Democratic Presidential Candidates Meet The Gays

I caught a few moments of videotape on O'Reilly last week of the Democratic Presidential candidates' 'debate' with gays.

Of course, the real center of attention is one-time popular singer Melissa Etheridge. I believe she's the woman who was the partner, for a short time, of actress Anne Hecht, the latter whom, after conceiving the 'couple's' child, eventually decided she wasn't gay after all.

I suppose it's of some value for gay people to have Presidential candidates dote on them, and their issues, as if they are life-or-death, and material to the Republic at large. And having someone like Etheridge, who can garner publicity, can't hurt, either.

However, one comment I heard from a guest on O'Reilly's program, a gay woman, actually struck a very responsive chord with me. She intoned that, frankly, she didn't really want all that much governmental involvement in being gay, because what she wanted was to just be allowed to live as she chose.

My God! You could confuse that woman for a libertarian!

And this is sort of what mystifies me about liberal Democrats and their ceaseless, shameless pandering.

First, don't they think other Americans realize that they are watching the Presidency being shopped and sold, one victimized group's votes after another?

Second, these groups may want to be careful about for what they wish. Too much 'attention' from Washington might result in what they appear to request, but not what they actually want.

Third, just because modern communications media allows one to endlessly segment groups, identify their members, and reach them, does that necessarily mean it's a good idea to campaign and debate for them, exclusively? Isn't that reinforcing the balkanization of American society which seems to retard or prevent simpler, more even-handed solutions to various social issues?

I think I'd be okay without seeing various special-interest group-oriented campaign 'debates' among Presidential candidates of either party. Instead, I'd appreciate more insightful, meaningful questions from real people, and the removal of so many biased and posturing media personalities as the moderators of these frequent travesties.

Ron Paul's Difficulties Understanding Financial Markets

I saw a very scary interview on Friday. Larry Kudlow Had Ron Paul on for a few minutes, after Friday's turbulent equity market performance.

First, I must confess, I don't know all that much about Ron Paul, and I'm not too sure I want to know more. Despite several veteran financial market commentators agreeing that Bernanke & Co. at the Fed had cleverly engineered a way to provide liquidity to the US equity markets without either lowering rates or using the discount window, Paul insisted that it had bailed out wealthy financiers and their companies.

No amount of explanation that the Fed had simply extended credit on securities pledged to it by various securities firms, a sort of repo swap, would convince Paul that Friday's actions by the Fed were not a bail out.

For me, this kind of lack of intelligence and perspective is awfully scary in a Presidential candidate.

It's the same sort of ineptitude and ignorance that led John McCain to believe he did something good with his co-authored campaign finance 'reform' bill some years ago. The thing's an abomination, and, as with all campaign finance 'reform,' created more problems than it solved. If it solved any. And then it impinged on First Amendment free speech rights in the bargain.

Nice going, John. Maybe stick to being a retired naval aviator?

But, back to Ron Paul. Beyond misunderstanding how providing liquidity through repo loans for the short term is not the same as simply bailing out a financial firm, he then went on to demand that such a 'bail out' should only go forward if homeowners were similarly bailed out.

This is too much for me. Not only is Paul economically illiterate, but he then behaves like a liberal Democrat, demanding that relief be ladled out for everyone.

I was unimpressed by Mr. Paul's interview with Kudlow. Yet another reason to favor a really long Presidential campaign season....

The Worst That Could Happen

I haven't forgotten about this blog. I've just been extremely busy with various work-related projects, including options research.

However, I did want to note some thoughts I've had recently regarding the upcoming 2008 Presidential and Congressional elections.

Last month, among other political discussions I had with my father on a our fishing trip, I mused about what is the worst outcome a conservative could reasonably imagine for those elections.

I guess that would have to be that the House and Senate remain in Democratic hands, by margins similar to today, with the White House going to either jug-earred Obama Bim Baden, or Hillary.

You know, it's not all that bad. Here's why.

Culminating with last week's announcement that the FBI is searching Alaskan Senator Ted Steven's office for evidence of corruption from his time as chair of a key Senate spending committee, it's clear that the voting public's view of Republican party credibility is simply in tatters.

President Bush had done a great job, but he's near the end of an eight year run. Americans always tire of a two-term President, no matter who he is. Were it not for the war, it's not clear that FDR would have won his third term, or his fourth.

This being the case, I think it's about time American voters got a taste of that against which they have been warned. A full-out Democratic run of the legislative and executive table.

My own prediction is that no amount of hand-wringing and warning now by Republicans can match the impact of two years of unfettered Democratic excess.

Think witch hunts of Republican Congressmen and Senators, ex-Bush administration executives, nationalized universal health care, global warming-related energy and agricultural legislation, crippling tax code changes, higher taxes, more glutinous spending on the teachers unions and such.

Within two years, whatever ideas these morons have cooked up will begin to crack. The vendettas will sicken most voters. Count on a return of at least one House to the Republicans in 2010, and maybe both. That's the end of active Democratic mischief-making.

The President, whether jug-ears or the First Skirt, will have a veto which probably can't be overridden, but without the active power of setting the legislative agenda.

Gridlock!

With a largely do-nothing second two years of his/her administration, the sitting President will be easier prey for a Republican who will now have a clear target of restoring sanity and reversing the worst legislative excesses of the first two years of the newly elected (in 2008) President.

That's the real genius of our system. Even with a total lineup of liberal idiots, their efforts can be stopped within two years, and largely nullified within four, six at the most.

I have come to believe that nothing will convince and remind American voters of the nasty, vengeful, inept agenda of the liberal Democrats as simply giving them two Federal branches of government and watching what they do.

Sometimes, warnings are less effective than simply letting people learn for themselves by experience. This is probably one of those times.

Elizabeth Edwards' Strange Campaign

The last few weeks have been rather busy for me, and I have not posted here. That's not to say I have not been observing political activities.

Last weekend's Wall Street Journal carried an unbelievably self-aggrandizing interview with Presidential candidate John Edwards' wife, Elizabeth.

I truly do not know quite where to begin with this woman's strange, bizarre campaign.

First, we have her personal attack on Anne Coulter, about which I wrote here, last month. Apparently, her husband is planning to leave the heavy lifting in the White House to his wife.

I guess this marks the first time that a candidate brings his wife along before the election, as his torpedo.

But, wait. Elizabeth Edwards has incurable cancer. She may not live to see her husband in the White House, should he win. So, how's he going to use her as his muscle if she's gone?

Actually, that has led me to another, admittedly cynical, interpretation of the Edwards' motives.

Perhaps candidate John and his wife have decided to have her the campaign's official victim, as well as mudslinger. This way, Edwards gets a two-fer: his wife makes the ideal victim, as a dying cancer sufferer, still gamely campaigning for her wealthy, unprincipled husband, and; he can blame her rather bizarre remarks and actions on her medical condition, later on, when other candidates attack him through her.

It's really rather ingenious. A sort of disposable attack dog campaign staffer who both generates sympathies among the left, which is prone to loving helpless victims anyway, and becomes an untouchable attack staffer, too. Then vanishes when called to account for her statements and actions.

Come to think of it, though, I think I'd prefer Elizabeth Edwards to her husband as a Presidential candidate. She certainly displays more courage and energy than John-boy does. You can't accuse her of vaccilation.

Still, if this in any way actually helps Edwards' campaign, our country is in serious trouble. Talk about a new low in campaign strategies.....

Michael Moore's Slanted "Sicko"

Before I left on vacation a few weeks ago, I read an excellent review of Michael Moore's latest piece of video trash, "Sicko," in the Thursday, 28 June Wall Street Journal.

Dr. David Gratzer, a practicing Canadian physician, took Moore's movie, and position, to task in a piece entitled, "Who's Really 'Sicko'."

Among the more revealing passages in his article are,

"'I haven't seen 'Sicko,'" says Avril Allen about the new Michael Moore documentary, which advocates socialized medicine for the United States. The film, which has been widely viewed on the Internet, and which will officially open in the U.S. and Canada on Friday, has been getting rave reviews. But Ms. Allen, a lawyer, has no plans to watch it. She's just too busy preparing to file suit against Ontario's provincial government about its health-care system next month.

Her client, Lindsay McCreith, would have had to wait for four months just to get an MRI, and then months more to see a neurologist for his malignant brain tumor. Instead, frustrated and ill, the retired auto-body shop owner traveled to Buffalo, N.Y., for a lifesaving surgery. Now he's suing for the right to opt out of Canada's government-run health care, which he considers dangerous.

In the U.S., 83 House Democrats voted for a bill in 1993 calling for single-payer health care. That idea collapsed with HillaryCare and since then has existed on the fringes of the debate -- winning praise from academics and pressure groups, but remaining largely out of the political discussion. Mr. Moore's documentary intends to change that, exposing millions to his argument that American health care is sick and socialized medicine is the cure.

It's not simply that Mr. Moore is wrong. His grand tour of public health care systems misses the big story: While he prescribes socialism, market-oriented reforms are percolating in cities from Stockholm to Saskatoon.

It's compelling material -- I know because, born and raised in Canada, I used to believe in government-run health care. Then I was mugged by reality.

Consider, for instance, Mr. Moore's claim that ERs don't overcrowd in Canada. A Canadian government study recently found that only about half of patients are treated in a timely manner, as defined by local medical and hospital associations. "The research merely confirms anecdotal reports of interminable waits," reported a national newspaper. While people in rural areas seem to fare better, Toronto patients receive care in four hours on average; one in 10 patients waits more than a dozen hours.

This problem hit close to home last year: A relative, living in Winnipeg, nearly died of a strangulated bowel while lying on a stretcher for five hours, writhing in pain. To get the needed ultrasound, he was sent by ambulance to another hospital.

With such problems, it's not surprising that people are looking for alternatives. Private clinics -- some operating in a "gray zone" of the law -- are now opening in Canada at a rate of about one per week.

Canadian doctors, once quiet on the issue of private health care, elected Brian Day as president of their national association. Dr. Day is a leading critic of Canadian medicare; he opened a private surgery hospital and then challenged the government to shut it down. "This is a country," Dr. Day said by way of explanation, "in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which humans can wait two to three years."

Market reforms are catching on in Britain, too. For six decades, its socialist Labour Party scoffed at the very idea of private medicine, dismissing it as "Americanization." Today Labour favors privatization, promising to triple the number of private-sector surgical procedures provided within two years. The Labour government aspires to give patients a choice of four providers for surgeries, at least one of them private, and recently considered the contracting out of some primary-care services -- perhaps even to American companies.

Other European countries follow this same path. In Sweden, after the latest privatizations, the government will contract out some 80% of Stockholm's primary care and 40% of total health services, including Stockholm's largest hospital. Beginning before the election of the new conservative chancellor, Germany enhanced insurance competition and turned state enterprises over to the private sector (including the majority of public hospitals). Even in Slovakia, a former Marxist country, privatizations are actively debated.

Under the weight of demographic shifts and strained by the limits of command-and-control economics, government-run health systems have turned out to be less than utopian. The stories are the same: dirty hospitals, poor standards and difficulty accessing modern drugs and tests.
Admittedly, the recent market reforms are gradual and controversial. But facts are facts, the reforms are real, and they represent a major trend in health care. What does Mr. Moore's documentary say about that? Nothing."

Dr. Gratzer's piece was so well-written and informative that I have reposted much of it. I had not intended to, but it contains so much important factual information, that it seemed necessary.

The point is, Moore carefully avoided the facts which do not support his conclusions. He's attempting to move America backward, while even our more socialist neighbors- Canada, Britain, and Sweden- have had it with a universal healthcare system, and are headed back in our direction.

Is America's healthcare system perfect? Absolutely not! But socializing it, and, as I wrote here, recently, requiring mandatory membership in a totally socialized healthcare system designed and run by mediocre government bureaucrats, is inviting disaster, as well as robbing us of our personal liberty to choose.

Let's hope that, along with misguided policies on the faux-issue of global warming, and cowardice in the face of terrorists in Iraq, Congress' Democrats publicly declare on this issue, the better to be either: allowed to try to implement universal healthcare nationally, and be routed in a subsequent election, or; be seen for the morons they are to try this, and be voted out before they further impair an already badly-functioning US healthcare system.

Yes, American healthcare needs to be fixed, but not this way. We should move toward more individual responsibility for payment, policy choice, and personal healthiness and fitness.

Tailpipe Johnny's New Carbon Tax

Never in my wildest imagination did I ever think I'd be writing a blog post in praise of John "Tailpipe Johnny" Dingell, the aging mossback Democratic Representative of Detroit, Michigan.

But, in keeping with the ancient proverb of "confusion to our enemies," I am taking fiendish delight in seeing Tailpipe twist Frisco Nan's knickers into a knot over his inclusion of a carbon tax in the new House energy bill.

As a recent Wall Street Journal article (10 July) so well described, Tailpipe is forcing Nan to put her money where her mouth is. He knows that a carbon tax will raise gasoline prices and send voters screaming to the polls to oust the party responsible for it. But he also knows that Nan's approach, which is to just set high CAFE levels so she and her San Francisco hybrid liberal friends, can feel exonerated.

As the Journal piece notes,

"This week's prize for honest liberalism goes to Michigan's John Dingell, who is having fun with his fellow Democrats while also making a useful point about the politics of global warming. The venerable Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee -- first elected in 1955 -- has announced that he plans to introduce as early as this week a new tax on carbon emissions.

Now, that's the way to clear a Capitol Hill hearing room. Americans are already miffed at paying $3 a gallon for gasoline, a fact that has the Members assailing oil companies on a daily basis. So the last thing Democrats seeking re-election want to do is pile on another dollar or two a gallon in taxes -- especially in the name of "saving the planet" from the speculative danger of global warming 50 or 100 years from now. Their voters have to deal with the more immediate danger of missing the mortgage payment.

Mr. Dingell knows all this. His point is to force his colleagues -- and the voters -- to be more honest about the cost of their global-warming posturing. It's one thing to pay 100 bucks to hear Madonna at the "Live Earth" concert, or impress your girlfriend by wearing an "I reduced my carbon footprint" T-shirt. It's quite another to accept that energy prices would have to rise by many multiples to make even a degree's worth of difference to the world's climate. "I sincerely doubt that the American people will be willing to pay what this is really going to cost them," Mr. Dingell said on C-SPAN last week."

In fact, the article notes that Europe has violated its Kyoto-accord carbon limits, and that 1970s-era CAFE regulations didn't stop US gasoline demand from rising, either. Later in the piece, the Journal notes,

"Regarding such a tax, Democrats already have some hard political experience. In 1993, Vice President Al Gore convinced Bill Clinton to propose an energy tax on BTU (British thermal units) usage. That would have added about 12 cents a gallon to the price of gas. House Democrats walked the plank and passed it, only to have Senate Democrats kill it. As much as anything else, that vote cost Democrats control of the House in 1994. Now Mr. Gore has embraced the carbon tax once again -- though we still haven't heard him endorse a direct tax on gas or consumers."

You really have to love our Founding Fathers for constructing a political system so complex that even someone like Tailpipe Johnny eventually finds it worthwhile to take on his own party's House Speaker, in defense of his voters. Despite my dislike for Tailpipe, I truly respect him for forcing the Left Coast liberal hypocrites to now step up and vote their conscience on this faux-issue, while possibly losing their seats...nevermind their asses....in the bargain.

Yet another reason why I believe the 'human-sourced global warming' position is unproven, and dangerous to believe otherwise, for economic reasons. Tailpipe obviously agrees. He also clearly feels the current Speaker has not 'led' sufficiently well on this, or other issues, and is using his committee chairmanship to register his disappointment in Frisco Nan's "leadership."

American Healthcare, Liberty, and the Liberal Democrats

A few weeks ago, in its weekend edition, The Wall Street Journal printed an article discussing an oft-overlooked aspect of many, if not all, of the current crop of "universal healthcare" schemes being floated by various Presidential candidates.

The key question is, as the article is entitled,

"Should Insurance Be Mandatory?"

At issue is a fundamental question of personal liberty which struck me because I spent the past week with my father. He contended, from when I was quite young, that Americans would most likely lose their liberties slowly, in small increments.

Universal healthcare is such an increment. Essentially, the proposition is that all Americans should be forced to buy into one grand health insurance scheme. No exceptions. Then we all pay, it is argued, for caring for the poor, sick, etc.

Sounds fine in principle, eh? A large risk pool over which to spread expensive societal healthcare expenses?

But, wait. What about the large component of individual health that is volitional, and individually determined? Why should I pay for your smoking, drinking, poor diet, and lack of exercise?

It's all well and good to focus on diseases or conditions which may be present from birth, and may be nobody's "fault." However, that does not mean we must subsidize those who, when relieved of the burden of paying, literally, the price for insuring their very unhealthy lifestyle, logically consume more of the free good that is low-priced healthcare coverage for their very healthcare-intensive lifestyle.

Why not simply let the market solve most of this problem? Let those who choose to live medically-expensive lives pay for that privilege, while those who do not, pay less. The truly indigent or those with medical conditions from birth can be included in Medicare or Medicaid.

What troubles me most about the recent frenzy over universal healthcare is that all candidates seem bent on taking one liberty away- the freedom to say "no" to mandatory, or any, healthcare coverage.

Little by little, if this mandatory coverage is extended, our lives will become drab and managed by the state.

First smoking will be simply prohibited, because it costs us too much in healthcare dollars. Next will be alcohol. Then expect certain foods with high fat content to be prohibited, or rationed.

I'm not kidding. When mediocre, small-minded politicians and bureaucrats get it into their pointy little heads that life now exists to be lived at the least expensive total US healthcare system costs, watch your lifestyle freedoms begin to be taken, tiny step by tiny step.

One day, you'll wake up and find that what you eat and do for recreation are regulated in the name of lower universal healthcare premiums.

Socialistic schemes such as mandatory universal healthcare will only remove more of our liberties, without truly improving our health, or healthcare.