First Presidential Debate 2020

 

Biden 2020

Blaspheme's quick review of the first two Democratic Debates these last two nights?

Winner - Donald Trump.

Ron Paul Has A Plan!

Ron Paul has a plan! And - it's so "wacky" that it might actually work! It's also very easy, and simple: The Fed simply takes a match to the $1.6 trillion in Treasury obligations it currently holds on its balance sheet as a result of its various QE programs!

Ta-da! The government suddenly has $1.6 trillion in room under the debt cap, enough to last us maybe a couple of years. And the Tea Party will be placated since they hate the Fed, and love Ron Paul! Yea!

Surprisingly, Dean Baker, of the left-leaning Center for Economic Policy Research, thinks this idea is so crazy it just might work:

Unlike the debt held by Social Security, the debt held by the Fed is not tied to any specific obligations. The bonds held by the Fed are assets of the Fed. It has no obligations that it must use these assets to meet. There is no one who loses their retirement income if the Fed doesn’t have its bonds. In fact, there is no direct loss of income to anyone associated with the Fed’s destruction of its bonds.

This means that if Congress told the Fed to burn the bonds, it would in effect just be destroying a liability that the government had to itself, but it would still reduce the debt subject to the debt ceiling by $1.6 trillion.

This would buy the country considerable breathing room before the debt ceiling had to be raised again. President Obama and the Republican congressional leadership could have close to two years to talk about potential spending cuts or tax increases. Maybe they could even talk a little about jobs.

In addition, there’s a second reason why Representative Paul’s plan is such a good idea. As it stands now, the Fed plans to sell off its bond holdings over the next few years. This means that the interest paid on these bonds would go to banks, corporations, pension funds, and individual investors who purchase them from the Fed. In this case, the interest payments would be a burden to the Treasury since the Fed would no longer be collecting (and refunding) the interest.

There are a lot of potential problems with this idea. Maybe most importantly, the Fed would lose a huge tool for eventually tightening monetary policy in the future — namely, the ability to swap its Treasury debt for some of the cash sloshing around the banking system. Eh, but they don't even know where the gold is, or that gold is even money.

Mr. Baker thinks there are ways around this problem and that Mr. Paul’s idea at least deserves a fair hearing:

In short, Representative Paul has produced a very creative plan that has two enormously helpful outcomes. The first one is that the destruction of the Fed’s $1.6 trillion in bond holdings immediately gives us plenty of borrowing capacity under the current debt ceiling. The second benefit is that it will substantially reduce the government’s interest burden over the coming decades. This is a proposal that deserves serious consideration, even from people who may not like its source.

RON PAUL RON PAUL RON PAUL

Warning a Child of the Irrational World

Richard Dawkins letter to his 10 year old daughter (how to warn your child about this irrational world)

To my dearest daughter,

Now that you are ten, I want to write to you about something that is important to me. Have you ever wondered how we know the things that we know? How do we know, for instance, that the stars, which look like tiny pinpricks in the sky, are really huge balls of fire like the Sun and very far away? And how do we know that the Earth is a smaller ball whirling round one of those stars, the Sun?

The answer to these questions is ‘evidence’.

Sometimes evidence means actually seeing (or hearing, feeling, smelling….) that something is true. Astronauts have traveled far enough from the Earth to see with their own eyes that it is round. Sometimes our eyes need help. The ‘evening star’ looks like a bright twinkle in the sky but with a telescope you can see that it is a beautiful ball – the planet we call Venus. Something that you learn by direct seeing (or hearing or feeling…) is called an observation.

Often evidence isn’t just observation on its own, but observation always lies at the back of it. If there’s been a murder, often nobody (except the murderer and the dead person!) actually observed it. But detectives can gather together lots of other observations which may all point towards a particular suspect. If a person’s fingerprints match those found on a dagger, this is evidence that he touched it. It doesn’t prove that he did the murder, but it can help when it’s joined up with lots of other evidence. Sometimes a detective can think about a whole lot of observations and suddenly realize that they all fall into place and make sense if so-and-so did the murder.

Scientists – the specialists in discovering what is true about the world and the universe – often work like detectives. They make a guess (called a hypothesis) about what might be true. They then say to themselves: if that were really true, we ought to see so-and-so. This is called a prediction. For example, if the world is really round, we can predict that a traveler, going on and on in the same direction, should eventually find himself back where he started. When a doctor says that you have measles he doesn’t take one look at you and see measles. His first look gives him a hypothesis that you may have measles. Then he says to himself: if she really has measles, I ought to see… Then he runs through his list of predictions and tests them with his eyes (have you got spots?), his hands (is your forehead hot?), and his ears (does your chest wheeze in a measly way?). Only then does he make his decision and say, ‘I diagnose that the child has measles.’ Sometimes doctors need to do other tests like blood tests or X-rays, which help their eyes, hands and ears to make observations.

The way scientists use evidence to learn about the world is much cleverer and more complicated than I can say in a short letter. But now I want to move on from evidence, which is a good reason for believing something, and warn you against three bad reasons for believing anything. They are called ‘tradition’, ‘authority’, and ‘revelation’.

First, tradition. A few months ago, I went on television to have a discussion with about 50 children. These children were invited because they’d been brought up in lots of different religions. Some had been brought up as Christians, others as Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs. The man with the microphone went from child to child, asking them what they believed. What they said shows up exactly what I mean by ‘tradition’. Their beliefs turned out to have no connection with evidence. They just trotted out the beliefs of their parents and grandparents, which, in turn, were not based upon evidence either. They said things like, ‘We Hindus believe so and so.’ ‘We Muslims believe such and such.’ ‘We Christians believe something else.’ Of course, since they all believed different things, they couldn’t all be right. The man with the microphone seemed to think this quite proper, and he didn’t even try to get them to argue out their differences with each other. But that isn’t the point I want to make. I simply want to ask where their beliefs came from. They came from tradition. Tradition means beliefs handed down from grandparent to parent to child, and so on. Or from books handed down through the centuries. Traditional beliefs often start from almost nothing; perhaps somebody just makes them up originally, like the stories about Thor and Zeus. But after they’ve been handed down over some centuries, the mere fact that they are so old makes them seem special. People believe things simply because people have believed the same thing over centuries. That’s tradition.

The trouble with tradition is that, no matter how long ago a story was made up, it is still exactly as true or untrue as the original story was. If you make up a story that isn’t true, handing it down over any number of centuries doesn’t make it any truer!

Most people in England have been baptized into the Church of England, but this is only one of many branches of the Christian religion. There are other branches such as the Russian Orthodox, the Roman Catholic and the Methodist churches. They all believe different things. The Jewish religion and the Muslim religion are a bit more different still; and there are different kinds of Jews and of Muslims. People who believe even slightly different things from each other often go to war over their disagreements. So you might think that they must have some pretty good reasons – evidence – for believing what they believe. But actually their different beliefs are entirely due to different traditions.

Let’s talk about one particular tradition. Roman Catholics believe that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was so special that she didn’t die but was lifted bodily into Heaven. Other Christian traditions disagree, saying that Mary did die like anybody else. These other religions don’t talk about her much and, unlike Roman Catholics, they don’t call her the ‘Queen of Heaven’. The tradition that Mary’s body was lifted into Heaven is not a very old one. The Bible says nothing about how or when she died; in fact the poor woman is scarcely mentioned in the Bible at all. The belief that her body was lifted into Heaven wasn’t invented until about six centuries after Jesus’s time. At first it was just made up, in the same way as any story like Snow White was made up. But, over the centuries, it grew into a tradition and people started to take it seriously simply because the story had been handed down over so many generations. The older the tradition became, the more people took it seriously. It finally was written down as an official Roman Catholic belief only very recently, in 1950. But the story was no more true in 1950 than it was when it was first invented 600 years after Mary’s death.

I’ll come back to tradition at the end of my letter, and look at it in another way. But first I must deal with the two other bad reasons for believing in anything: authority and revelation.

Authority, as a reason for believing something, means believing it because you are told to believe it by somebody important. In the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope is the most important person, and people believe he must be right just because he is the Pope. In one branch of the Muslim religion, the important people are old men with beards called Ayatollahs. Lots of young Muslims are prepared to commit murder, purely because the Ayatollahs in a faraway country tell them to.

When I say that it was only in 1950 that Roman Catholics were finally told that they had to believe that Mary’s body shot off to Heaven, what I mean is that in 1950 the Pope told people that they had to believe it. That was it. The Pope said it was true, so it had to be true! Now, probably some of the things that Pope said in his life were true and some were not true. There is no good reason why, just because he was the Pope, you should believe everything he said, any more than you believe everything that lots of other people say. The present Pope has ordered his followers not to limit the number of babies they have. If people follow his authority as slavishly as he would wish, the results could be terrible famines, diseases and wars, caused by overcrowding.

Of course, even in science, sometimes we haven’t seen the evidence ourselves and we have to take somebody else’s word for it. I haven’t with my own eyes, seen the evidence that light travels at a speed of 186,000 miles per second. Instead, I believe books that tell me the speed of light. This looks like ‘authority’. But actually it is much better than authority because the people who wrote the books have seen the evidence and anyone is free to look carefully at the evidence whenever they want. That is very comforting. But not even the priests claim that there is any evidence for their story about Mary’s body zooming off to Heaven.

The third kind of bad reason for believing anything is called ‘revelation’. If you had asked the Pope in 1950 how he knew that Mary’s body disappeared into Heaven, he would probably have said that it had been ‘revealed’ to him. He shut himself in his room and prayed for guidance. He thought and thought, all by himself, and he became more and more sure inside himself. When religious people just have a feeling inside themselves that something must be true, even though there is no evidence that it is true, they call their feeling ‘revelation’. It isn’t only popes who claim to have revelations. Lots of religious people do. It is one of their main reasons for believing the things that they do believe. But is it a good reason?

Suppose I told you that your dog was dead. You’d be very upset, and you’d probably say, ‘Are you sure? How do you know? How did it happen?’ Now suppose I answered: ‘I don’t actually know that Pepe is dead. I have no evidence. I just have this funny feeling deep inside me that he is dead.’ You’d be pretty cross with me for scaring you, because you’d know that an inside ‘feeling’ on its own is not a good reason for believing that a whippet is dead. You need evidence. We all have inside feelings from time to time, and sometimes they turn out to be right and sometimes they don’t. Anyway, different people have opposite feelings, so how are we to decide whose feeling is right? The only way to be sure that a dog is dead is to see him dead, or hear that his heart has stopped; or be told by somebody who has seen or heard some real evidence that he is dead.

People sometimes say that you must believe in feelings deep inside, otherwise you’d never be confident of things like ‘My wife loves me’.
But this is a bad argument. There can be plenty of evidence that somebody loves you. All through the day when you are with somebody who loves you, you see and hear lots of little tidbits of evidence, and they all add up. It isn’t purely inside feeling, like the feeling that priests call revelation. There are outside things to back up the inside feeling: looks in the eye, tender notes in the voice, little favors and kindnesses; this is all real evidence.

Sometimes people have a strong inside feeling that somebody loves them when it is not based upon any evidence, and then they are likely to be completely wrong. There are people with a strong inside feeling that a famous film star loves them, when really the film star hasn’t even met them. People like that are ill in their minds. Inside feelings must be backed up by evidence, otherwise you just can’t trust them.

Inside feelings are valuable in science too, but only for giving you ideas that you later test by looking for evidence. A scientist can have a ‘hunch’ about an idea that just ‘feels’ right. In itself, this is not a good reason for believing something. But it can be a good reason for spending some time doing a particular experiment, or looking in a particular way for evidence. Scientists use inside feelings all the time to get ideas. But they are not worth anything until they are supported by evidence.

I promised that I’d come back to tradition, and look at it in another way. I want to try to explain why tradition is so important to us. All animals are built (by the process called evolution) to survive in the normal place in which their kind live. Lions are built to be good at surviving on the plains of Africa. Crayfish are built to be good at surviving in fresh water, while lobsters are built to be good at surviving in the salt sea. People are animals too, and we are built to be good at surviving in a world full of … other people. Most of us don’t hunt for our own food like lions or lobsters, we buy it from other people who have bought it from yet other people. We ‘swim’ through a ‘sea of people’. Just as a fish needs gills to survive in water, people need brains that make them able to deal with other people. Just as the sea is full of salt water, the sea of people is full of difficult things to learn. Like language.

You speak English but your friend speaks German. You each speak the language that fits you to ‘swim about’ in your own separate ‘people sea’. Language is passed down by tradition. There is no other way. In England, Pepe is a dog. In Germany he is ein Hund. Neither of these words is more correct, or more truer than the other. Both are simply handed down. In order to be good at ‘swimming about in their people sea’, children have to learn the language of their own country, and lots of other things about their own people; and this means that they have to absorb, like blotting paper, an enormous amount of traditional information. (Remember that traditional information just means things that are handed down from grandparents to parents to children.) The child’s brain has to be a sucker for traditional information. And the child can’t be expected to sort out good and useful traditional information, like the words of a language, from bad or silly traditional information, like believing in witches and devils and ever-living virgins.

It’s a pity, but it can’t help being the case, that because children have to be suckers for traditional information, they are likely to believe anything the grown-ups tell them, whether true or false, right or wrong. Lots of what grown-ups tell them is true and based on evidence or at least sensible. But if some of it is false, silly or even wicked, there is nothing to stop the children believing that too. Now, when the children grow up, what do they do? Well, of course, they tell it to the next generation of children. So, once something gets itself strongly believed – even if its completely untrue and there never was any reason to believe it in the first place – it can go on forever.
Could this be what happened with religions? Belief that there is a god or gods, belief in Heaven, belief that Mary never died, belief that Jesus never had a human father, belief that prayers are answered, belief that wine turns into blood – not one of these beliefs is backed up by any good evidence. Yet millions of people believe them. Perhaps this is because they were told to believe them when they were young enough to believe anything.

Millions of other people believe quite different things, because they were told different things when they were children. Muslim children are told different things from Christian children, and both grow up utterly convinced that they are right and the others are wrong. Even within Christians, Roman Catholics believe different things from Church of England people or Episcopalians, Shakers or Quakers, Mormons or Holy Rollers, and all are utterly convinced that they are right and the others are wrong. They believe different things for exactly the same kind of reason as you speak English and someone speaks German.

Both languages are, in their own country, the right language to speak. But it can’t be true that different religions are right in their own countries, because different religions claim that opposite things are true. Mary can’t be alive in the Catholic Republic but dead in Protestant Northern Ireland.

What can we do about all this? It is not easy for you to do anything, because you are only ten. But you could try this. Next time somebody tells you something that sounds important, think to yourself: ‘Is this the kind of thing that people probably know because of evidence? Or is it the kind of thing that people only believe because of tradition, authority or revelation?’ And, next time somebody tells you that something is true, why not say to them: ‘What kind of evidence is there for that?’ And if they can’t give you a good answer, I hope you’ll think very carefully before you believe a word they say.

Your loving,

Daddy

Richard Dawkins is one of the worlds most renowned scientists who is known for speaking out against the dangers of religion.

Good Answer to Stupid

Action Figure

The website Herobuilders.com offers an assortment of action figures, including politically themed figures. In addition to featuring a disproportionate amount of Sarah Palin figures, the site also has a talking Jimmy McMillan doll, otherwise known as "the rent is too damn high" guy.

What does Jimmy McMillan the action figure say? We'll give you one guess.

If you're thinking of Christmas gifts early, or know someone who really gets into the spirit of midterms, the talking McMillan will run you $49.95. Or you could save and get the non-talking McMillan figure ($39.95) but then you'd really be missing out on the best part of the action figure. (via Herobuilders.com)

Of course, we know that Sam Jackson is already growing his facial hair to star in the movie version of the New York Debate.

Tax Hike Debate

Mr. Obama wants to extend the Bush tax cuts for everyone except the wealthiest 2 percent, but Republicans and some moderate Democrats argue that a tax increase on wealthy Americans will further weaken the economy. Both parties know their position on the issue could have an impact in November....

IT'S THE SPENDING, STUPID!

Or, you could even say, It's the STUPID SPENDING!

I expect to see these on T-Shirts, people.

Another Failure for Obama

World Leaders at Toronto Summit Pledge to Cut Deficits

Leaders of the world's biggest economies agreed on Sunday on a timetable for cutting their deficits and halting the growth of their public debt, despite the Obama administration's concern that reducing spending too quickly might set back the fragile global recovery.

The Group of 20 countries ended a two-day summit meeting here by endorsing a goal of cutting government deficits in half by 2013 and stabilizing the ratio of public debt to gross domestic product by 2016. Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper, had proposed the targets and received the backing of several European leaders.

It seems Greece was more compelling than Mr. Obama? Read More:

Oh, and Tyler Durden was arrested.

The Metaphor for Our Times

Waves crashing on Alabama’s beaches.

Ah the oil spill. Congress hauled in the big oil barons, Mr. Obama is giving a sternly toned speech right about now about the evils of oil and carbon...

And here's why it was a failure.
He offered no ultimatums. No details how he is going to force BP to pay into an escrow account.

No threats against BP for blocking United States Citizens from accessing public beaches. (BP Refuses to Allow Scientists to Test Oil Spill Samples) No specific plan on how all of the Western will transition to clean energy. Sounds like a good idea though...

It probably contained too many war metaphors, and too much talk of presidential commissions, but that is almost always expected.

Then he went all god, faith, and don't look at all that campaign cash I got from BP and the coal companies that operate in southern Illinois. Oh, and Did you know that BP's Largest Shareholder is JPMorgan Chase.

It will be regarded as the worst speech by Obama, and I will go out on a very shaky Chicago balcony and say that this is his Jimmy Carter in a sweater speech. But that's just the White House. There were useless Congressional hearings today too..

The best part was when Massachusetts Congressman Ed Markey pointed out the 'cut'n'paste' nature of all the oil baron's emergency plans in the odd chance there is a spill.

In the course of questioning, it became clear that some of the companies have one thing in common: They've copied each other's disaster plan. Among other things, they cut marine life affected by Alaska's Valdez spill and pasted it onto the Gulf of Mexico.

Ed Markey: Exxon Mobil's Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Response Plan lists walruses under sensitive biological and human resources. As I am sure you know, there aren't any walruses in the Gulf of Mexico and there have not been for three million years.

These carbon-copied disaster plans for 2009 also listed the phone number of a consultant who's been dead for five years. As Congressman Markey quipped, the only technology the companies seemed to be relying on in these plans was a Xerox machine. One question that seemed to go unanswered was why do companies like BP -- companies who make billions of dollars per quarter -- cut safety corners to save a few million? I'm shocked, shocked, at the very idea!

Look, Congressmen yelling at the Oil Men who write the laws and get these jokers re-elected pretending and hamming it up for the C-Span cameras doesn't impress me.

What impresses me is that the oil spill has become the great metaphor for our time.

It's America's addiction to oil, 1950's technology, big cars, useless mindless consumerism, human fallibility, corporate greed, government regulatory failure and corruption, big money in politics, the human cost to "cheap" oil. All of it, and probably 200 other things I'm not clever enough to think of off the top of my head.

It has become our new 21st century spectacle, and the way we are experiencing it is yet another warning of something that is deeply broken about how we use information today: we consume shocking images almost entirely without taking meaningful action in response.

I mean, you're still driving, right? You're still buying crap at Target and Costco, right? You're still reading this blog on your computer powered by a giant coal belching electrical plant, right? And yeah, I am too - but at least I admit it.

And it's not 'Boycott BP' - it's get off the oil. Meanwhile - here's a live feed. Get angry, but please, don't actually do anything about it.

Okay, did you do anything after watching the spill for a while? I'm betting the answer is no. And how did you feel, as you watched it? Transfixed and dazed, right? Like rubbernecking past a car accident. Did you get out of your car to offer help? Probably not. You've got things to do.

So until I see people protesting by NOT driving, or buying ANY plastic or oil based products, I'm not going to take it seriously.

All New SCOTUS Fun!

Old and busted: Obama's Katrina.

New hotness: Obama's Harriet Miers!

Now that President Obama has announced his choice to succeed Justice Stevens, we can look forward to a thoughtful and informed confirmation process, in which the nominee's views on Constitutional issues can be probed...

The president wanted a highly credentialed non-judge who would serve for a long time and wouldn’t cost too much political capital. He got a 50-year-old solicitor general and former dean of Harvard Law School – the first female in each post – whose record the Senate (and media, and activists) already examined in a confirmation process that put her into her current post. That her appointment would put three women on the high court for the first time also doesn’t hurt. So this ought to be a breeze...

JUST kidding:
Far-Right Group AFA Demands To Know Kagan’s Sexuality, Since ‘No Lesbian Is Qualified’ To Sit On SCOTUS

RNC uses Thurgood Marshall speech to attack Supreme Court nominee Kagan

The tendency of Republicans to view electoral setbacks as being the result of insufficient ideological fidelity, whereas Democrats view defeats as the result of being insufficiently appealing. The result is that when Republicans lose, they double down on the crazy, whereas Democrats decide that they need to punch their hippie friends harder. But, Democrats punch the hippies when they're winning, too, so maybe it's just part of the modern Democratic party DNA?

But if we can get past all that, and get through the static of both sides being complete buttheads... I hope that she's asked about her opinion on the Commerce Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause, and the General Welfare Clause, to name but three provisions under which courts have ratified incredible assertions of federal power divorced from those the Constitution discretely enumerates. If Elena Kagan refuses to answer such queries substantively – employing the usual dodge that she may be called upon to interpret these clauses as justice – we can rightfully hold that response against her, as she herself counseled in a law review article 15 years ago.

And if you really, really want to know her opinions... here's a list based on her previous confirmation.

Otherwise, it'll just be about her lack of judgment in kicking off Army Recruiters out of Harvard because of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. When 8 of her potential peers completely disagree with her, then I think that speaks volumes to her ability. And since she wrote a letter about how stupid the whole SCOTUS nomination process is, with pre-arranged questions and answers, I hope they grill her.

PS, she looks JUST LIKE British comedian David Mitchell.

Just sayin'.

Boring Debate...

Florida State Senator, Mike Bennett, got caught viewing some porn that was reportedly e-mailed to him by a woman he knows during a Florida state Senate debate:

Sunshine State News reports that it captured video of Sen. Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton, “looking at pornographic material on his state-issued computer on the Senate floor.”…

Bennett, a Republican, claimed that he “was just sitting there, bored as they were debating the abortion bill.”

Finally! A politician I can stand behind! (better to see the screen)

What 'real' Socialists Think

I've said it many times here... anyone actually paying attention is pissed at the Health Care powergrab. Tea Party People. Right wingers. Conservatives. Libertarians. Socialists.

Yes, real - actual Socialists also hate this thing. Case in point:

March 22, 2009- Co-chair of the Socialist Party USA, Billy Wharton, opposes the healthcare bill passed yesterday by the House of Representatives and scheduled to be signed into law by President Barack Obama on Tuesday. Wharton's opposition is based on the belief that this bill is not a reform. Instead, it is a corporate restructuring of the health insurance industry created to protect the profit margins of private insurance companies.

The bill passed by the House yesterday would mandate all Americans to purchase health insurance coverage or face a fine. It would also create health insurance exchanges, an idea crafted by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, where people would purchase insurance from private companies.

Those not eligible for Medicaid but who still could not afford to purchase insurance would receive public funds from the federal government to purchase bare bones coverage insurance plans from private insurers.

Wharton opposes this restructuring on the grounds that the mandates allow private insurers to use the coercive power of the state to enhance their private profits. Insurance credits will serve as a public subsidy to private companies. It is yet another case of public money that could be used for necessary social programs being funneled towards companies that engage in practices that are abusive and detrimental to the overall society. He believes the bill is also a demonstration of how deeply corporate lobbyists and campaign contributions have infected the country's political system.

"This is not a healthcare reform bill," says Wharton, "It is instead a corporate restructuring of the American healthcare system designed to enhance the profits of private health insurance companies disguised with the language of reform."

See? I told you no one is happy.

There is no RIGHT to Health Care

I've had this emailed to me three times. I guess I'd better post it (again). Disagree, debate begins in the comments section.

There is no Right To Health Care
Statement before the United States House of Representatives, September 23, 2009
By Ron Paul
March 18, 2010


Government has been mismanaging medical care for more than 45 years; for every problem it has created it has responded by exponentially expanding the role of government. Points to consider:

1.) No one has a right to medical care. If one assumes such a right, it endorses the notion that some individuals have a right to someone else’s life and property. This totally contradicts the principles of liberty.

2.) If medical care is provided by government, this can only be achieved by an authoritarian government unconcerned about the rights of the individual.

3.) Economic fallacies accepted for more than 100 years in the United States has deceived policy makers into believing that quality medical care can only be achieved by government force, taxation, regulations, and bowing to a system of special interests that creates a system of corporatism.

4.) More dollars into any monopoly run by government never increases quality but it always results in higher costs and prices.

5.) Government does have an important role to play in facilitating the delivery of all goods and services in an ethical and efficient manner.

6.) First, government should do no harm. It should get out of the way and repeal all the laws that have contributed to the mess we have.

7.) The costs are obviously too high but in solving this problem one cannot ignore the debasement of the currency as a major factor.

8.) Bureaucrats and other third parties must never be allowed to interfere in the doctor/patient relationship.

9.) The tax code, including the ERISA laws, must be changed to give everyone equal treatment by allowing a 100% tax credit for all medical expenses.
Laws dealing with bad outcomes and prohibiting doctors from entering into voluntary agreements with their patients must be repealed. Tort laws play a significant role in pushing costs higher, prompting unnecessary treatment and excessive testing. Patients deserve the compensation; the attorneys do not.

10.) Insurance sales should be legalized nationally across state lines to increase competition among the insurance companies.

11.) Long-term insurance policies should be available to young people similar to term-life insurances that offer fixed prices for long periods of time.

12.) The principle of insurance should be remembered. Its purpose in a free market is to measure risk, not to be used synonymously with social welfare programs. Any program that provides for first-dollar payment is no longer insurance. This would be similar to giving coverage for gasoline and repair bills to those who buy car insurance or providing food insurance for people to go to the grocery store. Obviously, that could not work.

13.) The cozy relationship between organized medicine and government must be reversed. Early on medical insurance was promoted by the medical community in order to boost re-imbursements to doctors and hospitals. That partnership has morphed into the government/insurance industry still being promoted by the current administration.

14.) Threatening individuals with huge fines by forcing them to buy insurance is a boon to the insurance companies.

15.) There must be more competition for individuals entering into the medical field. Licensing strictly limits the number of individuals who can provide patient care. A lot of problems were created in 20th century as a consequence the Flexner Report (1910), which was financed by the Carnegie Foundation and strongly supported by the AMA. Many medical schools were closed and the number of doctors was drastically reduced. The motivation was to close down medical schools that catered to women, minorities and especially homeopathy. We continue to suffer from these changes made which were designed to protect physician’s income and promote allopathic medicine over the more natural cures and prevention of homeopathic medicine.

16.) We must remove any obstacles for people seeking holistic and nutritional alternatives to current medical care. We must remove the threat of further regulations pushed by the drug companies now working worldwide to limit these alternatives.

True competition in the delivery of medical care is what is needed, not more government meddling.

Bi-Partisan Checkers

I finally had my Eureka moment with the game of politics.

Why are Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Mr. Obama running around slapping each other like Larry, Curly and Moe trying to tar a roof? They have/had their super majority. They own everything they touch. They can/could do - just about anything they want. Even new amendments to the Constitution. But why are they stuck in the mud of this ridiculous idea of bi-partisanship for their efforts?

Then it finally hit me. They can't take the hit. They're the Three Stooges, but with no pain threshold.

Let me explain. IF they were to get even one Republican to stand with them, they're no longer responsible. They're no longer culpable to the train wreck that they caused. Let's say Cap n' Trade creates the sucking drain of the economy to fill options trader's coffers - just like the Republicans say it will - if there's even one Republican breaking ranks, they own it too. All of them.

Just like the War on Terror, the Patriot Act, Stimulus I, AIG Bailout Part I, and, well - heck - pretty much everything the Republican Congress passed, right? But guess what? The Republicans GOT the Democrats to vote along with it. It pretty much went like this...

"What? You're not going to vote for this? That's un-American of you."

And then folks like John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and Barrack Obama ran to the voting button and voted for everything that was put in front of them. That's right Senator Obama voted to keep funding the wars. Those dirty sneaky Republicans tricked 'em good. But the Democrats are just as guilty as the Republicans. That's one of the main reasons Dick Cheney hasn't been hauled out of the critical care unit to be slapped with investigations into war crimes. Because with the slightest scratching of that itch, the Democrats would be under the microscope too.

The constant drum beat of it's got to be "'bi-partisan' or we're not doing it" has finally been decoded. They're not taking the hit without the Republican't-s getting their fair share.

The Republicans have been doing their job. Obstructionists folding their hands saying 'no.' They don't have to propose anything or say anything other than 'no'... it's been working for them so far, and it'll probably give them both houses back in November.

After all this - now they're talking about going for it. They're going to use Reconciliation. On their own. And now they own Healthcare. What's scary about it is, they are willing to lose elections to get this through now. The bill - whatever bill has been formally proposed - Let's look at the President's new one he tossed out before the big 'summit' - is STILL unpopular with the left and right, and doesn't control costs - as it's been sold. No one likes it. Why are they going through with this?

Look at what it DOES do, it increases the reach of the Federal Government. In size, scope and hunger. Hunger? Wha? Oh, yeah. New Taxes. A whole PILE of new taxes, fees and new non-exemptions. The following are from the newest proposal:

1. Individual Mandate Tax. For those who don’t purchase health insurance, this income tax surcharge continues to exist in this plan.

2. Employer Mandate Tax. On businesses with 50+ employees that do not offer health care, and at least one employee qualifies for a tax credit, $750/employee. This will cause many small businesses to stop growing once they reach 49 employees.

3. Excise Tax on Health Insurance Plans. Beginning in 2018, 40% tax (the percentage may be wrong) on plans costing $10,200/$27,500. Is indexed to CPI. It is unclear whether exemptions in the Senate version have been continued in this proposal.

4. Health Insurance would be reported on W-2s. Another mandate that increases costs for business. The White House release states that loopholes will be closed which implies this remains in the new proposal.

5. “Medicine Cabinet Tax.” Limitation on HSAs, FSAs, and MSAs to purchase non-prescription medication except insulin. Note that this is also in the House healthcare bill. This is definitely in the new proposal.

6. HSA Withdrawal Tax Increased. The tax would increase to 20% from 10%. This is also in the House legislation. This is definitely in the proposal.

7. FSAs uncapped.

8. 1099 Reporting for corporations. Requires businesses to send 1099-MISCs to corporations. This is another cost for businesses. This will begin in 2011.

9. Tax on Charitable Hospitals. This excise tax of $50,000 per hospital impacts hospitals that don’t meet new Department of Health and Human Services regulations. It’s unclear whether this is in the new proposal.

10. Tax on Drug Companies. The size and timing of the tax is unclear. Older versions had this at a percentage of earnings.

11. Tax on Medical Device Manufacturers. This tax is in the bill, but the size and timing of the tax is not clear. It is also based on earnings.

12. Tax on Health Insurers. This tax is definitely in the bill, but the new size and timing of the tax is unclear. It was a 6.7 - 10 billion dollar tax based on percentage of premiums collected - Ever wonder why the Insurance Industry was spending Millions on lobbyists? So they don't get clobbered for Billions.

13. Elimination of tax deduction for employer provided retirement prescription drug coverage. It is unclear whether this tax is in the measure.

14. Increase of percentage of AGI required to deduct medical expenses from 7.5% to 10%. Few can deduct medical expenses today; fewer will be able to deduct them tomorrow. It is unclear whether this tax is in the proposal.

15. Compensation Limitation for Health Insurance Executives. If you work in that industry, you will be limited to a salary of $500,000. There’s no mention of this in the measure. However, given the Obama Administration’s stance on various pay-related measures, it’s likely included.

16. New Hospital Insurance Tax. “The Act will include an additional 0.9 percentage point Hospital Insurance tax for households with incomes exceeding $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly.” I remember then-candidate Obama stating that if you made under $250,000, he wouldn’t increase your taxes?

17. New Unearned Income Tax. “[The Act] would add a 2.9 percent tax for households with incomes exceeding $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly to unearned income including interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents (excluding income from active participation in S corporations).” —it means if you go to Harry Reid's district and win your taxes will go up based on your winnings, not your gambling net income.

18. Blue Cross Tax. There is a tax deduction available today for Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies; this tax deduction will vanish if they don’t spend 85% (or more) of premiums on clinical services. There’s no mention of this in the proposal. However, it was in both the House and Senate Democratic proposals and I expect it’s in this one, too.

19. Tax on Indoor Tanning. A new 10% excise tax on indoor tanning salons. This made it in the new proposal.

20. Paper Production and Cellulosic Biofuels. “[Close] the loophole that allows certain byproducts of paper production to be eligible for the cellulosic biofuels producer credit.” This new tax provision is in the measure. This is a tax.

21. Strengthen Economic Substance Rules. “[Help] prevent tax shelters by clarifying the definition of when activities have true “economic substance” beyond evading taxes.” While the details aren’t listed, it’s clear that this provision will strengthen the economic substance rules. This will increase costs for complex transactions. One would assume that it will have a negative impact on already weakened economic activity.

51 Votes, and the Democrats are going to make you eat it. They'll all be long gone by then, probably all becoming lobbyists to try to get rid of this thing - that they created. Or I can imagine worse, as consultants for Insurance companies teaching them where they left the loopholes. You'll still be emptying your pockets. And with worse healthcare than you had when this all started.

Oh we got both kinds, Democrat and Liberal Democrats!

Pelosi: Health care bill can be bipartisan even without GOP votes

The top lug nut of the House, Speaker Mrs. Pelosi, appears to be signaling that her party has all but given up any hope [finally] of achieving meaningful bipartisan support for a health care reform bill.

“Bipartisanship is a two-way street. But let me say this, the bill can be bipartisan, even though the votes might not be bipartisan, because they [Republicans] have made their imprint on this.”

Uh, huh huh. Wut?

Pelosi pointed to the fact that the final bill will, probably, not include a government-run public health insurance option, a provision vigorously opposed by congressional Republicans but supported by liberal House Democrats. Instead, Pelosi said that Democrats have settled on insurance exchanges as a way to help contain health care costs. No tort reform or anything that might ACTUALLY contain costs... But her compromise position reflects an acknowledgment of Republicans’ approach to health care reform. Oh, so that's how we're defining bi-partisanship now?

The Senate and the President do not include a public option in their versions - maybe that's what she's blabbering about? While pissing off all the Democrats who very much want a public option - or a single payer option to health care - White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the administration made that decision to drop it because it did not appear that there would be sufficient votes to get the public option passed in Congress. Even with a super majority? Although some liberal Democrats in both chambers favor a public option, a substantial block of conservative Democrats in the House, known as the Blue Dogs, do not support it. Blue Dogs are folks who won Republican seats from Republicans by pretending to be Republicans, but put a 'D' on their ballot slips. These are the folks that are dropping like flies and are the most likely members to be booted out in November.

Pelosi is also quick to suggest that President Obama and congressional Democrats have gone to great lengths to give Republicans an opportunity to weigh in on health care reform notwithstanding fundamental ideological differences between the two parties. You know, except include them in the process, listen to their suggestions, or bend over backwards to cut special deals like the rest of the Democrats have been given. Oh, there was that little pow-wow last week - but the President released his plan before the meeting (oooh, bad timing!) and that gauranteed that the entire program was just a show for both parties to toss mud at each other.

Democrats - see? we tried, and they didn't want to play!

Republicans - They've staged this whole thing to make us look like obstructionists - when they had no intention on listening us in the first place.

It's all just b.s. political theater for the reporters anyway.

“We went into the legislative process - hundreds of hours of hearings and bill writing and all the rest - where the Republicans made their suggestions,” Pelosi recounts. “We know that one of the reasons we didn’t have a bill in the fall is because the president wanted to give the Senate more time to arrive at bipartisanship in the Senate bill, which he thought might be possible then.” Funny, that's not at all how I remember it...

Pelosi added, “And so what we’ve had is the year of trying to strive for bipartisanship, as I say over 100 Republican amendments in the bill. And the Republicans placed their own bill on the floor, here in the House, which insured 3 million. Our bill insures over 30 million. So we have a different value system here.” Yes, it seems theirs scraps a system that insures 300 million to insure 30, 15 of those are illegal aliens. The Republican one? Never heard of it.

I've promised you, fair readers, that I wouldn't complain and that I would offer solutions. I even took the time to come up with my own Health Care Solution.

In the meantime - let's stop having Health Care as a condition of employment, and a function of the individual. Like car ownership. You have collision and liability insurance on your car. If there's a fix or maintenance - it is up to the single owner to take care of it. Maybe it's just that simple? If not, we better come up with something else quick before Mrs. Pelosi starts swinging her lug wrench again.

The Week In Review/Sunday Comics

Ah, the week in review already. First off, there was this big useless and showy Healthcare summit.

Despite yielding a few points of agreement, Thursday's health care summit primarily served to highlight major — unbridgeable — differences between the two parties' agendas for the CSPAN viewing audience. If the summit was collegial, underlying tension spilled over at times into silly slap fights involving President Obama and the Republicans. Accusations of budgetary "gimmicks" to claims of partisan timekeeping, here's a look back at the defining clashes of the big showy Blair House pow-wow.

1. Retro 2008
When John McCain charged the Democratic bill was the product of "unsavory deal making," Obama shot back: "We're not campaigning anymore. The election's over." A flustered McCain responded, "Well, I'm reminded of that every day." A bit later though, he got revenge. Cornered by a question from McCain about why some Florida seniors got special treatment on Medicare, Obama conceded, "I think you make a legitimate point." McCain, looking as surprised as anyone in the room, didn't reply.

2. Paul Ryan's smackdown
In a feisty speech, Rep. Paul Ryan (R, WI) described the Democratic bill as a "ponzi scheme" full of accounting "gimmicks and smoke and mirrors" and sought to discredit official projections showing it would reduce the deficit. Critics jumped on the moment as if it were some major GOP victory. "The expression on the president's face as Ryan made his case was absolutely priceless," says Matthew Continetti in the Weekly Standard. "Simply put, he looked like someone who realizes he's met his match." Or maybe someone just told him that he isn't wearing any clothes?

3. Reconciliation
Throughout the summit, Republicans pushed the Dems not to pass health care reform using reconciliation, which would allow a sidestep a GOP filibuster in the Senate. Lamar Alexander asked Obama to "renounce this idea" of "jamming" the bill through Congress "using reconciliation." After all, he said, the process has "never been used for anything like this." But Obama kept the option open: "I think most Americans think that a majority vote makes sense." Except that according to polling data, a majority of Americans are against THIS bill. They're for change in Healthcare, just not THIS change.

4. Any one bother to fact-check that?
While making the GOP's opening remarks, Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee claimed that insurance premiums "will rise as a result of the Senate bill." Obama countered that this was "not factually accurate. The cost for families for the same type of coverage as they're currently receiving would go down 14 to 20 percent." Bloggers immediately scrambled to pick a winner, with most seeming to settle on Obama. "The record is tricky," says Brian Beutler in Talking Points Memo. But overall "Obama is correct."

5. Judges?
In addition to serving as moderator and head debater for the Democrats, Obama was also the official timekeeper, which is to say, Wink Martindale. Which pissed off the GOP. Ninety minutes into the summit, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) noted that Democrats had spent 52 minutes talking compared to only 24 for Republicans. Obama shot back: "I don't count my time, because I'm the president." Lovely.

It snowed again. There was also another earthquake. I'm sure the earthquake will be all we talk about this coming week.
And Mr. Toyota went to Congress this week...
There's been a lot of talk about how to 'fix' the country lately. That the government is broken. The government isn't broken, it's the government that reflects the country. Just as we had an oil man running things the last 8 years. Now we have a squabbling mess where no one takes responsibility for the problems or issues they created. That is a perfect mirror reflecting the population in my eye.
But to be fair, the Federal Government wants to expand their reach and influence into the average American's life [more taxes, services for others] while the States and local governments are raising fees and taxes while screaming poor and cutting services. I can't understand how you can raise taxes more than 50%, cut the program you're raising the taxes for - and then still cry poor. If anyone can explain that to me, I'm all ears. You may also want to explain that to the electorate, before they start hoarding guns and ammunition - what, they already are?
That's this week, see you next.

Football Discussion

Lots and lots of football yesterday. The two best games of the year. My prediction had been Saints and Colts Superbowl. My reasoning: Favre indoors and on the road = Saints win, but he'd keep it interesting. And it was, until Favre reminded us he's Favre.

Looks kind of sad. Aw, poor me.
Cut to Mrs. Favre. Apparently she'd never seen her husband play before?

No brainer. Looks like New England is still a tad bitter about the last two seasons, no?

Mandates for Christmas

Reid: "We are reshaping the nation. That's what we want to do."

...said majority leader Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada. “With this vote, we’re rejecting a system in which one class of people can afford to stay healthy, while another cannot.’’ Hey, he said it. That's what every Republican has been bitching about since this whole thing started. He actually quantified the Republican argument on the Senate floor.

Minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said that the bill would “long outlive this frantic, snowy weekend in Washington,’’ but he called it a historic mistake.

“If the people who wrote this bill were proud of it, we wouldn’t be voting on it in the dead of night,’’ he said. “The final product is a mess.’’ I can't argue with that statement.

The vote was 60 to 40, with all 58 Democrats and two independents supporting the measure. Republicans stood united against it, and they seemed determined to resist until the last moment possible under the Senate rules, setting the final vote for Christmas Eve night.

With the Senate and House health care bills expected to come crashing together like two drivers in Texas driving in the snow this week, let us take a quick look at the three biggest issues that have yet to be resolved...

* Abortion: Both bills have placed limits on abortion, but surprise, surprise neither side is happy. Abortion rights supporters feel women are being denied access to abortion, while anti-abortion folks are fairly sure that the government will be subsidizing insurance that covers the procedure.

* Taxes: The Senate bill increases the Medicare tax by almost a full percentage point for those earning more than $200,000 (or $250,000 for couples), but many Democrats believe this is a burden on the middle class. Which proves to me that these jokers need to be returned to the private sector and get a real job.

Also - NOTE - that none of any of this even starts until 2014. Most folks don't know that. You're not getting anything until then. It's so that all these back room deals and the current group of crooks won't be around or will conveniently have retired by then. With their full Congressional pension and Congressional Health Plan.

* The public option: The House bill includes a government-run plan, but the Senate bill—in an effort to bribe gain more support from moderate Democrats—sticks with privately-run national plans, one of which must be nonprofit and supervised by a federal office. Though some senators, such as Al Franken, still want the public option, more and more seem willing to compromise. Especially since Harry Reid has been standing in the Senate chamber with his wallet out. Scratch that - YOUR wallet out.

The funny part is that, as I predicted back in March, no one is happy with this hodgepodge of a corpse thing they're presenting as a bill. It's so corrupt, so vile, and so many people have compromised everything they wanted - no one is happy. The left has been betrayed: the Single Payer was DOA, but it worked on them pretty well on November 2. The right only looks obstructionist, but they're simply doing the potty dance until they get their turn again at the trough.

I agree with Howard Dean, strike the whole thing - start from scratch. If you're going to do it, do it right. Not this. Live or die with your values and your integrity of the party and- oh, that's not working out too well? I guess just keep whittling it down to the point of irrelevance then. Like you've been doing.

US Debt to China

SNL on U.S. Debt to China

Have SNL’s writers been listening to Peter Schiff for material? Surprisingly attacking Obama too, one notes.

Hello Dad, Happy Birthday. I'm in Jail!

He doesn't rule out jail time, folks.

And I shall furthermore, never use Healthcare and Car Insurance as similarities again, mostly because it's just been poached by the President... and used it to defend the idea of throwing people in JAIL for not purchasing insurance. USA Health Care - the only health care system in the world which puts you in jail...

I had been thinking about my car insurance analogy and I've decided that it really isn't relevant. Car insurance is only required if you drive, and only liability then, in the case that you hit someone else. Catastrophic liability. Health insurance is you and the damaged caused by your own fat ass.

But let's get back to the idea of the government taking your liberty - actually placing your ass in a cold jail cell - for not purchasing their insurance! Look how far they've gotten with this insanity!

I've said it before, I'm repeating it now. The more you let the State into your life, the more power the State has over your life. And now it will include how you choose to maintain your health. Same is true for when you choose security over liberty. Liberty is traded for 'safety' and is never given back.

Because I point out perversions and inconsistencies of justice and morality, don't confuse this with racism or misplaced trust in the corporate welfare system. I'm not anti-reform nor do I wish for sick people to die. I'm talking about freedom, liberty, and rational solutions - together -, not as a coercive force of the State.

The interview also confirmed another 'outrageous' claim I made here that the IRS would be the enforcement arm of the Health Care (Insurance) Reform Bill.

Somehow, "Give me liberty, unless there is any risk whatsoever of death" doesn't have the same ring to it.