Filed under: Cool Site of the Day, Freedom, Health Care, Politics, Progressivism., The Elephant's Child | Tags: Call Your Congressman, Call Your Senator, Obamacare
I have been informed that Congressmen pay little attention to emails — and I have written lots of them — but they do pay attention to phone calls. They are very worried. Politicians read the polls, and they know that Americans do not like their efforts to reform health care. If you make the effort to call, that makes a difference.
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The National Center for Policy Analysis and the Salem Radio Network have made an opportunity for you to call your senators and representatives toll-free.
Please take advantage of it!
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Filed under: Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economy, Taxes, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Democrat Demagogues, Job Creation, The Free Market
Obama met with Wall Street Bankers after announcing on 60 Minutes that he “did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street.” Obama has made it clear that he prefers to blame Wall Street for the financial crisis; ignoring the real cause — which began with the Community Reinvestment Act passed in the Carter administration and was often amended to force banks to make more home loans to people who did not qualify for loans under normal prudent banking rules.
Those mortgages were bundled as in large packages as investments which were rated by the agencies that rate bonds who said they were good investments. A big part here was played by misguided computer models in the risk management area; the same sort of computer models that have been predicting the future of climate.
The Prudent Bear explains: “Investment banks managed their risks based on the “Value-at-Risk” risk management paradigm, which assumed that the distribution of securities’ returns was approximately …normally distributed, with a very low probability of high losses. The “Basel II” system of global capital adequacy standards for banks, which came into effect in 2008, just in time for the crash, was so impressed with these models that it ruled that any bank using such obviously sophisticated and superior modeling techniques could calculate risks on its own, without reference to the crude guidelines deemed appropriate for smaller, less mathematically attuned houses. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) essentially agreed with the Basel Committee; from 2004, it allowed the largest U.S. investment banks to manage their own leverage, under the theory that no mere regulator could match the exquisite precision of a modern VaR-based risk management system.”
The gist of that is that predicting the future depends on very complex models, and nobody really knows enough to program adequate models. Doesn’t work for investment banks, doesn’t work for climate science. There are simply too many unknowns, and the math is too complicated.
In Wall Street’s case the faulty models led to losses in the financial system in excess of $1 trillion; and the costs to governments of moneys wasted in the futile attempt to stop “global warming” haven’t even begun to be totaled up. It will reach shocking sums even if we manage to avoid cap-and-trade or the EPA’s ridiculous attempt to regulate carbon dioxide.
The banks should have known better, for they have had prior experience with faulty financial models, and governments should have known better than to bet their GDP on controlling something that we all exhale.
Obama’s anger is misplaced. He voted for expansion of sub-prime lending, he worked with ACORN, encouraging them to demonstrate and protest, to force banks to make more loans to unqualified borrowers.
What Obama is angry about are bonuses awarded to investment bankers. He claims to be angry because it is so unconscionable when so many Americans are unemployed, but this is sheer hypocrisy when the government is spending money in the trillions of dollars in completely unaccountable ways. The excesses of government salaries, often twice as much as the wage for the same work in the private sector, are all over the front pages. The left has always been angry with Capitalism, their name for the Free Market.
The bankers listened politely, but they have no intention of making new loans to risky borrowers, in spite of the President’s urging in the hopes that they will loan to small business, getting the economy that Obama is doing so much to destroy, creating jobs again. The left has never understood how to create jobs, but they sure know how to destroy them.
Filed under: Environment, Global Warming, Junk Science, Politics, Science/Technology, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Copenhagen Fraud, Green Lies, Greenpeace
This is simply delicious. The mindset of the greens is amazing to behold. Don’t trouble me with facts and references, I read something in the newspaper.
One would think that the news that the earth is not in deep trouble would be good news, but the Left will not give up gracefully.
This video explains the lie of Michael Mann’s “hockey-stick” graph and the IPCC Assessment which is based on the graph. It comes from Anthony Watts’ invaluable website Watt’s Up With That. Take the time to go over it more than once if you can.
Sorry, Barbara Boxer, it’s all over. It was always a fraud, and ClimateGate keeps growing as the fraud falls apart. Too bad, Mr. Waxman and Mr. Markey. Cap-and-trade won’t fly.
Filed under: Economy, Freedom, Health Care, Politics, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Democrat Corruption, Economy, Liberal lies, Taxes
Health-care reform. Someone on the left actually said that Democrats have to pass something so that Obama has an accomplishment for the State of the Union speech. Is that really what this is all about?
Voters oppose the bill by 52% to 38%, and President Obama’s handling gets even more of a thumbs down, with 56% disapproving. By 71% to 21%, voters don’t think universal coverage is worth lower quality of care. 66% believe that free market competition would do a better job of reducing costs.
The bill being debated by the Senate is a monstrous mess. It will raise the cost of medical care for everyone. It will reduce the quality of care. You will lose your private health care coverage. And it will leave 24 million people still uninsured.
A family earning $54,000 a year, buying a nationwide Blue Cross/ Blue Shield policy through FEHBP (Federal Employees Health Benefit Program) would pay monthly premiums over $825 after a $10,100 government subsidy.
Everything promised: insure the uninsured, reduce the deficit, improve the quality of care, ” if you like your plan you can keep it”, reduce the amount you pay for your health care, reduce the rapid increase in costs and “you can keep the coverage from your employer”. All a lie.
They will eliminate the government option, and allow people to “buy into”Medicare early at 55 or 60. [Another way to get you under government control] An individual, age 55 could buy into Medicare for only $7,600 or $15,200 for a couple.
Robert Tracinski describes the three disastrous provisions in the Reid/Baucus/Obama health-care bill:
Guaranteed Issue — requires insurance companies to offer coverage to people who are already sick, and limits companies’ ability to charge higher rates for customers who pose a higher risk. This means that everyone’s premiums will rise sharply. Young healthy people would quickly realize that there was no point in buying insurance and paying high premiums until they got sick.
Individual Mandate — The fix for guaranteed issue is to require everyone to buy insurance or pay a tax set at $750. This is a tax for existing. Cheaper to pay the tax, and continue to refuse to buy insurance than to buy it. So prison is an option.
All New Policies Are Part of a Government Controlled “Exchange” — This is designed to eliminate low-cost plans like owning a catastrophic care policy along with a Health Savings Account. Under the guise of making insurance more affordable, insurance will be restricted to the most expensive options.
As Tracinski says:
That is the final and perhaps most compelling reason to kill this bill: the sheer arrogance of the whole enterprise. It is the arrogance of stampeding an unwilling public toward a monstrous 2,000-page piece of legislation while admitting that it still has huge problems, but promising that it will all somehow be fixed later on. It’s the arrogance of selling us a bill that expands government spending by hundreds of billions of dollars while telling us that it will reduce the deficit. It is the sheer unmitigated gall of appointing a bureaucrat to run a government-controlled insurance market that takes away all of our health choices-and then calling this bureaucrat the Health Choices Commissioner.
The Democrat leadership is determined to pass something, which they will “fix” later. They will use every trick in the book to make it happen.
You need to let them hear from you. The National Center for Policy Analysis and the Salem Radio Network have made an opportunity for you to call your senators and representatives toll-free.
Please take advantage of it!
Filed under: American Elephant, Democrat Corruption, National Security, News, Politics | Tags: illegal immigrants, Obama
The Party of Corruption strikes again. You see, illegal aliens can’t vote if they are in prison, and all the polls show that real Americans aren’t going to vote for Democrats next year, so Democrats need to find (or manufacture) votes elsewhere:
WASHINGTON – California and other financially strapped states will lose tens of millions of federal dollars that they spend to jail illegal immigrants charged with crimes, under Congress’ latest spending bill. The $1.1 trillion plan, finalized by House and Senate negotiators Tuesday night, combines six of the large yearly appropriations bills passed by Congress to keep the government running.
State officials and members of the California congressional delegation had lobbied hard once again to increase aid to the states for the program, hoping to cash in on California’s increased clout in Washington this year.
But their efforts fell flat, with the program set to be cut by more than 18 percent…
Overall, spending for the program would fall from $400 million to $330 million for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, or SCAAP, which President Barack Obama had targeted for elimination. It’s a formula grant program that provides aid to states and localities for correctional officer salary costs incurred for jailing criminal undocumented immigrants. [read more]
Keep in mind, these people aren’t in prison because they are illegal immigrants, they are illegal immigrants who are in prison because on top of being here illegally, they have been convicted of other crimes: rape, burglary, robbery, you name it. Cash-strapped states will now either have to come up with new funds to keep these felons in prison, or let them out. Once they are out, even if Democrats dont pass amnesty as they plan to do, ACORN can always register them to vote.
Border security, national security, your personal safety, the rule of law…all of these things take second place to Democrats lust for power. (via Sweetness & Light)
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Politics, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Causes and Consequences, Job Creation, Unemployment
I have just been listening, on the radio, to a conversation between Minority Leader John Boehner and Michael Medved concerning a meeting of Congressional Republicans about jobs with President Obama. Republicans urged the president to put a freeze on spending, for the EPA Endangerment Finding and the Health Care bill are huge job killers.
The president was aghast. Everyone knows that to create jobs we have to spend lots of money. Borrowing it makes no difference. It was Republicans and Business that were holding employment down. Boehner said they used the examples of some of the truly wasteful 200 earmarks to show how spending was ineffective, but that the President just didn’t get it. The president said that the problem with the economy was that the GOP was scaring people. He said angrily, “Name me one economist who wants to cut spending now!”
The Republicans in the meeting were shocked at the extent to which the Democrats simply didn’t get it. The president sees Republicans as evil people who are working against him, which certainly does pretty much eliminate any bipartisanship. Interesting.
Filed under: Environment, Global Warming, Junk Science, Politics, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Copenhagen, Green Porn, Leftist Lies
Here is the unbelievable propaganda that was shown at the opening of the Copenhagen climate extravaganza, aimed at the true-believers. I find it thoroughly disgusting. More ecological porn, making use of little children. Save the world, indeed!
ClimateGate is to be brushed aside. Nothing to see here, just move along. The Greens have far too much invested in their efforts to control the world, and they aren’t going to let little things like science and accuracy get in the way.
Anthony Watts has a new post up by Willis Eschenbach, on Australian data:
People keep saying “Yes, the Climategate scientists behaved badly. But that doesn’t mean the data is bad. That doesn’t mean the earth is not warming.”
This is becoming as fascinating as a good thriller. It is the data that IS bad. And it is bad because it was deliberately made so. Lots of adjusting, homogenizing, nudging. If they can maintain an atmosphere of fear of catastrophic warming, then grants will flow, people will think that climate science is something special, salaries will increase, prestige, glory. One might become famous, win a Nobel. Of course we must save the earth. Where is Mitch Rapp when you really need him?
Information technology people who have looked at the code from CRU and understand what they are looking at (not me!) are astounded by the poor quality of the code, lack of professionalism, and sloppiness of the code.
It all seems to be spinning out of control. Copenhagen: 140 private jets, 1,200 limousines, ecological porn, free prostitutes and lots of caviar.
Filed under: Environment, Junk Science, Politics, Science/Technology, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Anti-Science, Destructive Ruling, EPA Endangerment Politics
Lisa Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, today made final her determination that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare and therefore must be regulated under the Clean Air Act.
This destructive ruling has been in the works since last April. It begins a torrent of crippling new regulations of the American economy and the way people are allowed to live. Ms. Jackson supposedly has a masters degree in chemical engineering, and knows better. The decision is pure politics, for there is no science there.
The U.S. Senate failed to pass a cap-and-trade treaty in time for the climate change extravaganza that opens in Copenhagen today, leaving the administration with nothing but the promise of another presidential speech to take to the festivities.
The Clean Air Act is decades old, and was never intended to apply to carbon. This is a political ultimatum. This regulation will impose taxes and regulation across the entire economy, and will accomplish what Obama’s persuasion could not. It is meant to force Congress to adopt the cap-and-trade that they have so far rejected.
The Obama administration has already told Congress that it will regulate greenhouse gases unless lawmakers deliver a cap-and-trade bill to his desk.
Under the Clean Air Act, any “pollutant” that “endangers” human health and welfare and which is regulated for stationary and mobile sources, becomes subject to National Ambient Air Quality Standards. Taken to the extent mandated by the Clean Air Act, the EPA would have to order the closure of most industrial suppliers and users of conventional energy. Small business would be affected, as millions of buildings emit the designated 250 tons of a pollutant. Operating permits would be required.
Carbon dioxide, of course, is not a pollutant. It is a colorless, odorless gas that you exhale every time you inhale. It is a natural fertilizer for plants. It is not a cause of “global warming”, and we are actually far short of the optimum amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
As has been increasingly demonstrated in the last two weeks, the science is far from “settled,” and there is certainly no “consensus.” Copenhagen delegates are doing their utmost to pretend that ClimateGate never happened, but out in the real world, IT experts are looking at the computer code and pronouncing it unprofessional, sloppy, crude, and laughable. Yet that code is the source for all intimations that global warming is something we need to be alarmed about.
It will take a long time for final proof that the whole thing was a fraud and a scam. But it really is too late. The cat is out of the bag.*
[*That traditional saying does not refer to a kitty in a sack; but to a cat-of-9-tails, kept in a bag on shipboard until it came out for punishment in the Royal Navy — a flogging.]
Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Progressivism., The Elephant's Child | Tags: Democrat Demagogues, Government Transparency, Lies and Obfuscation
How can one resist posting on this? The Obama administration, you know — the folks who promised the most transparent government ever — held a workshop on government openness.
On his first full day as President, Obama told government offices that “The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails. The government should not keep information confidential merely because officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.”
The workshop on openness was closed to the public and to the press.
Filed under: Energy, Environment, Junk Science, Law, The Elephant's Child | Tags: ClimateGate, Scientific fraud, University of East Anglia CRU
Editorial cartoonist Michael Ramirez is the absolute master of the visual metaphor. He captures the essence of ClimateGate so perfectly. Don’t miss his work at Investors Business Daily.
Filed under: Domestic Policy, Economy, Health Care, Taxes, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Democrat lies, Congress, Democrat Demagogues, Health Care Reform
The California Health and Human Services Agency is ending mammogram subsidies for low-income women under age 50. Under the old rules, women unable to pay could get a subsidy for annual breast-cancer screening beginning at age 40.
The decision by the State of California, which takes effect Jan. 1, follows a federal task force recommendation last month that mammograms before the age of 50 are not generally needed. As Carly Fiorina notes, the task force does not include any oncologists or radiologists, but simply a bunch of bureaucrats.
HHS Secretary Sibelius, noting the outcry, hastened to say that the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force recommendations were not regulation, and they really didn’t have any say.
California public health linked the change to the Task Force advisory and also to California’s budget woes.
Breast cancer is a high-profile disease. Most women know someone who has died of breast cancer. The only appeal from a government decision is strong opposition. Congress takes note of opposition if it is loud enough. But many diseases and conditions are not high-profile, and cost a lot, and under ObamaCare the guidance will not come from your doctor, but from statistics gathered by bureaucrats to see what is cost-effective.
Democrats claim that they will increase preventive care to control costs. Studies show that preventive care will not control costs, but increase them. Democrats don’t know anything whatsoever about controlling costs, or budgeting. The current health-care bill clearly demonstrates this.
American medicine has always been about saving lives. Democrat health-care reform is, first of all, about control. To get that control, they have divided the electorate into groups to whom they promise favors. Planned Parenthood and feminists demand paid abortions; members of the Democrat caucus opposed to abortion, demand no paid abortions or they will vote against the bill. Trial lawyers are second only to labor unions as Democrat donors. No tort reform, and extra goodies for the unions. Pleasing everyone means very high costs. Democrat health-care reform becomes about saving money, and saving money becomes about rationing, because the costs are going to be very high, and rationing is all that’s left.
Republican health-care reform is about individuals, not groups. They look at where the real problems are in our current health care, and advocate solving the problems before attempting drastic reform. Doctors freely admit that they practice defensive medicine, ordering more tests than necessary just to be on the safe side for fear of lawsuits. and nobody really knows how much this costs, but it’s a lot.
Insurance costs differ widely in different states because of requirements imposed by insurance commissioners and legislatures. Opening competition to insurance companies across state lines would bring costs down sharply. Competition always does. Bringing the cost of health insurance policies down will make health-care affordable for far more people. Republicans have all sorts of good ideas. Correcting the things that are wrong first seems far more sensible than trying to rearrange a big chunk of the economy, with no idea whether any part of it will work at all.
Filed under: American Elephant, Democrat Corruption, Health Care | Tags: Joe Lieberman, Obamacare
Democrats have admitted it, on video, to their supporters, and yet they deny it to our faces. We know they are lying, they know they are lying, they even know that we know they are lying.
They don’t care.
No wonder 71 percent of Americans are seething at government: there is nothing people hate more than a bald-faced liar who keeps right on lying even when they’ve been caught red-handed at it.
That’s why “progressives” hate Joe Lieberman so much; he pulls back the curtain and exposes them for the liars they are. And he does so again today in an interview with Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal where he admits that yes, the public option is nothing more than a Trojan Horse for single-payer — Democrats have told him so.
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Politics, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Canada, Jobs Report, Recession
While the United States lost another 11,000 jobs in November, Canada has added 79,100 jobs, five times more than expected. Their jobless rate fell to 8.5 percent from October’s 8.6 percent.
One very interesting source of jobs up north, is a new $90 million SUV plant owned by — General Motors.
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Taxes, The Elephant's Child | Tags: "Jobs Summit", Capitalism, The Free Market, Unemployment
The United States lost another 11,000 jobs last month, and everyone is celebrating because 11,000 is fewer jobs lost than in September, and the smallest monthly number since the recession began. I guess that if you are grasping at straws you grab onto anything that floats.
Democrats are really concerned about the unemployment situation. People vote their pocketbooks and mid-term elections are coming next year. If you include those who involuntarily have only part-time work and those who want a job but have stopped looking, the under-employment rate is 17.5 percent, a postwar peak. When everyone is really concerned it is important to look as if you are doing something, so the President held a “Jobs Summit.“
He invited union people and environmentalists, liberal economists from academia, some high-tech companies and Wall-Street types, but not the U.S. Chamber of Commerce nor the National Federation of Independent Business. Liberals labor under the illusion that jobs are created largely by the government.
They are still dreaming of non-existent “green jobs,” though so far all the green-job money is going to China, where wind turbines are being manufactured. We have all sorts of businesses in the private sector here who replace windows, install insulation, caulk doors and windows, but they are mostly hurting for business, in spite of government rebates.
Government does not create jobs. Government takes taxpayer money and gives it to people for performing a task. No product is created, and less money goes back into the economy than was taken from taxpayers. The ‘multiplier-effect’ doesn’t seem to work.
Jobs are created by the private sector, and mostly by small business. (Not mom-and-pop small business or free-lance small business, but growing businesses with 15-50 or so employees) hoping to get bigger.
Businesses will hire when they feel some confidence that they can succeed in their endeavors. Right now, all they see in the near future is uncertainty. Taxes are going up, but how much is unknown. Health care reform is claimed to save money, but anyone who has been paying attention knows that it will cost in the trillions. The government is intent on cap-and-trade in spite of the revelations of ClimateGate, which will also cost the economy trillions of dollars. Credit for small business has dried up and there is uncertainty about new financial regulation, more bank failures and bailouts.
No administration going back as far as Teddy Roosevelt has had a cabinet with so little experience in the private sector. It is no wonder that they simply have no idea how jobs are created. They are notably unenthusiastic about capitalism and free enterprise, which they blame for most everything that they cannot blame on Bush.
The President says he will have a plan by next Tuesday. Congress is wondering about spending the rest of the TARP money, the remainder of the stimulus funds that are not being saved for just before the election, or leftover bailout money. Quite a bit of that is supposed to be our money, but once the government get their hands on it it is government money.
My bet is that the plan will not include tax-relief for business, health care reform will neither be dropped nor scaled back, and there will be continued war on coal companies and subsidies for uneconomic wind farms and solar arrays will continue or increase. Freedom is not really on the table.
