June's Unemployment Chart

We continue to see no effect or a negative effect resulting from President Obama's supposed "emergency" bill, the alleged "stimulus".


Source: Innocent Bystanders.

Supreme Court Overthrows Sotomayor Decision

This morning the Supreme Court has validated what most Americans such you and I believe, and what Sonia Sotomayor does not--that racism is wrong. It has reversed the lower court ruling on Ricci v. DeStefano, a case where White and Hispanic firefighters were denied promotions earned through passing the promotional test because no Black firefighters passed the test.

You may remember that Sotomayor ruled against the firefighters who were denied promotion as an appellate court judge. Now she is likely to sit on the Supreme Court to espouse her view of the world, where lady justice's blindfold has been torn from her face and ripped to shreds. Lucky us.

Greg Mankiw on the heathcare debate

I think Harvard Economist Greg Mankiw nailed it in Sunday's New York Times. You should read the entire article. However, for your convenience, I've provided snippets.

In the debate over health care reform, one issue looms large: whether to have a public option. Should all Americans have the opportunity to sign up for government-run health insurance?

President Obama has made his own preferences clear. In a letter to Senators Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Max Baucus of Montana, the chairmen of two key Senate committees, he wrote: “I strongly believe that Americans should have the choice of a public health insurance option operating alongside private plans. This will give them a better range of choices, make the health care market more competitive, and keep insurance companies honest.”

Even if one accepts the president’s broader goals of wider access to health care and cost containment, his economic logic regarding the public option is hard to follow. Consumer choice and honest competition are indeed the foundation of a successful market system, but they are usually achieved without a public provider. We don’t need government-run grocery stores or government-run gas stations to ensure that Americans can buy food and fuel at reasonable prices.

An important question about any public provider of health insurance is whether it would have access to taxpayer funds. If not, the public plan would have to stand on its own financially, as private plans do, covering all expenses with premiums from those who signed up for it.

But if such a plan were desirable and feasible, nothing would stop someone from setting it up right now. In essence, a public plan without taxpayer support would be yet another nonprofit company offering health insurance. . . .

In practice, however, if a public option is available, it will probably enjoy taxpayer subsidies. . . .

Explicit or implicit subsidies would prevent a public plan from providing honest competition for private suppliers of health insurance. Instead, the public plan would likely undercut private firms and get an undue share of the market.

President Obama might not be disappointed if that turned out to be the case. During the presidential campaign, he said, “If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system.”

We all know where this is going. It's time to rise up against Congress. Vote 'em all out. Fire all 435 of them. All of them. Let's hire/elect people who actually have some common sense, believe in what you believe in, and vote the way you would have them vote.

Question With Boldness Even the Existence of a God

As I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also know as the "Mormons", you might be surprised to know that perhaps my favorite quote of all from our founding fathers is this:

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.

-Thomas Jefferson

Of course, I believe your surprise may stem from what you consider reasonable compared with what I consider reasonable.

Anyway, I love that Jefferson invites us to question everything, to not accept anything but a witness of the truth, and to not have our lives run by fear.

It's 3:00 AM. . . .

Accelerating faster than I believe many expected comes another world crisis. Will the President try to ignore this one away with meaningless talk? Or will he inaccurately deny not responding again?

"If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will ... wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all."

Possibly the President will come out and say that North Korea will "restate" their statement, as he did concerning Sonia Sotomayor's infamous prepared and published remarks. Because, hey, restating, or stating again, will certainly avert North Korea's threat to wipe us off the map!

John Ensign is a Dirt Bag

This post was inspired by my friends on Political Derby.

John Ensign is exactly why no one trusts the Republican Party. You can't be the party supposedly grounded in traditional Christian morality and have a constant flow of immoral "leaders". Another of these, Rudy Giuliani, was once a serious Presidential candidate.

Alleged "leaders" like these are what have allowed social liberals, such as the queen of annoyance Meghan McCain, a voice in what the future of the Republican Party should be.

It is no wonder there are more independents than ever before since we now have the Fascist/Socialist Party and the Dazed and Confused Party.

I believe most Americans want a party that's not for stupid people.

What is ABC's Motivation?

By now you have all heard about ABC's Obama healthcare infomercial. So let's look at the perspective ABC is coming in with.

In the last Presidential campaign ABC employees contributed more than $160,000 to President Obama's campaign and $4,500 to Senator McCain's campaign. Of the $4,500, Elisabeth Hasselbeck contributed more than 22%.

The White House Health Reform Communications Director is a former ABC News correspondent.

A perspective other than President Obama's is not being allowed by ABC.

The one ABC reporter who has actually has done in-depth reporting on healthcare--John Stossel--is not part of the broadcast.

Clearly there is an agenda from the Obama administration. However, what is ABC's motivation? Maybe ABC knows something about the creation of the Great American State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting that we are not yet privy to.

As for Stossel's report, there is an excerpt after the jump. The most curious thing, if you visited the actual report, is that his co-author was Andrew Sullivan!

There are many problems with health insurance, but that doesn’t mean we should put the government in control. If it’s decided that health care should be paid for with tax dollars, then it’s up to the government to decide how that money should be spent. There’s only so much money to go around, so the inevitable result is rationing.

It’s just the law of supply and demand. Lowering prices increases demand. Lowering the price to nothing pushes demand through the roof. Author P.J. O’Rourke said it best: “If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.”

When health care is free, governments deal with all that increased demand by limiting what’s available.

The reality of “free” health care is that people wait. In the United Kingdom, one in eight patients waits more than a year for hospital treatment and the British government recently set its goal to keep wait times to less than 18 weeks that’s more than four months! In Canada, almost a million citizens are waiting for necessary surgery and more than a million Canadians can’t find a regular doctor. In the small town of Norwood, Ontario, a weekly drawing is held in which a townsperson wins the right to access the town’s one family doctor.

Governments ratchet down health-care costs in different ways. Doctors went on strike last year in Germany because their government’s system pays them less than they thought they deserved and forces them to work thousands of hours of unpaid overtime. In the United Kingdom, one hospital was inspired to save money by not changing sheets daily. British papers report that instead of washing the linens, nurses were told to just turn the bedsheets over.

Government is less the answer to our health-care crisis than the problem. It was our government that helped to create the absurd system in which two out of three Americans get health insurance through their employer. In a country where four in 10 Americans change their job every year, this system makes little sense; it leaves people like Readling without coverage when they need it most.

The government also makes insurance expensive by mandating the medical services that policies must cover. Required services vary state by state and include massage therapy, pastoral counseling, acupuncture, hair prosthesis and dentures. Such mandates are a reason why an individual policy in New Jersey costs around $4,000 a year while a policy in Iowa costs only a third of that. Yet insurance regulations make it illegal for someone in New Jersey to buy a policy from out of state…

…The more people control the money they spend on their own health care, the more people shop around and the more providers compete to attract patients by lowering prices while improving quality. It’s putting individuals in control that could turn our health-care sector into the vibrant, competitive marketplace that we see in nearly every other area of our economy.

After all, it’s our body and our health. Shouldn’t we be in control of how our health-care dollars are spent?

Harvard’s Herzlinger said, “Who should decide whether you live or die? Do you want the government to decide? Do you want a health insurer to decide? Who’s gonna make that decision? Is it gonna be a government? Is it gonna be an insurer? Or is it gonna be you and me?”

Putting individuals in control of our health rather than our employers or the government is a better way to cure what ails America’s health system.

HT: Malkin for the Stossel story.

Obamacare Down Your Throat on June 27

Obama's message to his drones:

Organizing for Health Care: "This time it is going to be us who determine what happens"

Nothing like Obama implying that this is what you want, except it's what he wants.

Well, this past weekend is when the Obama sponsored "grassroots" meetings were held to begin planning for the "National Health Care Day of Service Event" on June 27.

Dan Joseph attended one of these meetings. His recap is outstanding, including this point:

The entire time I was at the meeting, for all of the talk of “health care for all” and how “meaningful reform can’t wait” there was not a single question or mention of the programs potential costs to the taxpayer.

Because apparently no one actually cares what this will cost. Right. That's very liberal of them, wanting to put a band aid on the problem at any cost, without actually examining the root cause.

Fortunately, there was hope conveyed by Dan, as he came away with the impression that these folks will have a far more difficult time selling an issue so complex as healthcare to the general public, as opposed to "hope" and "change".

As a reminder, per Investors Business Daily, we are far healthier than the Canadians and Europeans Obama is attempting to imitate (click to enlarge).


HT on Dan's post to Michelle Malkin