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Posted by George Miller, November 22, 2009 The Conservative world was in shock while the economy crashed and Marxists moved to control the government. But, it is now in full counterattack and nowhere is that more evident than in humor, as these cartoons so well illustrate ….
More …. http://economicrot.blogspot.com/2009/11/weekend-funnies-21-nov-09.html Posted by George Miller, November 21, 2009 Written by Zach Jones Friday, 20 November 2009 Is it a Field of Dreams or a Plea for Return to a Constitutional Republic? If we can’t enforce the 10h Amendment, or the overall Constitution, for that matter, we may be seeing some of this. http://www.australia.to/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=16506 Notes on Not so Hidden Costs Jim O’Brien – 11/20/2009
How many citizens know that the stimulus package passed in February funds and defines the creation of a health care related council and health care technology committees. Sec. 804 defines a Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research of up to 15 members appointed by the President. This council must be made up of individuals with experience or responsibility for health related programs. Title XIII of the Stimulus Bill defines a Health Information Technology (HIT) Policy Committee composed of 20 members (or more at the President’s discretion,) and a HIT Standards Committee with an undefined number of members.
With my limited wisdom it is hard to grasp how the inclusion of a council and two committees charged with health care related decisions and policy making will serve to stimulate the economy. At the same time I am not surprised that such, non-stimulating provisions are found in the stimulus legislation given the disappointing job creation effects of the bill. I wonder what tasks HIT committees and the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research will undertake if the Democrats fail to pass their health care reform monstrosity.
Why should anybody be surprised that health reform related amendments are attached to other bills that have little or nothing to do with such reform? If Congress and the Obama administration can pass health care/insurance reform piecemeal via amendments and attachments to other bills they will reduce the costs associated with major health care reform legislation because cost will be hidden in other bills. I believe that is the intent of putting the aforementioned council and committees in the stimulus bill.
Another way to reduce costs associated with reform is to put some $210 billion for doctor reimbursement into a separate bill. Thus, whatever price tag the House, the Senate, or the CBO put on health care reform, add at least $210 billion.
Recently released guidelines for mammograms and pap smears fit nicely into government plans for health care cost reductions. Some may choose to believe Secretary Sibelius’ statements that the government will not have to follow the new guidelines, but such belief would more appropriately be called a deadly assumption. And I thought that preventative medicine was supposed to be one of the hallmarks of health care reform. Posted by George Miller, November 20, 2009 It’s headed in that direction, no kidding. A few more months of unfettered Obamanation may just do it, or it may drag on, in a downward spiral, somewhat longer. It would be good to take precautions. Got gold, sillver, food, supplies, guns, fuel? by John Galt November 18, 2009 The following story in italics is a potential fictional time line for the day the dollar died. I hope not to instill fear or loathing but to give everyone some perspective on a POSSIBLE outcome which does not really take much of a reach to come to any conclusion. Despite popular belief and promises from those who wish to rob you of your savings and investments, the collapse of the dollar might just be an event measured in hours, not days as their control is not what it seems….. Posted by George Miller, November 20, 2009 I don’t think Hollywood made this one, but here it is, documenting the amazing political movement that has emerged from the grass roots, in only months and will shake U.S. politics to the core. Much more to come, in the “sequels.’ http://www.tvworldwide.com/events/tea/091123/#
? Posted by George Miller, November 18, 2009 From AmericanGrandJury.org Criminal charges of “Conspiracy and Fraud” are served against Nancy Pelosi in US District Court, Nashville, Tennessee. We have finally seen those words in print. Pelosi may have created fraudulent election certifications to the states. She signed and had notarized two different versions- one to the State of Hawaii, claiming that Obama was eligible and to the other 49 states, one conspicuously omitting that small detail. Of course, submitting these charges doesn’t mean that a prosecutor will, in fact, act upon them. I imagine that there will be enormous pressure to quash this. http://americangrandjury.org/the-criminal-charges-of-conspiracy-and-fraud-are-served-against-nancy-pelosi-in-us-district-court-nashville-tennessee Please check this out… By George Miller, November 19, 2009 My response to Tom Friedman’s condescending and sadly misinformed “editorial” of the same name, in the NY Times, of course. This guy is a horse’s ass. The earth has been cooling for 11 years, even as Gore claims it was the hottest year on record. The Gorons still don’t realize that solar radiation, not CO2, is the greatest determinate of climate. Solar radiation is at a nadir now, but will probably rebound. As for the imminent 200 ft sea rise– pullleeezzze! I returned to my waterfront boyhood home to look around. In 55 years, neighbors had noticed no difference in the water levels. My current beach house is in no danger of being washed away, unless a tsunami strikes. Nature has a way of taking care of overpopulation/excesses- disease, war, crime, pollution, will all take their toll, perhaps catastrophically, long before the waters sweep over us, Tom. Just maybe, mankind will do something rational and peaceful about overpopulation, but probably not. Tom, you’re no engineer and really a lousy economist. We’ll need all the energy resources we can get, since oil is depleting and alternative “green” technologies can’t even come close to scaling up for a long, long time. Abruptly stopping fossil fuel and nuclear development will be real suicide — price and availability-wise. You don’t seem to realize that life on the planet will be even less sustainable without it than with it. You green fanatics have killed nuclear power growth– which is our best source of clean, cheap fuel, and made it financial and political suicide to develop. Fortunately, China and other nations are sprinting forward with it, as we idle in neutral. Natural gas is the best of the fossil fuels– plentiful, as well as relatively cheap and clean. You and Obamanation are discouraging that, too. Coal accounts for a significant percentage of baseload power, but is already under heavy attack by zealots. It should not be phased out until we have secured alternative energy supplies, you fool. Although it is dirty, new technologies are available to make it cleaner, until we have real alternatives. You would create catastrophe with your bumbling fanatacism. So, yes, it should be drill, baby, drill, just to stay close to even and buy time while alternatives are developed, but the Luddites would succeed in stripping us of the energy we need to even live. Watch and see what happens when energy costs quadruple and quadruple again– the resultant economic stagnation, poverty, starvation, isolation and armed conflict that occur will make you pine for mere “Global Warming,” you idiot. Regards,
George Miller
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—–Original Message—–
From: Sandy
Sent: Wed, Nov 18, 2009 10:10 am How do you respond to this, global warming aside? I am truly interested. November 18, 2009 Op-Ed Columnist What They Really BelieveIf you follow the debate around the energy/climate bills working through Congress you will notice that the drill-baby-drill opponents of this legislation are now making two claims. One is that the globe has been cooling lately, not warming, and the other is that America simply can’t afford any kind of cap-and-trade/carbon tax. But here is what they also surely believe, but are not saying: They believe the world is going to face a mass plague, like the Black Death, that will wipe out 2.5 billion people sometime between now and 2050. They believe it is much better for America that the world be dependent on oil for energy — a commodity largely controlled by countries that hate us and can only go up in price as demand increases — rather than on clean power technologies that are controlled by us and only go down in price as demand increases. And, finally, they believe that people in the developing world are very happy being poor — just give them a little running water and electricity and they’ll be fine. They’ll never want to live like us. Yes, the opponents of any tax on carbon to stimulate alternatives to oil must believe all these things because that is the only way their arguments make any sense. Let me explain why by first explaining how I look at this issue. I am a clean-energy hawk. Green for me is not just about recycling garbage but about renewing America. That is why I have been saying “green is the new red, white and blue.” My argument is simple: I think climate change is real. You don’t? That’s your business. But there are two other huge trends barreling down on us with energy implications that you simply can’t deny. And the way to renew America is for us to take the lead and invent the technologies to address these problems. The first is that the world is getting crowded. According to the 2006 U.N. population report, “The world population will likely increase by 2.5 billion … passing from the current 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion in 2050. This increase is equivalent to the total size of the world population in 1950, and it will be absorbed mostly by the less developed regions, whose population is projected to rise from 5.4 billion in 2007 to 7.9 billion in 2050.” The energy, climate, water and pollution implications of adding another 2.5 billion mouths to feed, clothe, house and transport will be staggering. And this is coming, unless, as the deniers apparently believe, a global pandemic or a mass outbreak of abstinence will freeze world population — forever. Now, add one more thing. The world keeps getting flatter — more and more people can now see how we live, aspire to our lifestyle and even take our jobs so they can live how we live. So not only are we adding 2.5 billion people by 2050, but many more will live like “Americans” — with American-size homes, American-size cars, eating American-size Big Macs. “What happens when developing nations with soaring vehicle populations get tens of millions of petroleum-powered cars at the same time as the global economy recovers and there’s no large global oil supply overhang?” asks Felix Kramer, the electric car expert who advocates electrifying the U.S. auto fleet and increasingly powering it with renewable energy sources. What happens, of course, is that the price of oil goes through the roof — unless we develop alternatives. The petro-dictators in Iran, Venezuela and Russia hope we don’t. They would only get richer. So either the opponents of a serious energy/climate bill with a price on carbon don’t care about our being addicted to oil and dependent on petro-dictators forever or they really believe that we will not be adding 2.5 billion more people who want to live like us, so the price of oil won’t go up very far and, therefore, we shouldn’t raise taxes to stimulate clean, renewable alternatives and energy efficiency. Green hawks believe otherwise. We believe that in a world getting warmer and more crowded with more “Americans,” the next great global industry is going to be E.T., or energy technology based on clean power and energy efficiency. It has to be. And we believe that the country that invents and deploys the most E.T. will enjoy the most economic security, energy security, national security, innovative companies and global respect. And we believe that country must be America. If not, our children will never enjoy the standard of living we did. And we believe the best way to launch E.T. is to set a fixed, long-term price on carbon — combine it with the Obama team’s impressive stimulus for green-tech — and then let the free market and innovation do the rest. So, as I said, you don’t believe in global warming? You’re wrong, but I’ll let you enjoy it until your beach house gets washed away. But if you also don’t believe the world is getting more crowded with more aspiring Americans — and that ignoring that will play to the strength of our worst enemies, while responding to it with clean energy will play to the strength of our best technologies — then you’re willfully blind, and you’re hurting America’s future to boot. Comments are always appreciated by the blog authors. Please leave comments. Is health care a right?There is no constitutional basis for the assertion that health care is a right. It is reasonable to expect the government to protect citizens against discrimination if they seek access to health care or health insurance, but having a right to access is not the same as making the government responsible for the provision of such services. Defining healthcare as a right serves the whims of those in power to manipulate and shape the culture, and can lead to the imposition of limits on personal liberties through regulation and taxation. The preamble of the Constitution does declare one of its purposes is to “promote the general welfare,” but to suggest this refers to a government responsibility to take care of the needs of each citizen defies reason and the intent of the Framers. Yet we have legislation moving through congress that not only says government will provide health coverage for citizens, but it will also require citizens to buy health care coverage even if they do not want it. There is nothing in the Constitution that permits the federal government to mandate the purchase of anything. Some may justify government expansion into the health care/insurance arena because of the government’s established involvement in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, all of which fall under the umbrella of socialized systems. Policies and legislation passed under “The New Deal” and “The Great Society” may have had good, though debatable intentions behind them, but such legislation set the stage for increasing the socialistic bent of our nation and culture. Social programs are not a substitute for personal responsibility, but they can lead to an entitlement mentality where the people sacrifice freedoms to government regulation and control under a mistaken belief that government can solve every problem and answer every need. Reform yes, government no Polls indicate that a majority of Americans believe that some reform of health care/insurance is called for, but a majority is also relatively satisfied with what they already have. In light of this, the approach the current administration and congress is taking with regards to the health care issue is truly astounding. In essence what they want to do is replace the existing systems rather than fix what is broken. (If I have a house that has a couple broken windows, needs a new roof, and maybe a new coat of paint I would not tear down the house and rebuild it. I would make the needed repairs.) All government remedies offered to this point are intent on rebuilding, not repairing. Living under the illusion that a central, detached federal government knows best how to manage the health care needs of a family in Ely, Nevada or a retired couple in New Port Richey, Florida confirms a lack of common sense in those who believe such an illusion. The behemoth bureaucracy necessary to maintain a national system cannot possibly be more efficient than private sector management systems where efficiencies and productivity are driven by competition and a profit motive. Excessive executive compensation may exist in the private sector, but at least there is a modicum of transparency. Has anyone bothered to notice the wealth accumulated by elected officials who tout transparency but craft their legislation behind closed doors? What is clearly transparent is that our elected representatives obviously disregard the desires of constituents when they vote on bills they do not bother to read. To place trust for health care/insurance programs in the hands of government commissions and panels makes little sense given the lack of integrity and accountability shown by many elected to office. The approval and trust levels for Congress are at all time lows and yet a large segment of our population is willing to place seventeen percent of our economy in the hands of a bureaucracy that will surely be built through nepotism and cronyism. Choices not rights It defies logic to think that a 2000 page bill is necessary to implement remedies for system inadequacies affecting less than twenty percent of the population. President Obama has told us repeatedly if we like our current insurance and doctors we will not have to change. So given the words of the President, under his proposals we have a right to make our own choices. In reality he wants the government to have the power to make choices that should be determined via the patient-doctor relationship. Health care is about choices. Everyone makes decisions that affect their health and quality of life. Certainly there are those who have existing and/or congenital health issues or problems, and some accommodations should be provided for such circumstances. However, most health problems people face in America result from personal decisions. High rates of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes have much to do with lifestyle choices, with obesity being a major contributing factor. Government entitlement programs do not encourage personal responsibility and little evidence supports the notion that universal health care programs will do anything to improve individual lifestyle choices. Fix what is broken Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are headed toward insolvency. The Post Office cannot survive without government financial support. Apparently the government has not been able to successfully manage these entities. Why would we place the management of one-sixth of the economy in the hands of another government bureaucracy? Before going down that road should we not hold the government accountable to fix and manage the existing programs? Some studies show that eliminating waste and fraud in Medicare and Medicaid (reportedly $55 billion in 2009 alone) could save tens of billions of dollars. If Congress simply addressed and eliminated Medicare abuses the people might be willing to support some government involvement in a broader health care domain. The federal government has not shown an inclination to efficiently and effectively manage the existing bureaucracies of Medicare and Medicaid however, so the public is disinclined to trust the Congress or the Obama administration for determining mandated choices with regard to health care and associated insurance options. The best way for the government to “promote the general welfare” in the health care realm is to ensure every citizen’s right to access is protected. From my perspective legislation currently under consideration will likely only promote the general welfare of those whose main concern seems to be remaining in office. Jim O’Brien 11-18-2009 ? Have you heard about Recovery.govwww.recovery.gov/Pages/home.aspx Just when you thought they might slow down on the “pile it on” philosophy of the new administration they just keep on giving. If it wasn’t so serious it might be funny. This website which cost you $18 million, yes I know that is more than you made last year, even you web site designers, it seem like so many of us out there are muttering to ourselves that we could do it for 1 million dollars and throw in the lies for free. It is all fantasy just like the rest of the government promises. Fantasy is alive and well and the government thinks that is what we want. I don’t think so. These people have to be sent home and soon. Buy gold, buy foreign currencies, buy anything our government can’t get its hands on. Start taking protective measures; buy guns, food, water and make sure you are ready for the really bad times. I can’t guarantee they are coming but you can always eat the food and you can always go out to the desert and shoot tin cans. Regards, David M Stewart 11-18-2009 |
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Dear Friend,
