The Armchair Pundit

Don't Let Them Eat Cake! (Save It For Me)

2011-02-08T00:04:00.003-05:00

Bratwurst  

Kielbasa  

Cheeseburgers 

Deep Dish Pizza  

Buffalo Wings  

German Potato Salad 

Twice Baked Potatoes 

Snyders Potato Chips and Pretzels  

Chips and Dips  

Salad   

Ice Cream

Sounds like a pretty decent Super Bowl party spread. No one should have gone home hungry, in any case.

I don’t begrudge anyone good food. My current level of rotundity testifies that I have partaken of my fair share of buffets. The problem is that this array of eats is what was served at Barack Obama’s Super Bowl party.

Now, I think the President should be able to have a party or two, and heaven knows this President has had a few parties. Nor do I think a President should not be entitled to eat tasty food. In fact, when compared to the Wagyu beef ($99-$115/lb. at Allen Bros. as of this writing) bash that the Spender-in-Chief threw to celebrate passage of the “Stimulus Bill”, this menu is downright plebian.

The problem that I have with the Obamas serving this food is that this is a White House that continues to nag us about our eating habits. Michelle Obama lobbied heavily for the Child Nutrition Act, a $4.5 billion bill that, among other things, allows the federal government to mandate ingredients in school lunches, what may be sold in school vending machines, and even whether or not bake sales will be allowed in schools. She continues to pressure restaurants to cut fat in their menus, cut out salt in food preparation, and serve apples with fast food instead of French fries. Michelle has become a reverse Marie Antoinette, exclaiming, "Don't let them eat cake!"

We can argue whether or not this should be a concern of the federal government but, if nothing else, it once again demonstrates the hypocrisy of the left and of this administration. As usual, this is an example from this administration to “Do as I say, not as I do.”

This is the same administration that believes that everyone who makes more than $200,000 a year should pay more in taxes but has a tax cheat as its Secretary of the Treasury. It is an administration that says the populace must tighten its belt, but spends at a record pace. It is an administration that tells corporations not to hold conferences in Las Vegas, but spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on lavish vacations. It is an administration that cancels the school voucher program in Washington, DC, the worst public school system in the nation, and then sends its children to exclusive private schools. It is an administration that calls its political opponents “enemies” and “hostage takers”, then says we need to tone down our rhetoric.

This is a President that, when speaking on abortions, states that, “The government should not intrude on private family matters,” yet wants to not allow me to have fries with my Happy Meal.

This administration cannot be taken seriously on anything it says. Its only driving philosophy is to exert more and more control over your life. Every decision it has made, from health care to “net neutrality” to food has this as its ultimate goal. They want to you to sacrifice for their benefit. Do you really think the Obamas are going to be subject to Obamacare?

Americans need to be aware of their eroding liberties and stand against this administration. They must pressure their elected representatives to obstruct whatever increases the power of the federal government to the detriment of individual liberty and self-determination. Today it may be trans-fats, tomorrow, who knows?

Completing the Job

2011-01-05T22:16:00.000-05:00

All the bell ringing and cheering you heard today was conservatives celebrating the turnover of the House of Representatives. It is a celebration well earned. Riding the enthusiasm of the grass-roots Tea Party and driven by a public that is tired of an out-of-touch, out-of-control Congress, the landslide election of last November 2 culminated in John Boehner taking the gavel of leadership from Nancy Pelosi. As one wag on Twitter said, “It will be nice to have a Speaker who won’t call us Nazis.”

There was reason to celebrate on the Senate side, also. The highly intelligent, Pat Toomey, replaces the execrable, Arlen Specter, as the Senator from Pennsylvania, thereby effecting a dramatic leap in the cumulative IQ of the upper house, even though Sens. Barbara Boxer and Debbie Stabenow continue to act as an anchor on that statistic. Probably the new Senator who caused the biggest stir, however, is Florida Senator, Marco Rubio. A young, handsome, well-spoken conservative of Cuban descent and Tea Party darling, many expect that Rubio may, one day, wind up in the Oval Office.

But while today was a day of celebration, we must keep in mind that the job is only half done. No, I’m not speaking of the 2012 elections when, hopefully, a conservative will ascend to the Presidency and, my personal project, Debbie Stabenow is returned to private life as part of a Senate take-over by Republicans. I am speaking of our duty to serve as citizen watchdogs over our government.

So far, the Republicans have said all the right things. They realize that they were not elected because everyone loves the Republican Party, but that they were elected because the people thought they might suck less than the Democrats. While that will no doubt be true, the bar is set pretty low and, frankly, past experience with the Republicans is not particularly encouraging.

Each party comes to Washington promising that, this time, things will be different. Each promises to govern responsibly, and each rapidly succumbs to the temptations of power and knuckles to the pressure of their leadership.

In no Congress in my lifetime, and possibly ever, was this more evident than in the 111^th Congress. In spite of spirited confrontations in town hall meetings and polls ranging greater than 60% of the American people opposed, the Democrat controlled Congress disregarded public sentiment and rammed through the highly unpopular Health Care Affordability Act as only one of its many legislative abuses. Multiple statements by the Democratic congressional leadership and the President demonstrated the disdain held for the very people they were sent to Washington to represent.

Much of the problem with the Democrats in the 111^th Congress is that they interpreted their large margin of victory with a popular mandate for their policies, rather than the response of a war-weary country and an unpopular President. The Republicans in the 112^th Congress must avoid this same temptation, and it is up to those who elected them to make sure that they do.

So celebrate tonight, because the second half of the job starts tomorrow. Those of us who are conservative must remain vigilant and hold our Congress critter’s feet to the fire. We must make sure that they understand that it really can no longer be business as usual. Conservatives cannot any longer allow Republicans to get away with fiscal or legislative irresponsibility simply because they are Republicans. Our new Congress critters must understand that they represent the people and will be held accountable for their actions. If not, they should understand that they will go the way of their predecessors.

So get ready, conservatives. We’ve still got a long way to go.

Pneumo-Nads: Do NOT try this at home!

2010-12-20T11:59:00.001-05:00

(Note: The story you are about to read is true. One of the names in this story has been changed to protect the stupid.)

Radiology can get pretty mundane, at times. We are basically trolls, sitting in darkened rooms, reading various imaging studies. For our patients, their study may be a very significant event. For the person who is receiving a CT scan to follow-up an abnormal chest x-ray finding, the CT scan may change their entire lives. The discovery of cancer marks a dividing line in one’s life – between BC and AC. The findings on a CT scan, PET scan, or MRI may be incredible reassuring, or may be a death sentence. But for us radiologists, your CT scan may be the 10th of 15 we’ll read before lunch. Likewise, in a practice as busy as ours, in a level I trauma center, there isn’t much we haven’t seen. Even when one of my colleagues shows me an “interesting case” (and in medicine, you never want to be described as an interesting case), it usually turns out to be an especially good example of a textbook case, a very subtle abnormality for which the radiologist is congratulating himself for finding, or a particularly bad case of whatever it is. What it usually isn’t, however, is interesting.

Every once in a while, however, we get a case that makes it all worthwhile. A case so bizarre that even the most experienced and jaded radiologist has to just shake his head in wonder. Such is the case I am about to describe

Pnuemo-Nads (not his real name) is an early teen-aged boy who, very likely, was showering in gym class (this is purely supposition, but is, as you’ll see, a highly reasonable supposition.) Now, whoever first came up with the idea of communal showers after gym class was obviously a sadist. At this point of their lives, boys are in wildly different stages of development. To be delicate, some boys’ dangly parts are more dangly than others’. And, for some reason, these teen-aged boys, who wouldn’t even notice a three foot high, neon sign telling them to clean their room, become amazingly perceptive in noticing these differences.

Pnuemo-Nads was one of these perceptive boys and, apparently, became concerned that he may not be . . . um . . . measuring up to his peers. Now, when I was a boy, this was just something that one had to accept (or so I’ve been told), but in these days, that is no longer true. The boy did what any teen-aged boy would do – he turned to Al Gore’s World Wide Web for advice. After entering the appropriate (or inappropriate, depending on your view) words into the search engine, he came across a web site that gave him the answer he was looking for.

According the web site, the first step is to “poke a small hole in your scrotum.” Now, if ever there was a sentence that should never be written, uttered, or even thought, “poke a small hole in your scrotum,” is that sentence. Nevertheless, being a teen-aged boy he is, by definition, brain damaged, so he followed those directions. (Right now, everyone with a Y-chromosome who is reading this just closed their legs, bent at the waist, and felt a retraction in their nether-regions.) Once the hole was poked (ow!) the needle with which you blow up a basketball with a bicycle pump was inserted and the boy began pumping.

My colleague, Jeff Hinman, raised an excellent point when he said, “It has to make you wonder what was on all those other web pages that the kid said, ‘Those are just crazy, but this one looks like it will work!’”

When questioned later, the kid said that, “At first, it didn’t feel too bad.” It even seemed like it was working. Right before his very eyes, he was inflating! Unfortunately, the web page apparently doesn’t state two very important facts about this technique. First, the body tends to resorb air very quickly, so that any gains wouldn’t last very long (and whenever that body part was moved, it would sound like wrinkling a brown paper bag), and secondly, air injected into the body has a tendency to not stay in place. As the boy pumped the bicycle pump, air dissected beneath the skin of his abdomen, into his chest where it work its way into the space between the chest wall and the lungs. The vacuum of this space is what keeps the lungs expanded and, when the air entered this space, both lungs collapsed. When the boy found that he was having a very difficult time breathing, he called his mom to his room.

Now, I never did anything even remotely like this as a teen-ager (really!), but if I had, I think I would just rather go ahead and suffocate rather than have to explain it to my mom. In this case, mom brought him into the emergency room where he became the recipient of a couple of chest tubes to re-inflate his lungs. He will have no lasting effects from his adventure, other than the memories of a time he was very, very stupid.

When I told this story to my wife, Dawn, her reaction, being a mom, was to say, “You need to talk to your sons and tell them to never do that!” My response, being a dad, was, “I’m not going to tell them to not poke holes in their scrotums and pump themselves up with a bicycle pump. If they are stupid enough to do that, the Chesnut name probably shouldn’t be propagated through them.” But they are, after all, teen-aged boys after all and so now I’m saying – Spencer, Noah, never ever do this!

Obama’s War on Me

2010-10-28T18:56:00.000-04:00

If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, "We’re going to punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us," if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s going to be harder, and that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2. – Barack Obama, Univision Interview, Oct. 25, 2010 (emphasis mine.)

That’s right. I am one of the President’s enemies, as are at least 60% of the rest of the country. Apparently, anyone who thinks that illegal immigration is, you know, illegal and dangerous to the sovereignty and safety of our country is an enemy and should be punished, according to our President. In fact, just the fact that you are reading this means that chances are good that you are an enemy of the President, as well.

Of course, this is not surprising. I knew the President held me in low regard before this. He has, at various times, described me as a bitter man, clinging to my guns and religion selfish, and racist. (Full disclosure - I don’t own any guns, but I will admit to clinging to my religion, though I’m pretty sure that Obama didn’t mean that as a compliment.) Just recently, he used the racially charged Jim Crow term to consign me to ride “in the back” of the bus, a phrase that would have been loudly denounced had it come from a conservative, and rightly so.

In Obama’s America, no one has an honest difference of opinion with him. Anyone who disagrees with him has malign intentions and are not opponents to be engaged and debated, but are enemies to be punished. We have seen plenty of evidence of this, such as when the White House tried to institute a boycott of FOX News – a move that failed due to the unexpected spine of the other news networks and the fact that no one hardly watches any other news, anymore.

It is an incredible thing when an American President declares that those with ideological differences are enemies, a designation, let it be known, that Obama will not utter in speaking of Iran, Hezbollah, or other of America’s enemies throughout the world. In fact, the same President who has called me an enemy, shook Hugo Chavez’s hand and addressed him as, “Mi amigo” (my friend.)

This is quite a departure from a candidate who campaigned as a post-partisan, post-racial “uniter, not a divider.” In fact, not since Woodrow Wilson has a president been more divisive. Can anyone imagine Ike, Reagan, Clinton, either Bush, or, yes, even Nixon refer to the majority of Americans as his enemy?

Six weeks after his inauguration, I wrote an article describing how it was obvious that President Obama was in over his head, an article for which I lost at least a couple of friends who, in true liberal fashion, accused me of racism. That is a common tactic of the left – if you can’t argue facts and policy, revert to racism as a conversation-stopper, a temptation that even our “post-racial” President can’t resist. At the mid-point of his first term, however, I am being vindicated by the fact that it appears as if the President’s political party is about to suffer an electoral defeat of near-epic proportions, based on his policies and his accomplishments. He has demonstrated himself to be intellectually vapid and morally vacuous. He is a small man in a big job.

We cannot have a President who thinks of greater than half of Americans as “the enemy.” We have seen that he will not hesitate to push cramming legislation down the throats of a majority of Americans who express a vociferous opposition, simply because he believes that he is right and those who disagree are stupid, special interest shills, racists, or all the above. It is essential that Americans elect a Congress that can stand up to the President and, yes, obstruct some of that destructive legislation. It is a further imperative that this man is a one-term President and that we put someone in office who respects Americans and is deserving of the job.

A Clear Choice

2010-10-26T00:31:00.001-04:00

We are one week away from a historic election. Now, I am not one to indiscriminately encourage people to get out and vote because, frankly, I believe that most Americans have no business voting. Too often, Americans know the smallest detail about how Joey Buttafuco beat Lorena Bobbitt in Dancing with the Stars, but don’t have the foggiest idea of where their politicians stand on issues or even what those issues may be. Consequently, decisions on who we will have governing our country are decided by people who vote for an individual because of the candidate’s hairstyle, because their commercial tells the most convincing lie, or because I’ve always voted for one or the other of the political parties and everyone knows that the other party is evil. In my opinion, people who have not educated themselves on the issues and the candidates have a responsibility to stay home and not vote.

This year, however, the political landscape is different and the issues are much more black and white. This has presented the voters, even those who do not follow politics closely, a clear choice. Because the Democrats have had control of the White House and a veto-proof majority in the Senate and overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives, we know exactly the governing inclinations of the Democrat party.

If you desire a large government that interposes itself in every aspect of business, even to the point of essentially buying those businesses (GM, Chrysler, multiple banks), you should vote Democrat.

If you approve of a government that tells you what commodities you must buy, whether you want it or not, and one that would fundamentally destroy the best health care system in the world, you should vote Democrat.

If it is of no concern to you that those you elect disregard the wishes of the people and pass laws because they, in their wisdom, know better than you, and then complain that you should not be offended, but should, instead, thank them for it, you should vote Democrat.

If you are fine with your elected leaders systematically denigrating large swaths of the populace and stoking racial and class division, you should vote Democrat.

If you think that it is the government’s role to tell you what you can or cannot say, listen to, or even eat, you should vote Democrat.

If you think that giving foreign enemies of our country the same rights as our citizens, if you think it is a good idea to bring them from the battlefield into our civilian courts, and if you think that returning war veterans and the Christian right are as big a threat to our country as Al Qaeda, you should vote Democrat.

If you believe that the way to increase employment is to tax those who create the vast majority of jobs in this country so that we can spend trillions of dollars in order to do things like teach men in Africa to wash their genitals after sex, study the effects of cocaine on monkeys, and build turtle tunnels under highways, you should vote Democrat.

If you truly believe that the “biggest bang for the buck” in stimulus is food stamps and unemployment insurance, you should vote Democrat.

If you believe that a stagnant 10% unemployment rate, in spite of trillions of dollars of debt incurred, more debt in the first two years of this administration than was incurred from the administrations of George Washington through George W. Bush, has placed the country, “On the right track,” you should vote Democrat.

In short, if you think that the last two years of governing has been just wonderful and that you want the country to continue in the direction it is now heading, vote Democrat.

But if you are tired of Washington treating you like you are a child who needs their guidance, if you are think that government isn’t the answer to every question, if you are a believer in the free market and in American ingenuity and exceptionalism, then vote Republican.

Frankly, given their recent track record, I am not enamored of the current crop of Republicans. But like columnist Frank J. Fleming said, the Republicans suck in the manner of a dog barking all night, but the Democrats suck like the zombie apocalypse. We can’t say that we don’t want to escape the zombies because if we do so, we’ll have to go back to listening to that stupid dog barking all night. And, hopefully, the Republicans have been paying attention and will be responsive to their constituents this time. If not, we’ll vote ‘em out in 2012. And, if nothing else, at least the gridlock will stop the destruction of our way of life that is currently occurring.

This is an extraordinarily important election and the choices couldn’t be more clear.

Obama Is Making Things Difficult For His Defenders

2010-09-20T18:51:00.002-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, a survey was published that indicated that 18% of Americans believe President Obama is Muslim and that only 34% of Americans believe he is Christian. A plurality of Americans (43%) said they didn’t know. This was roundly met with hysteria on the side of the left and the Main Stream Media (but I repeat myself) who claimed that everything from stupidity to racism was responsible for the misunderstanding. But Obama is making it very difficult for his defenders to continue to hold to their talking points.

In addition to sitting for over 20 years in a church presided over by a hate-spewing preacher whose doctrine is anything but Christian, in addition to regularly disparaging Christians (racists clinging to their God and their guns), he continues to stumble over basic precepts. For the latest example, check out this video during his speech for a dinner sponsored by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. See if you can spot the missing phrase:

If you picked up that the inalienable rights are apparently no longer “endowed by their creator”, you may be one of those religious bigots that Obama warned us about.

Are we to believe that this “genius” President just forgot that phrase? If so, I would like to congratulate the President on weaning himself from his teleprompter, even if only for a phrase.

Is America Islamophobic?

2010-09-13T22:23:00.000-04:00

In my opinion, there are several suffixes in the political jargon of the day that need to die painful deaths. One of these is -gate. Since the infamous Watergate break-in, almost every political scandal or pseudoscandal has been labeled with this prefix. It has gotten to the point that, last month, after President Obama claimed he didn’t know who someone named Snookie (who is, apparently, some tramp in New Jersey who appears on some ridiculous “reality TV show”) was, even though he had previously used her name in a joke some speechwriter wrote for him. Some headline writer promptly labeled this “scandal”, Snookie-gate. Come on, people! Nixon resigned 36 years ago. Are you telling me that you couldn’t come up with something more original after 3 ½ decades?

Another suffix that should meet its ignoble end, at least in the political sense, is the suffix -phobia. Now phobia is a perfectly good psychological term, defined as an irrational and/or debilitating fear. Arachnophobia is an irrational and/or debilitating fear of spiders. Triskaidekaphobia is the irrational and/or debilitating fear of the number 13. Tristadekaphobia is an irrational and/or debilitating fear of pickles. (I actually have a friend who has this fear and, if she reads this, she will, no doubt, recognize herself and probably be surprised that I remembered. But there is no way I would ever forget something like that.)

The first political usage I can recall of -phobia, is homophobia. Now, of all the political uses of –phobia, this may have been the closest to a correct usage. When AIDS was a rapidly expanding epidemic that was little understood, totally untreatable, and largely confined to IV drug users and the gay community, there probably was a true fear of gays, though I’m not sure that fear was totally irrational given as little as was known about the disease and its communicability. As HIV/AIDS and its mode of transmission and successful treatments have developed, true homophobia is probably very rare. In the meantime, the term has been warped to mean, roughly, “An epithet to be used in any instance of disagreement with the gay community.” Therefore, anyone who disagrees with gay marriage, gays in the military, etc., has been labeled homophobic, even though their reasons may be well-intentioned and well-considered and have little or nothing to do with fear of gays.

Like the perfectly utilitarian words fascism and racism, the suffix –phobia has been thrown around so indiscriminately that it has come to mean, “You disagree with me.” The latest iteration of this is the term, Islamophobia – literally, an irrational and/or debilitation fear of Islam.

We have heard this term since the 9/11/01 attacks. In fact, Islamophobia has been bandied about so much that one might be excused for thinking that the attacks were directed against Islam, rather than the other way around. Lately, we have been inundated with claims of American Islamophobia because of the controversy about the Ground Zero Mosque.

So is America Islamophobic? The answer is a flat NO. This country, in keeping with our tolerant, pluralistic tradition is quite possibly the most religiously tolerant country on the face of the earth. Even though after every attack on the United States by Islamic terrorists, we were roundly warned against retaliation, the people of the United States have been remarkably tolerant of Muslims in our midst. There has been no whole-scale persecution of American Muslims. There has been no pattern of mosque burnings. Each time a Muslim commits an atrocity against the United States – 9/11, Ft. Hood shooting, Christmas panty-bomber, and others – what has been America’s reaction? Precisely nothing. The long-awaited backlash has never occurred. According to the FBI, who tracks “hate crimes” (an odious designation, in itself), the most recent data available (2008) showed that for hate crimes involving a religious bias, 66.1% of the victims were Jewish and only 7.5% of the victims were Muslim.

Another reason the United States is not Islamophobic is because whatever fear of Islam there may be is neither irrational nor debilitating. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous plagiarized quote, “We have nothing to fear but fear, itself,” is a pithy, clever statement. It is also as false as Tammy Faye’s eyelashes. There are things out there that you darn well better fear. Fear is a God-given emotion that is designed for our survival. For example, most humans have a fear of snakes. This is a good thing in that there are snakes that can kill us. Our fear of snakes helps to keep us alive in those areas that are home to poisonous snakes. Likewise, if you live in a high crime area, your fear causes you to make sure your doors are locked and to be more alert on your strolls around the block. This is a healthy response and is one of those instincts that are essential to the survival of the human species.

The fact of the matter is that there are a not insignificant number of radical Muslims that want to kill us. Our political leaders keep telling us that Islam is a religion of peace, a concept that would, no doubt, be confusing to Mohammed, whose life and writings show he was a man who was not hesitant to wield a sword. As has been demonstrated numerous times over the past several decades, however, we may not be at war with Islam, but there is a faction of Islam that is at war with us. We know that this has penetrated deep into American life and even into our military. It is not unreasonable, therefore, that we have a healthy fear of Islam. It was the intentional disregard of this healthy fear that lead to the massacre of 13 people and the wounding of 30 others at Ft. Hood. We allow our reasonable fear to be allayed at our peril.

In spite of assurances by our leaders in Washington and elsewhere that we have nothing to fear from Islam, they understand that this is not true. Now I believe that those mallet-heads that would burn Qurans are stupid, provocative, and have very little understanding of true Christianity. But the response of our government illustrate very well that they know that there is something to fear from Islam. That is why General Petraeus warned that burning the Quran would endanger our troops, a message further reiterated by Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, in a personal phone call to the lead Quran burning pinhead, Terry Jones. Eric Holder, the Attorney General, called Quran burning, “Idiotic and dangerous.” Both of which are true. The FBI even had a private chat with Mr. (I refuse to use the honorific, Rev.) Jones and reportedly said, “You know what happens to people who burn Qurans, right?” The FBI has even published a report that states that retaliation for the Quran burning is likely.

Compare that reaction with the reaction of Americans to the building of a controversial mosque at Ground Zero. No FBI visits to the Muslim community were necessary. Instead of President Obama, Eric Holder, and Robert Gates, among others, speaking out against this insensitive act, they supported it against the wishes of the majority of Americans. A solitary attack against an anti-Ground Zero Mosque Muslim cab driver by a man who volunteered with a group that supports the Ground Zero Mosque could just as easily have been perpetrated in order to try to make people believe that it was an attack in response to “Islamophobia”. But our government knows that, while there are a few nuts out there, the overwhelming majority of Americans pose no threat to the Islamic community. The converse is obviously untrue.

Of course, this is not to say that all Muslims are terrorists. Most Muslims in the United States are truly peace-loving people who make good friends and neighbors. But there are enough radicals who want to kill us and our way of life that a healthy fear is not unreasonable and shouldn’t be debilitating. Unfortunately, this seems better understood by our populace than by our leaders.

Obama's Labor Day Gift to Labor

2010-09-09T22:04:00.000-04:00

On Labor Day this week, President Obama interrupted his 7th vacation since July 4th to jet to Milwaukee for yet another address from on high. That the President chose to deliver his message to a crowd composed of AFL-CIO union members was only right. After all, he bought them, he should be able to get some use out of them.

The line that got the most attention from the President was the "off-the-teleprompter" remark that, "They talk about me like a dog." This is patently untrue, since the majority of Americans like their dogs. Obama's poll numbers, in the meantime, have been falling faster than a fat man's pants on America's Funniest Home Videos. As usual, the White House has determined that this is because they have a "communications problem". To their way of thinking, whenever the American public doesn't like something, it is obviously because we are too stupid to understand the brilliance of their thinking, so they send out the Professor-in-Chief to explain it to us - over and over and over again. Hey, Chief, here's an idea - maybe your poll numbers are slipping not because of your communication, but because of the message that you are trying to communicate.

Of course, the usual suspects on the left are equally as convinced that the problem is that the President and his lackey-controlled Congress are having problems because they have been, get this, too moderate! That's right, according to former Enron-advisor Paul Krugman, Thomas Friedman, et al., this president, who has nationalized two thirds of our auto manufacturers, nationalized our largest lending and finance institutions, nationalized our health care system, wishes to tax us for using energy, appeased our enemies while snubbing our allies, and has increased the federal deficit more than all the presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan combined, is too "moderate".

This brings us back to the Labor Day speech. Obama obviously borrowed a page from out-going Chairperson of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, Christina Romer’s, resignation speech when she said (paraphrased) that the stimulus bill didn't work and, therefore, what we need is more stimulus. As one wag on Twitter stated, “President Obama is the type that, when he walks into a wall, feels the next time he should walk faster.”

Yes, that’s right. Obama is proposing more spending. He announced a $50 billion new plan to spend on infrastructure. According to Obama, this will create new jobs immediately while jump-starting the economy. Why didn’t someone think of that before? Oh, that’s right, they did. The first stimulus plan, we were told, would provide money for “shovel-ready” jobs that would keep unemployment under 8% while ramping up the economy and putting a unicorn in every garage. Okay, I made that bit about the unicorn up, but it is about as believable. In fact, unemployment promptly climbed to about 10%, where it has hovered for the past several months. The “Summer of Recovery” has become the Summer of Wreckovery as the economy stumbles, zombie-like, with practically no growth. Now, President Obama, who just last week told us that, “The economy is right on track,” now tells us that he wants to spend another $50 billion to, apparently, get the economy right on a better track.

President Obama has never run a business. He has never had to meet a payroll or balance a budget. As a community organizer, his job was, basically, to try to get as much money from the government as possible to put toward whatever community he was organizing at the time. It is understandable that he would think the way to solve every problem is to throw money at it. The problem is that money has to come from somewhere. Cutting spending is unacceptable to a Democrat (and most Republicans), so that leaves printing money and devaluing the currency, borrowing, taxing, or some combination of the three. While Obama, as a crumb to Democrats running for Congress in the midterms, sounds like he will extend the Bush tax cuts for the “middle class” (though don’t believe it until you see it), he says that he has no plans to extend the Bush tax cuts for “millionaires and billionaires”, redefined by this administration to include anyone making over $200,000 a year. Of course, many of those filing taxes that make over $200,000 are small businesses filing as individuals.

This new infrastructure bill is merely yet another sop to the Democrat’s favorite special interest group – the unions. Now, I admit that there is a real need for some infrastructure repair and restoration, though in my opinion, like almost everything else, infrastructure repair would be better performed by almost any entity that is not run out of Washington. The fact is, according to the Davis-Bacon Act, any public works project funded by Washington is required to pay union scale wages and benefits. If we really wanted to put Americans back to work and reducing our deficit, Obama would suspend this act, as was done by Franklin Roosevelt, Nixon and both Bushes during times of emergency. Actually, he should repeal it, but the fact that he would rather have bamboo skewers inserted under his fingernails than upset the unions tells us all we need to know about how serious he is about turning around the economy.

If Obama really wanted to help the economy, he would dispel the climate of uncertainty around business by extending all the Bush tax cuts. He would push for a decreased business tax, and relax some of the ridiculous small-business strangling regulations. He would push for a repeal of Obamacare, which places huge taxes on businesses and individuals. He would announce a series of austerity measures to concentrate on reducing the deficit and he would resist the urge to insert the government in every crisis, allowing the free market to regulate itself, as it is meant to do.

Of course, the chances of any of this happening is approximately equal to that of Santa Claus sliding down my chimney on Christmas Eve and leaving Catherine Zeta Jones in my stocking (or better yet, in her stockings.)

Our economy needs a stimulus, but the stimulus it needs can only come from the private sector when the government gets out of the way. What we don’t need right now is another union handout.

Curmudgeonly Suggestions for Restaurants

2010-08-28T18:41:00.002-04:00

I am uncertain about the age at which one passes from being a whiner to a curmudgeon. But now that I’m over 50 years old, I’m going to take the risk and assume that I have passed that threshold. I have a few pet peeves (and by “a few”, I mean “almost everything”) concerning restaurant service that I will now share for those of you in the restaurant business who may, potentially, see me as a customer

If you are a waiter, don’t sit at my table when taking my order – Seriously, when did this become okay? Listen, if I had wanted you to sit at my table, I would have invited you to dinner.

I can read my own menu, thank you – If you have specials that are not on the menu, fine, fire away. Otherwise, if the menu is confusing enough that you have to read it or explain it to me, you should probably re-think how your menu is written. But what I really don’t need is for you to stand (or sit . . . grrrrrrr!) there and read for me what I can read for myself.

I don’t want to get to know you – I don’t go to restaurants to make new friends. Often, I am at restaurants with friends with whom I’d like to converse. I don’t need the waiter to be my new best friend for the evening. I really don’t care if your mother loves the restaurant’s meatloaf. I don’t care if you are an aspiring cosmetologist. Frankly, I don’t even care that your name is Jake. If I want to know something, I will ask.

Just keep the darn sweetener on the table – Is sugar and Splenda now so expensive that we have to specifically ask for it to sweeten our tea? Are old ladies bankrupting restaurants by squirreling away packets of Equal in their purses? (Okay, I can sort of believe that one.) Just keep it on the table.

Don’t interrupt my conversation to ask me if I want my water refilled – The answer is always, “Yes.” Water is as close to free as it gets. Just assume that I want it refilled and refill it.

Don’t ask me how my food tastes – Don’t you know? Are you that unconfident in the consistency of your kitchen that you need to ask? Of course, this question almost always comes either in mid-chew or mid-conversation. (A corollary to this is to ask, before I’ve even had a chance to taste it, “How does everything look?” You have eyes, see for yourself.)

If I want to talk with the manager, I’ll ask for him – When we see a sudden trend in medicine, a sudden upsurge in the ordering of a specific test, for example, we joke that someone must have written an article in a popular medical journal on it. Someone must have written an article saying that what restaurant customers want more than anything in the world is for the manager come to their table, interrupt their conversation, introduce themselves, and ask if everything is okay. Hey, Mr. Manager. If everything is not okay, I will ask for you.

Cut it out with the birthday songs, already – Jeez, is there anything more irritating than to be in a restaurant having a nice conversation with someone when, all of a sudden, a raucous chorus of “This Is Your Birthday Song”, sung at 110 decibels, drowns out the conversation? This goes double for the birthday songs that begin with someone yelling to the entire restaurant, “May I have your attention, please!” Save the birthday songs for Chuck E. Cheese.

As a final note, I have one more suggestion for our friends in the British Isles – Iced tea is made by taking tea and pouring it over ice. It is really not that complicated. You guys made tea a national pastime, don’t tell me that you don’t have iced tea. Yes, Americans like their tea cold. We won the war, you lost. Get over it and give us ice in our tea.

Is Barack Obama A Muslim And Does It Matter?

2010-08-24T18:59:00.002-04:00

Last week, Pew Research Company, a respected polling company, released a poll indicating that 18% of Americans think that President Obama is a Muslim. More interesting to me is that only 34% of respondants believe that he is what he claims to be - a Christian - or that a full 43% of people say that they don't know. This prompted the White House, aided by their usual allies in the mainstream media, to issue full-throated denials. Many news organizations including flatly stated that the perception of Obama as a Muslim is incorrect. The Associated Press calls the belief "incorrect", the Washington Post calls the belief "wrong", and the New York Times calls it a "misperception." I'm not even going to try to figure out how these organizations make that determination. I assume they take what the President says at face value which, as the last two years has shown, is a risky proposition.

Of course, the usual suspects are crying foul. John Farrell at US News and World Report says that those people who think Obama is Muslim are either "not paying attention" or are "willfully stupid." The George Soros funded Media Matters claim that Americans are falling for Right-Wing lies. And, of course, Ramzi Kassem of the New York Daily News, among others, claim that the rumors are due to . . . wait for it . . . you guessed it . . . racism.

I think that Byron York in the Washington Examiner gets it right in his typically outstanding article when he says that, if people are confused about Obama’s religion, he has only himself to blame. For the record, I don’t believe that President Obama is a Muslim. You can put me in the “none of the above” category. I think he is probably agnostic or possesses a belief outside of mainstream Christianity.

What, then, to think of the 1 in 5 people who think the President is a Muslim? First, we have to realize that is the same percentage that believe that aliens have visited earth, that believe the sun orbits the earth, and that is less than the percentage of the people who believe that the United States government was behind the 9/11 attacks (36%). In other words, approximately the same number of Americans believe the President is Muslim as believe that little green men with anal probes are kidnapping West Virginians. I think we can see that there are some people who will believe anything, no matter how strange.

Of course, some of those people may just be like me. If my caller ID was broken and I accidentally picked up the phone for a survey like this, I might claim that President Obama was born on a rocket ship inbound from Planet Zygon 6 and worships Neptune, just to mess with the pollsters.

So, does it really matter if the President is a Muslim? Well, some might say, it would undermine American’s trust in him because he lied about it. I’d reply that if they are just realizing that Obama lied to them, they haven’t been paying attention.

In actuality, if Obama was a Muslim, it might explain a lot, but it would change very little. Already, Obama is much more conciliatory toward Muslim countries than he is toward our traditional allies and, especially, toward Israel. From bowing before the Saudi king to drastically rewriting history in his Cairo speech to standing by silently while Iranian Republican Guards mowed down protestors in the streets, Obama has bent over backwards to curry favor with Islamic countries. At the same time, he has shown the back of his hand to our traditional Middle Eastern ally, Israel.

In the United States, Obama has been the apologist-in-chief for Islam in the United States, lecturing the public on the glories and beauty of Islam and, most recently, giving his imprimatur to a mosque planned for New York’s Ground Zero. While Obama has cancelled the National Day of Prayer ceremonies during his tenure in the White House, ostensibly concerned about the propriety of hosting a religious event, he has, over that same period, held Iftar dinners to celebrate the end of Ramadan.

So, it doesn’t really make a lot of difference if Obama is a Muslim or not. He clearly has a greater affinity for Islam than he has for traditional Christianity or Judaism. His foreign policy would not appreciably change, with the possible exception of dropping the pretense of a modicum of support for Israel. I could hardly see how much more hostile to Christianity and Judaism or conciliatory to Islam that this administration could be.

Meanwhile, while we are arguing over is-he-or-isn’t-he, we are losing jobs, going deeper in debt, destroying our health care system, and running our economy into the ground. There are plenty of excellent reasons to oppose this President and his policies, his religious affiliation, or lack thereof, is not one of them.

Rights vs. Wrongs

2010-08-19T22:53:00.002-04:00

I can think of no more vile organization in the United States right now than the Westboro Baptist Church. Led by Rev. Fred Phelps, the WBC is an independent church, not affiliated with any other Baptist conventions. The theology of this church is built on hate. While they are fairly non-discriminatory about who they hate – any other religion or even denomination, unless it is strictly Calvinist Protestant (CRC, you’re okay. Nazarenes, not so much) qualifies - they reserve their deepest hate for homosexuals. According to Phelps and his acolytes, pretty much all of America’s ills are God’s punishment for homosexuality. With a logic almost as twisted as their belief system, the WBC demonstrates their fealty to these beliefs by picketing funerals – primarily funerals of Marines. Carrying signs proclaiming such vile epithets as “God Hates Fags”, “Thank God for IEDs”, and “Thank God for 9/11”, the WBC has been a fixture at funerals of Marines killed in the war. These people aren’t content with picketing soldier’s funerals, they also picket funerals of known homosexuals and have even picketed the funerals of Mr. Rogers and Jerry Falwell, for some reason.

The Cordoba Initiative is a group of Muslims who have decided that what New York City really needs is a 13-story mosque/community cultural center 600 feet from Ground Zero. The site is so close to Ground Zero that the landing gear from one of the planes that were hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center towers by Islamists crashed through the roof of the building currently on the site. This initiative is in keeping with an Islamic tradition to build a mosque on the site of a great military victory, just as they did in Cordoba, Spain. As I’ve written earlier, this is an acknowledgement that “Allah has delivered the infidel into our hands.” Even if you take the claims by the leader of the project, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, that the project (now renamed Park51, since Cordoba House was so controversial) is intending to “build bridges” between Muslims and non-Muslims, a claim that stretches credulity so much that Gumby is jealous, it has been a horrible failure. I am not sure why America doesn’t find the bridge building claim credible in a religious leader who said that “America was complicit in 9/11” and who refused to denounce Hamas saying, “Terrorism is a very complex issue.” In any case, many Americans find the placement of the mosque on the doorstep of the location of the murder of over 3000 of their fellow citizens by men driven by Muslim ideology offensive.

Which of these activities, the picketing of the funerals or the building of the mosque, should be stopped by the government? Which of these groups and their activities should be immune from criticism?

The answers are both and neither.

The fact is that we are guaranteed wide latitude for religious activities by the First Amendment to the Constitution. As long as an activity is compliant with the law and does not infringe on the Constitutional rights of others, we are free to follow the tenets and practices of our religion however we like – no matter how evil or offensive those practices may be. This is as it should be and is one of the things that make America great. It is very important that these liberties be preserved because we never know when others might find our religious practices offensive and seek to use the government to stop those practices.

This view is shared by every credible person on both sides of the Ground Zero mosque issue from Pres. Obama to Sarah Palin to Harry Reid to Newt Gingrich. The only person of any note to deviate from this opinion is Nancy Pelosi, who suggested that the persons complaining about the Ground Zero mosque be investigated. But remember that I said every credible person. Queen Nancy lost any semblance of credibility long ago.

But while the Constitution guarantees us the right to practice our religion, it does not guarantee us a right to be free of criticism – in fact, quite the opposite is true. The Constitution also guarantees the freedom of speech that we use to voice our opposition to things we find offensive. For the government to try to stifle that free speech, as Pelosi intimated she was in favor of, is every bit as unconstitutional as if the government prohibited these groups from practicing their religion as they see fit

In fact, there are times when we, as good citizens, should be vocal in our opposition to abhorrent practices. Can you imagine President Obama saying that the Westboro Baptist Church has the right to conduct their protests but that he would not comment on the wisdom of it? I think that most would find that a ridiculous position for him to take, and rightly so.

Let me be clear (to use a favorite phrase of our President), criticism is not an abridgement of freedom of religion or any other freedom. This is a reading of our Constitution that just isn’t there. When Sarah Palin or Newt Gingrich or moi criticize the Ground Zero mosque, no one’s religious rights are violated. While Nancy Pelosi is within her rights and her purview to criticize us, she has no right, whatsoever, to try to intimidate that speech by threatening a government investigation.

The idea that criticism is an abridgement of our rights is common and mistaken. We heard this refrain from the Dixie Chicks, for example, when their record sales fell off after they stated, in a concert in Berlin, Germany, that they were embarrassed by hailing from the same state as President Bush. Many people took issue with that comment and stopped buying their music. They then whined that their free speech was violated – as if the Constitution guaranteed them the right to have people buy their albums.

We are hearing it now from Dr. Laura Schlessinger who, after she was roundly criticized for using offensive language on her radio show, announced that she was quitting to “regain my First Amendment rights.” The fact is that, not only does Dr. Schlessinger not have the right to not be criticized, she doesn’t even have the right to say anything that her employer tells her she can’t say. The First Amendment, as is true for the remainder of the Bill of Rights, is a limit on what government can do. My employer is not constrained by the First Amendment. If I work for Ford and go on television to tout the superiority of Toyotas, the government will not prosecute me, but I can certainly expect my employer to fire me. (And no, unless I am a judge or serving on a jury, I do NOT have to presume someone is innocent until proven guilty.)

In my opinion, it is the responsibility of good citizens to be vocal in their opposition to the abhorrent practices of the Westboro Baptist Church. While they cannot use their power in office to stop or intimidate the same practices, I would also expect our elected leaders to be vocal in their opposition. I don’t understand why we should expect any less in response to the offensive Ground Zero mosque. This is not an issue of protecting rights, no one is advocating that any rights being abrogated, it is an issue of speaking out against wrongs.

A Government Upside Down

2010-08-17T19:43:00.001-04:00

The most famous speech ever delivered in America, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, was written to honor the men who died in that great battle in order to preserve the union of the United States of America. This short, but powerfully moving, speech culminates with the wish that the dead would not have died in vain, but that, “ . . . the government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

It is no accident that the Constitution of the United States of America begins with the words, “We the people.” We take it for granted now, but at the time this was a radical and unique idea. Monarchies dominated Europe. The concept of the divine right of kings, the idea that God had granted certain men and women dominion over others based solely on their bloodline, was still prevalent throughout the world. Even the French Revolution, occurring only 3 years after the Constitution’s ratification, was based on the idea of an aristocracy – the idea that an elite, enlightened group of men would wield the reins of power over the country.

We all learned in school that the United States is a Republic. Those who would govern this country are elected by the people in order to represent our interests. Instead of a top-down system, like a monarchy or oligarchy, our republic was designed to be a bottom-up system of government. The will of the people, not those of the governing body, was to reign supreme.

Unfortunately, under the Obama regime (and I use that term advisedly) and the Democrats in Congress, this system of government has been turned on its head. No longer are our elected representatives doing the will of the people, but they are imposing their will onto the people. Our President lectures us like a college professor or a stern parent, telling us what is good for us and disparaging those who would disagree with him. Our Congress has repeatedly demonstrated the contempt they hold for the people and the Constitution of the United States.

Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the passage of the health care law. When citizens raised protests in town hall meetings and demonstrations, they were called un-American by the Speaker of the House (the second person in Presidential succession) and by the Senate Majority Leader. The President told opponents to “Stop talking and get out of the way.” When polls indicated that over 60% of Americans were opposed to the health care bill, the Democrats used an arcane rule to get around the people’s desires and force the bill through. Or, as said the former judge who was impeached for corruption, Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL), “There ain’t no rules here, we’re trying to accomplish something . . . All this talk about rules . . .When the deal goes down . . . we make ‘em up as we go along.” Rep. Phil Hare (D-IL) echoed this sentiment when he was questioned about the Constitutionality of mandated purchase of health insurance saying, “I don’t worry about the Constitution on this, to be honest.” Well, at least he is an honest, if deeply unethical, politician.

The attitude of the President, his administration, and Congress is that the people in power somehow know better than the remainder of us how the country should be run and will run it that way, whether the peasants like it, or not. While the federal government unilaterally made the decision not to enforce legally passed immigration laws, one state, Arizona, suffering the violence and the increased costs incurred by their porous border with Mexico, passed a law basically identical to the federal law in order to try to control illegal immigration. In spite of nearly 60% of Americans and 70% of Arizonans favoring the law, the Obama administration sued the state to stop enforcement of the law. Should it, then, come as a surprise that a leaked White House memo outlined ways that the administration could usurp the role of Congress by administratively “offering relief” to illegal aliens if Congress didn’t pass immigration reform?

Of course, this is nothing new for this administration. When it became obvious that there was no way the ruinous Cap and Trade bill was going to be passed, the Obama regime made and end-run and had the Environmental Protection Agency declare that they would begin regulating greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide.

The Democrats in Congress have dropped all pretense of representing their constituents, passing huge bills filled with pork in the middle of the night without allowing them to even be read by themselves or by the public. They have demonstrated themselves to be beholden to their union benefactors and their corporate benefactors instead of their constituents. Exhibit number one is the new Financial Regulatory Reform law. This law, which was supported by mega-banks such as Citigroup and AIG encodes regulations sure to cripple smaller lending institutions into law.

The latest slap in the face was the endorsement of building a mosque at Ground Zero by the President, a position opposed by about 70% of Americans. Of course, when he was roundly criticized, he quickly pulled back, which was quickly followed by another pullback that his first statement was correct. I guess he was for it before he was against it before he was for it, again.

The arrogance and contempt of the President and Congress toward the American people is staggering. The people’s wishes no longer matter – only those desires of the oligarchs matter. They are even living the lifestyle of the aristocracy of old, enriching themselves at the public’s expense a la Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) or thumbing their noses at laws the remainder of us are expected to follow a la Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY). Of course, let’s not forget the 5 vacations the first family has taken since July 4^th, including lavish vacations to Spain and Martha’s Vineyard, all subsidized by you, the taxpayer, in a time of economic crisis.

The last time Americans were ruled without representation, a revolution was fomented. It is time for another revolution, this time at the ballot boxes. If we do not throw these people out on their ears, all hope for a government of the people, by the people, and for the people is lost.

When Life Gives You Lemonade, The Government Will Turn It Into Lemons

2010-08-06T19:57:00.002-04:00

Last week, budding entrepreneur, 7 year old Julie Murphy, loaded up her wagon with packets of Kool-Aide brand lemonade, sugar, and bottles of water and, accompanied by her mother, headed to the Last Thursday monthly arts and crafts festival in Portland, Oregon. Business was brisk, until about 20 minutes after Julie opened, until a Multnomah County inspector arrived and asked to see Julie’s temporary restaurant license. After being told that the 7 year old did not have the $120 license, the inspector told Julie that she would have to shut down or face a $500 fine.

A friend who sent me this story titled his email “You Won’t Believe This.” Unfortunately, as I told him, it is all too believable. In fact, this happens every day, maybe not to 7-year-old girls, but to small businessmen and women across the country.

After the case was publicized, Multnomah County wisely publicly apologized to Julie and the county manager assured Julie’s mother that he would “look into” what should be done in future incidents of this kind. But what if the lemonade stand owner was not a 7-year-old girl? What if the lemonade stand owner had been a 30-year-old man? Do you think that the next time, the temporary business license would be waived?

This case seems like a very minor incident, but it is emblematic of a major problem in our country. Overregulation by the government is a burden on small business and this is often intentional.

I looked up the Multnomah County Health Departments site on temporary restaurant licenses. It seems that, even if Julie had forked over the $120 and filled out the two page application form, she still would have been require to come up with the following items:

· An Approved Kitchen – If any food is to be prepared ahead of time, stored, or handled at a different location than the event, then it must be done in an approved and licensed kitchen.

· Handwashing – A handwashing station providing free flowing water must be set up inside the booth. This can be as simple as a 5+ gallon container with a faucet on the bottom which can drain out fresh warm water, a 5+ gallon bucket underneath to catch the falling water, liquid soap, and paper towels. The spigot must be the type that can stay on by itself so that you can wash both hands under the running water.

· Cold and Hot Holding Facilities – For cold items you can use commercial refrigerators, ice chests, and refrigerator trucks work well. For hot items you can use grills, steam tables, ovens, and/or burners.

· Roof and Floor – Unless you are inside a building your will need these items. For a roof a tarp like rain cover should suffice. For a floor sheets of plywood work well, unless you happen to be on concrete which will suffice.

· Probe Thermometer – A pocket probe thermometer with a range of 0 – 220 F is needed to check food temperatures.

· Sanitizing Cloths – A one gallon bucket of water with 100-ppm free chlorine (about a teaspoon/tablespoon of bleach is needed to sanitize food contact surfaces

Of course, this assumes that Julie had already obtained her county food handler’s card. Oh, and nothing can be made at home, it all must be made on site or in an “approved” kitchen.

It is easy to see how these regulations increase costs to the businessperson. Every increased cost, particularly in the natal period of the business, decreases that business chance of survival. The fact of the matter is that every regulation increases the cost of business. The cost is not only in fees and fines, but man-hours assuring compliance and often alterations to efficiency and the costs of bringing the business into compliance with the regulations

A dirty little secret is that, often, these regulations are placed at the behest of large corporations. It should come as no surprise that one of the biggest supporters of the recent financial regulatory reform bill was Citibank. (Citibank, incidentally, was the sixth largest donor to Pres. Obama’s campaign and the largest donor to his inauguration. Citibank was also the 4th largest donor to Chris Dodd’s latest re-election campaign. Dodd was the author of the reform bill.) The fact of the matter is that these regulations are often written by corporations with the intention of putting smaller, competing companies out of business.

Let’s take an example: In the recently passed Financial Reform Bill, there is a clause that requires any financial business to submit an IRS 1099 form to any business in which they conduct more than $600 worth of business in any given year. So who is going to be better able to absorb this cost, the mega-bank that has thousands of employees and low-level clerks, or the small town community bank that employs a dozen people? As a percentage of income, this regulation has a markedly greater impact on the smaller business.

Overregulation costs consumers, as well. Not only do we pay a higher price, passed along in the goods that we buy, but someone has to pay the regulators. That means taxes. So essentially, we are paying more money to bureaucrats to regulate – an activity in which nothing tangible is produced. In other words, it is an outlay with recompense.

Rarely taken into account when passing regulations is the Law of Unintended Consequences. This “law” says that there are always unforeseen consequences whenever there is regulation. For instance, in order to protect US steel from cheaper foreign imports, the United States placed quotas on foreign steel. Not having to compete with the foreign steel, the steel companies in the United States were able to sell their steel at higher prices. Good for them, right? Not so fast. It seems that auto manufacturers, faced with rising costs of steel, started moving their factories overseas, where steel is cheaper. Consequently, the auto companies stopped buying steel from American producers. Now, there are no more major steel manufacturers in the United States.

Now, I’m not saying that regulations are all unnecessary. You can make a case for a few of them, but if we want to encourage small business and economic growth, we need to realize the burden that government regulations impose. Increased regulations decrease efficiency, increase barriers to business – disproportionally to small businesses -, and increase costs for everyone.

Wanted: A Spine in the White House

2010-08-04T18:38:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, I wrote about the proposed mosque and Islamic cultural center to be built at Ground Zero. As I discussed yesterday, the government has no right to interfere with the building of the mosque on religious grounds. This is as it should be. We cannot pick and choose which religions receive Constitutional protection. Our liberties are being eroded so quickly in this current administration that we cannot be complicit in the further weakening of our Constitution.

But while the government cannot prohibit this project from being built, the citizenry has not only the right, but the responsibility to object. In his role as leader of the United States, President Obama should rebuke the Cordoba Project. While he cannot bring a legal challenge to bear, he certainly can use his bully pulpit to bring attention to this travesty and to apply public pressure on those that would desecrate the site where so many innocents died at the hands of Islamic extremists.

Unfortunately, President Obama has not expressed an opinion on the situation, except to say, through his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, that he will “not get involved in local decision-making like this.”

Obama’s reluctance to express opinions on local issues must come as a surprise to the citizens of Arizona. Or the Cambridge police. Or anyone who objects to the idea of the government mandating that they purchase a product. It doesn’t get much more local than that.

Coming from the President, this is not surprising. While Obama has wasted no amount of overheated rhetoric blasting talk radio, Fox News, Tea Partiers, and anyone else who would dare to voice disagreement with any of the power grabbing schemes he has spearheaded, he has been strangely conciliatory to the Arab (read: Islamic) world. I have no doubt that if he would answer honestly, if he’s capable, he would say that Rush Limbaugh is a greater threat to democracy and world peace than radical jihadists.

Can you imagine what Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman, or Ronald Reagan would have said about the Ground Zero mosque? I suspect that they would not have mumbled that they “ . . . [would] not get involved in local decision-making issues like this.”

Of course, all of those previous Presidents possessed a spine.

Just Because They Have The Right To Do It Doesn't Mean It's Right To Do

2010-08-03T20:23:00.004-04:00

I was performing fluoroscopy – barium enemas, upper GI studies, and such – at Butterworth Hospital in downtown Grand Rapids. I was between cases when one of our techs came in and said that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. Thinking that it must have been a small sightseeing plane, I continued working. Shortly thereafter, someone else came in and said that another plane had flown into the World Trade Center and still another had flown into the Pentagon. I went into the patient waiting room, where there was a television, and watched as the second tower fell.

Very little work got done that day. Every chance we had, we’d stand and numbly watch the coverage of the events of that tragic day. I remember the sick feeling in my stomach and the feeling of walking around in a fog all day. I remember seeing people run in panic from the Capitol Building and from the crumbling towers. I remember watching the images over and over as jets flew into the twin towers and watching the towers fall. I remember my horror as I watched people jump from the towers, rather than being burned to death. I recall the enormous clouds of ash that covered blocks of Manhattan and anyone nearby. I remember following the news, hoping against hope that survivors would be found. Of course, they never were.

I went to a chapel service at the hospital the next day and remember one of the other physicians vent about how terribly angry he was. I was on the verge of tears the entire time. Probably everyone who reads this can recount similar stories and emotions from that day.

Today, 8 ½ years after over 3,000 innocent men, women, and children were slaughtered by radical Islamists, the final hurdle was cleared for the construction of a 13 story mosque and Islamic cultural center 600 feet from Ground Zero, slated to cost more than $100 million. The New York Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously voted today that the building that stands on the site of the proposed mosque is not of sufficient architectural or historical interest that it would rise to landmark status.

The leader of the effort to build this complex at Ground Zero, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, claims that the Cordoba House, as it will be called, will be a “bridge to understanding” between the West and Islam. This “interfaith” center will, according to Rauf, help heal the wounds caused by the 9/11 attacks.

This, of course, is simply a steaming pile of bovine excrement.

The backers of this project have no desire to build bridges. They have no intention of healing wounds, but to rub salt in them. Anyone who truly believes the lies of Imam Rauf and his apologists, including New York Mayor Bloomberg, are ignorant – and it is a willing ignorance. Even a minimal amount of reading and research explains the purpose of this mosque. It is simply a symbol of conquest.

It is the ancient practice of Islamic conquerors to build mosques on the sites of their conquests. Think the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. After Jerusalem fell to the armies of Islam, the Temple of Solomon was razed and the Mosque of the Rock built in its place. Look at the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey. Formerly an Orthodox basilica, after the Islamic conquest of Istanbul, it was turned into a mosque. Even the name “Cordoba” has significance. It hearkens back to a great mosque built on the ruins of a Catholic Church after the Islamic conquest of Cordoba, Spain.

As such, the proposed Cordoba House is not so much a provocation, as some suggest. It is a proclamation. It is a statement that a great victory has been won – Allah has delivered the infidels to the army of Islam. It is a symbol that here is a foothold of Islam into the heart of the dhimmi – the peoples who do not live under the rule of Islam and Sharia. It is a monument to jihad.

Of course, the construction of this mosque in this place is extraordinarily offensive. But, no matter how offensive, no matter how sensitive, no matter how in-your-face, it isn’t illegal.

One of the paradoxes of our right to freedom of religion is that those rights are extended to those who would not grant us those same rights, were they in charge. And this is as it should be. Our country was originally settled by people fleeing religious persecution and they realized that religious freedom is a basic human right. Now, religious freedom cannot impinge on others’ individual freedoms. This is why, I don’t care what your religion says, human sacrifice is not permitted. Nor are honor killings, stoning of women who have been raped, killing of homosexuals, and other niceties of Sharia law. But building a mosque, in an area that is zoned for that type of activity, should not prohibited merely because it is offensive.

In order for any of our faiths to be protected from discrimination, all of our faiths must be protected. The government cannot be permitted to pick and choose between groups based on religious affiliation.

But while the government cannot be allowed to discriminate based on religious affiliation, the same does not hold true for individual citizens, non-governmental organizations, and other religious groups. We do not have the same responsibility of cooperation and non-judmentalism, as does our government. One of the most disappointing facets of this whole sordid affair is the unsurprising silence from other “mainstream” Muslims.

If any bridges are going to be built, it is imperative that the Muslim community in the United States denounces Sharia and its adherents. Vocal objections to the Cordoba Project would be a good place to start.

After the hearing by the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission today, a construction worker in attendance, Andy Sullivan, who volunteered at Ground Zero in the days after 9/11, said, “You’re going to have a problem getting labor there. Everyone I’ve talked to will not lift a finger to build that disgrace.” I hope he is correct. I hope that construction workers, plumbers, electricians, and suppliers refuse to assist on the project, but with the economy and unemployment as it is, I won’t hold my breath.

I hope that inspectors go over the building with a fine-toothed comb, looking for any infractions they can find. I don’t believe the City of New York should cut the Cordoba House any slack, whatsoever.

I hope that protesters gather in front of the mosque every day that it is open. I would like to see the people behind this and all who enter shunned and shamed.

The problem is that it is impossible to shame those who have no shame.

Ahoy there, maties! Belay those taxes!

2010-08-02T18:36:00.003-04:00

Making the leap from total irrelevance to barely relevant last week was the man who is described by columnist Jonah Goldberg as “The Human Toothache” – Sen. John Kerry.

It seems that the erstwhile Presidential candidate recently bought a luxury yacht valued at $7 million, built in New Zealand.

Now, I don’t really care how Kerry spends his money, he married it legally. If he wants to stimulate the economy of New Zealand, that’s his business. The problem, it seems, is that Kerry, in order to avoid the exorbitant excise and mooring taxes of his home state of Massachusetts, decided to moor his yacht in the much more yacht-friendly state of Rhode Island. In so doing, Kerry avoids approximately $437,500 in sales tax and an additional $70,000/year in excise taxes. As one of the ruling elite who constantly remind us that the wealthy need to “pay their fair share” of taxes, Kerry painted himself into a corner of having to choose between fiscal stupidity and rank hypocrisy. In true liberal elite fashion, he chose hypocrisy. Would that Senator Kerry was as responsible with the American taxpayer’s money as with his own.

What does this episode teach us, except for the obvious fact that the ruling elites feel that they don’t have to live by the same rules that they impose on the rest of us? The primary, elementary, lesson we can take from this is that taxes are a disincentive.

Like water, business flows downhill from those areas of higher expense to areas of lower expense. In this case, in order to squeeze the maximum dollar out of a taxpayer, the state of Massachusetts lost all revenue from this activity to the state of Rhode Island, which has a much more favorable tax rate.

This should be a “duh!” concept. Taxes are an expense and every businessman knows that if you can turn out the same product for less expense, you increase your profit. Yet, as obvious as this concept is, our state and federal governments continue to insist that, in this recession, the way to raise revenue is to increase taxes on the very businesses and job creators that are keeping the economy afloat. When I had the opportunity to question a candidate vying to be governor of Michigan who favors keeping Michigan’s odious business tax in place why I should locate a new business in Michigan when right across the border in Indiana, there are much more favorable tax rates, he said that he doesn’t like the business tax, but it must be kept in place in order to maintain tax revenue. Of course, the problem with this thinking is that, even though Michigan collects much more in the way of taxes than does Indiana on each individual business, it is very difficult to collect taxes on a non-existent business.

Likewise, existing businesses must make a decision on whether the cost of moving their business to a state with more favorable tax rates is more prohibitive than staying in state and paying the confiscatory tax rates. In our modern global economy, what is true for our states is also true for nations. The United States has one of the highest business tax rates in the world. Why, then, do we wonder why our companies are fleeing to those countries with more favorable business environments?

What is true for businesses is also true for individuals. Whether we realize it or not, tax rates have a major influence on our population. The most obvious way this occurs is when workers move to follow a moving business. As I told this gubernatorial candidate, a large reason Michigan is in a fiscal crisis even deeper than that of most of the remainder of the US is not because our tax rates aren’t high enough. It is because we are hemorrhaging jobs and, therefore, dramatically contracting our tax base.

In addition to this, taxes are factored into the cost of living in any particular region. State and local taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, etc. are all obvious factors in the cost of living. Those same taxes on businesses and services that are passed on to the consumer in the price of the object are less opaque, but no less real. Taxes are no less of an expense on a business than payroll and inventory and the business owner needs to recoup those expenses to make a profit. When business falls off, the owner of the business needs to cut expenses in order to stay afloat. Since taxes are a fixed expense, the business owner must cut expenses elsewhere. In a business that is running close to the margin of efficiency, anyway, the only way to do this often involves cutting personnel or cutting employee benefits.

It is incontrovertible that taxes harm businesses. This is why people such as the Obama administration’s Chair of Economic Advisors, Christina Romer and Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, have both recently stated that raising taxes during a recession will prolong or deepen a recession. Yet, Obama and the Congressional Democrats are determined to do just that by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire on Dec. 31, 2010.

As of now, the Democrats say that the increases will only affect the “rich”, even though many of those affected will be small businesses that file taxes as individuals. So, in this era of almost 10% unemployment, the Democrats are proposing taxes be raised on the very people and businesses that are employers.

It is also easy for the Democrats to say, “Trust us. We’ll only let the taxes expire on the wealthy. The rest of you have nothing to worry about.” Yet, no bill has, as yet, been offered in Congress to extend the tax cuts for the lower income brackets. Why is that? When the Congress has an approval rating of 11% and Obama’s approval rating is less than 50%, wouldn’t it make sense to introduce a bill that is bound to be very popular before the mid-term elections? Do you really trust Congress when they tell you that they’ll pass a bill extending the tax cuts after the mid-term elections? Because politicians never lie, right?

Speaking of politicians never lying, Kerry, one week after this incident became public has vowed to “ . . . pay all the taxes I legally owe.” Yeah, we’ll see. Personally, I would rather have seen him keep the boat in Rhode Island and tell Massachusetts to jump in the ocean with their taxes. Maybe that would have given the Bay State an incentive to lower their taxes and keep business in state.

Hey, there’s an idea!

Shooting for the Crescent Moon

2010-07-08T06:56:00.004-04:00

During his inaugural address, our new President, Barack Obama, promised to "restore science to its rightful place." Never mind that, under his predecessor, George W. Bush, there was no evidence that science ever slipped from the vernerated position that it has always held in the United States. Everyone understood that this was a shot at Bush's ethical position that unborn life is precious and worth protecting as well as his reticence to sacrifice the United States' economy on the altar of global warming alarmism that has subsequently been shown to rely on poorly conducted and blatantly political "science". Still, if, as Keith Olbermann claims, Obama "is one of the 1000 smartest people in the country" (which demonstrates, once again, that Olbermann is either one of the great satirists in history or totally bat-guano nuts), one would have to anticipate an exciting new path for scientific enquiry and progress from this administration.

And sure enough, this week we found that our Scientist-in-chief has forged a new path for the sciences through no less than the agency that, with the possible exception of the Manhattan Project (and I won't even go there), is the verysymbol of American scientific prowess and innovation - the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). At the end of June this year, the director of NASA, Charles Bolden, in an interview with Al Jazeera stated that President Obama had outlined his priorities for NASA:

"When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- [Obama] charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering,"

(If you receive your news solely from the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party, you may be excused from not hearing this story, as it has not been mentioned once in the Washington Post, New York Times, or on ABC, NBC, or CBS newscast.)

So, I guess that this means that this President feels that the "rightful place" of science is to raise the self-esteem of Muslims. Maybe President Obama should educate us on the historic contributions of Islam to science and math, because whatever they may have once been, there has not been much contribution lately. In a 2006 article in the journalNature, Jim Al-Khalili states that:

Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) nations spend 0.34% of their GDP on scientific research, compared to the global average of 2.36%

Scientists, engineers, and technicians make up less than 1% of the population in Muslim countries, compared to about 4% worldwide and 14% in developed countries

Less than 1% of the world's academic papers come from Muslim nations

The entire "Arab world" publishes fewer academic papers than Harvard University researchers alone.

Indeed, Islam has been traditionally skeptical, if not overtly hostile to science. Much of the glowing rhetoric we heard concerning Islamic achievement in math and sciences in President Obama's Cairo speech was flat-out wrong. Even in the minority of those cases where the putative achievement didn't occur elsewhere (e.g. - the compass was invented in China, long before Mohammed was a twinkle in his daddy's eye), they were often achieved by Jewish or Christian Arabs in the face of active hostility from Islam. It seems that the Great Redistributor is not merely content with the redistribution of wealth, but now is intent on redistributing achievement, as well.

Maybe we should impress on the Muslim world that a religious establishment that forbids women to have any place in academia deserves not to feel so good about their contributions, however inflated those may be.

"Restoring science to its rightful place" is just another example of the flowery rhetoric of a vapid President for whom no low is too low to stoop if it will advance his liberal agenda.

I still recall the excitement and awe that I, as well as the entire nation, felt upon watching Neil Armstrong step onto the moon. It is a sad statement that this proud agency's "foremost" priority is no longer the exploration of the final frontier, but is, instead, to raise the self-esteem of the slow kid in the classroom.

Why Soccer Sucks

2010-06-17T22:10:00.002-04:00

Once again, we are in the midst of the quadrennial snooze-fest that is known throughout the rest of the globe as the World Cup. Here in the USA, it is better known as that &#^!)* show that is pre-empting Judge Judy again.

Every four years, the rest of the world reminds us that “football”, as they call it (I personally think the NFL should copyright the word football so that it may be reserved for the noble game for which it rightfully belongs), is the most popular sport in the world. Of course it is. It is just about the only sport in which the rest of the world can beat the US, though every victory over the USA should come with an asterisk, as will be discussed shortly.

Actually, soccer is the quintessential European and South American game. You have a bunch of activity, aimless running about, and noise, but when the game is over, nothing much has taken place and everyone goes out to eat at McDonald’s and watch an American movie.

The World Cup also provides yet another excuse for the usual scolds to harangue the rest of us about what sport we should prefer. You know these people. They are usually the ones that wear shirts with little alligators or polo players on it, drink expensive wine with names like Chateau du toilette, and have bumper stickers on their Prius that say things like, “Wouldn’t it be great if schools had all the money they need and the Air Force had to have a bake sale to buy a bomber?” They inform us that Americans don’t have the sophistication or intelligence to appreciate the nuances of the game. This is a real laugh if you’ve seen European and South American soccer fans. Appreciation of nuance, for these fans, went out the window with their 4^th pre-match ale. Most of the effete Americans who describe the game thusly wouldn’t be caught dead sharing face paint with a European or South American fan.

By the way, any American that refers to soccer as “football” deserves, no, needs to be immediately pummeled for his own good.

This week, The Nation columnist, Dave Zirin, explains why the Right (i.e. – conservatives) doesn’t like soccer. The reason is . . . wait for it . . . if you think about it you’ll know . . . because of RACISM! Of course! We right-wing bigots don’t like to watch little brown men running around kicking a ball. That would also explain why Americans enjoy pro football (the REAL football), basketball, and baseball, because there are no minorities in those sports, right? Of course, every “failing” of conservatism can be explained by racism to these lefty nutcases.

No, the reason Americans don’t like soccer is that it is about as exciting as watching your toenails grow. Think about it. How many of these games end up in a 0-0 or 1-1 tie. (And while we’re at it, there is no such number as “nil”. C’mon people, it’s zero!) I mean, this is supposed to be the greatest sporting event in the world. How can you play 90 minutes and end up with the same score with which you started? What is the point? It is no wonder that there are so many riots by soccer fans. I can imagine someone saying, “I paid 800,000 lira for tickets and 14 beers and spent 2 hours of my afternoon to come to the game and nothing happened? Someone is going to get their head bashed for this!” If I wanted to watch TV to go to sleep, I’d watch Obama speeches.

In fact, soccer would be much more interesting if the camera would scan the crowd every once in a while which, of course, is the reason that they don’t. The crowds for the World Cup are a regular United Nations. On one side of the field, you might see tanked up Scots laying a beat-down on a group of Ecuadorians, while on the other, Brazilian fans might be flashing their ta-tas at the camera. Instead, the camera shows a bunch of guys in shorts kicking a ball, often backwards. If these fans had access to real sports, they would, no doubt, rather spend their time watching football or NASCAR.

The World Cup does, however, serve to demonstrate unequivocally that the United States has the best athletes in the world. Think about it. If you are the best athlete in Argentina or Great Britain, what sport do you play? Soccer, of course. Now, if you are an American, what sport do you play? Why, football, basketball, baseball, and maybe even hockey. I’ll be generous and say that maybe someone would choose soccer over hockey. That still means our soccer players are our fourth-class athletes. In fact, the Limeys should be hanging their heads in shame that their A-team was tied (of course) by our D-team. Imagine if Michael Jordan, Allen Iverson, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Randy Moss played soccer. Think of Wilt Chamberlain in goal or Bob Cousy as team captain. Think of someone trying to head a ball kicked by former Oakland Raider punter, Ray Guy. It would be the last thing he would ever head, primarily because his head would no longer be attached to his neck. We would hand the rest of the world’s butts to them on a platter.

The best soccer player in Europe right now is supposedly a British chap named Wayne Rooney. Rooney actually is a “footballer” (a stupid term in itself. It is a football player or, in this case, soccer player) that Americans might like. He looks kind of like a scaled down version of the UFC’s Randy Couture, and has roughly the same temperament. Rooney is best known for getting a “red card” (Sigh! Really?) for stomping on a Portuguese player in the World Cup four years ago. In the true football, Rooney might be a safety.

The best South American player, and possibly the best player in the world, is an Argentinean named Lionel Messi. Messi is 1.69 meters, 5’7” tall! Are you kidding me? In the US, he would be a jockey. And don’t even get me started on using the metric system for vital statistics. If they want Americans to be interested in the game, they could at least use the measurement system that God intended.

Now, the argument I often hear is, “Soccer is really hard. You couldn’t do it.” This is true. Of course, I can’t play the piccolo or do gymnastics, either, but that doesn’t mean that either of them is exciting to watch. Think about what soccer players do – they run and they kick. They don’t jump. They don’t throw. They don’t catch. They don’t even use their hands, for crying out loud! I realize that they run for 45 minutes at a time, but so do marathon runners. That doesn’t make it a manly sport. In fact, to watch these guys, you’d think they are the biggest wussies in the world. If they so much as get brushed, they immediately collapse to the ground as if shot and roll around in agony for about half an hour. What would happen if they were to meet Ray Lewis on the line of scrimmage? They’d probably scream and run away.

The major story about this year’s World Cup isn’t about the games at all (NEWSFLASH – Sri Lanka ties Paraguay 0 – 0!) No, the major story is about the fans’ vuvuzelas. In spite of the vaguely obscene sounding name, the vuvuzela is a plastic horn that, for some reason, is very popular at soccer games in South Africa. The fans, once again, demonstrating their appreciation of nuance, blow these things incessantly throughout the game, no matter who has the ball. When watching on TV, the vuvuzelas make it sound as if your Sony big screen has been infested with a swarm of cicadas. This proves that American fans are definitely more sophisticated than European fans. In the US vuvuelas would only be used when the Raiders come to the line of scrimmage or when Kobe Bryant is at the free throw line.

My best advice is to just put up with soccer for the month, and then you won’t have to think about it again for another four years. Don’t panic about the commentators who claim that soccer will be the next big thing in America. It ain’t gonna happen. Unless, of course, Obama totally sells us down the European road, then who knows?

Disclaimer – The author doesn’t really think that soccer sucks and actually kind of enjoys watching the World Cup. I just enjoy tweaking soccer fans and liberals even more. -jc

Why I Am Voting For Justin Amash

2010-06-03T18:48:00.000-04:00

It is a biennial American tradition. We gripe about our politicians and claim we want something different, someone who is principled and honest, someone who will do as he says he will do. We want Jimmy Stewart’s Mr. Smith - someone who will stand up to the entrenched interests in Washington and vote his conscious, someone who will look out for his country, not his own self-interests. We say that this is the type of person we want to elect to Congress, and then we go out and pull the lever for the same old people, or politicians just like them.

Sure, sometimes we get excited about people who say that they are a different type of politician, but have never demonstrated any type of independent streak that would give credence to this claim. We have suffered through many politicians like this, our current President being exhibit A. Hope and change becomes the same old political game, only with more ineptitude and coarser tactics.

So where do we find a Mr. Smith? May I suggest that we have just a man in Michigan’s 3^rd Congressional district – Justin Amash.

Let me just say right now that I don’t work for Mr. Amash. I’ve never even met the man and I’m sure he wouldn’t know me from Adam were I to walk up to him on the street. Neither he nor his campaign solicited this endorsement. In fact, until I send it to him, they will have no clue that it is coming. But while I have never met Mr. Amash, I have followed his brief political career with interest.

Justin Amash is my state Representative in Lansing. He campaigned on a conservative platform and has consistently, and without exception, done what he said he would do. He is less of a Republican than he is a true conservative. His philosophy strongly leans libertarian and he is a consistent and vocal opponent of government expansion. He is a man who is not afraid to vote NO, even if it is an unpopular vote and even if it runs counter to his party. If you see votes of 103-1 in the Michigan House, chances are very good that one vote belongs to Mr. Amash. He will not “go along to get along.”

In an era where “transparency” is a mantra of every politician, Justin means it. He is the only Michigan legislator to post every vote he casts on Facebook and Twitter from the House floor. He gives the number of the bill, a brief synopsis, and the reason why he voted as he did. Sometimes that explanation may be along the lines of, “This sounds like it might be a good bill, but we weren’t given a chance to read all of it before we voted on it.” (He has promised not to vote for a bill he has not read, a stance that, in itself, is a breath of fresh air and a dose of common sense that should be welcome in Washington.) After posting his vote on Facebook, he welcomes comments and questions and often enters into the discussion. He is also one of the only one or two Michigan Representatives that has never missed a vote in the House.

In this day when “obstructionist” is a pejorative term, it is my belief that more obstructionists are exactly what are needed in Washington. We need someone who will stand up to the proponents of big government, from both parties. As he has done in Lansing, I have no doubt that Mr. Amash will gladly oppose his own party when necessary. If you are looking for someone who will expand government, play party politics, or “bring the pork back to Grand Rapids,” look elsewhere. That is not the way he has played the game in Lansing and I see no evidence that he will change now.

Please go to his website: http://amashforcongress.com for his specific policy positions and to learn more about him. If you are on Facebook, I encourage you to begin following Mr. Amash.

On Aug. 3, I encourage you to vote for Justin Amash in the Republican primary for Michigan’s 3^rd district. This year, let’s be serious when we say we want something different.

The Poor Need to Pay Their Fair Share

2010-05-29T17:42:00.003-04:00

This week, Hillary Clinton trotted out the now familiar mantra of the Socialist Democrats that the wealthy "need to start paying their fair share." This is a tired trope which has as much to do with the Socialist Democratic political tactics of divide-and-conquer as it does with political philosophy.

In a country where the top 5% of wage earners pay 60% of the income taxes and the top 50% pay 97%, we have almost half of the wage earners in the United States paying only 3% of income taxes (IRS data for 2008.) Let me repeat that - practically the entire tax burden of this country is borne by half of the wage earners. In fact, the wealthy pay a higher percentage of taxes after the Bush tax cuts than before the Bush tax cuts. We are at the cusp of the disturbing and dangerous condition where the majority will be able to vote themselves unlimited benefits and demand that the minority pay for them.

This, of course, is the intention of the Socialist Democrats. The more savvy of them (in which category I do not place Barack Obama) know that socialism doesn't work. This type of redistribution of wealth has never worked, no matter how or where its been tried. For just the latest example, look at Greece. No, this is not about "fairness" or raising the poor out of poverty. On the contrary, the left would like to place more people in that class that depends on government largesse, because they are a reliable voting bloc. So, as they have successfully done for years with race (for the latest example, look at the flap over the Arizona situation), the Socialist Democrats are trying to divide the country along socioeconomic lines in order to preserve political power.

Anytime you make anything more costly, including by taxation, it creates a disincentive for whatever product or behavior is being taxed. The Socialist Democrats know this very well. This is why they propose taxing soft drinks, cigarettes, and fossil fuels - to discourage people from using them. Likewise, the more earnings and investments are taxed, the less incentive there is for people to earn or invest. In my case, for instance, I am considered by the Obama administration to be "wealthy", a threshold that is getting lower all the time. I work, on average, about 50 hours a week. By the time I pay federal, state, and city income tax, almost 25 of those hours will be spent working for the government. That doesn't count payroll tax, sales tax, etc. With the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and the tax raises that are on the way for Obamacare, my marginal tax rate will be somewhere between 60-70%. I have to decide whether I should continue working in my field if I am going to be punished for it. Maybe it would be better for me to get a much lower stress, 30 hr./week job that pays a fraction of what I'm making now, but I don't have to pay taxes, or at least much in the way of taxes. Many other physicians are evaluating the same thing and, honestly, medicine doesn't look very promising right now.

Instead, I think we should look at a different solution - make the poor pay their fair share of taxes. In short, everyone who votes should be required to pay at least some income tax, no matter how little. When income taxes rise, they should all rise proportionately. This way, increased government spending will affect everyone. There will not be a class of people that vote for government projects and/or subsidies, yet are exempt from the negative ramifications of those projects. If we want to get control over government spending, just start making everyone pay for it. The politicians will get the message very quickly that it is not in their best interest to continue to spend like a drunken sailor. We keep hearing how we all need to participate in a "shared sacrifice". All right, let's make sure the sacrifice is truly shared.

How long do you suppose Nancy Pelosi will continue to utilize a government jet to fly back to California, instead of flying commercial, when someone making $35,000/yr. sees his taxes increase? How important will government funded frog tunnels be, then? Do you think that there may be just a little more outrage over a Timothy Geithner or Al Sharpton touting "shared sacrifice" as they simultaneously dodge the very tax collection agency that they oversee?

If President Obama and his lackeys in the Socialist Democratic party truly wanted to be uniters, not dividers, as they claim to be, I can think of nothing that would unite the people of this country more quickly than an announcement that everyone was going to have to help pay for all the spending the government is up to. That is, if they were serious.

And if frogs had wings, they wouldn't bump their butts every time they hopped.

Dereliction of Duty

2010-05-28T17:30:00.001-04:00

On Monday, May 31st, the United States will celebrate Memorial Day. As a country, we have a tradition of holding our military in high esteem. We have experienced an unprecedented amount of freedom and we realize that it is because of our military that we are able to do so. Monday, cemeteries will be decorated, veteran's groups will have ceremonies, and flags will fly at half-staff.

Memorial Day is also a national holiday. Most Americans will be off work to enjoy time with their families, barbeque, and watch baseball and car races. It is good to take a respite from work to refresh the body and the mind and, hopefully, remember the sacrifices our men and women in uniform have made for us.

But not everyone will be on vacation. Our first responders will continue to be on the job. I and many of my fellow health care workers will spend the day in the hospital. Even some store clerks, gas station attendants, etc. will be on the job Monday. Most importantly, our active duty military men and women overseas will be at work. Meanwhile, President Obama will be taking a vacation.

Now, I'm not normally one to begrudge our Presidents their vacations. I realize that even the President, especially the President, deserves and needs a vacation. Frankly, I'd rather the President be on vacation rather than out stirring up mischief most of the time. But in taking a vacation on Memorial Day, the President is abdicating his duty.

The President of the United States of America is not only our chief executive, he is also Commander-in-Chief of our military. As Commander-in-Chief, it is his responsibility to order our troops into harm's way. In fact, he has done so by continuing the actions in Iraq and escalating the military presence in Afghanistan. This is an awesome responsibility and the military deserves to know that their Commander-in-Chief supports them and is cognizant of their sacrifice.

That is why it is inexcusable that, when a wreath is laid on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National cemetery - that monument recognizing the ultimate sacrifice given by generations of soldiers - that it will be Vice-President Biden laying the wreath. .

Oh, sure. I have no doubt that the "Office of the President" will issue a statement commending our military for their sacrifice and lecturing us to do the same. Maybe the President will have even read it before it is issued, but there is a significance in tradition and ceremony - in the military more than in almost any other institution in the country.

There have been other Presidents who have not attended the wreath laying ceremony at Arlington. In 2002, George W. Bush laid a wreath in the American cemetery in Normandy, France. President Reagan only made four of the Memorial Day ceremonies in his 8 years as President - for one of those, he'd just been shot and for two of the others he was at summits, one in Moscow and the other with leaders of democracies in Williamsburg, VA. The fourth, he was on vacation. George H.W. Bush took Memorial Day for vacation every year. So yes, I fault them for vacationing during this time, as well.

As a President and leader of a party which is seen by a significant segment of the American population as, at best, ambivalent about the military and, at worst, anti-military, it is especially important that Obama take steps to demonstrate that he does, in fact, support the military.

The President can pretty much set his own schedule. Why not take a three day weekend next weekend? Why not last weekend? Heck, take three days in the middle of the week. But the President needs to be at Arlington on Memorial Day.

Some Workers Are More Equal Than Others

2010-01-14T12:05:00.002-05:00

George Orwell, the brilliant English author, is best known for his dystopian novel 1984, describing a future in which a “Big Brother” government absolutely controls its citizens, including their very thoughts. A lesser known, but equally important Orwell work is his short novel, Animal Farm, a brilliant satire on communism. In Animal Farm, a group of farm animals throw off the oppressive bonds of Farmer Jones and claim the farm for themselves. The animals, led by the smartest and most organized animals, the pigs, establish their own society, based on the “Seven Commandments of Animalism”, the most important of which is the seventh commandment, “All animals are equal.” As the story progresses, [SPOILER ALERT!] the pigs wrest more and more control. Finally, the animals awake one morning and find that the seventh commandment has been amended to read, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

Animal Farm was written as a satire, but today we can also see it as prophecy. This week, President Obama and leaders of the House and Senate met for a full-day meeting with heads of the labor unions. The labor unions have been vocal in their opposition to a component of the “health-care reform” bill that would tax so-called Cadillac health plans – those plans given to employees by employers that have premiums greater than $8,000 for a worker and $12,000 for a family (this includes both the workers and employers contributions to the plan.) The unions have a very good reason for their opposition – most union employees have such a plan.

It is now being reported that an agreement has been tentatively struck which would exempt those Cadillac health plans that were the result of a collective bargaining agreement. In other words, two workers, making exactly the same wage, receiving exactly the same benefits would be taxed differently solely because one of those workers belongs to a labor union while the other does not.

Apparently, according to the Democratic leadership in Washington, you do not matter as much if you do not belong to a union as you do if you belong to a union. All workers are equal, but some workers are more equal than others. This should be of no surprise to anyone. In Washington, your needs are not important. What is important are the votes you can deliver to those who are in power. The unions are a reliable constituent of the Democratic Party that deliver a lot of votes and a lot of money. Ergo, they are important and worth protecting. You are not.

This is yet another result of identity politics. We have all been divided into various categories – racial minority or majority, rich or middle class, gay or straight, management or labor, union or non-union, and the list goes on and on. Our government has ceased representing the country as a whole and now only represents those who can help them get re-elected. Do not think for a minute that the politicians in Washington have your best interests in mind, the only interest for which they are looking out is their own.

This “health-care reform” bill is only the latest and most egregious example of that. The persistent bribes in order to secure votes and continue the campaign contributions flowing attest to that. That is why the people of Louisiana and Nebraska receive enormous benefits that are not accorded to other states. Not because those states are in any particular dire need of those benefits - Nebraska has the eleventh best economy in the country - but because the bill is so bad that it was necessary to offer those bribes to ensure passage. That is why, if you are a blue collar worker, even though you probably get paid less and receive poorer benefits than your union co-horts, you get to pay the bill for their health care plans.

Chances are that you are already a second-class citizen of this country. Chances are that, while everyone is equal, you are less equal than some other groups. If not, doubtless you soon will be. Is this really good for our country? I think not.

At the end of Animal Farm, the pigs go into partnership with the previously despised and discredited humans. As the other animals looked through the windows of the farmhouse where the pigs and the humans were drinking and playing cards together, they realized that the pigs and the humans looked more and more alike until they found that they were no longer able to tell the difference.

Reid, Racism, and a Double Standard

2010-01-10T15:23:00.000-05:00

Is there any politician that puts their size 11 in their mouth more often than Harry Reid? I mean, this is the guy who, when touting the new Capitol Visitor’s Center said that at least Congress wouldn’t have to smell the tourists, anymore: "In the summer because of the heat and high humidity, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol. It may be descriptive but it's true." In December, Reid likened those who are opposed to the governmental take-over of our health care system to slave holders and those who would deny women the right to vote and to deny civil rights. Of course, health care “reform” protestors, to Reid, are “evil-mongers.”

Now, Dirty Harry is backpedaling over comments he made during the Presidential campaign saying that Barack Obama could potentially win since he is “light-skinned” and “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” Yesterday, Reid gave the obligatory apology saying, “I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words. I sincerely apologize for offending any and all Americans, especially African-Americans for my improper comments. I was a proud and enthusiastic supporter of Barack Obama during the campaign and have worked as hard as I can to advance President Obama's legislative agenda."

It might be instructive to remember what Reid said when then Senate Majority Leader, Trent Lott faced a similar situation. At a 100^th birthday party for long-time Senator and former segregationist Presidential candidate, Strom Thurmond, Lott said, "I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either," In spite of a very similar apology, Lott was forced by the party to step down from his leadership position. Commenting on Lott’s resignation, Reid said, "He had no alternative. If you tell ethnic jokes in the backroom, it's that much easier to say ethnic things publicly. I've always practiced how I play."

Of course, there is a huge difference in the Harry Reid and Trent Lott situations, namely that amid calls for resignation, the Republican party heeded those calls and forced Lott out of his position while the Democrats are rallying around Reid. Diane Feinstein said, "First of all, all of us are imperfect. Clearly, this was a mistake. Clearly, the leader misspoke and he's also apologized.... The president has accepted the apology and it would seem to me the matter should be closed."

Harry Reid is not the first Democrat to utter racially insensitive quotes. The human gaffe-machine, Joe Biden said of Obama, "[He is] the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." Biden also previously raised eyebrows when he famously stated, “You cannot go to a 7/11 or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking." And, of course, let’s not forget former KKK Exalted Cyclops (really!) Robert Byrd, Senator from West Virginia who once stated in an interview, “There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time.” As is happening in the Reid instance, these statements are defended by being misunderstood, unintentional, and vestiges of childhood speech.

Maybe they are, I don’t know. I do think it is interesting that Republicans don’t receive this benefit of the doubt. When Joe Wilson shouted, “You lie!” during an Obama Presidential address, Maureen Dowd read his mind to say that what he meant was really, “You lie, boy!” Liberal intellectual, Jeneane Garofalo called the tea-partiers, “Racist red-necks,” and added, “This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up." I notice that we haven’t heard from Ms. Dowd or Ms. Garofalo on the Reid comments.

Is Harry Reid a racist? I don’t know. I suspect he is not a racist, merely just an incompetent boob. Barack Obama really is light skinned and I don’t know if that helped with the electorate. I would like to think not, but maybe it did. In any case, the comments were stupid and offensive to a large number of people – or at least offensive when uttered by a conservative.

Conservatives get tired of being branded racists for daring to be conservative. The same people who opposed Hillary-Care are now being branded racists for opposing Obama-care. It is a term that is too easily thrown around and is too unevenly applied. In my opinion, this should not cause Harry Reid his leadership position since he has been able to retain it in spite of all the other incredibly stupid things he’s uttered and done. But, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

If we are so quick to use the term “racism”, let’s just make sure the terms are equally applied.

Taxation Without Representation - 21st Century Style

2010-01-05T19:41:00.001-05:00

As any schoolchild can tell you, well, at least the schoolchildren who were educated before patriots like Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and Nathan Hale were edited out of our textbooks in order to provide room for such historically significant luminaries as Michael Jackson and Oprah Winfrey (unfortunately, I am not making this up), the primary cause for the American Revolution was taxation without representation. Our forefathers found themselves staggering under onerous taxes, imposed by a British political system in which they had no input or influence. This gross unfairness was sufficient for the colonies to revolt against their own country and declare their independence.

Unfortunately, universal suffrage is only a relatively recent phenomenon in the United States. In spite of Abigail Adams’ entreaties to her husband, John, a delegate to the Continental Congress to “remember the ladies,” it wasn’t until 1920 that the 19^th Amendment to the Constitution guaranteed women’s right to vote. In 1870, the 15^th Amendment guaranteed that the right to vote could not be denied by race. Even so, many minorities were prevented the vote by state sanctioned “work-arounds”, such as poll taxes, literacy tests, etc. In 1965, Lyndon Johnson, in conjunction with the Republican legislature, overcame the protests of Southern Democrats to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Since that time, although there have been a few, isolated cases of voter intimidation or suppression, most recently by the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia in the 2008 Presidential election, there is near universal acceptance that, with a few exceptions (those under age 18, convicted felons, etc.), every American citizen has a right to vote for representation to their federal government.

Once the people have elected their Senator or Representative, as long as the elected representative meets Constitutional criteria, they are invariably seated in Congress, and rightly so. The people have the right to elect whom they choose and to not allow that person to represent his constituents seriously undermines the Constitution. Even when the Congressperson is in a minority, she has a right and responsibility to represent her constituents and allow their voice to be heard in debate. Refusal to allow any representative to participate in the lawmaking process runs counter to the principals on which this country is founded.

Unfortunately, under the Obama-Reid-Pelosi troika, that is exactly what has happened. Bills are being written in back rooms without allowing the input of minority voices and debate. Utilizing arcane rules, when the bills are presented to the full chamber, debate is severely limited and the opportunity for introducing amendments is prohibited. The bills are introduced at the last possible moment, not allowing members to read the bills before voting on them and, sometimes, as in the case of the cap-and-tax bill, the bill is still being written as it is being voted on. If not unconstitutional, this at the very least undermines the very spirit of the Constitution and the American ideal. This, in spite of Democratic promises that this would be the most transparent administration and legislative process, ever.

The most recent example of this abuse is the announcement that there will be no conference committee to reconcile the differences in the House and Senate health care reform bills. Normally, a bill passes the House and a similar bill passes the Senate, then a conference committee is formed to hammer out differences between the two bills. Members of the conference committee are appointed from both the majority and minority parties. Once the conference committee reaches agreement, the final bill is sent back to both the House and Senate, where it is voted on. If it passes both chambers of Congress, it is then sent to the President where, if he signs it, it will become law.

In the case of the current bills, however, Congress plans to depart from this tradition. Instead, the administration and the leaders of the House and Senate will meet behind closed doors to try to hammer out a plan. Republicans will not be allowed in the room. When a compromise is reached, Harry Reid will take the bill to the Senate Democratic caucus and Nancy Pelosi will do the same for the House Democratic caucus. Again, Republicans will not be allowed in the room. Each Democratic caucus will have the opportunity to give suggestions, accept bribes, or have their arm twisted, until there is a final agreement. After the compromise is reached, the final bill will be introduced to each house of Congress for a final vote, probably at the last minute and, almost certainly, before Republicans or the press has a chance to find out what is in the bill.

Let me reiterate the process – first, a bill is written behind closed doors without the input, or even debate, by the minority. It is voted upon before anyone has the opportunity to read it, and then a compromise will be reached behind closed doors without the input of any of the minority party. In other words, a bill to revise 1/6 of our economy, including a rash of new taxes, will be passed without representation of a substantial part of the country. As someone whose duly elected representative to the House of Representatives was not allowed any input or debate on this bill, I have a difficult time seeing how the taking of my taxes is legitimate since I was denied representation.

The first time this happened, there was a revolution. Hopefully, the American people will retain the spirit of the founding fathers and will revolt at the ballot box.

Responsible Discrimination

2010-01-04T19:53:00.003-05:00

As a physician, if I was presented with a child having back or bone pain and shortness of breath, and both parents were of African descent, one of the first tests I would order would be a test for sickle cell disease. If both parents were of Mediterranean descent, I might not initially order a sickle cell test, but it would certainly be in order if my initial testing proved fruitless. If one of the parents were white, I would not order a sickle cell test at all.

Is this discriminatory? Absolutely. My patients expect me to discriminate between diseases that they are likely to have versus diseases that they are unlikely to have, based on my knowledge and experience. To do anything less would be abrogation of my responsibility as a physician. If I indiscriminately order tests that have little or no possibility of being positive, it wastes critical health care dollars, can delay the diagnosis, and clogs up the system for everyone else. Believe it or not, in some quarters, this is controversial. Just Google “race-based medicine” for a number of opinions on why this is so. But I believe that most of us would agree that this type of discrimination is entirely justified. It is evidence based and non-malignant. It ensures that medical care is tailored to benefit the patient and society at large.

On New Year’s Eve, one of my Facebook friends posted the following status:

"Protecting the rights of terrorists has been more important than protecting the lives of Americans. That must now change decisively. It is time to know more about would-be terrorists, to profile for terrorists and to actively discriminate based on suspicious terrorist information." -Newt Gingrich. Disgusting; I do not see how this is morally defensible...

I admire my friend’s passion for social justice, but I disagree with his conclusion. I believe that it is not only morally defensible to actively discriminate based on suspicious terrorist information, but that it is morally indefensible not to do so.

A government’s first responsibility is the protection of its citizens. To endanger its citizens for the purpose of ensuring that someone’s feelings are not hurt is an abrogation of the mandate of a government. The preamble of the United States Constitution explicitly states this purpose of establishing the government:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

In the case of terrorism, the government has not only the right, but also the responsibility to be prejudicial against citizens of other countries, if necessary to protect its own citizens. This is not to say that we should intentionally harass non-citizens without cause, but that is not what Newt said. He specifically said that we must “actively discriminate based on suspicious terrorist information.” [italics mine.] No one who is not a citizen of the United States has a right to enter our country without permission. If we have the slightest reason to believe that someone may have terrorist connections or sympathies, it is essential that those suspicions be totally allayed before that person is allowed entrance into the United States.

These protective measures may necessarily include profiling. There is no question that over the last decade, the vast majority of terrorist incidents in the world, and against the United States, have been conduction by young Muslim men. That is not to say that women or members of other religions cannot conduct terrorist activity, but it is irresponsible for the government not to concentrate its attention on the group that is most likely to conduct a terrorist act. To do otherwise diverts resources and tells our enemies that we are not serious about combating terrorism.

This is not just an Obama administration issue. It started during the Bush administration, after 9/11, when we saw Norwegian grandmothers going through intrusive screening at the same rate as young, Middle Eastern men – maybe more in our attempt not to appear discriminatory – and we all had our fingernail clippers confiscated. Since the Richard Reid shoe-bombing incident, we all have to take off our shoes to go through security. Now, since the panty-bombing attempt, we can’t go to the restroom or have a blanket or a book on or laps during the last hour of a flight. The TSA under the Obama administration is merely continuing the dangerous policies of the Bush administration.

As Christopher Hitchens said, “Why are we so bad at detecting the guilty and so good at collectively punishing the innocent?” I think the reason is that we are unwilling to use our collective knowledge and experience to do those things that are necessary to effectively and efficiently use the information available to concentrate on those few people who are the risk. Instead, in our politically correct society, we are more concerned with sparing feelings than saving lives.

Why this is so controversial, I don’t know. In medicine, we know that to discriminate based on knowledge and evidence is essential in order to save lives. Why should we be so reluctant to do the same when it comes to air safety and national security?

Predictions for 2010

2009-12-30T11:39:00.002-05:00

Finally, we are about to put behind us 2009, a year which almost all of us will be happy to forget. As we look ahead to 2010, we can only hope that the next year, and decade, will be better than the last. Whether it will be, is open to question. With that in mind, here are my predictions for 2010 – some serious, some not so much:

The New Orleans Saints will rally in the second half to narrowly beat the Indianapolis Colts in a Super Bowl that will live up to its name.

The summer will be very mild and the winter will be harsh, conditions that the global warming advocates will use as proof that we are on the brink of global warming annihilation.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg will resign from the Supreme Court. President Obama will nominate a very liberal judge to the Supreme Court. This will be vigorously opposed by the Republicans, who will be able to do absolutely nothing about it.

A major terrorist attack in the United States will succeed. The Obama administration will use it as proof that the Bush administration’s policies failed. Janet Napolitano will assure us that “the system worked.”

Tiger Woods will return to golf and win the British Open. All the sponsors who previously dropped him will return.

The Republicans will win back many seats in the house in the midterm elections, but not enough to regain control. Those defeated Blue Dog Democrats who voted for Obamacare will all wind up with jobs in the Obama administration or in liberal think tanks.

Prior to the mid-term elections, at least four more Democrats will cross the aisle and become Republicans.

Some team will win the World Series and no one will really care.

Rap music will remain crap.

Janet Napolitano, up until now Teflon, will finally be fired.

Joe Biden will slowly be re-allowed back into the public eye. He will inevitably say something incredibly stupid and be yanked back into obscurity by the administration.

The Los Angeles Lakers will repeat as NBA champions. Kobe Bryant will remain the biggest whiner in basketball.

There will be a bailout of newspapers, thus ending any premise of subjective journalism.

Harry Reid and Chris Dodd will be soundly defeated in their Senate elections. They will promptly receive jobs in the administration or as lobbyists.

More scandals involving Rep. Charlie Rangel will come to light, but nothing will come of them.

The economy will continue to flatline. The President will blame the Bush Administration.

A major sex scandal will involve the Obama administration. This will be largely ignored by the Main Stream Media.

Tony Stewart will narrowly edge out Jimmy Johnson for the NASCAR championship, garnering far more attention and endorsements than Jimmy Johnson ever did, in spite of the fact that he has had one of the most incredible runs in sports history.

I will not be offered a position in the Obama administration.

John Thune and Mitt Romney will emerge as leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination for 2012.

Notre Dame will be one of the year’s biggest surprises in college football, ending the season ranked in the top 10 under new head coach, Brian Kelly.

Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, will resign in protest of President Obama’s continued conciliatory approach to Iran. She will prepare to run for her prior Senate seat or challenge Obama in 2012.

There will be another major scandal involving global warming scientists. It will receive about as much attention by the mainstream media as the first one did.

Realizing that criticizing Rush Limbaugh is a losing proposition, the new favorite whipping boy for the Obama administration will be Glenn Beck. In response, the Glenn Beck show will continue to rise in the ratings and at least two more major scandals will emerge as the result of Beck’s reporting.

ACORN will continue to function as if nothing ever happened.

In conference committee, unions will be exempted from the taxes on “Cadillac” health care plans in Obamacare. This will cost at least 3 representatives their seats in the midterm elections.

My golf game will not improve, my novel will only slightly progress, I will continue to be a Facebook addict, and I will lose 100 lbs. by the end of the year.

Have a happy New Year, everyone!

Letter to my Senators

2009-12-21T11:08:00.000-05:00

This is a letter that I just sent one of my state Senators, Carl Levin. I will send Sen. Debbie Stabenow a similar letter.

Sen. Levin,

I am not entirely certain why I am writing this as I don't expect you to take it seriously, anyway. This Omnibus Health Care Bill is a travesty in many ways. It will doubtlessly raise the cost of medicine, add to the deficit (despite the mathematical maneuverings of Congress in paying for 10 years of medical care with 14 years of fees and increased taxes), it will decrease the quality of medical care, and it punishes those of us who work in the health care field.

Add to that the prostitution of Sens. Nelson and Landrieu (and who knows who else) and their vote selling, and this is a bill that should never see the light of day. We, the citizens of the United States, should be able to expect better from our elected representatives.

Jeff Chesnut, DO

Senators for Sale

2009-12-20T19:59:00.002-05:00

A story has it that George Bernard Shaw walked up to a lady at a party and said, “Madam, if I gave you $50 million, would you sleep with me?”

“Of course,” she replied.

“How about if I gave you $10?” asked Shaw.

“Mr. Shaw,” she said, “What kind of woman do you think I am?”

Shaw replied, “We’ve already established what kind of woman you are. All we are doing now is haggling over the price.”

P.J. O’Rourke was correct when he termed the United States Congress “A Parliament of Whores”. Yesterday, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) became just the latest United States Senator to demonstrate the price for which he is willing to sell his vote. Nelson was reputedly a pro-life Senator who had stated that his conscience would not allow him to support the latest iteration of the current Omnibus Health Care Bill unless it contained strong prohibitions against using taxpayer funds for abortions.

Most pro-life advocates are such because we feel that abortion is a moral evil, the taking of an innocent life. It is a deep-seated conviction, not one that is customarily used as a negotiating tool. Sen. Nelson, however, went into a back room with the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, to discuss this issue of conscience. He didn’t come out with the anti-abortion language he desired. In fact, he didn’t come out with anti-abortion language, at all. The language to which Nelson acquiesced promises that each state may individually choose whether or not federal taxpayer money will be used to provide coverage of abortions in the government’s insurance exchange. (Incidentally, the mechanism for how the states will decide this issue is not detailed, but you can bet it will not be left up to the voters.)

Any residual pangs of conscience that Nelson may have felt were apparently assuaged by another little side agreement resulting from the closed-door meeting. It seems that Medicare will be extended to everyone who makes less than 133% of the poverty level. Now that may be perfectly reasonable but, with Medicare, every state has to pay a percentage, typically about 33-50%, of that expanded coverage.

Every state, that is, except Nebraska.

Yes, you read that correctly. That means that if you live, as I do, in the People’s Republic of Michigan, with the worst economy in the country and an unemployment rate of almost 15%, your tax dollars will be paying for Medicare for the citizens of the great state of Nebraska (11^th best economy; 4.5% unemployment rate.) Nelson also scored some additional concessions for Nebraska, some regulation exemptions for physician owned hospitals and others, but the Medicare deal is the biggie.

(By the way, can we just drop the phrase “Pro-life Democrat Senator”? I think it has been amply demonstrated that there is no such creature.)

Of course, it would be unfair to single out Sen. Nelson for this type of extortion. Earlier in this process, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), a “conservative” Democrat walked away with a deal so outrageous that it has earned the sobriquet, The Louisiana Purchase. It seems that Sen. Landrieu also had a crisis of conscience about voting for a bill that will almost certainly raise insurance rates, decrease quality and accessibility of health care, and cost the country trillions of dollars. Her guilt was salved by a provision written into the bill granting $100 million in Medicare subsidies to all states in which every county or parish were declared disaster areas within the preceding 7 fiscal years. Guess which one and only state in the US qualifies? If you said, “Louisiana,” you win the grand prize. And since these are matching funds, Landrieu correctly bragged, “I am not going to be defensive about asking for help in this situation and it is not a $100 million fix, it is a $300 million fix." Just to prove she has a sense of humor, Landrieu denied that this was the reason she decided to change her vote.

These are only the payoffs that we know of. Why don’t we know what other items may be in this bill? Because no one, except Harry Reid, has seen the bill, yet. That’s right, the bill over which the Senate has been debating is not the bill on which they will be voting. Only in Washington can this make an iota of sense. Sen. Reid plans of producing the bill at the last possible moment, just like the “stimulus” bill and the cap-and-tax bill, so that the Senators and, more importantly, the watchdogs and the media will not have time to study the bill before the vote.

Now, there is a huge rush to pass this bill before the Senate breaks for Christmas. In fact, according to Senate rules, the Senate cannot vote on the bill until Christmas Eve. Why the rush? Because health care is in such a crisis that people will be dying in the street until they get the new and improved Obamacare? If that were the case, why does the bill not even go into effect until 2014 (though we will start paying for it next year? How else can the Office of Management and Budget claim that it will not increase the deficit during its first 10 years? It is because we pay for 14 years and get coverage for 10.) No, the reason that Dirty Harry and crew are anxious to pass this is that it is a dog and they know it. They do not want to have happen what happened during the fall recess when members of Congress were confronted by their angry constituents over the bill. They want to go home with a fait accompli. Plus, 2010 is an election year and Congress is betting that the people’s memories will be short. They don’t want to be involved in this dispute in an election year.

Over the next several weeks, expect to hear of additional back-room deals, vote selling, and extortion. The Democrats know that passing this bill will cost them seats in Congress. Watch how many those “Blue Dog” Democrats that are voted out in 2010 land jobs in the Obama administration or liberal Washington think tanks. I suspect that if the public knew about all the deals that have been and will be struck, they would be appalled. This is the very reason that, according to the Gallup polling agency, Congressional approval ratings have been hovering around 25%. It is time for the public to get disgusted enough to send Congress to the unemployment line.

After all, it doesn’t matter how much she costs, beneath it all, a whore is still a whore.

President Obama's War

2009-12-01T20:36:00.001-05:00

In what was certain to be a controversial decision, no matter what he decided, President Obama announced tonight that he will send 30,000 more troops to the war effort in Afghanistan. Much of the left wing, and a few conservatives, will lament that the US should totally pull out of Afghanistan. Most of the right wing will decry the decision, saying that the President has only gone “half-way” in meeting General McChrystal’s troop requests. And, maybe most importantly, the children of America will be angry because the President pre-empted the Charley Brown Christmas Special.

A refrain that has been heard from much of the right side of the aisle is that President Obama has an obligation to “listen to his generals.” In fact, while the President has a moral obligation to listen to his generals, he is definitely not obligated to follow those recommendations. Our founding fathers, in their wisdom, set up our government so that the ultimate control of the military was vested in civilian leaders. In fact, unlike many other countries, an active duty military man cannot even hold public office. This has served our country well for over 200 years. We have never had to undergo a military coup, as have so many other countries.

The founding fathers, remembering the dangers of power that is too centralized in one person or institution, set up our government to specifically avoid that problem. In fact, while the President of the United States is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, it is the Congress that controls the purse strings and can choose to fund or not fund wars. As commander-in-chief, however, the President is granted very broad powers in how he handles the military.

As much noise as we are hearing about the President deferring to his generals, there are a number of precedents of Presidents ignoring, overruling, and even firing his generals. Probably the most well-known example is that of Abraham Lincoln, who went through an entire panoply of generals until he came upon one, U.S. Grant, who would finally prosecute the Civil War the way Lincoln wanted it prosecuted. President Harry Truman famously fired war hero, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who took his policy disagreements with Truman public. More recently, President George W. Bush was castigated by the left for favoring Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld’s, idea of a smaller force in Iraq in favor of the larger force requested by his generals. The success of the surge, in this case, proved the generals correct.

So, while it is not incumbent upon a President to take his generals’ recommendations, it takes a large measure of self-confidence and even hubris not to do so. Of course, we know that there is no lack of hubris in this President.

I don’t know whether the President’s decision is the correct one. I hope it is. But whether it is the right decision, or not, the decision belongs to President Obama, alone. It is his strategy, not President Bush’s that will decide whether we go on to victory or defeat in Afghanistan. This is now President Obama’s war.

My Take on the USPSTF Recommendations for Screening Mammography

2009-11-30T21:30:00.002-05:00

For the couple of weeks, the United States Preventative Services Task Force new recommendations regarding screening mammography have sown confusion in the minds of many. I must say that, after reading the abstract (summary) of the article, I, too, am confused. Sometime in the next week or two, I will go to the medical library at our hospital and read the entire article. Until that time, I do have some preliminary concerns and opinions.

Those who know me or read my writing realize that I am very cynical of anything that comes out of Washington. In this case, I guess I am less cynical than most who think that this is a precursor to governmental rationing of health care under a government run health system. Don’t get me wrong, I think this will be used to ration mammograms, but I don’t think that was the purpose of this report.

My Facebook friends also know that I do a lot of mammography and, of every modality I do, it is the one I dislike the most. That is true for most radiologists. In fact, when a radiologist claims to like mammography, we generally make sure they never have access to sharp instruments in the workplace. In fact, mammography is drudgery. Reading mammograms is a 9 hr. eye test. It requires an incredible amount of concentration and the implications of a missed significant finding are great. Mammography has the poorest reimbursement rate of any studies we do, but is the number one cause of malpractice suits in radiology. My group barely breaks even on mammography and most groups actually lose money. Given these issues, I should be one of the happiest people in the world to have to do less mammography.

Breast cancer, though, can be a devastating disease. It is the leading cause of cancer deaths in women. Approximately 1 out of 10 women will develop breast cancer during the course of their lives. Even if not fatal, treatment can be disfiguring and disruptive. The earlier we can catch breast cancer, the less invasive treatment may be. For these reasons, I have great concerns about these new recommendations that I will attempt to address.

Purpose of Screening Studies

First, we need to understand the purpose of a screening study. A screening study is a study designed to detect pathology in an at-risk population in which there is no cause to suspect that the pathology exists, except for their membership in that population. In other words, screening studies are conducted on patients without symptoms. Therefore, if a woman or her doctor feels a lump in her breast, a mammogram to evaluate that lump is not a screening mammogram, it is a diagnostic mammogram and is not covered by this report.

By their very nature, screening studies are inefficient. They are designed for the highest degree of sensitivity, thereby necessarily sacrificing specificity. Allow me to illustrate the reason for this with the following, simplified, example drawn from mammography. One of the signs of cancer that I use when I look at a mammogram is calcifications. Now there are a lot of different types of calcifications in the breasts from various causes, most of which are not cancer. There are some calcifications that I see that I can almost 100% guarantee will be malignant, but there are also calcifications that I can 100% guarantee will be benign. If these were the only calcifications we saw in the breast, we would be golden, but unfortunately, there are a great number of calcifications between these two extremes of the spectrum, ranging from almost certainly cancerous to almost certainly benign and everything in between. If I were to refer only those calcifications that I knew 100% to be cancer for biopsy, I would have 100% specificity (every biopsy is positive for cancer), but very poor sensitivity (I would miss a lot of cancers among those equivocal calcifications). If I referred every calcification for biopsy, I would have 100% sensitivity (I would detect every cancer), but I would have poor specificity (we would have a lot of benign biopsies.) Because we consider having cancer worse than undergoing a biopsy for a benign condition, we intentionally try to sample all calcifications that have a chance of being malignant, only omitting those calcifications that we are certain are benign.

Every department that does mammography is required by law to conduct quality assurance of their screening examinations. In our practice, once or twice each week, a group of radiologists who read mammography conduct an audit of every biopsy that is performed at our institution and even those performed at another institution, if we read the initial mammogram. During this audit, each mammogram is reviewed and compared to the pathology report. If we recommended a biopsy that turned out to be malignant, we also look at previous mammograms to determine whether the abnormality was present on the previous studies. If we have ancillary studies (e.g. - breast ultrasound or MRI), those are also reviewed. Not only are these audits good on-going training for radiologists, but important data is collected, namely, statistics are generated on everyone who reads mammograms and are compared with national published averages, as well as compared to other radiologists in our practice. This allows us to see how we are doing as a group and individually and allows us to identify any outliers. Of the statistics that are generated, the most important is our false negative rate (i.e. - we read a mammogram as negative, but sometime within a year of that reading, a biopsy proven cancer was detected.) Another, almost as important, statistic we collect is our false positive rate (i.e.- we recommend a biopsy, but the biopsy reveals no cancer.) The national average for false positives, and for our group, is 80%. In other words, of every 10 biopsies we recommend, we expect 2 cancers. If we get more false positives, we are recommending too many biopsies and if we get less false positives, we worry that we are not biopsying enough and that we are missing cancers we should be detecting.

Why Don’t We Screen Everyone?

Now, the American Cancer Society recommends that women start receiving screening mammograms at age 40, yet we know of women in their 30’s and even in their 20’s who get breast carcinoma. So why don’t we conduct screening on women in these age groups? In fact, men can also get breast cancer, so why don’t we routinely screen men? If we truly wanted to catch all the breast cancers that are “catchable”, we would start screening both males and females at puberty and not stop until death. The reason we don’t is two-fold: 1) Mammograms have consequences, and 2) Money.

First, let’s look at the consequences of screening mammography. The consequence of false positives is the major reason given by the task force to stop doing mammography in women in their 40’s. Women who have a false positive report receive unnecessary procedures on their breasts, up to and including potentially disfiguring surgery. Biopsies are uncomfortable and the stress of a woman being told she needs a biopsy is not inconsiderable. There is always the possibility of complications, including infection or even anesthesia related death. Now, admittedly, most of these complications (excluding stress – which is near universal) are very rare, but they are possible.

There are also consequences to even true positives. There is the possibility that we may remove a very slow growing cancer in a woman that would never have become problematic. This is especially a problem with prostate screening in men. We know that many men develop prostate cancer that remains confined to the prostate and would remain subclinical all their lives, until they died of some unrelated illness. We don’t know how many breast carcinomas may remain subclinical, but it may be a not insignificant sum, especially among the cancer that we are most concerned about removing – ductal carcinoma in situ. In this case, a woman might undergo mastectomy, chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy for a cancer that would never have been a problem to her.

There are even consequences to normal mammograms. First, mammograms are uncomfortable for most women and can be very painful for some. Second, mammograms involve radiation. The fact of the matter is that we don’t know how much radiation is required to cause breast cancer, but we are almost certain that increasing radiation to the breasts increases the rate of breast cancer. This is especially true in those breasts that have not finished developing, especially in those women who have never been pregnant, and even among those women who are still subject to the hormonal influences of menstruation. The breasts of women who are post-menopausal are probably less susceptible to radiation (though hormonal replacement therapy may negate some of that protective influence.)

However crass it may sound, the second reason we don’t perform screening mammograms on everyone is that screening is very cost-inefficient. This is the reason, incidentally, that the idea that preventative medicine will save money in the long run is specious. In fact, for every breast cancer that is discovered by screening mammography in the United States, we, as a society, spend over $17,000. Now, just because we detect the cancer doesn’t mean the cancer can be cured. We know that screening mammography has reduced mortality (death rate) among women between 40-50 by about 4%. Thus, for every Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) saved, we, as a society, spend approximately $26,500 - $85,500, depending on the study.

Now, if your life or your loved-one’s life is the one saved, this is a small price to pay, but in these times of limited health care dollars, we need to consider cost to society of screening examinations. How much money is too much to save one life? One of the reasons that insurance costs have increased is that most states now require insurance to cover screening studies such as mammograms, PSA screens and colonoscopies.

Several years ago, I went to a major breast care conference during which a pioneer in the field of mammography was honored. This man was a giant in the field, contributing to many of the practices we use today and one of the researchers that proved that mammography saves lives (it was not always assumed so.) This was an annual award and the recipient of the reward traditionally would give a keynote address at the conclusion of the conference. In his keynote address, this mammographer stunned everyone in the audience when he stated that he concluded that it was not moral to continue to provide screening mammograms. His reasoning was that there are only a limited amount of health care dollars (he was a big proponent of a single-payer health care system) and that screening mammography was so expensive per life saved, that we would get more value for our buck if we would put that money into inner-city health clinics, vaccination programs, etc.

The fact is, younger patients have less breast cancer, so we get diminishing returns when we screen younger patients until, eventually, it becomes cost-prohibitive to do so. The problem is deciding where to draw that cost-effectiveness line.

Problems with the Task Force Recommendations

The Panel

One major problem I have with the task force recommendations is that the members of the task force did not include anyone that actually diagnoses or treats breast cancer. There was no radiologist, surgeon, or oncologist on the panel. In fact, I’m not even sure that there was anyone on the panel who still sees patients, at all. Most of the panel are epidemiologists, public health physicians and nurses, and mathematicians and economists. These people, therefore, are number crunchers and do not deal with the various concerns of patients dealing with breast cancer. This manifested itself most notably in the inflated value the panel assigned to complications of false positive studies. While there is no doubt that there is stress and discomfort involved with false positive results, these pale in comparison with the stress and discomfort, not to mention potential death that may occur in women who develop breast cancer that was potentially treatable.

This also caused the panel to lose sight of the real purpose of screening mammography, which is to detect those cancers that are potentially treatable and will extend the patient’s life, in favor of maximizing cost-effectiveness of the screening mammograms.

The References

Like I stated earlier, I have not read the complete paper, so I don’t know if there are reference studies that were used that were not cited in the abstract, though I don’t understand why there would be. When I reviewed the abstract, however, I was struck by the fact that most of the references cited were other organizations statistics concerning screening mammograms and cost-analysis studies. I didn’t recognize hardly any of the titles of the articles. What I did recognize, however, were notable absences of multiple landmark studies, including those that laid the groundwork for performing screening mammograms in women under 50 years of age.

Unusual Statements by the Panel

I was also struck by several statements by members of the panel that demonstrated their total lack of understanding of mammography. The task force abstract states, “Digital mammography detects some cases of cancer not identified by film mammography; film mammography detects some cases of cancer not identified by digital mammography.” This is false. While digital mammography can identify some cases of cancer that film mammography cannot, there is no evidence that film mammography may detect cancers not identified by digital mammography.

On a news show, one of the members of the panel stated that screening ultrasound is just as good as screening mammography and doesn’t have the risk of radiation. While he was correct about not using radiation, the statement that ultrasound is just as good as screening mammography is not only laughable, but it is a reckless statement for an “expert” to make in front of the public. In actuality, ultrasound is a complimentary study to mammography and is not adequate, by itself, to screen for breast cancer.

Recommendations Based on No Evidence

A very unusual recommendation of the Task Force is the recommendation that women over 74 not receive screening mammography. The reason given is that there is not enough research to prove that there is an increase in life span in those women that receive screening mammography. Now, there may be very good reasons not to screen women above a certain age, but the reason given that not enough research is available is just bizarre.

Recommendations Based on Less Than State-of-the-Art Equipment

In another move that is baffling to us that perform mammography is the reliance on studies using film mammography. In a time when most departments are replacing their film based mammogram systems with digital systems, that is kind of like basing a review of the fuel efficiency of cars on studies of the Chevy Nova. Sure, there may be a few still on the road, but they are antiquated and don’t provide a fair representation of the state-of-the-art today. Radiologists will tell you that digital mammography is superior to film mammography, but you don’t even have to take our word for it. In fact, multiple studies, contrary to the statements by the Task Force, also prove this contention. It is puzzling that, with a pronouncement of this magnitude, the latest research was not included.

Lack of Understanding of the Physiology of Breast Cancer

All of the above raise concern about the conclusions of the Task Force, but any, in and of itself, is not a disqualifying factor. What is most disturbing about the recommendations is that they lack an understanding of the physiology of breast cancer. Namely, while breast cancer is more rare in younger patients, the cancer that occurs in younger patients tends to be more aggressive than in older patients. Because of this, we can perform mammograms less often in older women, because the cancer grows more slowly. In a faster growing cancer, however, more frequent screenings are required since the longer interval between screenings allows the cancer to become larger and less amenable to cure. In addition, when talking about Quality Adjusted Life Years, a 40 year old has a longer expected life span than a 65 year old, so the screening in this case is actually more efficient per year of life saved.

My Recommendations

Until I see some new, more convincing data, my recommendations are to follow the American Cancer Society Guidelines. Women with no additional risk factors should have screening mammograms yearly, beginning at age 40. Women with increased risk factors, such as strong first-degree family history or the HrBCA gene should consult their doctor about when to begin screening mammograms.

Mammograms in Elderly Patients

Elderly or infirm women should consult with their physician regarding screening mammograms. It really does not make sense to perform a screening mammogram in a patient with only a couple of years of life expectancy remaining. To put an absolute age on when to discontinue screening mammograms makes very little sense. People are living healthy lives much longer now. There are many 75 year olds that may have a life expectancy of 20 years or more. To deny these women screening mammograms is a crime. On the other hand, if there is no intention to undergo treatment, should cancer be found, a screening mammogram is a waste of money.

Ramifications for Health Care Reform

We have been assured by the administration that this task force recommendation will not affect policy as regards PelosiCare. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Specifically, Section 2713 of the Senate Health Bill would give the recommendations of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force the force of law by requiring all health insurance plans to provide coverage (with no patient co-pays) for “items or services that have in effect a rating of “A” or “B” [recommended] in the current recommendations of the United States Preventive Services Task Force.” White House budget director, Peter Orszag, states that with health care reform, "An independent Medicare commission … will ensure that reforming the health-care system is not a one-time event but an ongoing process that implements the most recent progress in medical science with the goal of improving care and lowering costs." (Washington Post; 11/20/09; Bills Offer Clear Path to Better Health Care; Orszag, Peter)

In addition, this is just the type of recommendation that insurance companies look for in order to deny services. So for the Obama administration to claim that these recommendations will not be used to "ration" medical services are mistaken, at best, and dishonest, at worst. All of us should keep this in mind when we consider increasing government involvement in our health care system.

Adopting these guidelines will cost lives. The media and Democrats went into a frenzy when Sarah Palin mentioned death panels. This may not be what she had in mind, but with recommendations like this, it is a death panel, nevertheless.

Terrorism Trials in New York, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

2009-11-23T11:41:00.002-05:00

In a continuing effort to prove that his administration is the most clueless of all time, President Obama and his Attorney General, Eric Holder, have decided to transfer hardened terrorists, caught on the battlefield and subjected to coercive interrogation techniques, to our country's largest city, into a legal system that presumes innocence and is heavily weighted in evidentiary rulings toward defendants. What could possibly go wrong?

There is so much that is wrong about this decision that it is difficult to know where to start.

According to the Attorney General, civilian courts are, “most likely to lead to a positive result,” for the conviction of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his compatriots. Really? More likely than, say, KSM pleading guilty before a military tribunal and asking to be executed, as he did in late 2008, before Obama swept into office and put all military tribunals on hold?

In fact, as any of us who lived through the O.J. Simpson and Rodney King trials can attest, American jurisprudence can be very fickle. Our judicial system is geared to offer maximum advantage to the accused. The accused are presumed innocent and guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt for conviction. Furthermore, there are very strict guidelines as to the evidence that may be presented. Except under very limited conditions, a search warrant is required to search a suspect’s property. There are very strict “chain of evidence” guidelines as to how that evidence is handled. Defendants cannot be compelled to testify against themselves and are, in fact, guaranteed the right to have an attorney present during their interrogation. Physical duress is strictly prohibited and even mental duress is very limited during an interrogation. In fact, these rights must be enumerated to the suspect or any evidence or confession that is obtained before the recitation of these Miranda rights may not be used during court proceedings.

Khalid Sheik Mohammed was captured on a battlefield by soldiers, not policemen. Miranda rights were not read. No warrants were issued. An extradition warrant was never issued. He asked for an attorney and was denied.

His confession was elicited by enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, which have been decried by this very administration as torture. Is there anyone who thinks that a judge might not have a little problem with this?

Holder and Obama profess that this will not be a problem. Holder told a Senate panel that, “Failure is not an option.” Oh really? Then why presume innocence? Is this just a show trial with a pre-determined outcome or are we really going to try these terrorists in a fair manner? And what happens if they are found not guilty? Will they be able to freely walk the streets?

President Obama, when asked whether it was offensive to try KSM in a civilian court stupidly said, “I don't think it will be offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him.” So now, the President of the United States has already publicly declared that the defendants of a civilian trial has pre-judged the outcome and declared an appropriate sentence. A defense attorney should have a field day with this. Remember, Charles Manson was almost granted a mistrial because Richard Nixon declared him guilty on a national news magazine show, thus tainting the jury pool. No doubt, the 9/11 terrorists’ lawyers will attempt the same tactic.

The fact of the matter is that civilian courts are poorly equipped to deal with prisoners of war. This is without precedent in our history, as Lindsey Graham (RINO-SC), no one’s idea of a raving right-wing nut job, pointed out to Eric Holder at a Senate hearing on the issue.

In addition, there are national security implications. By law, the prosecution must turn over any implicating evidence it possesses to the defense. In a military tribunal, the defense attorneys are military members with security clearances and experience handling classified material. There are no such safeguards in a civilian court. In fact, in a civilian court, the defendant may act as his/her own attorney and be granted unlimited access to this material. Andy McCarthy, the prosecutor of the Blind Sheik and his co-defendants in the first World Trade Center bombing and an avid opponent of civilian trials for terrorists, describes how he was forced to turn over a list of unindicted co-conspirators in the Blind Sheik case which, within 48 hrs., had spread throughout terror networks, alerting members that they were under suspicion causing them to flee the country. Likewise, the 9/11 terrorists will have access to documents describing our counter-terrorism intelligence, possibly putting confidential sources and techniques at risk.

So, why bring terrorists who wanted to plead guilty in a military court into a civilian court where the outcome is far from assured? Simple. This is a sop to Obama’s far-left base. Obama knows that putting the Bush administration and the CIA on trial directly, as the left-wing nut cases would like, would be political suicide. This is a method to indirectly put the Bush administration and their techniques for fighting the war on terrorism on trial. In my opinion, it would not displease Obama if the terrorists were acquitted on a technicality. This would be the ultimate vindication of the left against the Bush administration.

It would also be a travesty of justice.

A letter from Janet Napolitano

2009-11-10T21:54:00.001-05:00

Janet Napolitano, Secretary

Dept. of Homeland Security

Washington, DC

My Fellow Citizens of the World in the United States,

As you know, we recently suffered a man-caused disaster at Ft. Hood, Texas, when an oppressed member of the Religion of Peace, apparently suffering from pre-post-traumatic stress syndrome, was driven to commit an act of violence after receiving orders to deploy to an overseas contingency operation.

The President and I would like to express that we are very disappointed and find this type of activity totally unacceptable. But look on the bright side, at least he wasn’t expressing his opposition to the President’s desires in a town hall meeting.

While we may never know what his motives were, you may be assured that it has nothing to do with the hijacked Religion of Peace or their Prophet (pbuh.) Our working theory right now is that Maj. Hasan was marginalized by President Bush, which drove him to take subliminal orders from Rush Limbaugh.

We extend our sympathies to the victims of this tragedy – those members of the Religion of Peace that will undoubtedly feel the backlash from those gun-toters and Bible-clingers that make up the Republican Party.

I would, however, like to take this opportunity to say, “I told you so.” I was mocked for describing the terror threat from military veterans earlier in the year. Well, who’s laughing now? (Not that I’m laughing, you understand.) Doubtless, this poor, confused victim was also brainwashed by Glen Beck to be a pro-life wacko, too.

The Obama administration is being very pro-active to ensure that another man-caused disaster like this doesn’t happen again. Effective immediately, soldiers will no longer be allowed to use guns. An Army base is no place for firearms. This order will be extended throughout our Overseas Contingency Operation. It may be inconvenient to go to battle without a firearm, but we cannot be too careful, someone may get hurt with those things.

These steps will allow the administration to concentrate on the real extremists – Fox News.

Your nanny,

Janet “Big Sister” Napolitano

In Class, Obama Doesn't Hold A Candle To Bush

2009-11-10T20:39:00.003-05:00

Last Thursday, a radical Muslim extremist walked into a building packed with unarmed American soldiers, jumped up on a table, and shouted, “Allahu Akbar!” (Allah is great!) and started shooting. When the gunfire was brought to an abrupt halt by a courageous policewoman, 13 people had died and 41 were wounded.

Less than 24 hours following this treasonous attack, President Obama warned the country, “Not to jump to conclusions.” This from the President who firmly jumped with both feet into a controversy by saying Cambridge Police “acted stupidly” in the arrest of his friend. I don’t know if we’re still not supposed to jump to any conclusions, but considering facts that have been revealed, some of which have been known by the CIA for as long as six months, make the conclusion about as much of a jump as stepping over a chalk line.

Less than 24 hours later, President Obama, addressing the Democratic caucus before the PelosiCare vote, President Obama, according to Democratic Congressman, Earl Blumenauer, said the following: “Does anybody think that the teabag, anti-government people are going to support them if they bring down health care? All it will do is confuse and dispirit [Democratic voters] and it will encourage the extremists.

Even disregarding the pornographic epithet of “teabaggers” (which use, incidentally seems to have started with the news anchor, Anderson Cooper, of that “real” news network, CNN), this is a frankly offensive statement. Mr. “Let’s Not Jump to Conclusions” is branding anyone who doesn’t support the Congress’s radical care takeover (which, incidentally, according to the most recent polls, is the majority of the country), extremists and anti-government.

This shouldn’t be surprising. The President has already called Americans who have opposed his policies liars, Nancy Pelosi has called people expressing their opposition to the health care “Un-American”, and Harry Reid has called them “Evil-mongers”. These are not political pundits. These are the top three Democrats in Washington openly expressing their contempt for those people who would oppose their policies. It is clear that they feel that the American people are to, as the President puts it, “Get out of the way . . . and don’t do a lot of talking.”

There were a lot of things to dislike about George W. Bush’s policies, but you didn’t see him disparaging the citizens like this. When it comes to grace and class, Bush had more in his little finger than Obama does in his entire body. Of course, almost everybody does.

The White House War Against Opposition Media

2009-10-19T18:02:00.003-04:00

Several months ago, on another site, I wrote an article on why I felt that the Obama administration is not socialist, it is fascist, an opinion for which I took some heat from some quarters. In follow-up discussions, I predicted that the next step would be for the President to try to control the media. I felt that the first step would be a bail-out of the newspaper industry, thereby granting the administration essential ownership of the paper media. I still believe that is a distinct possibility, but I was wrong about it being the first step. The first step has been to try to isolate, alienate, and obstruct FOX News.

Of course, the Obama administration made no secret of its antipathy to FOX News, but it has taken on a new dimension over the last month. In the first part of October, the Obama administration informed FOX News that no member of the administration would appear on any FOX News program. On October 11, the attempt to isolate FOX News became public when White House Communications Director, Anita Dunn, went on CNN and declared that the administration doesn't consider FOX News a legitimate news source.

This is the same Anita Dunn who stated that, during the campaign, the Obama campaign totally controlled the media and that they made sure that the media reported what Obama said and not why he was saying it. (This is also the same Anita Dunn who declared that one of her favorite political philosophers and one that she always turns to is mass murderer, Mao Tse Tung.)

Today, it was reported that the White House is now urging other networks to sever any ties with FOX News. As you may or may not know, it is common for news networks to share clips. That is how you see highlights of Meet the Press on FOX News or Sunday Morning with Chris Wallace on CNN. It also explains why you see the same Balloon Boy video on all the networks. For the White House to insist that other networks no longer have ties with FOX News, puts FOX News at a serious competitive disadvantage.

Why does the White House so dislike FOX News? Well, it could be that FOX News is exposing things going on in this administration that the other networks will not. Things like having a radical, communist, truther in the administration, or the ACORN prostitution scandals, or even that the White House Communications Director lists Mao Tse Tung as one of her two "favorite political philosophers." The fact is that the Obama administration does not like opposition viewpoints and is willing to play "hardball" politics in order to silence them. Karl Rove accurately likened this to Richard Nixon's enemy list. In other words, FOX News is the one news outlet that the administration cannot, in Anita Dunn's words, "control."

So now, the Obama administration has admitted that it controls the news media and if the media doesn't play according to the administration's rules, it will be isolated and punished. Is there no mainstream outlet that finds this offensive, or are they too afraid that they will be next?

Roundup of blogs and news - 10/10/09

2009-10-10T10:34:00.002-04:00

The big news of the week is that President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for . . . uh . . . being hopey-changey. What was lost in all this was the other prizes the President won.

John Podhoretz thinks that Obama was the logical choice for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Mark Steyn offers his own unique view of the Nobel Prize and Obama's vision.

Even the very liberal Richard Cohen is scratching his head.

And the Obama/Clinton State Department, classy as always.

The Wall Street Journal describes the Obama administration's war on medical specialists. This punishes some of the most highly trained and hardest-working physicians out there.

During the Clinton administration, the prosecution of Medicare "fraud" became a point of emphasis. The trouble is, the regulations (not laws) enacted by the Clinton administration did not allow for mistakes. There was only fraud or not fraud. This is what can happen with that type of mindset. (Oh, by the way, if someone is undercharged, that is Medicare fraud.)

The sleight of hand required to make the Baucus bill "deficit neutral". Remember, deficit neutral does not mean free. It has to be paid for. In this case, with higher taxes and fees, transferring costs to the states, and cutting Medicare reimbursement 25%, meaning that more docs won't accept Medicare and subsequent rationing.

Another, maybe easier to read, analysis of the Baucus plan.

A second stimulus bill means that the first one did not work. What makes us think a second will work any better? And, more important, how do we pay for it?

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Saudi Arabia wants financial aid if a UN climate control pact lessens fossil fuel dependence.

Andrew Klavan asks, "Is Barack Obama Jesus Christ?"

Jonah Goldberg discusses CNN "fact-checking" a Saturday Night Live sketch.

For those who think that global-warming is settled science, this is an interesting article.

Uh-oh! A reliably Democratic interest group might make the President look bad. Can't have that.

Barack Obama – Still Over His Head

2009-10-06T18:22:00.000-04:00

A few weeks into his Presidency, President Obama had already had to throw Tom Daschle under the bus for tax problems, was taking heat for seating a tax-cheat, Timothy Geithner, as his treasury secretary, and several lesser luminaries he wanted for his administration had to back out because of tax problems. He had to break his own campaign promises about not allowing lobbyists roles in his administration by granting several waivers. He insulted one of our closest allies, Great Britain, by sending back a bust of Winston Churchill that had been a gift by the British government to the American President after 9/11, and had essentially snubbed British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, on an official diplomatic trip to the United States. In an article I wrote at that time, I opined that Obama was "way over his head", an opinion for which I was excoriated by a couple of people and that lead me to being called a racist because I was "obviously judging him on his appearance."

Now, several months later, I see absolutely no reason to change my opinion. In the interim, Obama signed a hurriedly passed "stimulus" bill, breaking at least a couple more campaign promises on the way, that has failed to stimulate anything except the national debt and Democratic interest groups. He consistently sides with dictators and tyrants while insulting allies and ignoring democratic popular movements. Under his watch, North Korea continues to test missiles and atomic bombs and Iran, a regime that has vowed to destroy Israel AND the United States, openly defies international opinion to develop the atomic bomb. Under the Obama administration, the government now owns a large chunk of the domestic auto industry and, flouting existing protocol, the unions received favorable status over preferred shareholders to gain ownership of much of the remainder. Now, it looks like Chrysler and GM will be bankrupt again in about a year. Unemployment continues to climb and there is no end in sight. No matter what you think about the President's health care reform, he has shown himself particularly inept in getting it through Congress or creating a demand for it in the public. Now, the latest embarrassment was to fly to Copenhagen, tell the Olympic committee that they should award Chicago the Olympics primarily because he wants them.

It is time to realize that Barack Obama is the perfect embodiment of the Peter Principle - that a person rises to the level of their incompetence. He is an attractive man who reads a teleprompter well, but who is, at best, a mediocre politician. This should come as no surprise to us. While the left, and particularly the fringe media (ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, etc.), fretted over Sarah Palin's inexperience for the Vice-Presidency, only being the governor of a state, they completely disregarded the lack of any real-life experience possessed by Obama.

This is a man who has never run a business in his life. His job prior to entering politics was as a community organizer, trying to see how much government money he could wrangle for his own special interest group. He was tagged early by the Chicago political machine (and no one runs machine politics like Chicago) as a potential star. He won his first election to the Illinois State Legislature after his three opponents were kicked off the ballot for technicalities in their ballot petitions - things like people printing their names rather than writing them, valid signatures but unregistered collectors, etc - which left him running unopposed. In his election for US Senate, his Democratic opponent withdrew after his "sealed" divorce papers were leaked to the press. In the general election, Republican Jack Ryan also withdrew after his "sealed" divorce papers were leaked, causing a scandal. What are the chances? Obama then made short work of carpetbagger, Alan Keyes, from Maryland.

In his short, less than one term, Senate career, Obama was totally unexceptional other than being named the Most Liberal Senator by National Journal Magazine in 2007. His big break onto the national scene was in delivering the keynote address to the Democratic National Convention in 2004, thus demonstrating his prowess in reading a teleprompter. Obama was being groomed for the Presidency following a Hillary Clinton administration, in 2012 or 2016 but, apparently, the Democratic National Committee forgot to send him the memo.

There is no doubt that Obama is a brilliant campaigner. As Rush Limbaugh said, "He says nothing better than anyone." And it is true. On the campaign trail, a candidate can say whatever they like. You don't like lobbyists? There will be none in my administration. Want Guantanamo closed? It will be within a year. We will withdraw from Iraq within a year. Afghanistan is the good war - I will concentrate on winning there. I will change the tone in Washington. I am a uniter, not a divider. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Unfortunately, when the election is over, you have to actually govern and this is where Obama has been exposed. He has no real world experience outside of politics and his para-political community-organizing gig. He doesn't have even a rudimentary grasp of history or economics. For all of Obama's vaunted intelligence, I have yet to see evidence of it. He hasn't deviated one iota from the far left socialistic/fascistic playbook since coming into office. He doesn't seem to understand that the average American doesn't hold with the liberal philosophy he has been entrenched with all his life. He spouts platitudes about social justice that any sophomore sociology major at his former alma maters, Harvard and Columbia, would instantly recognize and nod his head, but that the average rancher in Kansas or construction worker in Georgia, people with real-world experience, would recognize as insanity. Instead, Obama regularly ridicules his opponents and accuses them of ill will whenever he is opposed. Instead of using his bully pulpit to persuade and inspire, he uses it to lecture, browbeat and declare from on high what is and what is not "acceptable." He wants "conversation and ideas" but, if those ideas don't agree with his viewpoint, he decries them as "partisan politics as usual."

Our President is now in perpetual campaign mode, certain that his charm and erudition can overcome objections to his far-left policies. Unfortunately, while you may be able to get away with promising unicorns that fart rainbows in campaigns, when it comes to governing, people become a little more discerning. That is why, no matter how many times he promises it, people know that you can’t dramatically expand the government health care rolls while simultaneously decreasing the deficit and increasing accessibility to health care providers. People understand that the President is blowing smoke up their skirts and that is why the public support for Obama’s health care reform is tanking, not because of lies and misleading statements from Obama’s opponents. Just try to convince someone that the way to increase efficiency of anything is to have more government involvement and you’ll understand why Obama is having a difficult time selling his program.

All of this might be comical if it wasn’t so serious. Our economy continues stagnate while unemployment rates continue to climb. Indecision on Afghanistan may very well cost us the war or, at the least, more American lives. Iran is on the cusp of becoming a nuclear power and Russia is, once again, flexing her muscles.

A more humble man might regroup, learn some lessons from his failures, and come back as a strong and decisive leader. Of course, humility and Obama do not even belong in the same sentence. If there is anyone who has a high opinion of himself, it is Barack Obama. George Will says, “Presidents often come to be characterized by particular adjectives: "honest" Abe Lincoln, "Grover the Good" Cleveland, "energetic" Theodore Roosevelt, "idealistic" Woodrow Wilson, "Silent Cal" Coolidge, "confident" FDR, "likable" Ike Eisenhower. Less happily, there were "Tricky Dick" Nixon and "Slick Willie" Clinton. Unhappy will be a president whose defining adjective is "vain."

We were promised a President who was post-racial, post-partisan and who would change “politics as usual.” What we got was an ungracious, egotistical, highly partisan, radically left-wing President who is way over his head.

Roundup of blogs and news - 10/01/09

2009-10-01T19:23:00.002-04:00

If abortion isn't going to be covered by the Health Care Bill, why do Democrats keep voting down amendments to specifically prohibit it? According to Sen. Baucus, "This is a health-care bill. This is not an abortion bill."

What good does it do to prohibit government funded health care if we are prohibited from asking them for ID? This is why Joe Wilson was right.

Hollywood is full of degenerates. Whoopi Goldberg is an absolute idiot. It is a good thing that she is a child advocate.

Racism Revival: How to be a 21st Century Bigot, by Sonja Schmidt.

Ann Althouse asks, "Why slam those of us with great health benefits? We worked for it. We earned it. And we're the middle-class people Obama said he wasn't going to hurt.

Speaking of raising taxes on the middle class (and everyone else), can you say, "VAT"?

The President doesn't seem to want to be the leader of a world superpower. Ruben Navarrette, at Real Clear Politics, gives his take.

Daniel Henninger explores this same topic. When we hold out our hand to dictators, what does that say to those brave dissidents of those regimes.

Remember all those countries who were going to like us once we got rid of the Bush braggadocio? Well, now they don't like us because we're weak. Who would have ever thought France would be asking us to man up?

Let's try some strong sanctions and see if they work.

Victor Davis Hanson argues that many of our international problems would go away if we would develop our existing energy sources.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D - Moron) elevates the level of discourse on the floor of the House of Representatives. Where is the outcry for a resolution of condemnation? Anyone? At least he didn't accuse anyone of lying.

Don't you feel bad for Michelle and Oprah's sacrifice by taking a trip to Copenhagen? But no sacrifice is too much if it's for the children. (And just how will the Olympics inspire kids to become the next Oprah Winfrey?)

Multi-millionaire, Michael Moore, claims, "Capitalism never did anything for me." Again, why does anyone take this hypocrite seriously?

Stephen Spruiell at NRO takes on our favorite anti-capitalist.

The newly non-politicized Department of Justice is being awfully slow in releasing information about dismissing the case against those New Black Panther Party.

George Will describes how difficult it is to create a sense of crisis about global warming when temperatures haven't risen for 11 years.

In 2009, 47% of Americans will pay $0 income tax. That means that half the people deciding on how we spend money as a nation will be spending the money earned by the other half. I think that everyone who votes should have to pay taxes. Otherwise, there is no disincentive for reckless spending.

Roundup of blogs and news - 9/29/09

2009-09-29T12:59:00.002-04:00

Where is the outrage from NOW? To discredit Giles and O'Keefe, the investigative journalists who brought down ACORN, libs are trying to find sexually suggestive pictures of Hannah Giles.

Speaking of ACORN, Harry Reid (Sleazeball-NV) is blocking a Senate probe into ACORN's activities, claiming that they would be a "distraction".

A simple explanation as to why "Health Care Reform" is simply income redistribution. Marxism in sheep's clothing.

Fact-checking Obama's claims about Health Care Reform in this NRO article by Michael Cannon and Ramesh Ponnuru.

Robert Samuelson, in the Washington Post, declares that what is driving Health Care Reform is not public needs or wants, but simply ego-gratification.

Until the Democrats take on Medical Liability Reform, any Health Care Reform bill is not serious about saving money.

You lie! Oops! Wait a second. Now, liberal Dems want to include illegal aliens in our shiny, new government run health-care system.

As the United States moves toward a public health care option, Canada moves toward a private option.

Patrick Kennedy, the dumbest of the clan, says that with the new government mandated medical records, patients may dictate what goes into them. As a physician, let me just say that this is totally INSANE!

And not content to provide one totally idiotic news story of the week, Kennedy goes for two as he provides the inevitable warning against conservative violence.

Mark Hemingway explores what is hidden in the Baucus Health Care bill.

Gosh! Who'd a thunk it? The Obama administration, in spite of all their promises and deadlines and excoriation of the Bush administration, finds that closing Gitmo more complicated than they thought.

The President doesn't have time to meet with his hand-picked General in Afghanistan or to "form a strategy", but he has time to go on a month's vacation, golf, chair a UN session, and now fly to Denmark to shill for the Olympics. Glad to see his priorities are in order.

This abuse of the Voting Rights Act by the Department of Justice is just one more example of how highly politicized this administration's DOJ is. Remember when the Dems complained about the politicization of the Bush DOJ?

I don't often link to Jay Nordlinger's recurring NRO column, Impromptus. Not because I don't like it, in fact, it is one of the columns on NRO I most like and the only one to which I subscribe by RSS. But it covers such a wide range of topics that it doesn't really fit into a round-up like this. I offer a link today because I want to introduce you to this wonderfully pithy and well-written feature, but also because of his first topic, "Everything begins with O".

The funniest man in the world, Dave Barry, turns serious as he talks about the squelching of free speech on our nation's campuses.

And here in our great state of Michigan, it seems that neighbors can't watch their neighbor's children without a license. You won't believe this. Or, sadly, maybe you will.

Tell your children to GET A GOVERNMENT JOB!

Frank Fleming is concerned about the angry conservatives and gives hints on how to make conservatives less angry.

Why in the world is the US giving Libya any money at all, let alone funneling it through the Qadaffi family? Especially after the Lockerbie bomber debacle.

Lloyd Marcus, the African-American musician who sings at the Tea-Parties tells us to stop allowing the left to set the rules.

A very important column by David Limbaugh regarding Obama and globalism.

David Brooks is the New York Times' idea of a "good conservative" which means I have very little use for him and his views normally. This article, on The Next Culture War, however, is very good.

When you've lost Richard Cohen . . . An Obama supporter tells Obama to start acting like a President.

This may need to be a recurring item. More public school indoctrination.

Dog Feces Ice Cream - by Mark Steyn

2009-09-26T09:54:00.002-04:00

I don't usually just link to one article, but this article by Mark Steyn is especially good.

Roundup of blogs and news - 9/25/09

2009-09-25T18:43:00.003-04:00

This is a very thought-provoking article by Victor Davis Hanson at National Review Online. If you think of Barack Obama as a college administrator, it all becomes clearer.

Barack Obama's UN address was typical Obama - typically vapid, narcissistic, and pandering to the worst elements of the world.

Rich Lowry offers another take on the UN speech. Obama Triangulates His Country.

Mona Charen offers her take on the President who seems to feel as though American history began with his election.

Meanwhile, this is how a real leader speaks to the U.N. The transcript of Benjamin Netanyahu's speech, in which he rakes the UN over the coals.

This is why some people were so upset about the Obama speech to school children - because in some of our schools, our kids are being indoctrinated. This is a public school. "Red and yellow, black and white, all are equal in his sight." Hmmmm. That sounds familiar.

Speaking of indoctrination, this video is being shown in many of our schools. It is very anti-American and anti-capitalist. The problems are just too many to mention. It is 20 min. long, but you really should see what our children are being taught.

A good article by Pete DuPont in the Wall Street Journal about why Obamacare is bad for your health.

Oh, and how about this? The IRS confirms that if you don't purchase health care insurance under the Baucus plan, you may be sent to jail!

Want to read the Baucus bill before it is voted on? You can't. Baucus claims it is too difficult to put the bill online. Is there no staffer on Capitol Hill who knows how to use a computer?

So, what if all the data that global warming was based on was lost? Nooooo. There's nothing suspicious about that at all!

Wait! Didn't ACORN CEO, Bertha Lewis, say she was glad that the corruption in ACORN came to light? So why is ACORN suing the filmmakers? And why are two of the fired employees joining in the suit for unlawful termination? And why should anyone take anyone from this organization seriously, ever again?

Obama has reportedly asked Gen. Petraeus and Gen. McChrystal, the commander in Afghanistan, to "scrub" their assesments on the war in Afghanistan. I get tired of saying it, but can you imagine what would happen in Bush had done that? And while we're at it, Obama says he doesn't want to commit more resources to Afghanistan until we have a strategy in place. How long has this man been President?

The US government can't get GI bill checks out to veterans who are depending on them for school. But they will do much better with health care. Right?

From TigerHawk, "A few clowns shout at a "tea party" and the media starts worrying about the resurgent Klan, but the left literally attacks the police at the G20 protests and nobody says anything." Could it be that there is a double-standard? Nah!

The President's "Diversity Czar" at the Federal Communications Commission is a Hugo Chavez admirer. The same Hugo Chavez who has systematically shut down media outlets in Venezuela who oppose him and his policies.

If you haven't read them, yet, I have posted the first two essays in my series on Health Care Reform. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here.

And finally, another international incident as Pakistan condemns the U.S. for pre-emptive use of Hillary Clinton.

Whither the Crisis? - Part 2 of a series on Health Care Reform

2009-09-24T21:06:00.001-04:00

We are continually being told that we have a "health care crisis". According to President Obama, in his latest address to the joint session of Congress, the health care system is "at the breaking point." So, we need to ask ourselves if we really do have a crisis and, if so, what, exactly, is the crisis?

A crisis is a situation that requires immediate action in order to avoid catastrophe. We have seen the results, with this administration and the last, of a crisis-oriented administration. As President Obama's Chief-of-Staff, Rahm Emanuel, famously said, "Never let a good crisis go to waste." And this administration certainly hasn't. We have seen an $800 billion dollar "stimulus bill", rushed through Congress and passed before anyone had a chance to read it to respond to the "economic crisis." We saw the government take-over of 2/3 of our domestic auto industry in response to an auto industry crisis. The House of Representatives passed the Cap and Trade Bill before it was finished being written - a bill that, if it passes the Senate, will constitute the largest tax hike on the middle and lower classes in history, in response to the "global warming crisis." Taxes are being levied on sugary juice and sodas in response to the "obesity crisis." A crisis is a very convenient circumstance to rush a bill through Congress without giving the public watchdogs or even the Congress Critters time to analyze the fine print of the legislation and also gives convenient cover to spend a lot of money in order to avert the imminent catastrophe. President Jimmy Carter once said, ""When a president has authority to act unilaterally (as in a crisis), his leadership can be exerted. Otherwise, compromise, delay and confusion are more likely." In fact, when Carter was presented an "energy crisis", he declared fighting it, "The moral equivalent of war."

That is not to say that there are no real crises, but when the government attempts to rush a huge, expensive bill through Congress on the basis of a crisis, our antennae should go up and we need to be sure there actually is a crisis and that what we are doing is necessary to avert that crisis. We've all seen shoot-outs on Main Street in old Western movies. In the movies, the quickest draw always won. In real life, it wasn't like that. A quick draw and shoot with a pistol is wildly inaccurate. The real winner was usually the gunslinger that took time to aim and make sure he was going to hit his target. The trouble with much of our crisis legislation is that we don't take time to aim. We spray our shots wildly, thus wasting valuable ammunition and usually getting ourselves shot, anyway.

So, is the crisis in health care one of quality? You might think so, given some of the rhetoric coming out of Washington. We hear that we spend more on our health care than any other nation, but get less for it. I've debunked this notion in my previous essay, First, Do No Harm, posted on Sept. 12, 2009. We actually have the best health care system in the world and our numbers prove it. I'm not going to reiterate my arguments here, if you haven't yet, read my previous essay.

Another reason for the "crisis" that we hear is that there are a large number of people who have no access to medical care because they cannot get insurance. The original number we heard bandied around was 47 million Americans (out of approximately 304 million), or about 15% of the population. In the most recent speech to the joint session of Congress, President Obama revised that number down to 30 million, since 17 million of those in the higher number were illegal aliens. 30 million is still a substantial number of people uninsured, but is that the whole story? No. Actually, according to the US Census bureau, more than 9 million make more than $75,000/yr. and could afford at least catastrophic health care insurance, if they choose. Many of these people are young, single people who eschew health insurance because they are healthy and would rather spend the money on flat-screen TVs and iPods. Another 14 million people are fully eligible for government programs like SCHIP or Medicaid, but are not signed up. In fact, of the children who are uninsured, over 70% are eligible for SCHIP, Medicaid, or both. That leaves 7 million Americans, or approximately 2% who are chronically uninsured. Now, without a doubt, for those individuals and families, being uninsured is a crisis, but should we restructure the entire US health care system for 2% of our population, especially when 85% of Americans say that they are happy with their health care insurance? Are there other, and better, ways to cover these uninsured people? I argue that there are and I will discuss this topic in upcoming essays.

The third common reason we hear for the "crisis" is that health care costs are rising too rapidly and they have become a burden on our economy. Certainly, health care costs have risen far faster than the general economy over the last couple of decades. They've risen almost as fast as the advances in medicine have. There are a number of reasons for this and I'll address this issue in another essay. According to President Obama, the rising cost of health care depresses the economy of the country and the individual economies of our citizens. In his State of the Union address, President Obama claimed that a bankruptcy occurred every 30 seconds. That is false. There is not even a bankruptcy every 30 seconds in the US, let alone one caused by high medical care costs. In actuality, while people who go bankrupt often have unpaid medical bills, few people (<1%,>because of medical expenses. Almost all hospitals and physicians will allow patients to pay on an installment basis and will not contact credit bureaus if the patient is making regular payments. As Thomas Sowell says, “In a country where everything imaginable is bought and paid for on credit, why is it suddenly a national crisis if some people cannot pay cash up front for medical treatment?”

So, is there a crisis in our health care system? Do we really need to rush a bill through Congress in order to avert an imminent disaster, or do we have time to rationally study and discuss and debate these issues? There is no doubt that health care is expensive, though we cannot expect Mercedes health care for the price of a Yugo. But there are many free-market solutions that do not involve a government that has an unbroken history of bringing in programs at higher cost and more inefficiently than anticipated.

In actuality, there is no more of a crisis now than there was a year or two or three ago. The only crisis for those who are trying to rush this through is that the American people may get wind of what is in the bill. I addressed this in my essay, Honest Barack’s Used Car Lot (posted Aug. 25, 2009.) The situation is too important to be rushed through or relegated to government control.

In my first health care essay, I used the oft-cited medical phrase, Primum non nocere – First, do no harm. We must keep that in mind as we discuss health care reform.

The Party of Racism

2009-09-21T20:45:00.003-04:00

"I guess we'll probably have folks putting on white hoods and white uniforms again and riding through the countryside, intimidating people. That's the logical conclusion if this kind of attitude is not rebuked."

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)

So, according to the Honorable Hank Johnson, the logical conclusion of Joe Wilson shouting, “You lie!” to a man in the act of lying is that, if the House didn’t pass a Resolution of Disapproval, the Klan would, once again, ride out into the night terrorizing and killing. The logical conclusion . . . Really?!? And I suppose if Mr. Wilson doesn’t say, “Excuse me,” after he belches, we’ll have genocide?

Of all the incredibly stupid political utterances throughout the years, and there are many, this has to rank near the top in both idiocy and offensiveness. To compare someone who says, “You lie,” to a night rider of the Ku Klux Klan is breath-takingly inane. And does Rep. Johnson really believe that President Obama, the recipient of said insult, compares to those victims of terrorism, beatings and even lynchings carried out by the Klan? It is an insult to those people who were really victims of this evil organization.

Of course while Johnson’s statement was maybe the most hyperbolic of the last couple of weeks, his wasn’t the only comment about the alleged racism of President Obama’s opponents. The ever-vacuous Maureen Dowd of the New York Times wasn’t content to write an article based on the incident, she actually based her article on something she made up out of thin air. Dowd, whose continued employment at the Gray Lady is somewhat of a mystery in that, while dependably a far-left liberal, she isn’t a very good writer, wrote, “Fair or not,” [hint: When a writer writes ‘fair or not’ you can pretty much take it for granted that it’s not], “what I heard was an unspoken word in the air, ‘You lie, boy!’”

In other words, Wilson didn’t say that, but Maureen Dowd heard it in her head. This apparent schizophrenia, come to think of it, explains a lot about Maureen Dowd. She’d better hope that Obamacare has good psychiatric coverage – that is if the racists allow it to pass.

Then, of course, the execrable Jimmy Carter, not content to be merely one of the worst Presidents in our country’s history, is continuing to solidify his claim on the worst ex-President in history by stating that, "I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African-American." Carter claimed that the attacks on Obama are “unprecedented”. Excuse me, but where was Carter the last eight years? I mean besides conducted unprecedented attacks by an ex-President on a sitting President.

But if anyone should know racism, it is Carter. According to A Voting Rights Odyssey by Laughlin McDonald, director of the ACLU's Voting Project, when Carter was a member of the Sumter County (GA) school board, he asked the state school board to stop construction on a “Negro Elementary School” in 1956 because white parents complained that the school was “too close” to the white elementary school and, "the children, both colored and white, would have to travel the same streets and roads in order to reach their respective schools."

These were only three of the most egregious examples of the charges of racism on the left in the last week. Also chiming in were Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), Virginia Governor, Democrat Tim Kaine, Newsweek’s columnist, Joe Kleine, Rep. Charles “Tax Evasion” Rangel (D-NY), and the always entertaining Rev. Jeremiah Wright, among a number of lesser luminaries.

Of course, these charges were expected at some point and we’d already seen a smattering of it. Witness the comedienne, Jeneane Garofolo, who always acts like she has chronic constipation, nattering on about tea-partiers. The sheer volume of these charges over the last two weeks, however, leave no doubt that the liberals are now pulling out the big guns and going for the nuclear option, to mix a metaphor.

Over the last 8 years, we were reminded that, “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism,” an insipid phrase to begin with. Now, I guess that, to quote a Mark Steyn reader, “Dissent is the lowest form of racism.”

The charges of racism are particularly risible. They are meant to stop all debate. After all, if the underlying motive of the dissent is racism, then that makes the argument automatically invalid. Racism, in the absence of overtly racist actions or words cannot be proven, it can only be supposed a la Maureen Dowd.

By stating that opposition is based on race, policy and ideological differences are deligitimized. We are expected to believe that opposition to President Bush was based on differences in political philosophy, but that same consideration is not given to critics of the current administration. That is one reason that these charges have suddenly exploded on the scene – the liberals know that they are losing the battle over Health Care Reform and, bereft of cogent arguments, they are unable to defend their own position and, instead, intend to deligitimize the opposition’s arguments.

But not only that, the charges of racism has a deeper, more pernicious purpose. By charging racism, the liberal tries to divide society into good vs. evil. Racists are evil, therefore the things they believe are evil, as well. Liberals are anti-racists and, therefore, good. The things they believe and the policies they support are, therefore, also good. Q.E.D.

It is the liberal who throws out the charge of racism in the absence of any evidence who intends to divide society. By pressing these charges, they cynically aim to continue to keep the African-American community in their constituency while continuing to propagate those policies that keep the African-American community dependant upon them. The charges of racism continue to unnecessarily fuel racial tension and create resentment of both races.

As the last eight years under the Bush administration demonstrates, there need not be a racial component to criticize or oppose an administration. Until the criticism of Obama reaches the level of vitriol that was aimed at President Bush, the charges of racism ring hollow.

It is time that the liberals, in general, and the Democrats, in particular, stop the exploitation of African-Americans to further their own political purposes. It is time they start trying to look not at the “ . . . color of their skin, but [at] the content of their character.” It is time that they stop the vile name-calling, accusations, and underhanded political chicanery.

Or is it too racist of me to ask that?

Roundup of blogs and news - 9/21/09

2009-09-21T17:45:00.002-04:00

Leading off tonight, we have Obama's Health and Human Services Department infringing on the right of a private company to exercise their free speech because they are "scaring seniors". There are many of us who believe that seniors should be scared and that the insurance company has not only the right, but the responsibility to inform their customers of what they believe are the problems with Obama's health care reform. Remember when we heard that Bush was trampling on civil rights? How about the right of free speech?

Madeline Albright continues her "exceptional" work as an American envoy, reports John Hinderaker at Powerline. "The Russians in attendance must have wondered how they managed to lose the cold war."

Media Matters, a media "watch-dog" group demonstrates their partisan hackery as they edit out pertinent phrases in a Glenn Beck monologue. Reported by Ed Morrisey at Hot Air.

So, Obama in his recent Sunday morning talking head show blitz didn't want to get the tough questions from Fox News. Chris Wallace calls the White House a "bunch of crybabies." Heh.

Here it comes. I predicted it months ago. Obama is laying the groundwork for a newspaper bail-out. I love this line, "I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding."

So President Obama didn't know that ACORN was receiving a lot of federal funds? Where has he been for the past 20 years?

Wait a minute . . . didn't we get into our current economic mess because of low-interest, high-risk home loans mandated by the Community Reinvestment Act? So why do Congressional Democrats want to expand it?

From Michelle Malkin in the Washington Times - "Undercover journalism is only acceptable when it fits a liberal agenda."

Victor Davis Hanson explores why the backlash against Obama in his article, "Dr. Barack and Mr. Obama."

I am not surprised by this - 45% of doctors would consider quitting if Congress passes health care overhaul, according to a poll by Investor's Business Daily. I am one of the 45%.

From the same poll, 67% of doctors believe that health care for seniors would suffer under the President's Health Care Reform plan.

Again, I think it is an embarrassment that the U.S. is in the United Nations at all. Mona Charen wonders why we are at least involved in the UN Human Rights Council.

Obama is looking for complete nuclear disarmament. According to one official, "He is saying these are the president's weapons, and he wants to look again at the doctrine and their role." Funny, I thought these were America's weapons.

Zbigniew Brzenzinski, Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor, says that Obama should order our military to shoot down Israeli jets if they try to take action against Irans nuclear weapons. Really. This is one more reason that Jimmy Carter was one of the worst presidents in our nation's history. He surrounded himself with these kind of dolts.

And lastly, to complete the circle, Michael Barone writes about liberals trying to stifle dissent. More to come from me on this later. Until then, enjoy Monday Night Football.

Roundup of blogs and news - 9/15/09

2009-09-15T18:30:00.002-04:00

Rich Lowry from National Review Online calls ACORN, "The E.F. Hutton of Prostitution."

The Senate votes to defund ACORN by an 83-7 margin. Who were the 7 who are pro-Child-Whoring Pimp-Assisting (as Jim Geraghty says)? Roland Burris (D-IL), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Robert Casey (D-PA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Bernie Sanders (Socialist-VT), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).

ACORN is fighting back. Instead of offering apologies, they threaten to sue the filmmakers and FOX.

Meanwhile, Charlie Gibson, NEWS ANCHOR at ABC hasn't even heard about the ACORN scandal.

College students are less politically active today than their parents were. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? David French at National Review Online writes an article that all parents of college children should heed.

From the Washington Examiner, inconvenient questions about health care reform.

Thomas Sowell is brilliant.

From the Wall Street Journal, an Angry, Polite 'Mob' Descends on D.C. during the March on Washington on 9/12.

The European Court of Justice says that if an employee is sick on their vacation, their employer must compensate them. Oh, yeah. This won't be abused at all.

Finally, we deal with the racism claim, again. It is clear now that this is a concerted effort to get the conversation off the health care debate and discredit the opposition. From Jonah Goldberg at National Review Online.

Roundup of blogs and news - 9/14/09

2009-09-14T18:17:00.003-04:00

While entirely predictable, this is getting old very quickly. I have no doubt that there are people who do not like President Obama because of the color of his skin, just as there are people who do not like me based on the color of my skin. But to ascribe every bit of opposition to the President's plans and goals to "racism" is not only false, it an insult to citizens of all races. While there are doubtless some who truly believe this garbage, most are political opportunists who are looking to score cheap points and stifle discussion of the issues. President Obama says he wants an honest discussion, yet crying, "Racism!" deligitimizes not only the argument, but the person making the argument. When one comes from an assumption that their opponent is making an argument based on racism, then one is no longer required to defend their position as the opposition argument is not legitimate. President Obama has not been treated with near the malice and opprobrium that was dealt to President Bush. Can we ascribe his treatment to racism? Of course not. That was "legitimate" ideological opposition. By saying an opponent is racist, the liberal claims the high ground - only they can object to something on ideological grounds, conservatives have no legitimate ideological stands. Come on! Do these people really think that if Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, or John Edwards had been elected President that conservatives would have been happy with the government taking over large chunks of the banking and auto industries, imposing huge tax and regulatory burdens with cap-and-tax, and trying to push through a poorly conceived health care "reform"? Of course not. This should be objectionable to those who have really suffered racial discrimination. So let's stop these baseless accusations and get serious, for a change.

Victor Davis Hanson, at The Corner, makes much the same point and chronicles some of the strident anti-Bush rhetoric.

Joe Wilson, in calling President Obama a liar, was technically wrong, but factually correct. In fact, the health care bill DID prohibit health care for illegal immigrants, but also prohibited checking citizenship status. Several GOP amendments requiring proof of citizenship have been introduced and voted down by party-line vote. Now, the White House, by their actions, admits that Rep. Wilson was right.

The President's health care speech was the "policy equivalent of the middle finger."

Speaking of the Liar-in-Chief, remember those heart-wrenching stories from his speech? Not exactly the way they happened. Surprise!

Is there a "right" to health care? Jeff Jacoby says no.

If you or your family has benefitted from a CT scan, PET scan, MRI or other advanced medical technology, this tax on medical technology companies should interest you.

And why do we think that Washington will do it right this time? After all, their track record is abysmal.

The Obama administration isn't cooperating with the Civil Rights Commission on the New Black Panther case. It's getting old to say, but imagine if Bush stonewalled the commission.

More evidence that "cash for clunkers" is a failure. All is did was move impending car sales forward.

Good news - ACORN dropped from the 2010 census efforts. (Notice how "The Paper of Record" omits any reference to ACORN offices facilitating child prostitution.)

National Review Online, my favorite political blog, re-ran this 2008 story on ACORN today. A great explanation of ACORN and Obama's ties to that organization.

The 9/12 March on Washington, as reported by someone who was actually there.

Speaking of the New York Times, the Van Jones case puts the "lie to the Times' objectivity."

Now for the really important news - My fantasy football team pulled ahead in my game vs. Straight Cash Homey last night, thanks to the Chicago Bears defense and their 4 sacks and a safety. The Roasters now have a comfortable 538 pt. to 411 pt. lead and I have the New England kicker and a Raider running back yet to play. My opponent only has one defensive player left, so unless something really weird happens, The Chesnut Roasters should open the season 1-0. Just to make sure, though, I need to sign off and cheer on my guys.

First, Do No Harm – Reforming Health Care (Part One)

2009-09-12T11:56:00.006-04:00

I had originally thought I’d write an essay covering my opinions on the problems in health care and my opinions on how we can reform the system. I quickly realized that such an essay would run many pages and no one wants to wade through that. I’ve decided, therefore to do this in installments. This essay is the first of a planned series on the subject.

Introduction

I don’t know that there is anyone who thinks that health care doesn’t need reformed. The straw man that President Obama posits, that those who oppose his brand of health care reform want the status quo, is just not true. The problems are complex and defy simple, or quick, solutions. The issue requires careful study, sober contemplation, and multi-faceted solutions rather than quick solutions based on political expediency and interest group politics. Unfortunately, serious attempts to comprehensively address these issues are in short supply in Washington these days. In this series, I will attempt to address some of the problems we face and will suggest some potential solutions for those problems.

My Qualifications
Simply put, I am a member of the health care industry. I have been a physician for 23 years, working both in primary care and as a specialist. I have worked for the government when I served in the U.S. Air Force and am now in a private practice. I currently am a radiologist and nuclear medicine physician in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I am a shareholder in one of the largest single-specialty private practice groups in Michigan. I work in several hospitals and a large private medical group. One of the hospitals in which I work is a large, level I trauma center that has the 13^th busiest emergency department in the United States. It is also within the top 10 in the United States in the number of joint replacement surgeries and heart surgeries performed. I am on faculty at the Michigan State University medical school and teach medical students and residents.

My father was a small-town family physician for almost 40 years. He was a true cradle to grave doctor who delivered babies, made house calls, and was on-call 24 hr./day.

One problem that I see with health care reform is that there is a dearth of practicing physicians among the reformers. Most of the people on these committees are politicians, businessmen, or physicians who have not seen the business end of a stethoscope for years. In a field that is growing and changing as quickly as medicine, someone who has not practiced for several years has no conception on how health care has changed. Ask any physician and they will tell you that the practice of medicine 10 years ago is almost unrecognizable today.

So, as far as my qualifications go, they are informed and limited by my daily life as a physician. I don’t claim to be an expert on the insurance industry, the hospital industry, or the pharmaceutical industry. This paper, therefore, shouldn’t be seen as a comprehensive solution, but as a piece of a much larger puzzle.

Primum, non nocere

I will begin with a premise of which I am absolutely convinced, and that is that the United States health care system is, by far and away, the best in the world and it isn’t even close. Our physicians, nurses, and ancillary personnel are better trained than anywhere else, our equipment is better and more plentiful, and our facilities are second to none. It is no accident that our medical schools and residency programs are filled with students from around the world. It is also not merely blind luck that almost every significant medical advance in the last 30 years has come from the United States.

Detractors will point to lower life span in the United States, as compared to other countries, but not account for the high rates of obesity, heart disease, and violent (primarily vehicular) deaths in the United States as compared with most of the rest of the world. These are not health care issues as much as lifestyle issues. As the late syndicated columnist, Mike Royko said

Let us talk about medical care and, one of the biggest problems we have. That problem is you, my fellow American. Yes, you, eating too much and eating the wrong foods; many of you guzzling too much hooch; still puffing away at $2.50 a pack; getting your daily exercise by lumbering from the fridge to the microwave to the couch; doing dope and bringing crack babies into the world; filling the big city emergency rooms with gunshot victims; engaging in unsafe sex and catching a deadly disease while blaming the world for not finding an instant cure. You and your habits, not the doctors, are the single biggest health problem in this country. If anything, it is amazing that the doc’s keep you alive as long as they do. In fact, I don’t understand how they can stand looking at your blubbery bods all day.

According to the Center for Disease Control, the average life expectancy for white females in the United States born in 2005 is 80.4years. That of white men is 75.2 years. Average life expectancy for an African American female born in 2005 is 76.5 years. Do we really think that African American females receive better health care in the United States than white men? According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the group with the highest life expectancy in the United States is Oriental women, with a life expectancy of 85.8 years. So, according to those who use life expectancy as an indicator, Oriental women receive the best health care of all. The fact of the matter is that health care has little to do with life expectancy.

Another statistic that is often trotted out by detractors of the US health care system is that of the infant mortality rate. But again, as they say, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. Infant mortality is defined as the death of any child who was born live and who dies before one year of age. One of the problems is what constitutes a live birth? An article in US News and World Report, published in 2006, sums up the problem this way:

First, it's shaky ground to compare U.S. infant mortality with reports from other countries. The United States counts all births as live if they show any sign of life, regardless of prematurity or size. This includes what many other countries report as stillbirths. In Austria and Germany, fetal weight must be at least 500 grams (1 pound) to count as a live birth; in other parts of Europe, such as Switzerland, the fetus must be at least 30 centimeters (12 inches) long. In Belgium and France, births at less than 26 weeks of pregnancy are registered as lifeless. And some countries don't reliably register babies who die within the first 24 hours of birth. Thus, the United States is sure to report higher infant mortality rates. For this very reason, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which collects the European numbers, warns of head-to-head comparisons by country.

Some countries will not count any birth as a live birth if the baby is pre-term (38 weeks.) In fact, Russia and other former Soviet Union countries would not count a premature baby as having been born alive until it had lived for 7 days. Japan and Hong Kong both report a very high rate of stillborn infants to live births, almost certainly because those infants who die shortly after birth are being reported as stillborn rather than an infant death.

In the United States, 50% of all babies born at 25 weeks survive because of the extraordinary care we provide. Elsewhere around the world, it is rare that any attempt is made to care for these infants. They are more likely to die within minutes to hours after birth and be listed as a stillbirth or a miscarriage.

During my residency, I spent three months at Boston Children’s Hospital. I remember reading chest x-rays from the neonatal intensive care unit and remarking on how many children had a rare congenital heart disease (I don’t remember now which one.) My attending reminded me that the disease was exceedingly rare, but that Children’s Hospital was the only place in the world that offered the potential life-saving surgery for these babies. And it wasn’t just this one heart disease. It was a number of different conditions. During my three months there, I saw children that had been flown in from Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Portugal, France, and Saudi Arabia, just to name a few. Now, if one of these infants died, this would count against the United States statistics since that is where the death occurred. And Boston Children’s, while one of the finest pediatric hospitals in the United States, certainly isn’t unique. There are a number of pediatric hospitals in the US that perform similar services.

Probably a better indication of the quality and accessibility of health care is cancer survival rate, which is almost entirely due to differences in detection and treatment. The 5-yr. survival rate (those patients still alive 5 years after detection) for breast carcinoma in the United States is 90.1%, in Europe, it is 79.0%, and in Canada, 82%. For prostate carcinoma, the 5-yr. survival rate in the US is 99.3%, in Europe it is 77.5% and in Canada, it is 87%. In fact, for every cancer, the US 5-yr. survival rate is higher than that of Europe and Canada. For all cancers, no country in the world has better cancer survival rates than the US.

As far as quality of care, accessibility, and innovation, there is nowhere in the world that can equal the United States system of health care. Whatever else is done to reform health care, the reformers should adopt one of the first lessons taught in every medical school – Primum, non nocere. First, do no harm.

Obama's Center

2009-09-12T09:58:00.003-04:00

During the campaign, we were told that we were being unfair when we mentioned Obama's associations with Bill Ayres, Jeremiah Wright, Father Pfleger, Khalid Rashidi, et al. It was a below-the-belt, guilt-by-association attack, we were told. We were told that his association with ACORN or the Gamaliel Project weren't legitimate issues.

Now, look at the people Obama has advising him - Van Jones, Cass Sunstein, John Holdren. Look at his associations with SEIU, ACORN and his sops to the UAW.

When will people realize that Obama is not a centrist or even a run-of-the-mill liberal? He is a far-left radical who has surrounded himself with far-left radicals and has a far-left radical vision for this country. He has shepherded a break-the-bank "stimulus" bill through Congress that has little to do with stimulus and everything to do with liberal pet projects. He pushed for a far-left cap-and-tax bill that will be the largest tax on the American people ever. (A regressive tax, too. It will hit the lower class far more than the upper.) Now, he wants to change our entire health care system? When will we wake up?

Mark Steyn address this in his article today, "Where is Obama's Center?"

Roundup of blogs and news - 9/11/09

2009-09-11T23:55:00.002-04:00

Today marks the eighth anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center, Pentagon, attempted attack on the US Capitol, and an attack on all of America. Let us never forget. God bless America.

If you read only one article today, read this one by Ralph Peters. We say "Never forget", but it seems that we've already forgotten.

To illustrate the above, the Department of Homeland Security urges us to remember the victims of 9/11 by . . . helping stop the spread of swine flu. Really.

The world's best conservative columnist, Charles Krauthammer, discusses why Van Jones had to go. The incredible part is how the White House and other liberals seemed perfectly comfortable with having a 9/11 Truther in an administrative position.

Who are more nuts, Truthers or Birthers? Jonah Goldberg discusses.

An anti-abortion activist was killed because of his activities today. I think that we can all expect the press to weep and gnash their teeth over all the hate on the left. We can expect the White House to express their dismay over this violence. I'm sure that leading abortion activists will rapidly condemn the shooter. Right? Anyone?

Rich Lowry tells you how you, too, can make a speech like Obama.

Jack Webb schools Obama. Heh.

Why Medicare should not be used as the model for health care reform. I can say from personal experience that physicians HATE Medicare. One of the big reasons your insurance premiums are so high is that you are subsidizing Medicare and Medicaid patients.

Wonder why Republicans haven't come up with their own health care plan? They have - at least 32 times! Why haven't you heard about this? Take one guess.

Thomas Sowell writes, "One of the secrets of being a glib talker is not getting hung up over whether what you are saying is true." He writes today about our Charlatan-in-Chief. But he's probably just racist.

No American should have to choose between health insurance and getting drunk.

ACORN is at it, again. Even though a second ACORN office counseled a "pimp and prostitute" on how to circumvent the law, ACORN insists that this is a "political smear campaign."

Oh, and it's racist, too. Of course.

But at least the State's Attorney's Office in Baltimore is on the case. They are going after the real criminals in this whole thing. You won't believe this one. (On second thought, the sad truth is you probably will believe it.)

The good news is that ACORN won't be conducting the census this year. At least until Barney Frank, et al. enter into the fray.

Because nothing says Liberal like trying to silence your political opposition.

Have a good weekend, everyone.

Congress and Respect: A Strange Sense of Priorities

2009-09-10T23:14:00.002-04:00

President Obama can’t catch a break when he tries to sell the United States on health care reform. Last time, all anyone wanted to talk about after his press conference was his ham-handed handling of “Gatesgate”. This morning, after Obama’s address to the joint houses of Congress, much of the ink that has been spilled has regarded only two words – and not those of Obama. All the talk has been about the Republican Representative from South Carolina, Joe Wilson, and his outburst when Obama claimed that his health care bill would not provide coverage for illegal aliens, “You lie!”

Even though the New York Times, Washington Post, and Newsweek, not to mention the major television network news couldn’t see fit to report about the racist, profanity-laden, conspiracy-theorizing words of former self described communist-radical Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones until after he was fired (and even then, attributed it to a right-wing hatchet job by Fox News’s Glenn Beck), Wilson’s words were front-page news on all the aforementioned outlets.

The hyperventilating left is having a field day. Rahm Emanuel, White House Chief of Staff, angrily confronted Republican leaders saying, “No President has ever had that happen before!” Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Mr. Emanuel a member of the House of Representatives in 2005, when Democrats booed, hissed, and shouted, “No!” when President Bush spoke about the need for social security reform? Arlen Specter, ever the opportunist, stated that Wilson should be censured. After all, as Nancy Pelosi reminded us, lawmakers can be sanctioned for calling other lawmakers liars. Let’s just forget the fact that Harry Reid did just that about President Bush on national TV. The head of the House Democratic Caucus, John Larson, is looking into sanctions against Wilson.

Now, I think that yelling during a Presidential address to Congress is boorish behavior and totally inappropriate, in spite of the fact that he was absolutely correct. Wilson should not have shouted and it was entirely appropriate that he immediately apologized. But forgive me if I don’t succumb to the vapors over this incident as have so many on the left and in the media (but I repeat myself.)

It is interesting to me what constitutes an offense sufficient for a call for censure in Congress. If Congress can censure Wilson for calling Obama a liar, why don’t they censure Obama for repeatedly calling his opponents in the health care debate liars? In last night’s speech alone, Obama stated that his opponents are spreading “bogus claims”, “tall tales”, and “demagoguery and distortion”, which is ironic, considering that his entire speech consisted of bogus claims, tall tales and demagoguery and distortion.

But I really don’t have a lot of concern for what lawmakers call each other. I find it strange, though, that while calling another lawmaker a liar is censurable, no one seems to bat an eye when lawmakers call citizens expressing their legitimate concerns “un-American”, as did Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, or “tea-baggers”, a pornographic term, as did Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-CA), or likening Obama opponents to the Delta fraternity in Animal House, looking to start a food fight, as did White House Press Secretary, the golden-tongued Robert Gibbs. The degree of contempt that Congress and this administration have toward the American people is remarkable.

And while we’re on the subject of censure, is Wilson’s outburst a more serious offense than Charles Rangel, head of the tax writing House Ways and Means Committee, failing to report over $1 million to the IRS? If Wilson showed disrespect to the President, doesn’t that type of blatantly illegal activity show disrespect to all those of us who pay our taxes, as required? Let’s not even get into the corruption that sticks all over Congress Critters like John Murtha, Chris Dodds, and Barney Frank.

Today, on www.Biggovernment.com, a video surfaced showing members of ACORN, counseling an undercover documentary film maker and his accomplice on how they can set up a brothel and employ children as sex workers. Let’s see how much respect Congress has for your tax dollars. If they don’t investigate ACORN, you know that they don’t care about you. All they care about is preserving their political power.

So, while lawmakers are busy getting their panties in a bunch over an admitted lack of decorum during a speech, it is business as usual, the pillaging of the national treasury for their own gains. After the 2006 mid-term elections, Nancy Pelosi vowed to “drain the swamp” of Republican corruption. It seems that the Republican swamp rats have just been replaced with Democratic weasels. It has become increasingly obvious that the only way to drain the swamp is to totally replace the entire Congress.

So, while Congress works themselves into a lather about a lack of respect of one of their members to the President, let’s not forget the lack of respect Congress has for you.

ACORN - Your Tax Money at Work Building Brothels for Underaged Prostitutes

2009-09-10T18:02:00.005-04:00

This is an incredible video done by a 25 year old aspiring documentary film maker and a 20 year old aspiring journalist. It shows your tax money hard at work as Barack Obama's former employer and current flunkie, ACORN, does what it does best - use your tax money to engage in illegal activities.

In this video, the film maker assumes the role of an aspiring politician and the journalist assumes the role of a prostitute. They come into an ACORN office in Baltimore, where they try to get housing assistance to open a brothel, complete with underage illegal alien prostitutes. The ACORN employees are only too glad to show them how to break any number of laws and even give instructions on how she can launder money and contribute to his campaign.

Watch these videos and tell me how Congress, not to mention law enforcement, can not investigate this snake's nest. For my liberal friends, is there any way you can possibly justify this? Why is our tax money going to an organization that has been, time and again, shown to be institutionally corrupt? I think we all know that answer to that.

This story originally reported on http://biggovernment.breitbart.com/

Roundup of blogs and news - 9/9/09

2009-09-09T18:48:00.002-04:00

"How dare you use my own words against me?" Van Jones, erstwhile Obama Green Jobs Czar, claims that he was the recipient of a "smear campaign" and "lies and distortions". I'd love to know what lies and distortions he was referring to, since all the evidence I heard was spoken and written quotes from the man himself.

"For a while now, the message from Washington has been that we know what's good for the public, whether the public likes it or not." Matthew Continetti at the Weekly Standard has a very well thought-out piece on the public discontent.

Thomas Friedman and Tom Brokaw sit around and gripe because news happened of which they did not approve. I guess they feel they should be arbiters of what the public should hear. (More on Friedman later - you'll see just how accurate the last sentence was.)

Charity and the Constitution - How Horatio Bunce crushed Davy Crockett and why he is my new hero.

This administration just never quits ridiculing the people who disagree with them. Though I love this comment: "Did the President just compare himself to the rich fraternity? The ones no one likes. Because they act all pretentious and know it all? Oh, and they were total bullies too, beating people up. Is that REALLY the image Gibbs wants to give?" Heh.

Bush spoke to students, too! We heard that a lot this last week. Did anyone remember what happened then? Byron York, at the Washington Examiner, reminds us of the angst that caused.

Michael Yon is a treasure. Reading his posts is the closest that many of us will ever get to war. Let him remind you of the sacrifices that are being made for our freedom.

Thomas Sowell is also a treasure. At The Corner, Sowell reminds us not to listen to the words, but watch the actions.

And, as promised, the inestimable Thomas Friedman really outdoes himself, today. There is so much wrong with this article, that it is difficult to know where to start. Oh, actually no it isn't. Friedman suggests that he would rather have a tyranny in the US like that beacon of liberty, China, than our current democratic system! This is your lead New York Times editorial writer, folks.

Roundup of blogs and news - 9/6/09

2009-09-06T12:28:00.002-04:00

It baffles me why we are still involved in the international embarrassment that is the United Nations. Now, Obama is going to chair a meeting of the Security Council. Anne Bayefsky, of UN Watch, explains why that is a bad idea.

At the WSJ, Rep. John Shadegg and, one of the few Congresscritters I like and, hopefully, the next Governor of Michigan, Rep. Pete Hoekstra, explain how we can insure every American without overhauling the entire system. Next time you hear that the opposition hasn't presented a plan, think about this. They've presented a number of plans, but those are conveniently overlooked by the mainstream media and the liberals.

Remember when Nancy Pelosi promised to "drain the swamp" of corruption in Congress? Apparently, she doesn't.

Is Obama incompetent? Dan Riehl argues that it is not incompetence, but "inexperience combined with a hubris that has prevented Obama from figuring out there's a certain humility required to be an effective president."

Does Obama face a 2012 challenge from his own party?

If we are going Socialist, why not go the whole way? Let's redistribute beauty.

If this isn't the quintessential liberal story, I don't know what is: The union thug who beat up Kenneth Gladney at a health care reform town hall is applying for disability for an on-the-job injury suffered while administering the beating! It doesn't get better than this.

The Honduran situation is a perfect example of the abject failures of this administration's foreign policy. We recognize a tyrant, elected by fraud and placed in office due to the sheer brutality of his government in Iran, but punish an ally who legally removed a would-be tyrant from office in accordance with their own constitution. The world is upside-down.

What the economy has done in relationship with the administration's projections. Remember this when you hear the projections of how government health care will save us money. This administration hasn't been correct in a projection, yet.

Why are there no new jobs? Could it be that the antipathy this administration shows toward small business?

Have a happy Labor Day, everyone!

Roundup of blogs and news - 9/5/09

2009-09-05T11:13:00.002-04:00

First of all, Happy International Bacon Day, everyone. As someone suffering from swine flu, it is especially gratifying to celebrate eating pigs. Okay, now that the important stuff is out of the way, on to the politics:

Why is Obama's health care reform tanking? It must be because we haven't seen enough of Obama! Jonah Goldberg likens the Obama supporters to Christopher Walken calling for "more cowbell."

Van Jones, Obama's profanity-spewing, white-hating, self-avowed communist and radical, Republican-hating, Green Jobs Czar denies being a 9/11 truther, even though he signed the 9/11 truther petition. I wonder if someone can find evidence to prove he knew exactly what he was doing?

Well, how about that? It seems that Jones was a little more involved in the Truther movement than he admitted. (Have these people never heard of Google?)

Mark Steyn discusses our Omnipresent President and his address to schoolchildren.

Three Democrats give about the only answer they can about how we will pay for government health care - they walk away. (BTW - the last guy babbles about how preventative medicine will save us money. NOT TRUE. Multiple studies have show that preventative medicine, costs MORE.)

The situation in Honduras is another example of the Obama administration's reflexive antipathy for our allies in lieu of those who wish us harm. It is incredible the olive branches we are extending to tyrants and dictators around the world (e.g. - Iran), while throwing allies under the bus. This should get more attention.

More bad behavior in town hall meetings. No, not by constituents, but by Congresscritters. The common denominator here is an insufferable arrogance.

Mona Charen details what Obama could say in his upcoming health care address to regain our respect.

Obama may need a crisis to revive health care overhaul. Can you say, "Swine flu pandemic"?

The inimitable Charles Krauthammer on Obama, The Mortal

And last, but certainly not least, a doctor (a radiologist, no less) proposes an overhaul of our legal system. Heh.

Roundup of blogs and news - 9/3/09

2009-09-03T16:23:00.002-04:00

The White House has withdrawn the call for students to "help Obama". We just need to keep calling them on their attempts to indoctrinate our children.

More great news from one of those beacons of National Health Care, Great Britain. The Telegraph reports that terminal patients are being made to die prematurely.

Charlie Rangel cannot pay his taxes, but apparently he has no problem giving campaign contributions to members of the ethics committee who are investigating him.

From the official White House Blog, believe it or not. You think they'd be a little more self-conscious about the whole Messiah thing.

Jim Geraghty, over at The Campaign Spot, delivers his take on the man whose finger was bitten off by a Health Care Reform supporter.

MoveOn.org describes having one's finger bitten off as "regrettable". Regrettable seems to be the new catch all phrase to express displeasure, whether finger biting or North Korean missile tests.

If you are not in medicine, I'm not sure that you can really appreciate how much defensive medicine drives up health care costs. It is in the back of our minds for everything we do. Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann writes about this for The Hill.

In the WSJ, Karl Rove explains Obama's problem - it is hard to sell change that voters don't think they need.

The enforcer for Health Care Reform? Your friendly IRS agency. I guess this means that Congressmen and Cabinet officials will be exempt.

The news about Van Jones, Obama's communist, radical, profanity-spewing, Republican-hating, "Green Jobs Czar" just gets better and better. It turns out that he is a "truther", too. Think about this when you hear all the talk about how radical conservatives are.

Dr. Helen discusses "Health Care for Clunkers".