figure out what's actually in a bill that no one's read?

To claim that the bill must be slammed into place because "people are dying every day" -- and then not implement it until 2014 to disguise its true costs?

We are witnessing the rise of, in the words of Mark Levin, a "Soft Tyranny". A Congress hell-bent on ignoring the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution itself.

The list of usurpations seemingly grows by the day. If I may be sold bold as to paraphrase the Declaration:

The history of this Congress is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

They have refused their Assent to the Highest Law, the Constitution, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

They have called together legislative bodies at times unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the traditions of American government, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with their measures.

They have erected a multitude of New Offices and Agencies, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

They have combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For willfully quartering foreign terrorists among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

We are not yet suffering under an absolute tyranny. But this Congress is completely out of control, willing to engage in the most underhanded and unconstitutional machinations ever seen.

These would-be despots must be politically punished in 2010. Every Democrat must be defeated.

And if there's any climate change occurring, it's because the Earth was thrown off its axis by the gyroscopic energy of the founders spinning in their graves.


Sunday, December 20, 2009

Since you asked...

Here is a reprint of the Congressional Research Service's Recall of Legislators and the Removal of Members of Congress from Office (PDF). The summary reads:

Under the United States Constitution and congressional practice, Members of Congress may have their services ended prior to the normal expiration of their constitutionally established terms of office by their resignation or death, or by action of the House of Congress in which they are a Member by way of an “expulsion,” or by a finding that in accepting a subsequent public office deemed to be “incompatible” with congressional office, the Member has vacated his congressional seat.

Under Article I, Section 5, clause 2, of the Constitution, a Member of Congress may be removed from office before the normal expiration of his or her constitutional term by an “expulsion” from the Senate (if a Senator) or from the House of Representatives (if a Representative) upon a formal vote on a resolution agreed to by two-thirds of the Members of the respective body present and voting. While there are no specific grounds for an expulsion expressed in the Constitution, expulsion actions in both the House and the Senate have generally concerned cases of perceived disloyalty to the United States, or the conviction of a criminal statutory offense which involved abuse of one’s official position. Each House has broad authority as to the grounds, nature, timing, and procedure for an expulsion of a Member. However, policy considerations, as opposed to questions of authority, have appeared to restrain the Senate and House in the exercise of expulsion when it might be considered as infringing on the electoral process, such as when the electorate knew of the past misconduct under consideration and still elected or re-elected the Member.

As to removal by recall, the United States Constitution does not provide for nor authorize the recall of United States officers such as Senators, Representatives, or the President or Vice President, and thus no Member of Congress has ever been recalled in the history of the United States. The recall of Members was considered during the time of the drafting of the federal Constitution in 1787, but no such provisions were included in the final version sent to the States for ratification, and the specific drafting and ratifying debates indicate an express understanding of the Framers and ratifiers that no right or power to recall a Senator or Representative from the United States Congress exists under the Constitution. Although the Supreme Court has not needed to directly address the subject of recall of Members of Congress, other Supreme Court decisions, as well as the weight of other judicial and administrative decisions, rulings and opinions, indicate that: (1) the right to remove a Member of Congress before the expiration of his or her constitutionally established term of office is one which resides exclusively in each House of Congress as established in the expulsion clause of the United States Constitution, and (2) the length and number of the terms of office for federal officials, established and agreed upon by the States in the Constitution creating that Federal Government, may not be unilaterally changed by an individual State, such as through the enactment of a recall provision or a term limitation for a United States Senator or Representative. Under Supreme Court constitutional interpretation, since individual States never had the original sovereign authority to unilaterally change the terms and conditions of service of federal officials agreed to and established in the Constitution, such a power could not be “reserved” under the 10th Amendment.

Damn.


'Health care for all' is not a right; it is slavery

For Americans, the Declaration of Independence codifies man's unalienable, individual rights.

These rights are life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. And that is the complete list of rights to which citizens are entitled.

There is no right to a Whopper with Cheese at the local Burger King; no right to a free month of rent at the Lakeview Luxury Apartments; or even free Chemotherapy treatments should you need them.

Why did the Declaration limit our rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness? Because legitimate rights provide freedom for citizens to act, not to receive free shelter, food, medical treatment or big-screen televisions.

The American system guarantees you the right to work for what you want -- not for goods or services to be 'given' to you, without effort on your part, by some mysterious "others".

Consider a system in which your neighbors are compelled to feed, clothe and house you. In other words, your neighbors are ordered, whether they like it or not, to give up their freedoms (their private property, their liberty) to pay for your existence.

In such a system, you would be granted the rights to the goods or services produced by others, whether they voluntarily agree to such a system or not.

In such a system, the right to the pursuit of happiness is misconstrued to mean something else entirely: the right for other people to please you, whether they want to do so or not. Your "right" to happiness comes at the expense of others. They lose their liberties because they have now become your slaves. They are compelled to try to make you happy at their own expense and have no choice in the matter.

But our system defines rights in the form of freedom to act, not guarantees that citizens will receive free goods or services. It was this freedom to act that was unique among nations and made the United States the envy of the world, the richest and most powerful country ever seen on the face of the Earth. It did so by defining individual rights only as freedom of action.

With the passage of Democrat health care, however, the individual rights articulated in the Declaration of Independence have been trampled upon. It is as if the Declaration had never been written as politicians invent new "rights" from whole cloth. These "rights" require only your mere existence: by existing, you will be granted gift-wrapped goods and services from "others" who somehow will provide them to you.

You are now entitled to something simply because it exists and you want or need it. You are entitled to receive it from the government, because the government will take as much labor, as much private property, as much as it needs from the citizenry to give it to you.

Of course, Democrat health care truly wipes away our rights. The people who manufacture the goods or provide the services are now beholden to the state. If you attempt to make the delivery of any good or service a right, you thereby enslave the providers.

But doctors, as Ayn Rand wrote, are not servants of their patients. They are "traders, like everyone else in a free society, and they should bear that title proudly, considering the crucial importance of the services they offer."

The Democrat Party's assertion that "health care for all" is a right is a notion at complete odds with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It is no more a right than the right to free bread, free orange juice at the grocery store, a free condo or free open bowling on Friday nights.

"Health care for all" translates to slavery, plain and simple, and marks the beginning of the end of the American experiment.


Inspired by: Dr. Leonard Peikoff and Dr. Mark Levin.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

The Unconstitutional Gambit

Guest post by Victor the Contractor

This week the Senate has done something I thought I'd never see. They are debating a bill they will never vote on and funding for same they'll never have to implement or answer for. The senators are fighting over details that will soon become moot points in the proposed health care legislation because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is molding his own plan. Mr. Reid is holding closed-door meetings with select Senators and is in constant contact with the OMB on how to bring this bill in under a trillion dollars or so.

This method of crafting legislation, running negotiations in secret and excluding most majority party members as well as the opposition, runs contrary to the spirit of the first three words of the Preamble to the Constitution: "We the People."

This bill is being drafted in secret by 'Harry Reid, the person' and no one else. The Constitution is further defied by the ppirit of the bill. Legislation forcing a person to purchase health insurance is, on its face, unconstitutional and when this bill passes, as I'm convinced it will, there will be challenges by those who face prison sentences for defying the new law.

This bill and many others are crafted for reasons that few people understand and will take this country in a direction that bankrupts and effectively socializes it. Health care Reform is not about rearranging the way we obtain medical care, rather, it marks the government's shift from being limited by the Constitution to instead limiting the Constitution's protection of the citizens of the United States of America.

Waiting in the wings is "Cap-and-Trade" legislation that limits our prosperity by imposing tariffs on economic activity. Add the "Employee Free Choice Act" that eradicates the secret ballot in union votes, which will increase pressure on employers to unionize and intimidate employees who might resist. A mandate to purchase a product at a government-set price gets you closer by several degrees to a totalitarian state.

I never thought I'd live to see the day that our elected officials would have the naked ambition to try to 'Marxize' our economy and actually brag about it. And it is equally disheartening to watch the overwhelming bulk of the mass media trumpet this agenda as something to be proud of or that, somehow, patriotism is exemplified by supporting a muzzling of the common man's will in all of this. Extending failed welfare policy to other industries will only ensure the failure of the other industries. And muzzling the populace will only lead to an eventual revolution.

Does anyone think that prosperity will return to this country by curtailing mortgage foreclosures? Will homes appreciate when the government subsidizes anyone who wants a home and forgives missed payments? Will GM and Chrysler survive the helping hand and substandard products selection the Government is forcing them to offer? Will the American public buy knockoffs of French mini-cars that were unsuccessfully marketed in the U.S. twenty years ago? And will small businesses hire new employees and offer health insurance (at the cost of thousands) when they can pay a fine of a few hundred and force the employee onto the government's plan?

I see a different future coming if we stay on this track. A future where nearly every single person's prosperity is limited not by the profitability of one's labor but by the inefficiency and lack of foresight of the committee that oversees said economy.

We have tried that once before: it was called the Soviet Union under communism, and it failed miserably. Not only was it impossible for a person to succeed by their own vim and vigor, but the very spirit of its citizens lay broken with alcoholism and suicide rampant. They are also immense problems in that paradigm of socialist ideology called Sweden. China only survives as a communist entity politically because it is rabidly capitalist in its economic agenda: at least the Red Chinese learned what works in the marketplace. This is more than our current set of leaders can say.

I fear for our Republic. I fear that the framework for a command-and-control economy will already be set by the midterm elections -- and the Congress will build on it every time they get even the tiniest bit of power from here on out. It is a given that the liberals in the Congress and even the President are at peace with being voted out if it will further their agenda of a socialist nation. What is really enraging is that the Republicans are, for the most part, complacent as passive onlookers in this process.

What on earth are we sending them to Washington for, the Cherry Blossom Parade? And what does the Republican leadership do when confronted by a rabidly confrontational Democrat Party with a decidedly Marxist agenda? Offer watered-down versions and claim to be representing our interests. That, my friends, is not leadership. That is capitulation; capitulation to the media, to the Democrats and of their own ideals.

And capitulation is what led us to this sorry state of affairs. What we need is a firebrand of a leader who is not afraid to confront the enemy on their own turf. I say the enemy because those who endeavor to consign our way of life and capitalism to the scrap heap of history I consider enemies of the republic and guilty of treason.

Every Democrat and every Republican who votes in the affirmative for that sham of a "health care reform" bill will, in my opinion, be guilty of treason for contravening the Constitution. The times require a leader who shakes up the establishment and we need to collectively throw out anyone -- anyone -- who thinks big government can solve the world's problems. I'm thinking of a firebrand like Sarah Palin and a whole raft of young, fiscally conservative Republicans!

Sarah Palin is exactly what the system needs to shock us back into reality. That is, if we don't get a depression that wipes out half of the wealth of this country. And if we don't grab this country back from the Marxists soon, that is exactly what we will have. The failed sixties-retreads who burned flags and tore up draft cards are now in office and the those who choose to serve our country are tolerating the hippies' nonsense because the press is overwhelmingly fixated on this new form of communism.

And relying on elections may not be the salve for our problems because the Democrats have been manufacturing voters, both illegal and dead ones, for decades. Acorn is nothing new: the Democrat Party has been cheating at the ballot box for so long that they are surprised when they don't win. Remember Chicago during the 1960 Kennedy election? We need to throw out all who support the communist propagandists and those who tolerate them. When a Republican goes along with a spending program for his share of pork he becomes a hypocrite and undeserving of reelection.

The Democrats and Republicans who 'go along' with this tragic agenda are the problem and will be voted out. We've got to stop spending like drunken sailors (this epithet actually gives drunken sailors a bad name because they stop spending when they run out of money or pass out).

Our vaunted Government is drunk on its own power and passing out money to everybody who will throw support their way. All at the expense of our children. If you are over fifty you will not be the ones who are saddled with the responsibility of paying this debt. At some point the interest alone will be too much of a burden and an economic collapse will follow. And China can keep their cheap products and will suffer along with us. Our children will never forgive us for being 'The Selfish Generation; Children of the Greatest Generation.'

Our future lies in the decisions a few elected officials make on our behalf. Because I believe this to be true we simply must have a 'Midterm Housecleaning.' If we don't succeed, we will end up with a command-and-control economy before we know it. We will suffer the consequences of being a lazy and uninformed electorate. The pillars are in place now for a tyrannical state and we have fiddled with sex scandals and tolerated immoral characters while the Constitution burned -- all under the guise of political correctness. Now we have a society where having values is seen as judgmental and morals as 'hate thought'.

We have almost completely squandered the immense power and goodwill the patriots who served in the First and Second World Wars earned for us with their lives.

Even now their spirits cry out from the hallowed ground in which they rest: they cry for a return to the values that built this great country. We have no choice but to "clean house" in 2010 and send this president into his early retirement in 2012. I'm 'down' for struggle, except now it's time for the hardworking people of this country to say refuse: "No! No, we will not tolerate another trillion-dollar give-away to corporate welfare program and Acorn. No, we will not allow the Constitution to be ignored for the benefit of those who do not work, who do not earn 'enough' or who simply collect unemployment while feeling sorry for themselves. And, no, we will not put up with our elected officials ignoring our will and insulting us when we remind them that they work for us."

That I even have to write this shows how very close we are to losing all of the liberties that prior generations of heroes fought and died for. And we can include the noble Americans who work twelve-hour days for many years to pay their taxes, send their children to college and bury their dead. They too deserve an America that appreciates every drop of sweat, tears and blood spilt for Freedom. And Freedom will bring us home. So fight for it before it is a dim memory.

Victor The Contractor


Top Nine Health Care Charts You've Never Seen Before

Trial lawyers are the second biggest donor to the Democrats' Political Action Committee, trailing only the union bosses of the IBEW.

The "lawsuit industry" gives more money (roughly $127 million in 2008) to Congress than every sector of the health care industry, combined.

Medical malpractice costs continue to skyrocket to new historical highs, growing far faster than any other component of health insurance premiums.

Which makes the percentage of your health premium going to pay for the trial lawyers' mansions roughly 75%.

And trial lawyers bring in more money than either Microsoft or Pfizer.





Tort reform is an easy way to reduce health care costs without destroying the entire system.

But Harry Reid -- in his current mentally-incapacitated state -- won't have any of it. He requires money and power. And the trial lawyers continue to provide him with both.


Update: ReidCare Throws a Bone to Tort Lawyers Too.

Charts: Source.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

The Delusions (and Barbarism) of the 'Reality-Based' Community

Over at 538.com, Nate Silver devotes significant attention to the faux liberal outrage erupting over the nationalization of health care. Silver analyzes the responses to 20 of his questions posed to Markos Moulitsas (Daily Kos) and Jon Walker (FireDogLake).

I'll save you the effort of reading their neural diarrhea. Suffice it to say that the "Reality-based" Community devotes thousands of words to government-run health care without mentioning:

• The "dangerous" amount of national debt that we are assuming ($50,000 for each and every American by 2019 without a health care takeover);

• The exploding and extremely risky deficit;

• The impending bankruptcy of Medicare and Medicaid (the time-bomb is set to explode in less than a decade);

• Slashing $500 billion from Medicare while claiming to "improve quality";

• And the utter accounting fraud associated with booking six years of benefits against ten years of tax revenues.

Bernie Madoff is serving time for running a Ponzi scheme like this, only a 100 times smaller. Best of all, Silver is the supposed "numbers guy" for the socialist left. So he turns out to be just as intellectually honest as the rest of the Soros-funded troupe.

The numbers are real. And they are dangerous to the future of this country, according not to me, but the Congressional Budget Office.

So the "Reality-based" Community is either delusional or intent on the utter destruction of the American experiment. Choosing which is an exercise best left to the reader.


Note: Yes, this is the same Nate Silver of the Dealergate beclownment. No one tell Natey that a variety of lawsuits by dealers alleging partisan activities by the Obama administration are still wending their way through courts.


Tuesday, December 15, 2009

My War of Words With the Canadian Health Care System

A representative of Canada's state-run health care system has rushed to the battle front to defend her system from evil conservative bloggers like moi. She writes:

Actually, the health care system in Canada does work. And it works pretty well. My family and I have enjoyed unrestricted access to specialists, general practitioners, surgeons, hospitals, outpatient departments, emergency rooms, and labs, just to name a few services, over the past few years for a variety of concerns – football injuries to hysterectomies to skin conditions to flu shots. I’ve never had to argue with a insurance company over what they would pay, nor have a copay to pay. There is no paperwork or bills to review or submit – we just show our health care card at the hospital or doctor’s office or walk-in clinic.

Of course there are idiots, horror stories, and cracks that people fall through in Canada. Just like the horror stories in the States – and this is confirmed by my family in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Texas and Missouri tell me – (all born and raised in US, so they are not used to, nor probably even aware of, what we have up in Canada and therefore cannot be accused of bias). And there are people that complain bitterly about anything and everything.

- Remember that Canadian woman who had to go to the States for her brain tumour to be removed? It was not cancer, it was not growing appreciably, and the Canadian health care services would have operated on it, close to her own home, in 6 months time, without any change in her overall health. And cost her no money. Instead she had it operated on “instantly” in the US, because she didn’t want to wait, and now is complaining (tearfully on CNN via YouTube) that she is devastated by the bill of over $100,000. That is a reality of the States health care system.

On average, we live longer than the population in the States. Fewer of our babies die in infancy. We have better outcomes in almost every measure of health care – including surgery! We pay through taxes less than half you do in the States for more care. Our health care is not “socialized medicine” – we pay taxes (like you do) and in return, the government allocates $ to each province (like states) for a list of basic health care (prenatal care to surgeries to emergency rooms) to be provided to every Canadian citizen. Period. You do not call it Socialized Agriculture when your government subsidizes farmers? You don’t call it Socialized Free Enterprise when your government reduces tax to business. Socialized Highways, Socialized Parks? Socialized Defence?

Please don’t write off health care systems that are maybe just different from yours.

Her email server really is owned by the interiorhealth.ca domain, so it appears legit. I replied:

Please read the following from the NIH, Stanford University and other professional opinions.  Follow the links for attribution.  I'll wait patiently for your corrections.  Best Regards, Doug

• The work of Barbara Starfield and others has repeatedly shown that having a family doctor is the single best way to ensure access to sound health care.  Yet a 2006 study revealed that 17% of Canadians do not have family physicians—about 5 million Canadians have no family doctor. Of these 5 million, around 2 million have sought unsuccessfully for one.  The NIH reports that "...with an aging family physician population and a projected increase in the population of seniors as baby boomers reach retirement, there is a looming crisis in primary care in Canada."

• The Chief of Neuroradiology at Stanford reports the following, which utterly refutes your claims: "1. Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers.

Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the United Kingdom and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher. ...
2. Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians. Breast cancer mortality in Canada is 9 percent higher than in the United States, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher, and colon cancer among men is about 10 percent higher. ... 3. Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries. Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit from statin drugs, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease, are taking them. By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons, and 17 percent of Italians receive them."

• In 2009 about 2,500 Canadians per month sought medical treatment in the U.S. because of accessibility, long waits and life-threatening conditions.

• There is a projected $36 trillion shortfall in funding for Medicare and Medicaid.

• California's Medi-Cal program is an unmitigated disaster, burning a $14 billion hole in a state with a nearly $50 billion overall budget shortfall.

• Single-payer has failed cancer patients and children in the UK. It has condemned patients to long and sometimes fatal waits for routine tests in Canada (e.g., "Excessive wait times for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies are a major problem in the Canadian healthcare system." Healthcare Policy, Canada, 2009).

• The UK's NHS is broke and fading fast.

• "British cancer patients are substantially more likely to die of the disease than those in other western European countries because of poor access to the latest drugs, according to an authoritative report to be published today." (Cancer survival rates worst in western Europe: Telegraph, UK, 2007)

• As for anecdotes?  Here's one that describes what U.S. diplomatic officials see every day.

I am an American living and working in [Canadian City]. Please do not use my name, but I am a Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. Consulate here... working in the... visas section. I could get in big trouble professionally for telling you this.

...I had numerous opportunities to work on cases in which Canadians were attempting to emigrate to the U.S. primarily for medical procedures. In one case, a U.S. citizen father was petitioning for his [Canadian adult] son to join him in [state]...

...His son had a non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and was unable to obtain the necessary treatments in Canada. In the U.S., two physicians had examined him and basically concluded that, because the disease had not spread above his neck, that he could be saved. In Canada, this young man was under a death sentence. Once I was satisfied that his medical costs would not be borne by U.S. taxpayers, I got him his visa and (hopefully) another chance at life.

* * * * * * * * *

[There was another] case of a young Canadian mother, in tears, who had recently given birth to a child with cerebral palsy. Her husband, a U.S. citizen working in Canada, was able to transmit U.S. citizenship to his infant son and he was petitioning for his wife so that the family could move to Chicago. Why? So the boy could get the treatment that he needed in the U.S., which was superior to that in Canada.

* * * * * * * * *

[We all] had several cases of nurses, doctors, and [X-ray] technicians who emigrated to the U.S. for professional reasons. Sometimes it was for the opportunity to earn more money (one doctor, earning about $85K annually Canadian, had a job offer at a clinic in Buffalo for $300K U.S.). For others, it was a chance to to do what they were trained to do - in the U.S., [an X-ray] technician has the equipment and facilities to ply his trade, whereas in Canada the opportunities to do so are quite limited.

* * * * * * * * *

I realize that this is all anecdotal and not statistically based, but in my experience the only Canadians who are satisfied with the system here are people who are healthy. I do not mean that in a snide attempt to be funny, I am serious - it is a good program for young healthy couples with one or two children who need vaccinations and routine appointments.

However, if you get sick, this is not the place to be.

Lastly, a comment - U.S. health care is a good value for the money. Would you rather have 2009 health care at 2009 prices, in the U.S., or 1970 health care at 1970 prices? The answer is obvious, and even our own Congress knows it. I am pretty sure that Ted Kennedy would not choose to have his brain cancer treated anywhere but the U.S., and the same is true for John Kerry's prostate cancer.

* * *

"Access to a waiting list is not access to health care" --Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin, Supreme Court of Canada (Chaoulli v. Quebec)

In 2007 the Canadian government issued a series of reports to address the outcry over long wait times for critical tests, procedures and surgeries. Over a two year period:

  • Wait times for knee replacements dropped from 440 to 307 days.
  • Wait times for hip replacements dropped from 351 to 257 days.
  • Wait times for cataract surgeries dropped from 311 to 183 days.
  • Wait times for MRIs dropped from 120 to 105 days.
  • Wait times for CT scans dropped from 81 to 62 days.
  • Wait times for bypass surgeries dropped from 49 to 48 days.

These "improvements" are unheard of in the United States. Waiting 48 days for a bypass or 105 days for an MRI could very well be a death sentence.

The public has fought for 50-plus years to build a publicly funded Medicare system that they’re now telling us isn’t quite working for them. -- Health Care in Canada Round Table 2005

A Commonwealth Fund 2005 International Health Policy Survey (slide 16) showed that 41% of patients in the UK and 33% of patients in Canada waited more than 4 months for non-emergency surgery. Only 8% American patients waited more than 4 months for surgery.

Meanwhile, in Hamilton, Ontario, hospitals have received an infusion of cash to cut wait times for diagnostic procedures and certain surgeries, which have become intolerable.

And these are precisely the type of government-controlled health-care systems proposed by the Democratic candidates. Not only are they destined for failure, they will cost thousands of lives. And with the UK and Canada as examples, everyone can see the train-wreck coming.

Story after story after story describes the Canadian health care system in crisis. CBS News and The New York Times are among the sources.
* * *

For many Canadians, the choice is crystal clear: you can receive "free" health care and die -- or you can receive treatment in the U.S., pay for it, and live. Worst-case, the choice is death -- or bankruptcy. Which would you choose for a loved one?

Monday, December 14, 2009

What Do House Democrats Know That The Rest of Us Don't?

In a tersely worded email, Richard Baehr observes:

In four weeks, four incumbent, long-serving Democratic Congressmen -- John Tanner, Brad Gordon, Dennis Moore, and Brian Baird -- have all announced their retirements.

All of the seats will be tough for the Democrats to defend in 2010. It certainly appears that the Pelosi-Schakowsky-Waxman wing of the Democrat Party has pushed the entire party and its legislative agenda so far to the left that moderate Democrats are giving up the fight.

In the Rasmussen poll today, the approval-disapproval score for President Obama has hit an all-time low: 44% approve, 55% disapprove with 24% strongly approving, and 42% strongly disapproving. Despite the most favorable press coverage ever for any new president, Obama's approval scores are lower than those for any other new president since these polls began. The last three national surveys on support for Obamacare: 40-56 in Rasmussen, 34-61 by CNN/Opinion Dynamics, and 34-57 by Fox.

The Democrats may try to blame their failure to pass health care reform, if it occurs, on Joe Lieberman. But the failure will be their own: they could not convince the American people that their monstrously complex and expensive proposal ($2.5 trillion in the first ten years after benefits kick in) was necessary.

What do these 'moderate' Democrats know? That they each have a giant serving fork sticking in their back.

More of Richard's analysis is available at Pajamas Media.


Sunday, December 13, 2009

AP's Andrew Taylor Invents Brand-New Phrase!

While laying down covering fire for the Democrats' Cloward-Piven-esque efforts to destroy the full faith and credit of the U.S. currency, Andrew Taylor of the Associated Press invents a brand new term.

The $1.1 trillion measure combines much of the year's unfinished budget work... into a 1,000-plus-page spending bill that would give the Education Department, the State Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and others increases far exceeding inflation.

The 60-34 vote met the minimum threshold to end the GOP filibuster. A final vote was set for Sunday afternoon to send the measure to President Barack Obama.

The measure combines $447 billion in operating budgets with about $650 billion in mandatory payments for federal benefit programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. It wraps together six individual spending bills and also contains more than 5,000 back-home projects...

"Back-home projects"?

"Back-home projects"?

Would those be the billions in wasteful spending that used to be called "earmarks"?

The very same projects that candidate Barack Obama promised to scrutinize, stating "...we need earmark reform... when I'm president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely."?

But there isn't enough money to defend the homeland against illegal aliens who are arrested for criminal activity, so Congress is slashing spending on that program.

California and other financially strapped states will lose tens of millions of federal dollars that they spend to jail illegal immigrants charged with crimes, under Congress' latest spending bill...

...Overall, spending for the program would fall from $400 million to $330 million for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, or SCAAP, which President Barack Obama had targeted for elimination. It's a formula grant program that provides aid to states and localities for correctional officer salary costs incurred for jailing criminal undocumented immigrants.

To be clear: Congress is able to devote billions of taxpayer funds for 5,000 of their pork-filled earmark projects but can't locate $70 million for a program that has bipartisan support in the states most affected by gang and other criminal activities conducted by illegal aliens. It may be trite to say that innocent people will assuredly die because of this ill-considered decision; but it's also spot-on.

These irresponsible Democrats are useless, sixties-retread radicals; and they need to be thrown out of office in 2010. They have clearly violated their oaths of office -- and the first duty of all elected officials -- to defend and uphold the Constitution.


Thursday, December 10, 2009

Democrat Utopia: Free Unicorns for Everyone


"Those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day, because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government." -- President Barack Obama, 1/20/09


The federal government -- controlled completely by Democrats -- is in the process of bequeathing our children crushing debts. Imagine being born into the world owing $200,000 for a house you'll never get to occupy. That's what each member of America's next generation will get to experience.

And it's not just the federal government. California. New York. Michigan. Illinois. All of the Blue States, dominated for decades by leftist Democrats, are disintegrating as we speak. Consider:

S&P Downgrades Illinois Illinois From AA- to A+ with a negative outlook.

The downgrade reflects what we view as the state's deteriorating liquidity and financial position... Illinois failed to address its fiscal 2009 deficit, which was carried into fiscal 2010. Similar to many other states, revenues are performing below originally forecast levels... The absence of recurring solutions in the next year to deal with the current budget challenges and begin to stabilize liquidity will likely result in a further downgrade of llinois.

Year in and year out, California spends $10 billion more than it takes in: And the state now faces a $21 billion dollar shortfall and officials have explored some *cough* creative secessionary proposals to paper over the disaster.

California's finances have been so bad that the governor's finance director, Mike Genest, told a budget forum in Washington last week that back in February he had combed through the U.S. Constitution to research whether California could legally declare bankruptcy -- or revert to some kind of territorial status.

With 16% unemployment, Michigan is staring at its own multi-billion dollar deficit: In addition tospending billions more than it takes in, Michigan's $2.3 billion community health budget, 90 percent of which is Medicaid, will get slammed with an additional $500 million or so by socialized medicine. And that's just part of the problem.

The Senate Fiscal Agency says the state collected $120 million less in tax revenues in the last two months than projected in May... That means the budget deficit is getting bigger than economists thought... Gov. Jennifer Granholm and lawmakers have cut spending and filled much of this year's hole with federal stimulus money. They are facing a bigger shortfall in the next budget.

Gee, that sounds sustainable. Filling in budget shortfalls with money from the federal taxpayer.

And, at the federal level, the hits just keep on comin'.

Emergency Jobless Claims Hit All-Time High: And I thought President Obama said the economy was recovering.

The number you won't hear mentioned anywhere in the Mainstream Media: 327,729. That is how many people shifted to Emergency Unemployment Compensation programs in the last week alone, hitting an all time record high of 4.2 million!

Oh, and did you hear?

America is broke -- and the Democrats keep spending: Politico's headline reads 'Dems to lift debt ceiling by $1.8 trillion, fear 2010 backlash'. In a nutshell, the Statists are in a central-planning frenzy and won't let up until they control health care and every energy-consuming business in the country:

In a bold but risky year-end strategy, Democrats are preparing to raise the federal debt ceiling by as much as $1.8 trillion before New Year’s rather than have to face the issue again prior to the 2010 elections.

* * *

Welcome to the Obamaconomy! Welcome to the CCCP! And let's have 'em run health care, too!


Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Barbara Walters in High-Def


With all due respect, seeing Barbara Walters in high-def is kinda like watching a parchment origami being made.

It occurs to me that this is why the media and the state are so tightly bound at the hip.

There's no freaking turnover. These people never -- never! -- leave their jobs.

Robert Byrd is, by my calculations, 117 years old and still serving in the Senate.

Mike Wallace is only 115 and has the complexion of a gravel driveway slathered in orange paint.

Nancy Pelosi and John Conyers have served in the House since the Continental Congress first convened. They may, in fact, have formaldehyde circulating in their veins.

In other words, the problem with the government and the government-run media is the recidivism. We need term limits for all of these losers. Give some fresh blood a chance, for heaven's sake.


Tuesday, December 08, 2009

'Life Unworthy of Life': Rationed Care Through Democrat Eugenics


Nazi Germany enacted social policies to target certain human beings as "life unworthy of life" (German Lebensunwertes Leben). Among the targeted groups were the disabled and mentally ill. These programs were called Nazi Eugenics.

This poster promotes the policies of the era. It reads:

60000 Reichsmarks ... this is what this person suffering from hereditary defects costs the Community of Germans during his lifetime ... Fellow Citizen, that is your money, too ... Read '[A] New People' ... The monthly magazines of the Office for Race Politics of the NSDAP

It's hard to imagine government having the power to gauge the value of a human life, isn't it?

Yet the health care bill being contemplated in the United States Senate slashes $500 billion from Medicare. It is clear that these huge cuts will be accompanied by rationing. How will the new "Health Benefits Advisory Committee" decide who gets treatment? How do you assign a dollar value to a human life? What happens when a 'public option' becomes the only option for care?

This white paper by presidential adviser Ezekiel Emanuel places arbitrary values on human lives in order to ration care. It describes -- quite precisely -- how the public option rationing will work.

Emanuel's algorithm -- called "the complete lives system" -- discriminates against the disabled, the mentally ill, the elderly and even very young children.

Emanuel says of his system: "When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated... The death of a 20-year-old woman is intuitively worse than that of a two-month-old girl."

I doubt the parents of the two-month-old agree.

And, if you are a child with disabilities, the government has already completely given up on you. Emanuel believes "services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed."

...What’s worse, since he does not believe in “guaranteeing neuropsychological services to ensure children with learning disabilities can read and learn to reason," once the public option puts the private sector out of business, these types of life-changing services for children will no longer exist.

Years of research in treating children with autism, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and dyslexia are in jeopardy of being rendered null and void. Years of progress in passing anti-discrimination laws may be undone in one single bill.

It's hard to imagine such a system in the United States, where Americans could once choose their own treatment, pay for the health insurance they felt they needed and the procedures they required.

Where they could make decisions for their parents, their children and themselves.

But such a system is coming, whether you like it or not.

The Democrats' plans are pure evil, which explains the resemblance to Nazi Eugenics. They are willing to destroy every last vestige of our health care system -- the finest such system in the world -- in order to control you and your family.

Ask not for whom the distant bell tolls. It tolls for thee.


Saturday, December 05, 2009

Get Ready for the 'Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians of 2009' Awards


As 2009 draws to a close, let's recall that Nancy Pelosi (she of the "most ethical Congress ever" and D-CA), Charlie Rangel (D-NY) and Chris Dodd (D-CT) all occupied places of dishonor in Judicial Watch's Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians of 2008.

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY): Rep. Charles Rangel, Chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee [is being investigated by the] House Ethics Committee... The initial transgressions that led to the ethics panel probe involve: Rangel's failure to pay taxes on $75,000 in rental income he earned from his off-shore rental property; his efforts to use his influence to keep hold of highly coveted rent-controlled apartments in Harlem; and misusing his congressional office to fundraise for his private Rangel Center. Now Congress is looking into whether or not Rangel preserved a tax loophole for an oil drilling company in exchange for funding for the Rangel Center as well...

Last year House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made the "most corrupt" list for sneaking a $25 million earmark for her husband into a $15 billion Water Resources Development Act passed by Congress. This year, Pelosi ran afoul of federal election law by participating in an illegal advertising campaign funded by Al Gore's non-profit Alliance for Climate protection. The advertisement featuring Pelosi ran at least 300 times nationally, including in the House speaker's district, during campaign season, representing an illegal in-kind contribution to her campaign. Perhaps more disturbing than this incident, however, is the fact that Speaker Pelosi has allowed corruption to run rampant in Congress and has ignored serious incidents of crooked behavior within her own party...

Question: Which member of the U.S. Senate took the most campaign money from corrupt institutions Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Answer: Chris Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Given this fact there is little reason to wonder why Senator Dodd blocked reform proposals for Fannie and Freddie, calling them "ill advised." Dodd's willingness to protect Fannie and Freddie would alone merit a spot on the "ten most corrupt list," but there is much more. Dodd was also nabbed for accepting preferential treatment and loan terms from Countrywide Financial. The Connecticut Senator admitted earlier this year that he was told in 2003 when he refinanced two properties that he was being placed in Countrywide's "VIP Program," but said he believed this was simply a courtesy that had nothing to do with his position in the U.S. Senate. This is either a blatant lie or horribly naïve for a man who has served in the Senate for more than 25 years and currently chairs the Senate Banking Committee that regulates the mortgage industry...

Methinks that all three will be making prominent return appearances in the sequel.

This Democrat-controlled Congress is a disgrace.