Cindy Frich confonts Congressman Alan Mollohan(D)

Click Here for Metro News audio link

Stimulus goes to buy Beer and Cigarettes for some on Welfare

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Reporter and Photographer Arrested At US Representative Russ Carnahan (D) Missouri Rally

Everywhere Democrats go today they attract a crowd. Unfortunately it is not the one they invited.

Representative Russ Carnahan held a typical "town hall" style meeting for liberals, pack it with friends and supporters instead of constituents. As per usual these days, protesters had to remain outside. Apparently, so did the press. The meeting supposedly was on policy for the aging, but Carnahan packed the hall with labor union faithful.

Police came to break up the protest and arrested six people. The reporter, Leah Thorsen, described the jawing between health care deform supporters and free market protestors as "a carnival like atmosphere."

St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Jake Wagman and photographer Dawn Majors found themselves arrested for "interference" when they tried to take photographs of an injured person. Some of the arrested included left wing activists charged with assault.

Senator Harry Reid and others blame the Republican Party and commentators for the commotion. If they believe that, they are underestimating the resilience of Americans who just want their government to leave them alone. They also ignore the polls that have shown a majority of the people against Obamacare. Many protestors have little direct connection with, and some often have outright contempt for the Republican Party. I'm not saying that is a good thing, but it is a fact.

Some political figures have quietly remarked that they have not seen this much popular anger since the late 1960s. Very rarely does the conservative-libertarian movement muster much activity outside of strongly worded letters and websites. Glenn Beck colorfully described many of the protestors as people brushing Doritos off of their chest, getting up from their favorite movie channels, jobs, or golf games, and going out to directly voice their opinions on serious matters of concern. A GOP state executive committee member told me two years ago "Conservatives just don't protest. they have jobs and families." Now they feel motivated to act. That in itself ought to frighten elected officials. If Joe Sixpack is making signs and marching in the streets, liberals may be on the unemployment lines soon themselves.

Pondering Health Care Imponderables

I suppose that the mutable number of health care uninsureds includes various categories who choose not to be covered for equally various reasons. I doubt the Amish are interested in any health care program, public or private. There are some religious groups whos members do not choose to avail themselves of modern medicine for reasons which are reasonable in their way of being in the world but not of it. There are some people who prefer folk remedies or the contemporary equivalents thereof and do not intend to consort with the practicioners of scientific medicine at any level. There are cost-benefit analysts, mainly younger people who are healthy and do not see much benefit in paying some thousands of dollars annually in health insurance when they probably won't spend a hundred on health until later in their lives. There are some substantial number who likewise make choices as to whether health insurance or some other thing of value to them is their better buy, given slim resources. There are also children whose parents are uninsured, but who are, themselves eligible for government medical assistance, though they may not know it. And there are also a number of people, possibly the largest of any category, who are in this country illegally, who certainly do not see health insurance as a spending option because they intend to send most of their earnings home, or are earning money illegally, or have no fixed domicile, or are sufficiently wise latinos or latinas to recognize that buying health insurance doesn't get you anything you won't get in the ER. or other reasons which might include linguistic and cultural factors, not only theirs, but ours, since we have some number of citizens who feel that we owe it to the downtrodden illegals to take care of them with taxes paid by everyone, including those whose jobs were lost to illegals who can be paid less then the minimum wage, worked overtime, and maybe "taxed" through withholdings that are withheld both from the illegal employee and the government.

The semantics of the "uninsured" definition also enters in. Are VA- eligible veterans who do not choose to seek any other health care insurance insured, or uninsured? I suppose it depends on who is compiling the list, and what their agenda is for developing the statistics they will advance.

Not to make to fine a point yet, but a good many of the 30,000,000 or whatever number you might cherry pick from available sources, who are uninsured don't want to be insured, and a good many have a reasonable argument that forcing them to be covered or pay a penalty for not being covered means that they are being taxed (or fined) for a religious principle that they hold, and have consistently held for decades or centuries. The children who merit coverage but don't have it because their parents haven't enrolled them may technically be without coverage, but they are eligible, and would be covered if some reasonably simple steps were taken at the local level to promote the programs in each state through the school system, welfare, food stamp and other programs. (The government is its own enemy sometimes because these programs to aid the poor and almost poor are so compartmentalized that its not that one hand doesn't know what the other is doing, but rather that any finger on either hand doesn't know what the fingers on either side of it are doing, let alone what the hand, the other hand, or any finger but one are doing).

In the Massachusetts plan, the government takes a default position, requiring that anyone who is not covered pay a specific sum annually for making that choice. The proceeds, oversimplifying the plan somewhat, go to paying for the cost of care for the uninsured as a general cost category.

The problem, of course, is that the illegals, probably the largest group of uninsured, are here illegally, so how is the government going to collect this sum which these people, as uninsured, are supposed to pay? Likewise the little kids.

And what about the conscientious objectors of the medical spectrum who do not approve of much that scientific medicine does and would not use the system under any circumstances, and object quite vehemently when the scientific medicine system captures one of their own through well-intentioned social legislation that ignored, when it was passed (probably unread) all but those within a single standard deviation of the norm.

The insured, however you define that, pay for the uninsured already, in many respects. The bills for the insured who are hospitalized are inflated greatly to make up for the cost of indigent care. Doctors still do some pro bono work. Medical practicioners and institutions absorb substantial costs as the result of bankruptcies where medical bills are a factor, but not necessarily the only factor. The losses the current medical system accrues because of uninsured or underinsured users are offset by costs born by those who pay, or by the state and federal governments.

The argument that taxing or fining the uninsured some amount will create a pool that fixes the medical care system by reducing costs all around falls flat, in my estimation. That conceptual approach would only tax/fine, practically speaking, the younger and early middle aged people who assume, correctly in most cases, that they don't need much from the medical system anyway. It will get little from the conscientious objectors who don't use the medical system, and never will, because they will file and win class action suits that will exclude them from whatever program is developed (unless the constitution is trashed), and the little kids can't pay, nor can some other individuals, as a practical matter. Nor will some taxing or fining program work on the illegal population. The government can't collect from people it can't find or refuses to notice.

Pick any figure for the number of people who are not covered by some sort of medical insurance in the United States and then factor in the uncovered who will ultimately prove uncoverable, and also the number who are technically uncovered but need not be, whose medical costs are just absorbed by the present system, and it will strike you as more than likely that this currently proposed revision of medical care payment is not going to do any better than "to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic."

During campaigns, candidates are all mouth and the solutions they propose are ever so simple. (All you have to do is just..., the greed of the ...is the root of the problem). Sometimes they are just blowing smoke, sometimes they believe the inadequately evaluated ideas they wistfully espouse.

The thesis that there is nothing stronger than an idea whose time has come perhaps has as its antithesis that there is nothing weaker than an idea whose time has not yet come. There is certainly, with respect to the medical care cost situation, a synthesis, or there could be a synthesis, but it is not going to arise out of the ridiculous congressional spectacle of recent months (years, eons?) where the art of compromise has compromised intellegence and integrity.

Thank You Sarah Palin!

I do not mean to be a copycat, but this is way too important to not share.

Hat tip to Don Surber for the following:

Via Mickey Kaus, this exchange with David Leonhardt of the New York Times:
OBAMA: “I mean, the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here.”
LEONHARDT: “So how do you — how do we deal with it? ”
OBAMA: “Well, I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that’s part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. It’s not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And that’s part of what I suspect you’ll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now.”

This is not too far from another political leader musing changes in how his country approached "end of life care."

"Reich Leader Bouhler and Dr. Brandt are charged with the responsibility for expanding the authority of physicians, to be designated by name, to the end that patients considered incurable according to the best available human judgment of their state of health, can be granted a mercy death."

Guess who that is. Both statements reek of administrative language hiding the fact that the government will decide who lives and who dies.

Thank you Sarah Palin for bringing the focus back to the "Death Panels."

Questions, Thoughts, Ramblings

Would it not be cheaper to close down every VA hospital and simply give all vets a private insurance card, such as Blue Cross/Blue Shield?

It is pretty amazing how quickly protesting has moved from "patriotic dissent" to "angry mob" status. I am also amazed that President George W. Bush would wax philosophic about how great it is to live in a nation where people could protest the president freely. Otherwise his administration ignored them. The Obama Administration attacks protesters. It figures. They have not shown a good grasp of the American psychology yet, why start now.

Amazing how anyone can slam their opponents for taking a tactical page from their own playbook.

It is nice to see Republicans coming together to battle the biggest ideological threats to the American way since Governor Huey Long in the 1930s. Well, almost all Republicans.

Interesting how Facebook is down as of this writing. With most of the media in full damage control mode for Obama, it has become a great source for the latest outrages and a catalyst for organizing responses. Wonder if any of the Obama volk have turned us in yet for, as they put it, disinforming people?

The power to tax involves the power to destroy. When the government has a monopoly in some field, the manipulation of rates also has the power to destroy. Big periodical companies for some reason have to pay a lower mail rate now than small publications. Liberal magazines can keep their costs down while small conservative startups like Human Events may have to cease publication.

West Virginia does a poor job marketing state history for tourism purposes. We were the center of early frontier warfare. Our guerilla style Civil War history matches much better the experience of a large group who tend to be military history enthusiasts, veterans. We have structures in place from the early Industrial Revolution. The state needs a vision for tourism beyond "Wild and Wonderful." We certainly are that, but so are parts of surrounding states.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, repeatedly marginalized and humiliated by the Administration, sounded one of the few notes of a tough foreign policy yesterday. She said that the release of journalists did not mean that the US would abandon the six nation talks with North Korea in favor of bilateral negotiations. North Korea wants to speak with the US alone. American policy since Bush has been to include Russia, China, Japan, and South Korea in any discussions of North Korea's nuclear program. We will wait and see if Clinton's wishes here will be followed or if the Apology Tour 2009 continues.

It is still interesting that Obama feels a higher comfort level dealing with foreign dictators than the Republican Party.

Whitehouse Spokesman will not answer the question

Rockefeller Packs the House!

Tens of people packed the Byrd Art Center at the University of Charleston to hear their senator speak on health care. You can witness the eagerness and anticipation in every face as they wait with baited breath to hear Senator Rockefeller deliver another opus on a health care plan that would end up denying many of these same people service. Why? Because their productive lives are over according to the writings of at least two members of Obama's advisory team. You can just see the total support for Obamacare on every thrilled face!

Mollohan Town Hall Friday

Mollohan Town Hall Friday

at Wheeling Jesuit University at 6 p.m. in Troy Hall

CHARLESTON, WV - AUGUST 11, 2009 - Congressman Alan Mollohan will be holding a town hall meeting at Wheeling Jesuit University at 6 p.m. in Troy Hall to discuss the Health Care Bill. All those interested in voicing their opinion to the Congressman are encouraged to attend.

WTOV News Story

Who Said It?

First group:

"we should put permanent tails and coverage on (political opponents) on all the personal stuff to cover the kinds of things they hit us on . . ."

"I don't want the folks who created this mess to do a lot of talking."

"Ideological talk and phrase mongering about political liberties should be disposed with; all that is just mere chatter and phrase mongering. "

"Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."

"The mass, whether it be a crowd, or an army, is vile."

"We don't let them have ideas, why would we let them have guns?"

Second group:

"Stifling dissent and likening those who disagree with you to Nazis are not the hallmarks of a confident agenda."

"The censor's sword pierces deeply into the heart of free expression."

"Citizen engagement must not be chilled by fear of government monitoring free speech rights."

"If we do not believe in freedom of speech for those we despise we do not believe in it at all."

"The sound we hear of tireless voices is the price we pay for the right to hear the music of our own opinions."

"The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be out first object."

"Leadership to me means duty, honor, country. It means character, and it means listening from time to time."

"Everybody is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled,but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage."

First group in order: Richard Nixon, Barack Obama, Vladimir Lenin, White House Ministry of Truth release, benito Mussolini, Josef Stalin.

I know a lot of conservatives still like Richard Nixon and he did learn about dirty politics from the Kennedys who were the true masters of that art in the 1960s. However that does not excuse his desire to spy on Teddy Kennedy, Ed Muskie, and Hubert Humphrey, nor his apparent belief that the presidency is not subject to rule of law.

Second group in order: Newt Gingrich, Chief Justice Earl Warren (at one point he was a liberal hero), Senator Jon Cornyn, Noam Chomsky (yes he is a Communist who likely right now does not care for conservative free speech rights, but the contrast between his words and Obama is illuminating), Adlai Stevenson, Thomas Jefferson, George W. Bush, and Winston Churchill.

***************************************************************************

Two more quotes. The first is from one of the heroes of Obama's Marxist professors at Columbia University. Yes he was one of the worst Communist thugs, but the statement makes sense nonetheless:

"It is still better if the enemy attacks us wildly and paints us as utterly black and without a single virtue; it demonstrates that we have not only drawn a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves but achieved a great deal in our work." Mao Tse Dong

Here's the second:

"I think they are AstroTurf -- you be the judge -- of carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town hall meeting on health care. " Nancy Pelosi

In other words, as a left winger's hero himself described, Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are losing. Pelosi referred to a hand made poster that did feature a swastika, but had a red circle around it and a red line through it. It was an internationally recognized symbol of rejecting, not embracing the Nazi image.

The (Hopefully) New Republican Headquarters

I saw the new (hopefully) state party headquarters on Monday this week and I was impressed.

For those who could not make it to the receptions on Monday, the possible new facility is a gracious white house on the corner of Greenbrier Street and Kanawha Boulevard across the street from the Capitol Complex and across the Kanawha River from the University of Charleston. For those not familiar with Charleston, this places the West Virginia Republican Party square at the geographic center of state politics (as much as possible without actually occupying the Governor's Mansion.) Extending down the Boulevard are law firms and lobbyists, some of whom might be more likely to attend fundraisers or chats at the party headquarters.

Greenbrier Street and Kanawha Boulevard are two of the more heavily traveled streets in the city, giving the party an enhanced visibilty it did not have on MacCorkle Avenue in South Charleston.

The interior presents a much more professional image than the old headquarters building. Instead of frayed carpeting and discolored ceilings, the party can now host donors, the press, and others in much more congenial surroundings. Legislators can now easily hold conferences without fear that an errant Governor might wander in. GOP Delegates can also meet constituents in spaces larger than the back seat of a Yugo. The property has a spacious front lawn upon which can be held good sized outdoor functions. Impressions make a difference and this new facility should start the party moving forward.

Delegate Craig Blair emphasized that although taking on the responsibility for the building represented some risk, the party needs to take chances to achieve its goals.

The Party leadership has been accused of expressing no vision and no plan in the past. The possible acquisition of this facility combined with the potential hiring of an experienced executive director represent the fact that actions speak much more loudly than words. These actions demonstrate that the West Virginia Republican Party is ready to challenge its true opposition, the entrenched Ruling Party.

Are Obama, Pelosi, and Reid Fascists or Communists?

The question at one point, maybe even a few months ago, would have sounded absolutely ludicrous. We are Americans, they are Americans, we thought. Certainly things will go as they always do. Elected officials will present their ideas, get them knocked down a little by the people, and we will put it off or get something that the people find somewhat reasonable.

Something changed. A motivating force behind Obama and both congressional leaders has them pushing for changes that can lead to nothing but extremely high taxation and significantly rising prices and costs across the board. Meanwhile they extended government control to an unprecedented extent over the private sector. They strongarmed two automobile manufacturers into giving up control, then handed them over to the unions. When they attempted to do the same to the banking sector, many of those institutions rebelled. They gave back the money that was lent to them to escape federal domination. Obama's people even explored ways to try and prevent the return of the money!

Now they want to create a system that eventually will put all health care decisions into their hands. The bill that no one except conservatives read spells out how they will choose which people deserve health care and which do not. Meanwhile taxation destroys the middle class.

Two quotes come to mind. The first says that "The way to crush teh middle class is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation." That was Vladimir Lenin. Next is "Fascism should rightly be called corporatism as it is the merger of corporate and governmnet power."

In either system the government tries to limit, then outlaw dissent through fear. Of course it helps to know a lot about the dissenters. The White House effort to gather information from private citizens on health care deform dissenters was a clumsy attempt to collect a database of opponents. Don't worry, their attempts will get more efficient as time goes on.

Obama is more of a fascist than an outright Communist. He will try to preserve the facade of a free market while stealing the capitalist substance. And the middle class? Without prosperity it is reduced to worrying about how to feed itself and pay its bills more than organizing long term political protest. When government controls health care, it will be in a position to discourage opposition. Previous politicians used the IRS to harass opponents, why would a future administration not hold health care access over someone's head?

The future is potentially chilling, but America is fighting back.

Whether they are more fascist or communist is irrelevant because both are the enemies of American style human liberty. It's time to take a stand and get back our Congress next year.

Blast from the Past: The Constitution

Obama's Most Pressing Problem, Apparently

Yes there is that War on Terror, I mean Conflict With People Who Kind of Disagree With US (name of war since January) and there is also an economic crisis. But Obama has bigger fish to fry.

Namely texting while driving.

The transportation secretary is calling a national summit on texting while driving. Law enforcement, industry representatives, and a partridge in a pear tree will be invited to talk about the latest grave threat to Western Civilization.

Here's the catch. Obama's Executive Branch cannot do it on their own.

Seat belt laws, the drinking age, and other issues cannot be forced directly upon the states. To get around the Bill of Rights provisions protecting state sovereignty, the federal government has to strong arm the states into passing the legislation on their own. With an amazing amount of work this year, it is doubtful that Congress will be able to act on this issue. Certainly the GOP and conservative Democrats will oppose this assault on states' rights.

Texting while driving is dangerous, probably more dangerous than taking three shots of whiskey and heading out directly onto the highway. Few people disagree with this. How about this for a solution? Instead of inviting a hundred or more nabobs to Washington to party on the taxpayer dime, send a representative to each state capital in the next year. Have them talk to each state legislature and quietly urge passage of a no texting while driving bill. Even better, instead of sending people, ask the congressional Democrats from each state to suggest passage of such a bill. I guarantee no one would fight it too strenuously. That would actually be easier than asking an overworked Congress to act on it.

But we have to do things the old Washington way. Get a lot of people drunk and fed, put them up in nice hotel rooms, and waste even more money. Meanwhile we strongarm the states and violate the spirit of the Constitution.