In Honor of Obama Ending the Iraq War

I created a little artwork.

SSDD

Our Liberal News Media

This is today's New York Times home page.

I took the liberty of circling the stories that I believe express liberal bias, or toe the Democratic Party line.

New data has come to light concerning campaign contributions from self-identified employees of ABC, CBS, and NBC. In 2008, these people gave an overwhelming majority of their campaign contributions to Democratic candidates.

Senior executives, on-air personalities, producers, reporters, editors, writers and other self-identifying employees of ABC, CBS and NBC contributed more than $1 million to Democratic candidates and campaign committees in 2008, according to an analysis by The Examiner of data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The Democratic total of $1,020,816 was given by 1,160 employees of the three major broadcast television networks, with an average contribution of $880.

By contrast, only 193 of the employees contributed to Republican candidates and campaign committees, for a total of $142,863. The average Republican contribution was $744.

Disclosure of the heavily Democratic contributions by influential employees of the three major broadcast networks follows on the heels of controversy last week when it was learned that media baron Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. contributed $1 million to the Republican Governors Association.

I suppose you should be aware that news site I'm quoting from has a decidedly conservative slant. The numbers used in the story, however, could not be more straightforward.

I'm ok if a majority of news reporters are liberal. That's their choice. But they shouldn't lie about it, or try to hide it. This does a disservice to the reader, who is only trying to get the Truth. Not the Liberal Truth, or the Conservative Truth. Just the truth.

I accept that FOX News is a neo-conservative propaganda factory. It's ok if you accept that the New York Times is a pinko-liberal mushhead pamphlet. If you read both sides, and accept their biases, then you can see between the lines to the real Truth.

Large media has lost the trust of the public. They should be looked at no differently than any random website or blog. When you read a fantastical claim on an unknown website, do you immediately believe it? Of course not.

Verify everything I write here. I try to give the truth, but I am only human. But at least I try.

Pensions Commit Fraud, Want Bailout

Jim promised to pay Paul $5,000. Jim also promised to pay Peggy $5,000. Paul and Peggy go to Jim's office to collect their money. Unfortunately, Jim only has $5,000 total, which won't be enough. Jim is now shit out of luck.

That is, unless Jim is an underfunded union pension.

Our government, in its infinite wisdom, is now planning on bailing out the Jim's of the world, by giving our tax dollars to the underfunded pensions that promised out more money than they took in.

Many if not all of the pensions looking for a handout were set up in a way that they would never be able to meet their obligations. They simply promised too much money to retirees, and collected too little money from those who were still working. Usually when you do that, it's called "fraud" and it's illegal. When unions do it, however, they get $165 billion dollars to cover the financial hole left by their shady accounting, if the unions' congressional lapdogs get their way.

What is the point of working hard and paying taxes, if those tax dollars are simply given to crooks and liars?

On the Individual Mandate [Quote]

"If a mandate was the solution, we could try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody buy a house."

-Barack H. Obama

A "little-noticed" provision of the health care bill...

The media has a new favorite phrase.

"Tucked inside the huge health reform bill signed into law last week were many surprising and little-noticed provisions that will affect consumers in ways large and small."

"Deep within the massive health-care overhaul legislation, a few little-noticed provisions have quietly reignited one of the bitterest debates in medicine: how to balance the right of doctors, nurses and other workers to refuse to provide services on moral or religious grounds with the right of patients to get care."

"A little-noticed provision of the health legislation has rescued federal support for a controversial form of sex education: teaching youths to remain virgins until marriage."

"A little-noticed provision in the health reform bill will shed significant light on the payments drug and device companies make to doctors and teaching hospitals in California and the rest of the nation."

"A little-noticed provision in the new health care law may not only dramatically increase paperwork for small businesses, but also put them at a disadvantage against their larger competitors."

"In the manager's amendment Senate Leader Harry Reid added to the Senate health care bill, HR 3590, a little noticed provision allowed $7 billion in funding for Community Health Centers buried deep in Section 10503 of the 383-page amendment."

"Effective for plan years beginning after Sept. 23, 2010, health plans that cover dependent children must continue to cover adult kids until they turn age 26. This little-noticed new requirement is a sure way to increase health insurance costs, which is exactly what Obama-care was supposed to prevent."

"The Obama administration is trying to encourage people to buy annuities to ensure that they don't outlive their savings. But a little-noticed provision of the new health care reform law will slap a 3.8% tax on payouts from annuities purchased by high-income earners outside their workplace."

"A little noticed provision added over the weekend to the Senate health bill earmarked $500 million this year for a "cures acceleration program."

"Little-noticed (well, except by me) is the fact that Congress has repealed the anti-trust exemption for health insurance and that the reform plan sets up the basics of a federal infrastructure for insurance regulation. The federal government doesn’t just drop by and visit, they move in. Memo to state insurance regulators: the feds are outside, and they have a HUGE moving van.

"[Jeff] Masters, who lives in Fort Lauderdale, is part of a growing number of Americans who are members of faith-based ``health sharing ministries'' where members directly pay for each others' medical bills. Members also pray for each other, and a ``get well'' card from a stranger isn't uncommon. National healthcare reform will force millions of Americans to buy insurance or face fines, but a little-noticed provision excludes people like Masters who belong to such groups."

"As well as these and other major job-killing provisions, two little-noticed tax changes would also affect employment."

The List continues, with links to the stories, here.

For some reason, I'm getting the impression that nobody actually read this huge, two thousand page bill, before passing it into federal law.

Maybe we should take the time to, I dunno... read bills before we pass them?

I though Pelosi was speaking rhetorically when she said "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." Turns out she was dead serious.

The Public Option Lives

Remember when Obama and House Democrats said they were dropping the Public Option? Well, they lied.

The truth is the public option is alive and well, residing in Section 1334, pages 97-100, of the new health care law. That section gives the U.S. Office of Personnel Management — which presently manages the federal civil service — new responsibilities: establishing and running two entirely new government health insurance programs to compete directly with private insurance companies in every state with coverage for people outside of government.

Quoting the new law, former OPM director Donald Devine notes that it makes the OPM boss a health care czar, with power to set “‘profit margin premiums and other such terms and conditions of coverage as are in the interest of enrollees in such plans.’ That’s open-ended. You can do anything.” Dan Blair, another former OPM director, calls the new program “nothing but a placeholder for the public option.” Indeed, the OPM head is also given the authority to “appoint as many employees” as needed to run the program, and to spend “such sums as may be necessary” to establish and administer it.

One has to wonder if this bill would have passed if they had been honest about what was in it.

I wonder what we'll find out next.

Obama's Debt "Reduction" Panel

I already called BS on this debt commission, and the more I learn about it the more certain I am that I was right.

The commission is scheduled to make its report by Dec. 1, about a month after the midterm elections. It is charged with recommending ways to reduce the deficit in the fiscal year 2015 to the equivalent of 3 percent of the gross domestic product or less — nearly a percentage point smaller than it is now projected to be in that year. The panel is also to recommend long-term changes in taxes and spending for the major entitlement programs — Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — whose expected growth is the biggest factor in the deficit forecasts.

This horseshit commission isn't worth the expensive chairs I'm sure they're sitting in. They aren't even trying to balance the budget or decrease our debt, they just want to grow the debt more slowly. Thanks for nothing assholes.

I'm sure their solution will be to raise taxes. After all, comrade Obama has just saddled the American people with the Health Care bill, which we will be paying for long after we're dead. Fantastic.

Are we cutting Medicare? No, we're expanding it. Are we cutting Social Security? Yeah right, old people vote. Are we cutting the Military? Fat chance, we have to build new bombs to replace our old bombs, oh and we put more people in Afghanistan, oh and that Iraq thing is still going on.

Also, notice the scheduling of the commission's report--AFTER the elections. They know the report will be ugly, because once the rest of America wakes up to the giant pit we've dug for ourselves, they will be just as mad as I am right now.

Fuck it. I'm beginning to believe that the only way out is to spend all our money, then max out all our credit cards, until no one else will lend us money and all our checks start bouncing. Because until then, nothing will change.

Dishonesty: Thy Name is Good Intentions

Maternal death during childbirth has been almost eradicated in the United States, where for every 100,000 births only about 9 women die.

According to a recent Lancet study funded by the Gates Foundation, the global rate is around 250 deaths per 100,000 births. This number, while high, is a stark improvement from 422 deaths per 100,000 births just 30 years ago.

So great news, right? The maternal death rate is falling quickly, thanks to "higher income, which improves nutrition and access to health care; more education for women; and the increasing availability of “skilled attendants” — people with some medical training." Wonderful.

However, not everyone wants to spread the good news:

[S]ome advocates for women’s health tried to pressure The Lancet into delaying publication of the new findings, fearing that good news would detract from the urgency of their cause, Dr. Horton said in a telephone interview.

“I think this is one of those instances when science and advocacy can conflict,” he said.

Dr. Horton said the advocates, whom he declined to name, wanted the new information held and released only after certain meetings about maternal and child health had already taken place.

He said the meetings included one at the United Nations this week, and another to be held in Washington in June, where advocates hope to win support for more foreign aid for maternal health from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

As usual, when science conflicts with advocacy, the advocates try to hide or distort the science with the best of intentions--they are, after all, trying to help people (ostensibly). But do the ends justify the means?

This story parallels nicely with the climate change debate. Skeptical scientists with contradicting data are marginalized and ignored by advocates and the media because they don't fit the message. After all, advocates think they are saving the world.

However, they have become slaves to their own message, no longer thinking or basing their arguments in fact, but pushing the message forward without regard to honesty or ethics. To them, the ends justify the means.

[via Freakonomics]

Health Bill's Medicare Cuts are Wishful Thinking

The Democrat Health Plan now working its way to the Senate is being marketed as deficit reducing, despite its $1.2 trillion price tag. The plan will be paid for by increased taxes and reduced Medicare payments.

Specifically, the plan calls for $426 billion in spending cuts and $572 billion in taxes, and is projected to net a $104 billion deficit reduction over 10 years.

The proposed cuts are likely to be short lived, as Congress has a history of proposing Medicare spending cuts, then abandoning them as medical interest groups turn up the heat.

Under both Democrats and Republicans, Congress repeatedly has waived curbs it has tried to place on spending. It has given back other savings from the 1997 law to hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and other providers, most notably in 1999. More recently, Congress has twice switched off a cost-saving trigger that was contained in a 2003 bill establishing a Medicare prescription-drug benefit. Congress also frequently has waived budget resolution limits, as well as pay-as-you-go rules requiring offsets for tax cuts and entitlement spending.

Since 1997, Congress has passed five Medicare spending cuts, only to repeal all five shortly after they went into effect.

A plan that cuts Medicare spending by half a trillion dollars is wishful thinking. Do not be fooled.