Monthly Archives: March 2010

Updated: Here Comes Healthcare (Beating Back The Beast)

Barack Obama, Constitution, Democrats, Healthcare, Regulation, Republicans

How interesting that among the health-care-overall “ideas” coming from the Right, Obama is eager to consider the use of “undercover investigators” “to fight waste and fraud in federal health programs.” [WSJ]

Looking to push the “long and wrenching debate” over health care into its final stages, President Barack Obama asked lawmakers to schedule a vote on overhaul legislation “in the next few weeks.”

“No matter which approach you favor, I believe the United States Congress owes the American people a final vote on health-care reform,” Mr. Obama said Wednesday in remarks at the White House. “We have debated this issue thoroughly, not just for a year, but for decades.”
President Obama outlines his three-part proposal for health care reform in an address at the White House.
The president called for an “up-or-down vote,” likely opening the way for Democrats to use the budget reconciliation process to pass the legislation without Republican support.

The White House’s plan purports to expand health insurance to about 31 million Americans and is estimated to cost $950 billion over a decade. [For a realistic appraisal of the uninsured read “Destroying Healthcare For The Few Uninsured.”]

Curious too is BO’s support for reconciliation in passing his hulking health care bill. Reconciliation “is a procedure that allows the Senate to pass a bill with a simple majority, without needing 60 votes to override a filibuster.”

Both Republicans and Democrats have abused the procedure originated by a man I have great respect for: the elderly, ailing Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV). Last year Byrd issued this warning:

“I oppose using the budget reconciliation process to pass health care reform and climate change legislation…. As one of the authors of the reconciliation process, I can tell you that the ironclad parliamentary procedures it authorizes were never intended for this purpose.”

“But there is a big catch: Anything that is in a budget bill has to have a budget purpose. If not, the provision can be challenged under the ‘Byrd rule,’ named for Sen. Robert Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat.” [WSJ]

The president, as has been observed, is avoiding the use of the term reconciliation, instead calling for a simple ‘up or down vote.'” Big Daddy has emphasized his urge to come between Americans and the horrible health care insurance industry.

For their part, the Republicans did not want their ideas incorporated into the Bill. “Instead of passing a sweeping bill, Republicans say Congress should pass incremental legislation to curb medical malpractice lawsuits, allow insurers to sell policies across state lines and create high-risk pools for sick consumers to obtain coverage. They point to a House bill they unveiled last year with these provisions.” [WSJ]

Updated (March 4): Via the Campaign For Liberty:

“In the Virginia House of Delegates with a bipartisan vote of 70–29 (and currently advocating for its passage in the Senate), VA C4L has been closely working with state legislators to pass legislation nullifying any federal health insurance mandate and shielding Virginians from paying any penalties for not purchasing federally-approved health care.

SB 417, the Virginia Healthcare Freedom Act, passed in February with wide bipartisan support, and Governor McDonnell is expected to sign the legislation soon. Meanwhile, newly-elected pro-liberty Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is reportedly chomping at the bit to litigate Virginia’s sovereign rights should Washington pass some form of ObamaCare.

In Arizona, HCR 2014, the Health Care Freedom Act, passed the Arizona Legislature in 2009 and will be on the November 2010 ballot.

On February 17, C4L Vice President of Programs Matt Hawes appeared before the Maryland State Senate Finance Committee to testify on behalf of SB 397, the Health Care Freedom Act of 2010.

As Matt told the Committee, ‘SB 397 will help contribute to this renewed national discussion over the proper role of government in our lives and, more directly, it may help keep the federal government from continuing to expand its unconstitutional health care agenda. It is not only within the power of the sovereign state of Maryland, but it is its duty to stand between its people and an overreaching federal government.”’

Updated: ‘Conservatives’ Pine For Post Office

Affirmative Action, Debt, Free Markets, Labor, Multiculturalism, Republicans, The State

Chuckie Krauthammer hasn’t visited a United States Postal Service office lately. As a regular on Bret Baier’s Special Report, he was asked to prognosticate about the future of the USPS monopoly I described thus:

Having used the Canadian, South African and European equivalent services, I can safely say that there is no viler or more inhospitable dump than the United States Postal Service. The latter is far and away inferior to the aforementioned rival monopolies. Enviously I eye the items my mother posts from the Netherlands. Whereas mine are festooned with at least two labels per package; hers are form-free, care free, shipped with ease.

The Postal Service is in the red, for a change, “could lose a staggering $7 billion this year,” and “posted $3.8 billion in losses last year.”

The fattened Postmaster General John Potter is seeking some kind of mandate (and funding presumably … from China) to “move the Service forward.” He wants to “reinvest, redefine and reinvigorate the value of mail to business and households.”

Fighting for the USPS, its “$70 billion in unfunded liabilities, and the parasitical existence of 800,000 postal workers who live off the Federal Financing Bank (read: the taxpayer),” is Republican Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

“If you cut back services, you’re going to lose customers,” she stammered, as if the USPS has “customers”; it has captives, pinned down like butterflies by grotesque “service providers.”

In the name of tradition, Chuckie Krauthammer expressed nostalgic sentiments for the postman who came no matter the weather, and recommended rehabilitating this institution.

As I said, he clearly has not frequented a post office in a while. It’s a monument to the multicultural Managerial State and is packed with sour, affirmative action hires who speak in tongues. Grandma in a remote hamlet is unlikely to get her mail delivered by a friendly old timer. Oh no, those government jobs are reserved for “minorities.”

Update (March 3): A reminder: this post is about conservatives supporting the continued nationalization of a service delivered magnificently and morally by the free market. I’m sorry liberty lovers feel it is unworthy of their attention.

A Government Motors Recall

Ethics, Government, Regulation, Socialism, Technology, The State

“General Motors Co is recalling 1.3 million compact cars in North America to address a power steering problem that has been linked to 14 crashes and one injury, the company said on Tuesday.”

Will Toyota’s inquisitors subject the state-owned manufacturer to the Rack? If they do, it’ll be for show—to stop tongues wagging. However, I don’t believe we can expect a Torquemada-style show-trial for GM.

Updated: The Law Of Medina (Debra)

Classical Liberalism, Constitution, Elections, Founding Fathers, Islam, Judaism & Jews, Liberty

She bears the name of another extraordinary woman, the Prophet Deborah, who was judge and leader of Israel in antiquity. Debra Medina is in the race against the incumbent, Rick Perry, and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison to “capture the government of the second biggest state in America,” Texas.

They, the far-gone establishment, have branded candidates like her “extreme candidates.” JD Hayworth, who is poised to whip McMussolini, is receiving the same treatment.

The Guardian:

Medina is no Sarah Palin. She has no need to write on her hand to remember her talking points. Instead her speech was a complex walk through her extreme anti-government philosophy, citing sources as varied as the Austrian school of economics, St Augustine and modern French philosophers. She said she wanted to get rid of property taxes and allow Texans to do whatever they wanted with anything they owned, whether that was dig for oil or build an extension. There was, she said, no constitutional basis for a federal Department of Education or an Environmental Protection Agency or the Federal Reserve. Texas should assert its rights almost as a nation-state, controlling over its own National Guard units. The disdain for government was visceral. The American way, she said, was simple. “There are two rights essential to freedom: private property and gun ownership.”

What I’d like to know is this: Why would Glenn Beck try to trip up this terrific candidate with a question about her supposed “Truther” proclivities?

Only once has Medina slipped up – in an interview she gave to the conservative radio host Glenn Beck. On his show Medina was asked if she thought the US government might have had a role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. She replied: “I don’t.” She then went on to expand disastrously upon that answer. “I don’t have all the evidence there… I think some very good questions have been raised in that regard. There are some very good arguments and I think the American people have not seen all the evidence there, so I have not taken a position on that,” she said.

I heard Beck proudly re-run the interview; he seemed flabbergasted that the woman had dared to doubt the integrity of the American state.

Not being a conspiracy theorist myself, it is my view that such a bent far from disqualifies a candidate. In the context of Medina, a hardcore, life-long advocate for natural liberty—a proclivity for conspiracy simply signifies a deep distrust of the Federal Frankenstein.

And that is a good thing.

Incidentally, in a previous post I alerted you to the theft of Jewish history. I see that the looting of the Hebrew language is proceeding apace too. The word Medina has a Hebrew root. Yet the freedictionary.com gives the word an Arabic origin. False.

“The root of Aramaic-Hebrew medina is din, ‘law,‘ and medina in both languages denotes a place in which a given body of law or legal system is applied, i.e., an area of political jurisdiction.”

In any event, here are 50 facts about Debra Medina. (“She was a high-level volunteer for Ron Paul’s 2008 presidential campaign. She describes her relationship with Paul as “good,” but frames it more as the typical interaction a constituent might have with a congressman.”)

Update (March 3): “Republican Gov. Rick Perry and Democratic former Houston Mayor Bill White clinched their parties’ nominations for governor Tuesday. … Medina declined to concede. Her campaign claimed that if Perry fell below 50 percent in the final vote count that she would be in a runoff with him because Hutchison had conceded. … ” [Houston Chronicle]

The reporting is so shoddy that, other than in Dan’s comment, I have not found a vote count for Medina. If it is 17 percent, Medina did terrifically. I’ve said it before: The fight for liberty is slow. Since the economy will not be getting better, inflated as it is by paper, Medina will win the next elections.