Term Limits Are Needed

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Sen. Harry Reid reminds me of a character in Vince Flynn's "Term Limits."  While he yells about the U.S. Olympic Committee buying uniforms made in China, he supports a Chinese solar panel manufacturer for which his son acts as a lobbyist ... despite the fact that he supposedly supported the $.5 billion loan to U.S. solar panel maker, Solyndra, which just happen to go bankrupt and which was financially backed by an Obama campaign bundler, George Kaiser.

Sen. Reid represents all that is wrong in the U.S. government [along with his compatriot Rep. Nancy Pelosi].  They pander while being the most two-faced specimens imaginable.

Vince Flynn's book quoted Thomas Jefferson:

"Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [i.e., securing inherent and inalienable rights, with powers derived from the consent of the governed], it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." --Thomas Jefferson: Declaration of Independence, 1776. ME 1:29, Papers 1:315 [source]

There is little doubt that Thomas Jefferson would have been speaking directly about Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi had he had the chance.  He would have approved of term limits for them.

“This is my last political campaign…I’m term limited,” he said Saturday at Centreville High School in Clifton, Virginia in remarks that were similar to others he’s delivered in recent weeks. -- President Barack Obama [source]

I suspect Vince Flynn's fictional Rep. Michael O'Roarke might have felt comfortable with term limits for Harry and Nancy.  But we would be happy if they simply didn't run again.  Fat chance.  Still too much pork to barbecue.

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Sailors To Pee On Toilet Seats With The Seats Down?

SEARCH BLOG: POLITICALLY CORRECT

From CNN via Drudge Report.  Feminazis at work for a better military.

Navy's new gender-neutral carriers won't have urinals

[Updated at 6:17 p.m. ET] The U.S. Navy's new class of carriers will be the first to go without urinals, a decision made in part to give the service flexibility in accommodating female sailors, the Navy says.

The change heralded by the Gerald R. Ford class of carriers – starting with the namesake carrier due in late 2015 – is one of a number of new features meant to improve sailors' quality of life and reduce maintenance costs, Capt. Chris Meyer said Wednesday.

Omitting urinals lets the Navy easily switch the designation of any restroom – or head, in naval parlance – from male to female, or vice versa, helping the ship adapt to changing crew compositions over time, Meyer said. [full story]

That makes sense with a male-female ratio of 7:1.  Next... gender neutral OB/GYN exams.  Every sailor to be provided with tampons.

How about a different gender neutral approach since men outnumber women on aircraft carriers?

[image]

It seems that the new mission for the navy is gender equality rather than military superiority on the high seas.  We actually have military "thinkers" busy with this, eh, crap?

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Your (Free) Tax Dollars At Work

SEARCH BLOG: GOVERNMENT

This is another example of how your federal government takes an idea and makes it a nightmare for taxpayers.

h/t: John F.

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If You Can't Take The Heat Get Out Of Florida

SEARCH BLOG: TRAVEL

Last night, we got back from a very enjoyable and very hot week in Florida for my wife's family reunion.  We were near Jacksonville on the ocean and had a large house rented for part of the family and hotel rooms and a condo for others.  There were 40 or 50 of us all together.  Surprisingly, everything went quite well, including an hour sail on a double-masted schooner out of St. Augustine.

I'm not one for hot, humid July in Florida.  Anything one block from the beach is too far.  So, when I took my wife's 87-year old uncle golfing for three days in a row, I pretty much had my fill of steam bath golf.  I preferred the breeze from the ocean blowing over me while I floated around in the pool.  With the temperatures in the mid-to-upper 90s and the humidity at 75% and the UV reading at 11 on a scale of 1 to 10, even the beach was too much during the day.  But in the evening, everything took on a different perspective.

My fondest memory of the beach was the evening a group of us went for  a cool walk at dusk.  There was still a pretty good breeze and the temperature was down to around 80°.  So off we tromped in our bare feet for about 1/3 mile.  It wasn't until we returned that I noticed how my feet felt a little abraded.  The "sand" was actual a beach made up of pulverized shells.  If you stood in the water as the waves came in, the water action would excavate the shells from right out under your feet and you would start sinking.  It was unique, but not as gentle on the skin as the fine, white sand you would normally find on a Florida beach.


Our return trip to Michigan was met with lower temperatures through Virginia, West Virginia and most of Ohio.  Then we got near Michigan and the temperatures soared to the mid-90s.  As we filled the car with gas back in our town, I noticed that the mid-90s at 45% humidity was a lot more bearable than at 75%.  I'll have to keep that in mind the next time I'm inclined to complain about a hot spell here.

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Penn State And Joe Paterno Internal Report On Jerry Sandusky Sex Abuse

SEARCH BLOG: ETHICS

Many people will be saddened and disappointed that "Papa" Joe Paterno did not take action to have Jerry Sandusky arrested for his sexual abuse of young men and children.  According to this report, those people should be angry:

PHILADELPHIA -- Joe Paterno and other top Penn State officials hushed up child sex abuse allegations against Jerry Sandusky more than a decade ago for fear of bad publicity, allowing Sandusky to prey on other youngsters, according to a scathing internal report issued Thursday on the scandal. 

"Our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky's child victims by the most senior leaders at Penn State," said Louis Freeh, the former director of the FBI who was hired by university trustees to look into what has become one of sports' biggest scandals. "The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized." 

After an eight-month inquiry, Freeh's firm produced a 267-page report that concluded that Hall of Fame coach Paterno, President Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz "failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade." 

Freeh called the officials' disregard for child victims "callous and shocking." [full article]

There is no positive spin on can put on this.  Penn State's reputation has been severely tarnished.

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The Fiscal Cliff Bull

SEARCH BLOG: ECONOMY

The latest buzz phrase is "the fiscal cliff." [image]

The economy is going to fly over the edge and crash.

At Econbrowser, there is a post that points to all sorts of reasons... why we need to increase taxes:

The Fiscal Cliff, and the Enduring Legacy of EGTRRA/JGTRRA and a Certain Discretionary Spending Measure Starting in 2003

If spending is out of control... we must increase taxes.  Of course, it is probably best if that happens only to those make more than $250,000.  Nary a word about reducing spending.  That's not prudent.  We'll just wait until the taxes outstrip the spending and everything will work out because we will be able to save the difference for a "rainy day."

Peter Schiff, who has been pretty much correct about the problems of the last decade or so, writes:

In reality, the economy will encounter extremely dangerous terrain whether or not Congress figures out a way to wriggle out of the 2013 budgetary straightjacket. The debt burden that the United Stated will face when interest rates rise presents a much larger "fiscal cliff." Unfortunately, no one is talking about that one. 

The current national debt is about $16 trillion (this is just the funded portion...the unfunded liabilities of the Treasury are much, much larger). The only reason the United States is able to service this staggering level of debt is that the currently low interest rate on government debt (now below 2 per cent) keeps debt service payments to a relatively manageable $300 billion per year. 

On the current trajectory the national debt will likely hit $20 trillion in a few years. If by that time interest rates were to return to some semblance of historic normalcy, say 5 per cent, interest payments on the debt would then run $1 trillion per year. This sum could represent almost 40 per cent of total federal revenues in 2012! [full article]

Well, yes, if we can't pay for our spending now, we can't pay for it if the cost of money increases.

So are we doomed?  There's an old saying that if you do what you always did, you'll get what you always got.  Yes, if we continue to do what we are doing we will take that proverbial plunge over the cliff.

Some while ago, I wrote this:

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25, 2012

Cut 2% Annually From Federal Spending
Its really not that difficult. It just takes some private sector thinking in the public sector... or forget about the voodoo economics.

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California Declares Itself A Separate Nation With No Immigration Controls

SEARCH BLOG: CALIFORNIA

When it comes to states, California has demonstrated that it doesn't care about such things as producing enough power for its residents, providing enough water for its agriculture, or being able to pay its bills.  What California does care about is protecting the "rights" of those who are helping to suck California dry.

Los Angeles (CNN) -- The California Senate has passed a so-called "anti-Arizona" bill to prevent racial profiling by police and allow local law agencies to ignore federal requests to detain nonviolent illegal immigrants for deportation, a state lawmaker said.

The proposal, called the California Trust Act, would be the first state law imposing "detainer reform," though local governments in Illinois, Wisconsin and elsewhere have enacted similar measures, according to California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano's office.

No other states have legislation similar to what is now being considered in California, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The California bill would set standards that allow police not to respond to requests from U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement to detain an illegal immigrant -- except in cases where the immigrant is a serious or violent convicted felon, Ammiano said in a fact sheet about his proposed bill. Ammiano is a Democrat from San Francisco. [full story]

And one might ask ... why?

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From The Halls Of Montezuma

SEARCH BLOG: HISTORY

For those who serve or who have sons or daughters serving... the military has a long memory... as it should.  

h/t Dick Pasky.

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And The Number One Worst Thing About Obamacare Is...

SEARCH BLOG: HEALTH CARE

A great article from the National Review that sums up the foibles of Obamacare.

Here’s a quick checklist of the ten worst things in the law — in addition to the individual and Medicaid mandates [image]: 

1. Employer mandate. Most companies will have to provide and pay for expensive government-determined health insurance for their employees or face federal fines.  

2. Anti-conscience mandate. Religious organizations will be required to provide free sterilization, contraceptives, and abortion-inducing drugs to their employees, even if it violates their religious beliefs. 

3. New and higher taxes.The law contains at least 20 new taxes totaling $500 billion that will hit medical innovators, health insurance, and even the sale of your home. 

4. The Independent Payment Advisory Board. IPAB will still stand, with its rationing power over Medicare. 

5. State exchanges. States will be compelled to set up vast new bureaucracies to check into our finances and families so they can hand out generous taxpayer subsidies for health insurance to families earning up to $90,000 a year. 

6. Medicare payment cuts. $575 billion in payment reductions to Medicare providers and Medicare Advantage plans will cause more and more physicians to stop seeing Medicare patients, exacerbating access problems. 

7. Higher health-care costs. The Kaiser Family Foundation says the average price of a family policy has risen by $2,200 during the Obama administration. The president promised premiums would be $2,500 lower by this year. Hospitals, doctors, businesses, and consumers all expect their taxes and health costs to rise under Obamacare. 

8. Government control over doctor decisions.Value-based payments, quality reporting requirements, and government comparative-effectiveness boards will dictate how doctors practice medicine. Nearly half of all physicians are seriously considering leaving practice, leading to a severe doctor shortage. 

9. Huge deficits. The CBO has raised its cost estimate for the law to $1.76 trillion over ten years, but that is only the opening bid as more and more people lose their job-based coverage and flood into taxpayer-subsidized insurance. At this rate, the cost will be $2 trillion, not the less than $1 trillion the president promised. 

10. 159 new boards, agencies, and programs: The Obama administration will work quickly to set up as many of the law’s new bureaucracies as fast as it can so they can take root before the election.

Read the full article.

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Justice John Roberts Was Wrong On The Health Care Ruling

SEARCH BLOG: SUPREME COURT

There are many reasons to question the wisdom of our government leaders, but perhaps none so compelling as U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts' explanation of why he found the "individual mandate" to be "Constitutional."

One of the best articles I've read to date is at Reason Magazine:

If you drive a car, I'll tax the street,
 If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat.
 If you get too cold, I'll tax the heat,
 If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet.
-- The Beatles in "The Taxman"  

Of the 17 lawyers who have served as chief justice of the United States, John Marshall -- the fourth chief justice -- has come to be known as the "Great Chief Justice." The folks who have given him that title are the progressives who have largely written the history we are taught in government schools. They revere him because he is the intellectual progenitor of federal power. 

Marshall's opinions over a 34-year period during the nation's infancy -- expanding federal power at the expense of personal freedom and the sovereignty of the states -- set a pattern for federal control of our lives and actually invited Congress to regulate areas of human behavior nowhere mentioned in the Constitution. He was Thomas Jefferson's cousin, but they rarely spoke. No chief justice in history has so pronouncedly and creatively offered the feds power on a platter as he. 

Now he has a rival. 

No one can know the true motivations for the idiosyncratic rationale in the health care decision written by Marshall's current successor, John Roberts. Often five member majorities on the court are fragile, and bizarre compromises are necessary in order to keep a five-member majority from becoming a four-member minority. Perhaps Chief Justice Roberts really means what he wrote -- that congressional power to tax is without constitutional limit -- and his opinion is a faithful reflection of that view, without a political or legal or intra-court agenda. But that view finds no support in the Constitution or our history. It even contradicts the most famous of Marshall's big government aphorisms: The power to tax is the power to destroy. [read the rest]

One other opinion:
The Roberts Opinion 

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Low Interest Rates Indicate Economic Malaise

SEARCH BLOG: ECONOMY

All of the optimistic talk about "summers of recovery" and "stimulus jobs" has pretty much disappeared.  Now it's, "we got healthcare taxes implemented."

Nevertheless, President Obama remains remarkably popular among the unemployment recipients and "got me some of Obama's stash" crowd and women seem to think that he is on their side despite continued high unemployment for both men and women.  It seems free condoms and birth control pills is all that it takes when all you have left to look forward to is sex... and abortion on demand when you forget to use the freebies.

[source]

There is nothing on the horizon of the Obama administration that can do anything except reduce growth. The Bush-era tax cuts will expire.  The "Affordable" Care Act will create massive government deficits and suppress the growth of small businesses that are concerned about their health care costs because of the new law.

A quick look at the headlines indicate that we can't look to the rest of the world as conditions worsen generally:

• BOE Boosts Stimulus
• Eurozone rates at new record low
• China Cuts Rates in Bid to Reverse Slowdown 
• Japan economy faces same risks as Europe, says Yoshihiko Noda‎

Also see: CHINA IS A PONZI SCHEME AND IT'S ABOUT TO COLLAPSE, AS ALL PYRAMIDS DO

What does that mean for the U.S. economy?  Well, if we continue to do what we've been doing...

[image]

It's time for a massive reduction of government mandates and regulations.  It's time to let the private economy work without the government vainly attempting to pick winners and losers.  It's time to let innovation flourish without the crushing weight of more taxes.  It's time for a reversal of the widespread economic dependency on government... a massive Ponzi scheme leading to a black hole of debt and economic malaise.

Let's hope for change... starting at the top.

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Obamacare and Canada Health System

SEARCH BLOG: HEALTH CARE

Thanks to Lou for this tip.  Reminds me of the several years taking my father to the VA hospitals for his treatments... which they eventually screwed up and cost him his life.

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Independence Day 2012

SEARCH BLOG: HOLIDAYS and GOVERNMENT

This is the fifth year I have posted this.  Some of these issues seem startlingly contemporary.


Before you read the Declaration of Independence below, read what can happen if we forget the reason for this Declaration and the Constitution that followed.

Austria:1938

If it sounds disturbingly familiar, you should be concerned.

Caution: This document contains politically incorrect material and may be subject to neglect and condemnation by members of the ruling elite.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain 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. 

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. 

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. 

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. 

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. 

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. 

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. 

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. 

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers. 

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. 

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

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. 

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power. 

He has 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 quartering large bodies of armed troops 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 cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: 

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: 

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury: 

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: 

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: 

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

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. 

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. 

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. 

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. 

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. 

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. 

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. 

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. 

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

[Source]

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Government Run Health Care - Ooops

SEARCH BLOG: HEATH CARE and VETERANS ADMINISTRATION

Now that Obamacare has demonstrated the right of the federal government to determine how our national health care system should be run, it might be of interest to know how the federal government actually runs one health care system.  Then ask yourself if this is the agency you want running your health care system.  As the old saying goes, "Be careful what you wish for; you may get it."

From ABC:

Fourteen years ago, an ABCNEWS hidden-camera investigation ignited a firestorm about conditions and competence inside Veterans Administration hospitals.

Recently, there have been new stories of misdiagnosis, disastrous management and deficient care at some of the nation's 162 facilities.

At a hospital near Cleveland, an ABCNEWS hidden-camera investigation found bathrooms filthy with what appeared to be human excrement. Supply cabinets were in disarray, with dirty linens from some patients mixed in with clean supplies, or left in hallways on gurneys.

At a neighboring facility, examining tables had dried blood and medications still on them. In several areas, open bio-hazardous waste cans were spilling over. Primetime obtained internal memos documenting that the equipment used to sterilize surgical instruments had broken down — causing surgical delays and possible infection risks.

With 130,000 young American men and women putting their lives at risk in Iraq today, these conditions are particularly relevant. While current soldiers are treated in military hospitals, when they leave the service and need treatment, many will seek care at Veterans Affairs (as the Veterans Administration is now known) hospitals.

"Once you come back to be a veteran, it's like a black hole, you know — nothing," former Army Sgt. Vannessa Turner told ABCNEWS. [read more]

Veterans deserve much better.  So do you.

RELATED:

Obamacare 2.0 

What If You Buy A Bus Pass And There Are No Buses?

ALSO:

TUESDAY, MARCH 06, 2007

Government Health Care

SATURDAY, MARCH 10, 2007

Government Health Care - Update

MONDAY, JANUARY 21, 2008

Another Voice About Government Health Care and the Veterans Administration

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Obama: $2 Billion For Brazil To Develop Offshore Oil Fields; Moratorium On U.S. Development

SEARCH BLOG: OBAMA, ENERGY, and OIL

The Energy-Starvationist In Chief, Barack Obama, has openly declared war on coal and now is surreptitiously attacking oil.

Via All American Blogger:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — IER Senior Vice President Dan Kish released today the following statement about the Obama administration’s proposed final plan for development of energy resources on the Outer Continental Shelf: 

“President Obama’s offshore charade continues today with the formal announcement of the 2012-2017 leasing plan for the outer continental shelf. With this plan, the administration reinstates the 27 year moratorium that was lifted in 2008, and turns its back on potentially enormous energy resources that could provide jobs and energy security for America. For more than three years, the Obama administration has consistently reversed bipartisan efforts to open America’s vast offshore resources for energy development. 

“The president has cancelled lease sales, delayed others, and imposed a unilateral executive embargo on the oil resources that our most promising public lands could provide. With 98 percent of the U.S. offshore currently unleased for energy exploration, Secretary Salazar has finalized this plan to continue the administration’s war against affordable energy. In the end, Americans will pay more for the energy they need. 

“While President Obama and Interior Secretary Salazar claim an ‘all of the above’ energy strategy, today’s announced plan continues to give the American people access to a mere fraction of the offshore resources they own. If not for this president and his policies, Americans could access more than 200 years of oil supply under our feet and off our shores. 

“Millions of Americans are still looking for jobs. The Gulf Coast economy has yet to recover from President Obama’s moratorium on offshore drilling. President Obama has signaled today that he has no regard for our energy future, nor the jobs that a sensible, long-term plan for offshore development would create.” [source]

That's the same President Obama that arranged for $2 billion of U.S. taxpayer dollars to guarantee loans for Brazil to develop their offshore oil deposits... which ultimately was sold to the Chinese.

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Still Waiting For Obama's Summer Of Recovery

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So, how's all that economic recovery going?  According to the Financial Times, not so much.

Lowest level since summer of 2009?  Wasn't that the Summer Of Recovery that wasn't?  Recession ended?  Technically, yes; really, no.  But don't worry, we have Obamacare and increased taxes about to hit.

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Health Care Individual Mandate Required By "Moral Hazard"

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Economists are skilled artists.  They take a jumble of data, often incomplete or contrary, and create a picture of our nation's financial health.  They can explain why we are in a recovery when everyone else perceives economic uncertainty and hardship.  They can explain why the government should compel the purchase of a product on the basis of a "moral hazard."

From CBS Money Watch:

...even healthy people have some chance of catastrophic, even deadly, illness, so why wouldn't they purchase insurance in case this happens? 

People know we are a compassionate society, and if they were to come down with a life threatening disease we will take care of them even if they don't have insurance -- that is even if moral hazard causes them to shirk the personal responsibility. Thus, relatively healthy people can take a chance and go without insurance secure in the knowledge that they will be treated if something awful happens. Broken bones, catastrophic illness and so on will be covered. But covered by whom? In many cases, the individual will not have sufficient resources to pay for the medical care, it would bankrupt them, so there is no choice but for all of the rest of us to pick up the bill. 

A mandate stops this from happening. It forces those who would take a chance and go without care, those who are relying on all of the rest of us to insure them against large, unavoidable medical costs, to insure themselves. That is, it stops this moral hazard behavior. (In economic terms, adverse selection is about the average or mean cost, moral hazard is about the variance -- loss of life, for example, can be viewed as a very bad draw that occurs with some probability and imposes very large, perhaps infinite costs.) 

Adverse selection and moral hazard are not mutually exclusive. As you can see, they work together -- people with expected costs lower than premiums drop out knowing they are covered by the rest of us against a bad draw. A mandate, or its equivalent, helps to overcome both of these problems. [full article]

 My response:

An interesting argument. Especially the part about "people with expected costs lower than premiums drop out knowing they are covered by the rest of us against a bad draw." 

If the average cost of health insurance is $5,000 per year [but realistically at least twice that], and the penalty [tax]for not buying insurance is 1/5 that... and you are guaranteed the right to get coverage if you do need it... what is the economic incentive to purchase the insurance? And for employers, that question is even more relevant. And for health care personnel who lose money on every government-paid patient visit, what is the incentive to continue seeing those patients?

If this is an economic argument, then "moral hazards" are a red herring.

RELATED:
What If You Buy A Bus Pass And There Are No Buses?

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ObamaCare - Government Dead Weight Losses

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From the Cato Institute... a economist's view of Obamacare.  The video quality is so-so and the subject is difficult, but the information is important.

This relates directly to this:

What If You Buy A Bus Pass And There Are No Buses?

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Bank Of America - Buy High; Sell Low

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Bet the bank and lose.  From The Wall Street Journal.

Bet those CEOs still got a golden parachute.

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