Medicare - Bernie Madoff would be proud!

I continually go to the San Francisco Chronicle for inspiration because their far-left orientation ensures a steady supply of foolish articles to debunk. I’m rarely disappointed, and this is an example: When Republicans lose their principles, by David Sirota, Creators Syndicate, Friday, March 13, 2009.

Mr. Sirota challenges Republican principles of competition between government and private suppliers of services, and Republican belief that private medical services are better than government such as Medicare. To further his point, Mr. Sirota chooses his facts narrowly. He reports “that private insurers spend up to 30 percent of their revenue on administrative costs (read: salaries, paperwork, etc.) while government programs spend just 5 percent, and polls show Medicare recipients are far more satisfied with their health care than those in the private system.”

I guess I will accept Mr. Sirota’s statement that “polls show Medicare recipients are far more satisfied with their health care than those in the private system.” They should be. They’re not paying for Medicare. Medicare is an enormous Ponzi scheme, just like Bernie Madoff’s only with an unfunded liability a thousand times greater than the piddling fifty billion Madoff swindled.


Madoff took money from newer investors to pay earlier ones, just as Medicare takes money from current workers to fund the retired. However, Medicare has reached a “Madoff moment” when income from current workers is less than what is paid out. In other words, Medicare is bankrupt, and if Medicare was a private company, the government would shut it down because of insolvency. In its current state, Medicare has an unfunded liability for future retirees of about 45 trillion dollars, which is just about equal the annual World GDP before the recession shrunk it.

But Mr. Sirota’s argument was really about the costs of private insurers compared to government programs.

Where to start? First, the phrase “that private insurers spend up to 30 percent of their revenue on administrative costs” does not mean that private insurers spend 30 percent of their revenue on administrative costs. Technically, if even one private insurer spends 30 percent on administrative costs, Mr. Sirota’s statement is true. However, the average for private insurers’ administrative costs is 14.1 percent, less than half the 30 percent that Mr. Sirota slyly suggests.

As I continued my research, I found support for Mr. Sirota’s claim that the “government programs spend just 5 percent.” However, I suspected that Mr. Sirota was slyly comparing private insurer “lemons” to government “apples.” As a CPA, I knew that private insurers would have to declare all their revenues and the expenses that generated those revenues. As an Air Force financial manager for fourteen years, and an auditor involved with defense contracting for another twelve years (and two years of healthcare auditing at Kaiser Permanente, Oakland), I knew that a lot of government costs are difficult to identify when making cost comparisons.

For an “apples to apples” comparison between private insurers and government programs, are there relevant costs that government does not include in “administrative costs?”

You bet there are, and in my humble opinion (based on over a quarter century of experience in government accounting), if properly identified and measured the government administrative costs would exceed private insurer costs significantly. By how much it would take too much time and effort for me to determine, given my modest resources, but my experiences indicate that the lack of a profit motive (and the desire to amass as many resources as possible to make doing the job easier, but not more efficiently) results in large, bureaucratic, costly, and inefficient government services.

Is Mr. Sirota telling us that government is driven to be efficient, and private insurers aren’t? Might there be some Medicare administrative costs that are ignored in Mr. Sirota’s comparison?
Indeed there are (from the American Medical Association Proposal for Reform):

• Tax collection to fund Medicare—this is analogous to premium collection by private insurers, but whereas premium collection expenses of private insurers are rightly counted as administrative costs, tax collection expenses incurred by employers and the Internal Revenue Service do not appear in the official Medicare or NHE accounting systems and are overlooked
• Medicare program marketing, outreach and education
• Medicare program customer service
• Medicare program auditing by the Office of the Inspector General (which is costly but does little to eliminate the enormity of Medicare fraud)
• Medicare program contract negotiations
• Building costs of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) dedicated to the Medicare program
• Staff salaries for CMS personnel with Medicare program responsibilities
• Congressional resources expended each year on setting Medicare payment rates for services

A pair of studies of Medicare administrative costs that included unreported expenditures on the program made by numerous government agencies concluded that Medicare administrative expenditures were at least three times the amount reported in the federal budget in 2003—$15.0 billion vs. $5.2 billion.
(The following are the studies cited above)
(Litow ME. Medicare versus Private Health Insurance: The Cost of Administration.
Milliman Inc. Published January 6, 2006.)
(Matthews M. Medicare’s Hidden Administrative Costs: A Comparison of Medicare and the Private Sector Council for Affordable Health Insurance. Published January 10, 2006.)

(We can easily relate this information to the statistics cited by Mr. Sirota. The tripling of costs would equate to a tripling of the government administrative cost percentage from 5.2 percent to about 15 percent.)

Advocates of a single-payer system (also known as a government-run health system) frequently cite the Canadian system as an example for the United States. Remarkably, many Canadians don’t rub their system in our faces, because they don’t like its rationed care and long waiting lines. In fact, private medical providers have sprung up in Canada because the Canadian health system often cannot provide adequate health services.

Another administrative cost analysis—possibly the most comprehensive and methodologically rigorous to date—examined a wide array of costs borne by insurers, health care providers, and patients in the United States and Canada, paying particular attention to indirect costs of carrying out basic administrative functions. The study calculated costs, net of associated benefits, of explicit and implicit methods of collecting revenues, curbing use of services and paying providers. For example, longer waiting times in Canada implicitly keep utilization of health care services in check, generating indirect costs to patients from delayed treatment and missed work. The study found that indirect, hidden administrative costs dwarfed monetary expenditures, concluding that true administrative costs are many times higher in Canada than in the United States.
(Danzon PM. Hidden overhead costs: is Canada’s system really less expensive?
Health Aff. 1992;11(1):21–43.)

A final point, one that I’m sure Mr. Sirota would never acknowledge, is that the federal and state governments drive up the costs of private insurers by requiring them to comply with myriad regulations and reporting requirements rather than operating in a uniform and standardized health care environment.

Both overregulation and arbitrary differences in regulation create unnecessary administrative costs and prevent cost-savings from economies of scale. Private insurers also must pay premium taxes, usually counted as an administrative expense, driving up administrative costs as a percentage of total costs and creating the appearance of reduced efficiency.

As I look back over Mr. Sirota’s article, and compare it to information readily available on the Internet, I arrive at some conclusions. The first is that Mr. Sirota thinks that now is the time, with Democrats in charge, to push big government proposals that don’t pass the smell test; i.e., that government programs are more efficient and cost effective than private ones. The second is that, given the liberal bias and the weak financial condition of journalism, Mr. Sirota does not have to worry about the kind of investigative reporting that would leave him red faced in embarrassment.

In conclusion, Mr. Sirota counts on ignorant and apathetic Americans accepting that Republicans are too beaten down to stand up for their principles of supporting competition between private businesses and government programs.

Au contraire, Mr. Sirota, Republicans (like me) welcome the opportunity to have the government compete with private insurers for healthcare resources. Right now the government has a monopoly on health insurance for Americans over 65 and is able to maintain its monopoly only because it does not have to operate within the accounting standards it requires of private companies. Only by privatizing Medicare is there any chance of saving it and preventing future generations from facing ruinous tax increases, means testing of the wealthy (and eventually of the almost-wealthy), and draconian rationing of health services.

By the way, Mr. Sirota, as long as we’re throwing competition between the government and private businesses on the table, why don’t we consider privatizing education?

And Social Security, of course.

Talk about a Ponzi scheme.

Obama - Thanks for Sharing with Rush Limbaugh

President Obama has a strangle hold on the "bully pulpit." As our first almost-black, almost-native-born American president, every word he stumbles to read from a teleprompter is trumpeted to the four corners of our Al Gore-doomed planet. No utterance or action of The Obama is deemed too banal or ordinary for breathless Chris Matthewsian-type coverage.

It is in this light of the total domination Obama has over news coverage that I must note and applaud his magnanimity, his unselfish sharing of the spotlight with his most articulate opponent, Rush Limbaugh.

The Democrats got what they asked for, and now sound like they bit off more than they can chew (At a White House Press Briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs admitted that the White House Rush Limbaugh strategy is counterproductive).

Plus The Obama now has a direct challenge from Rush to debate him (a highly publicized challenge at that, thanks to a Drudge link)

Rush couldn't be happier, since he's accustomed to paying his own way, including such things as advertising his own show and website. In just a three-day period, Rush has had banner-headline links on Drudge, and daily questions about him at Obama's Press Secretary's press briefings. Who needs to pay for advertising when your opponents are so generous?

Rush also was vilified by Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, then almost immediately received an abject apology from Steele. More Drudge headlines, more involvement of Democrats such as their Congressional Campaign Committee (Rush immediately published the link to their "ImSorryRush.com" website), and speculation by Bill O'Reilly that Rush may be, probably is, more powerful than Steele.

All of this is helping publicize Rush and his message. After all, if the Democrats have organized a group headed by Rahm Emanuel, featuring James Carville and Paul Begala, to attack Rush, doesn't that demonstrate they think Rush is at a level with President The Obama? And Michael Steele clearly demonstrated where he, as the head of the Republican National Party, stands in relation to Rush.

Unfortunately The Obama will never give us the satisfaction of debating Rush, and with good reason: The Obama wouldn't stand a chance, even with half of Rush's brain tied behind his back.

Rush continues to rack up headlines:

The Christian Science Monitor says that until someone else steps up, Rush is the head of the Republican Party, and mentioned his challenge to debate The Obama.
Ditto The Financial Times.
Another day, another Drudge item about the Democrat "brain trust" focusing on Rush.

Another Chris Matthews Tirade - "Dick Cheney, War Criminal"

As I read Chris Matthews' tirade against Dick Cheney: "100,000 killed, 4,000 Americans dead, 15,000 wounded," I search in vain for equal outrage at the 800,000 to a million Rwandans murdered in 1994 under the benevolent watch of Bill Clinton and kind protection of the United Nations.

Chris, do you know what Bill Clinton said about the Rwandan genocide? He lied.

In 1998 he said: "All over the world there were people like me sitting in offices who did not fully appreciate the depth and speed with which you were being engulfed by this unimaginable terror."

Chris, Bill lied. And lied. And lied.

I'll bet you're surprised.

During the first three days of the killings U.S. diplomats in Rwanda reported back to Washington that well-armed extremists were intent on eliminating the Tutsi.

Chris, I've been Googling for your condemnations of Bill Clinton for the Rwandan genocide, and I haven't found anything. What am I missing? I'll bet somewhere there's a tape of you praising his humility and sincerity as he "apologized."

It probably made your leg tingle when he bit his lip...then bit it again...and again.

There's no one who can fake sincerity like Bill Clinton.

I also search in vain for your, Mr. Matthews, condemnation of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and millions of Iranians, that Saddam had killed. I can't give Bill Clinton credit for saving lots of innocent lives, because he didn't, but President Bush's actions resulted in fewer Iraqis being killed than would have lost their lives under the tender ministrations of Saddam.

A recent study finds that the number of Iraqis killed since Saddam was ousted is about 50,000 instead of your 100,000 figure (and the wildly trumpeted 655,000 included in the thoroughly discredited Lancet study just before the 2006 mid-term elections). As a "journalist" you should know these things, right?

Chris, try this to put things in perspective. If all your friends could kick their drug habits, the 7,000 Mexicans killed in drug wars (10% are innocent bystanders) the past two years (Huffington Post article) would still be alive.

The gangs make a staggering £15bn a year smuggling heroin, marijuana, methamphetamine and Colombian cocaine to the hip bars and dinner parties of North America and Europe.

Chris, that sounds like the crowd you run with.

Abolish the Death Penalty

Words I never thought I would write: Abolish the death penalty.

For all practical purposes, capital punishment has already been abolished in the United States. The legalities of finding for capital punishment, and then going through the appeals process, has de facto eliminated executions under the death penalty. Excluding Texas (of 15 executions in 2007, 13 were in Texas), the odds of someone on Death Row being executed are very small – the condemned will live longer on Death Row than outside. Death Row inmates die of many causes, but judicial execution is rarely one of them.

In 2007 there were 3,308 on Death Row in the United States. Since the Death Penalty was reinstated in 1976, there have been 1,138 executions, and over 600,000 murders. Each year since 1976 we’ve executed an average of 38, and over 20,000 have been murdered. Since we only execute to punish murderers, it is obvious that having a Death Penalty (and hardly ever using it), is not a deterrent to murder. Equally obvious is that the tsunami of litigation that follows each death penalty sentence, and delays execution until the condemned die of natural causes, will not go away.

Our system of capital punishment is a creature of legalisms, not justice. The victims of murderers have no rights, no redress, no recourse, and no appeals on the basis of law or mercy. Their murderer, acting as sole judge, jury, and executioner, denied his victim all the rights he enjoys before trail and after conviction.

I’ve known for most of my life that the death penalty was not an effective deterrent to murder, but I supported it because I wanted the murderer to suffer a little of the pain and terror he inflicted on his victims. Rationally, I knew he wouldn’t suffer much, because of our obsession with rendering a monster’s death in the most humane (and antiseptic?) way possible.

I’ve also been aware that our system of infrequent capital punishment is very expensive. In my home state, California, Governor Schwarzenegger wants to expand death row at an estimated cost of $337 million to upgrade security and increase death row's capacity to 1,152 beds. That’s almost $300,000 per inmate just to keep them around a long time in the faint hope that one day we will be able to kill them.

(…In) truth, building more death row prison cells is a concession to the open secret that California's condemned inmates are rarely executed. Since the death penalty was reinstated in California in the 1970s after a brief ban by the U.S. Supreme Court, the state has sent more than 700 men and women to death row and killed 13. An equal number have committed suicide while awaiting an execution date. In all, 54 death row inmates have expired without being executed, most from natural causes.

In essence, we need a bigger Death Row to house the increase in condemned men and women who are not going to be executed. Once the new Death Row is built, the obscene costs won’t go away:

Keeping someone on death row costs $92,000 annually above the cost of a year at a maximum-security state prison, the commission found. The cost of appeals can be three times the cost of the original trial.

I could keep up my Quixotic support of the death penalty. I still believe it is the only real justice for perpetrators of heinous murders. However, the only direction our legal system is taking is towards the elimination of executions regardless of the crime and sentence. If I continue supporting a failed system, I’ll be doubly disappointed because the bad guys aren’t executed, and my taxes will continue to be wasted (at an increasing rate) for lawyers and prison guards.

Getting nothing, and paying more for it, doesn’t make sense.

Obama - Smoke and Mirrors

Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel shows that Obama is bringing a classy act to the White House.
Bill Clinton administration is being recycled in more than one way.

A friend e-mailed me a comment purportedly from the London Daily Mail. It took a bit of googling to find it actually is from the Toronto Sun. Michael Coren's article includes:

A victory for the hysterical Oprah Winfrey, the mad racist preacher Jeremiah Wright, the mainstream media who abandoned any sense of objectivity long ago, Europeans who despise America largely because they depend on her, comics who
claim to be dangerous and fearless but would not dare attack genuinely powerful special interest groups. A victory for Obama-worshippers everywhere.

The writer's point is very simple: Obama has nothing in his very thin resume that would justify election to President of the United States. Almost all of his achievements were in Chicago, and Chicago shows no signs of being improved by Obama's ministrations. But the man who couldn't fix Chicago is the man to handle the whole world's problems?

Of course, Obama will be ably supported by the Democrats. Democrats are the ones who pour fuel on burning disasters. Remember how Bill Clinton was proud to sign financial deregulation promoted by Robert Rubin and his acolyte, Lawrence Summers? Liberal columnist Robert Scheer does, and wonders why Obama chose Summers to solve the problem Summer helped create. Meanwhile, Robert Rubin has walked away an extremely wealthy man from the train wreck he orchestrated at Citibank.

Timing is everything, right Democrats?

President Bush, after many attempts to reform housing financing, was left holding the bag while U-Tube is rife with videos of Barney Frank, the Congressional Black Caucusl, and the other usual suspects opposing tighter regulations because that would deny poor people "affordable" housing.

Being a Democrat means you never have to be responsible for you foul-ups, right?

Mission Accomplished!

After 9/11, all the pundits, journalists, and politicians agreed that the United States would suffer more deadly attacks at the hands of Islamic terrorists. Tomorrow when he turns the most difficult job in the world over to President-elect Obama, President Bush will have done what was thought impossible, kept the United States safe from attack for over seven years.

Many other countries can't point to the same accomplishment. The list of countries whose citizens were murdered and maimed by Islamic terrorists since 9/11 is long and tragic. These are just a few of the many: the UK, 52 dead, over 700 injured; Spain, 191 dead, 1,755 injured; Bali, Indonesia, 202 killed, 209 injured; Moscow, 120 hostages killed; Istanbul, 26 killed, 22 injured; Beslan school, Russia, 330 dead; Mumbai, India, 165 dead, over 300 injured.

In 2003 and 2004 alone there were several deadly attacks in Russia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and The Philippines, and in many other lands, but none in the United States.

Mission Accomplished!

Disproportionate Response to Gays in Palestine

At a San Francisco march supporting the Palestinians against Israel, there was a poster “Gays for Palestine.” An astute observer noted, “You won’t see that in a parade in Palestine.” The protesters, of course, protested Israel’s “disproportionate response” to Hamas rocket attacks.

Has there ever been such a stupid protest as against “disproportionate response”? Hamas has launched over 7,000 rockets in three years from Gaza against Israel. The rockets are increasing in range and accuracy, and all have been targeted against innocent Israeli citizens.

Activists in the United States protest against civilian casualties in Gaza, yet apparently don’t notice or care that Hamas uses fellow Palestinians as shields.

Shall we try to look at this logically? Hamas is indiscriminately targeting Israeli citizens. Israel is carefully targeting Hamas militants, who happen to be hiding amongst Palestinian “civilians.” Because of Hamas’ use of Palestinians as human shields, does that mean Hamas gets an “Attack Israel for Free” card?

I know liberals, and Europeans, insist that Israel must negotiate with Hamas. However, Hamas has clearly stated, ad infinitum, that Hamas will never recognize Israel, or even the right of any Jew to live in Palestine. That doesn’t seem to leave much room for negotiations, does it?

Israel has only one option: obliterate Hamas. If left unchecked, Hamas would soon control the West Bank as well as Gaza, and all Israel would be caught in a daily, deadly crossfire. All that prevents that now is Israel’s control of the border crossings. Doubters need look no farther than Gaza, where Hamas has used its porous border with Egypt to arm with continually more deadly Iranian-supplied rockets.

Any knowledgeable person, especially a world leader, who doesn’t recognize the murderous truth about Hamas is either a fool or mendacious (mendacious: the perfect word to describe such a person – one given to or characterized by deception or falsehood or divergence from absolute truth. For an example of mendacious, go to Bill Clinton and his denial of genocide in Rwanda as it progressed).

Morton Zuckerman has posted a great article on the situation confronting Obama in the Middle East on Jewish World Review. It is must reading for the fair and open minded among us. I’m sure liberals and most Europeans will avoid reading it and facing facts and logic about Israel and the Palestinians. Their ignorance is the source of their bliss.

Bob Woodward on President Bush is Guilty of Many “Overlooks”

In typical 20/20 “hindsighting,” we get: 10 Take Aways From the Bush Years, By Bob Woodward, Sunday, January 18, 2009. His ninth “take away" makes a good point - Presidents must insist on strategic thinking - but he uses a bad example:

Obama would do well to remember the example of a young Democratic president who was willing to make long-range plans. Bill Clinton began his presidency in 1993 after having promised to cut the federal deficit in half in four years. The initial plan looked shaky, and Clinton took a lot of heat for more than a year. But he and his team stuck to their basic strategy of cutting federal spending and raising taxes, which laid a major part of the foundation of the economic boom of the Clinton era. It was classic strategic planning, showing a willingness to pay a short-term price for the sort of long-term gains that go down in the history books.

The first “overlook” Bob Woodward made in this example is that Bill Clinton squandered the Peace Dividend from the collapse of the Soviet Union, and we’re still paying for his mistake. The federal spending he cut was the military budget, but Clinton increased spending in other areas, and we’ve had to spend heavily to repair the military damage since.

Clinton’s “Hillarycare” proposal to reform health care showed no sign of strategic thinking, and paved the way for Republicans to capture the House and Senate in 1994 for the first time in decades.

The Dot.com boom increased tax revenues and the deficit disappeared, but then in Clinton's last year in office the Dot.com bubble burst, the NASDAQ lost 40 percent of its value, and we plunged into a recession. For all the hand wringing now, Woodward conveniently forgets that Bill Clinton left us in a big mess:

For all of last year, industrial production declined 1.8 percent, a sharp reversal from the 1.7 percent increase logged in 2007. It marked the worst showing since a 3.4 percent decline in 2001, when the country last suffered through a recession.

Was a recession part of Bill Clinton's strategic planning, Mr. Woodward?

Along the way, Bill Clinton bailed out on the most important reforms, Social Security and Medicare. Medicare is now bankrupt, with a projected unfunded liability of over forty trillion dollars, and Social Security will be bankrupt in less than a decade with a more modest unfunded liability of only fifteen trillion dollars.

There is ample evidence that Clinton and European leaders were well aware of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Is it good strategic thinking to look the other way when 750,000 people being safeguarded by the United Nations are slaughtered?

Islamic terrorism increased as Bill Clinton yielded to distractions, like triangulating with Republicans and Monica Lewinsky. When he blew up the pharmaceutical factory in Sudan in 1998 (Operation Infinite Reach), killing a couple of night watchmen and cleaning ladies, and then a few hundred thousand Sudanese died because of a lack of medicine for treatable diseases, Bill Clinton showed that he could look "presidential."

The simultaneous cruise missile attacks on terrorist training bases in Afghanistan showed that we were ready to make empty gestures, and hope against all reason that they would solve the problem. At least it convinced the terrorists that they had nothing to worry about from Bill Clinton.

Mr. Woodward, is "Wag the Dog" an example of strategic thinking?

As his last hurrah, Bill Clinton was aided and advised by Robert Rubin, who with his disciple Lawrence Summers led the deregulation of financial markets, setting the scene for Rubin to gain obscene riches from Citibank and for the current financial collapse and recession. I know you won’t take the word of an unreconstructed and unrepentant conservative, so I would like to call on a bleeding heart liberal, Robert Scheer, who just penned an article with the ungrammatical title: A bailout run by those got us in, Creators Syndicate Inc., Wednesday, January 14, 2009.

According to Scheer:

When candidate Obama gave his major economic address on March 27, he couldn't have been clearer in condemning the deregulation that Rubin and Summers had engineered: "Unfortunately, instead of establishing a 21st century regulatory framework, we simply dismantled the old one - aided by a legal but corrupt bargain in which campaign money all too often shaped policy and watered down oversight. In doing so, we encouraged a winner-take-all, anything-goes environment that helped foster devastating dislocations in our economy."

(Obama) was referring to the deregulation legislation that Summers hailed on the day that Clinton signed it into law as "a major step forward to the 21st century." Now he is relying on Summers to reverse a disaster of his own creation. It's like returning to the same surgeon who almost killed the patient in the first operation to once again cut open the body to repair the damage.

What we need is a second opinion.

And we could use a much more insightful Bob Woodward.

New York Times Blows Military Murders Report - Again

Ann Coulter noticed that The New York Times just recycled an article about the supposedly high murder rate for returned Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

In January a year ago The New York Times ran an article about the “high murder rate” of veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan service. I immediately noticed that The New York Times didn’t provide any murder rates statistics from civilian populations, or even from the military. All The Times article contained were anecdotes.

I posted “New York Times Blows Military Murders Report” on January 13 last year.

Before writing my post, I made a cursory review of internet sites, the sort of thing I would have expected The Times to do as a minimum, and found what I expected: murder is primarily an activity of young males. The veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are predominantly young males. Therefore, to make an apples to apples comparison, all we need do is answer a very simple question: What was their murder rate, and how did it compare to the murder rates of other young males?

The murder rate for military veterans was easy to compute: 8 per 100,000 per year. What should that rate be compared to? A typical American city rate?

I decided to be nasty, and compare it to two California cities with high murder rates, Oakland and Richmond in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was no contest. The Oakland and Richmond rates for young males were about ten times higher than the veterans’ rate.

Then I thought I would compare the rates to more “civilized” American cities, but instead I chose New York and San Francisco. The San Francisco murder rate for young males was three times higher than the veterans. The New York rate for all males, which includes babies through old men, was double the veterans’ rate.

Obviously, at this point in my investigation I was thoroughly disgusted with the sloppy reporting and institutionalized biases of The New York Times. Actually, such thorough disgust with The New York Times and other main stream media is nothing new for me. I had previously been disgusted by CBS News and perky Katie Couric and their fraudulent reporting of veteran suicides (go to my post totally debunking their article), another post exposing the Associated Press for fraudulently reporting that the Heritage Foundation ranked Europe as the economically freest region of the world, and a swarm of bloggers including me jumped all over The New Republic for publishing lurid and defamatory stories written by Private Scott Beauchamp supposedly based on his ongoing experiences in Iraq entitled “Baghdad Diarist.”

So far it looks like a scorecard of sort of winning one out of four. The New Republic decided not to stand behind the “Baghdad Diarist,” although the last I knew they still did not run a retraction. Katie Couric and CBS News stand by their report, even though it is a statistical abomination. And this year’s Heritage Report on the freest economies of the world is still characterized by the media as concluding that Europe is the freest region, even though an analysis of the Heritage rankings by countries and regions easily demonstrates that North America is the freest region.

Just as it did last year.

I feel like I'm shoveling fecal matter against the tide, but will keep on shoveling because it's fun to have a battle of wits with unarmed opponents, and the increasing financial problems of the main stream media indicate they are losing their death-grip on "truth."

Maybe we bloggers are doing them in, one kilobyte at a time.

Democrats' Turn "in the Barrel"

Jonah Goldberg, "Obama and the Democratic Brand," USA Today, January 6, 2009, reminds us that Democrats will no longer be free to criticize the Republican "culture of corruption" without drawing attention to their own. While Republicans controlled the presidency and Congress, and faced the liberal main stream media with only FOX providing a hint of balance, the Democrats had a field day and their transgressions were largely ignored. Now it's the Democrats "turn in the barrel." With control of everything, they're the only show in town. Jonah Goldberg noted Republican scadals, and wrote of them:

Sounds bad, and it was. But it's worth remembering that Democrats had plenty of scandals of their own. In 2004, New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey resigned after the married father was alleged to have hired an unqualified boy toy to run his Homeland Security Department. In 2006, Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana was caught with nearly $100,000 in his freezer. That same year, Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island rammed his Ford Mustang into a Capitol Hill security checkpoint and, faster than his dad could say "Chappaquiddick," checked himself into rehab for a pill addiction. Last spring, New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer, a self-righteous anti-corruption zealot, resigned after it was revealed he had been using a call-girl service. Then the Democrat who replaced Foley was brought down for allegedly firing his mistress. Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards was caught cheating on his cancer-stricken wife. Charles Rangel, the Democratic dinosaur in charge of the House Ways and Means Committee, is embroiled in a series of allegations of self-dealing orruption. And now, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has bowed out as President-elect Barack Obama's choice to be Commerce secretary thanks to an unfolding investigation into possible pay-for-play deal of less than Blagospheric proportions.

Will the liberal main stream media give up on reporting political scandals now that they will be reporting on Democrats? Will they fill their 24-hour, seven days a week news channels with People's Magazine reporting of celebrity worship and scandals? They will probably try, and most Americans will be satisfied. However, one day they will tire of full-time Paris Hilton updates and try political reporting again to appeal to their tiny niche audience that actually is interested in non-celebrity news.

Then the liberal main stream media will discover Democat scandals that make Republicans look like saints. Just digging through Illinois politics during Obama's early political career will be a treasure trove of intrigue and scandal.

As the British would cry when the hounds scented the fox, "Tally Ho!"

Tally Ho! The Democrats!

Coleman Will Serve

I was worried Al Franken would be a Senator until I read that Harry Reid said Norm Coleman was finished. Reid said Blagojevich's appointment of Roland Burris to the Senate would never happen, and it is happening. Reid is great at predicting one thing, and then the opposite becomes reality.

My prediction is that Senator Reid is serving his last term in the Senate.

And that Governor Blagojevich will still be governor of Illinois when Reid says farewell.

DeWayne Wickham, Opposition to Burris might blow up on Democrats, USA Today, January 6, 2008, paints a clear picture of how foolish Reid was in trying to be judge, jury, and executioner before our justice system was given a chance to fulfill its obligations.

Senator Reid, it seems strange that a person in your position must be instructed about the presumption of innocence and that you can't assess guilt by association. You of all persons should know that you can't take a short-cut to justice.

That's called vigilantism.

It's the sort of thing lynch mobs do.

John Kerry Christmas in Cambodia Commemoration

“It seems like yesterday
But it was long ago”
(from “Against the wind” [Bob Seger])

That’s right, forty years ago John Kerry and his Swift Boat spent Christmas Eve in Cambodia, listening to President Nixon telling the world there were no Americans in Cambodia. As the stealthy Swift Boat cruised up the Mekong, almost as ghostly silent as a diesel locomotive pulling the incline at Donner Pass, its crew apparently was regaled by the South Vietnamese drunkenly signing carols and exchanging Christmas presents, and occasionally firing a few shots in their direction.

On the floor of the Senate in 1986, Kerry made the following the centerpiece of a carefully prepared 20-minute oration against aid to the Nicaraguan contras:

"I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared -- seared -- in me."

Writing for the Boston Herald in October 1979, Mr. Kerry said this:

"I remember spending Christmas Eve of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real."

It warms my heart thinking of the ecumenism of the predominantly non-Christian South Vietnamese so whole heartedly celebrating Christmas.

Although I was never there, after reading Kerry’s reminiscences it feels like I was. Such clarity, such detail, such historical significance!

I can hear John Kerry now, caroling back to the South Vietnamese:

“Christmas in Cambodia
With all the Swift Boaters I roam”
(adapted from “Christmas in Killarney)

Obama, Blagojevich, Emanuel Cover Up - Willie Brown Blows the Whistle

Willie Brown, former legendary Speaker of the California Assembly and far less legendary former Mayor of San Francisco, got a telephone call from Governor Blagojevich. They chatted about Willie's assertion in his San Francisco article last week that Patrick Fitzgerald's case against the governor was very weak because it was just loose talk, and no deal was made.

According to Willie, this is the gist of their chat (click on this for the link to Willie's World):

I can't go into details, but my impression is that the whole mess started because the governor had been considering appointing a political rival, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, to the Senate so she wouldn't be able to run against him when he went up for re-election in 2010.

Apparently, Obama's people weren't happy about the idea of Madigan coming to Washington, and there were some pretty heated conversations between Blagojevich and Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, which I understand will burn your ears off.

Let us reconstruct what this may mean. Blogojevich told Willie Brown that he had conversations (that means more than one) with Rahm Emanuel. Apparently the conversations were very heated, meaning a lot of disagreement should be on Fitzpatrick' tapes.

Meanwhile, We have George Stephanopoulos in George's Bottom Line reporting (in an exclusive!):

Sources tell me that the Obama team's review of contacts with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich will show that Rahm Emanuel had only one phone conversation with Blagojevich.

When will we get to the bottom of this?

Is Willie right? Are George's sources telling him the truth, or Clintonesquely parsing it? Will Fitzgerald's tapes declare the winner, or will we be left wondering for all time?


I'm betting that Willie's version is closer to the truth, that there were many contacts, because Blagojevich called him and volunteered the information, one cynical politician to another. I think George was being spun by Obama/Emanuel operatives with the goal of arguing about which contacts between Blagojevich and Emanuel count as Senate nomination contacts.

Regardless of George's bottom line, I think the bottom line on this will end the same as always: "it's not the crime, it's the cover up."


When will they ever learn?

Stephanopoulos - Now working for Obama

George Stephanopoulos, pretend journalist and Democrat water carrier, continues to get fed "exclusives" from Obama and Biden. Previously he got the first interview of vice president-elect Joe Biden, and even while asking soft-ball questions, induced Biden to make one of his classic dumb remarks, that the economy was ready to "absolutely tank."

Now George is helping to give cover to Obama by trying to minimize the significance of Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, playing Senatorial nomination footsie with Blagojevich. His "exclusive,"Obama's Blago Report: Only One Rahm Call to Governor," is an attempt to minimize Emanuel's involvement in the Blagojevich fiasco by reporting Emanuel only made one call to Blagojevich about the nomination. All the other calls he made must have been to Blogojevich's asssistant(s), or were to Blogojevich but not "about the Senate appointment."

You see, it all depends on what the definition of "call" is.

Bill Clinton would applaud.

Blame Bush for the High Cost of Gas

Besides The New York Times article blaming President Bush for the "housing nightmare," I found a related article blaming him for the high cost of gas. Apparently the author thinks there are a variety of causes, and the weak dollar is the link between those causes and the resulting expensive gas.

A lack of an energy policy is prominently mentioned, as if President Bush and Republicans tried to block developing viable energy sources. No matter what is said or written, alternative energy like solar, wind, wave, and biofuels are expensive and unreliable, and if developed rationally, would not even keep up with increasing demand for energy, let alone replace dependence of fossil fuels (and don't forget nuclear, like the Liberals have).

Now I would like to apply the author's rationale to linking those causes with what is now cheap gas. How does he explain oil falling over $100 a barrel using the causes he gives for its price rising?

My position has been that oil has been in demand because world economies were booming, and now that the financial crisis has taken the bloom off the boom, oil prices reflect lessening demand.

So did President Bush cause the financial crisis?

Apparently The New York Times in its Sunday issue is going to say "yes."

I guess the corralary to that would be, if President Bush caused the financial crisis, did he also cause the prosperity buddle that carried the rest of the world along for over seven years of his presidency?

When did doing right become doing wrong?

Or are there other forces at play?

I doubt any Liberals will want to give President Bush credit for all the good economic times that overcame huge obstacles like 9/11, islamic terrorism that struck Spain, the UK, Bali, India, and so many other parts of the world (but somehow not the United States) following 9/11, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

You have to be very choosy when you're playing the blame game.

President Bush to Blame for Housing Nightmare

Apparently The New York Times is going to blame President Bush for the housing nightmare in their Sunday edition (tomorrow). Since I haven't, of course, read it, I will have to anticipate what The Times will say based on my knowledge of the way it operates.

Actually, this isn't hard to do.

The first thing The Times will do is ignore anything done by Democrats, such as promoting easy qualifying for mortgages to encourage the poor to buy "affordable" housing. Then they will have to overlook the shenanigans Democrat executives like Franklin Delano Raines and Robert Rubin pulled in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to enable the practice of making bad loans continue and grow.

A "must-overlook" for the Times definitely has to be the role Barney Frank and the Congressional Black Caucus (go to : Barney Frank Accompanied by the Congressional Black Caucus Choir) played in blocking Republican reforms in 2004 through 2006.

After 2006 the Times must ignore that Democrats were in charge of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. That's an easy one, since a Zogby poll found that over half of Obama's supporters thought the Republicans were still in charge.

"What" you may ask, "is the significance of the Democrats running Congress? Doesn't the president do everything?"

I'm glad you asked, because I'm sure the Times won't.

No, the president does not do everything. Congress has committees, such as the Senate Banking Committee, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, and the House Financial Services Committee, among many others.

The House Financial Services Committee, for example, is chaired by Barney Frank, Democrat, Massachusetts. According to Mr. Frank:

The Committee oversees all components of the nation’s housing and financial services sectors including banking, insurance, real estate, public and assisted housing, and securities. The Committee continually reviews the laws and programs relating to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Federal Reserve Bank, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and International development and finance agencies such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The Committee also ensures enforcement of housing and consumer protection laws such as the U.S. Housing Act, the Truth In Lending Act, the Housing and Community Development Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, the Community Reinvestment Act, and financial privacy laws

Let's see. His Committee oversees all components of the nation's housing and financial services including banking, insurance, real estate, public and assisted housing, and securities.

I wonder if anyone at The Times knows this?

We'll find out tomorrow, but I sincerely doubt it.

The Times reporters were probably in the part of the Zogby poll that thought the Republicans were still running everything.

UPDATE: As I anticipated, The New York Times article was written as if Congress and the Democrats never existed. No mention was made of Barney Frank and the Congressional Black Caucus, or of Franklin Delano Raines, Democrat CEO of Fannie Mae, who was found responsible for cooking its books, and given a "hand pat" fine.

The fact that Democrats were in charge of Congress since 2006 is still apparently unknown by most Democrat supporters, including The Times reporters.

UPDATE NO. 2: Damn, I'm good! I nailed The Times article before any of it was even released. As this Fox News release shows, The Times depended on overlooking many things, including reporting they did during the Clinton administration, to enable them to place the blame on President Bush.

The Times knew a lot before they decided to forget.

Liberal Gets Instant Wish Fulfillment

The San Francisco Chronicle is a constant source of blogging inspiration, especially the Letters to the Editor page. Case in point: a recent letter inspired my response below.

“Churches that act like political parties should be taxed like political parties,” wrote Arthur Evans of San Francisco (Chronicle letters, Nov 12, 200). Heavens, Mr. Evans, from your lips to God’s ear! Churches are in essence taxed like political parties. Neither pays taxes on their “exempt function income,” but both pay taxes on income unrelated to their exempt functions.

For many years Black pastors have preached support for Democrat politicians from their pulpits without Liberal criticism that it violated their tax-exempt status. Alice and I attended a service at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem where the minister directed his congregation to get everyone, including “your crack-head cousin,” out to vote for Obama. Only now after these same ministers urged support of Proposition 8 are Liberals incensed. I’ll bet they won’t be during the next election when the same ministers instruct their congregants to “vote for the Democrat.”

Roughly ninety percent do, almost as high a percentage as journalists.

Unglued Idiot of the Day Award: Lewis Diuguid and "Socialist is a Code Word for Blacks"

Recently Drudge linked to a short editorial in the Kansas City Star: Shame on McCain and Palin for using an old code word for black, By Lewis Diuguid, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist, submitted October 21, 2008. [click here to go to the article]

For some reason - stupidity, ignorance, bizarre belief system, or something equally odd - Lewis Diuguid (I bet his last name is pronounced "Do good") wrote that when McCain and Palin say Obama is a Socialist, they are really saying that he's Black.

I read his article and added the following comment:

When I was young there was an all-white group we called socialists, and they went even further and called themselves National Socialists. Now there are over a billion Chinese who aren't offended when you call them socialists (or state capitalists), about a quarter of a billion of mostly white folk who were formerly in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and another billion Indians who also are slowly emerging from their long, dark night of socialism. But now we have an idiot, Lewis Diuguid, who gazes at his navel and finds an inane piece of lint to wave as a sign of Republican racism and shame. Mr. Diuguid, anyone who votes for or against someone because of skin color is racist, and by that standard, over 95% of American Blacks are well into that category.

Then I included a link to one of my recent posts about Black racism as evidenced by their almost total support of Obama. [this is the link I included]

Soon my hit counter indicated that I was getting more visitors in an hour than I usually get in a day. Linking to an article that Drudge links to is a good way to increase blog traffic.

This inspired me to add more comments, and with each comment to add a link to another one of my posts. The hits kept pouring in, and I had the satisfaction of knowing that about eight of my most recent posts about Obama and the Democrats being at fault for the financial crisis were getting good readership.

Then I got greedy, and started commenting and including links to older posts where I condemned socialism generally, and socialized medicine in particular. The hits kept coming.

This afternoon, two days after it began, Drudge dropped the link to the article from his featured items, and the hits quickly diminished.

But now that I have the taste for higher readership, I'm watching Drudge much more closely, looking for his next link to an outrageous main stream media article that I can piggy back on.

It's fun to be read.

At Plank's Constant there is agreement that Lewis Diuguid is an idiot, and his post includes a photo of Mr. Diuguid. The calm demeanor reflected in the photo gives no hint to the stupidity Mr. Diuguid exhibits in his writings. Once again the old adage proven, "you can't tell a book by looking at the cover."

Please click on the link above and sneak a peek. You know you want to.

(To go to the posts I linked to in my comments, click on the "Lewis Diuguid" Articles label below)

Suppose They Had a Debate and No One Showed Up?

Actually, they just did.

I was fortunate last night and had to prepare for and attend a Gualala Lions Club Board meeting that started an hour after the debate began. As I collated a handout and wolfed down dinner watching the debate, I felt I was due for some really interesting and exciting exchanges. Tom Brokaw brought up two of my all-time favorite interests, the unfunded Social Security/Medicare entitlements for Baby Boomers totaling over $41 trillion, and the world energy crisis.

I chortled as I thought of how Obama would squirm trying to explain how the Democrats would save Social Security and already bankrupt Medicare/Medicaid by continuing to do nothing and pretending that there is no problem. Obama didn’t disappoint me. He completely ducked the issue. I couldn’t wait to read and hear the next day in the main stream media (MSM) how Obama did what the MSM roundly condemned Sarah Palin for, not answering the question.

A question, by the way, that has far greater significance and long-term impact than the current financial crisis by a multiple of forty or more.

The MSM punted too. Obama would not or could not answer the question of this century, and the MSM applauded his performance.

The next question went to Senator McCain about a solution to the energy crisis. “Nuclear power,” John McCain said in what today sets the standard for a straight-talking, straight-forward answer.

Of course the answer is nuclear power! It is abundant, cost effective, reliable, scalable, proven, clean, can be located where needed, only requires a fraction of one percent of the land or sea area of wind, solar, or biofuels, and is much less damaging to the environment. Naturally the Greenies hate it.

So does Obama, except last night he said nuclear was OK, sort of. When Obama’s answer on supporting nuclear energy is parsed out, à la a Bill Clinton answer, you’ll find his position the same as Joe Biden’s on clean burning coal: he was against it before he was for it, but hasn’t changed his mind.

Joe Biden’s Hot “Potatoe”

A liberal blogger (Merge Divide of Serendipity) dropped a comment disagreeing with my post that John McCain won the debate, but lost the following news analysis. In a nutshell, the media said Obama exceeded their low expectations, and McCain fell short of their high expectations.

Actually, Merge Divide wrote just about the same.

Now the focus is on the Sarah Palin-Joe Biden debate, and the Main Stream Media doesn’t quite know what to set as expectations for Biden. If they use the same criteria as for John McCain, they have to set expectations for Biden high. After all, he’s been around the Senate awhile, and is a self-confessed expert on just about everything.

Sarah Palin, of course, should be cast in the “Obama” role, a neophyte of whom little is expected.

Therefore, applying the criteria used to analyze the McCain-Obama debate, if Sarah Palin is still standing at the end, she wins because she will have exceeded expectations, and Biden will not have met expectations since he didn’t knock her out.

Overlooked in all this is the way the MSM has overlooked Biden’s “Dan Quayle” moment. Somehow it seems to me to be more egregious that Biden didn’t know that his Democrat saint, FDR, was not president when the stock market crashed in 1929, and that television was still over a decade away.

What do you think? Isn’t Biden’s comment dumber than Dan Quayle not knowing that, unlike the plural “potatoes,” the singular has no silent “e”?

I hope that the commentators spare Sarah Palin the need to ask Joe Biden about his recent stated disagreements with some of Obama’s positions, including the Democrat’s ad poking fun at John McCain for not using a computer more (even though McCain’s war wounds make computer use difficult).

I agree with Biden on the things he said Obama got wrong, but I also agree with how Obama said McCain was right on a number of points.

Obama is learning, but he has a long way to go.