Christopher Merola
Monday, November 30, 2009
President Obama is now bringing terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay (GITMO), the American military base in Cuba, to the USA for trial. He is risking our safety by bringing these terrorists to the USA; he is also setting an ugly legal precedent, one where terrorists who are not even American citizens, are given the same legal rights as the citizens some of these same terrorists have harmed or killed.
What is behind the decision to bring terrorists to the USA for trial and then place them in American prisons? It appears that the Democrats in Congress believe the Bush administration was somehow abusive to the terrorists held at GITMO.
Just a few years ago, when President Bush was in office, the American media were abuzz concerning the alleged abuse of terrorists and enemy combatants being held at GITMO. Well, here we are some years later and the hard evidence of abuse occurring at GITMO has yet to surface. If anything, the hard evidence demonstrates the American news media engaged in nothing more than a modern day witch hunt against the Bush administration.
The American media were hoping to throw enough mud at the Bush administration that something would stick. It never did. As it turns out, the most pressing issue of concern, as it pertains to GITMO, was the admission by the Bush Administration that several members of the American military "might have" mishandled a Koran.
While no evidence surfaced to prove these claims, the American media insisted there was evidence of abuse at GITMO.
In 2005, Newsweek, the traditionally liberal magazine, released a story alleging American soldiers flushed a Koran down a toilet. Many Muslims around the world were up in arms. Riots ensued overseas and more than a dozen people were killed during violent protests against the supposed Koran flushing American military.
Well, as it turns out, no such Koran flushing incident occurred. Newsweek retracted its story and the cat was finally out of the bag. The American media were exposed as mudslinging reactionaries, as were the Democrat leaders in Congress, who tried and failed to capitalize on the perceived abuse of GITMO prisoners.
One Democrat Senator in particular, Dick Durbin of Illinois, overstepped his scripted dramatic role and accused GITMO of being equal to Hitler's concentration camps, Stalin's slave labor camps and Pol Pot's killing fields. The outrage to Durbin's statements was fierce. The mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley, a Democrat whose son was serving in the U.S. military at the time, spoke out against Durbin's statements.
Durbin finally apologized after more than a week of saying he would not. Once again, the cat was out of the bag. There was no abuse at GITMO. The Red Cross even said so after inspecting GITMO several times. So why do the Democrats in Congress and Obama continue to sell the lie?
One reason is the Democrats want to exploit the GITMO issue for the upcoming 2010 races. If the terrorists go to trial in the USA, instead of a military trial, then the Democrats can use the trials for constant drama -- drama that further demonizes Bush and the Republicans in hopes of winning over more voters. It is nothing more than political grandstanding.
The Democrats simply want to use the GITMO issue as a battering ram against the Republicans. The irony here is that no abuse has occurred at GITMO. Yet, all this talk of abuse by the media and the Democrat Party only draws attention to the real civil rights abuses that occurred during a time of war; abuse that is never discussed by the Democrats or the American media.
During World War II, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) began a policy of abuse that would make civil libertarians scream bloody murder had it occurred under GW Bush's watch. On February 11, 1942, FDR ordered the War Department to prepare for the entire evacuation of all Japanese-American citizens on the west coast of the United States. Using the War Powers Act to justify his power grab, FDR signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the removal of Japanese-Americans from their very homes and placing them in prison camps.
FDR's power became absolute and corrupt simultaneously. He then turned his attention to rounding up German-American and Italian-American citizens and making them work in soup kitchens against their will. I know this for a fact as my grandfather, an Italian immigrant, was forced to work in a soup kitchen simply because he was of Italian decent.
Remember, these were American citizens who did not break the law. Their only crime according to FDR was their ethnicity. For this, these law abiding American citizens were taken from their homes and treated like terrorists. Talk about ethnic profiling!
Democrat President Woodrow Wilson also engaged in the abuse of civil liberties during WW I. Wilson used the Sedition Act (1918) to stifle speech against his policies. The Seditions Act made it a crime to utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, or abusive language about the US government. Using this new weapon, Woodrow Wilson shut down newspapers that printed articles against his policies. Can you imagine the outrage if GW Bush shut down newspapers that printed articles against his policies?
Wilson even used the Sedition Act to arrest anti-war protesters for speaking out against the draft and the war. Could you imagine the outrage if GW Bush ended protesting against his policies?
Think about the twisted logic here: those who truly are terrorists were held at GITMO by the Bush administration to keep America safe. For this act of defending our national security the left has cried foul, all while denying the true civil rights abuses of Democrat presidents FDR and Woodrow Wilson.
I find it quite interesting that FDR, specifically, has always been an icon to the political left. He has taken on a mythical god-like status over the years. For this reason, the charges of abuse at GITMO, aimed against the Bush administration, are outrageous to say the least. Even more outrageous are the claims that GITMO prisoners are denied their Constitutional rights. Those imprisoned at GITMO are not even American citizens. They have no Constitutional rights. Therefore, their Constitutional rights can't be violated.
Secondly, those imprisoned at GITMO are terrorists who fit the legal category of "enemy combatants." Even when it was unclear if enemy combatants were entitled to the protection and rights of the Geneva Convention, the Bush Administration afforded these terrorists the protection rights agreed upon at the Geneva Convention anyway. That's right, the Bush administration actually treated the enemy combatants -- some of who were caught in the very act of attacking American military personnel in Iraq -- better than the terrorists deserve to be treated.
Now let's consider the conditions at GITMO.
The conditions at GITMO are far superior to the conditions these terrorists were accustomed to in their own countries of origin. Some of these terrorists used toilets, drank clean water and ate three square meals a day for the first time in their very lives. The enemy combatants at GITMO were treated to Muslim diets daily -- diets that met their strict religious standards.
GITMO terrorists were given the Koran (paid for by American tax dollars), along with ample time to pray 5 times per day. All while our nation's military was under investigation for alleged, "Christian proselytizing" at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
You may find it interesting to know that after breaking up Osama Bin Laden's terrorist network in Afghanistan, our nation's military forces came upon the Al Qaeda training manual. In the manual were instructions for a member of Al Qaeda to cry "abuse" if captured by the American armed forces. The manual went on to say that forces within America would be sympathetic to the terrorists' cause if they only cried, "abuse."
Judging by the behavior of the American media and the Democrat Party of recent years, it is easy to figure out who is more sympathetic to terrorists.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Global Warming Consensus: Garbage In, Garbage Out
Michael Barone
Monday, November 30, 2009
As Air Force One heads to Copenhagen for the climate summit Dec. 9, it will presumably not make a U-turn while flying over the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at University of East Anglia near Norwich, England. But perhaps it should.
The 61 megabytes of CRU e-mails and documents made public by a hacker cast serious doubt on the ballyhooed consensus on manmade global warming that the Copenhagen summit was called to address.
The CRU has been a major source of data on global temperatures, relied on by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But the e-mails suggest that CRU scientists have been suppressing and misstating data and working to prevent the publication of conflicting views in peer-reviewed science periodicals. Some of the more pungent e-mails:
"I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"
"Can you delete any e-mails you may have had with Keith re AR4?"
"I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."
"The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty we can't."
"I'm getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU temperature station data. Don't any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act!"
You get the idea. The most charitable plausible explanation I have seen comes from The Atlantic's Megan McArdle. "The CRU's main computer model may be, to put it bluntly, complete rubbish."
Australian geologist Ian Plimer, a global warming skeptic, is more blunt. The e-mails "show that data was massaged, numbers were fudged, diagrams were biased, there was destruction of data after freedom of information requests, and there was refusal to submit taxpayer-funded data for independent examination."
Global warming alarmist George Monbiot of the Guardian concedes that the e-mails "could scarcely be more damaging," adding, "I'm dismayed and deeply shaken by them." He has called for the resignation of the CRU director. All of which brings to mind the old computer geek's phrase: garbage in, garbage out. The Copenhagen climate summit was convened to get the leaders of nations to commit to sharp reductions in carbon dioxide emissions -- and thus sharp reductions in almost all energy usage, at huge economic cost -- in order to prevent disasters that supposedly were predicted with absolute certainty by a scientific consensus.
But that consensus was based in large part on CRU data that was, to take the charitable explanation, "complete rubbish" or, to take the more dire view, the product of deliberate fraud.
Quite possibly the CRU e-mailers were sincere in their belief that they were saving the planet. Like Al Gore, they wanted to convince the world's elites that the time for argument is over, the scientific consensus is clear and those who disagree can be dismissed as cranks (and should be disqualified from receiving research grants). If they had to cut a few corners, well, you have to break eggs to make an omelette.
For those of us who have long suspected that constructing scientific models of climate and weather is an enormously complex undertaking quite possibly beyond the capacity of current computer technology, the CRU e-mails are not so surprising.
Do we really suppose that anyone can construct a database of weather observations for the entire planet and its atmosphere adequate to make confident predictions of weather and climate 60 years from now? Predictions in which we have enough confidence to impose enormous costs on the American and world economies?
Copenhagen, despite Barack Obama's presence, seems sure to be a bust -- there will be no agreement on mandatory limits on carbon emissions. Even if there were, it would probably turn out to be no more effective than the limits others agreed to in Kyoto in 1997. In any case, China and India are not going to choke off their dazzling economic growth to please Western global warming alarmists.
The more interesting question going forward is whether European and American governmental, academic and corporate elites, having embraced global warming alarmism with religious fervor, will be shaken by the scandalous CRU e-mails. They should be.
Monday, November 30, 2009
As Air Force One heads to Copenhagen for the climate summit Dec. 9, it will presumably not make a U-turn while flying over the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at University of East Anglia near Norwich, England. But perhaps it should.
The 61 megabytes of CRU e-mails and documents made public by a hacker cast serious doubt on the ballyhooed consensus on manmade global warming that the Copenhagen summit was called to address.
The CRU has been a major source of data on global temperatures, relied on by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But the e-mails suggest that CRU scientists have been suppressing and misstating data and working to prevent the publication of conflicting views in peer-reviewed science periodicals. Some of the more pungent e-mails:
"I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"
"Can you delete any e-mails you may have had with Keith re AR4?"
"I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."
"The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty we can't."
"I'm getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU temperature station data. Don't any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act!"
You get the idea. The most charitable plausible explanation I have seen comes from The Atlantic's Megan McArdle. "The CRU's main computer model may be, to put it bluntly, complete rubbish."
Australian geologist Ian Plimer, a global warming skeptic, is more blunt. The e-mails "show that data was massaged, numbers were fudged, diagrams were biased, there was destruction of data after freedom of information requests, and there was refusal to submit taxpayer-funded data for independent examination."
Global warming alarmist George Monbiot of the Guardian concedes that the e-mails "could scarcely be more damaging," adding, "I'm dismayed and deeply shaken by them." He has called for the resignation of the CRU director. All of which brings to mind the old computer geek's phrase: garbage in, garbage out. The Copenhagen climate summit was convened to get the leaders of nations to commit to sharp reductions in carbon dioxide emissions -- and thus sharp reductions in almost all energy usage, at huge economic cost -- in order to prevent disasters that supposedly were predicted with absolute certainty by a scientific consensus.
But that consensus was based in large part on CRU data that was, to take the charitable explanation, "complete rubbish" or, to take the more dire view, the product of deliberate fraud.
Quite possibly the CRU e-mailers were sincere in their belief that they were saving the planet. Like Al Gore, they wanted to convince the world's elites that the time for argument is over, the scientific consensus is clear and those who disagree can be dismissed as cranks (and should be disqualified from receiving research grants). If they had to cut a few corners, well, you have to break eggs to make an omelette.
For those of us who have long suspected that constructing scientific models of climate and weather is an enormously complex undertaking quite possibly beyond the capacity of current computer technology, the CRU e-mails are not so surprising.
Do we really suppose that anyone can construct a database of weather observations for the entire planet and its atmosphere adequate to make confident predictions of weather and climate 60 years from now? Predictions in which we have enough confidence to impose enormous costs on the American and world economies?
Copenhagen, despite Barack Obama's presence, seems sure to be a bust -- there will be no agreement on mandatory limits on carbon emissions. Even if there were, it would probably turn out to be no more effective than the limits others agreed to in Kyoto in 1997. In any case, China and India are not going to choke off their dazzling economic growth to please Western global warming alarmists.
The more interesting question going forward is whether European and American governmental, academic and corporate elites, having embraced global warming alarmism with religious fervor, will be shaken by the scandalous CRU e-mails. They should be.
The World According to Fantasy
Bruce Bialosky
Monday, November 30, 2009
The Bush era careened into the Obama era and the world cheered. That is what we are told over and over again. The world has become a more welcome place for Americans. We have become less belligerent and the world has breathed a heavy sigh. That is indisputable, incontrovertible knowledge.
That was what I was being told at lunch the other day. My companion was not some wild-eyed leftist. In the best of times, this gentleman clings to the middle of the political spectrum. He presently has serious reservations about Obama, and believes that he is destined to be a one-term president. Yet when it comes to foreign affairs, somehow Mr. Obama is brightening our prospects around the world.
In a way my friend is correct. President Bush did not pander to public opinion in order to enhance his image. If foreign governments acted in a manner contrary to our national interest, Bush had relatively cool relations with them. Furthermore, whatever plans he may have wanted to pursue upon stepping into the Oval Office changed irrevocably on September 11, 2001.
Yet my friend was sucked into this commonly-accepted mindset. Does that mindset have any basis in reality? It depends on your reality. The demagogues of the world appear to be happier with Obama, as are the intellectual elite in Europe, most of whom shared a particular distaste for Bush. But that was only in parts of Europe.
Certainly Gerhard Schroeder and Jacques Chirac – respectively the former leaders of Germany and France – used Bush as a political soccer ball to enhance their own political positions. But they have been replaced by Angela Merkel in Germany, who enjoyed a warm relationship with Mr. Bush, and Nicolas Sarkozy in France, who seems to doubt the intellectual capacity and trustworthiness of Obama. Other close allies of President Bush included Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as well as Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar (who was narrowly defeated for re-election after the Madrid subway bombing in 2004).
Was the rift with Old Europe triggered entirely by America? Not according to Lord Charles Powell, an advisor to Prime Ministers Thatcher and Major, who recently stated that “People like to blame George W. Bush for the trouble in the transatlantic relations, but Europeans had their part in it.” Europeans didn’t really understand how deeply 9/11 affected the American psyche. While they have become used to armies marching back and forth across their landscape, the attack on the American homeland was unprecedented, and it is likely that any President would have had disagreements with foreign leaders because of our reaction in the ensuing decade.
The elitist perspective of unilateral distaste for Bush completely disregards the admiration for him in the former Soviet Bloc countries. In Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Georgia, Albania and the Baltic States, Bush is viewed as a great friend and statesman – while Obama is considered questionable. The perception that the entire world disliked Bush denies the reality of a huge part of Europe that does not harbor the intellectual elite that interact with the American Intelligentsia.
In 2008, my wife and I vacationed in Eastern Europe. Having the opportunity to experience firsthand the hard-earned freedom of the Czech Republic, East Germany and Poland enriched our lives. In Warsaw, we spoke with the manager of our hotel, asking his thoughts about the geo-political situation that confronts Poland. He expressed profound concern about (in his words) “the Russian Bear’s intentions.” I assured him that unlike their former allies (such as France), we would help defend Poland and protect her from another foreign invasion. Little did I know that in less than a year, Obama would eviscerate much of Poland’s faith in America.
My lunch partner pointed to Russia as a place where Obama would do better than Bush. Certainly, Bush was mocked for his unsophisticated commentary: “I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul.” What is often left out is the next line: “He’s a man very committed to his country and the best interests of his country.” That is the most important portion of the statement.
Obama has no better chance of working with Russia than Bush did. Russia today is as it has been for at least four centuries – expansionist. Frankly, I’m not sure why, since their land mass is the largest in the world, but they have attempted to overrun and rule their neighbors through various forms of government. Whether their leaders were Czars, Communists, or whatever you call the current bunch, they have always been the same – thugs and expansionists.
John Lehman, who served as Secretary of the Navy under President Reagan, stated that within thirty days of Reagan’s inaugural, the British and American Navies swept into Mediterranean waters showing the Soviet Union that if they played any games, “We would kick their asses.” When you deal with thugs, you have to show them that you will be tougher than they are.
My friend expressed the commonly-accepted media mantra about what the world was like during the Bush Administration, and how it will magically improve under Obama. It is not only seriously wrong, but has caused several potentially dangerous changes to our foreign policy.
I have some advice for President Obama. The tough tactics being deployed against his perceived domestic political enemies should be redeployed overseas. Let me assure you that Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela are a lot more dangerous than Fox News and the health insurance industry.
Monday, November 30, 2009
The Bush era careened into the Obama era and the world cheered. That is what we are told over and over again. The world has become a more welcome place for Americans. We have become less belligerent and the world has breathed a heavy sigh. That is indisputable, incontrovertible knowledge.
That was what I was being told at lunch the other day. My companion was not some wild-eyed leftist. In the best of times, this gentleman clings to the middle of the political spectrum. He presently has serious reservations about Obama, and believes that he is destined to be a one-term president. Yet when it comes to foreign affairs, somehow Mr. Obama is brightening our prospects around the world.
In a way my friend is correct. President Bush did not pander to public opinion in order to enhance his image. If foreign governments acted in a manner contrary to our national interest, Bush had relatively cool relations with them. Furthermore, whatever plans he may have wanted to pursue upon stepping into the Oval Office changed irrevocably on September 11, 2001.
Yet my friend was sucked into this commonly-accepted mindset. Does that mindset have any basis in reality? It depends on your reality. The demagogues of the world appear to be happier with Obama, as are the intellectual elite in Europe, most of whom shared a particular distaste for Bush. But that was only in parts of Europe.
Certainly Gerhard Schroeder and Jacques Chirac – respectively the former leaders of Germany and France – used Bush as a political soccer ball to enhance their own political positions. But they have been replaced by Angela Merkel in Germany, who enjoyed a warm relationship with Mr. Bush, and Nicolas Sarkozy in France, who seems to doubt the intellectual capacity and trustworthiness of Obama. Other close allies of President Bush included Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as well as Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar (who was narrowly defeated for re-election after the Madrid subway bombing in 2004).
Was the rift with Old Europe triggered entirely by America? Not according to Lord Charles Powell, an advisor to Prime Ministers Thatcher and Major, who recently stated that “People like to blame George W. Bush for the trouble in the transatlantic relations, but Europeans had their part in it.” Europeans didn’t really understand how deeply 9/11 affected the American psyche. While they have become used to armies marching back and forth across their landscape, the attack on the American homeland was unprecedented, and it is likely that any President would have had disagreements with foreign leaders because of our reaction in the ensuing decade.
The elitist perspective of unilateral distaste for Bush completely disregards the admiration for him in the former Soviet Bloc countries. In Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Georgia, Albania and the Baltic States, Bush is viewed as a great friend and statesman – while Obama is considered questionable. The perception that the entire world disliked Bush denies the reality of a huge part of Europe that does not harbor the intellectual elite that interact with the American Intelligentsia.
In 2008, my wife and I vacationed in Eastern Europe. Having the opportunity to experience firsthand the hard-earned freedom of the Czech Republic, East Germany and Poland enriched our lives. In Warsaw, we spoke with the manager of our hotel, asking his thoughts about the geo-political situation that confronts Poland. He expressed profound concern about (in his words) “the Russian Bear’s intentions.” I assured him that unlike their former allies (such as France), we would help defend Poland and protect her from another foreign invasion. Little did I know that in less than a year, Obama would eviscerate much of Poland’s faith in America.
My lunch partner pointed to Russia as a place where Obama would do better than Bush. Certainly, Bush was mocked for his unsophisticated commentary: “I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul.” What is often left out is the next line: “He’s a man very committed to his country and the best interests of his country.” That is the most important portion of the statement.
Obama has no better chance of working with Russia than Bush did. Russia today is as it has been for at least four centuries – expansionist. Frankly, I’m not sure why, since their land mass is the largest in the world, but they have attempted to overrun and rule their neighbors through various forms of government. Whether their leaders were Czars, Communists, or whatever you call the current bunch, they have always been the same – thugs and expansionists.
John Lehman, who served as Secretary of the Navy under President Reagan, stated that within thirty days of Reagan’s inaugural, the British and American Navies swept into Mediterranean waters showing the Soviet Union that if they played any games, “We would kick their asses.” When you deal with thugs, you have to show them that you will be tougher than they are.
My friend expressed the commonly-accepted media mantra about what the world was like during the Bush Administration, and how it will magically improve under Obama. It is not only seriously wrong, but has caused several potentially dangerous changes to our foreign policy.
I have some advice for President Obama. The tough tactics being deployed against his perceived domestic political enemies should be redeployed overseas. Let me assure you that Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela are a lot more dangerous than Fox News and the health insurance industry.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
I'm Not An Attorney, But Eric Holder Is Dangerous
Austin Hill
Sunday, November 29, 2009
I’m not an attorney.
For better or worse I didn’t go to law school, but rather, I instead went to graduate school to study philosophy.
But you don’t need to be an attorney – or a philosopher – or the Attorney General or the President of the United States or a Representative or a Senator you don’t even need to be a community organizer to understand what I understand.
In fact, if you are one of “those” that I just listed, there’s a good chance that your station in life will blind you from seeing and understanding the reality that is intuitively obvious to “the rest of us.” And the reality is that as President Obama and Attorney General Holder seek to award five Sept. 11 conspirators, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, with the full rights of American citizens in a civilian trial, the United States is being undermined.
Not being an attorney makes me a mere “layperson” for many in the legal profession, and therefore, unqualified to comment on the matter. But this “layperson” thinks that the legal profession should be embarrassed, and ashamed, of the lack of reasoning underlying Mr.Holder’s decisions.
In the interest of “fairness”- and hopefully as a means of bringing clarity to the situation - let’s get some things straight from the get-go. The five 9-11 conspirators in question have been held all these years in a facility known officially as the “Guantanamo Bay camp.” And the use of the word “camp” matters profoundly.
If the Guantanamo Bay facility were, for example, a “prison,” then it follows that those being held there would be “criminals.” If, on the other hand, the Guantanamo Bay facility were defined as a “POW camp,” then those being detained there would be “enemy soldiers,” and would be subject to “rules of war” set forth in international law.
Yet, in fact, the thugs at Guantanamo Bay are neither “criminals,” as we have historically defined them in the West, nor are they “enemy soldiers” or “prisoners of war.” They are something the likes of which we have never dealt with before, and as it appears to this mere layperson, neither U.S. law nor international law adequately contemplate how they should be addressed.
Some of this legal ambiguity was evident in the public rhetoric of our previous President. George W. Bush frequently stated during his eight years in office that the U.S. was engaged in a “war on terror,” while at the same time claiming that our nation’s mission was to “hunt down the terrorists and bring them to justice.” To us laypeople, that seemed like a U.S. President assuring the world that America would be the “good guys” even while under duress, yet at the same time we would not allow ourselves to be undercut.
But in legal-speak, it would seem that Bush’s remarks could be construed as contradictory. By legal definition, a war is not a legal proceeding, and what happens on the battle field is not the same thing as what happens in a criminal investigation.
So now we’re in the era of Obama. And while in the face of a Muslim Army Major murdering 13 of his fellow soldiers President Obama insists that we must not “rush to judgment,” Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder has nonetheless “judged” after ten months that these five 9-11 conspirators need a civilian trial.
And Mr. Holder’s vacuous responses to even the simplest of questions should be deemed “unacceptable” by all Americans – even attorneys.
What happens to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, if he is acquitted? “Failure is not an option” Mr. Holder explained in a Senate inquiry. Oh yeah? What about that thing called “due process?” Has the outcome of this trial been pre-determined? Are we to understand that “the fix is in?”Even a lay person like me can see that the outcomes of court trials are often highly unpredictable.
Has an enemy combatant ever been granted a civilian trial before? Holder assured the inquiring Senators that he would “have to look at that” – which meant that either he hasn’t “looked at that,” or that the honest answer would not support his decision. And how could Holder be so certain of a conviction in a civilian trial, when Mohammed had already plead guilty in a military tribunal? Holder couldn’t answer that either.
And then there was our President, Barack Obama, who also stated that KSM will be convicted and executed. But what did that mean? Was this the President merely expressing confidence that his vision would become reality, as politicians so often do? Or was this the Executive Branch of our government pr-determining what the judicial branch will and will not do?
To those in the legal profession – where are you at with all of this? Are we talking here about a mere “show trial?” Is the American Bar Association okay with the Executive Branch running over the top of the judiciary?
For us mere “laypeople,” the thought of President Obama and Eric Holder pre-determining the outcomes of civilian trials is a very chilling proposition.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
I’m not an attorney.
For better or worse I didn’t go to law school, but rather, I instead went to graduate school to study philosophy.
But you don’t need to be an attorney – or a philosopher – or the Attorney General or the President of the United States or a Representative or a Senator you don’t even need to be a community organizer to understand what I understand.
In fact, if you are one of “those” that I just listed, there’s a good chance that your station in life will blind you from seeing and understanding the reality that is intuitively obvious to “the rest of us.” And the reality is that as President Obama and Attorney General Holder seek to award five Sept. 11 conspirators, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, with the full rights of American citizens in a civilian trial, the United States is being undermined.
Not being an attorney makes me a mere “layperson” for many in the legal profession, and therefore, unqualified to comment on the matter. But this “layperson” thinks that the legal profession should be embarrassed, and ashamed, of the lack of reasoning underlying Mr.Holder’s decisions.
In the interest of “fairness”- and hopefully as a means of bringing clarity to the situation - let’s get some things straight from the get-go. The five 9-11 conspirators in question have been held all these years in a facility known officially as the “Guantanamo Bay camp.” And the use of the word “camp” matters profoundly.
If the Guantanamo Bay facility were, for example, a “prison,” then it follows that those being held there would be “criminals.” If, on the other hand, the Guantanamo Bay facility were defined as a “POW camp,” then those being detained there would be “enemy soldiers,” and would be subject to “rules of war” set forth in international law.
Yet, in fact, the thugs at Guantanamo Bay are neither “criminals,” as we have historically defined them in the West, nor are they “enemy soldiers” or “prisoners of war.” They are something the likes of which we have never dealt with before, and as it appears to this mere layperson, neither U.S. law nor international law adequately contemplate how they should be addressed.
Some of this legal ambiguity was evident in the public rhetoric of our previous President. George W. Bush frequently stated during his eight years in office that the U.S. was engaged in a “war on terror,” while at the same time claiming that our nation’s mission was to “hunt down the terrorists and bring them to justice.” To us laypeople, that seemed like a U.S. President assuring the world that America would be the “good guys” even while under duress, yet at the same time we would not allow ourselves to be undercut.
But in legal-speak, it would seem that Bush’s remarks could be construed as contradictory. By legal definition, a war is not a legal proceeding, and what happens on the battle field is not the same thing as what happens in a criminal investigation.
So now we’re in the era of Obama. And while in the face of a Muslim Army Major murdering 13 of his fellow soldiers President Obama insists that we must not “rush to judgment,” Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder has nonetheless “judged” after ten months that these five 9-11 conspirators need a civilian trial.
And Mr. Holder’s vacuous responses to even the simplest of questions should be deemed “unacceptable” by all Americans – even attorneys.
What happens to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, if he is acquitted? “Failure is not an option” Mr. Holder explained in a Senate inquiry. Oh yeah? What about that thing called “due process?” Has the outcome of this trial been pre-determined? Are we to understand that “the fix is in?”Even a lay person like me can see that the outcomes of court trials are often highly unpredictable.
Has an enemy combatant ever been granted a civilian trial before? Holder assured the inquiring Senators that he would “have to look at that” – which meant that either he hasn’t “looked at that,” or that the honest answer would not support his decision. And how could Holder be so certain of a conviction in a civilian trial, when Mohammed had already plead guilty in a military tribunal? Holder couldn’t answer that either.
And then there was our President, Barack Obama, who also stated that KSM will be convicted and executed. But what did that mean? Was this the President merely expressing confidence that his vision would become reality, as politicians so often do? Or was this the Executive Branch of our government pr-determining what the judicial branch will and will not do?
To those in the legal profession – where are you at with all of this? Are we talking here about a mere “show trial?” Is the American Bar Association okay with the Executive Branch running over the top of the judiciary?
For us mere “laypeople,” the thought of President Obama and Eric Holder pre-determining the outcomes of civilian trials is a very chilling proposition.
Pull Up a Chair
Ken Connor
Sunday, November 29, 2009
In anticipation of Senate Democrats' introduction of an $849 billion dollar plan to overhaul the nation's health care system, Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn last week announced his intention to press for a full reading of the 2,074 page bill on the floor of the Senate, a process estimated to require between 34 and 54 hours to complete. Not surprisingly, Coburn's effort to fulfill President Obama's pledge of transparency and accountability - a pledge Mr. Obama himself seems to have abandoned at this point - has been scuttled.
Critics of Coburn's move cited the Senate's longstanding tradition of waiving, without objection, the reading of bills on the floor before a vote. The notion that America's elected representatives might have an ethical responsibility to actually read legislation before casting their votes was met last week with incredulity:
"Believe it or not, they are going to require us... to stand up for 50 hours and read that bill on the floor," said Senator Tom Udall, a Democrat from New Mexico. "The normal thing we do to get to something is we waive the reading. But they are going to require it... I cannot understand that."
Believe it or not, America. Believe it or not - against all reason or logic - Senator Coburn believes that Congress should read legislation BEFORE they vote it into law. The nerve! The audacity! If you aren't offended by such presumption, well, you should be! After all, everyone knows that Senators have more important things to do than, well, the job they were elected to do.
Let's see if we can follow this chain of senatorial logic...
Congressmen are elected to represent the people of their state and/or district. The responsibilities of the office of Representative or Senator are numerous and weighty, and thus, America's representatives are very, very busy. They are busy tending to the people's business. They are busy spending the people's money. They are busy, in Senator Udall's words, "getting to things." And in order to "get there," they must forgo the luxury of educating themselves on the specifics of what they are "getting." Is anyone's head spinning yet?
This irresponsible attitude is an alarming indicator of the decadent state of American government. Our elected officials are making laws that they don't read, laws that the rest of us are bound by the Constitution to observe and obey. They admit as much; and what's worse, they respond with indignation when confronted with their gross dereliction of duty.
In this case, Senate Democrats are busy "getting to" a massive reorganization of America's health care system, which currently accounts for an estimated 17.6 percent of the U.S. economy. The American people have been told that our nation's health care system is teetering on the brink of crisis. Costs are skyrocketing, tens-of-millions are uninsured, and millions more are "underinsured." And, of course, the only way to avoid total collapse is to allow the government to step in and fix the problem - as it's done so successfully with Social Security and Medicare!
No, Congress does not plan to read the bill. No, House and Senate leaders will not address the constitutionality of their actions. What Congress will do is thumb their noses at town hall protesters and tea party activists who want to know what's being done to the country they love; what's being done to their freedom. They will question the patriotism of those who question the wisdom of their arguments and the prudence of their actions.
This is the same Congress that had a direct hand in the sub-prime mortgage crisis, only to feign surprise and betrayal when the bubble burst and the housing market collapsed. This is the same Congress that huffed and puffed about the evils of capitalism and the rot of corporate greed, only to collude in a midnight legislative session paving the way for backdoor bonuses to the same fat cat executives receiving taxpayer “bailout” funds.
Yet Senator Udall and his buddies in the Senate don't understand why cries of "Read the bill!!" are echoing all across the country. He can't understand why some Americans might balk at the idea of coughing up $849 billion to overhaul one fifth of the economy when they know that their representatives have no intention of reading the bill?a bill that will impact the lives of every American, plunge this nation into staggering debt, and forever alter the balance of power between the government and the people.
With stakes this high, if our representatives can't find the time or energy to read the bill, it seems the least they could do is pull up a chair and listen.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
In anticipation of Senate Democrats' introduction of an $849 billion dollar plan to overhaul the nation's health care system, Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn last week announced his intention to press for a full reading of the 2,074 page bill on the floor of the Senate, a process estimated to require between 34 and 54 hours to complete. Not surprisingly, Coburn's effort to fulfill President Obama's pledge of transparency and accountability - a pledge Mr. Obama himself seems to have abandoned at this point - has been scuttled.
Critics of Coburn's move cited the Senate's longstanding tradition of waiving, without objection, the reading of bills on the floor before a vote. The notion that America's elected representatives might have an ethical responsibility to actually read legislation before casting their votes was met last week with incredulity:
"Believe it or not, they are going to require us... to stand up for 50 hours and read that bill on the floor," said Senator Tom Udall, a Democrat from New Mexico. "The normal thing we do to get to something is we waive the reading. But they are going to require it... I cannot understand that."
Believe it or not, America. Believe it or not - against all reason or logic - Senator Coburn believes that Congress should read legislation BEFORE they vote it into law. The nerve! The audacity! If you aren't offended by such presumption, well, you should be! After all, everyone knows that Senators have more important things to do than, well, the job they were elected to do.
Let's see if we can follow this chain of senatorial logic...
Congressmen are elected to represent the people of their state and/or district. The responsibilities of the office of Representative or Senator are numerous and weighty, and thus, America's representatives are very, very busy. They are busy tending to the people's business. They are busy spending the people's money. They are busy, in Senator Udall's words, "getting to things." And in order to "get there," they must forgo the luxury of educating themselves on the specifics of what they are "getting." Is anyone's head spinning yet?
This irresponsible attitude is an alarming indicator of the decadent state of American government. Our elected officials are making laws that they don't read, laws that the rest of us are bound by the Constitution to observe and obey. They admit as much; and what's worse, they respond with indignation when confronted with their gross dereliction of duty.
In this case, Senate Democrats are busy "getting to" a massive reorganization of America's health care system, which currently accounts for an estimated 17.6 percent of the U.S. economy. The American people have been told that our nation's health care system is teetering on the brink of crisis. Costs are skyrocketing, tens-of-millions are uninsured, and millions more are "underinsured." And, of course, the only way to avoid total collapse is to allow the government to step in and fix the problem - as it's done so successfully with Social Security and Medicare!
No, Congress does not plan to read the bill. No, House and Senate leaders will not address the constitutionality of their actions. What Congress will do is thumb their noses at town hall protesters and tea party activists who want to know what's being done to the country they love; what's being done to their freedom. They will question the patriotism of those who question the wisdom of their arguments and the prudence of their actions.
This is the same Congress that had a direct hand in the sub-prime mortgage crisis, only to feign surprise and betrayal when the bubble burst and the housing market collapsed. This is the same Congress that huffed and puffed about the evils of capitalism and the rot of corporate greed, only to collude in a midnight legislative session paving the way for backdoor bonuses to the same fat cat executives receiving taxpayer “bailout” funds.
Yet Senator Udall and his buddies in the Senate don't understand why cries of "Read the bill!!" are echoing all across the country. He can't understand why some Americans might balk at the idea of coughing up $849 billion to overhaul one fifth of the economy when they know that their representatives have no intention of reading the bill?a bill that will impact the lives of every American, plunge this nation into staggering debt, and forever alter the balance of power between the government and the people.
With stakes this high, if our representatives can't find the time or energy to read the bill, it seems the least they could do is pull up a chair and listen.
The State of the Revolution
Mike Adams
Sunday, November 29, 2009
It’s hard to believe it has been over four years since I spoke at N.C. State. That night, back in August of 2005, I gave a speech calling for a conservative revolution on our college campuses. I suggested many things that could be done to launch such a revolution. My criticism of the UNC administration was very harsh. But my criticism of conservative apathy was harsher. So, before I return to N.C. State this week, it would make sense for me to dedicate a column giving an account of what we’ve been up to on the front lines of this campus revolution.
The first shot in the revolution was fired by the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy in Raleigh, North Carolina. They teamed up with the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) to do an important study during the fall of 2005. The study focused on illegal speech codes in the UNC system. We all know these speech codes are used to censor conservative speech (and not The Vagina Monologues) because such speech is “offensive” and causes “discomfort.” Personally, I think the phrase “spread the wealth” is offensive. It causes me discomfort but (since I’m not a campus liberal) I won’t try to ban it.
After the Pope/FIRE study was published, I published my own veiled threat of litigation against the UNC-Wilmington speech code. A few weeks later, I called one of the lawyers working for the FIRE to let them know I would be actively seeking a plaintiff for a federal lawsuit aimed at overturning that policy.
While we were still on the phone, the FIRE attorney logged on to the UNC-Wilmington website and discovered they had already changed the speech code. In other words, the mere threat of litigation combined with the Pope/FIRE study had produced a victory. The speech code had been used to intimidate students, faculty, and staff for years. Now, we were turning the tables and intimidating the intimidators.
In January of 2006, I got a call from David French of the newly formed Center for Academic Freedom – a branch of my favorite public policy organization, the Alliance Defense Fund. David asked that I help him identify illegal speech codes and brave students willing to fight them. By the end of the year, we had worked together to bring down several speech codes through litigation or, in some cases, the mere threat of litigation.
Meanwhile, in January of 2006, the Libertarians at UNC-Greensboro were attacking a speech zone policy that banned free expression on 99% of their campus. The UNC-G Libertarians wrote an email to the administration telling them they would violate the policy the next day at noon - daring the police to arrest them for exercising their free speech rights. The university brought charges against the kids then dropped them. Then they brought more charges and dropped those, too. Finally, they gave up and removed the speech zone policy from the student handbook. But the Libertarians were not done with the UNC-G administration yet.
In early February, the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy sent me to Appalachian State University. While there, I found a plaintiff for a federal lawsuit aimed at bringing down their speech code, which was then considered the worst in the state. Before the AFD was done drafting a civil complaint, Appalachian State got rid of its speech code. There was even pressure from the local ACLU.
In mid-February, I went on to Pennsylvania State University where I met a young student who would become the plaintiff in an ADF suit against their speech code. That code would also fall – via federal court injunction - before the end of April.
Before the semester was over, the Pope Center sent me to Wake Forest University. After my speech, I was approached by the president of the UNC-G College Republicans. She held in her hand a joint resolution – co-signed by the UNC-G College Libertarians – threatening their school with litigation. The threat concerned a “non-discrimination” policy that prevented student groups from discriminating on the basis of beliefs. (For example, Christian student organization constitutions that said members must “believe in God” were considered “exclusive” and “intolerant.”).
But the UNC-G administration was forcing student organizations to sign the ridiculous policy even though a similar one had been struck down by a 2004 ADF lawsuit. I had recruited the plaintiffs for that lawsuit and was, therefore, in a position to assure the Republicans and Libertarians that they would win.
And they did win. The resolution/threat worked like a charm as the UNC-G administration abandoned its illegal policy in order to avoid another lawsuit. It was almost like winning the Cold War without firing a single shot.
And so those are some of the highlights of my first year of campus activism following my last N.C. State speech. Obviously, I have too much good news to fit in a single column thanks to a lot of really good friends – e.g., the Pope Center, the FIRE, the ADF, the Leadership Institute (LI), and the Young America’s Foundation.
So, I’ll fast forward to 2009 before this column turns into a short novel.
Last Monday, I ate my first of two Thanksgiving dinners with a faculty Christian group and about 100 international students. In the last year, members of that Christian group have helped bring Frank Turek, Phillip Johnson, Michael Behe, and William Lane Craig to campus. Now, students are actually getting the opportunity to see debates between those defending traditional views of Christianity (with logic and evidence) and those who hold different views, including hardened atheists.
And the students are stepping up, too. On Wednesday, I walked into a studio to record a commercial for a new conservative radio show on our local Big Talker radio station. While I was waiting, I sat and read the new UNC-W conservative student newspaper. It was started by two of my students with the help and support of the kind folks at LI.
The new conservative paper recently accused my university of giving pay raises to dozens of employees in defiance of a state-mandated budget freeze. After they printed the accusation, they were invited on to a local radio station. During the segment, one of the chancellor’s assistants called in to essentially accuse the two students of lying.
So these students have decided to fight back by getting their own two hour night-time radio show, which will further challenge university polities, fiscal and otherwise. And they will have my full support. That’s why I went to the Big Talker studio to record the commercial.
On Thanksgiving morning, I took some students to the shooting range for our annual “Giving Thanks for the Second Amendment” field trip at the local law enforcement range. While there, I asked a former student whether he remembered the days when the university used to spend all of the Leadership Lecture Series money on liberal speakers – e.g., $12,000 on Arianna Huffington, $13,000 on Cornel West, $18,000 on Molly Ivins, $19,000 on Robert Kennedy, Jr., and so on.
My former student said he did remember those days and then acknowledged that they were long behind us. Indeed, the monopoly of liberal speakers at my university has come to an end. Today, students are beginning to hear ideas that do not have the endorsement of our remarkably un-diverse and narrow-minded administration.
I envision a day when the administration is forced to cut back on other indoctrination programs. I imagine a campus without the Women’s Center, the African American Center, and El Centro Hispano. In other words, I imagine a day when we decide that divisive identity politics have no place on a university campus.
Of course, many people say I’m just a dreamer. But, now, it is clear that I’m not the only one. I hope some day you’ll join our revolution. And the whole academic world will live as one.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
It’s hard to believe it has been over four years since I spoke at N.C. State. That night, back in August of 2005, I gave a speech calling for a conservative revolution on our college campuses. I suggested many things that could be done to launch such a revolution. My criticism of the UNC administration was very harsh. But my criticism of conservative apathy was harsher. So, before I return to N.C. State this week, it would make sense for me to dedicate a column giving an account of what we’ve been up to on the front lines of this campus revolution.
The first shot in the revolution was fired by the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy in Raleigh, North Carolina. They teamed up with the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) to do an important study during the fall of 2005. The study focused on illegal speech codes in the UNC system. We all know these speech codes are used to censor conservative speech (and not The Vagina Monologues) because such speech is “offensive” and causes “discomfort.” Personally, I think the phrase “spread the wealth” is offensive. It causes me discomfort but (since I’m not a campus liberal) I won’t try to ban it.
After the Pope/FIRE study was published, I published my own veiled threat of litigation against the UNC-Wilmington speech code. A few weeks later, I called one of the lawyers working for the FIRE to let them know I would be actively seeking a plaintiff for a federal lawsuit aimed at overturning that policy.
While we were still on the phone, the FIRE attorney logged on to the UNC-Wilmington website and discovered they had already changed the speech code. In other words, the mere threat of litigation combined with the Pope/FIRE study had produced a victory. The speech code had been used to intimidate students, faculty, and staff for years. Now, we were turning the tables and intimidating the intimidators.
In January of 2006, I got a call from David French of the newly formed Center for Academic Freedom – a branch of my favorite public policy organization, the Alliance Defense Fund. David asked that I help him identify illegal speech codes and brave students willing to fight them. By the end of the year, we had worked together to bring down several speech codes through litigation or, in some cases, the mere threat of litigation.
Meanwhile, in January of 2006, the Libertarians at UNC-Greensboro were attacking a speech zone policy that banned free expression on 99% of their campus. The UNC-G Libertarians wrote an email to the administration telling them they would violate the policy the next day at noon - daring the police to arrest them for exercising their free speech rights. The university brought charges against the kids then dropped them. Then they brought more charges and dropped those, too. Finally, they gave up and removed the speech zone policy from the student handbook. But the Libertarians were not done with the UNC-G administration yet.
In early February, the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy sent me to Appalachian State University. While there, I found a plaintiff for a federal lawsuit aimed at bringing down their speech code, which was then considered the worst in the state. Before the AFD was done drafting a civil complaint, Appalachian State got rid of its speech code. There was even pressure from the local ACLU.
In mid-February, I went on to Pennsylvania State University where I met a young student who would become the plaintiff in an ADF suit against their speech code. That code would also fall – via federal court injunction - before the end of April.
Before the semester was over, the Pope Center sent me to Wake Forest University. After my speech, I was approached by the president of the UNC-G College Republicans. She held in her hand a joint resolution – co-signed by the UNC-G College Libertarians – threatening their school with litigation. The threat concerned a “non-discrimination” policy that prevented student groups from discriminating on the basis of beliefs. (For example, Christian student organization constitutions that said members must “believe in God” were considered “exclusive” and “intolerant.”).
But the UNC-G administration was forcing student organizations to sign the ridiculous policy even though a similar one had been struck down by a 2004 ADF lawsuit. I had recruited the plaintiffs for that lawsuit and was, therefore, in a position to assure the Republicans and Libertarians that they would win.
And they did win. The resolution/threat worked like a charm as the UNC-G administration abandoned its illegal policy in order to avoid another lawsuit. It was almost like winning the Cold War without firing a single shot.
And so those are some of the highlights of my first year of campus activism following my last N.C. State speech. Obviously, I have too much good news to fit in a single column thanks to a lot of really good friends – e.g., the Pope Center, the FIRE, the ADF, the Leadership Institute (LI), and the Young America’s Foundation.
So, I’ll fast forward to 2009 before this column turns into a short novel.
Last Monday, I ate my first of two Thanksgiving dinners with a faculty Christian group and about 100 international students. In the last year, members of that Christian group have helped bring Frank Turek, Phillip Johnson, Michael Behe, and William Lane Craig to campus. Now, students are actually getting the opportunity to see debates between those defending traditional views of Christianity (with logic and evidence) and those who hold different views, including hardened atheists.
And the students are stepping up, too. On Wednesday, I walked into a studio to record a commercial for a new conservative radio show on our local Big Talker radio station. While I was waiting, I sat and read the new UNC-W conservative student newspaper. It was started by two of my students with the help and support of the kind folks at LI.
The new conservative paper recently accused my university of giving pay raises to dozens of employees in defiance of a state-mandated budget freeze. After they printed the accusation, they were invited on to a local radio station. During the segment, one of the chancellor’s assistants called in to essentially accuse the two students of lying.
So these students have decided to fight back by getting their own two hour night-time radio show, which will further challenge university polities, fiscal and otherwise. And they will have my full support. That’s why I went to the Big Talker studio to record the commercial.
On Thanksgiving morning, I took some students to the shooting range for our annual “Giving Thanks for the Second Amendment” field trip at the local law enforcement range. While there, I asked a former student whether he remembered the days when the university used to spend all of the Leadership Lecture Series money on liberal speakers – e.g., $12,000 on Arianna Huffington, $13,000 on Cornel West, $18,000 on Molly Ivins, $19,000 on Robert Kennedy, Jr., and so on.
My former student said he did remember those days and then acknowledged that they were long behind us. Indeed, the monopoly of liberal speakers at my university has come to an end. Today, students are beginning to hear ideas that do not have the endorsement of our remarkably un-diverse and narrow-minded administration.
I envision a day when the administration is forced to cut back on other indoctrination programs. I imagine a campus without the Women’s Center, the African American Center, and El Centro Hispano. In other words, I imagine a day when we decide that divisive identity politics have no place on a university campus.
Of course, many people say I’m just a dreamer. But, now, it is clear that I’m not the only one. I hope some day you’ll join our revolution. And the whole academic world will live as one.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
CRU’s Tree-Ring Circus
Who peer-reviews the peer-reviewers?
By Mark Steyn
Saturday, November 28, 2009
My favorite moment in the Climategate/Climaquiddick scandal currently roiling the “climate change” racket was Stuart Varney’s interview on Fox News with the actor Ed Begley Jr. — star of the 1980s medical drama St. Elsewhere but latterly better known, as is the fashion with members of the thespian community, as an “activist.” He’s currently in a competition with Bill Nye (“the Science Guy”) to see who can have the lowest “carbon footprint.” Pistols at dawn would seem the quickest way of resolving that one, but presumably you couldn’t get a reality series out of it. Anyway, Ed was relaxed about the mountain of documents recently leaked from Britain’s Climate Research Unit in which the world’s leading climate-change warm-mongers e-mail each other back and forth on how to “hide the decline” and other interesting matters.
Nothing to worry about, folks. “We’ll go down the path and see what happens in peer-reviewed studies,” said Ed airily. “Those are the key words here, Stuart. ‘Peer-reviewed studies.’”
Hang on. Could you say that again more slowly so I can write it down? Not to worry. Ed said it every 12 seconds, as if it were the magic charm that could make all the bad publicity go away. He wore an open-necked shirt, and, although I don’t have a 76” inch HDTV, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find a talismanic peer-reviewed amulet nestling in his chest hair for additional protection. “If these scientists have done something wrong, it will be found out and their peers will determine it,” insisted Ed. “Don’t get your information from me, folks, or any newscaster. Get it from people with Ph.D. after their names. ‘Peer-reviewed studies is the key words. And if it comes out in peer-reviewed studies . . . ”
Got it: Pier-reviewed studies. You stand on the pier and you notice the tide seems to be coming in a little higher than it used to and you wonder if it’s something to do with incandescent light bulbs killing the polar bears? Is that how it works?
No, no, peer-reviewed studies. “Peer-reviewed studies. Go to Science magazine, folks. Go to Nature,” babbled Ed. “Read peer-reviewed studies. That’s all you need to do. Don’t get it from you or me.”
Look for the peer-reviewed label! And then just believe whatever it is they tell you!
The trouble with outsourcing your marbles to the peer-reviewed set is that, if you take away one single thing from the leaked documents, it’s that the global warm-mongers have wholly corrupted the “peer-review” process. When it comes to promoting the impending ecopalypse, the Climate Research Unit is the nerve-center of the operation. The “science” of the CRU dominates the “science” behind the UN’s IPCC, which dominates the “science” behind the Congressional cap-and-trade boondoggle, the upcoming Copenhagen shakindownen of the developed world, and the now routine phenomenon of leaders of advanced, prosperous societies talking like gibbering madmen escaped from the padded cell, whether it’s President Obama promising to end the rise of the oceans or the Prince of Wales saying we only have 96 months left to save the planet.
But don’t worry, it’s all “peer-reviewed.”
Here’s what Phil Jones of the CRU and his colleague Michael Mann of Penn State mean by “peer review.” When Climate Research published a paper dissenting from the Jones-Mann “consensus,” Jones demanded that the journal “rid itself of this troublesome editor,” and Mann advised that “we have to stop considering Climate Research as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers.”
So much for Climate Research. When Geophysical Research Letters also showed signs of wandering off the “consensus” reservation, Dr. Tom Wigley (“one of the world’s foremost experts on climate change”) suggested they get the goods on its editor, Jim Saiers, and go to his bosses at the American Geophysical Union to “get him ousted.” When another pair of troublesome dissenters emerge, Dr. Jones assured Dr. Mann, “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”
Which in essence is what they did. The more frantically they talked up “peer review” as the only legitimate basis for criticism, the more assiduously they turned the process into what James Lewis calls the Chicago machine politics of international science. The headline in the Wall Street Journal Europe is unimproveable: “How To Forge A Consensus.” Pressuring publishers, firing editors, blacklisting scientists: That’s “peer review,” climate-style.
The more their echo chamber shriveled, the more Mann and Jones insisted that they and only they represent the “peer-reviewed” “consensus.” And gullible types like Ed Begley Jr. and Andrew Revkin of the New York Times fell for it hook, line, and tree-ring. The e-mails of “Andy” (as his CRU chums fondly know him) are especially pitiful. Confronted by serious questions from Stephen McIntyre, the dogged Ontario retiree whose Climate Audit website exposed the fraud of Dr. Mann’s global-warming “hockey stick” graph), “Andy” writes to Dr. Mann to say not to worry, he’s going to “cover” the story from a more oblique angle:
And that’s what Andrew Revkin did, week in, week out: He took the words out of Michael Mann’s mouth and served them up to impressionable readers of the New York Times and opportunist politicians around the world champing at the bit to inaugurate a vast global regulatory body to confiscate trillions of dollars of your hard-earned wealth in the cause of “saving the planet” from an imaginary crisis concocted by a few dozen thuggish ideologues. If you fall for this after the revelations of the last week, you’re as big a dupe as Begley or Revkin.
“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” wondered Juvenal: Who watches the watchmen? But the beauty of the climate-change tree-ring circus is that you never need to ask “Who peer-reviews the peer-reviewers?” Mann peer-reviewed Jones, and Jones peer-reviewed Mann, and anyone who questioned their theories got exiled to the unwarmed wastes of Siberia. The “consensus” warm-mongers could have declared it only counts as “peer-reviewed” if it’s published in Peer-Reviewed Studies published by Mann & Jones Publishing Inc (Peermate of the Month: Al Gore, reclining naked, draped in dead polar-bear fur, on a melting ice floe), and Ed Begley Jr. and “Andy” Revkin would still have wandered out glassy-eyed into the streets droning “Peer-reviewed studies. Cannot question. Peer-reviewed studies. The science is settled . . . ”
Looking forward to Copenhagen, Herman Van Rumpoy, the new president of the European Union and an eager proponent of the ecopalypse, says 2009 is “the first year of global governance.” Global government, huh? I wonder where you go to vote them out of office.
Hey, but don’t worry, it’ll all be “peer-reviewed.”
By Mark Steyn
Saturday, November 28, 2009
My favorite moment in the Climategate/Climaquiddick scandal currently roiling the “climate change” racket was Stuart Varney’s interview on Fox News with the actor Ed Begley Jr. — star of the 1980s medical drama St. Elsewhere but latterly better known, as is the fashion with members of the thespian community, as an “activist.” He’s currently in a competition with Bill Nye (“the Science Guy”) to see who can have the lowest “carbon footprint.” Pistols at dawn would seem the quickest way of resolving that one, but presumably you couldn’t get a reality series out of it. Anyway, Ed was relaxed about the mountain of documents recently leaked from Britain’s Climate Research Unit in which the world’s leading climate-change warm-mongers e-mail each other back and forth on how to “hide the decline” and other interesting matters.
Nothing to worry about, folks. “We’ll go down the path and see what happens in peer-reviewed studies,” said Ed airily. “Those are the key words here, Stuart. ‘Peer-reviewed studies.’”
Hang on. Could you say that again more slowly so I can write it down? Not to worry. Ed said it every 12 seconds, as if it were the magic charm that could make all the bad publicity go away. He wore an open-necked shirt, and, although I don’t have a 76” inch HDTV, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find a talismanic peer-reviewed amulet nestling in his chest hair for additional protection. “If these scientists have done something wrong, it will be found out and their peers will determine it,” insisted Ed. “Don’t get your information from me, folks, or any newscaster. Get it from people with Ph.D. after their names. ‘Peer-reviewed studies is the key words. And if it comes out in peer-reviewed studies . . . ”
Got it: Pier-reviewed studies. You stand on the pier and you notice the tide seems to be coming in a little higher than it used to and you wonder if it’s something to do with incandescent light bulbs killing the polar bears? Is that how it works?
No, no, peer-reviewed studies. “Peer-reviewed studies. Go to Science magazine, folks. Go to Nature,” babbled Ed. “Read peer-reviewed studies. That’s all you need to do. Don’t get it from you or me.”
Look for the peer-reviewed label! And then just believe whatever it is they tell you!
The trouble with outsourcing your marbles to the peer-reviewed set is that, if you take away one single thing from the leaked documents, it’s that the global warm-mongers have wholly corrupted the “peer-review” process. When it comes to promoting the impending ecopalypse, the Climate Research Unit is the nerve-center of the operation. The “science” of the CRU dominates the “science” behind the UN’s IPCC, which dominates the “science” behind the Congressional cap-and-trade boondoggle, the upcoming Copenhagen shakindownen of the developed world, and the now routine phenomenon of leaders of advanced, prosperous societies talking like gibbering madmen escaped from the padded cell, whether it’s President Obama promising to end the rise of the oceans or the Prince of Wales saying we only have 96 months left to save the planet.
But don’t worry, it’s all “peer-reviewed.”
Here’s what Phil Jones of the CRU and his colleague Michael Mann of Penn State mean by “peer review.” When Climate Research published a paper dissenting from the Jones-Mann “consensus,” Jones demanded that the journal “rid itself of this troublesome editor,” and Mann advised that “we have to stop considering Climate Research as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers.”
So much for Climate Research. When Geophysical Research Letters also showed signs of wandering off the “consensus” reservation, Dr. Tom Wigley (“one of the world’s foremost experts on climate change”) suggested they get the goods on its editor, Jim Saiers, and go to his bosses at the American Geophysical Union to “get him ousted.” When another pair of troublesome dissenters emerge, Dr. Jones assured Dr. Mann, “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”
Which in essence is what they did. The more frantically they talked up “peer review” as the only legitimate basis for criticism, the more assiduously they turned the process into what James Lewis calls the Chicago machine politics of international science. The headline in the Wall Street Journal Europe is unimproveable: “How To Forge A Consensus.” Pressuring publishers, firing editors, blacklisting scientists: That’s “peer review,” climate-style.
The more their echo chamber shriveled, the more Mann and Jones insisted that they and only they represent the “peer-reviewed” “consensus.” And gullible types like Ed Begley Jr. and Andrew Revkin of the New York Times fell for it hook, line, and tree-ring. The e-mails of “Andy” (as his CRU chums fondly know him) are especially pitiful. Confronted by serious questions from Stephen McIntyre, the dogged Ontario retiree whose Climate Audit website exposed the fraud of Dr. Mann’s global-warming “hockey stick” graph), “Andy” writes to Dr. Mann to say not to worry, he’s going to “cover” the story from a more oblique angle:
I'm going to blog on this as it relates to the value of the peer review process and not on the merits of the mcintyre et al attacks.And, amazingly, Dr. Mann does! “Re, your point at the end — you’ve taken the words out of my mouth.”
peer review, for all its imperfections, is where the herky-jerky process of knowledge building happens, would you agree?
And that’s what Andrew Revkin did, week in, week out: He took the words out of Michael Mann’s mouth and served them up to impressionable readers of the New York Times and opportunist politicians around the world champing at the bit to inaugurate a vast global regulatory body to confiscate trillions of dollars of your hard-earned wealth in the cause of “saving the planet” from an imaginary crisis concocted by a few dozen thuggish ideologues. If you fall for this after the revelations of the last week, you’re as big a dupe as Begley or Revkin.
“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” wondered Juvenal: Who watches the watchmen? But the beauty of the climate-change tree-ring circus is that you never need to ask “Who peer-reviews the peer-reviewers?” Mann peer-reviewed Jones, and Jones peer-reviewed Mann, and anyone who questioned their theories got exiled to the unwarmed wastes of Siberia. The “consensus” warm-mongers could have declared it only counts as “peer-reviewed” if it’s published in Peer-Reviewed Studies published by Mann & Jones Publishing Inc (Peermate of the Month: Al Gore, reclining naked, draped in dead polar-bear fur, on a melting ice floe), and Ed Begley Jr. and “Andy” Revkin would still have wandered out glassy-eyed into the streets droning “Peer-reviewed studies. Cannot question. Peer-reviewed studies. The science is settled . . . ”
Looking forward to Copenhagen, Herman Van Rumpoy, the new president of the European Union and an eager proponent of the ecopalypse, says 2009 is “the first year of global governance.” Global government, huh? I wonder where you go to vote them out of office.
Hey, but don’t worry, it’ll all be “peer-reviewed.”
Cleaning Out the Climate Science Cesspool
Paul Driessen
Saturday, November 28, 2009
As legions of scientists, activists, journalists, bureaucrats and politicians prepare to embark for Copenhagen, a predictable barrage of climate horrors has been unleashed, to advance proposals to slash hydrocarbon use and carbon dioxide emissions, restrict economic growth, and implement global governance and taxation.
CO2 has reached a new high (0.0385% of the atmosphere), we’re told, because of cars and “coal-fired factories of death.” Rising seas are forcing families to “flee their homes.” Oceans are becoming “toxic.” Climate change is driving Philippine women into prostitution. Higher temperatures will “increase the likelihood of civil war in Sub-Saharan Africa” and “bring human civilization to a screeching halt.” The Associated Press, BBC and other “mainstream” media dutifully regurgitate every press release.
However, the planet and science are not cooperating with the fear-mongering. There has been no statistically significant global warming for over a decade, despite steadily increasing CO2 levels – and for several years average annual global temperatures have actually declined.
Carbon dioxide plays only a minor role, many scientists now say, and our climate is still controlled by the same natural forces that caused previous climate changes: periodic shifts in ocean currents and jet streams, water vapor and cloud cover, evaporation and precipitation, planetary alignments and the shape of the Earth’s orbit, the tilt and wobble of Earth’s axis, cosmic ray levels and especially solar energy output.
Far worse for the Climate Armageddon movement, newly released emails from its leading scientists reveal a cesspool of intimidation, duplicity and fraud that could rock Copenhagen and the alarmist agenda to their core. The emails cast deepening suspicion over global warming data, science and models.
They reveal an unprecedented, systematic conspiracy to stifle discussion and debate, conceal and manipulate data, revise temperature trends that contradict predictions of dangerous warming, skew the peer-review process, pressure scientific journals and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to publish alarmist studies and exclude dissenting analyses, and avoid compliance with Freedom of Information requests.
British Climate Research Unit (CRU) chief Phil Jones to Penn State climatologist Michael Mann, of Hockey Stick infamy: “Can you delete any e-mails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4 [the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report and Briffa’s suspect tree-ring data]. Keith will do likewise.”
Jones to Mann: “If they [Canadian researchers Ross McKitrick and Steve McIntyre] ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send it to anyone.”
(These actions appear intended to avoid Freedom of Information inquiries. Jones had previously told a researcher, “Why should I make the data available, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?” Drs. J&M, that’s the scientific method – to ensure that research and experiments are honest, accurate and replicable. Deleting files and data also raises serious ethical, scientific and legal issues.)
Jones: “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin [Trenberth, lead author of two IPCC reports] and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” (Thereby excluding non-alarmist peer-reviewed papers and skewing the IPCC process.)
Jones: “I’ve just completed Mike [Mann’s] trick of adding in the real temps to each series, to hide the decline [in average global temperatures] .…” (Maintain a warming trend, despite contrary evidence.)
Climate scientist Tom Wigley to Mann: “If you think [Yale Professor and Global Renewables editor James] Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted.” (Saiers was subsequently dismissed. The American Geophysical Union is a once professional society that has likewise gotten into the censorship, intimidation, climate alarm and money train business.)
These are the very tip of the melting iceberg. To gauge the scope, depth and depravity of the conspiracy, visit Bishop Hill, ClimateDepot.com and An Elegant Chaos on the web.
These supposed scientists built their careers and reputations on conjuring datasets, computer models, scenarios and reports – all claiming that modern civilization’s use of hydrocarbons is about to destroy the planet, and all financed by well over $100 billion in US, UK, EU and other taxpayer money.
Realist climate experts have long smelled a rat. The alarmists’ data didn’t match other data. Their models never worked. Their claims of “consensus” and “unprecedented” warming had no basis in fact. Too many grant and publication decisions were decided by which side of the issue someone was on.
Now, finally, the rat has been flushed from its sewer – by a hacker, whistle-blower or someone who carelessly left “secret” files where a website visitor could find them … and reveal them to the world. Now, finally, even the “mainstream” media can no longer ignore or whitewash the scandal.
The stakes are incredibly high. This bogus, biased “science” is being used to justify expensive, intrusive, repressive, abusive treaties, laws and regulations. The new rules would undermine economies, destroy jobs, close down companies and entire industries, impoverish families and communities, roll back personal freedoms and civil rights – and enrich the lucky few whose lobbyists and connections enable them to corner markets for renewable energy technologies, carbon offsets and emissions trading.
For the most destitute people on the planet, the repercussions from this fraud are even higher. These people – 750 million in Africa alone – do not have electricity, cars, modern homes, jobs or hope for a better future. They die by the millions from malnutrition and lung, intestinal and insect-borne diseases that would be dramatically reduced with access to dependable, affordable energy.
But the alarmists’ bogus, biased “science” is being used to justify building a Climate Wall between these desperate people and the modern, energy-rich world. To justify perpetuating misery, disease and death.
Jones, Mann, Briffa, Trenberth, Wigley, IPCC chief Rajenda Pachauri, White House science advisor John Holdren, CRU scientist Tim Osborn, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researcher Ben Santer and others implicated in this growing scandal should do the honorable thing – and resign their posts. If they refuse, they should be put on paid administrative leave, until every aspect of this collusion and junk science scandal can be thoroughly investigated. Dismissal or other appropriate action should follow.
They should not be allowed to represent their governments or organizations in Copenhagen.
Institutions that received climate alarm grants should be disciplined and removed from future grant conduits, if they knew about these actions – or would have known, had they exercised due diligence.
The entire IPCC and peer review process needs to be repaired. The alarmists and self-appointed censors who have corrupted the system must be replaced with scientists who will ensure honest inquiry and a full airing of all data, hypotheses and perspectives on climate science, economics and policy.
Most importantly, the United States, Britain and all other responsible nations should slam the brakes on every proposed “climate crisis” treaty, agreement, bill, regulatory proposal and endangered species action – until we get to the bottom of this scandal, and determine which data and claims are honest and accurate, which are bogus and unfounded. President Obama should cancel his trip to Copenhagen, and his plans to lobby for a new climate treaty and commit the US to slash its carbon dioxide emissions to a job-killing 17% below 2005 levels by 2020.
It is time to clean out the climate cesspool, and bring integrity, transparency and accountability back to science, law and public policy.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
As legions of scientists, activists, journalists, bureaucrats and politicians prepare to embark for Copenhagen, a predictable barrage of climate horrors has been unleashed, to advance proposals to slash hydrocarbon use and carbon dioxide emissions, restrict economic growth, and implement global governance and taxation.
CO2 has reached a new high (0.0385% of the atmosphere), we’re told, because of cars and “coal-fired factories of death.” Rising seas are forcing families to “flee their homes.” Oceans are becoming “toxic.” Climate change is driving Philippine women into prostitution. Higher temperatures will “increase the likelihood of civil war in Sub-Saharan Africa” and “bring human civilization to a screeching halt.” The Associated Press, BBC and other “mainstream” media dutifully regurgitate every press release.
However, the planet and science are not cooperating with the fear-mongering. There has been no statistically significant global warming for over a decade, despite steadily increasing CO2 levels – and for several years average annual global temperatures have actually declined.
Carbon dioxide plays only a minor role, many scientists now say, and our climate is still controlled by the same natural forces that caused previous climate changes: periodic shifts in ocean currents and jet streams, water vapor and cloud cover, evaporation and precipitation, planetary alignments and the shape of the Earth’s orbit, the tilt and wobble of Earth’s axis, cosmic ray levels and especially solar energy output.
Far worse for the Climate Armageddon movement, newly released emails from its leading scientists reveal a cesspool of intimidation, duplicity and fraud that could rock Copenhagen and the alarmist agenda to their core. The emails cast deepening suspicion over global warming data, science and models.
They reveal an unprecedented, systematic conspiracy to stifle discussion and debate, conceal and manipulate data, revise temperature trends that contradict predictions of dangerous warming, skew the peer-review process, pressure scientific journals and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to publish alarmist studies and exclude dissenting analyses, and avoid compliance with Freedom of Information requests.
British Climate Research Unit (CRU) chief Phil Jones to Penn State climatologist Michael Mann, of Hockey Stick infamy: “Can you delete any e-mails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4 [the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report and Briffa’s suspect tree-ring data]. Keith will do likewise.”
Jones to Mann: “If they [Canadian researchers Ross McKitrick and Steve McIntyre] ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send it to anyone.”
(These actions appear intended to avoid Freedom of Information inquiries. Jones had previously told a researcher, “Why should I make the data available, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?” Drs. J&M, that’s the scientific method – to ensure that research and experiments are honest, accurate and replicable. Deleting files and data also raises serious ethical, scientific and legal issues.)
Jones: “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin [Trenberth, lead author of two IPCC reports] and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” (Thereby excluding non-alarmist peer-reviewed papers and skewing the IPCC process.)
Jones: “I’ve just completed Mike [Mann’s] trick of adding in the real temps to each series, to hide the decline [in average global temperatures] .…” (Maintain a warming trend, despite contrary evidence.)
Climate scientist Tom Wigley to Mann: “If you think [Yale Professor and Global Renewables editor James] Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted.” (Saiers was subsequently dismissed. The American Geophysical Union is a once professional society that has likewise gotten into the censorship, intimidation, climate alarm and money train business.)
These are the very tip of the melting iceberg. To gauge the scope, depth and depravity of the conspiracy, visit Bishop Hill, ClimateDepot.com and An Elegant Chaos on the web.
These supposed scientists built their careers and reputations on conjuring datasets, computer models, scenarios and reports – all claiming that modern civilization’s use of hydrocarbons is about to destroy the planet, and all financed by well over $100 billion in US, UK, EU and other taxpayer money.
Realist climate experts have long smelled a rat. The alarmists’ data didn’t match other data. Their models never worked. Their claims of “consensus” and “unprecedented” warming had no basis in fact. Too many grant and publication decisions were decided by which side of the issue someone was on.
Now, finally, the rat has been flushed from its sewer – by a hacker, whistle-blower or someone who carelessly left “secret” files where a website visitor could find them … and reveal them to the world. Now, finally, even the “mainstream” media can no longer ignore or whitewash the scandal.
The stakes are incredibly high. This bogus, biased “science” is being used to justify expensive, intrusive, repressive, abusive treaties, laws and regulations. The new rules would undermine economies, destroy jobs, close down companies and entire industries, impoverish families and communities, roll back personal freedoms and civil rights – and enrich the lucky few whose lobbyists and connections enable them to corner markets for renewable energy technologies, carbon offsets and emissions trading.
For the most destitute people on the planet, the repercussions from this fraud are even higher. These people – 750 million in Africa alone – do not have electricity, cars, modern homes, jobs or hope for a better future. They die by the millions from malnutrition and lung, intestinal and insect-borne diseases that would be dramatically reduced with access to dependable, affordable energy.
But the alarmists’ bogus, biased “science” is being used to justify building a Climate Wall between these desperate people and the modern, energy-rich world. To justify perpetuating misery, disease and death.
Jones, Mann, Briffa, Trenberth, Wigley, IPCC chief Rajenda Pachauri, White House science advisor John Holdren, CRU scientist Tim Osborn, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researcher Ben Santer and others implicated in this growing scandal should do the honorable thing – and resign their posts. If they refuse, they should be put on paid administrative leave, until every aspect of this collusion and junk science scandal can be thoroughly investigated. Dismissal or other appropriate action should follow.
They should not be allowed to represent their governments or organizations in Copenhagen.
Institutions that received climate alarm grants should be disciplined and removed from future grant conduits, if they knew about these actions – or would have known, had they exercised due diligence.
The entire IPCC and peer review process needs to be repaired. The alarmists and self-appointed censors who have corrupted the system must be replaced with scientists who will ensure honest inquiry and a full airing of all data, hypotheses and perspectives on climate science, economics and policy.
Most importantly, the United States, Britain and all other responsible nations should slam the brakes on every proposed “climate crisis” treaty, agreement, bill, regulatory proposal and endangered species action – until we get to the bottom of this scandal, and determine which data and claims are honest and accurate, which are bogus and unfounded. President Obama should cancel his trip to Copenhagen, and his plans to lobby for a new climate treaty and commit the US to slash its carbon dioxide emissions to a job-killing 17% below 2005 levels by 2020.
It is time to clean out the climate cesspool, and bring integrity, transparency and accountability back to science, law and public policy.
Will Time Magazine Apologize to Glenn Beck?
Ken Blackwell
Saturday, November 28, 2009
“Government Distrust and a Dead Census Taker.” That was the headline of a September 25th story in TIME about the death of 51-year old Bill Sparkman. Sparkman’s naked body had been found in a remote area of Harlan County, Kentucky, with the word “FED” scrawled on his chest. Sparkman had been hanged. Immediately, TIME and others began to speculate. Had Sparkman been hanged by anti-government, anti-Obama violent right wingers? TIME led the speculation, taking the opportunity to drag in Glenn Beck:
“...[W]as it part of the recent rage at what right-wing commentators decry as the big-spending, socialistic government of the first African-American President? Al Cross, a former reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal who covered the area for 30 years, believes that the conditions underlying the murder go back much farther and are much deeper — and more local — than the recent spate of ire. (Read TIME's cover story on Glenn Beck.)”
Well, now it turns out that Kentucky investigators have concluded that poor Sparkman committed suicide, faking his own death in order to let unnamed beneficiaries collect on a recently-contracted life insurance policy. How very sad for Sparkman and those whom he loved. And how sad for our country when a leading news organ like TIME races to conclude that anti-tax protesters likely had a hand in the unfortunate man’s death.
This is a repetition on a much smaller scale of the liberal media reaction to the assassination of President Kennedy. The President’s murder was an open-and-shut case of a young, disaffected Communist, Lee Harvey Oswald, who hated the cold war warrior Kennedy. Oswald was especially affronted by JFK’s opposition to Cuba as a Soviet satellite 90 miles from our shores.
Prompted by the brave but mistaken Jackie Kennedy, liberals had to make Jack a martyr to civil rights. Jackie had complained that her husband’s assassination at the hands of “some silly little Communist” robbed his death of meaning. A better reality would have been to make Jack the victim of a vast right-wing conspiracy. The liberal media resembled nothing so much as Cinderella’s ugly step-sisters trying to jam their big toes into that delicate glass slipper. We’ll make it fit!
Liberals must be frustrated. For 46 years at least, they have been trying to make reality comport with their increasingly bizarre theories. If Kennedy was killed by a Communist that Communist must somehow have been motivated by the atmosphere of violence and intolerance fomented by right wingers in Dallas. Why, didn’t those Dallas schoolchildren cheer when JFK died? Yes, they did. But that’s because they had not been told why they were going home early on a beautiful fall afternoon. Even proper liberal kids yell happily for an afternoon off.
Ironically, civil rights was probably the only thing on which President Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald would have agreed. Communists have committed countless crimes against humanity, but racism is not one of them.
So, now, we have the truth about John Sparkman. He was not the victim of Tea Party-goers waving copies of Glenn Beck’s book. He was not lynched by anti-revenuer low lifes straight off the set of the movie “Deliverance.” The poor man hanged himself.
Will TIME now apologize to Tea Party folks, to Glenn Beck, and while they’re at it, to Tea Party-goer James Madison? It was Madison who said “the people are right to take alarm at the first advance on their liberties.”
Saturday, November 28, 2009
“Government Distrust and a Dead Census Taker.” That was the headline of a September 25th story in TIME about the death of 51-year old Bill Sparkman. Sparkman’s naked body had been found in a remote area of Harlan County, Kentucky, with the word “FED” scrawled on his chest. Sparkman had been hanged. Immediately, TIME and others began to speculate. Had Sparkman been hanged by anti-government, anti-Obama violent right wingers? TIME led the speculation, taking the opportunity to drag in Glenn Beck:
“...[W]as it part of the recent rage at what right-wing commentators decry as the big-spending, socialistic government of the first African-American President? Al Cross, a former reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal who covered the area for 30 years, believes that the conditions underlying the murder go back much farther and are much deeper — and more local — than the recent spate of ire. (Read TIME's cover story on Glenn Beck.)”
Well, now it turns out that Kentucky investigators have concluded that poor Sparkman committed suicide, faking his own death in order to let unnamed beneficiaries collect on a recently-contracted life insurance policy. How very sad for Sparkman and those whom he loved. And how sad for our country when a leading news organ like TIME races to conclude that anti-tax protesters likely had a hand in the unfortunate man’s death.
This is a repetition on a much smaller scale of the liberal media reaction to the assassination of President Kennedy. The President’s murder was an open-and-shut case of a young, disaffected Communist, Lee Harvey Oswald, who hated the cold war warrior Kennedy. Oswald was especially affronted by JFK’s opposition to Cuba as a Soviet satellite 90 miles from our shores.
Prompted by the brave but mistaken Jackie Kennedy, liberals had to make Jack a martyr to civil rights. Jackie had complained that her husband’s assassination at the hands of “some silly little Communist” robbed his death of meaning. A better reality would have been to make Jack the victim of a vast right-wing conspiracy. The liberal media resembled nothing so much as Cinderella’s ugly step-sisters trying to jam their big toes into that delicate glass slipper. We’ll make it fit!
Liberals must be frustrated. For 46 years at least, they have been trying to make reality comport with their increasingly bizarre theories. If Kennedy was killed by a Communist that Communist must somehow have been motivated by the atmosphere of violence and intolerance fomented by right wingers in Dallas. Why, didn’t those Dallas schoolchildren cheer when JFK died? Yes, they did. But that’s because they had not been told why they were going home early on a beautiful fall afternoon. Even proper liberal kids yell happily for an afternoon off.
Ironically, civil rights was probably the only thing on which President Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald would have agreed. Communists have committed countless crimes against humanity, but racism is not one of them.
So, now, we have the truth about John Sparkman. He was not the victim of Tea Party-goers waving copies of Glenn Beck’s book. He was not lynched by anti-revenuer low lifes straight off the set of the movie “Deliverance.” The poor man hanged himself.
Will TIME now apologize to Tea Party folks, to Glenn Beck, and while they’re at it, to Tea Party-goer James Madison? It was Madison who said “the people are right to take alarm at the first advance on their liberties.”
Friday, November 27, 2009
Kill the Bills. Do Health Reform Right
Charles Krauthammer
Friday, November 27, 2009
WASHINGTON -- The United States has the best health care in the world -- but because of its inefficiencies, also the most expensive. The fundamental problem with the 2,074-page Senate health-care bill (as with its 2,014-page House counterpart) is that it wildly compounds the complexity by adding hundreds of new provisions, regulations, mandates, committees and other arbitrary bureaucratic inventions.
Worse, they are packed into a monstrous package without any regard to each other. The only thing linking these changes -- such as the 118 new boards, commissions and programs -- is political expediency. Each must be able to garner just enough votes to pass. There is not even a pretense of a unifying vision or conceptual harmony.
The result is an overregulated, overbureaucratized system of surpassing arbitrariness and inefficiency. Throw a dart at the Senate tome:
-- You'll find mandates with financial penalties -- the amounts picked out of a hat.
-- You'll find insurance companies (who live and die by their actuarial skills) told exactly what weight to give risk factors, such as age. Currently insurance premiums for 20-somethings are about one-sixth the premiums for 60-somethings. The House bill dictates the young shall now pay at minimum one-half; the Senate bill, one-third -- numbers picked out of a hat.
-- You'll find sliding scales for health-insurance subsidies -- percentages picked out of a hat -- that will radically raise marginal income tax rates for middle- class recipients, among other crazy unintended consequences.
The bill is irredeemable. It should not only be defeated. It should be immolated, its ashes scattered over the Senate swimming pool.
Then do health care the right way -- one reform at a time, each simple and simplifying, aimed at reducing complexity, arbitrariness and inefficiency.
First, tort reform. This is money -- the low-end estimate is about half a trillion per decade -- wasted in two ways. Part is simply hemorrhaged into the legal system to benefit a few jackpot lawsuit winners and an army of extravagantly rich malpractice lawyers such as John Edwards.
The rest is wasted within the medical system in the millions of unnecessary tests, procedures and referrals undertaken solely to fend off lawsuits -- resources wasted on patients who don't need them and which could be redirected to the uninsured who really do.
In the 4,000-plus pages of the two bills, there is no tort reform. Indeed, the House bill actually penalizes states that dare "limit attorneys' fees or impose caps on damages." Why? Because, as Howard Dean has openly admitted, Democrats don't want "to take on the trial lawyers." What he didn't say -- he didn't need to -- is that they give millions to the Democrats for precisely this kind of protection.
Second, even more simple and simplifying, abolish the prohibition against buying health insurance across state lines.
Some states have very few health insurers. Rates are high. So why not allow interstate competition? After all, you can buy oranges across state lines. If you couldn’t, oranges would be extremely expensive in Wisconsin, especially in winter.
And the answer to the resulting high Wisconsin orange prices wouldn’t be the establishment of a public option -- a federally run orange-growing company in Wisconsin -- to introduce "competition." It would be to allow Wisconsin residents to buy Florida oranges.
But neither bill lifts the prohibition on interstate competition for health insurance. Because this would obviate the need -- the excuse -- for the public option, which the left wing of the Democratic Party sees (correctly) as the royal road to fully socialized medicine.
Third, tax employer-provided health insurance. This is an accrued inefficiency of 65 years, an accident of World War II wage controls. It creates a $250 billion annual loss of federal revenues -- the largest tax break for individuals in the entire federal budget.
This reform is the most difficult to enact, for two reasons. The unions oppose it. And the Obama campaign savaged the idea when John McCain proposed it during last year's election.
Insuring the uninsured is a moral imperative. The problem is that the Democrats have chosen the worst possible method -- a $1 trillion new entitlement of stupefying arbitrariness and inefficiency.
The better choice is targeted measures that attack the inefficiencies of the current system one by one -- tort reform, interstate purchasing and taxing employee benefits. It would take 20 pages to write such a bill, not 2,000 -- and provide the funds to cover the uninsured without wrecking both U.S. health care and the U.S. Treasury.
Friday, November 27, 2009
WASHINGTON -- The United States has the best health care in the world -- but because of its inefficiencies, also the most expensive. The fundamental problem with the 2,074-page Senate health-care bill (as with its 2,014-page House counterpart) is that it wildly compounds the complexity by adding hundreds of new provisions, regulations, mandates, committees and other arbitrary bureaucratic inventions.
Worse, they are packed into a monstrous package without any regard to each other. The only thing linking these changes -- such as the 118 new boards, commissions and programs -- is political expediency. Each must be able to garner just enough votes to pass. There is not even a pretense of a unifying vision or conceptual harmony.
The result is an overregulated, overbureaucratized system of surpassing arbitrariness and inefficiency. Throw a dart at the Senate tome:
-- You'll find mandates with financial penalties -- the amounts picked out of a hat.
-- You'll find insurance companies (who live and die by their actuarial skills) told exactly what weight to give risk factors, such as age. Currently insurance premiums for 20-somethings are about one-sixth the premiums for 60-somethings. The House bill dictates the young shall now pay at minimum one-half; the Senate bill, one-third -- numbers picked out of a hat.
-- You'll find sliding scales for health-insurance subsidies -- percentages picked out of a hat -- that will radically raise marginal income tax rates for middle- class recipients, among other crazy unintended consequences.
The bill is irredeemable. It should not only be defeated. It should be immolated, its ashes scattered over the Senate swimming pool.
Then do health care the right way -- one reform at a time, each simple and simplifying, aimed at reducing complexity, arbitrariness and inefficiency.
First, tort reform. This is money -- the low-end estimate is about half a trillion per decade -- wasted in two ways. Part is simply hemorrhaged into the legal system to benefit a few jackpot lawsuit winners and an army of extravagantly rich malpractice lawyers such as John Edwards.
The rest is wasted within the medical system in the millions of unnecessary tests, procedures and referrals undertaken solely to fend off lawsuits -- resources wasted on patients who don't need them and which could be redirected to the uninsured who really do.
In the 4,000-plus pages of the two bills, there is no tort reform. Indeed, the House bill actually penalizes states that dare "limit attorneys' fees or impose caps on damages." Why? Because, as Howard Dean has openly admitted, Democrats don't want "to take on the trial lawyers." What he didn't say -- he didn't need to -- is that they give millions to the Democrats for precisely this kind of protection.
Second, even more simple and simplifying, abolish the prohibition against buying health insurance across state lines.
Some states have very few health insurers. Rates are high. So why not allow interstate competition? After all, you can buy oranges across state lines. If you couldn’t, oranges would be extremely expensive in Wisconsin, especially in winter.
And the answer to the resulting high Wisconsin orange prices wouldn’t be the establishment of a public option -- a federally run orange-growing company in Wisconsin -- to introduce "competition." It would be to allow Wisconsin residents to buy Florida oranges.
But neither bill lifts the prohibition on interstate competition for health insurance. Because this would obviate the need -- the excuse -- for the public option, which the left wing of the Democratic Party sees (correctly) as the royal road to fully socialized medicine.
Third, tax employer-provided health insurance. This is an accrued inefficiency of 65 years, an accident of World War II wage controls. It creates a $250 billion annual loss of federal revenues -- the largest tax break for individuals in the entire federal budget.
This reform is the most difficult to enact, for two reasons. The unions oppose it. And the Obama campaign savaged the idea when John McCain proposed it during last year's election.
Insuring the uninsured is a moral imperative. The problem is that the Democrats have chosen the worst possible method -- a $1 trillion new entitlement of stupefying arbitrariness and inefficiency.
The better choice is targeted measures that attack the inefficiencies of the current system one by one -- tort reform, interstate purchasing and taxing employee benefits. It would take 20 pages to write such a bill, not 2,000 -- and provide the funds to cover the uninsured without wrecking both U.S. health care and the U.S. Treasury.
Clemency for terrorists but not our soldiers?
Diana West
Friday, November 27, 2009
During the Thanksgiving season especially, Americans should give thanks to our brave men in uniform, and women, too, fighting in hostile lands under atrocious conditions.
But there's another duty upon us as Americans with a debt of gratitude to our armed forces.
We must recognize and protest the travesties of military justice that have tried, convicted, jailed and denied clemency to all too many brave Americans, the same brave Americans who have fought our wars only to be unfairly charged with "murder" in the war zone.
Readers of this column will recall the crushing conviction of Sgt. Evan Vela, a young Ranger-trained sniper and father of two from Idaho, for executing his superior's 2006 order to kill an Iraqi man who at the time has been compromising his squad's hiding place in the pre-"surge" Sunni triangle. Ten years in Fort Leavenworth, ordered not-so-blind justice. (There is evidence that Evan's harsh sentence was a blatant political offering to Iraq's government.) One reason behind my intense distaste for George W. Bush -- my own personal Bush Derangement Syndrome -- is the former president's callousness toward such Americans as Sgt. Vela, who served their commander in chief well in these difficult times of war. As the Bush administration came to an end, talk of a presidential pardon for Vela leaked to the media, no doubt elating the Vela family, but, cruelly, nothing came of it.
It never does. Evan Vela now has all too many brothers-in-arms at Fort Leavenworth prison where they form what is increasingly known as The Leavenworth Ten: Vela (10 years), Corey Claggett (18 years), William Hunsaker (18 years), Raymond Girouard (10 years), Michael Williams (25 years), Larry Hutchins (11 years), Michael Behenna (20 years), John Hatley (40 years), Joseph Mayo (20 years), Michael Leahy (20 years). Google their names, read their cases and, before recoiling in politically correct shudders into the deeper recesses of the Lazy Boy, try to imagine the particular hell of this war as they and others like them experienced it on our behalf.
If this exercise elicits any pangs amid the general sense of holiday well being, good. Maybe it will help Americans see the urgent need for clemency in these cases. And particularly given the mind-boggling fact that the United States has been granting clemency in Iraq to the most murderous detainees our soldiers were sent to fight in the first place.
I'm not even referring to the thousands of "lower-level" detainees released over the past year or more from U.S.-run prisons in Iraq. (A senior Iraq interior ministry official told AFP that the two suicide bombers and a majority of suspects in the Aug. 19 Baghdad bombings had recently been released from U.S.-run Camp Bucca.) I'm talking about high-level, known killers of Americans in Iraq, such as Laith al-Khazali, who, along with four fellow Iranian-backed operatives, was released in July.
As Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen noted, al-Khazali is a leader of Asaib al-Haq, an Iranian-backed "special group" that in 2007 kidnapped and killed five American soldiers. Later, the group kidnapped five British contractors, three of whom are known dead. Ghazali's release, a U.S. military spokesman told the New York Times, came as "part of a reconciliation effort between the government of Iraq and Asaib al-Haq." How sweet. But, Cullen wondered, if the United States can forgive al-Khazali, why can't the U.S. forgive Larry Hutchins? "So Larry Hutchins, killer of a single Iraqi, sits in prison while Laith al-Khazli, killer of many Americans, enjoys his freedom and his family."
I'm not sure how much "family" such a jihadist "enjoys," but however much it's a courtesy of the U.S. government most merciful -- at least toward Shiite terrorists with American blood on their hands. In September, more than 100 more Iraqi Shiites belonging to al-Ghazali's group were released. Also released this year was Mahmud Farhadi, whom Bill Roggio of the Long War Journal describes as a key Iranian leader in the Ramazan Corps, which, Roggio writes, "is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of U.S. soldiers in Iraq."
I don't mean to equate Iraqi and Iranian terrorists with U.S. soldiers. But I do mean to question a government that frees its enemies in a sham of "reconciliation" and leaves its soldiers to rot in a sham of "justice."
And I challenge readers to do the same.
Friday, November 27, 2009
During the Thanksgiving season especially, Americans should give thanks to our brave men in uniform, and women, too, fighting in hostile lands under atrocious conditions.
But there's another duty upon us as Americans with a debt of gratitude to our armed forces.
We must recognize and protest the travesties of military justice that have tried, convicted, jailed and denied clemency to all too many brave Americans, the same brave Americans who have fought our wars only to be unfairly charged with "murder" in the war zone.
Readers of this column will recall the crushing conviction of Sgt. Evan Vela, a young Ranger-trained sniper and father of two from Idaho, for executing his superior's 2006 order to kill an Iraqi man who at the time has been compromising his squad's hiding place in the pre-"surge" Sunni triangle. Ten years in Fort Leavenworth, ordered not-so-blind justice. (There is evidence that Evan's harsh sentence was a blatant political offering to Iraq's government.) One reason behind my intense distaste for George W. Bush -- my own personal Bush Derangement Syndrome -- is the former president's callousness toward such Americans as Sgt. Vela, who served their commander in chief well in these difficult times of war. As the Bush administration came to an end, talk of a presidential pardon for Vela leaked to the media, no doubt elating the Vela family, but, cruelly, nothing came of it.
It never does. Evan Vela now has all too many brothers-in-arms at Fort Leavenworth prison where they form what is increasingly known as The Leavenworth Ten: Vela (10 years), Corey Claggett (18 years), William Hunsaker (18 years), Raymond Girouard (10 years), Michael Williams (25 years), Larry Hutchins (11 years), Michael Behenna (20 years), John Hatley (40 years), Joseph Mayo (20 years), Michael Leahy (20 years). Google their names, read their cases and, before recoiling in politically correct shudders into the deeper recesses of the Lazy Boy, try to imagine the particular hell of this war as they and others like them experienced it on our behalf.
If this exercise elicits any pangs amid the general sense of holiday well being, good. Maybe it will help Americans see the urgent need for clemency in these cases. And particularly given the mind-boggling fact that the United States has been granting clemency in Iraq to the most murderous detainees our soldiers were sent to fight in the first place.
I'm not even referring to the thousands of "lower-level" detainees released over the past year or more from U.S.-run prisons in Iraq. (A senior Iraq interior ministry official told AFP that the two suicide bombers and a majority of suspects in the Aug. 19 Baghdad bombings had recently been released from U.S.-run Camp Bucca.) I'm talking about high-level, known killers of Americans in Iraq, such as Laith al-Khazali, who, along with four fellow Iranian-backed operatives, was released in July.
As Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen noted, al-Khazali is a leader of Asaib al-Haq, an Iranian-backed "special group" that in 2007 kidnapped and killed five American soldiers. Later, the group kidnapped five British contractors, three of whom are known dead. Ghazali's release, a U.S. military spokesman told the New York Times, came as "part of a reconciliation effort between the government of Iraq and Asaib al-Haq." How sweet. But, Cullen wondered, if the United States can forgive al-Khazali, why can't the U.S. forgive Larry Hutchins? "So Larry Hutchins, killer of a single Iraqi, sits in prison while Laith al-Khazli, killer of many Americans, enjoys his freedom and his family."
I'm not sure how much "family" such a jihadist "enjoys," but however much it's a courtesy of the U.S. government most merciful -- at least toward Shiite terrorists with American blood on their hands. In September, more than 100 more Iraqi Shiites belonging to al-Ghazali's group were released. Also released this year was Mahmud Farhadi, whom Bill Roggio of the Long War Journal describes as a key Iranian leader in the Ramazan Corps, which, Roggio writes, "is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of U.S. soldiers in Iraq."
I don't mean to equate Iraqi and Iranian terrorists with U.S. soldiers. But I do mean to question a government that frees its enemies in a sham of "reconciliation" and leaves its soldiers to rot in a sham of "justice."
And I challenge readers to do the same.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Give Thanks for the Troops
Ben Shapiro
Thursday, November 26, 2009
There's a wonderful e-mail going around this time of year. It's like a lot of other e-mails -- it tells a warm and fuzzy story. But this one is different. It's actually true.
It was the first day of school at Robinson High School in Little Rock, Ark., in 2005. Robinson is a smaller public school with just over 500 kids. And virtually every one of those kids thought Martha Cothren, teacher of AP American History, AP Government, military history and coach of the girls basketball team, was crazy.
They thought she was crazy because here it was, the first day, and her classroom was empty. Not empty of kids -- the kids were there. Completely empty of desks and chairs. All the kids were standing around. For the entire day.
Each class period, the kids asked Cothren where their desks were.
"You can't have a desk until you tell me how you earn them. So how do you earn them?" she asked.
"Good grades," suggested one kid.
"Those are important, but those won't earn you your desk," Cothren replied.
"Good behavior?" suggested another.
"You will behave," Cothren said, "but it's not that."
Some of the kids even started offering Cothren bribes. No dice. A buzz ran through the school as more and more kids reported the absence of desks and chairs in their class with Cothren. "What's going on with Cothren?" they wondered.
Five minutes before the bell rang to end that first day of school, they found out.
"All day long," she told her class, "everybody has wondered how you earned your desks." Then Martha Cothren opened the door to the classroom.
And in walked a group of men and women of the United States military. Each one of them carried a desk. They lined them up in rows and then stood at attention around the room.
"You didn't earn your desks," Cothren stated. "They earned it for you."
Cothren's story has made the rounds for the past few years, boosted every Veterans Day. It got an especially large bump when Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee mentioned the story in his stump speeches, including his speech at the Republican National Convention.
On Tuesday, I had a chance to talk with Martha Cothren. Her military ties run deep.
"My dad was a World War II POW," she told me. "He was the 24th American captured by the Germans. He was actually thrown out of a plane over Lille, France, after his oxygen mask was shot off; the other soldiers threw him out of the plane to save his life. He spent 42 months in POW camp, Stalag 17B. My high-school sweetheart served in Vietnam. He did make it home, but he was killed in a car accident just before we were to be married."
And Cothren was disturbed by reports from her fellow teachers that students were lazy about standing during the Pledge of Allegiance each morning -- Arkansas state law still requires that the pledge be recited. She knew that the students were guaranteed a free public education. But she also realized that they weren't guaranteed their desks. She took it from there.
And it worked.
"At the end of the day when the veterans came in," she told me, "as they filed in, I had tears pouring down my cheeks. There wasn't a dry eye in the room. And I was so proud of my kids, because they stayed to thank the veterans after the bell rang. Kids congregated in the hallway just so they could thank the veterans. So did the other teachers."
Cothren had called some local television crews to come witness the event. Afterward, one of the photographers asked her to come over and speak with him for a moment. "I need to talk to you," he said. "I'm a Vietnam vet. And I just wanted to tell you that until today, I'd never been welcomed home."
"That made it all worth it," Cothren told me.
She's received her small share of flack. One online commenter suggested that the taxpayers had earned the school desks, a criticism that irked Cothren. "If it weren't for the soldiers, we wouldn't have to worry about paying taxes."
But in general, the support has been overwhelming. The story of the Cothren desks passes from brothers to sisters. She wants to re-enact the scene, she told me -- but only when others have forgotten it, so that it will still have that same impact for the kids.
We can only hope that her message isn't forgotten. We didn't earn our rights -- our men and women of the armed services earn those rights for us. This Thanksgiving, let us give thanks for the people who put their lives on the line to guarantee us those rights. And let us remember, together with Cothren, that same message of thanks each and every day.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
There's a wonderful e-mail going around this time of year. It's like a lot of other e-mails -- it tells a warm and fuzzy story. But this one is different. It's actually true.
It was the first day of school at Robinson High School in Little Rock, Ark., in 2005. Robinson is a smaller public school with just over 500 kids. And virtually every one of those kids thought Martha Cothren, teacher of AP American History, AP Government, military history and coach of the girls basketball team, was crazy.
They thought she was crazy because here it was, the first day, and her classroom was empty. Not empty of kids -- the kids were there. Completely empty of desks and chairs. All the kids were standing around. For the entire day.
Each class period, the kids asked Cothren where their desks were.
"You can't have a desk until you tell me how you earn them. So how do you earn them?" she asked.
"Good grades," suggested one kid.
"Those are important, but those won't earn you your desk," Cothren replied.
"Good behavior?" suggested another.
"You will behave," Cothren said, "but it's not that."
Some of the kids even started offering Cothren bribes. No dice. A buzz ran through the school as more and more kids reported the absence of desks and chairs in their class with Cothren. "What's going on with Cothren?" they wondered.
Five minutes before the bell rang to end that first day of school, they found out.
"All day long," she told her class, "everybody has wondered how you earned your desks." Then Martha Cothren opened the door to the classroom.
And in walked a group of men and women of the United States military. Each one of them carried a desk. They lined them up in rows and then stood at attention around the room.
"You didn't earn your desks," Cothren stated. "They earned it for you."
Cothren's story has made the rounds for the past few years, boosted every Veterans Day. It got an especially large bump when Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee mentioned the story in his stump speeches, including his speech at the Republican National Convention.
On Tuesday, I had a chance to talk with Martha Cothren. Her military ties run deep.
"My dad was a World War II POW," she told me. "He was the 24th American captured by the Germans. He was actually thrown out of a plane over Lille, France, after his oxygen mask was shot off; the other soldiers threw him out of the plane to save his life. He spent 42 months in POW camp, Stalag 17B. My high-school sweetheart served in Vietnam. He did make it home, but he was killed in a car accident just before we were to be married."
And Cothren was disturbed by reports from her fellow teachers that students were lazy about standing during the Pledge of Allegiance each morning -- Arkansas state law still requires that the pledge be recited. She knew that the students were guaranteed a free public education. But she also realized that they weren't guaranteed their desks. She took it from there.
And it worked.
"At the end of the day when the veterans came in," she told me, "as they filed in, I had tears pouring down my cheeks. There wasn't a dry eye in the room. And I was so proud of my kids, because they stayed to thank the veterans after the bell rang. Kids congregated in the hallway just so they could thank the veterans. So did the other teachers."
Cothren had called some local television crews to come witness the event. Afterward, one of the photographers asked her to come over and speak with him for a moment. "I need to talk to you," he said. "I'm a Vietnam vet. And I just wanted to tell you that until today, I'd never been welcomed home."
"That made it all worth it," Cothren told me.
She's received her small share of flack. One online commenter suggested that the taxpayers had earned the school desks, a criticism that irked Cothren. "If it weren't for the soldiers, we wouldn't have to worry about paying taxes."
But in general, the support has been overwhelming. The story of the Cothren desks passes from brothers to sisters. She wants to re-enact the scene, she told me -- but only when others have forgotten it, so that it will still have that same impact for the kids.
We can only hope that her message isn't forgotten. We didn't earn our rights -- our men and women of the armed services earn those rights for us. This Thanksgiving, let us give thanks for the people who put their lives on the line to guarantee us those rights. And let us remember, together with Cothren, that same message of thanks each and every day.
The Global Warmists' Deceit
Emmett Tyrrell
Thursday, November 26, 2009
WASHINGTON -- I assume all readers of this column are aware of polite society's theory of global warming. According to the theory, anthropogenic (once known as "man-made") gases waft into the atmosphere, causing worldwide temperatures to soar and our imminent doom.
Yet how many of you are familiar with my theory of Kultursmog? According to it, our culture is polluted by political ideas, prejudices and false pieties advocated by the soi-disant liberals or progressives or people of conscience or whatever the hell they are calling themselves nowadays. They keep changing their designations, and every designation they opt for becomes an honorific, at least for them. Liberal, indeed -- they actually favor government coercion and regimentation. Progressive, indeed -- they are for a political system that was recognized as archaic late in the last century, when socialism was found to be obsolete even by the Indians and the Chinese.
At any rate, my theory of Kultursmog has just been buttressed by some 3,000 e-mails of cold probative evidence that Kultursmog is real. That the e-mails come from the global warmists is most gratifying. I always have suspected that they are leading contributors to the smog. That is to say, they are leading polluters of our culture. The Environmental Protection Agency should take note.
The way the Kultursmog works, liberal elites through their undemocratic dominance of cultural institutions -- the media, the universities, government bureaucracies -- create beliefs, problems and bugaboos by studiously ignoring disagreement and by ceaselessly repeating deceits and distortions. Last week, hackers (I think of them as selfless public-spirited hackers) broke into the electronic files of one of the leading global warmist research centers, the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in the U.K., and posted some 3,000 of the warmists' conspiratorial e-mails for all the world to see. To my ineffable gratification, the e-mails displayed the global warmists sedulously engaging in just what you would expect in the Kultursmog: deceits, distortions and the suppression of dissenting points of view. Here we have a comprehensive view of Kultursmog in the making.
Our friends in the editorial sanctum sanctorum of The Wall Street Journal pored over all the damning e-mails. They found dissenting scientists (global warming skeptics, as they are called) being blacklisted and suppressed. For instance, Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, e-mailed like-minded global warmists advising them to isolate and ignore scientific journals that publish the views of the skeptics. "I think we have to stop considering 'Climate Research' as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal," he wrote, going on to urge the encouragement of his "colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal." Now that is how Kultursmog taints the debate.
Then there was Phil Jones, director of the University of East Anglia project. He e-mailed Mann and asked him to "delete any emails" he "may have had with Keith" regarding indelicate references to the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fourth Assessment Report. Another e-mail from Jones to a co-conspirator asked that he "change the Received date! Don't give those skeptics something to amuse themselves with." The Journal also quotes an unnamed scientist's e-mail that said to "hide the decline" of temperatures in data that might cast doubt on global warming.
Well, I can understand. The fact is that for almost a decade, there has been no global warming, contrary to the global warmists' computer predictions. In fact, since 2005, there has been global cooling.
Well, as I say, thanks to the work of these patriotic hackers, we now have plenty of evidence that the global warmists are dishonest bullies. Moreover, I now have a perfect educational model to demonstrate how Kultursmog works. But this discovery is not without its melancholy aspects, too. There once was a day when scientists were empiricists believing in reason and fair play. Those who have been exposed in the global warming hoax are mere propagandists.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
WASHINGTON -- I assume all readers of this column are aware of polite society's theory of global warming. According to the theory, anthropogenic (once known as "man-made") gases waft into the atmosphere, causing worldwide temperatures to soar and our imminent doom.
Yet how many of you are familiar with my theory of Kultursmog? According to it, our culture is polluted by political ideas, prejudices and false pieties advocated by the soi-disant liberals or progressives or people of conscience or whatever the hell they are calling themselves nowadays. They keep changing their designations, and every designation they opt for becomes an honorific, at least for them. Liberal, indeed -- they actually favor government coercion and regimentation. Progressive, indeed -- they are for a political system that was recognized as archaic late in the last century, when socialism was found to be obsolete even by the Indians and the Chinese.
At any rate, my theory of Kultursmog has just been buttressed by some 3,000 e-mails of cold probative evidence that Kultursmog is real. That the e-mails come from the global warmists is most gratifying. I always have suspected that they are leading contributors to the smog. That is to say, they are leading polluters of our culture. The Environmental Protection Agency should take note.
The way the Kultursmog works, liberal elites through their undemocratic dominance of cultural institutions -- the media, the universities, government bureaucracies -- create beliefs, problems and bugaboos by studiously ignoring disagreement and by ceaselessly repeating deceits and distortions. Last week, hackers (I think of them as selfless public-spirited hackers) broke into the electronic files of one of the leading global warmist research centers, the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in the U.K., and posted some 3,000 of the warmists' conspiratorial e-mails for all the world to see. To my ineffable gratification, the e-mails displayed the global warmists sedulously engaging in just what you would expect in the Kultursmog: deceits, distortions and the suppression of dissenting points of view. Here we have a comprehensive view of Kultursmog in the making.
Our friends in the editorial sanctum sanctorum of The Wall Street Journal pored over all the damning e-mails. They found dissenting scientists (global warming skeptics, as they are called) being blacklisted and suppressed. For instance, Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, e-mailed like-minded global warmists advising them to isolate and ignore scientific journals that publish the views of the skeptics. "I think we have to stop considering 'Climate Research' as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal," he wrote, going on to urge the encouragement of his "colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal." Now that is how Kultursmog taints the debate.
Then there was Phil Jones, director of the University of East Anglia project. He e-mailed Mann and asked him to "delete any emails" he "may have had with Keith" regarding indelicate references to the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fourth Assessment Report. Another e-mail from Jones to a co-conspirator asked that he "change the Received date! Don't give those skeptics something to amuse themselves with." The Journal also quotes an unnamed scientist's e-mail that said to "hide the decline" of temperatures in data that might cast doubt on global warming.
Well, I can understand. The fact is that for almost a decade, there has been no global warming, contrary to the global warmists' computer predictions. In fact, since 2005, there has been global cooling.
Well, as I say, thanks to the work of these patriotic hackers, we now have plenty of evidence that the global warmists are dishonest bullies. Moreover, I now have a perfect educational model to demonstrate how Kultursmog works. But this discovery is not without its melancholy aspects, too. There once was a day when scientists were empiricists believing in reason and fair play. Those who have been exposed in the global warming hoax are mere propagandists.
Winner Take All on Health Care
Jonah Goldberg
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
I hereby forfeit my claim to a right-wing conspiracy decoder ring by offering two cheers for the Democrats. I congratulate them on their victory Saturday night in the Senate, and while I can't quite wish them continued success on the course they are following, I'm beginning to make peace with the possibility that they'll win.
For years, conservatives and liberals have flirted with the idea of disposing of the fool's errand of bipartisanship. Seeking compromise with partisans across the aisle is a recipe for getting nothing important done.
For liberals, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has been a leader of this school. In 2007, Krugman wrote in Slate magazine that progressives should abandon any pretense at working with Republicans. The "middle ground," he wrote, "doesn't exist -- and if Democrats try to find it, they'll squander a huge opportunity. Right now, the stars are aligned for a major change in America's direction. If the Democrats play nice, that opportunity may soon be gone."
"If one thing is clear from the stimulus debate," he wrote earlier this year, "it's that the two parties have utterly different economic doctrines." Krugman went on to describe the different views in his typically tendentious manner.
He's right on the basic point. While there are plenty of hackish, opportunistic deal makers in both parties, the core visions -- one progressive, the other conservative -- that animate the rank and file are increasingly, and fundamentally, irreconcilable.
Hence, the quest for the middle ground usually rewards the worst kinds of politicians -- those devoid of any core convictions and only concerned with feathering their own nests -- and yields the worst kinds of policies. Blending the two visions is like trying to marry two different recipes. You don't get the best of both so much as a huge mess -- say, peanut butter and caviar -- or a fraudulent meal, like a "vegetarian" cheesesteak. Better to stay pure, have your way and convince the American people that your way is the best way.
In short, if you can't join 'em, beat 'em.
Now, the appeal of such an argument depends a great deal on your proximity to power. When your side is out of power, half a loaf is more appetizing than nothing. When in power, the thought of hogging the whole loaf for yourself instead of sharing is seductive.
I may be talking about team dynamics, but I don't mean that there's no difference between the teams. Far from it. The Democrats sincerely believe that nationalized health care, in one form or another, is the best thing for America and that if they can get it passed, voters will fall in love with it. Politically, there is a real danger they're right. Americans are loath to relinquish entitlements once they've secured them. That's the Republicans' gamble.
Then again, Democrats run the very serious risk that before the imagined joys of health care reform can be realized, voters will revolt over its tax hikes, massive Medicare cuts, increased bureaucracy and/or its budget-exploding costs. That's the Democrats' gamble.
Some moderate Democrats are making a side bet that they can vote for it out of solidarity and then run back to the center come the 2010 elections.
Well, I say let it ride. And just to make it more interesting, Republicans should promise to repeal "Obamacare" if they get a congressional majority in 2010. As National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru argues, that way moderate Democrats won't be able to run away from their votes come 2010. They'll be on notice that this will be the campaign issue of the election. And moderate Republicans will be on notice to resist the temptation to tinker with Obamacare rather than defenestrate it once it's passed.
Sure, I'd rather see this health care proposal die stillborn (and that's still quite possible). But if it passes, the upside is that Americans will finally be given a stark philosophical choice on a fundamental issue. That's much rarer than you might think (recall that the Iraq war and the bailouts were bipartisan affairs).
Obamacare is a vast, deeply polarizing demonstration project for progressive ideas. It is terrible policy, but because I think it's terrible policy, it may well result in a beneficial backlash. "Example is the school of mankind," proclaimed Edmund Burke, "and they will learn at no other."
Democrats insist they're pushing for health care reform against a political headwind because "history" compels them to. Republicans are standing athwart "history" yelling, "Stop!"
Politically, one side will be proved right, and the side proved wrong will pay a staggering price. Everyone's all in.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
I hereby forfeit my claim to a right-wing conspiracy decoder ring by offering two cheers for the Democrats. I congratulate them on their victory Saturday night in the Senate, and while I can't quite wish them continued success on the course they are following, I'm beginning to make peace with the possibility that they'll win.
For years, conservatives and liberals have flirted with the idea of disposing of the fool's errand of bipartisanship. Seeking compromise with partisans across the aisle is a recipe for getting nothing important done.
For liberals, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has been a leader of this school. In 2007, Krugman wrote in Slate magazine that progressives should abandon any pretense at working with Republicans. The "middle ground," he wrote, "doesn't exist -- and if Democrats try to find it, they'll squander a huge opportunity. Right now, the stars are aligned for a major change in America's direction. If the Democrats play nice, that opportunity may soon be gone."
"If one thing is clear from the stimulus debate," he wrote earlier this year, "it's that the two parties have utterly different economic doctrines." Krugman went on to describe the different views in his typically tendentious manner.
He's right on the basic point. While there are plenty of hackish, opportunistic deal makers in both parties, the core visions -- one progressive, the other conservative -- that animate the rank and file are increasingly, and fundamentally, irreconcilable.
Hence, the quest for the middle ground usually rewards the worst kinds of politicians -- those devoid of any core convictions and only concerned with feathering their own nests -- and yields the worst kinds of policies. Blending the two visions is like trying to marry two different recipes. You don't get the best of both so much as a huge mess -- say, peanut butter and caviar -- or a fraudulent meal, like a "vegetarian" cheesesteak. Better to stay pure, have your way and convince the American people that your way is the best way.
In short, if you can't join 'em, beat 'em.
Now, the appeal of such an argument depends a great deal on your proximity to power. When your side is out of power, half a loaf is more appetizing than nothing. When in power, the thought of hogging the whole loaf for yourself instead of sharing is seductive.
I may be talking about team dynamics, but I don't mean that there's no difference between the teams. Far from it. The Democrats sincerely believe that nationalized health care, in one form or another, is the best thing for America and that if they can get it passed, voters will fall in love with it. Politically, there is a real danger they're right. Americans are loath to relinquish entitlements once they've secured them. That's the Republicans' gamble.
Then again, Democrats run the very serious risk that before the imagined joys of health care reform can be realized, voters will revolt over its tax hikes, massive Medicare cuts, increased bureaucracy and/or its budget-exploding costs. That's the Democrats' gamble.
Some moderate Democrats are making a side bet that they can vote for it out of solidarity and then run back to the center come the 2010 elections.
Well, I say let it ride. And just to make it more interesting, Republicans should promise to repeal "Obamacare" if they get a congressional majority in 2010. As National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru argues, that way moderate Democrats won't be able to run away from their votes come 2010. They'll be on notice that this will be the campaign issue of the election. And moderate Republicans will be on notice to resist the temptation to tinker with Obamacare rather than defenestrate it once it's passed.
Sure, I'd rather see this health care proposal die stillborn (and that's still quite possible). But if it passes, the upside is that Americans will finally be given a stark philosophical choice on a fundamental issue. That's much rarer than you might think (recall that the Iraq war and the bailouts were bipartisan affairs).
Obamacare is a vast, deeply polarizing demonstration project for progressive ideas. It is terrible policy, but because I think it's terrible policy, it may well result in a beneficial backlash. "Example is the school of mankind," proclaimed Edmund Burke, "and they will learn at no other."
Democrats insist they're pushing for health care reform against a political headwind because "history" compels them to. Republicans are standing athwart "history" yelling, "Stop!"
Politically, one side will be proved right, and the side proved wrong will pay a staggering price. Everyone's all in.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
One Father's Lesson on Freedom, Free Enterprise and Fair Taxes
Terry Paulson
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Son: “It’s obscene to see these executives get huge bonuses when its government money that kept their companies from going bankrupt.”
Dad: “I’m with you on that one. They had earned bankruptcies, not bonuses. When you are truly free to succeed, you are also free to fail. No one is really ‘too big to fail.’ Just like the airlines, bankruptcy allows them to restructure their business, learn their lesson and come out stronger and a bit wiser.”
Son: “Who cares about executives when there are over 10 million people out of work. The gap between the rich and poor just keeps growing! The rich keep making millions; most workers are lucky if they just have a job! I’m glad Obama is going to tax the rich. ”
Dad: “It may sound good to take more from the rich to help the poor, but economies don’t work that way. When the rich do well, they invest in starting new companies and hire people to make them work. They’re success means jobs and good salaries for workers. When the rich do poorly, the poor only get poorer.”
Son: “That’s the same old trickle-down theory Republicans always talk about.”
Dad: “Would you believe that President John Kennedy was the one that said ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’ and lowered taxes on the ‘evil’ rich? I think we need to have a little conversation about how free enterprise has and always will work.”
Son: “Workers deserve a higher pay.”
Dad: “If they can earn more somewhere else, they should take that job or start their own company! Life is difficult; it isn’t fair. Because you were born in America, you have a bedroom that’s bigger than homes in most poor countries. You’re lucky life isn’t fair, or you’d probably be living in a hut somewhere. Want to trade?”
Son: “No, but just giving half of a rich executive’s salary to those in need would make a real difference.”
Dad: “So you want to give their money, not yours.”
Son: “They have more than anyone could need!”
Dad: “That would seem true, but that’s for them to decide. Those ‘rich’ people donate the majority of the funds charities need. Bill Gates not only made billions with Microsoft; he’s made a difference with his billions.”
Sean: “Not all rich people give.”
Dad: “That’s their loss. When you invest in giving, the payoff isn’t in money. It’s in meaning. Good guys do finish first. If people don’t realize that, they don’t know what the finish line is.”
Son: “The poor are left behind!”
Dad: “In a world where rewards are distributed unequally, everyone is challenged to use their gifts to do something in a better, faster or unique way that people value enough to pay for. That’s why people create; that’s why they work hard, go to school, learn a craft or start their own company.”
Son: “Some have dead-end jobs!”
Dad: “Some politicians work to keep them there. They hate poverty so much that they reward it! Whatever you reward you get more of! So if my response to your entry-level job is to raise your minimum wage beyond its market value, you’re more likely to stay in that dead-end job. Why go to college or learn a new skill if you can get more money settling for a job with minimum skills? Capitalism is tough love. It fosters competition because it cares enough to challenge you to better yourself. A robust, free-market economy rewards achievement, service and good products and penalizes anything less.”
Sean: “Some people can’t get better!”
Dad: “Few can’t; many don’t. We need a safety net for the poorest of poor, but Obama is bankrupting America by turning a safety net into a cradle-to-grave hammock. Most Americans who politicians classify as “poor” have cars, multiple TVs and DVD players! Government studies show that only 5% of citizens remain chronically poor. Most are between jobs; many who were at one time poor become quite successful. It’s true that there are more out of work now because of the recession, but we should still reward people for achieving success, not for remaining poor.”
Son: “Obama is creating jobs.”
Dad: “The president’s plan involves printing more money or taxing some Americans, taking a cut to feed the government bureaucracy and then creating some short-term jobs that won’t last. He may be creating some jobs, but the money taken from Americans to pay for those jobs can’t be used to fund new companies. That’s why income and corporate taxes should be kept low and government spending cut! That stimulates the economic growth we need to generate wealth and create lasting jobs.”
Son: “The rich don’t pay their fair share!”
Dad: “Really? After the ‘unfair’ Bush tax cuts, the top 20% percent of income producers went from paying 81% to 85% of the total income taxes? The bottom 40% of Americans went from paying nothing to getting a subsidy! When President Obama goes after the top 5% of Americans; they already pay 61% of the income tax. That’s not fair; that’s what I call criminal.”
Son: “Criminal?”
Dad: “Okay, it isn’t a crime, but it should be. America can’t afford to keep punishing success in the worst recession since the Great Depression. The success of the rich helps everyone! I want everybody to get richer—the rich and the poor! I’m glad Bill Gates makes enough to give billions away! Even more important, his company has created jobs that support many families. With the Internet as the highway, his software advances have enabled many more to create unbelievable wealth all over the world. Microsoft’s success has also made good returns for investors. Just because someone becomes rich doesn’t make anyone else poor. In fact, in expanding economies, the more rich people there are, the more profits are created, the more people spend, and the more jobs are created.”
Son: “They should still pay more.”
Dad: “They do, and they will. But since you make more money monthly in your part-time-job than many of the world’s workers make in a year, should politicians take 40% of your paycheck to subsidize them?”
Son: ‘No way!”
Dad: “Exactly! It’s more caring to help people earn their own money than to give them money. Too many Politicians make it sound like it’s caring to take from one American to and give to others. That’s not caring; that’s socialism.”
Son: “That’s name calling!”
Dad: “Ask liberals what they don’t like about socialism, and see how they squirm. One of the basic dictums of socialism is "from each according to their ability; to each according to their need." Sounds a lot like the president’s tax plan!”
Son: “Isn’t giving the Christian thing to do?”
Dad: “Interesting! As a matter of faith, the Ten Commandments aren’t suggestions! It’s still a sin to covet the possessions of others. It’s a sin to take from others or to have someone do the taking for you. Jesus didn’t call on the government to care for the poor; that’s everyone’s job. The Good Samaritan didn’t tell the government to care for his neighbor; he paid for it himself. When you vote for politicians who will take more from your neighbor than what they take from you, I don’t call that Christian or noble.”
Son: “What are you doing now?”
Dad: “Writing a check to the Republican Party. This conversation is giving me all the motivation I need to support true hope and change in 2010. And before you vote or donate anything to the Democrats, you might think twice. Your generation is the one that is going to have to pay the bill for the deficits the Democrats are creating now!”
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Son: “It’s obscene to see these executives get huge bonuses when its government money that kept their companies from going bankrupt.”
Dad: “I’m with you on that one. They had earned bankruptcies, not bonuses. When you are truly free to succeed, you are also free to fail. No one is really ‘too big to fail.’ Just like the airlines, bankruptcy allows them to restructure their business, learn their lesson and come out stronger and a bit wiser.”
Son: “Who cares about executives when there are over 10 million people out of work. The gap between the rich and poor just keeps growing! The rich keep making millions; most workers are lucky if they just have a job! I’m glad Obama is going to tax the rich. ”
Dad: “It may sound good to take more from the rich to help the poor, but economies don’t work that way. When the rich do well, they invest in starting new companies and hire people to make them work. They’re success means jobs and good salaries for workers. When the rich do poorly, the poor only get poorer.”
Son: “That’s the same old trickle-down theory Republicans always talk about.”
Dad: “Would you believe that President John Kennedy was the one that said ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’ and lowered taxes on the ‘evil’ rich? I think we need to have a little conversation about how free enterprise has and always will work.”
Son: “Workers deserve a higher pay.”
Dad: “If they can earn more somewhere else, they should take that job or start their own company! Life is difficult; it isn’t fair. Because you were born in America, you have a bedroom that’s bigger than homes in most poor countries. You’re lucky life isn’t fair, or you’d probably be living in a hut somewhere. Want to trade?”
Son: “No, but just giving half of a rich executive’s salary to those in need would make a real difference.”
Dad: “So you want to give their money, not yours.”
Son: “They have more than anyone could need!”
Dad: “That would seem true, but that’s for them to decide. Those ‘rich’ people donate the majority of the funds charities need. Bill Gates not only made billions with Microsoft; he’s made a difference with his billions.”
Sean: “Not all rich people give.”
Dad: “That’s their loss. When you invest in giving, the payoff isn’t in money. It’s in meaning. Good guys do finish first. If people don’t realize that, they don’t know what the finish line is.”
Son: “The poor are left behind!”
Dad: “In a world where rewards are distributed unequally, everyone is challenged to use their gifts to do something in a better, faster or unique way that people value enough to pay for. That’s why people create; that’s why they work hard, go to school, learn a craft or start their own company.”
Son: “Some have dead-end jobs!”
Dad: “Some politicians work to keep them there. They hate poverty so much that they reward it! Whatever you reward you get more of! So if my response to your entry-level job is to raise your minimum wage beyond its market value, you’re more likely to stay in that dead-end job. Why go to college or learn a new skill if you can get more money settling for a job with minimum skills? Capitalism is tough love. It fosters competition because it cares enough to challenge you to better yourself. A robust, free-market economy rewards achievement, service and good products and penalizes anything less.”
Sean: “Some people can’t get better!”
Dad: “Few can’t; many don’t. We need a safety net for the poorest of poor, but Obama is bankrupting America by turning a safety net into a cradle-to-grave hammock. Most Americans who politicians classify as “poor” have cars, multiple TVs and DVD players! Government studies show that only 5% of citizens remain chronically poor. Most are between jobs; many who were at one time poor become quite successful. It’s true that there are more out of work now because of the recession, but we should still reward people for achieving success, not for remaining poor.”
Son: “Obama is creating jobs.”
Dad: “The president’s plan involves printing more money or taxing some Americans, taking a cut to feed the government bureaucracy and then creating some short-term jobs that won’t last. He may be creating some jobs, but the money taken from Americans to pay for those jobs can’t be used to fund new companies. That’s why income and corporate taxes should be kept low and government spending cut! That stimulates the economic growth we need to generate wealth and create lasting jobs.”
Son: “The rich don’t pay their fair share!”
Dad: “Really? After the ‘unfair’ Bush tax cuts, the top 20% percent of income producers went from paying 81% to 85% of the total income taxes? The bottom 40% of Americans went from paying nothing to getting a subsidy! When President Obama goes after the top 5% of Americans; they already pay 61% of the income tax. That’s not fair; that’s what I call criminal.”
Son: “Criminal?”
Dad: “Okay, it isn’t a crime, but it should be. America can’t afford to keep punishing success in the worst recession since the Great Depression. The success of the rich helps everyone! I want everybody to get richer—the rich and the poor! I’m glad Bill Gates makes enough to give billions away! Even more important, his company has created jobs that support many families. With the Internet as the highway, his software advances have enabled many more to create unbelievable wealth all over the world. Microsoft’s success has also made good returns for investors. Just because someone becomes rich doesn’t make anyone else poor. In fact, in expanding economies, the more rich people there are, the more profits are created, the more people spend, and the more jobs are created.”
Son: “They should still pay more.”
Dad: “They do, and they will. But since you make more money monthly in your part-time-job than many of the world’s workers make in a year, should politicians take 40% of your paycheck to subsidize them?”
Son: ‘No way!”
Dad: “Exactly! It’s more caring to help people earn their own money than to give them money. Too many Politicians make it sound like it’s caring to take from one American to and give to others. That’s not caring; that’s socialism.”
Son: “That’s name calling!”
Dad: “Ask liberals what they don’t like about socialism, and see how they squirm. One of the basic dictums of socialism is "from each according to their ability; to each according to their need." Sounds a lot like the president’s tax plan!”
Son: “Isn’t giving the Christian thing to do?”
Dad: “Interesting! As a matter of faith, the Ten Commandments aren’t suggestions! It’s still a sin to covet the possessions of others. It’s a sin to take from others or to have someone do the taking for you. Jesus didn’t call on the government to care for the poor; that’s everyone’s job. The Good Samaritan didn’t tell the government to care for his neighbor; he paid for it himself. When you vote for politicians who will take more from your neighbor than what they take from you, I don’t call that Christian or noble.”
Son: “What are you doing now?”
Dad: “Writing a check to the Republican Party. This conversation is giving me all the motivation I need to support true hope and change in 2010. And before you vote or donate anything to the Democrats, you might think twice. Your generation is the one that is going to have to pay the bill for the deficits the Democrats are creating now!”
A Troubled Thanksgiving 2009
Dennis Prager
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
I have always loved Thanksgiving. It is my favorite national holiday. It reminds Americans how fortunate we are to be Americans. And it unites Americans around gratitude, the greatest human trait. Gratitude is the mother of both goodness and happiness. The ungrateful cannot be either happy or good.
So, it is with a heavy heart that I write that my mood on this Thanksgiving will not be the same as on any other I have ever experienced.
My gratitude will be marred by a dark cloud.
Not the cloud of economic crisis; Americans have lived through worse economic crises.
Not the cloud of war. America is at war in Afghanistan, and troops remain in Iraq in the war against Islamic terror; but Americans have fought far more bloody wars.
Not the cloud of politics; whatever an American's political persuasion, every American has lived through political battles and political losses.
No, this is a new cloud. This is the cloud of "transformation." This is what candidate Barack Obama promised; this is what President Barack Obama seeks to achieve -- nothing less than the transformation of America.
But those of us who love America and its unique value system don't want either America or its value system transformed. The former can always be improved, but should never be transformed. And the latter should always remain what it has been for centuries: the American Trinity -- E Pluribus Unum, In God We Trust and Liberty -- as well as limited government and individualism. It also includes an abiding belief in American exceptionalism, meaning that America has usually known better what is good for the world than any world body, that America's moral compass is generally more accurate than that of other nations, let alone the United Nations. This is not because Americans are born better or any such nonsense, but because American values have produced a particularly uncynical, idealistic nation, more willing to die for others than any nation in recorded history.
Every element of this is being transformed, perhaps permanently. The American economy and/or its health system may be fatally damaged if either the House or Senate health care bill is passed. America will descend under a mountain of debt that may permanently undermine the power of the dollar. If this happens, America will no longer be the preeminent economic power of the world. The terrible political and human consequences of this will be felt around the globe.
The abandonment of American exceptionalism -- President Obama said recently that he believes in American exceptionalism just as Brits believe in British exceptionalism and Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism -- will lead to America becoming just another nation. When you no longer consider yourself special, you cease doing much that is special.
Here is the bottom line: I take nothing good for granted. That includes the future of the blessed country in which I live. A country as good as America is an aberration. There is no reason to believe that it will always remain an aberration; and those in power on Thanksgiving 2009 loathe the idea of America being different from all other nations.
Every great civilization has declined. There is nothing that guarantees America will be any different. And those in power on Thanksgiving 2009 see America more as a pompous civilization than a great one. So its decline from its self-perceived greatness is not only not a tragedy, but it's a welcome respite from arrogance.
The idea that people should first take care of themselves, then their family, then their neighbors and then other nations is also an American aberration. The norm, advocated by those in power on Thanksgiving 2009, is to want to be taken care of by the state, have the state take care of everyone else and abandon other countries (such as Afghanistan) to their fate, just as other nations are willing to do.
As it happens, I am in Africa this Thanksgiving, volunteering with my son to distribute mosquito nets and other lifesaving necessities to the poorest of the poor in Zambia and Zimbabwe. Not coincidentally, it is an American charity (Rock of Africa) that has organized this trip. While half a world away, my heart is in America this Thanksgiving. But for the first time, it is a worried and unsettled American heart.
Nevertheless, though my mood is dark, it is not pessimistic. The very narrow victories in the House and Senate on health care reform, despite Democrats' overwhelming majorities in both Houses, tell me that Americans are not ready to abandon the values that make our country unique. And that is something to be thankful for on this troubled Thanksgiving 2009.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
I have always loved Thanksgiving. It is my favorite national holiday. It reminds Americans how fortunate we are to be Americans. And it unites Americans around gratitude, the greatest human trait. Gratitude is the mother of both goodness and happiness. The ungrateful cannot be either happy or good.
So, it is with a heavy heart that I write that my mood on this Thanksgiving will not be the same as on any other I have ever experienced.
My gratitude will be marred by a dark cloud.
Not the cloud of economic crisis; Americans have lived through worse economic crises.
Not the cloud of war. America is at war in Afghanistan, and troops remain in Iraq in the war against Islamic terror; but Americans have fought far more bloody wars.
Not the cloud of politics; whatever an American's political persuasion, every American has lived through political battles and political losses.
No, this is a new cloud. This is the cloud of "transformation." This is what candidate Barack Obama promised; this is what President Barack Obama seeks to achieve -- nothing less than the transformation of America.
But those of us who love America and its unique value system don't want either America or its value system transformed. The former can always be improved, but should never be transformed. And the latter should always remain what it has been for centuries: the American Trinity -- E Pluribus Unum, In God We Trust and Liberty -- as well as limited government and individualism. It also includes an abiding belief in American exceptionalism, meaning that America has usually known better what is good for the world than any world body, that America's moral compass is generally more accurate than that of other nations, let alone the United Nations. This is not because Americans are born better or any such nonsense, but because American values have produced a particularly uncynical, idealistic nation, more willing to die for others than any nation in recorded history.
Every element of this is being transformed, perhaps permanently. The American economy and/or its health system may be fatally damaged if either the House or Senate health care bill is passed. America will descend under a mountain of debt that may permanently undermine the power of the dollar. If this happens, America will no longer be the preeminent economic power of the world. The terrible political and human consequences of this will be felt around the globe.
The abandonment of American exceptionalism -- President Obama said recently that he believes in American exceptionalism just as Brits believe in British exceptionalism and Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism -- will lead to America becoming just another nation. When you no longer consider yourself special, you cease doing much that is special.
Here is the bottom line: I take nothing good for granted. That includes the future of the blessed country in which I live. A country as good as America is an aberration. There is no reason to believe that it will always remain an aberration; and those in power on Thanksgiving 2009 loathe the idea of America being different from all other nations.
Every great civilization has declined. There is nothing that guarantees America will be any different. And those in power on Thanksgiving 2009 see America more as a pompous civilization than a great one. So its decline from its self-perceived greatness is not only not a tragedy, but it's a welcome respite from arrogance.
The idea that people should first take care of themselves, then their family, then their neighbors and then other nations is also an American aberration. The norm, advocated by those in power on Thanksgiving 2009, is to want to be taken care of by the state, have the state take care of everyone else and abandon other countries (such as Afghanistan) to their fate, just as other nations are willing to do.
As it happens, I am in Africa this Thanksgiving, volunteering with my son to distribute mosquito nets and other lifesaving necessities to the poorest of the poor in Zambia and Zimbabwe. Not coincidentally, it is an American charity (Rock of Africa) that has organized this trip. While half a world away, my heart is in America this Thanksgiving. But for the first time, it is a worried and unsettled American heart.
Nevertheless, though my mood is dark, it is not pessimistic. The very narrow victories in the House and Senate on health care reform, despite Democrats' overwhelming majorities in both Houses, tell me that Americans are not ready to abandon the values that make our country unique. And that is something to be thankful for on this troubled Thanksgiving 2009.
U.S.S.A.
Cal Thomas
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Not all revolutions begin in the streets with tanks and guns. Some advance slowly, almost imperceptibly, until a nation is transformed and the public realizes too late that their freedoms are gone.
Such is the revolution now taking place in America. The '60s crowd has emerged from the ideological grave and is about to impose on this country a declaration of dependence in the form of government-run health insurance and treatment. It matters not what facts are known about this "coup," because to those from the '60s -- whether they lived in that decade or were born later and adopted its ideology -- only feelings and intentions matter, not truth and results.
Why would anyone trust government -- which has a difficult enough time winning wars -- to properly administer health care? What track record does government have in living up to its economic forecasts and competence in running anything?
But this is about none of that. This is about liberal Democrats realizing their decades-old dream of complete control of our lives. Every move you make, every breath you take, they'll be watching you. Except, of course, when it comes to terrorists who want to destroy America faster than the liberals do. A different standard is applied to them.
Nowhere in the debate over health care "reform" have we heard a single word from liberal Democrats about personal responsibility, self-reliance and freedom. In fact, the message has come through quite clearly that government will penalize anyone who demonstrates such beliefs, as it attempts to spread your wealth around.
This is how I see health care reform working: If you are a doctor who has spent a lot of money and time becoming a responsible and caring physician, the government will tell you how much to charge your patients and, in fact, whether you will be allowed to treat them at all. Bureaucrats, having given themselves the power of God, will decide whether a patient is worth the cost of treatment, thereby deciding who lives and who dies. Despite the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, somewhere down the line taxpayers will be forced to underwrite abortions in violation of the consciences and faith of the majority.
This is the triumph of the humanistic, atheistic worldview. We are all to be regarded as products of evolution in which the fit and the powerful will decide our survival and worth.
When Republicans were in the majority, deficits mattered to Democrats. Now we see that expressed concern was a sham, because if deficits meant something when they were relatively small, they ought to mean something more when we are in hock up to the necks of our Chinese-made clothes.
We've only just begun with this. The new breast and ovarian cancer screening guidelines may soon become mandatory as health care rationing kicks in. The unwanted, the inconvenient and the "burdensome" could soon be dispatched with a pill, or through neglect.
Great horrors don't begin in gas chambers, killing fields, or forced famines. They begin when there is a philosophical shift in a nation's leadership about the value of human life. Novelist Walker Percy examined the underlying philosophy that led to the Holocaust and wrote: "In a word, certain consequences, perhaps unforeseen, follow upon the acceptance of the principle of the destruction of human life for what may appear to be the most admirable social reasons."
In our day, the consequences of government seizure of one-sixth of our economy and government's ability to decide how we run our lives (it won't stop with health care) are foreseen. They are just being ignored in our continued pursuit of personal peace, affluence and political power.
Opinion polls show a majority of Americans reject this health care "reform" bill. They think haste may waste them in the end. It doesn't matter. Like members of a cult, whatever the leader says, goes. The facts be damned. The crowd from the '60s will "seize the time," in the words of Black Panther radical Bobby Seale, thus sealing our doom as a unique and wonderful nation.
Welcome to the U.S.S.A., the United Socialist States of America.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Not all revolutions begin in the streets with tanks and guns. Some advance slowly, almost imperceptibly, until a nation is transformed and the public realizes too late that their freedoms are gone.
Such is the revolution now taking place in America. The '60s crowd has emerged from the ideological grave and is about to impose on this country a declaration of dependence in the form of government-run health insurance and treatment. It matters not what facts are known about this "coup," because to those from the '60s -- whether they lived in that decade or were born later and adopted its ideology -- only feelings and intentions matter, not truth and results.
Why would anyone trust government -- which has a difficult enough time winning wars -- to properly administer health care? What track record does government have in living up to its economic forecasts and competence in running anything?
But this is about none of that. This is about liberal Democrats realizing their decades-old dream of complete control of our lives. Every move you make, every breath you take, they'll be watching you. Except, of course, when it comes to terrorists who want to destroy America faster than the liberals do. A different standard is applied to them.
Nowhere in the debate over health care "reform" have we heard a single word from liberal Democrats about personal responsibility, self-reliance and freedom. In fact, the message has come through quite clearly that government will penalize anyone who demonstrates such beliefs, as it attempts to spread your wealth around.
This is how I see health care reform working: If you are a doctor who has spent a lot of money and time becoming a responsible and caring physician, the government will tell you how much to charge your patients and, in fact, whether you will be allowed to treat them at all. Bureaucrats, having given themselves the power of God, will decide whether a patient is worth the cost of treatment, thereby deciding who lives and who dies. Despite the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, somewhere down the line taxpayers will be forced to underwrite abortions in violation of the consciences and faith of the majority.
This is the triumph of the humanistic, atheistic worldview. We are all to be regarded as products of evolution in which the fit and the powerful will decide our survival and worth.
When Republicans were in the majority, deficits mattered to Democrats. Now we see that expressed concern was a sham, because if deficits meant something when they were relatively small, they ought to mean something more when we are in hock up to the necks of our Chinese-made clothes.
We've only just begun with this. The new breast and ovarian cancer screening guidelines may soon become mandatory as health care rationing kicks in. The unwanted, the inconvenient and the "burdensome" could soon be dispatched with a pill, or through neglect.
Great horrors don't begin in gas chambers, killing fields, or forced famines. They begin when there is a philosophical shift in a nation's leadership about the value of human life. Novelist Walker Percy examined the underlying philosophy that led to the Holocaust and wrote: "In a word, certain consequences, perhaps unforeseen, follow upon the acceptance of the principle of the destruction of human life for what may appear to be the most admirable social reasons."
In our day, the consequences of government seizure of one-sixth of our economy and government's ability to decide how we run our lives (it won't stop with health care) are foreseen. They are just being ignored in our continued pursuit of personal peace, affluence and political power.
Opinion polls show a majority of Americans reject this health care "reform" bill. They think haste may waste them in the end. It doesn't matter. Like members of a cult, whatever the leader says, goes. The facts be damned. The crowd from the '60s will "seize the time," in the words of Black Panther radical Bobby Seale, thus sealing our doom as a unique and wonderful nation.
Welcome to the U.S.S.A., the United Socialist States of America.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Condition Serious but Not Hopeless
Where to go from here on health care?
A National Review Online Symposium
Monday, November 23, 2009
Harry Reid scored a victory Saturday night. And part of the line of argument from those urging that senators vote against the motion to proceed Saturday night was: The bill is not likely to get better from here on in. So is it over? Abortion, high costs — is it all now a given? National Review Online asked a group of experts: What is a constructive, realistic conservative attitude toward Demcare in the Senate this Thanksgiving?
JEFFREY H. ANDERSON
The moment of truth is now here for Democratic efforts to overhaul our health-care system and inject the federal government into the historically private relationship between patient and doctor.
Poll after poll has shown the American people don’t want this legislation. President Obama’s popularity has plummeted as he’s pushed it. Americans think premiums, taxes, and deficits would rise, Medicare would be weakened, and the quality of care would decline. And they’d be right. Americans think the government-run “public option” could eventually funnel them into government-run care, and it likely would. Whatever happens, the government would largely now be running the show, with taxpayers, Medicare beneficiaries, and future generations footing the bill.
The worst thing Republicans can do is help mask the costs of this venture by parroting the Democrats’ deliberately misleading numbers. The Congressional Budget Office shows that only 1 percent of the costs from the Democrats’ “first 10 years” would hit before the fifth year. In the bill’s real first 10 years — from 2014 to 2023 — the CBO projects it would cost $1.8 trillion, raise taxes by $892 billion, siphon $802 billion out of Medicare to spend elsewhere, and either cut doctors’ pay by $431 billion or else raise deficits by $286 billion. And the CBO projects that costs, taxes, Medicare cuts, and doctors’ pay/national deficits would get much worse from there.
James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers that “the cool and deliberate sense of the community ought, in all governments, and actually will, in all free governments, ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers.” Madison meant either before or after an intervening election or two. The Democrats are determined to show that Madison’s statement is as wrong as they regard his belief in limited government to be.
I suspect Madison will be proven right on both counts.
—Jeffrey H. Anderson is a senior fellow in health-care studies at the Pacific Research Institute.
JAMES CAPRETTA
The vote on Saturday in the U.S. Senate to end debate and proceed to consideration of Sen. Harry Reid’s health-care bill hasn’t changed the basic political dynamic that has been in place for some months now. The Obama White House and its allies in Congress are determined to pass a full governmental takeover of American health care, and they won’t be deterred unless and until it’s clear they don’t have the votes. So there is little choice for conservatives but to continue an all-out effort to defeat the legislation when the debate in the Senate begins in earnest after Thanksgiving.
Under normal circumstances, that would be easy. The Reid bill, as others have noted, is about as unpopular as can be imagined. It was written by liberals to appeal to liberals. It imposes a massive tax hike on the American middle class to finance the largest expansion of government in a generation — at a time when many Americans are already alarmed by the debt burden that the Obama administration is piling up for the next generation of taxpayers. It cuts deeply into Medicare and will force millions of seniors out of their Medicare Advantage plans. And, most importantly, it would lead to clumsy governmental cost-control efforts that would erode the quality of American medicine and lead to queues and other access restrictions.
The U.S. Senate is not known for readily going along with such highly ideological legislation. And there are plenty of indications that a handful of moderate Senate Democrats know full well that this legislation is a massive overreach that will lead to a backlash. The only reason the bill has gotten this far is that President Obama and his political advisers are claiming his presidency rests on passing it.
What’s needed at this point is a two-part strategy. Of course, Republicans must continue making clear to the public the devastating consequences of the Democratic plan, especially for the middle class. Contrary to what the president has promised, moderate-income families with insurance would see their costs go up, not down, and their health care would get worse, not better. But Republicans must also make clear that the choice here is not between Obamacare and nothing. There are much more rational approaches to reform that would extend coverage to more people, slow the pace of rising costs, and begin getting our fiscal house in order. House Republicans have offered such a plan, as have others. Senate Republicans need to make clear that they too support sensible reforms and are willing to work with Democrats to pass a reasonable bill, even early next year. But it does require setting aside the full governmental takeover now under consideration. Indeed, moderate Senate Democrats need to see that if they take hold of a lifeline offered by Republicans, it could very well result in a new law that is far more acceptable to the public that what Senator Reid has offered. That would be good for all concerned, perhaps even an administration that currently doesn’t see it that way.
— James Capretta is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
MICHAEL G. FRANC
To ordinary Americans, the health-reform debate in the Senate must be a curious spectacle indeed.
Non-experts who take but a few moments to study what passes for a debate may well ask why the only way to lower health expenditures (the very expenditures, we are told, that are crippling our economy) is to increase future expenditures?
What, they may wonder, are our lawmakers thinking when they propose to raise taxes and the regulatory burden on employment precisely at the moment when the unemployment rate exceeds 10 percent?
Anyone who has listened to the unending parade of budget experts bemoan the coming fiscal crisis brought on by the imminent retirement of the Baby Boomers must be shaking his head upon learning that the elder statesmen in the U.S. Senate believe now is the time to grow the entitlement state. Is this really the time to create a brand-new federal entitlement program — a national long-term-care insurance program that one budget-conscious senator has decried as a fiscal “Ponzi scheme” — that will be actuarially unsound the moment it goes into effect? And why, when voters are telling the pollsters that the number-one priority for Congress and the president should be to cut federal spending and reduce the government’s exploding debt, should we push the largest expansion ever of the troubled Medicaid program, one that will consign a quarter or more of some state populations to the tender mercies of a system that already rations care and wastes tens of billions annually?
The list of grievances, of course, goes on and on and on. Which raises the ultimate question: Why would so many political animals engage in behavior seemingly designed to eradicate their species? What is going on here?
We voters certainly haven’t moved from where we’ve been for many months now. We still do not trust politicians when they assure us that health reform will lower our health costs or improve the quality of the care we receive. Seniors believe that the quality of Medicare will diminish if Congress shifts a trillion or so in projected Medicare spending to other priorities. Independents, men, those living in middle-income households, and even a surprising percentage of young voters are either overtly hostile to all this or increasingly skeptical.
A surprisingly large number of Democrats in both the House and Senate, moreover, represent “red” constituencies that are chock-full of these voters — states or congressional districts that have voted Republican for president, governor, or other statewide office in recent years, or areas where self-identified conservatives outnumber liberals by large margins. In fact, one can make the case that but for these “Red State Democrats” the current Democratic majorities wouldn’t even exist.
Is there any precedent, then, for the leaders of one of our national parties to rush forward with such an ambitious yet unpopular legislative endeavor?
The short answer is no. Every group of political leaders fancies that, like FDR, it can create and maintain a permanent lock on political power. Another New Deal coalition that will sustain itself decade after decade, from one election to the next, is always within its grasp. So when a threat emerges in the form of a controversial and hugely unpopular legislative initiative, the political operatives study the polls, conduct a few focus groups, read the letters-to-the-editor pages, and calmly advise their party leaders to pull the plug or dramatically revise the legislation in question.
That traditional analysis, however, assumes that party leaders will always act to retain their power and will never knowingly don the robes of a political suicide bomber and pursue a strategy that guarantees its loss.
But what happens if the old instinct of political self-preservation gives way to a new paradigm, a new conception of power? Suppose the new premise is that in the modern age political power is a depreciable asset, something that ebbs and flows, and that, by definition, political majority coalitions are fleeting? What happens if a generation of party leaders concludes that while there are no longer any permanent political victories, permanent policy victories are still to be had? Use it, the bumper sticker might read, because you’re surely going to lose it.
In that case, it makes perfect sense to sacrifice political gains — including, when necessary, knowingly throwing some members of the governing coalition under the bus — if that’s what’s required to achieve an important policy victory. Given liberal hubris, don’t count out the possibility that the practitioners of this new art actually believe they can calibrate these sacrifices so precisely that only an acceptable number of their brethren end up under the bus, and not one more.
This strategy makes even more sense when the policy breakthrough in question, such as the Senate health-reform bill, also promises to create a new class of political rent seekers who, over time, will bestow political rewards on the politicians who bestowed the benefits in the first place.
Far-fetched? Maybe. But this is the only way I can explain why President Obama, Majority Leader Reid, and Speaker Pelosi are so fixated on achieving legislative victories such as health reform that will require perhaps half a dozen Senate Democrats and upwards of 50 of their House Democratic colleagues to walk the political plank.
Otherwise, none of this makes any sense.
—Michael G. Franc is vice president for government relations of the Heritage Foundation.
JOHN R. GRAHAM
Sen. Mitch McConnell is right: There is nothing in this bill to debate. On the other hand, I suppose it would have been too much to seriously expect any of the Democratic senators to accept that argument as a reason not to start discussing the bill on the floor.
Nevertheless, I remain hopeful that this “reform” will sputter out. Back in 1965, President Johnson signed the Social Security amendments that created Medicare and Medicaid on July 30. Supermajorities in both chambers had passed the bill (including a majority of House Republicans and almost half the Republican senators). By contrast, it’s pretty clear that the momentum in 2009 has all but disappeared. The 220–215 vote in the House was not adequate for such transformative legislation. And the difficulties that Senator Reid had even cobbling together his caucus to bring the bill to the floor indicates that there will be heavy lifting ahead.
We already know that Sen. Mary Landrieu’s vote was bought with a $100 million (or maybe even $300 million) extra Medicaid bailout for Louisiana. Protestations by her and other ditherers that their votes to bring the bill to the floor do not predict their votes for the bill itself are barely disguised demands for yet more earmarks. These should not be hard for the Republicans and the opposition media to uncover in the weeks to come.
The Republicans are doing a fine job pointing out the true costs of this legislation: higher premiums, worse access to care, bureaucratic micromanagement of the practice of medicine, and public deficits and debt driven to previously unimaginable size — with no end in sight.
Yet I am very concerned with the Republican offense. Tort reform, allowing businesses to band together to buy health insurance, and buying health insurance across state lines are all good reforms (although somewhat malformed in the current Republican version). But they have abandoned the simplicity of the basic, fundamental conservative reform: amending the tax code to make health insurance the property of the individual, rather than his employer or the government. I know from speaking to Republicans on the Hill that they are nervous about moving the American people out of their comfort zone — employer-based benefits. However, I don’t see a compelling, alternative, vision of reform in its absence.
— John R. Graham is director of health-care studies at the Pacific Research Institute.
RICK SANTORUM
Do not despair. Voting against your leader to simply bring up a bill on the floor, especially the most important bill to your leader, your president, and your party, was never, and I mean never, going to happen. This vote was not simply a procedural vote or a party-loyalty vote, it was a vote for who you want to control the Senate. I would not expect any Democrat to vote for Republicans to control the Senate agenda. Frankly, that’s why I was encouraged by the last few days. A handful or more of Democrats were publicly wrestling with a decision that would be seen as fratricide had they voted no. If Democrats are feeling the heat just on bringing the bill up, imagine the pressure to vote on cloture to bring it to conference. They can legitimately, in my mind, get away with saying this vote was not an indication of their support for Reid’s bill. That excuse’s ticket has been punched and will no longer be available for future cloture votes.
Republicans must use every tool in the shed — offer amendments that strike all the harmful provisions in this bill, propose conservative alternatives to “bend the cost curve,” improve access, choice, and quality — and finally, they must prolong this debate as much as possible. The longer this bill is examined, the better. It will take time for information about this bill to seep into the consciousness of America. When it does, poll numbers and Democratic support in the Senate will both drop. The pressure has been commendable to date, but over the next few weeks, including Thanksgiving break, the protests have to be bigger, louder, and focused particularly on Lincoln, Landrieu, both Nelsons, Dorgan, Bayh, Lieberman, Webb, Bennett of Colorado, and don’t forget Snowe.
What should you do? Call, e-mail, write, organize not just rallies at the senator’s state office but 24-hour vigils, attend his/her public meetings, and come to D.C. with as many friends as you can bring. Finally — contact your state’s senator and no one else. No senator cares about what people in other states feel or say. In this hectic environment, your call to an out-of-state senator is probably blocking a call from someone in her state. Focus on your senator even if it is just to say thanks to a Republican who voted the right way and to encourage him or her to continue to do so.
Fight on!
— Rick Santorum is a former Republican senator from Pennsylvania.
TEVI TROY
Saturday night’s 60–39 vote was certainly a bad sign for Republicans hoping to defeat the Democratic effort for a trillion-dollar health overhaul. Sen. Tom Coburn asked the Congressional Research Service how often winning the motion-to-proceed vote has led to final passage of a bill. From 1999 to 2008, CRS found that the answer has been a depressing 97.6 percent. This calls into question the statements by Blue Dog Democrats that they are only voting to begin debate and do not necessarily support the final product.
Yet while Democrats have reason to be optimistic, this is not yet over. Republicans need to do two things going forward. The first, in the short term, is to continue to point out the many holes in the House and Senate bills — both are important targets, as the final product that comes through some type of House-Senate conference will likely include elements of both bills. The votes were quite close in both the House and the Senate, and there are a variety of sticking points, most notably on cost, abortion, and the public option, that cause internecine strife among the Democrats. Highlighting the Democratic differences on these issues could still manage to defeat the trillion-dollar package speeding towards the finish line, but it will also lay important groundwork for the next two elections.
The second is to come up with an alternative that Republicans can sell to the American people in 2010 and 2012. Jeff Anderson and I took a crack at this on National Review Online last week by proposing an approach that would lower premiums, cut the number of uninsured by 15 million, and cost a fraction of what the Democratic efforts would spend. It’s easy for Republicans to say no when faced with such bad bills, but the way back to a majority is by proposing real solutions to knotty problems.
A National Review Online Symposium
Monday, November 23, 2009
Harry Reid scored a victory Saturday night. And part of the line of argument from those urging that senators vote against the motion to proceed Saturday night was: The bill is not likely to get better from here on in. So is it over? Abortion, high costs — is it all now a given? National Review Online asked a group of experts: What is a constructive, realistic conservative attitude toward Demcare in the Senate this Thanksgiving?
JEFFREY H. ANDERSON
The moment of truth is now here for Democratic efforts to overhaul our health-care system and inject the federal government into the historically private relationship between patient and doctor.
Poll after poll has shown the American people don’t want this legislation. President Obama’s popularity has plummeted as he’s pushed it. Americans think premiums, taxes, and deficits would rise, Medicare would be weakened, and the quality of care would decline. And they’d be right. Americans think the government-run “public option” could eventually funnel them into government-run care, and it likely would. Whatever happens, the government would largely now be running the show, with taxpayers, Medicare beneficiaries, and future generations footing the bill.
The worst thing Republicans can do is help mask the costs of this venture by parroting the Democrats’ deliberately misleading numbers. The Congressional Budget Office shows that only 1 percent of the costs from the Democrats’ “first 10 years” would hit before the fifth year. In the bill’s real first 10 years — from 2014 to 2023 — the CBO projects it would cost $1.8 trillion, raise taxes by $892 billion, siphon $802 billion out of Medicare to spend elsewhere, and either cut doctors’ pay by $431 billion or else raise deficits by $286 billion. And the CBO projects that costs, taxes, Medicare cuts, and doctors’ pay/national deficits would get much worse from there.
James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers that “the cool and deliberate sense of the community ought, in all governments, and actually will, in all free governments, ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers.” Madison meant either before or after an intervening election or two. The Democrats are determined to show that Madison’s statement is as wrong as they regard his belief in limited government to be.
I suspect Madison will be proven right on both counts.
—Jeffrey H. Anderson is a senior fellow in health-care studies at the Pacific Research Institute.
JAMES CAPRETTA
The vote on Saturday in the U.S. Senate to end debate and proceed to consideration of Sen. Harry Reid’s health-care bill hasn’t changed the basic political dynamic that has been in place for some months now. The Obama White House and its allies in Congress are determined to pass a full governmental takeover of American health care, and they won’t be deterred unless and until it’s clear they don’t have the votes. So there is little choice for conservatives but to continue an all-out effort to defeat the legislation when the debate in the Senate begins in earnest after Thanksgiving.
Under normal circumstances, that would be easy. The Reid bill, as others have noted, is about as unpopular as can be imagined. It was written by liberals to appeal to liberals. It imposes a massive tax hike on the American middle class to finance the largest expansion of government in a generation — at a time when many Americans are already alarmed by the debt burden that the Obama administration is piling up for the next generation of taxpayers. It cuts deeply into Medicare and will force millions of seniors out of their Medicare Advantage plans. And, most importantly, it would lead to clumsy governmental cost-control efforts that would erode the quality of American medicine and lead to queues and other access restrictions.
The U.S. Senate is not known for readily going along with such highly ideological legislation. And there are plenty of indications that a handful of moderate Senate Democrats know full well that this legislation is a massive overreach that will lead to a backlash. The only reason the bill has gotten this far is that President Obama and his political advisers are claiming his presidency rests on passing it.
What’s needed at this point is a two-part strategy. Of course, Republicans must continue making clear to the public the devastating consequences of the Democratic plan, especially for the middle class. Contrary to what the president has promised, moderate-income families with insurance would see their costs go up, not down, and their health care would get worse, not better. But Republicans must also make clear that the choice here is not between Obamacare and nothing. There are much more rational approaches to reform that would extend coverage to more people, slow the pace of rising costs, and begin getting our fiscal house in order. House Republicans have offered such a plan, as have others. Senate Republicans need to make clear that they too support sensible reforms and are willing to work with Democrats to pass a reasonable bill, even early next year. But it does require setting aside the full governmental takeover now under consideration. Indeed, moderate Senate Democrats need to see that if they take hold of a lifeline offered by Republicans, it could very well result in a new law that is far more acceptable to the public that what Senator Reid has offered. That would be good for all concerned, perhaps even an administration that currently doesn’t see it that way.
— James Capretta is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
MICHAEL G. FRANC
To ordinary Americans, the health-reform debate in the Senate must be a curious spectacle indeed.
Non-experts who take but a few moments to study what passes for a debate may well ask why the only way to lower health expenditures (the very expenditures, we are told, that are crippling our economy) is to increase future expenditures?
What, they may wonder, are our lawmakers thinking when they propose to raise taxes and the regulatory burden on employment precisely at the moment when the unemployment rate exceeds 10 percent?
Anyone who has listened to the unending parade of budget experts bemoan the coming fiscal crisis brought on by the imminent retirement of the Baby Boomers must be shaking his head upon learning that the elder statesmen in the U.S. Senate believe now is the time to grow the entitlement state. Is this really the time to create a brand-new federal entitlement program — a national long-term-care insurance program that one budget-conscious senator has decried as a fiscal “Ponzi scheme” — that will be actuarially unsound the moment it goes into effect? And why, when voters are telling the pollsters that the number-one priority for Congress and the president should be to cut federal spending and reduce the government’s exploding debt, should we push the largest expansion ever of the troubled Medicaid program, one that will consign a quarter or more of some state populations to the tender mercies of a system that already rations care and wastes tens of billions annually?
The list of grievances, of course, goes on and on and on. Which raises the ultimate question: Why would so many political animals engage in behavior seemingly designed to eradicate their species? What is going on here?
We voters certainly haven’t moved from where we’ve been for many months now. We still do not trust politicians when they assure us that health reform will lower our health costs or improve the quality of the care we receive. Seniors believe that the quality of Medicare will diminish if Congress shifts a trillion or so in projected Medicare spending to other priorities. Independents, men, those living in middle-income households, and even a surprising percentage of young voters are either overtly hostile to all this or increasingly skeptical.
A surprisingly large number of Democrats in both the House and Senate, moreover, represent “red” constituencies that are chock-full of these voters — states or congressional districts that have voted Republican for president, governor, or other statewide office in recent years, or areas where self-identified conservatives outnumber liberals by large margins. In fact, one can make the case that but for these “Red State Democrats” the current Democratic majorities wouldn’t even exist.
Is there any precedent, then, for the leaders of one of our national parties to rush forward with such an ambitious yet unpopular legislative endeavor?
The short answer is no. Every group of political leaders fancies that, like FDR, it can create and maintain a permanent lock on political power. Another New Deal coalition that will sustain itself decade after decade, from one election to the next, is always within its grasp. So when a threat emerges in the form of a controversial and hugely unpopular legislative initiative, the political operatives study the polls, conduct a few focus groups, read the letters-to-the-editor pages, and calmly advise their party leaders to pull the plug or dramatically revise the legislation in question.
That traditional analysis, however, assumes that party leaders will always act to retain their power and will never knowingly don the robes of a political suicide bomber and pursue a strategy that guarantees its loss.
But what happens if the old instinct of political self-preservation gives way to a new paradigm, a new conception of power? Suppose the new premise is that in the modern age political power is a depreciable asset, something that ebbs and flows, and that, by definition, political majority coalitions are fleeting? What happens if a generation of party leaders concludes that while there are no longer any permanent political victories, permanent policy victories are still to be had? Use it, the bumper sticker might read, because you’re surely going to lose it.
In that case, it makes perfect sense to sacrifice political gains — including, when necessary, knowingly throwing some members of the governing coalition under the bus — if that’s what’s required to achieve an important policy victory. Given liberal hubris, don’t count out the possibility that the practitioners of this new art actually believe they can calibrate these sacrifices so precisely that only an acceptable number of their brethren end up under the bus, and not one more.
This strategy makes even more sense when the policy breakthrough in question, such as the Senate health-reform bill, also promises to create a new class of political rent seekers who, over time, will bestow political rewards on the politicians who bestowed the benefits in the first place.
Far-fetched? Maybe. But this is the only way I can explain why President Obama, Majority Leader Reid, and Speaker Pelosi are so fixated on achieving legislative victories such as health reform that will require perhaps half a dozen Senate Democrats and upwards of 50 of their House Democratic colleagues to walk the political plank.
Otherwise, none of this makes any sense.
—Michael G. Franc is vice president for government relations of the Heritage Foundation.
JOHN R. GRAHAM
Sen. Mitch McConnell is right: There is nothing in this bill to debate. On the other hand, I suppose it would have been too much to seriously expect any of the Democratic senators to accept that argument as a reason not to start discussing the bill on the floor.
Nevertheless, I remain hopeful that this “reform” will sputter out. Back in 1965, President Johnson signed the Social Security amendments that created Medicare and Medicaid on July 30. Supermajorities in both chambers had passed the bill (including a majority of House Republicans and almost half the Republican senators). By contrast, it’s pretty clear that the momentum in 2009 has all but disappeared. The 220–215 vote in the House was not adequate for such transformative legislation. And the difficulties that Senator Reid had even cobbling together his caucus to bring the bill to the floor indicates that there will be heavy lifting ahead.
We already know that Sen. Mary Landrieu’s vote was bought with a $100 million (or maybe even $300 million) extra Medicaid bailout for Louisiana. Protestations by her and other ditherers that their votes to bring the bill to the floor do not predict their votes for the bill itself are barely disguised demands for yet more earmarks. These should not be hard for the Republicans and the opposition media to uncover in the weeks to come.
The Republicans are doing a fine job pointing out the true costs of this legislation: higher premiums, worse access to care, bureaucratic micromanagement of the practice of medicine, and public deficits and debt driven to previously unimaginable size — with no end in sight.
Yet I am very concerned with the Republican offense. Tort reform, allowing businesses to band together to buy health insurance, and buying health insurance across state lines are all good reforms (although somewhat malformed in the current Republican version). But they have abandoned the simplicity of the basic, fundamental conservative reform: amending the tax code to make health insurance the property of the individual, rather than his employer or the government. I know from speaking to Republicans on the Hill that they are nervous about moving the American people out of their comfort zone — employer-based benefits. However, I don’t see a compelling, alternative, vision of reform in its absence.
— John R. Graham is director of health-care studies at the Pacific Research Institute.
RICK SANTORUM
Do not despair. Voting against your leader to simply bring up a bill on the floor, especially the most important bill to your leader, your president, and your party, was never, and I mean never, going to happen. This vote was not simply a procedural vote or a party-loyalty vote, it was a vote for who you want to control the Senate. I would not expect any Democrat to vote for Republicans to control the Senate agenda. Frankly, that’s why I was encouraged by the last few days. A handful or more of Democrats were publicly wrestling with a decision that would be seen as fratricide had they voted no. If Democrats are feeling the heat just on bringing the bill up, imagine the pressure to vote on cloture to bring it to conference. They can legitimately, in my mind, get away with saying this vote was not an indication of their support for Reid’s bill. That excuse’s ticket has been punched and will no longer be available for future cloture votes.
Republicans must use every tool in the shed — offer amendments that strike all the harmful provisions in this bill, propose conservative alternatives to “bend the cost curve,” improve access, choice, and quality — and finally, they must prolong this debate as much as possible. The longer this bill is examined, the better. It will take time for information about this bill to seep into the consciousness of America. When it does, poll numbers and Democratic support in the Senate will both drop. The pressure has been commendable to date, but over the next few weeks, including Thanksgiving break, the protests have to be bigger, louder, and focused particularly on Lincoln, Landrieu, both Nelsons, Dorgan, Bayh, Lieberman, Webb, Bennett of Colorado, and don’t forget Snowe.
What should you do? Call, e-mail, write, organize not just rallies at the senator’s state office but 24-hour vigils, attend his/her public meetings, and come to D.C. with as many friends as you can bring. Finally — contact your state’s senator and no one else. No senator cares about what people in other states feel or say. In this hectic environment, your call to an out-of-state senator is probably blocking a call from someone in her state. Focus on your senator even if it is just to say thanks to a Republican who voted the right way and to encourage him or her to continue to do so.
Fight on!
— Rick Santorum is a former Republican senator from Pennsylvania.
TEVI TROY
Saturday night’s 60–39 vote was certainly a bad sign for Republicans hoping to defeat the Democratic effort for a trillion-dollar health overhaul. Sen. Tom Coburn asked the Congressional Research Service how often winning the motion-to-proceed vote has led to final passage of a bill. From 1999 to 2008, CRS found that the answer has been a depressing 97.6 percent. This calls into question the statements by Blue Dog Democrats that they are only voting to begin debate and do not necessarily support the final product.
Yet while Democrats have reason to be optimistic, this is not yet over. Republicans need to do two things going forward. The first, in the short term, is to continue to point out the many holes in the House and Senate bills — both are important targets, as the final product that comes through some type of House-Senate conference will likely include elements of both bills. The votes were quite close in both the House and the Senate, and there are a variety of sticking points, most notably on cost, abortion, and the public option, that cause internecine strife among the Democrats. Highlighting the Democratic differences on these issues could still manage to defeat the trillion-dollar package speeding towards the finish line, but it will also lay important groundwork for the next two elections.
The second is to come up with an alternative that Republicans can sell to the American people in 2010 and 2012. Jeff Anderson and I took a crack at this on National Review Online last week by proposing an approach that would lower premiums, cut the number of uninsured by 15 million, and cost a fraction of what the Democratic efforts would spend. It’s easy for Republicans to say no when faced with such bad bills, but the way back to a majority is by proposing real solutions to knotty problems.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)