John Holdren, Science Czar
John Holdren is the director of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, focusing on energy independence and global warming. Holdren has degrees from MIT and Stanford and won the unanimous approval in the Senate to be the president's chief science adviser, but some of his controversial early writings may have escaped the senators' notice.
'Ultimately' Human
"The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being," Holdren wrote in "Human Ecology," a 1973 textbook he co-authored with environmental activists Paul and Anne Ehrlich.
The Secret Rights of Trees
Holdren heralded a "tightly reasoned essay" by law professor Christopher Stone, who said, "I am quite seriously proposing that we give legal rights to forests, oceans, rivers and other so-called 'natural objects' in the environment -- indeed, to the natural environment as a whole." Holdren, writing in 1977's "Ecoscience," which was also co-authored with Paul and Anne Ehrlich, said the change would have "a most salubrious effect on the quality of the environment."
Forced Abortions
Holdren wrote that "it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society."
In a future society, "It would even be possible to require pregnant single women to marry or have abortions, perhaps as an alternative to placement for adoption, depending on the society," Holdren and his co-authors wrote.
A Planetary Regime
To help achieve their goals, Holdren and the Ehrlichs formulated a "world government scheme" they called the Planetary Regime, which would administer the world's resources and human growth. They also discussed the development of an "armed international organization, a global analogue of a police force" to which nations would surrender part of their sovereignty.
Sterilizing Chemicals in Water and Food
"Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems," Holdren wrote in "Ecoscience."
"To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock."
Seeding the Skies
Holdren told the Associated Press in April that the U.S. will consider all options to stop global warming -- including an experimental scheme to shoot pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays and cool the earth, a last resort he hoped could be averted.
"We don't have the luxury of taking any approach off the table," he said, because global warming poses a threat akin to being "in a car with bad brakes driving toward a cliff in the fog."
Sterilizing Capsules
Another "coercive fertility control" program floated by Holdren involved "the development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired ... The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births."
Mass Die-Off
During his confirmation hearing, Holdren was asked to clear up his 1986 prediction that global warming was going to kill about 1 billion people by 2020. "It is a possibility, and one we should work energetically to avoid," Holdren said, under pressure from Sen. David Vitter, R-La.
De-Development
In 1973, Holdren and the Ehrlichs argued in "Human Ecology" that "a massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States."
Later in the '70s, as first reported by CNSNews.com., he explained in "Ecoscience" that he meant a reduction in everything from nuclear arms and pesticides to giant automobiles and plastic wrappings.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Friday, August 14, 2009
Obama and health care
Obama's Forfeited Credibility Sabotaging Obamacare
by David Limbaugh
President Barack Obama apparently came to believe the myth of his messiahship and has accordingly abused and squandered his good will and political capital and possibly self-sabotaged his socialized medicine scheme.
Of all the newsworthy aspects of this desperate "reform" effort, none is more so than the robust democratic processes it has reinvigorated in this nation. While Democrats insist the nationwide grass-roots movement against his Draconian measure is contrived and illusory, it is just the opposite.
Nothing could be so real as the American people, emboldened by their passion for liberty, standing up against a callous, dishonest government trolling for its freedoms in exchange for false promises.
All the proof we need that Obama and Democrats recognize the authenticity of this grass-roots protest is their hysterical reaction to it. They wouldn't be hyperventilating about it if they believed it to be fake, but would use their super-majorities to ram through this bill.
Indeed, that congressmen have not been able or courageous enough (against the threat of being removed from office in 2010) to pass this bill is the story of the year. Integral to that story is the unraveling of the Obama mystique, occasioned by Obama's ongoing arrogance and duplicity, most recently on the Obamacare issue.
Let's just look at some of the myriad ways Obama has betrayed the enormous trust bestowed upon him -- on the health care issue alone.
Obama has said he just wants a dialogue with the American people on health care. Sorry, but there are just so many times a person can say the exact opposite of what he means and retain a shred of credibility. While saying he wants this dialogue, he's also telling his opponents to shut up -- literally. Even more revealing, he was adamant that this bill be passed before the August recess -- a bill whose provisions he admitted or pretended he was not familiar with. How could there have been a dialogue if he had already made up his mind and if the deadline he had artificially imposed could not possibly have allowed a dialogue?
Obama has said his opponents were trying to "scare and mislead the American people," when in fact his opponents are the American people whom he is trying to scare and mislead.
Obama misleads us concerning the public option, saying people can keep their private plans if they prefer. Yet the House bill, which he was urging be passed before the August recess, effectively would coerce employers, through punitive and positive incentives, to dump their private plans in favor of the public option. Most Americans have employer-provided health insurance, so a wholesale exodus to the public option would be inevitable -- and intended. In fact, the bill would prevent those who lose private coverage from reacquiring it, except plans conforming to a slew of new mandated regulations, which eventually would drive such plans out of existence. Obama's propagandette, Linda Douglass, falsely denied that Obama said he supports the public option, but he's on tape.
Obama misleads us in his inartful attempt to analogize the postal industry with his health plan, saying privately run FedEx and UPS have fared well against the government-run Postal Service. He fails to tell us how different the public/private competitive environment would be under his health care plan with the deck stacked -- by law -- against the survival of private insurers and private care.
Obama misleads us by denying that bureaucrats would "meddle" in our health care decisions or with the doctor-patient relationship. Yet in almost the same breath, he boasts that he would bundle payments to doctors based on the quality, not the quantity, of the services they provide -- such quality to be determined by his bureaucratic boards. The House bill is replete with provisions conferring such decisions on government bureaucrats.
Obama misleads us when he and his minions cavalierly dismiss the public's genuine concern about the government, under his plan, insinuating itself into end-of-life decisions. Instead of responding to provisions of the bill legitimately generating such concerns, he puts words into our mouths, saying we claim that the bill would require "euthanasia." Even some of Obama's state-run media fact checkers suggested that Reps. Thaddeus McCotter and John Boehner made that claim. In fact, they said provisions of the bill "could create ... a more permissive environment for euthanasia ... and physician-assisted suicide." Someone needs to check the fact checkers.
Of course there are legitimate concerns here, and it insults our intelligence to suggest otherwise. The bill would immediately impose a monumental conflict of interest on government bureaucrats by tasking them to cut costs drastically while simultaneously empowering them to "counsel" people about their end-of-life (and other) medical care. Such a conflict of interest -- over life and death itself -- is unconscionable and unthinkable in the United States of America.
The "messiah" has lost his mojo -- by betraying his unearned trust with the people.
by David Limbaugh
President Barack Obama apparently came to believe the myth of his messiahship and has accordingly abused and squandered his good will and political capital and possibly self-sabotaged his socialized medicine scheme.
Of all the newsworthy aspects of this desperate "reform" effort, none is more so than the robust democratic processes it has reinvigorated in this nation. While Democrats insist the nationwide grass-roots movement against his Draconian measure is contrived and illusory, it is just the opposite.
Nothing could be so real as the American people, emboldened by their passion for liberty, standing up against a callous, dishonest government trolling for its freedoms in exchange for false promises.
All the proof we need that Obama and Democrats recognize the authenticity of this grass-roots protest is their hysterical reaction to it. They wouldn't be hyperventilating about it if they believed it to be fake, but would use their super-majorities to ram through this bill.
Indeed, that congressmen have not been able or courageous enough (against the threat of being removed from office in 2010) to pass this bill is the story of the year. Integral to that story is the unraveling of the Obama mystique, occasioned by Obama's ongoing arrogance and duplicity, most recently on the Obamacare issue.
Let's just look at some of the myriad ways Obama has betrayed the enormous trust bestowed upon him -- on the health care issue alone.
Obama has said he just wants a dialogue with the American people on health care. Sorry, but there are just so many times a person can say the exact opposite of what he means and retain a shred of credibility. While saying he wants this dialogue, he's also telling his opponents to shut up -- literally. Even more revealing, he was adamant that this bill be passed before the August recess -- a bill whose provisions he admitted or pretended he was not familiar with. How could there have been a dialogue if he had already made up his mind and if the deadline he had artificially imposed could not possibly have allowed a dialogue?
Obama has said his opponents were trying to "scare and mislead the American people," when in fact his opponents are the American people whom he is trying to scare and mislead.
Obama misleads us concerning the public option, saying people can keep their private plans if they prefer. Yet the House bill, which he was urging be passed before the August recess, effectively would coerce employers, through punitive and positive incentives, to dump their private plans in favor of the public option. Most Americans have employer-provided health insurance, so a wholesale exodus to the public option would be inevitable -- and intended. In fact, the bill would prevent those who lose private coverage from reacquiring it, except plans conforming to a slew of new mandated regulations, which eventually would drive such plans out of existence. Obama's propagandette, Linda Douglass, falsely denied that Obama said he supports the public option, but he's on tape.
Obama misleads us in his inartful attempt to analogize the postal industry with his health plan, saying privately run FedEx and UPS have fared well against the government-run Postal Service. He fails to tell us how different the public/private competitive environment would be under his health care plan with the deck stacked -- by law -- against the survival of private insurers and private care.
Obama misleads us by denying that bureaucrats would "meddle" in our health care decisions or with the doctor-patient relationship. Yet in almost the same breath, he boasts that he would bundle payments to doctors based on the quality, not the quantity, of the services they provide -- such quality to be determined by his bureaucratic boards. The House bill is replete with provisions conferring such decisions on government bureaucrats.
Obama misleads us when he and his minions cavalierly dismiss the public's genuine concern about the government, under his plan, insinuating itself into end-of-life decisions. Instead of responding to provisions of the bill legitimately generating such concerns, he puts words into our mouths, saying we claim that the bill would require "euthanasia." Even some of Obama's state-run media fact checkers suggested that Reps. Thaddeus McCotter and John Boehner made that claim. In fact, they said provisions of the bill "could create ... a more permissive environment for euthanasia ... and physician-assisted suicide." Someone needs to check the fact checkers.
Of course there are legitimate concerns here, and it insults our intelligence to suggest otherwise. The bill would immediately impose a monumental conflict of interest on government bureaucrats by tasking them to cut costs drastically while simultaneously empowering them to "counsel" people about their end-of-life (and other) medical care. Such a conflict of interest -- over life and death itself -- is unconscionable and unthinkable in the United States of America.
The "messiah" has lost his mojo -- by betraying his unearned trust with the people.
The preventive care myth
The "Preventive Care" Myth
by Charles Krauthammer
WASHINGTON -- In the 48 hours of June 15-16, President Obama lost the health care debate. First, a letter from the Congressional Budget Office to Sen. Edward Kennedy reported that his health committee's reform bill would add $1 trillion in debt over the next decade. Then the CBO reported that the other Senate bill, being written by the Finance Committee, would add $1.6 trillion. The central contradiction of Obamacare was fatally exposed: From his first address to Congress, Obama insisted on the dire need for restructuring the health care system because out-of-control costs were bankrupting the Treasury and wrecking the U.S. economy -- yet the Democrats' plans would make the problem worse.
Accordingly, Democrats have trotted out various tax proposals to close the gap. Obama's idea of limits on charitable and mortgage-interest deductions went nowhere. As did the House's income tax surcharge on millionaires. And Obama dare not tax employer-provided health insurance because of his campaign pledge of no middle-class tax hikes.
Desperation time. What do you do? Sprinkle fairy dust on every health care plan, and present your deus ex machina: prevention.
Free mammograms and diabetes tests and checkups for all, promise Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, writing in USA Today. Prevention, they assure us, will not just make us healthier, it also "will save money."
Obama followed suit in his Tuesday New Hampshire town hall, touting prevention as amazingly dual-purpose: "It saves lives. It also saves money."
Reform proponents repeat this like a mantra. Because it seems so intuitive, it has become conventional wisdom. But like most conventional wisdom, it is wrong. Overall, preventive care increases medical costs.
This inconvenient truth comes, once again, from the CBO. In an Aug. 7 letter to Rep. Nathan Deal, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf writes: "Researchers who have examined the effects of preventive care generally find that the added costs of widespread use of preventive services tend to exceed the savings from averted illness."
How can that be? If you prevent somebody from getting a heart attack, aren't you necessarily saving money? The fallacy here is confusing the individual with society. For the individual, catching something early generally reduces later spending for that condition. But, explains Elmendorf, we don't know in advance which patients are going to develop costly illnesses. To avert one case, "it is usually necessary to provide preventive care to many patients, most of whom would not have suffered that illness anyway." And this costs society money that would not have been spent otherwise.
Think of it this way. Assume that a screening test for disease X costs $500 and finding it early averts $10,000 of costly treatment at a later stage. Are you saving money? Well, if one in 10 of those who are screened tests positive, society is saving $5,000. But if only one in 100 would get that disease, society is shelling out $40,000 more than it would without the preventive care.
That's a hypothetical case. What's the real-life actuality in the United States today? A study in the journal Circulation found that for cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, "if all the recommended prevention activities were applied with 100 percent success," the prevention would cost almost 10 times as much as the savings, increasing the country's total medical bill by 162 percent. Elmendorf additionally cites a definitive assessment in the New England Journal of Medicine that reviewed hundreds of studies on preventive care and found that more than 80 percent of preventive measures added to medical costs.
This doesn't mean we shouldn't be preventing illness. Of course we should. But in medicine, as in life, there is no free lunch. The idea that prevention is somehow intrinsically economically different from treatment -- that treatment increases costs and prevention lowers them -- is simply nonsense.
Prevention is a wondrous good, but in the aggregate it costs society money. Nothing wrong with that. That's the whole premise of medicine: Treating a heart attack or setting a broken leg also costs society. But we do it because it alleviates human suffering. Preventing a heart attack with statins or breast cancer with mammograms is costly. But we do it because it reduces human suffering.
However, prevention is not, as so widely advertised, healing on the cheap. It is not the magic bullet for health care costs.
You will hear some variation of that claim a hundred times in the coming health care debate. Whenever you do, remember: It's nonsense -- empirically demonstrable and CBO-certified.
by Charles Krauthammer
WASHINGTON -- In the 48 hours of June 15-16, President Obama lost the health care debate. First, a letter from the Congressional Budget Office to Sen. Edward Kennedy reported that his health committee's reform bill would add $1 trillion in debt over the next decade. Then the CBO reported that the other Senate bill, being written by the Finance Committee, would add $1.6 trillion. The central contradiction of Obamacare was fatally exposed: From his first address to Congress, Obama insisted on the dire need for restructuring the health care system because out-of-control costs were bankrupting the Treasury and wrecking the U.S. economy -- yet the Democrats' plans would make the problem worse.
Accordingly, Democrats have trotted out various tax proposals to close the gap. Obama's idea of limits on charitable and mortgage-interest deductions went nowhere. As did the House's income tax surcharge on millionaires. And Obama dare not tax employer-provided health insurance because of his campaign pledge of no middle-class tax hikes.
Desperation time. What do you do? Sprinkle fairy dust on every health care plan, and present your deus ex machina: prevention.
Free mammograms and diabetes tests and checkups for all, promise Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, writing in USA Today. Prevention, they assure us, will not just make us healthier, it also "will save money."
Obama followed suit in his Tuesday New Hampshire town hall, touting prevention as amazingly dual-purpose: "It saves lives. It also saves money."
Reform proponents repeat this like a mantra. Because it seems so intuitive, it has become conventional wisdom. But like most conventional wisdom, it is wrong. Overall, preventive care increases medical costs.
This inconvenient truth comes, once again, from the CBO. In an Aug. 7 letter to Rep. Nathan Deal, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf writes: "Researchers who have examined the effects of preventive care generally find that the added costs of widespread use of preventive services tend to exceed the savings from averted illness."
How can that be? If you prevent somebody from getting a heart attack, aren't you necessarily saving money? The fallacy here is confusing the individual with society. For the individual, catching something early generally reduces later spending for that condition. But, explains Elmendorf, we don't know in advance which patients are going to develop costly illnesses. To avert one case, "it is usually necessary to provide preventive care to many patients, most of whom would not have suffered that illness anyway." And this costs society money that would not have been spent otherwise.
Think of it this way. Assume that a screening test for disease X costs $500 and finding it early averts $10,000 of costly treatment at a later stage. Are you saving money? Well, if one in 10 of those who are screened tests positive, society is saving $5,000. But if only one in 100 would get that disease, society is shelling out $40,000 more than it would without the preventive care.
That's a hypothetical case. What's the real-life actuality in the United States today? A study in the journal Circulation found that for cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, "if all the recommended prevention activities were applied with 100 percent success," the prevention would cost almost 10 times as much as the savings, increasing the country's total medical bill by 162 percent. Elmendorf additionally cites a definitive assessment in the New England Journal of Medicine that reviewed hundreds of studies on preventive care and found that more than 80 percent of preventive measures added to medical costs.
This doesn't mean we shouldn't be preventing illness. Of course we should. But in medicine, as in life, there is no free lunch. The idea that prevention is somehow intrinsically economically different from treatment -- that treatment increases costs and prevention lowers them -- is simply nonsense.
Prevention is a wondrous good, but in the aggregate it costs society money. Nothing wrong with that. That's the whole premise of medicine: Treating a heart attack or setting a broken leg also costs society. But we do it because it alleviates human suffering. Preventing a heart attack with statins or breast cancer with mammograms is costly. But we do it because it reduces human suffering.
However, prevention is not, as so widely advertised, healing on the cheap. It is not the magic bullet for health care costs.
You will hear some variation of that claim a hundred times in the coming health care debate. Whenever you do, remember: It's nonsense -- empirically demonstrable and CBO-certified.
Hillary in a time out...
Hillary Needs a Time-Out
by Rich Galen
During the primary season last year, Hillary Clinton claimed she was more qualified than Barack Obama to be President of the United States because of the skills and knowledge of international affairs she had gained at the side of Bill Clinton.
I know there's a domestic affairs joke in there, but I'm passing on it because I want to make my point.
We have discussed previously that the Hillary camp made a deal with the Barack camp that they would not blow up the Democratic National Convention if Hillary were to be appointed Secretary of State.
Obama's other choice for Secretary of State was soon-to-be-convicted-felon and current New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, so he took the deal.
Hillary Clinton is a dreadful Secretary of State.
In May, Clinton announced that the Iranians were building a huge "mega-embassy" in Nicaragua. Why? "You can only imagine what that's for," she said.
The operative word there was "imagine" because that's apparently what America's chief diplomat was doing about the Iranian embassy. The other answer is that the Iranians have, while they have been developing their nuclear bomb technology, the ability to build an invisible embassy.
Could happen.
According to that front for Right-Wing interests, the Washington Post,
Nicaraguan reporters scoured the sprawling tropical city in search of the embassy construction site. Nothing. Nicaraguan Chamber of Commerce chief Ernesto Porta laughed and said: "It doesn't exist." Government officials say the U.S. Embassy complex is the only "mega-embassy" in Managua. A U.S. diplomat in Managua conceded: "There is no huge Iranian Embassy being built as far as we can tell."
Oops. Musta been George W. Bush's fault.
More recently you have seen the footage of Hillary - looking like Jabba the Hutt in a light blue outfit - lashing out at a student during a - dare we say it - town hall meeting in Kinshasa, Congo who had asked about what President Clinton thought about the Chinese moving in and taking over the heavy construction biz.
Hillary flashed and said,
"Wait, you want me to tell you what my husband thinks? My husband is not secretary of state, I am. If you want my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband.''
Yikes! Could it be that Barack Obama and Bill Clinton made the deal for Bill to go to North Korea before anyone mentioned it to the Secretary of State who, as we now know beyond any doubt, is Hillary Clinton and she was feeling a little left out, once again, of the boy's club?
Over the ensuing days it was explained that it was the mistake of a nervous student mis-speaking Mr. Clinton when he meant to say "Mr. Obama." Then it was the mistake of a nervous translator. Or, and I think this is the real answer, it was George W. Bush's fault.
Hillary's latest example of why she should be fired came the other day when she suggested that the 2000 election was stolen.
"You know we've had all kinds of problems in some of our past elections, as you might remember. In 2000, our presidential election came down to one state where the brother of the man running for president was the governor of the state, so we have our problems, too."
Put aside the fact that major news organizations, desperate to claim that Al Gore should have been elected, hired a major auditing firm to recount the recount and found that, no matter which set of rules they used, Gore still lost. Hillary probably hadn't read about because it wasn't widely reported.
This, in Hillary's mind, was not George W. Bush's fault. It was Jeb Bush's fault.
But, to be in a place like Nigeria and hold America's democratic process up to scorn is an outrage.
If Hillary were a Republican in a Republican Administration there would be howls of outrage from the press corps demanding to know if the Republican President stood behind what was dribbling out of the mouth of his Republican Secretary of State.
But … nooooooo. Barack Obama takes responsibility for nothing and is asked to take responsibility for even less.
Obama should cut his losses. If he can't fire Hillary, he should bring her home and give her a time out.
by Rich Galen
During the primary season last year, Hillary Clinton claimed she was more qualified than Barack Obama to be President of the United States because of the skills and knowledge of international affairs she had gained at the side of Bill Clinton.
I know there's a domestic affairs joke in there, but I'm passing on it because I want to make my point.
We have discussed previously that the Hillary camp made a deal with the Barack camp that they would not blow up the Democratic National Convention if Hillary were to be appointed Secretary of State.
Obama's other choice for Secretary of State was soon-to-be-convicted-felon and current New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, so he took the deal.
Hillary Clinton is a dreadful Secretary of State.
In May, Clinton announced that the Iranians were building a huge "mega-embassy" in Nicaragua. Why? "You can only imagine what that's for," she said.
The operative word there was "imagine" because that's apparently what America's chief diplomat was doing about the Iranian embassy. The other answer is that the Iranians have, while they have been developing their nuclear bomb technology, the ability to build an invisible embassy.
Could happen.
According to that front for Right-Wing interests, the Washington Post,
Nicaraguan reporters scoured the sprawling tropical city in search of the embassy construction site. Nothing. Nicaraguan Chamber of Commerce chief Ernesto Porta laughed and said: "It doesn't exist." Government officials say the U.S. Embassy complex is the only "mega-embassy" in Managua. A U.S. diplomat in Managua conceded: "There is no huge Iranian Embassy being built as far as we can tell."
Oops. Musta been George W. Bush's fault.
More recently you have seen the footage of Hillary - looking like Jabba the Hutt in a light blue outfit - lashing out at a student during a - dare we say it - town hall meeting in Kinshasa, Congo who had asked about what President Clinton thought about the Chinese moving in and taking over the heavy construction biz.
Hillary flashed and said,
"Wait, you want me to tell you what my husband thinks? My husband is not secretary of state, I am. If you want my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband.''
Yikes! Could it be that Barack Obama and Bill Clinton made the deal for Bill to go to North Korea before anyone mentioned it to the Secretary of State who, as we now know beyond any doubt, is Hillary Clinton and she was feeling a little left out, once again, of the boy's club?
Over the ensuing days it was explained that it was the mistake of a nervous student mis-speaking Mr. Clinton when he meant to say "Mr. Obama." Then it was the mistake of a nervous translator. Or, and I think this is the real answer, it was George W. Bush's fault.
Hillary's latest example of why she should be fired came the other day when she suggested that the 2000 election was stolen.
"You know we've had all kinds of problems in some of our past elections, as you might remember. In 2000, our presidential election came down to one state where the brother of the man running for president was the governor of the state, so we have our problems, too."
Put aside the fact that major news organizations, desperate to claim that Al Gore should have been elected, hired a major auditing firm to recount the recount and found that, no matter which set of rules they used, Gore still lost. Hillary probably hadn't read about because it wasn't widely reported.
This, in Hillary's mind, was not George W. Bush's fault. It was Jeb Bush's fault.
But, to be in a place like Nigeria and hold America's democratic process up to scorn is an outrage.
If Hillary were a Republican in a Republican Administration there would be howls of outrage from the press corps demanding to know if the Republican President stood behind what was dribbling out of the mouth of his Republican Secretary of State.
But … nooooooo. Barack Obama takes responsibility for nothing and is asked to take responsibility for even less.
Obama should cut his losses. If he can't fire Hillary, he should bring her home and give her a time out.
national defense
Obama’s Money Mantra Hurts National Defense
by Arne Owens
Earlier this year, President Barack Obama sent his Administration’s 2010 budget priorities to the Congress. What it revealed was shocking, even if it should not have been surprising, with trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, even before healthcare reform spending is counted. The only significant cuts were in future defense spending, even as American forces are fully engaged in fighting two wars and the world appears as dangerous as it ever was.
The White House’s budget submission called for ending production of the Air Force F-22 Raptor, a replacement for the 40-year old F-15 Eagle air-superiority fighter. Congressional calls for restoring F-22 funding were soon followed by President Obama’s first and only veto threat to date. The veto threat means the F-22 program is effectively cancelled, and the Air Force’s ability to suppress enemy air defenses and establish air supremacy over future battlefields has been degraded.
The Administration also proposed cutting production of the Navy’s top fighter aircraft, the F-18 Super Hornet, which will result in a shortfall of at least 200 aircraft – probably 300 – that are sorely needed to modernize the Navy’s carrier air wings.
Also applying the cutting knife to the Army, the White House is canceling the Future Combat System Manned Ground Vehicles, the high-tech replacements for M1 Abrams tanks and M2 Bradley Infantry fighting vehicles, designed in the 1970s.
Finally, Obama Administration has taken a pass on building the Air Force’s next-generation mid-air re-fueling tanker. With the oldest KC-135 aerial refueling tankers entering a sixth decade of service and the newest, the KC-10, in the air for 30 years, our ability to maintain global air dominance well into the future is at increased risk.
Most disconcerting, however, is the White House plan to cut missile defense spending by $1.4 billion. At a time when North Korea is developing a nuclear weapons capability and testing launch vehicles of increasing range to deliver warheads capable of reaching U.S. territory, cutting spending on missile defense is downright dangerous. And North Korea is not the only threat. The mid-term threat from Iran remains real after witnessing their recent launch of a domestically produced missile with a 1,200-mile range. Only a credible missile-defense shield will convince North Korea and Iran of the futility of their quest for advanced ballistic missile technology, or, worst case, deter them from using such weapons if they are successfully developed.
Let us hope that the Administration isn’t simply saving money to fund future “cash for clunkers” and the other massive government giveaways at the expense of national defense. But recent history is not reassuring. Less than 12% of recent stimulus bill funding is truly stimulative, with the remainder consisting largely of programmatic handouts to various Democratic constituencies demanding government services. Priorities in the 2010 budget continue the trend, and the implication for future budgets is more of the same. Given this realignment of funding priorities from the previous Administration, especially cuts in key defense programs, it is difficult to imagine any result other than a decline in the readiness of our military.
Defending the nation in the years ahead requires actually funding weapons programs and systems that our military can use to do the defending. Congressional action to fund the replacement of aging aircraft and ground combat vehicles in the 2010 defense appropriations bill is essential. It will also create thousands of American jobs, a seeming no-brainer, given the ongoing recession. Spending taxpayer money wisely while funding the necessary tools of national security makes America more secure while also contributing to a vibrant 21st century economy.
by Arne Owens
Earlier this year, President Barack Obama sent his Administration’s 2010 budget priorities to the Congress. What it revealed was shocking, even if it should not have been surprising, with trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, even before healthcare reform spending is counted. The only significant cuts were in future defense spending, even as American forces are fully engaged in fighting two wars and the world appears as dangerous as it ever was.
The White House’s budget submission called for ending production of the Air Force F-22 Raptor, a replacement for the 40-year old F-15 Eagle air-superiority fighter. Congressional calls for restoring F-22 funding were soon followed by President Obama’s first and only veto threat to date. The veto threat means the F-22 program is effectively cancelled, and the Air Force’s ability to suppress enemy air defenses and establish air supremacy over future battlefields has been degraded.
The Administration also proposed cutting production of the Navy’s top fighter aircraft, the F-18 Super Hornet, which will result in a shortfall of at least 200 aircraft – probably 300 – that are sorely needed to modernize the Navy’s carrier air wings.
Also applying the cutting knife to the Army, the White House is canceling the Future Combat System Manned Ground Vehicles, the high-tech replacements for M1 Abrams tanks and M2 Bradley Infantry fighting vehicles, designed in the 1970s.
Finally, Obama Administration has taken a pass on building the Air Force’s next-generation mid-air re-fueling tanker. With the oldest KC-135 aerial refueling tankers entering a sixth decade of service and the newest, the KC-10, in the air for 30 years, our ability to maintain global air dominance well into the future is at increased risk.
Most disconcerting, however, is the White House plan to cut missile defense spending by $1.4 billion. At a time when North Korea is developing a nuclear weapons capability and testing launch vehicles of increasing range to deliver warheads capable of reaching U.S. territory, cutting spending on missile defense is downright dangerous. And North Korea is not the only threat. The mid-term threat from Iran remains real after witnessing their recent launch of a domestically produced missile with a 1,200-mile range. Only a credible missile-defense shield will convince North Korea and Iran of the futility of their quest for advanced ballistic missile technology, or, worst case, deter them from using such weapons if they are successfully developed.
Let us hope that the Administration isn’t simply saving money to fund future “cash for clunkers” and the other massive government giveaways at the expense of national defense. But recent history is not reassuring. Less than 12% of recent stimulus bill funding is truly stimulative, with the remainder consisting largely of programmatic handouts to various Democratic constituencies demanding government services. Priorities in the 2010 budget continue the trend, and the implication for future budgets is more of the same. Given this realignment of funding priorities from the previous Administration, especially cuts in key defense programs, it is difficult to imagine any result other than a decline in the readiness of our military.
Defending the nation in the years ahead requires actually funding weapons programs and systems that our military can use to do the defending. Congressional action to fund the replacement of aging aircraft and ground combat vehicles in the 2010 defense appropriations bill is essential. It will also create thousands of American jobs, a seeming no-brainer, given the ongoing recession. Spending taxpayer money wisely while funding the necessary tools of national security makes America more secure while also contributing to a vibrant 21st century economy.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Obama's red pill
Take the red pill, Mr. President
By: David FreddosoCommentary Staff Writer07/23/09 6:56 AM EDT
President Barack Obama responds to questions during a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, July 22, 2009. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)
"If there's a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that's going to make you well?" -- President ObamaIn last night's press conference, President Obama seemed to be reliving that famous scene from The Matrix. The main character is offered a choice between a red pill that makes him see reality for what it is, and a blue pill that allows him to continue living in a pleasant world of illusions. Last night, President Obama appeared to have taken the blue pill before his press conference. How else could he convince himself, the Congressional Budget Office's numbers notwithstanding, that his health care reform bill will not increase both health care costs and the federal deficit? How else can he continue to make the argument that a massive expansion of government spending on health care will solve rather than exacerbate the current problems? How can he repeatedly express such absolute certainty that such a measure will easily pay for itself several times over in the long run? Why can he not at least acknowledge the possibility that it will become a costly and useless trillion-dollar boondoggle that follows in the footsteps of his stimulus package? With his example of the red and blue pills, and another about whether a child's hypothetical tonsils should be removed, President Obama unwittingly presents the real problem with his plan for reform. Here is a well-meaning government official who so fails to grasp the problem in health care that he can present such absurd oversimplifications and suggest that this sort of thing is the real problem -- doctors simply lack the common sense to make obvious medical decisions. President Obama wants us to solve this problem by putting himself and other government officials in charge of rescuing medicine from the medical profession. If medical doctors with a decade of schooling cannot distinguish between good cures and ineffective ones that must be discontinued, then by gosh, we're lucky that the good folks from the government can.
President Obama thus frames the issue as a false choice between doing nothing at all and handing over to Washington complicated, case-by-case medical decisions that cannot possibly be legislated or dictated by government.
This transfer of medical authority to the bureaucracy is intended to curb costs. Unfortunately, there is exactly one thing that government can do to control costs in health care: it can insist on paying below cost. This shifts the cost burden to private insurance companies, which in turn pass along higher premiums to their patients. This is what government-run Medicare does today for many treatments, including cancer. Government will do more of this kind of "saving" when it assumes greater responsibility for funding citizens' health care, particularly if a government-option health care plan is established. The Mayo Clinic which President Obama praised in his speech last night is the same Mayo Clinic whose president signed onto a letter to Congress yesterday, expressing fears that a government-option health care plan Obama wants to establish will do more of this cost-shifting. The letter states:
Under the current Medicare system, a majority of doctors and hospitals that care for Medicare patients are paid substantially less than it costs to treat them. Many providers are therefore already approaching a point where they can not afford to see Medicare patients. Expansion of a Medicare-type plan without a method to define, measure, and pay for healthy outcomes for patients will move many doctors and hospitals across this threshold, and ultimately hurt the patients who seek our care. We should not put more Americans into the current unsustainable system.
President Obama brushed off this concern last night near the end of his press conference, citing a hopeful but very vague blog post on Mayo's website that went up a day before the letter was sent. In addition to ignoring budgetary and medical concerns, he repeated his dubious promise that his plan will not force millions of Americans out of health insurance plans they already have and like. He had no comforting words to convince anyone of the wisdom of creating two new taxes on employers -- one of them a tax that punishes small businesses with a higher tax rate if they create more jobs -- in the middle of a recession.The one thing President Obama did not do last night was address directly any of the concerns that Americans have about his pending reform proposals. With this sort of rhetorical detachment from reality, it is not surprising that public support for his vision of health care reform is gradually eroding.
President Obama needs to take the red pill, even if it does cost twice as much.
By: David FreddosoCommentary Staff Writer07/23/09 6:56 AM EDT
President Barack Obama responds to questions during a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, July 22, 2009. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)
"If there's a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that's going to make you well?" -- President ObamaIn last night's press conference, President Obama seemed to be reliving that famous scene from The Matrix. The main character is offered a choice between a red pill that makes him see reality for what it is, and a blue pill that allows him to continue living in a pleasant world of illusions. Last night, President Obama appeared to have taken the blue pill before his press conference. How else could he convince himself, the Congressional Budget Office's numbers notwithstanding, that his health care reform bill will not increase both health care costs and the federal deficit? How else can he continue to make the argument that a massive expansion of government spending on health care will solve rather than exacerbate the current problems? How can he repeatedly express such absolute certainty that such a measure will easily pay for itself several times over in the long run? Why can he not at least acknowledge the possibility that it will become a costly and useless trillion-dollar boondoggle that follows in the footsteps of his stimulus package? With his example of the red and blue pills, and another about whether a child's hypothetical tonsils should be removed, President Obama unwittingly presents the real problem with his plan for reform. Here is a well-meaning government official who so fails to grasp the problem in health care that he can present such absurd oversimplifications and suggest that this sort of thing is the real problem -- doctors simply lack the common sense to make obvious medical decisions. President Obama wants us to solve this problem by putting himself and other government officials in charge of rescuing medicine from the medical profession. If medical doctors with a decade of schooling cannot distinguish between good cures and ineffective ones that must be discontinued, then by gosh, we're lucky that the good folks from the government can.
President Obama thus frames the issue as a false choice between doing nothing at all and handing over to Washington complicated, case-by-case medical decisions that cannot possibly be legislated or dictated by government.
This transfer of medical authority to the bureaucracy is intended to curb costs. Unfortunately, there is exactly one thing that government can do to control costs in health care: it can insist on paying below cost. This shifts the cost burden to private insurance companies, which in turn pass along higher premiums to their patients. This is what government-run Medicare does today for many treatments, including cancer. Government will do more of this kind of "saving" when it assumes greater responsibility for funding citizens' health care, particularly if a government-option health care plan is established. The Mayo Clinic which President Obama praised in his speech last night is the same Mayo Clinic whose president signed onto a letter to Congress yesterday, expressing fears that a government-option health care plan Obama wants to establish will do more of this cost-shifting. The letter states:
Under the current Medicare system, a majority of doctors and hospitals that care for Medicare patients are paid substantially less than it costs to treat them. Many providers are therefore already approaching a point where they can not afford to see Medicare patients. Expansion of a Medicare-type plan without a method to define, measure, and pay for healthy outcomes for patients will move many doctors and hospitals across this threshold, and ultimately hurt the patients who seek our care. We should not put more Americans into the current unsustainable system.
President Obama brushed off this concern last night near the end of his press conference, citing a hopeful but very vague blog post on Mayo's website that went up a day before the letter was sent. In addition to ignoring budgetary and medical concerns, he repeated his dubious promise that his plan will not force millions of Americans out of health insurance plans they already have and like. He had no comforting words to convince anyone of the wisdom of creating two new taxes on employers -- one of them a tax that punishes small businesses with a higher tax rate if they create more jobs -- in the middle of a recession.The one thing President Obama did not do last night was address directly any of the concerns that Americans have about his pending reform proposals. With this sort of rhetorical detachment from reality, it is not surprising that public support for his vision of health care reform is gradually eroding.
President Obama needs to take the red pill, even if it does cost twice as much.
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