Democrat Congressman Says Republicans Want Sick Americans To Die; Sensible Reform Ideas

As support for the Democrats’ version of health care reform continues to decline (now way below 50% of Americans), conservatives and Republicans have been experiencing increasingly reckless and disgraceful charges from Democrats. The worst, the most toxic and tragic of all, of course, is the Democrat charge that opposition to their health care plans is racist. Now comes a charge that is not so toxic as it is bizarre.

Florida Democrat Representative Alan Grayson charged yesterday on the floor the United States House of Representatives that the Republican health care plan is for Americans to die quickly (link): "If you get sick, America, the Republican health care plan is this: Die quickly," he said. He characterized America’s current health care system as “a holocaust in America.” Evidence? -- I suspect in his mind nothing more than the failure to see things the Democrat party way.

This from a Democrat whose party currently wants to cut Medicare spending by half a trillion dollars. This from a Democrat whose party, in the Senate Finance Committee bill, among other things, wants to turn Medicare patients’ doctors into personal death panels by incentivizing physicians to reduce spending on medical care, a subject of my last post (link).

Most Americans are smart enough to know that we have the best medical care system in the world (link), despite what detractors try to prove with dishonest statistics. We need to improve our system, yes, but most Americans now recognize that the Democrats are trying to throw the baby out with the bath water on their quest for socialized government run heath care.

Once again, I quote Peter Wehner, who recently wrote (link) that “Obama’s critics are now routinely labeled as unpatriotic, racists, liars, mobsters, evil mongers, practitioners of un-American tactics, and more. As Obama’s failures mount up, it will only get worse. The volume will only get louder. And the charges will only get more desperate and incendiary.”

Republicans and conservatives have lots of ideas and plans for responsible heath care reforms (link; link). For some sensible proposals, see these from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (link), summarized here (link):

• Modify tax policy to eliminate the disincentives for individual purchase of health insurance and health care.
• Eliminate regulatory barriers that prevent small businesses from cooperatively pooling and self-insuring their health risks by liberalizing the rules that govern voluntary health-care purchasing cooperatives.
• Eliminate laws that prevent interstate purchase of health insurance by individuals and businesses.
• Eliminate rules that prevent individuals and group purchasers from tailoring health insurance plans to their needs, including federal and state benefit mandates and community rating requirements.
• Eliminate artificial restrictions on the supply of health-care services and products, such as the overregulation of drugs and medical devices, as well as state and federal restrictions on who may provide medical services and how they must be delivered.
• Improve the availability of provider and procedure-specific cost and quality data for use by individual health consumers.
• Reform the jackpot malpractice liability system that delivers windfall punitive damage awards to small numbers of injured patients while it raises malpractice insurance costs for doctors and incentivizes the practice of defensive medicine.
  

John M Greco

Senate Democrat Health Care “Reform” Bill Seeks To Turn Medicare Physicians Into Personal Death Panels

Senate Democrats do NOT want anyone to see the actual wording of the health care “reform” bill on which they are planning to vote, if indeed there ever is actual wording given the recent track records of Democrat legislators in the age of Obama to vote into law “bills” that are not yet fully reduced to actual writing.

The Washington Examiner reports (link):

A proposal by Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., that would have required the Senate Finance Committee to post the final language of the $900 billion health care reform bill, as well as a Congressional Budget Office cost analysis, on the committee’s website for 72 hours prior to a vote was rejected 12-11. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., [who is expected to face a tough reelection race next year] was the only Democrat to side with [the Republicans]…. [Democrat] Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., himself admitted that “This probably sounds a little crazy to some people that we are voting on something before we have seen legislative language.” Indeed.

The reason for all this secrecy is obvious to everyone – despite all of their speechifying about “transparency,” the Democrats do not want the public to know the details of what they are trying to enact into law. They want to just stick with general platitudes about better health care for all.

Just one of the undoubtedly many features of the bill Democrats are trying to hide relates to what the Washington Times (link) calls “Death Panels By Proxy”:

Yes, there are death panels. Its members won't even know whose deaths they are causing. But under the health care bill sponsored by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, Montana Democrat, death panels will indeed exist - oh so cleverly disguised as accountants.

The offending provision is on Pages 80-81 of the unamended Baucus bill, hidden amid a lot of similar legislative mumbo-jumbo about Medicare payments to doctors. The key sentence: "Beginning in 2015, payment would be reduced by five percent if an aggregation of the physician's resource use is at or above the 90th percentile of national utilization." Translated into plain English, it means that in any year in which a particular doctor's average per-patient Medicare costs are in the top 10 percent in the nation, the feds will cut the doctor's payments by 5 percent.

Forget results. This provision makes no account for the results of care, its quality or even its efficiency. It just says that if a doctor authorizes expensive care, no matter how successfully, the government will punish him by scrimping on what already is a low reimbursement rate for treating Medicare patients. The incentive, therefore, is for the doctor always to provide less care for his patients for fear of having his payments docked. And because no doctor will know who falls in the top 10 percent until year's end, or what total average costs will break the 10 percent threshold, the pressure will be intense to withhold care, and withhold care again, and then withhold it some more. Or at least to prescribe cheaper care, no matter how much less effective, in order to avoid the penalties. The National Right to Life Committee concludes that this provision will cause a "death spiral" by "ensur[ing] that doctors are forced to ration care for their senior citizen patients."

This sordid episode is disgraceful behavior by the Democrat majority to ram through in secrecy a disgraceful provision, and all true patriots should call them on this.


John M Greco

The Universality of Podhoretz’s Question: Why Are Jews Liberal?

Last week the Wall Street Journal featured a short essay by Norman Podhoretz titled “Why Are Jews Liberal,” (link) which presumably touches on key points from his new book (link) of the same name. He makes the observation that although most liberal Jews seem to assert that their liberalism stems directly from the teachings and cultural values of Judaism:

The upshot is that in virtually every instance of a clash between Jewish law and contemporary liberalism, it is the liberal creed that prevails for most American Jews. Which is to say that for them, liberalism has become more than a political outlook. It has for all practical purposes superseded Judaism and become a religion in its own right. And to the dogmas and commandments of this religion they give the kind of steadfast devotion their forefathers gave to the religion of the Hebrew Bible.

His is an analysis that applies just as well to Christians who believe that their religion dictates the tenets of modern liberalism (a big government social welfare state primarily concerned with monitoring and enforcing equality) rather than those of modern conservatism (the importance of individual liberty, personal responsibility, and self-reliance enabled and protected by a divided, limited government based on the impartial rule of law).Podhoretz distills the issue thusly:

The great issue between the two political communities is how they feel about the nature of American society. With all exceptions duly noted, I think it fair to say that what liberals mainly see when they look at this country is injustice and oppression of every kind—economic, social and political. By sharp contrast, conservatives see a nation shaped by a complex of traditions, principles and institutions that has afforded more freedom and, even factoring in periodic economic downturns, more prosperity to more of its citizens than in any society in human history. It follows that what liberals believe needs to be changed or discarded—and apologized for to other nations—is precisely what conservatives are dedicated to preserving, reinvigorating and proudly defending against attack.

A few days later the WSJ published some letters to the editor (link) that disagreed with Podhoretz’s view. Then, the WSJ published letters (link) that disagreed with the disagreers. Abraham Irwin, of Passaic, N.J., wrote:

All of the letters [disagreeing with Podhoretz] essentially state that Jews are liberal because the religion teaches concern for the poor and disadvantaged. I agree but strongly contend that the policies suggested and currently being enacted by the government will in the long run do just the opposite. Over the past 150 years classical liberalism and free-market capitalism revolutionized economies and did more to improve the conditions of the poor than any other competing system.

John M Greco

Senator Olympia Snowe, Republican Principles, & Bearing False Witness

Republican Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine said the other day in an interview (link) that although she hasn’t changed as a Republican, “I think more that my party has changed.” She strongly implied that the Republican party has strayed from “the traditional principles” of “limited government, individual opportunities, fiscal responsibility, and a strong national defense.”

Snowe has social “moderate” views such as pro-choice and pro gun control, and that’s her prerogative, and the Republican party is a big tent. Politically conservative/socially moderate people are a big part of the Republican party, and I read of nothing to suggest that Snowe is being hassled by other Republicans for her views. But Snowe, for example, voted for the massive and grossly irresponsible Democrat spending bill, the so-called “stimulus,” and against the Bush tax cuts, so how much of a believer in limited government and fiscal responsibility is she really? Answer – can't be that much.

God knows that the Republican party has seriously strayed from the principles Snowe names, although lately it seems to be getting back on track. And maybe this is some sort of come-on ploy to Democrats, who knows. But for Snowe to intimate that, as a limited government/fiscal responsibility type, she’s so disappointed with Republicans that she’s now going to work more closely with the Democrat party of Obama, Pelosi, and Reid, ultra-liberal and the very antithesis of the Republican principles she claims to embrace, well, as Obama would say, she’s bearing false witness.

John M Greco

Amnesiac Pelosi Now Worried About Heated Language in Political Debate

Just yesterday I posted (link) on how some liberals are melting down in response to widespread and growing dissatisfaction with Democrats in general and Obama in particular. I quoted Peter Wehner, who wrote (link) that “Obama’s critics are now routinely labeled as unpatriotic, racists, liars, mobsters, evil mongers, practitioners of un-American tactics, and more. As Obama’s failures mount up, it will only get worse. The volume will only get louder. And the charges will only get more desperate and incendiary.”

Now comes Democrat Speaker of the US House Pelosi, who recently saw “Nazis” among the August town hall citizen participants, worried that heated language could lead to violence by conservatives, saying (link):

“I have concerns about some of the language that is being used”…, Pelosi said, choking up and with tears forming in her eyes. “This kind of rhetoric is just, is really frightening and it [in the past] created a climate in which … violence took place and … I wish that we would all, again, curb our enthusiasm in some of the statements that are made.”

This is Pelosi, leader of a party of verbal flamethrowers and an accomplished one herself, now worried about “language” that might provoke violence. What this really is of course is just part of the disgraceful Democrat effort to stifle debate and play the victim card.

Remember Howard Dean, who as national chairman of the Democrat party said “I hate Republicans and everything they stand for”? Or recent Obama Czar Van Jones, who not too long ago said in a public forum that Republicans are “assholes”? Remember the years of Bush is Hitler rhetoric? But those are just words -- Michelle Malkin in her book Unhinged documented the physical violence committed by some Democrats and liberals against their political opponents. Lately, we’ve seen an Obamacare supporter bite off a finger of a peaceful protestor. We’ve just seen a town hall attendee in St. Louis get beaten by union thugs.

Today, Victor Davis Hansen reminds (link) us all that the language being used now by opponents of Obama/Democrat policies and actions is tame compared to what Democrats have been dishing out for years against Republicans and conservatives:

In the Bush years, "hate" was a favorite word of liberal critics, from both officials (cf. Howard Dean) and mainstream publications (cf. The New Republic). "Assassination" was the rage among liberal culture (cf. Alfred Knopf, the Toronto film festival, the Guardian). "Liar," "Nazi," and "brownshirt" were casual slurs from high-profile Democrats (cf. Gore, John Glenn, Robert Byrd, Harry Reid, Pete Stark, etc.).

The words of Army attorney Joseph Welch (link) to Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Army-McCarthy hearings are just as fitting today to Ms. Pelosi: “At long last, have you left no sense of decency? And if there is a God in Heaven it will do neither you nor your cause any good.”

John M Greco

Criticizing Obama is Racist in Liberalism’s Post-Racial America

We are witnessing an alarming and corrosive melt down by some Democrats, who, seeing serious and successful challenge to Obama’s ultra-liberal policies and inclinations, now resort to that last refuge of scoundrels – hurling charges of racism at those who dare oppose Obama (link). The liberal media joins in (link), in what Abigail Thernstrom calls “a sad and dangerous moment in American politics” (link).

From the disgraced and hapless former President Jimmy Carter, Democrat: “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.”

From US Representative Hank Johnson, Democrat from Georgia, who happens to be black: “We’ll probably have folks putting on white hoods and white uniforms again, and riding through the countryside intimidating people.”

So much for Obama’s promise to usher in a post-racial America. Obama and so many of his Democrats are all about race and racial grievance, real or feigned. This most recent “national conversation about race” began when Republican Representative Wilson shouted “you lie” to President Obama in his recent speech to a joint session of Congress when he (Obama) said that illegal aliens would not be covered under his health care reform. Ultra-liberal columnist Maureen Dowd of the NY Times apparently spoke for many Democrats when she wrote that when Wilson said “you lie” he really in his heart meant the racial slur “Boy, you lie.”

In the Bush years, to gloss over their gross incivility and at times near traitorous behavior, some Democrats would assert that “dissent is the highest form of patriotism.” Now, as the new quip goes, according to Democrats for Republicans “dissent is the highest form of racism.” (link)

Accusing those who oppose Obama’s policies of racism is despicable, and I can only hope will be a major losing strategy for those Democrats who embrace it, explicitly or tacitly. Charles Krauthammer on Fox News (link):

“The accusation of racism is a sign of desperation by people who know they are losing the national debate, and they want to hurl the ultimate charge in American politics…. it is a disgusting tactic. It's done as a way to end debate…. Accusations of racism are the last refuge of the liberal scoundrel.

Some conservatives (link) take a defensive stance, which is quite wrong as it almost seems to concede the premise. The only way to respond is to denounce those who charge racism every time they lose a policy debate.

Victor Davis Hanson writes (link) at National Review Online:

[I]n the Bush wilderness years, the Left assumed permanent political marginalization, adopted an ends-justify-the-means strategy of street rhetoric against Bush, then found themselves unexpectedly as the establishment, and now are appalled that anyone might emulate their own past emotional outbursts…. [T]he larger question is why the Left is now nearly unhinged about criticism of a black liberal president, when it was silent … about the racial implications of the constant and vicious anger directed at Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice…. For that matter, the ubiquitous [ultra-liberal Democrat US representative] Pete Stark once said some particularly unkind and racist things about former health and human services secretary Louis Sullivan (who is black).

Here’s Peter Wehner at Contentions (link):

[This is] evidence of how unhinged and desperate many liberals and some within the Democratic party are becoming. The hatred and fury that consumed them during the Bush years is returning with a vengeance. It turns out that the cause of their derangement during the Bush years may not have been Bush after all; he may simply have been the object of their crazed attacks. It’s fascinating to watch how furious liberals have become despite Obama’s being president and Democrats’ controlling the Senate and the House by wide margins. This period should be—they expected it to be—years of milk and honey for them. But events and reality have intervened. They see the Anointed One, Barack Obama—their “sort of God”—failing. He is not only a mere mortal but also a deeply flawed one.

They see support for Obama’s effort to nationalize our health-care system collapsing. They see the American people rising up against his brand of liberalism. They see Republicans with all the intensity on their side.

Many liberals simply cannot process this new data, this horrible turn of events. What we are seeing is the equivalent of a computer crash. As a result, they are returning to what has become for some liberals an emotional and psychological norm: anger and fury, overheated and reckless charges, bitterness and pettiness…. We’re only eight months into the Age of Obama—the period in which he promised to unite our divided country, heal our wounds, and bind up our divisions—and Obama’s critics are now routinely labeled as unpatriotic, racists, liars, mobsters, evil mongers, practitioners of un-American tactics, and more. As Obama’s failures mount up, it will only get worse. The volume will only get louder. And the charges will only get more desperate and incendiary.

Obama promised us all a post-racial America. Instead, this is what we’ve gotten.

John M Greco

Bob Newhart Turns 80 Today -- To Be Or Not To Be, That Is the Gazorninplat

Bob Newhart, the wickedly funny, innovative, thinking man’s comedian, is 80 years old today. From Chicago, he attended St Ignatius High School, Loyola University of Chicago’s college, and, briefly, Loyola’s law school, Jesuit schools all, which might explain something. After a stint in the Army he worked for a while as an accountant, although, as he says in the introduction to his “Accountant’s Retirement Party” sketch, he “had a strange theory of accountancy…I had always felt that if you got within 2 or 3 bucks of it [laughter]… but this really never caught on [laughter], and as a consequence I held a number of accounting jobs.”

He soon worked out a novel comedy routine where he would act out one end of a supposedly two way phone conversation, playing what amounted to the straight man role to the unseen and unheard party on the phone. This bit propelled him to comedy stardom. He would later achieve even more success on TV, most notably in two long running series playing first a Chicago psychologist and then a rural New England innkeeper, and his occasional movie appearances are highlighted by his small but hysterical role as Major Major in the black comedy Catch-22. And he was one of the most frequent and funniest guests on Johnny Carson’s Tonight show.

But to me his comedy routines are his greatest work. He is brilliant with his dry humor and deadpan, hesitating, and sometimes slightly unsure delivery. He skyrocketed to success in 1960 with the first of his many albums, “The Button Down Mind of Bob Newhart,” which hit number one on the pop chart and received the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. In his sketches, he would typically set up a premise and lead into the sketch with “I think it would go something like this.”

In “An Infinite Number of Monkeys,” he imagines that although an infinite number of monkeys given enough time would type out “all the Great Books,” someone must check their work to see if they are “turning out good stuff;” in the sketch, after reading through much gibberish, one of the monitors exclaims: "Hey Harry, I think this one has got something – To be or not to be, that is the gazorninplat.”

Or “Introducing Tobacco to Civilization,” in which Walter Raleigh’s sponsor in England has him on the phone and is puzzled by Raleigh’s purchase of a large quantity of leaves now being shipped across the ocean: “Let me get this straight Walt – you bought 80 tons of leaves?.... you do what, you shred it up, roll it up in a piece of paper … and you set fire to it!”

My favorite is “Abe Lincoln vs Madison Avenue,” in which Newhart imagines what a modern public relations man would have done for a somewhat dim and slightly befuddled Abe Lincoln just before the Gettysburg address:

Abe, what’s the problem?.. you’re thinking of shaving it off? .. Abe, don’t you see, it's part of the image, with the shawl, the stovepipe hat, and the string tie .. you don’t have the shawl .. Abe, where’s the shawl? … you left it in Washington! … Well what are you wearing?... a sort of cardigan?! … Abe, don’t you see it doesn’t fit with the string tie and the beard? … Abe, you haven’t changed the speech have you? … Abe, what are you changing the speech for? … You what, you typed it?! .. Abe, how many times have we told you – on the backs of envelopes… I understand it’s harder to read that way but this way it looks like you wrote it on the train coming down there… Abe, could you do this, could you memorize it and then put it on the backs of envelopes -- we’re getting a lot of play in the press on that … how are the envelopes holding out? … You could stand another box… Anything else? … No, no, no, no, you were a rail splitter, then an attorney … well it doesn’t make sense that way… Abe, don’t you see, you wouldn’t give up your law practice to become a rail splitter….

Accounting’s loss is everyone’s gain.

(The above three sketches and many more are available on iTunes)
R. Balsamo

Obama’s Speech to Schoolchildren Paves the Way

September 11, 2010 (American News Service) --

President Obama is following up on his successful series of speeches to schoolchildren, begun a year ago this month -- events that have resulted in an outpouring of support for cap and trade, card check, sanctions against Israel, and government-run health care, particularly among the 7 year old demographic. Today at a press conference he stated that he is acceding to popular demand by North American Continent children in supporting a drive for residents of all ages to make a pledge of support and allegiance to him personally, a movement started in 2009 by Hollywood celebrities (link). President Obama denied, however, that he was encouraging a cult of personality, saying that “it is above my pay grade to discourage people from pledging allegiance to me personally if that is what people want to do.” He did acknowledge that His government-funded Office of the President web site has a module that invites Americans to submit the names, addresses, and photographs of those who refuse to take the personal pledge of allegiance to “Our Leader Obama,” but He stated that this was simply so that His team can contact objectors personally to dispel the many “myths” being spread by nay-sayers. President Obama, who smiled broadly when one reporter addressed Him as “Dear Leader,” suggested that this whole matter was being blown out of proportion and distorted by His political opponents “who oppose fairness and equality for all and who are tools of insurance company special interests.” The press conference ended on a high note as eager, crisply attired, and well-organized members of the Obama Youth Service Brigade (link) firmly escorted reporters to a reception hall filled with uplifting Obama banners, stirring music, and organic refreshments.

JMG

Edward Kennedy and the Descent to Modern Liberalism

The death of liberal “icon” Edward Kennedy keeps the mind occupied pondering how modern liberalism came to be and how its adherents rationalize it all, given that it is the opposite of everything classic liberalism holds dear and the opposite of the enduring and liberating values that sustain this country. How and why have huge swaths of Americans left behind traditional values of personal liberty, personal responsibility, and self-reliance and the enabling framework of limited, divided government, rule of law, and equality of opportunity and of treatment, all to embrace various principles whose organizing theme is the need for government control over all significant aspects of life to enforce “fairness” and “equality”?

It is puzzling that there are those who feel that the answer to bias in years past is more bias in years to come, with just the beneficiaries and disadvantaged flip flopped. It is puzzling that for some the answer to poverty of culture and of skills is perpetual dependency on handouts from an impersonal government rather than the building a culture of personal responsibility, self-reliance, and achievement. Why for some is government, ever larger, more powerful, and more pervasive, always the first and last solution to all problems, real or imagined?

And why do so many of the privileged rich, be they trust-funders like Edward Kennedy or celebrities from the movies, embrace this totalitarian vision for government, when in their personal lives are one of license and liberties? David Pryce-Jones has perceptive thoughts (link) on this phenomenon at National Review online:

Senator Edward Kennedy was, and will remain, an outstanding example of a champagne socialist…. those who vote on the Left but dine on the Right. Such people are exploiting their privileged position in society to curry favor with those less privileged, and so find the way to continue being privileged while also being applauded for it. Clever, or what?.... In simple fact, [Edward Kennedy] owed everything in his career, especially his position in the Senate, to the fact that he had been born who he was, too well-connected and too rich ever to have to work his passage on his own. If this isn't privilege, what is?... As for morals, Chappaquiddick is only one incident among others when his behaviour proves him to have been a man of bad character. Normally speaking, ordinary people would never tolerate someone like him as their elected representative. To present himself as a tribune of the people was the only possible protective covering available to him. That he was successful in this respect, and comes to be buried in Arlington with the president speaking at the graveside, is really the only arresting feature of his career. He has enjoyed the sort of lifelong allowance that once would have been made for a corrupt eighteenth-century English duke. It is hard to believe that he was ever sincere in the populist causes he took up, declaiming about righting wrongs only to go home and commit plenty more wrongs of his own without having to account for them. That's champagne socialism for you, and it seems a taste everybody and anybody can get drunk on.

And for their techniques in pursuit of their aim of big-government enforcement of “fairness” and “equality” and “social justice”, Carol Iannone put it this way this past January at National Review Online, writing about modern liberalism through the prism of the notorious and quite nefarious frame-up of three innocent Duke college students on a falsified rape story by an ideologically corrupt liberal legal establishment (most notably by prosecutor Nifong, a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, and the enabling judges) aided and abetted by a radicalized leftist university faculty and administration and a corrupt national media:

[I]t is important to note the distance that PC-liberalism has traveled from the older type of liberalism. In the older type, proper procedure, rule of law, innocent until proven guilty, etc., were highly respected principles, and informed many works of literature and popular culture, such as To Kill a Mockingbird and Twelve Angry Men. But PC liberalism is like Leninism—morality is what serves the revolution, so to speak.

And how will these new leftists, the opinion leader vanguard of modern liberals, snooker the rest of us to let them take over our lives? Through health care and environmentalism. Writes Mark Steyn (link):

Beginning with FDR, wily statists justified the massive expansion of federal power under ever more elastic definitions of the commerce clause. For Obama-era control freaks, the environment and health care are the commerce clause supersized. They establish the pretext for the regulation of everything: If the government is obligated to cure you of illness, it has an interest in preventing you from getting ill in the first place — by regulating what you eat, how you live, the choices you make from the moment you get up in the morning. Likewise, if everything you do impacts “the environment,” then the environment is an all-purpose umbrella for regulating everything you do. It’s the most convenient and romantic justification for what the title of Paul Rahe’s new book rightly identifies as “soft despotism.”

Andrew Klavan’s recent distillation of it all (link) once again comes to mind: “Free people can treat each other justly, but they can't make life fair. To get rid of the unfairness among individuals, you have to exercise power over them. The more fairness you want, the more power you need. Thus, all dreams of fairness become dreams of tyranny in the end.” And all for our own good, imagine that.

John M Greco

On the Passing of Edward Kennedy -- A Dissenting View

I dissent from the adulation being heaped upon Edward “Ted” Kennedy, the late senator from Massachusetts, by the liberal media.

The United States has thrived on a commitment to the values of individual liberty, personal responsibility, and self-reliance. Edward Kennedy, in his public and private lives, worked to undermine them. He took a different view. He was the quintessential American liberal of the modern era, espousing a philosophy born of post-war pacifism and 1960’s dreamy childish utopianism, for whom government-enforced and monitored “fairness” and “equality” are foremost objectives. Kennedy was a prominent leader of a political movement that promotes the growth and expansion of a central government for controlling ever-more aspects of our lives under the direction of ruling liberal elites, all ostensibly for our own good. The modern liberal moral conceit blinds them to the ultimate destructive consequence of their philosophy, as Andrew Klavan recently summarized (link) so well in the WSJ: “Free people can treat each other justly, but they can't make life fair. To get rid of the unfairness among individuals, you have to exercise power over them. The more fairness you want, the more power you need. Thus, all dreams of fairness become dreams of tyranny in the end.”

In pursuit of his vision for America Kennedy could be vicious and deceitful, perhaps most notably in his treatment of Supreme Court nominees from Republican presidents. Scott Johnson at Powerline blog reminds us (link) that Kennedy said from the floor of the Senate that “Robert Bork's America is a land in which … blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters….” – just a snippet of what Johnson calls a “willfully false and remarkably coarse attack on Bork” (and that’s putting it politely). Karl Rove reminds us in a TV interview that Kennedy called now Justice Alito a “bigot” during his confirmation process. Smearing as racists those you oppose is not the action of a fair and decent man, but is a part of an ends-justify-the-means approach of dubious morality. His last political act was a shameless and unprincipled effort to convince fellow Massachusetts Democrats to have one rule for Republicans but a better one for Democrats on filling open Senate seats, which I just wrote about here.

Edward Kennedy lived his life as a sometimes wild pampered rich boy on his father’s money. Everything he got he was given. His father got him into Harvard but he was expelled for cheating. His father gave him his Senate seat before he was even old enough to sit in it, and thus it had to be held for a while by a family retainer. But most telling of all, this is the man who left a woman to suffer a horrible death trapped in the submerged car he had just driven off a Chappaquiddick Island bridge while driving drunk, as he swam away and slithered off not to call for help that may well have saved her but rather to sober up and gather the Kennedy family lawyers and media retainers to concoct a cover story that the liberal press willingly endorsed as co-conspirator.

I do not say that he was a bad man in every aspect of his life. But his politics were wrong for an America of free, self-reliant, and self-directed citizens, and his personal behavior and political style showed remarkable failings.

John M Greco

Democrat Kennedy Proposes New Approach to Government – One Rule for Republicans and a Better One for Democrats

It’s hard to be surprised by any story of rank liberal hypocrisy, for they come at us these days like mosquitoes on a muggy summer night, but I admit this one took me aback for a moment. Dying of cancer, Democrat Senator Edward (“Ted”) Kennedy chooses to exit the political stage the same way he has occupied it – as an immoral shameless opportunist.

Kennedy was the driving force (link) of the movement in Massachusetts that changed the rules in midstream to deprive Republican then-Governor Mitt Romney of the ability to appoint a replacement to fill out the remainder of Sen. John Kerry’s term should Kerry have been elected president in 2004. Prior to that change, a vacant senate seat was to be filled by governor’s appointment, but Kennedy convinced fellow Democrats in Massachusetts government to change the rule so that vacancies would be filled by special election. Now because he is sick and realizes that his own Senate seat may become vacant before the next regular election, and since the Massachusetts governor is now a Democrat rather than a Republican, Kennedy wants to completely reverse course and change the law back to having the governor appoint a replacement (link). While the Democrats are at it, to save time and money why not just pass a law that allows Democrat governors to fill by appointment but requires a special election if the governor is a Republican? And as a typical example of liberal media bias, this deceitful Chicago Tribune article (link) never mentions at all the fact that the Massachusetts law is what it is today because Democrats made it that way to prevent a Republican governor from making a replacement appointment.

Lots of pejorative adjectives occur to me I would waste half a day typing out. This is the Kennedy who left a woman to suffer a horrible, slow death in the car he drove off a Chappaquiddick Island bridge while driving drunk as he swam away and slithered off to sober up and gather the Kennedy family lawyers and media retainers to concoct a cover story that the liberal press willingly endorsed as co-conspirator.

This man has lived his life as a pampered, unprincipled trust-funder in the lifelong pursuit of raw power in the name of the “people,” basking in the adulation of a proletariat he has long been luring down the road to a socialism we have seen before – for most of us, the heavy hand of pervasive government control “for our own good,” but for the elites like him running the government, special privileges and dachas in the countryside.

John M Greco

Two Reporters Injured Trying To Kiss President Obama’s Behind

Seen on the wire:

August 17, 2009 (United Press Affiliates)

(Washington D.C) -- A spokesperson for the Obama Administration is downplaying the significance of an incident at the White House yesterday which resulted in injuries to two reporters, calling it “an unfortunate misunderstanding.” The reporters sustained serious injuries as they and others suddenly rushed to kiss President Obama’s “behind” after mistakenly thinking he was speaking to them when he loudly exclaimed “Well you can just kiss my ass.” The reporters did not realize he was speaking into a cell phone via a small ear-piece microphone which was hidden from their view and they thought he was addressing them.

In the melee, New York Times reporter Susan Jones tripped on the leg of NBC reporter Sam Emery and sustained a compound fracture of her left femur, with a piece of bone protruding through her skin. Upon coming to after a five-hour surgery, she downplayed the seriousness of her injury saying “These things happen, and it’s no big deal. It was just a misunderstanding on the part of us reporters, and this does not reflect at all on President Obama. I’m just so thankful that he was completely uninjured and can continue his historic and consequential presidency.” Mr Emery, who has been on the White House beat only six months since graduating from journalism school, suffered multiple ligament tears in his right knee when he hit the ground but shrugged it off saying “At my age these injuries were bound to happen sooner or later, and I’m just so happy that President Obama is fine and continues to bring all residents of North America and the world together through his visionary leadership.” NBC's veteran broadcaster Brian Williams, who has said that more should follow his example of bowing before President Obama and keeping a respectful distance, nevertheless stated "With all the excitement in appearing before President Obama, it's easy to see how things like this happen."

Newsweek Magazine’s editor Evan Thomas, who has characterized President Obama as a “sort of God” and who has decided to feature President Obama permanently on the magazine's cover, expressed relief that both the President and the Newsweek reporter at the scene were not hurt and voiced pride that his reporter was the only one to actually reach President Obama to plant a kiss on his behind before the misunderstanding was recognized. He said the incident illustrates the “dedication, passion, and journalistic professionalism” his staff bring to reporting the news.


John M Greco

Obama Divides Opposition To Conquer Drug Makers Who Seek To Appease

Obama has divided what should be the united opposition to his underhanded and deceptive scheme to put in place the foundation for nationalized health care. The free-enterprise-based pharmaceutical industry (PhRMA) foolishly thinks it has cut a deal with Obama on his health care reform plans (link), apparently thinking that this supposed deal is less bad than what would happen to them if they opposed Obama. Aside from the fact that Congress actually writes the laws, as least as of this moment six months into the Age of Obama, and prominent Congressional Dems have made it clear there are no deals that will bind them, and aside from the fact that whatever isn’t in a bill this year can be easily added to a new one next year once the ultraliberal Dems vanquish the opposition to nationalized health care, what in the world makes anyone, including the pharmaceutical industry, think they can trust Obama on anything, in light of everything they now know of him and have now seen of him?

Rich Lowry writes in the above-linked post at National Review Online that “[e]ven if the deal holds, PhRMA will be at the mercy of a government system that will tend to squeeze out even those private players who have obligingly assisted in creating the predicate for their own destruction.”

Winston Churchill insightfully described an appeaser as “one who feeds the crocodile hoping it will eat him last.” Indeed.

John M Greco

Post Office Eliminates Mail Delivery To Balance Budget and Save Jobs

July 25, 2009: The Washington Post reported (link) that “the Postal Service, which is projecting a $6 billion shortfall by the end of September despite a recent postage rate increase, will go to Congress this month to seek emergency relief, looking to cut home mail delivery from six days a week to five. Already, the Postal Service has cut hours at hundreds of post offices across the country …. It has consolidated routes …. Still, said Postmaster General John E. Potter, the service is in "acute financial crisis."

July 26, 2011 -- The Obama administration’s head of the Postal Service announced today the elimination of delivery service.

The Postmaster General stated that she regretted having to take this drastic action, but said that the Postal Service had no other alternative in light of continued decline in mail volume and escalating budget deficits. This fiscal year, the Post Office is slated to lose upwards of $20 billion, despite reducing mail delivery to once a week 7 months ago and a budget infusion of $15 billion from President Obama’s discretionary TARP Fund.

In a press conference yesterday, the Postmaster General said “I hope that once mail delivery is eliminated entirely that the Postal Service will be able to balance its budget within 3 years, given the 25% budget increase Democrats passed this year for the Department.” She went on to say “I am proud of the efforts of the Obama Administration and the Democrat Congress to preserve the thousands of Post Office jobs, since the loss of even some of them would hurt the economy, and although I regret having to permanently discontinue mail delivery service, the Post Office is working hard to identify additional efficiencies to finally balance our budget.”

President Obama issued a statement today, saying “I do not stand with those who would do nothing to finally stop the Post Office budget deficits and those who are indifferent to saving the thousands of jobs there. As I have said before, I am committed to balancing budgets and saving jobs. As for the loss of delivery service, this is a time for shared sacrifice and we must all do our part in these difficult times.”


John M Greco

The American Medical Association Endorses the Ultra-Liberal House Democratic Health Care Reform Proposal – Is This a Surprise?

The American Medical Association has just endorsed (link) the House Democrats’ health care reform proposal, unveiled last week, and regarded by everyone I have read as the most ultra-liberal of all proposals announced thus far. So ultra-liberal, in fact, that no one I have heard or read gives it much chance of becoming law, let alone even passing the Democrat-controlled House.

Tevi Troy writes (link) at The Corner blog at National Review Online that this proposal “raises taxes, imposes both individual and employer mandates, and creates a government-run health-care plan. This is not surprising, as the House [Democrats’] Leadership’s strategy appears to be to pass a bill that is as far to the left as possible in order to have maximum leverage when negotiating with whatever compromise comes out of the Senate.”

It is hard to believe that a majority of the AMA membership would support this House Democrat proposal, once given a chance to read it. So it is somewhat surprising to have the AMA leadership release this quick endorsement, supporting a plan hatched by the radically-liberal Pelosi and containing the Trojan Horse government run “public option” plan that will surely and shortly eradicate private insurers, leaving all healthcare in the hands of liberal federal government bureaucrats and all doctors as de facto federal employees. And what sentient doctor thinks there's a snowball's chance in hell that Democrats would move one inch toward much-needed reform of malpractice liability law, a very high priority for most doctors?

One factor that must be huge here – the tendency of all large, ostensibly non-political organizations, from philanthropic foundations to professional societies like the American Bar Association, to become progressively more liberal over time, as liberals, executing one of the key directives from their playbook, slowly take over internal staff bureaucracies and elected leadership positions, and then isolate and suppress less-organized and less politically-astute internal opponents.

John M Greco

More Obama “Stimulus” Spending?! Because the First $789 Billion Didn’t Work

Last Friday, July 9, in a discussion on the Obama Administration's just-floated idea to use TARP money for Small Business Administration loans, Larry Kudlow said on his CNBC show: “This [TARP money] is one of the greatest slush fund operations of all time. This TARP money was never intended for this purpose.” Kudlow then stated he believed such a move was another indication that Obama and his people are “panicking” over the continuing economic struggles and the rising unemployment rate, which the Obama team said would never get anywhere near as high as it now is if their massive “stimulus” spending plan was enacted. Well, their plan was enacted, and now things are much worse. And now some Obama people are talking about a second “stimulus” spending plan, because the first didn’t work.

Guest Joe Lavorgna, chief US economist for Deutsche Bank, had the guts to admit he was wrong in succumbing to the big-government-spending-is-the-solution fallacy and hysteria, saying: “The stimulus package, which I initially was all for, has not played out the way I thought. I think a second stimulus package would be really terrible... The first one wasn’t very effective – it’s vulgar Keynesianism as you [Larry] said before.” Even now, though, he says “not very effective.” How about “not effective at all”? From common sense and the opinions of realists, the economy in general and the banking system in particular have stabilized because of the massive Milton Friedman monetary stimulus and the long-called-for significant softening of the “mark-to-market” accounting rule that was destroying banks’ technical solvency.

The hubris and vanity of the liberal elites leads to their fatal attraction to command and control. They believe they know better than the masses who didn’t attend their Ivy League schools. For them, the ‘stimulus” was never about the economy, it was about ever-bigger government pursuing the liberal agenda. But for the saps who were snookered into believing massive government spending and further government control would help the economy, it was a triumph of hope over common sense, of quasi-religious faith in central planning over all human experience, of Obamamania over rational thought.

JM Greco

Previous related posts:

The So-Called “Stimulus” Is “About Politics and Power, Not Sound Economics”

Re: The "Stimulus": Economics As the Dismal Science -- Keynesians Say 1+1=3, Milton Friedman & Common Sense Say No Way

"Great Powers" Historian Paul Kennedy Warns Against the Planned Economic “Stimulus” Package That We’ll Need Foreigners To Pay For

Coleman Brought a Squirt Gun to a Knife Fight In the Minnesota Senate Recount Battle

Well, the Minnesota senate race recount is finally over, and what most people, including me, thought would happen happened. Vicious, no-holds-barred ultra-liberal Democrat Franken out-recounted incumbent Republican gentleman-Norm Coleman. It’s hard to understand even now Coleman’s puzzlingly restrained behavior while the Franken Democrats were stealing the election via a selective recount in Democratic strongholds. Coleman may have thought Minnesota Democrats were above bad behavior, but the joke’s on him, and unfortunately also on us.

This Democratic tactic has been tried twice in the recent past in high profile races – in the 2000 Presidential election, of course, and in the 2004 Washington state governor race. Bush fought hard and finally prevailed, but in Washington state the Republican caved. Coleman seems to have taken an above-it-all approach, counting on the courts to invalidate Franken’s shenanigans, even though such an approach in the Washington governor’s race didn’t work and even though a leading Democratic strategist from that contest was called in early as a Franken advisor.

Coleman won the initial count by over 700 votes, and then also won the first recount by over 200. But as in the Washington governor’s race, that did not deter the Democrats. Votes were selectively “found” in majority Democratic precincts. Democrat Franken’s team seemed to have out-hustled, out-maneuvered, and out-smarted Coleman’s. Franken was recently declared the winner by 312 votes.

Among the many disturbing reports, one from the Wall Street Journal (link) particularly astounded me for the brazenness of the state’s Canvassing Board, led by the ultra-liberal Democrat Secretary of State, who was elected with significant help from the ethically bankrupt left-wing ACORN organization. In one heavily Democratic precinct the hand recount showed fewer votes than had been recorded by the machine on election night, so the Board went with the higher election night count, netting Franken 46 votes. But in another heavily Democratic precinct, the opposite occurred, so the partisan Democrat Board went with the recount, there netting Franken 37 votes. As the WSJ noted, Franken “benefited both ways from the board's inconsistency.”

Another aspect was how local precinct officials decided which “votes” were valid under the law. John Hinderaker at Power Line blog (link) notes:

It turns out, not surprisingly, that the counties that are careful about applying election laws are Republican-leading counties, while the lax ones … are heavily Democratic. What this means, in practice, is that thousands of votes are counted in Democratic counties that would not be counted if the same voter lived in a Republican county…. Thus a deep irony arises: if a uniform standard of strict compliance with the absentee ballot statute is applied, Coleman wins. If a looser standard of substantial compliance with the statute is uniformly applied, Coleman also wins. The only way Coleman loses is if a strict standard is applied in Republican counties and a lax standard is applied in Democratic counties. Unfortunately, that is exactly what has happened so far.

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board (link) supplies the coda:

Mr. Coleman didn't lose the election. He lost the fight to stop the state canvassing board from changing the vote-counting rules after the fact. This is now the second time [citing the 2004 Washington state governor race] Republicans have been beaten in this kind of legal street fight. If the GOP hopes to avoid repeats, it should learn from Minnesota that modern elections don't end when voters cast their ballots. They only end after the lawyers count them.

John M Greco

Previous posts on this subject:

In Minnesota, If It’s Close, They Will Try to Steal It

Democrats Gaining in Their Attempt To Steal Minnesota Senate Election Via Rigged Recount

Minnesota Canvassing Judge Slams Criticisms of Bias, But Does Not Rebut a Single Allegation of Serious Mischief in the Coleman-Franken Recount

Will Unemployment Rate & Socialized Medicine Stall Obama’s Radical Liberalism? – “It’ll Be Close”

The unemployment rate has soared past what Obama and his new brain trust said it would be without their massive and budget-busting “stimulus” spending, which is essentially pork for ultra-liberal interest groups (like unionized state government workers and Medicaid recipients). Prominent Dem pol Ed Rendell, currently governor of Pennsylvania, says on national TV we need much more stimulus spending, but this time aimed at “shovel-ready infrastructure projects” that will translate into jobs. My God, this was exactly how the first stimulus spending plan was sold to the public, and now Dems are saying that’s not how the money is being spent, that we didn’t do what we said we would do, but if we do it again, we Democrats will get it right the second time around.

On health care reform, the noble struggle continues to convince the large swath of politically inattentive Americans that Obama’s ultimate goal is nationalized government-run health care operated by liberal federal bureaucrats. The Trojan Horse ploy is to introduce a government-run health plan that would “keep private insurers honest,” but would surely and shortly put all private plans out of business. A Wall Street Journal editorial today (link) again hits this theme hard. We surely need responsible health care reforms, but socialized government-run health care isn’t one of them. In Canada or in Britain, if you’re old or really sick, medical care is often if not always low speed, low tech, and low quality, but if you’re among the 80% or so who’re basically pretty healthy and only go in on occasion for minor and preventive care, the system is great because it’s real cheap.

As Mark Steyn said today on the radio, hearing from a remorseful Obama voter, lots of his supporters thought they could "get the cool without the consequence," but now know better. And in response to a report that independent voters are beginning to “edge away” from Obama, Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds today writes: “He ran as a different kind of politician than he’s governing as. He hopes to ram through stuff that will cement his position before the rubes catch on. It’ll be close.”


John M Greco

Eight Republicans Vote For Democrats’ “Insane” Massive Energy Tax Bill; Illinois Republican Mark Kirk Takes Heat

Last Friday, June 26, the US House passed the Democrat Waxman-Markey energy tax bill, often referred to as “cap and trade.” The way Democrats rammed the bill through, with massive changes made at the last minute just as the voting began, is almost as outrageous as the substance of it, although, since no one read the bill before it was passed, no one can be quite sure exactly what’s in it (link, link).

But this is just a bill, not a law, as the Senate has not voted yet, and many commentators think passage of this bill in anything like its House version is unlikely. Nevertheless, the substance of the bill and the way it was passed stinks all the same. Iain Murray wrote (link) at The Corner blog at National Review Online that “this is a gross abuse of the Parliamentary process and represents nothing less than contempt for the people of the United States of America.”

As for the substance, it’s a massive new tax on energy in the middle of a recession. Charles Krauthammer’s take (link):

This bill is so bad it's almost indescribable…. In principle, it's a carbon tax. And to do it — which is probably the largest tax in American history — in the middle of a recession is quite insane.

But secondly, even if you accept that we have to do a carbon tax because there is an emergency in the climate …. [the bill] involves so many concessions to constituencies, to coal companies in states, to all kinds of favorite constituencies, that it's a mess, and it undermines the idea of a cap and trade, a system in which the market will regulate carbon emissions. As a result, in the final analysis, it gives money and carbon credits to utility companies on the condition that [they do] not raise rates on people's electricity. But if that is the case, then it undermines the entire argument in favor of this, which is to induce the reduction in the use of energy. If there are no rises in rates, there's no incentive to reduce emissions, and the whole purpose of the bill is undermined.

The bill passed by a margin of 7 votes, with 44 Democrats voting against it and 8 Republicans voting for it. Congressman Mark Kirk, from Illinois’ liberal North Shore, which extends from Chicago’s northern suburbs to the Wisconsin border, was one of the eight Republicans (link), and, according to one commentator, was the only one of the eight not from either the east or west coast.

Why did Kirk vote for this bill, which, along with every other Congressman, he didn’t even read? Greg Hinz at Crain’s Chicago Business writes (link):

Congressman Mark Kirk is strongly defending his vote …. [He] said he tied his vote to national security, … that raising the price of energy somewhat will reduce American reliance on "Middle Eastern dictatorships." "I would have preferred a bill that focused more on energy independence," the Highland Park Republican said, … [but said that] the version put to a vote by Democratic leaders will force the United States to diversify American energy production.

Well, yes, achieving energy independence is an urgent national matter, but if utility energy prices are prevented from rising and we don’t reverse the Democratic freeze on developing new supplies of oil, gas, and nuclear power and using more coal, won’t we still use about as much foreign oil?

This bill amounts to a massive new tax by Democrats underneath the ruse of environmental protection and energy independence, the additional revenues from which would only help fuel their destructive spending orgy.

There was a rally at Kirk’s office today to protest his vote. Illinois bloggers John Ruberry of Marathon Pundit (link) and Anne Leary of Backyard Conservative (link) were there and cover it at their blogs.

Sensible big-tent Republicans understand that Republican legislators will not always vote in lock-step on every issue, especially if they represent liberal-leaning districts. But sometimes Republicans in such districts feel intimidated, lose nerve, and vote with Democrats rather than educate voters on the merits of their position. But when even 44 Democrats couldn’t vote for this bill, Kirk’s vote is hard to understand, and very disappointing.

John M Greco

Remembering Errol Flynn, at 100

Errol Flynn, one of the great movie stars of all time, was born 100 years ago today. He defined the classic movie action hero -- daring and dashing, a leader of men; honorable and purposeful, but devil-may-care and quick to laugh. His roles may not have been unduly complex, but they were bold and heroic. His pictures were often run and much watched, years ago, before movie heroes changed forever.

His signature “swashbucklers” defined the genre and are, at least to this fan, his greatest roles: Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and The Sea Hawk. All were directed by Michael Curtiz and featured rousing theme music by Erich Korngold. Flynn’s co-star in the first two, and in six other of his movies, was the great Oliva de Havilland, and character actor pal Alan Hale had roles in 11 of Flynn’s movies by my count. Captain Blood, as good as any he made, was his first lead and his break out film.

Another favorite of mine, and of one of my sons, is the WWII action picture Objective Burma. Same character type – a bold, determined leader with an important mission. He made many other films, of course, including many Westerns, most notably They Died with Their Boots On and Virginia City. He was a great actor, but remarkably, though perhaps not inexplicably for Hollywood given its pseudo-sophistication borne of a collective intellectual inferiority complex and its love of self-absorbed drama, he was never nominated for an Academy Award. Flynn would be much more appreciated today by the Hollywood intelligentsia if he had played notably unheroic self-destructive substance abusers on the screen instead of just becoming one in later life.

Flynn was born of Irish and British descent in Tasmania, of all places, where his father was a professor of biology. Expelled from a number of schools for rowdy behavior and perhaps also for inappropriate romantic adventures, after some failed ventures he eventually turned to acting, where his natural charm, good looks, and athleticism led to quick success. He was quite the womanizer, apparently, whose exploits led to the quip “In Like Flynn.” The fast living and drinking prematurely aged him, and his career slowed down. In his later years he lived in Jamaica, and died at age 50 in Vancouver while traveling on personal business. His autobiography, My Wicked, Wicked Ways, was published shortly after his death.

The lasting image – Flynn standing on his ship’s gunwale amidst the clamor and confusion of a great sea battle, one hand on the rigging and one brandishing a sword, shouting “Over the side men, follow me.”


His daughter Rory Flynn maintains an interesting website dedicated to memories of his career (link).

Richard Balsamo