Post Thanksgiving Ramblings: Troop Surge, Anger at Federal Gov't, etc.

First, I had a wonderful Thanksgiving. My brother Lee is working an honest job again for the first time since 1991. He's got a tough, rugged and uphill road to travel on but he's made some good first steps. I'm contributing in my own little way but this is about Lee, not me, so suffice it to say that I hope that Lee will continue to contact me to report "good news" and that he will also contact me when he needs support. My son Christopher, a Lance Corporal in the Marines, returned safely from his first overseas deployment and is currently spending time with us here in Phoenix. He looks great. He's about to be reassigned to a new infantry unit and the odds of that new unit going to Afghanistan is about 100%. His opinion concerning the news that President Obama has signed an order authorizing 30,000 additional troops for the Afghanistan theater of operations was typically Marine blunt: "About damn time. And we could use more guys." My wife is recovering from her throat surgery and is now doing fidgety projects about the house. Every time that happens, I end up spending more money. Oh well. It helps the economy, right? And my daughter Heather and her hubby Mat are settling in beautifully in their new home. I am also grateful that my Mother is now living with me and that we were also able to have my In-Laws in town for the holiday. That's right! I get along with my In-Laws! It doesn't get much better than that.

Second: President Obama today signed orders to send 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. I think this is the right decision. Of course, the minute that President Obama starts acting like an actual Commander-in-Chief, the liberal base that helped elect him starts chewing on him. Representative David Obey (D-WI) stated that propping up a corrupt regime is "a fool's errand". Does he forget that Afghanistan is where our current conflict with militant Islamic jihad started? If we do not eliminate the Taliban then Afghanistan will once again be the favored location to train young Muslims in the ways of terror attacks to be used against the West. I believe that this new 30,000 is only the start. I also believe, as President Bush predicted, that the "War on Terror" will be a generational conflict fought out over decades, with the ultimate result the elimination of militant Islam fundamentalists or the adoption by all the world of sharia (sp). Who will win? I wonder.

Third: The chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, has stated that it's own peer-review policies would negate the attempts by a "small segment" ofpro-AGW (anthropogenic (man-caused) global warming) scientists to stifle dissenting opinion in scientific discussions and journals as well as to skew the data to make it look more dramatic. These efforts have come to light because of a hacker's successful intrusion into the University of East Anglia's email system and the dump of over 100 gigabytes (one billion characters per gigabyte) of emails onto the internet. In the center of this growing controversy is Professor Phil Jones, who is the head of UoEA's climate research department. In 2004, an email from him allegedly supported the rejection of at least two dissenting research papers because they were "'flawed" and yet he indicated in the same email that if necessary, he would support changing the peer-review process to facilitate prevention of the publication of dissenting opinions. The jury is still out on whether Prof. Jones was simply venting in a private email or that he was alluding to actual intentions or actions. To be fair, I think it is safe to say that we have all written things in personal correspondence that should not be taken literally (eg: "I'm gonna kill him!"). Contrarily, scientists have a responsibility to be detached and objective to their research and that such comments coming from such an influential member of the pro-AGW camp, especially in light of the fact that AGW is not a "settled" science, smacks of a scientific inquisition.

A far more worrisome issue is the confirmation by certain scientists at UoEA that they have destroyed much of the raw temperature data that was used to predict global warming. This means that other scientist cannot independently verify their assumptions. This revelation was obtained after a request for the raw data was made under the UK's Freedom of Information Act. The only data still available is the revised "quality assured and homogenized" data. The revisions were made for the stated purpose of adjusting the data to reflect variables in the way the data was collected. The raw data was not saved when the Climate Research Unit moved to a new facility.

How Business is Done in D.C.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/11/the-100-million-health-care-vote.html

Read the article first. Of course, over time weblinks will fail. So here's the synopsis.

Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA), a moderate Democrat, has been playing "hard to get" on committing to an up vote for the Senate version of the US Health Care reform bill. Apparently, a whole section has been added to the bill that benefits one state and one state only; Louisiana. The section is 58 lines and contains 660 words. It can be found on page 432 of the Reid bill, and the section is titled: "SEC. 2006. SPECIAL ADJUSTMENT TO FMAP DETERMINATION FOR CERTAIN STATES RECOVERING FROM A MAJOR DISASTER."

In summary this section increases federal Medicaid subsidies for certain states recovering from a major disaster. There is only one state that meets the conditions set forth in this section: Louisiana.

Since Harry Reid needs all 60 of his Democrat Senators to bring this bill onto the Senate floor for debate, he needs Mary Landrieu's vote. And this is apparently how he will get it.

Oh, one other thing... The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this provision will cost U.S. taxpayers $100 million.

I'm sure that Majority Leader Reid, who is battling an uphill fight in his own state to be re-elected next November, expects Senator Landrieu to stay "bought".

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how bizness is done in DC.

Kudos to ABC News' Jonathan Karl for bringing this to the harsh light of day.

Random Thoughts on November 19th.

Thought #1: U of Calif students think they are guaranteed an edumacation.
Numerous news outlets are reporting that students in the University of California system are gathering in "near-riots" to protest a 32% hike in tuition. One young man who spoke on an ABC news radio clip indicated that "rich white men" were responsible for this. I'm going to go with "not so much". If this young skull full of mush would listen to something other than Air America or MSNBC, he might have heard that the State of California is looking at a 21 BILLION dollar short-fall in their state budget. Unlike the U.S. Federal government, California can't just crank up the printing presses to monitize their debt. Hey, California DUDE! You're state is BROKE, man! There isn't any more money in the TREASURY. My recommendation... get a job, like I did.

Thought #2: Apparently, conservative black men aren't black.
Ask Jesse Jackson, who apparently isn't very happy with Representative Artur Davis (D-Ala) who was the only member of the Congressional Black Caucus to vote against the current version of the bill. “We even have blacks voting against the healthcare bill,” Jackson said at a reception Wednesday night. “You can’t vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man.” More proof that if you are black and you have decided to try and live free of the government dole and further, you expect others to do so as well, then you are an "Uncle Tom". Quote was courtesy of www.thehill.com. The hypocrisy is as deafening as the reporting by the "mainstream media" is non-existent.

Thought #3: If you write a book and you are a conservative, you get "fact-checked" by the AP. But if you are a liberal candidate for president, you get a free ride.
The AP managed to get a hold of a "printer's proof" copy of former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin's book Going Rogue. What did they do with it? They assigned 11 reporters "part-time" to fact-check it. Apparently, only Fox News feels this is newsworthy because neither President Obama's book Audacity of Hope or VP Biden's book Promises to Keep were given the same scrutiny. If you use the following search text: "obama's book fact checked", the links that came up were to articles about the fact that Sarah Palin's book was fact-checked but Pres. Obama's wasn't. More proof that liberals get a free pass from the "fourth estate" while conservatives are grilled.

Thought #4: Senate Marjority Leader Harry Reid is going to try and ram a 2,074 page version of the health-care reform bill through the Senate this weekend.
Republicans are trying to slow down the process by invoking a parliamentarian rule that requires the Senate Clerk to read, in total, the text of a bill before discussion begins. At a minute per page, which should be easily attained because the text is double-spaced and relatively large font, it will take somewhere between 34 and 45 hours to read it entirely.
Courtesy of John Boehner, one more reason that conservative will hate this bill: Section 1303(a)(2)(C) defines the process whereby the Health Benefits Commission will assess the monthly premiums that will be used to pay for elective abortions under the government-run health plan as well as those who are given "affordability credits" to buy such coverage that includes abortion through the Exchange. Minimum charge: $1 per month. You can read it for yourself at page 118.

Why Do the Dems Want to Bankrupt Us, both Morally and Fiscally?

I've been silent recently on this blog, although only a few would take notice of it. I had a very busy weekend, spending a lot of time with the boys of my DeMolay chapter. When I woke up on Sunday I saw that Speaker Pelosi had managed to ram through the "health care reform" bill, all 2,000+ pages of it.

Right now, I'm thinking of two things about this bill.

First, the bill as currently written includes language provided by Representative Bart Stupak, specifically prohibits the usage of any government funds for human-fetus abortions. From www.thehill.com, the following synopsis is provided:
"Stupak’s language not only prohibits abortion coverage in the public insurance option included in the House bill. It would also prevent private plans from offering coverage for abortion services if they accept people who are receiving government subsidies.

Allowing the vote represented a major concession by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to Stupak and other pro-life Democrats who had threatened to oppose the bill. But it came at the cost of angering liberals in the Democratic conference.

Abortion-rights supporters called it a “de facto” abortion ban and mounted an intense but unsuccessful lobbying campaign against it."

This amendment to the bill was the primary reason why some moderate Republicans and "dozens" of centrist Democrats were able to reverse their position and vote for it.

Now that it has passed, there is already movement to remove this language. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the Democrats’ chief deputy whip in the House, stated on MSNBC that she and other pro-abortion (often called "pro-choice") forces would work to remove this language from the bill while the bill was under reconciliation. She stated that she "was confident" that this prohibition will not be present in the final version of the bill.

So now that the liberals have largely succeeded in removing any kind of morality from government and our public schools, they now want those of us who consider abortion to be an immoral act to help fund abortions, regardless of the reason for performing that abortion.

Wasserman Shultz stated that the language essentially created a ban on abortion. Really? Really? No -- it simply states that Federal money (that would be taxpayer money) cannot be used to pay for abortions. Anybody that wants an abortion would have to pony up the money themselves, but there is no ban.

This might be an item that I make my stand on as far as my taxes are concerned. Meaning that if my tax monies might be used to pay for abortions that are performed for reasons other than rape, incest or danger to the mother's life then I will not pay my full share of taxes. How can my government make me subsidize an act I consider immoral?

Joseph Liebermen, independent Senator from Connecticut, stated on Fox News Sunday that any government option in the health care reform bill would cause the Federal debt to climb from twelve trillion dollars today to twenty trillion by 2020! It is unlikely that the U.S. government could ever recover from that much debt without printing literally multiple trillions of paper dollars to "monetize" that debt. In so doing, they would cause the value of the dollar to drop so low that no sane nation would continue to hold dollars as a "reserve" currency. This would cause a flood of dollars on the market as countries divest themselves of their dollar holdings. And just like anything else in a market, if you have a surplus of something with correspondingly low demand, the value drops like a stone in a gravity-well. This would cause the dollar to become literally worthless. You think cars are expensive today? Well, imagine how you are going to feel when you go to the grocery store and pay thirty-five thousand dollars for a loaf of bread or a half-gallon of milk.

You don't think that can happen? If you don't then you are not a student of history. Look at what happened to the German Deutschemark in the interwar period ("Weimar Republic") and then think again. It can and will if we allow our Federal government to sell us all into foreign servitude by spending money we do not have.

So, if representatives like Wasserman Schulze and Pelosi have their own way, we will not have only bankrupted our treasury but we will have also bankrupted our souls. And we will be paying for this unconscionable and profligate spending for generations to come.

I shudder to think what our grandchildren will say about this moment in American history. I don't think it will be kind.

Jon Kyl has a Point, but is Anybody Paying Attention?

During a discussion of an amendment to the Baucus health care reform bill, Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) stated that insurers should be required to provide basic maternity care. Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) responded: "“I don’t need maternity care, so requiring that on my insurance policy is something that I don’t need and will make the policy more expensive.”

Of course, this sounds like the typical kind of mean and hurtful and insensitive rhetoric that liberals expect to fall from the mouths of evil old conservative Republicans.

What Senator Kyl is trying to point out here, and nobody is bothering to listen, is that it makes no sense for a male insured to have basic maternity care covered on his policy as there is ZERO chance that any man will need to use it. What Senator Kyl is trying to say but nobody is listening is that the government should encourage that whatever comes out of the Baucus plan should be able to be tailored to each insured.

I'll bet if somebody were to ask Senator Jon Kyl if women should have an expectation to have basic maternity care covered in a general health care insurance plan, he'd probably be much more supportive.

Remember folks, insurance is supposed to transfer risk of disasters that you can't afford to a large group that can. We don't use health insurance that way.

In my opinion (and off-topic, by the way) health care insurance should be called something else, like health care benefits plan. It's NOT insurance.

Politicians Should Really Look at David Letterman Today.

Last night (October 1, 2009), comedian/talk show host David Letterman admitted that he had a number of sexual relationships with female members of his production staff. He admitted this because of allegations that "48 Hours" producer Robert "Joe" Halderman last month gave a package to Letterman that contained threats that if he did not pony up $2 million dollars in "hush" money that Halderman would go public with that information. The prosecutor said that Mr. Halderman's package "contained clear, explicit and actual threats that indicate this defendant (wanted to) destroy the reputation of Mr. Letterman and to submit him and his family to humiliation and ridicule."

Mr. Letterman's admission on national TV last night created an end run around Mr. Halderman's alleged threat by making the information public before Mr. Halderman could. By executing his "pre-emptive first strike" Letterman also controlled the way in which the information was presented to the public in order to control the damage it would do.

Make no mistake that this episode is not over. Mr. Halderman will have to defend himself against an extortion charge. There will be inquiries as to whether Letterman used his position of authority on his production staff/crew to induce these women to submit to his sexual advances.

It should be noted that Letterman has only recently married and that he married one of the members of his production staff. It is reasonable to assume that these "incidents" occurred while he was still single so infidelity is not an issue. Of course, sex out of wedlock is still "adultery" but we don't really care about that anymore, do we?

Politicians take note!
Mr. Letterman ought not to be "sleeping" around with his staff. However, when it became clear that it was going to get into the public domain he diminished it's damage potential by admitting it and not hiding it from the public. Contrast this to the behavior of people like Larry Craig, John Edwards or Bill Clinton.

Good Liberal Argument Concerning the National Debt

When you throw away the name-calling and other infantile behavior that currently plagues our legislatures at the Federal and State levels it becomes possible to listen to well-reasoned arguments from either side of the political spectrum and learn from it.

I was perusing a Progressive website (Centers for American Progress or CAP) and read an article written Michael Ettlinger and Michael Linden.

Michael Ettlinger is the VP for Economic Policy at CAP, principal developer of the ITEP Microsimulation Tax Model. He holds degrees from Cornell and American University.

Micheal Linden is the Assoc. Director for Tax and Budget Policy at the CAP. He has a master's degree in public policy from UC Berkeley. He is also a children's advocate, working at First Focus.

Both of these gentlemen lean heavily to the left. But, can we actually hear words of common ground from them? You bet...

In an article hosted on CAP's website that was posted on September 30, 2009 titled "Deal wit It. A Guide to the Federal Deficit and Debt".

While I disagree with their position that heavy deficit spending is necessary to prevent economic collapse during challenging times, I found several of the following quotes to be self-evident and very common sense.

"The real challenge is what we face after the recession: significant sustained deficits which, while not quite as eye catching, are equally historic, harder to solve, and pose a greater danger."

They also point out that sustained high levels of national debt can deter domestic investment, lower future incomes, raise interest rates and promote inflation, which causes further damage to people who see their wages fail to keep up with increasing inflation.

They provide a dire warning by stating that the CBO1 and the OMB2 both project high deficits through 2019, the latest year for which they offer their estimates.

The offer the following for consideration:
1) Revenue shortfalls are projected in personal income taxes, corporate income taxes and payroll taxes, especially compared with previous periods (they cite 1998, when the budget was actually generating a surplus of .8 of GDP3). This is especially pernicious in light of the fact that in the short term, stimulus spending (TARP4, ARRA5, TARPII, CARS6) is going to produce greater deficits in the short term, adding dramatically to the national debt burden and therefore also the amount of money the federal government pays monthly on that debt plus interest.
2) Government health care spending is expected to dramatically increase as the baby-boomers go from workers paying INTO social security to retirees taking FROM the system. Hence, the extreme urgency of reforming health care. Yes, health care reform is a national security issue. It's the WAY that we reform health care that is the source of so much angst and invective in our current political conversation.
3) Because of our involvement in Afghanistan, the ongoing campaign against jihadist threats and the likelihood that we will be facing a resurgent threat from an increasingly socialistic Russia and an emerging threat from socialist China, our military expenditures are projected to INCREASE.

These postulations are not in dispute by any reasonable person of either party.

They emphasize the difficult decisions that we are going to have to make and offer the following analysis.

"The [deficit] 6.3 percent of GDP swing is driven by both decreases in revenues and increases in spending." This is also common sense and incontestable. They make more assertions. Let's see if you agree with any of them.

1) Across the board spending cuts aren't likely. Some areas of the [federal] budge will be spared, which means other areas will have to face deeper cuts. Examples: We aren't going to default on our debt payments. We are also not going to cut Social Security, simply control the rate of growth. By taking these two items off of the table, the REST of the budget would have to be cut by 27% to achieve balance, or 14% to bring the deficit to below 2% of GDP.
2) Health care reform (assuming that the current version of USNHC were passed) is assumed to result in significant Medicare cost reductions, but most of these reductions will not become apparent for a decade or more. Assuming we can't cut Medicare, then the remainder of the budget must be cut by 35% to balance the budget or 18% to get the deficit below 3% of the GDP.
3) If we also exempt military spending from the cuts, which we would probably be obligated to do considering our current geopolitical obligations and future scenarios, that would mean that the rest of the budget would have to be cut by 51%.

So what gets cut by 51%? Funds to health clinics, federal retiree and veteran benefits, public schools, grants to higher education, the entire transportation infrastructure, regulatory agencies, the US Post office, etc. This is not a realistic solution.

The other side of the coin is to balance the budget by raising revenues (taxes and fees). It's also equally dismal. We would have to increase federal revenues by 22% in order to balance the budget by 2014. That's a 22% increase in everybody's income taxes, gas taxes, payroll taxes and federal charges. And don't forget that the 50 states are also raising or will be raising taxes and fees. To bring the deficit to 2% of GDP would still require a 12% across the board increase in revenues. However, the current administration has promised that they will not increase taxes on individuals who earn less than $250k annually. This means that family's earning more than $250k annually and corporations would have to pay a tax rate of nearly 70% in order to cut the budget deficit to only 2% of GDP by 2014. Note that this does NOT balance the budget.

They then ask some questions that I don't agree with. Example: "Can the U.S. afford to continue to spend so much more of it's national income than the rest of the world on defense?" As of 2003, the U.S. spent 3.7 of national income on military expenditures, which represented 49% of U.S. discretionary spending. While this does not include the last five years, 49% of the discretionary spending budget is nearly the lowest percentage spent in any given fiscal year since before World War II.

For over four decades our government has run budget deficits, with the natural result that our national debt has grown to a dangerous high. The conclusion: In order to slow our deficit spending and return to a balanced budget or even a budget surplus will require significant sacrifice on our part.

Here's the part my conservative friends isn't going to like. Our economy is a national security issue. We must stop spending money that we do not have. Quite the opposite, we must start to repay the money that we have already borrowed. The only way that we are going to be able to do that is to both reduce government spending (including military and health care) while at the same time, all American citizens are going to be called upon to pay more in fees and taxes while at the same time receiving less entitlements. It's going to hurt. Any conservative that tells me that we can solve this solution while not increasing taxes is not looking dispassionately at the facts of our situation. However, any liberal that thinks we can balance the budget and reduce the debt by increased taxation alone are also equally deluded. Programs of all kinds, including social programs (education, housing, health care, regulatory agencies) are going to have to be cut or dramatically reduced.

We've had our party. It's time to pay the bill.


(1) CBO: Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan Federal organization that provides the Congress with financial impact analysis.
(2) Office of Management and Budget, a Federal organization that monitors existing Federal spending.
(3) GDP: Gross Domestic Product
(4) TARP: Troubled Asset Relief Program
(5) ARRA: American Reinvestment and Recovery Act
(5) CARS: Car Allowance Rebate System