Incestuous Narcissism Part 3

indyfromaz|

The difference between a catfish and a lawyer. One is a bottom feeding, mudsucker and the other one is a fish.

What do you call 500 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?

A good start. 

There are a million of them, literally.

Like a swarm of Piranha, if they smell blood in the water boy will there be a feeding frenzy.

Is it any wonder that a large segment, possibly even a majority, of Congress is made up of lawyers.

Really.

No, Not really.

Ever tried to read the Health Care Bill?

I know I did, which is more than Congress, especially the Senate Chairman Max Baucus did.

At Over 2000 pages it would turn any mind to mush to try. Which is why Speaker Pelosi wanted you to pass it first and read it later.

You don’t need to know all the details. Trust us. We have your best interests at heart.

We are the Insufferably Morally and Intellectually Superior.

I just saw a segment on this website: http://facesoflawsuitabuse.org/

Fascinating stuff. You have all the makings of a good horror movie, except for the bikini clad teenage virgin. But give them time, I’m sure there’s a lawsuit involving that somehow.

I would also recommend my blog from Sept 3rd this year: http://indyfromaz.wordpress.com/2010/09/03/the-lawsuit-lottery/

Trial Lawyers and their lawsuits that have driven up the cost of everything, including Health Care, was specifically and deliberately (with extreme prejudice) left out of the Health Care Bill because they are a important component of the Democratic Party base. They are also Congressman to begin with as well.

Jon “Baby Man” Edwards was Trial Lawyer.

Three-quarters of all small business owners in America are concerned they might be the target of a frivolous or unfair lawsuit. Of those who are most concerned, six in ten say the fear of lawsuits makes them feel more constrained in making business decisions generally, and 54 percent say lawsuits or the threat of lawsuits forced them to make decisions they otherwise would not have made.

Small businesses paid $105.4 billion in tort liability costs in 2008.

Tort, fancy word for lawsuit, BTW.

Small businesses are responsible for 64 percent of all new jobs created in the U.S economy. (facesoflawsuitabuse.org)

But faced with massive lawsuits, a massive tax increase on 1/1/11 that Democrats are too cowardly to address, Health care Mandates and fines, financial regulation that choke off productivity, is it any wonder that job creation is in the tank?

Yes, the President did pass what he called a “Small Business” jobs bill, aka yet another Stimulus, but it will be ineffective and is there largely as a PR tool as he is now in 100% campaign mode and nothing else matters.

And banks aren’t really lending the money to begin with. So if you can’t get the loan how can you expand??

America’s civil justice system is the world’s most expensive, with a direct cost in 2008 of $254.7 billion, or 1.79 percent of the U.S. GDP.

The cost of the U.S. tort liability system as a percentage of GDP is more than double the average cost of any other industrialized nation.

Tort costs were $838 per U.S. citizen in 2008, meaning a family of four paid a “litigation tax” of $3,352 for the U.S. civil justice system, a cost driven up due to increased costs from lawsuits and other liability expenses that force businesses to raise the price of products and services. 

But Congress won’t do anything about it, especially not Democrats, as they as incestuously parasitic of each other and the Piranhas in Pinstripes in Congress wouldn’t want to reign in their brethren after all, they might be them again some day.

You wouldn’t wont want be nice to evil Corporate America that just rapes and pillages itself across the land unchecked now would you? 

One of my favorites from the website Face of Lawsuit Abuse (run by The US Chamber of Commerce that was barred and banned from Health Care debate because they dared to disagree with the Almighty Ones) was the landlord who was sued because a tenant claimed that the legally required notices of entry for repair and the like were harassment and caused emotional distress.

Vytas Juskys and his small business manage apartment buildings and are committed to constantly upgrading and making repairs to the homes of the tenants. He thought that improving their apartments and the common areas would help his residents love where they lived; he never expected that one of them would thank him with a lawsuit.

Juskys was in the process of improving an apartment complex he had just acquired when he learned he was being sued. He had been making a variety of repairs to the building and the surrounding facilities, and he was posting regular repair notices on the tenants’ doors, as is required by law.

But one tenant claimed that these notices caused her emotional distress, and she sued Juskys for $500,000. The irony, Juskys says, is that the plaintiff had personally been requesting improvements and then sued him for notifying her that he was planning to make them.

“There’s no way to avoid it,” Juskys says. “At some point, if you’re into real estate, you’re going to get sued. We’re easy prey.” The lawsuit not only took away from Juskys’ ability to focus on his tenants and the properties he manages, it also prevented him from initiating new projects, hiring extra employees and creating jobs.

On the day of the trial, Juskys’ insurance company decided to settle the case, and he was required to pay thousands of dollars out of his own pocket.

Juskys now understands why businesses settle even the most frivolous of lawsuits. Small businesses like his can’t win, he says. Even if he had gone to trial and the jury had ruled in his favor, his only winnings would have been a legal bill, higher insurance rates, and lost time.

“You try to do everything right,” Juskys says, “and it’s just not good enough.”

So his costs go up, your costs go up, the lawyers profits go up.

Why would Congress, full of lawyers, ever want to put a stop to such a thing? 

OR

KALISPELL – A Kalispell girl charged with two counts of deliberate homicide after police say she attempted suicide by driving her car into oncoming traffic has filed a lawsuit against the estate of the woman who died.

The lawsuit filed in Flathead County District Court names the estate of 35-year-old Erin Thompson of Columbia Falls as well as the construction company that built the U.S. 93 overpass at Church Drive where the collision took place near Kalispell on March 19, 2009. The girl is seeking unspecified damages.

The girl and her father filed the lawsuit on July 15 contending Thompson, four months pregnant, caused the crash. Her 13-year-old son, Caden Odell, also died.

Thompson’s husband, Jason Thompson, is listed in the lawsuit as the representative of the estate.

Also named in the lawsuit are Knife River Corp., Western Traffic Control Inc. and Mountain West Holding Co.

Police say the girl was traveling southbound when she crossed the centerline at a speed of 85 mph.

Investigators believe the girl was trying to commit suicide after arguing with her boyfriend earlier in the day. Shortly before the crash, authorities say, she sent him several text messages, including one that said, “Good bye … My last words …” and one that said, “If I won. I would have you. And I wouldn’t crash my car.”

IBD:  Medicare dictates the prices it pays clinicians, facilities, medical suppliers and private health plans through more than a dozen different price-control schemes. Efforts to reduce those prices typically fail because of what Tom Daschle calls the “patient-provider pincer movement”: Medicare enrollees and health care providers join forces to undo those cuts.

Each producer that depends on Medicare for its income faces an enormous incentive to lobby for higher prices. The prices for, say, hospital services could make or break a lot of hospitals. And if the hospitals don’t lobby to increase those prices, who will? Enrollees like the easy access to medical care that comes with higher Medicare spending.

So when the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 reduces the prices Medicare pays physicians (through the “sustainable growth rate” formula), or ObamaCare reduces the prices for hospital services, home health care and Medicare Advantage plans, we can predict — and experience has shown — that intense lobbying by enrollees and the affected producers will thwart these measures.

Now if that isn’t incestuous narcissism what is? Deliberately raising the prices to what you know will be unsustainable levels just because the alternative doesn’t doesn’t benefit you personally.

And if you object you’ll get the “grandma using a dead person’s teeth” story like you did during the Health Care debacle.

And as was mentioned numerous times in this blog the cuts that the Health Care law proposed were to Medicare Advantage, a program that was showing some promise.

And without those cuts, half of the projected “savings” for the Health Care monster evaporate.

So, given the track record of narcissism what do think will happen?

And if they do try and cut them don’t you expect there will be a veritable plague of locusts…I mean Lawyers…all over it and it will be litigated until you’re already dead. But the Lawyers will make millions of it.

In the end the Lawyers win.

And if that isn’t incest at it’s best, what is?

Lawyers are necessary to a point, but the over lawyering lawsuit lottery job killing psycho need for the quick buck frivolous drop of any hat lawsuit is not.

But don’t expect Congress, especially this one, or even a Republican one, to do much about it because that’s asking the wolf to stop playing with the chickens.

And the chickens are going to sue you for  emotional distress for not protecting them from the wolves. And hire a wolf to do it!

Isn’t that just peachy. :)

 

Incestuous Narcissism Part 2

indyfromaz|

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. -Old Chinese Proverb.

And these days not only do people get fish, they demand that you catch it for them and/or “the rich” give them their fish because it’s only “fair”.
And if that fish isn’t good enough for them they will throw it back until they get a bigger, better fish that THEY like!
Unemployment insurance prior to the Age of Obama was for 26 weeks. 6 months and was only meant to help you out in between jobs. Not be de-facto welfare.
Or a stimulus, if you remember what Speaker Pelosi said in July 2010:
“Let me say that unemployment insurance… is one of the biggest stimuluses (sic) to our economy. Economists will tell you, this money is spent quickly. It injects demand into the economy, and it’s job creating. It creates jobs faster than almost any other initiative you can name.”
So unemployment is good for everyone! So nearly 10% unemployment is great!
Aren’t you happy? Don’t you have lots of Hope!?
Now it stretch to 2 YEARS or more. Because Democrats have made finding a job so hard they have to cover their own buts by bribing people.
They call it “compassion”. I call it a bribe. Democrats are very good at paternalistic bribes.
The government pays you not to work. You in turn don’t bother looking. And if you aren’t looking you aren’t one of the statistics on Unemployment numbers because you aren’t looking.
Thus, the government can keep it artificially lower than it already is. Which is very high indeed.
So the Unemployment rate is just another political game to be manipulated.
Meanwhile, you have people just sitting around eating Doritos and hanging out doing nothing and getting paid for it!
And the government doesn’t make it easy to get off the dole either. Whether on purpose or not.
In the first year of unemployment, the size of the benefit check is based on your old salary. You can go right back on unemployment after a temp job, and nothing changes. But federal law requires states to recalculate benefits for the second year. If you worked a few days or a few months, the second year’s checks will be based on that lower earnings total. (Hartford Courant)

So you’re on unemployment, you get a temp job, your benefits get cut. So the obvious answer is to not take the temp job, right?
The government makes you want to stay.
But now Ms. Hanson rues the day she took that work. Why? The Connecticut Department of Labor used her negligible earnings in her part-time job as the new baseline for Hanson’s unemployment benefits. She went from receiving $483 a week to getting nothing.
“Afterwards, unofficially, they said I shouldn’t have taken the job,” Hanson says. (CSM)
Incentives to stay unemployed. Incestuous you might ask? At least I would.
Employers and economists point to several explanations. Extending jobless benefits to 99 weeks gives the unemployed less incentive to search out new work. Millions of homeowners are unable to move for a job because the real-estate collapse leaves them owing more on their homes than they are worth.
The job market itself also has changed. During the crisis, companies slashed millions of middle-skill, middle-wage jobs. That has created a glut of people who can’t qualify for highly skilled jobs but have a hard time adjusting to low-pay, unskilled work…
Many of the applicants he (Mark Sperry of Catepillar) saw at job fairs, he says, were just going through the motions so they could collect their unemployment checks. Some workers agree that unemployment benefits make them less likely to take whatever job comes along, particularly when those jobs don’t pay much. Michael Hatchell, a 52-year-old mechanic in Lumberton, N.C., says he turned down more than a dozen offers during the 59 weeks he was unemployed, because they didn’t pay more than the $450 a week he was collecting in benefits.
It is particularly troubling at a time when 4.3% of the labor force has been out of work for more than six months—a level much higher than after any other recession since 1948. (WSJ)
So what are you to do if Unemployment pays better than the job?
Just game the system.
And the system shall provide.
The disconnect between workers and jobs could constrain the economy for some time. It makes it hard for even small firms, which as a group typically account for an outsize share of job growth in a rebound. (WSJ)
So if you have 99 weeks of unemployment, you go out “looking” for a job but not really, then when it gets to about 95 weeks you get serious about it. But that’s nearly 2 years later!
There was a Swedish study that when they cut the benefit time, the amount of time people kept “looking” decreased in proportion.
Alan Krueger, the current Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and a highly respected labor economist has said in his academic writing exactly that: unemployment insurance causes the unemployed to stay unemployed longer.
In his academic studies Dr. Krueger wrote that “more generous unemployment insurance (UI) benefits have been found to be associated with longer spells of unemployment,” and further finds that “the job finding rate jumps up around the time benefits are exhausted. Most importantly, we find that job search intensity is inversely related to UI benefit generosity for those who are eligible for UI.” In other words, a senior Obama administration official finds that less generous UI benefits cause the unemployed to search harder for new work.
Lawrence Summers, Director of the White House’s National Economic Council has said the same:
“government assistance programs contribute to long-term unemployment by providing an incentive, and the means, not to work. Each unemployed person has a ‘reservation wage’—the minimum wage he or she insists on getting before accepting a job. Unemployment insurance and other social assistance programs increase [the] reservation wage, causing an unemployed person to remain unemployed longer.”
“Public policy designed to help workers who lose their jobs can lead to structural unemployment as an unintended side effect. . . . In other countries, particularly in Europe, benefits are more generous and last longer. The drawback to this generosity is that it reduces a worker’s incentive to quickly find a new job.”-Liberal Economist Paul Krugman’s Macroeconomics textbook.
The Same Paul Krugman  recently described Sen. Jon Kyl’s (R-AZ) statement that unemployment insurance causes individuals to stay out of work longer “a bizarre point of view.”(Heritage.org)
More specifically, In the NY Times:  In Mr. Kyl’s view, then, what we really need to worry about right now — with more than five unemployed workers for every job opening, and long-term unemployment at its highest level since the Great Depression — is whether we’re reducing the incentive of the unemployed to find jobs. To me, that’s a bizarre point of view — but then, I don’t live in Mr. Kyl’s universe.
So, like everything with Liberals, it’s all politics.
We, The Democrats, who have the patent on “compassion” will kiss your behind and let you sit on your ass for 2 years. As long as those evil Republicans don’t come in and demand you have some self-respect that is.
Even if they do, the Democrats will trot out their “grandma eating dog food” “they want to cut you off” “they’re heartless” “mean” “Cruel” class warfare hoaries anyhow.
Or as Mr. Krugman put it, “How can the parties agree on policy when they have utterly different visions of how the economy works, when one party feels for the unemployed, while the other weeps over affluent victims of the “death tax”?
Democrats feel your pain (good,sense they are the cause of most of it!). And Republicans are heartless, greedy and obsessed with the kiss up to “the rich”.
Meanwhile, you sit on your behind for up to 2 years eating Doritos and watching Judge Judy.
Who are you going to vote for, the pimp or Mom who says get you lazy ass off the couch?
Unemployment has become a political weapon and a tool, akin to welfare.
You don’t work, we pay you. You vote for us, we keep paying you.
Regardless of the economic and social cost.
Unemployment insurance exists for good reason, and no-one has suggested abolishing it. However, the good that it does also comes with a cost in delaying the return of the unemployed to work. Economists from right to left and in the Obama administration agree about this. Wishing it were not so does not make it true. Congress should consider both the costs and benefits of extended UI benefits when weighing how many years of benefits to provide unemployed workers. (Heritage).
But what we have now is incest at it’s best.

Incestuous Narcissism Part 1

indyfromaz|

For about 15 years if someone asked me to sum up my philosophy about the people I ranted about I would say “Unenlightened Narcissism” but now I have revised that.
It’s now “Incestuous Narcissism”. Where both parties are consensual in the narcissism and incestuous need for the other, to the exclusion of “the extremists” who don’t buy into their relationship or try to break it up.
Intervention in their incest is not best. It is to be fought to the bitter end.
Part I: Unions
Unions, especially public sector unions, are the perfect example of this relationship.
As a matter of disclosure I have never like Unions, ever. I grew up in a “union town” but was never in a union.
I used to watch them play their games with GM, this being the UAW- United Auto Workers.
They would go on strike because $28/hr in 1975 was too little. And then GM would fire them and then re-hire them. It was  game.
But now, it’s just incest.
The recent booze and pot mess at a Chrysler plant is merely the tip of iceberg. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVmKyJXHXRE)
What you have is simple. (This is a California graphic, but it applies nationally)

Taxpayer gives money to Government, Government gives money to Union and then gives money back to Government Officials in the form of political and lobbyist contributions.

It’s an incestuous circle.

And when they need more money the government simply borrows more money from China or it takes it from you.

The GM bailout was not about GM, the company. It was about The UAW, which now has bigger stake (and thus more power) in the company and will be even harder to discipline.

The 15 workers identified in the video were suspended by Chrysler, but the Union is saying nothing.

The $30 Billion bailout that Congress had to interrupt their summer vacation for was for government teachers unions, nothing else.

Albany Police Officers Union President Chris Mesley says that, regardless of the faltering economy, a no-raise new contract is unacceptable.
And to hell with the public.
“I’m not running a popularity contest here,” Mesley said. “If I’m the bad guy to the average citizen . . . and their taxes have go up to cover my raise, I’m very sorry about that, but I have to look out for myself and my membership.”
Mesley added: “As the president of the local, I will not accept ‘zeroes.’ If that means . . . ticking off some taxpayers, then so be it.”

Here are some of the facts;
Public pensions have unfunded liability of $1 trillion to $3.5 trillion
Federal workers take home twice pay and benefits as private workers. Local and state workers also make more.
Total                      Pay           Benefits           Difference
Private                 $59,909      $50,028         $9,881
Local/state          $67,812      $52,051        $15,761
Federal               $119,982     $79,197        $40,785
– Average TWU (NY Transit Workers) union worker makes $60K without overtime or benefits.
– 25% took 15 or more sick days.  Average was 8 sick days.
– Fox average 3 sick days (same for men and women)
– No FOX employee took 15 days
Relative Danger of Jobs (Deaths per 100,000 workers)
– Fishing      128.9
–Logging     115.7
–Iron workers  46.4
–Farmers       39.5
–Firemen   3.8
–Transit workers 1.4
(Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, except Transit worker death, that is from interview with TWU Local100 President)
Some people argue that there’s no alternative to the government monopoly on municipal work, but Sandy Springs, Georgia, privatized most of it’s jobs in 2005.  Now the city pays about ½ of what it used to pay.  It enjoys a $14 million surplus, in addition to funding a $20 million reserve. (John Stossel)
And the Union bosses defense: They have a dirty job. People Spit on them! Boo Hoo! Women get Pregnant! (really, he said it repeatedly).
Though Statistics show that the deadliest profession is Deep Water Fishing (aka Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch”).
But you don’t seem getting these kinds of perks. They aren’t pimping or whoring for the government and vice versa like Union are.
That mean nothing to our Union Narcissist. He doesn’t care about fishing. It’s all about him and his own.
He’s entitled to retire at 50 with a pension you will never even dream of.

Compensation	A. State and Local	B. Private Sector	Ratio A/B
Total Compensation	$39.66	$27.42	1.45
Wages and salaries	$26.01	$19.39	1.34
Benefits	$13.65	$8.02	1.7
Paid Leave	$3.27	$1.85	1.77
Supplemental Pay	$0.34	$0.83	0.41
Health insurance	$4.34	$1.99	2.18
Defined benefit pension	$2.85	$0.41	6.95
Defined contribution pension	$0.31	$0.53	0.58
Other benefits	$2.53	$2.40	1.05

(redstate.com)
http://www.foxnewsinsider.com/2010/09/24/john-stossel-hosts-the-battle-for-the-future/
Whole Program  John Stossel “Battle for the Future”  in Six parts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7PGbZSs4xM
Then there’s The NEA, the National Teachers Association, a government union.
They are also incestuous.
John Stossel again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXFVeATlCDo

Like the fact that, despite pouring ever more money into the schools these past 40 years, America has fallen behind dozens of industrialized countries in math and science.
And the fact that every day in this country, 7,000 kids drop out of high school.
And that at this rate, by the year 2020, there will be 123 million American jobs for highly skilled and highly paid workers, but only 50 million Americans will be qualified to fill them.

Because of their political sway, teachers, no matter how good, are almost never rewarded. And no matter how bad, they are almost never fired. Contract rules in New York City even keep unwanted teachers on the payroll for unlimited amounts of time when they’re not in the classroom at all.

Isn’t the NEA’s only recourse to say they need more money?
According to NEA-NH Insider the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (The Stimulus)…

…represents a huge win for education thanks to unprecedented funding increases targeted to local districts.  ARRA also included increases for Title I, stabilization funding, and school construction bonds. This adds up. The US Dept. of Education saw funding increase $159.4 billion – an increase of 169%.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has saved approximately 325,000 education related jobs nationwide. Dr. Christina Romer, head of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), stated that state stabilization funding to states has been “one of the triumphs” and has had “more bite than we would have thought.” Dr. Romer’s observation affirms the economic value to the nation of what was one of NEA’s major priorities in the stimulus package, and reinforces our argument in favor of continuing such aid through an Education Jobs Fund.

That’s “saved or created” for you…
And given the Incestuous circle of Taypayer-Government-Union-Lobbyist Contribution is it any wonder that pouring more money down this rathole isn’t working?

The National Education Association, the larger of the two national teachers unions, considered spending $3.5 million to create an ad campaign to counter “the media propaganda of this summer’s series of anti-teacher union documentaries,” according to an agenda from its July meeting.
In the end, union officials decided it wasn’t worth it, said John Wilson, executive director.
“I think the films are a blip. They will come and go, but the union will still be there, our members will still be in these schools,” he said. “We don’t see any advantage of going to war with documentarians.” (Sacramento Bee)

Well, when you’re f*cking the boss (aka government) and creating the next generation of people who will view themselves as entitled to the fruits of others and that government must save them from themselves it’s Orwellian incestual indoctrination at it’s best.
Is it any wonder that the Democrats #1 base supporters are their own whores, The Unions, and that they care more about them than you.
And if you want to intervene in their mutual incest-fest you’re an “extremist”, a “kook” a “loon” and have to be stomped on.

Narcissistic personality disorder symptoms may include:

• Believing that you’re better than others
• Fantasizing about power, success and attractiveness
• Exaggerating your achievements or talents
• Expecting constant praise and admiration
• Believing that you’re special and acting accordingly
• Failing to recognize other people’s emotions and feelings
• Expecting others to go along with your ideas and plans
• Taking advantage of others
• Expressing disdain for those you feel are inferior
• Being jealous of others
• Believing that others are jealous of you
• Trouble keeping healthy relationships
• Setting unrealistic goals
• Being easily hurt and rejected
• Having a fragile self-esteem
• Appearing as tough-minded or unemotional

Although some features of narcissistic personality disorder may seem like having confidence or strong self-esteem, it’s not the same. Narcissistic personality disorder crosses the border of healthy confidence and self-esteem into thinking so highly of yourself that you put yourself on a pedestal. In contrast, people who have healthy confidence and self-esteem don’t value themselves more than they value others.
When you have narcissistic personality disorder, you may come across as conceited, boastful or pretentious. You often monopolize conversations. You may belittle or look down on people you perceive as inferior. You may have a sense of entitlement. And when you don’t receive the special treatment to which you feel entitled, you may become very impatient or angry. You may insist on having “the best” of everything — the best car, athletic club, medical care or social circles, for instance.
But underneath all this behavior often lies a fragile self-esteem. You have trouble handling anything that may be perceived as criticism. You may have a sense of secret shame and humiliation. And in order to make yourself feel better, you may react with rage or contempt and efforts to belittle the other person to make yourself appear better. (Mayo Clinic)
Tell Me that doesn’t sound like your garden variety Liberal?
Go on…I dare you…
Part 2: The People and Unemployment

Tax cuts? Moi?

indyfromaz|

The Largest Job-killing, family killing, economy-killing Tax increases are looming.
1/1/11.
But the Democrats are frozen with fear. If they vote to keep the tax cuts they can’t play their Class Warfare envy card,It’s worked for them for decades and gotten them a lot of power, and their base of mindless sheep will sheer them if they do.
They have whole generations of people that are slaves to to their will.
They like that. They want more of that.
But they know it will hurt them politically if they let them them expire.
They know, intrinsically, how much damage it will do.
So they try to mitigate it by trying to have their cake and eat it too.
We’ll only raise them on “the rich”. After all, the class envy weapon is one of their favourites.
Fear, jealousy, envy,greed, dependence. They love them all.
Problem is, that isn’t working either.
So, let’s do absolutely nothing before the election. Then we can give everyone Lame Duck Poisoning.
And it won’t matter. At least to them.
Now, that’s REAL Leadership!
YES WE CAN! DO NOTHING!
FEAR IS HOPE

With just weeks to go before the midterm elections, Americans have made it clear they don’t want their taxes raised. So what do congressional Democrats do? Nothing — at least until the elections are over.
For months, Democrats have hammered Republicans for trying to keep President Bush’s tax cuts in place for everyone, not just the middle class and those who no longer pay taxes. That would be a “giveaway to the rich,” they contend. But guess what? Most Americans don’t see it that way.
In a recent Fox News/Opinion Dynamics Poll, 63% want the Bush-era tax cuts — now set to expire at year-end — to remain in place. In the latest IBD/TIPP Poll, 48% favor making the cuts permanent vs. 30% opposed. And as for taxes on the rich, an AP-GfK Poll found that 39% support letting taxes go up only on those earning over $250,000, but 44% oppose the idea.
Hence, the Democrats’ dilemma: Either way they vote, they’ll anger a large chunk of the electorate — at a time when they need all the votes they can get to keep from being swept out of power.
So rather than hold an up-or-down vote on a tax bill that reflects their true beliefs, Democrats are postponing any action until after the elections. Obviously they know that what they really want to do will be wildly unpopular, and perhaps cost them seats.
But Americans know what they want, too, and they’ll see through the politics Democrats are playing with the economy at a time we can least afford it.
If they’ve decided to hike taxes during a lame-duck session of Congress after the election, they sure shouldn’t keep it secret. If people feel lied to during the election, they won’t be very happy. Democrats need to let their intentions be known — or face the wrath of the voters later.
If they think they can raise taxes on everyone or slap the “rich” with higher taxes and get away with it, they might be surprised. Ultimately, this will be a politically self-defeating strategy, making their far-left voter base happy but sacrificing middle-of-the-road Democrats who want to see the economy create jobs again.
Taxing the rich sounds good on paper or as a sound-bite in the left-dominated mainstream media, but it’s the rich who create businesses and do most of the hiring in this country. Tax these entrepreneurs and you tax jobs — the last thing we need after losing 8 million in three years.
As economist Curtis Dubay of the Heritage Foundation has noted, tax hikes on the rich “will slow down economic growth and job creation while the economy struggles to recover from a steep recession . .. (and) will hurt Americans at all income levels.”
Running a standard econometric model, Dubay estimates that letting taxes rise just on the rich, as President Obama and Senate Democrats propose, will cost the economy 7 million jobs over the next decade — and nearly $720 billion, or $6,000 per household, in income.
That’s an awful price to pay for envy. Before voting this fall, Americans should pin down their representatives on where they stand on tax cuts. Republicans have put out their Pledge to America, so you know what they stand for. What about the Democrats? (IBD)

And As if that wasn’t enough, The Democrats have decided on an Armageddon strategy as well, poisoning the well.
Leave nothing behind.
Unleash The Democrat A-Bomb.
The Ad-Hominem Bomb.
NewYork Times- WASHINGTON — Democratic candidates across the country are opening a fierce offensive of negative advertisements against Republicans, using lawsuits, tax filings, reports from the Better Business Bureau and even divorce proceedings to try to discredit their opponents and save their congressional majority.
Opposition research and attack advertising are deployed in almost every election, but these biting ads are coming far earlier than ever before, according to party strategists. The campaign has intensified in the past two weeks as early voting begins in several states and as vulnerable incumbents try to fight off an onslaught of influences by outside groups.
Metaphorically and politically, KILL EVERYONE!
If we can’t rule, no one can!
Say Anything, but do nothing.
Now’s that’s real leadership!
And when that doesn’t work, just LIE.

LAS VEGAS – Rep. Dina Titus has been a loyal soldier in pushing the Democrats’ ambitious agenda, voting for health care legislation, extended unemployment benefits, new energy taxes and a repeal of the military’s ban on gays serving openly.
Her campaign signs, however, proclaim Titus an “independent voice” for Nevadans.
Aware that their stock has taken the same tumble as home values, Congress’ most vulnerable Democrats are declaring their independence from their party’s agenda in Facebook profiles, television advertisements, news interviews and campaign websites leading up to the Nov. 2 election. That’s when Republicans hope to retake control of the House they lost four years ago.
Titus and others have raised eyebrows for carrying water for Obama in vote after vote, only to pivot and say they are not beholden to a party.

“I’m an independent”. I voted for every single piece of the radical leftist socialism, but I’m an “independent”.
As an actual, independent I should sue them for defamation of character. The grand fraud they hope to perpetrate with the help of the Ministry of Truth is truly mind-blowing.
So, now,  you’re now too stupid to recognize the fraud, and the lies.

So what was the President’s response to the Republican’s Ideas (remembering that they are the “party of no” and “have no ideas” according to The President, The Liberal Media, and The Democrats) about cutting spending and less government?
“It is grounded in the same worn-out philosophy: cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires; cut the rules for Wall Street and the special interests; and cut the middle class loose to fend for itself,” Obama said.

“That’s not a prescription for a better future. It’s an echo of a disastrous decade we can’t afford to relive.”

I could have written it myself and it would have sounded the same. It’s the same old hackneyed class warfare talking points.  Bush’s fault. Nothing of substance.
Yadda Yadda Yadda….
What we can’t afford to relive Mr. President is your last 20 months!

See also:

http://indyfromaz.wordpress.com/2010/07/11/poisoning-the-well-with-lame-duck/

Clowns to the Left of Us…

indyfromaz|

Want to know how serious the Democrats are about border security and immigration?

Well, let’s invite a comedian to do his testimony in front of a live Congressional Committee (estimated to cost $125,000 taxpayers) to mock the whole idea of immigrant labor on farms.
This ain’t no Elmo moment, this was a serious mockery of Congress and immigration.
With joblessness near double digits, federal spending hurtling us toward national bankruptcy and an Islamic terror regime seeking nukes, what is Congress doing? Taking testimony from comedians.
What was Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., thinking when she invited Comedy Central’s faux right-wing pundit Stephen Colbert to appear — “in character”! — before her House Judiciary subcommittee on immigration?
But what does she care? She’s a 15-year incumbent whose San Jose district is so far to the left that she routinely gets re-elected with over 70% of the vote.
WASHINGTON – Taking his blowhard comedy act to Congress, Stephen Colbert told lawmakers that a day picking beans alongside illegal immigrants convinced him that farm work is “really, really hard.”
“It turns out — and I did not know this — most soil is at ground level,” Colbert testified Friday. Also, “It was hotter than I like to be.”
Still, Colbert expressed befuddlement that more Americans aren’t clamoring to “begin an exciting career” in the fields and instead are leaving the low-paid work to illegal immigrants.
Staying in character as a Comedy Central news commentator, Colbert offered a House hearing his “vast” knowledge, drawn from spending a single day on a New York farm as a guest of the United Farm Workers.
The union launched its “Take Our Jobs” campaign to back up its claim that few Americans would do the work of farm laborers, the vast majority of whom are in the U.S. illegally. Only seven people accepted the jobs, the union said.
Colbert pleaded with lawmakers to do something about the farm labor issue because “I am not going back out there.”
A House bill that creates a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants has been filed and another is being drafted in the Senate but Congress is due to recess soon to focus on fall elections. The bills, or pieces of them, could come up in a lame-duck session after the November balloting.
As the immigration subcommittee hearing began, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers praised Colbert for drawing a roomful of onlookers and photographers. Then he asked the comedian to leave the room — and to leave the job of testifying to the expert witnesses, including Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez.
“You run your show, we run the committee,” said Conyers, D-Mich.
Congressional committees frequently invite entertainment or sports personalities to testify on specific issues in an attempt to draw media attention. Colbert has no background or expertise in either farm labor issues or immigration policy.
Colbert said he was there at the invitation of subcommittee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif. And Conyers later gave him the go-ahead, apparently hoping Colbert’s performance would counter the testimony of a political science professor who said illegal immigrants were competing with black and Hispanic citizens for jobs.
Colbert wiped his brow and launched into his mock right-wing schtick, demanding that lawmakers do something about the agriculture industry’s dependence on immigrant labor.
“I’m not a fan of the government doing anything,” Colbert insisted. “But I’ve got to ask, Why isn’t the government doing anything?”
Colbert’s humor drew guffaws from the audience and several Democrats on the subcommittee. But most of the Republicans sat stone-faced.
“Maybe we should be spending less time watching Comedy Central and more time considering all the real jobs that are out there,” said Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa.
At the close of the hearing, Colbert dropped his TV persona and turned serious, saying he was using his celebrity to bring attention to farm labor because “these seem to be the least of my brothers.”
“Right now migrant workers suffer and have no rights,” Colbert said.
The Insufferably Morally and Intellectual Left was taking the mickey out of you. They were mocking you. They are so far above you that you can’t even comprehend how brilliant this was…
Lofgren is also chairwoman of the House Homeland Security Committee’s subcommittee on border, maritime and global counterterrorism. So maybe we’ll soon hear Robin Williams’ take on countering terrorists sneaking in from Mexico.
The big question, presumably, is whether Lofgren will ask Williams and Carrey to appear as themselves, or as Mork the space alien and Carrey’s dopey character from “Dumb and Dumber.”
Big automatic tax increases loom. Afghanistan’s not going too well. Iran may soon have atomic weapons. You’d think Democrats holding such high positions of responsibility had more pressing things to do than listen to jokesters.

Oh, and the vote to stop the LARGEST TAX INCREASE IN AMERICA HISTORY on 1/1/11, The Democrats don’t really care enough.
Comedians doing faux testimony and ad hominem attack ads are far more compelling.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - U.S. House Republican leader John Boehner is criticizing Democratic leaders in Congress for postponing a vote on extending Bush-era tax cuts until after the Nov. 2 election.

But they are way smarter than you. That's why they are going to be trotting out the "grandma eating dog food" and "starving your kids" and "killing grandma" and "stealing your check"  class warfare BS, et al.

FEAR IS HOPE

The Peasants are Revolting!!

indyfromaz|

“Sire, The Peasants are Revolting.”
“You’re telling me, they stink on ice” (Mel Brook’s History of the World Part 1)

And from one of the best films ever, Monty Python & The Holy Grail.
ARTHUR: I am your king! (Think Obama, The Ivy Tower Harvard Educated Community Organizer and Academic Professor )

OLD WOMAN: Well, I didn’t vote for you.
ARTHUR: You don’t vote for kings.
OLD WOMAN: Well, how did you become king, then?
ARTHUR: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held Excalibur aloft from the bosom of the water to signify by Divine Providence … that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur … That is why I am your king!
DENNIS: Look, strange women lying on their backs in ponds handing out swords … that’s no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony. ( and ours ignores that in favor of  Socialist Keynesian Liberal Academic Fantasies and “democratic” cramdowns for your own good because we are so morally and intellectually superior)

ARTHUR: Be quiet! (HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to the Insurance Industry)

DENNIS: You can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just ’cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!
ARTHUR: Shut up!
DENNIS: I mean, if I went around saying I was an Emperor because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, people would put me away!
ARTHUR: (Grabbing him by the collar) Shut up, will you. Shut up!
DENNIS: Ah! NOW … we see the violence inherent in the system.
ARTHUR: Shut up! (DAMN TEA PARTIERS!)

PEOPLE (i.e. other PEASANTS) are appearing and watching.
DENNIS: (calling) Come and see the violence inherent in the system. Help, help, I’m being repressed!
ARTHUR: (aware that people are now coming out and watching) Bloody peasant! (pushes DENNIS over into mud and prepares to ride off) (Bloody Teabagger!)

DENNIS: Oh, Did you hear that! What a give-away.
ARTHUR: Come on, patsy.
They ride off.
DENNIS: (in the background as we PULL OUT) did you see him repressing me, then? That’s what I’ve been on about …
Call the NAACP!!, LA Raza, or MSDNC…


But now to the more serious point. This amazing article by Victor David Hanson.
Traditional peasant societies believe in only a limited good. The more your neighbor earns, the less someone else gets. Profits are seen as a sort of theft. They must be either hidden or redistributed. Envy rather than admiration of success reigns.
In contrast, Western civilization began with a very different ancient Greek idea of an autonomous citizen, not an indentured serf or subsistence peasant. The small, independent landowner — if left to his own talents and if his success was protected by, and from, government — would create new sources of wealth for everyone. The resulting greater bounty for the poor soon trumped their old jealousy of the better off.
Citizens of ancient Greece and Italy soon proved more prosperous and free than either the tribal folk to the north and west, or the imperial subjects to the south and east. The success of later Western civilization in general, and America in particular, is testament to this legacy of the freedom of the individual in the widest political and economic sense
We seem to be forgetting that lately — though Mao Zedong’s redistributive failures in China, or present-day bankrupt Greece, should warn us about what happens when government tries to enforce an equality of result rather than of opportunity.
Even after the failure of statism at the end of the Cold War, the disasters of socialism in Venezuela and Cuba, and the recent financial meltdowns in the European Union, for some reason America is returning to a peasant mentality of a limited good that redistributes wealth rather than creates it. Candidate Obama’s “spread the wealth” slip to Joe the Plumber simply was upgraded to President Obama’s “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”
The more his administration castigates insurers, businesses and doctors; raises taxes on the upper income brackets; and creates more regulations, the more those who create wealth are sitting out, neither hiring nor lending. The result is that traditional self-interested profit-makers are locking up trillions of dollars in unspent cash rather than using it to take risks and either lose money due to new red tape or see much of their profit largely confiscated through higher taxes.
No wonder that in such a climate of fear and suspicion, unemployment remains near 10 percent. Deficits chronically exceed $1 trillion per annum. And now the poverty rate has hit a historic high. We are all getting poorer in hopes that a few don’t get richer.
The public is seldom told that 1 percent of taxpayers already pay 40 percent of the income taxes collected, while 40 percent of income earners are exempt from federal income tax — or that present entitlements like Medicare and Social Security are financially unsustainable. Instead, they hear more often that those who managed to scheme to make above $250,000 per year have obligations to the rest of us to give back about 60 percent of what they earn in higher health care and income taxes — together with payroll and rising state income taxes, and along with increased capital gains and inheritance taxes.
That limited-good mind-set expects that businesses will agree that they now make enough money and so have no need to pursue any more profits at the expense of others. Therefore, they will gladly still hire the unemployed and buy new equipment — as they pay higher health care or income taxes to a government that knows far better how to redistribute their income to the more needy or deserving.
This peasant approach to commerce also assumes that businesses either cannot understand administration signals or can do nothing about them. So who cares that in the Chrysler bankruptcy settlement, quite arbitrarily the government put the unions in front of the legally entitled lenders?
Health insurers should not mind that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius just warned them to keep their profits down and their mouths shut — or face exclusion from health care markets.
I suppose that no corporation should worry that the government arbitrarily announced — without benefit a law or court ruling — that it wanted BP to put up $20 billion in cleanup costs for the Gulf spill.

What optimistic Americans used to call a rising tide that lifts all boats is now once again derided as trickle-down economics.

In other words, a newly peasant-minded America is willing to become collectively poorer so that some will not become wealthier.

The present economy suggests that it is surely getting its wish. (Townhall.com)
But damn it will feel good, at least for liberals, to stick to the rich bastards.
Class warfare is like the fire they set at night to keep them warm and to warn off the predators lurking in the dark. It warms the cuckolds of their hearts and give them sustenance.
Envy, and Fear. Fear and Envy.
FEAR IS HOPE
Mind you, Everyone in Congress and the President are “rich”, millionaires in fact. But they aren’t evil because they are Liberals. And they are in “Public Service” so they are the Insufferably Morally and Intellectually Superior Left and not evil “rich” millionaires.
And big companies run by Millionaire CEOs (hello, GM,Chrysler etc) or Unions are not evil capitalist bastards out to destroy everyone in their path, because they are Liberals.
Evil “rich” people are only Republicans and Conservatives, you notice. Funny how that works out.
No partisan politics involved there.
Orwell was piker compared to these guys.
Did you see him (the evil “rich” and/or republican) repressing me?

Happy Birthday ObamaCare

indyfromaz|

Happy Birthday, ObamaCare. Six months old today and raising the cost of medical care, restricting patient options and causing employers to drop workers three years before even being fully implemented.
Congratulations!!

Steve Kelly

Take Minnesotan Gail C., who hoped to offset a monthly premium increase by raising her deductible. Instead, her insurer advised that such a change would not comply with ObamaCare provisions. She could make the adjustment but would no longer have guaranteed rates and could face penalties for exercising what used to be her freedom of choice.
When Conservatives for Patients’ Rights launched in February 2009, we called for patient-centered, free-market health care reform based on Four Pillars — choice, competition, accountability and personal responsibility. Instead, ObamaCare removes choice from patients and doctors, strangles market competition, provides no accountability from government and relegates personal responsibility — and control — to the ash heap of history.
Worse, it includes purchase mandates forcing individuals to buy health care — and employers to provide it — or face stiff fines.
Citing constitutional and statutory grounds, 43 states have now either joined Florida’s lawsuit to oppose ObamaCare, instituted their own legal challenges, filed legislation against coverage mandates or have citizen initiatives in play.
As far back as June 2009, national polls showed that Americans opposed key provisions by more than 55%. A poll taken by CNN hours before the March 2010 vote found that the majority of Americans did not support the bill. Sixty-two percent felt it would increase health care costs, and 70% thought it would swell the deficit. They were right.
The will of the people remains clear. An August poll by the liberal-leaning Kaiser Family Foundation found that 48% of independent voters held unfavorable views, and a recent Rasmussen poll shows that 61% of likely voters and 74% of “mainstream” voters openly favor repeal. With $500 billion in Medicare cuts heading to states and $600 billion in taxes and penalties aimed at consumers and businesses, Americans know that ObamaCare is a train wreck.
Government actuaries are predicting that health care costs could soon rise 20%, faster than if government had done nothing. A Congressional Budget Office analysis released just before the March vote indicated that premiums could double in six years.
Americans don’t need a 14-digit calculator to predict what happens when insurers must immediately take all comers to coverage — even those who got sick yesterday — without higher premiums. Restrictions make private coverage unsustainable. Which, of course, was always the endgame of ObamaCare.
As midterm elections approach, voters’ aversion to ObamaCare is apparent. Many House and Senate Members who voted for the plan are preparing for pink slips. In Arkansas, 64% opposed the “yea” vote of incumbent Sen. Blanche Lincoln, and 61% approved the “nea” of GOP Rep. John Boozman, who is challenging her. Boozman leads Lincoln by 17 points.
While many incumbents lost to primary challengers, the 34 House Democrats who voted against ObamaCare survived. And it’s impossible to find pro-ObamaCare references in any campaign advertising.
More significant than actual election results, these prevailing political trends demonstrate the resurgent will of the American people. All is not lost; that which has been done can be undone.
In early 2009, CPR met with the editorial board of a major national newspaper. After hearing our Four Pillars and mission to oppose government control of health care and the public option in particular, board members said we were wasting time and money as the debate would be over and government health care passed within 90 days.
Fifteen months later, ObamaCare barely passed, and only when conservative Democrats caved to leadership pressure and the offer of tantalizing political goodies. And it passed without the public option, previously considered a given. Such miscalculations show political elites to be fundamentally at odds with values like choice, competition, accountability and personal responsibility.
The people were right last March and are still right today. Because groups like Conservatives for Patients’ Rights embraced real, constructive reform, ObamaCare was passed over the objections of a public educated on its details and the consequences for American health care. Speaker Nancy Pelosi may have needed to pass it to know what was in it, but America didn’t.
The people didn’t want it then, don’t want it now and have always had the power to go back. They want patient-centered reforms that lower cost and expand choice without government control. And they want Obama-Care repealed. Americans will not cease efforts to that end, and no elected official is safe until it’s done. In this republic, the will of the people ultimately prevails. (IBD)

There is ample evidence to show that ObamaCare will cost jobs, raise health care costs and saddle future generations with crippling debt.
But don’t you dare blame the increases in premiums and costs on Obamacare!
Straight from the Horse’s Mouth, or in this case a Jackass (Donkey).
HHS Secretary Sebelius has already threatened them, but now Sen. Max “I never read the bill” Baucus (and Senate Health Care Bill author) is threatening them.
NEW YORK, Sept 20 (Reuters) – Two Democratic U.S. senators are demanding more transparency about premium increases from health insurers and warning them against blaming higher rates on a newly passed reform law. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus of Montana and Commerce Committee Chairman John Rockefeller of West Virginia said they sent a letter to the five largest health insurers by enrollment registering their concerns over increases for next year.
“I want health insurance companies to be transparent and honest when increasing premiums  (You First. )– and health care reform is simply not to blame,” Rockefeller said in a statement.
“Health plans will continue to do everything they can to implement the new law in a way that minimizes disruption and keeps coverage as affordable as possible for individuals, families and employers,” Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans organization, said in a statement. “Political attacks won’t do anything to make coverage more affordable for working families and small businesses that are struggling in a slow economy,” Zirkelbach said.

But Politicial attacks is all the Democrats now how to do. Especially 40 days from an election it’s all they know how to do.
“Health insurers should be transparent about the assumptions they use to arrive at their premium increases,” the senators wrote. “If an insurer thinks it can blame the enactment of the Affordable Care Act for its rising premiums, it is surely mistaken.”
Don’t blame the actual cause, because that’s not politically advantageous to us. So we want you to lie, just like we do and sugar coat it, suck it up, and give them the Orwellian Bovine Fecal Matter that we have been shoveling in their direction for 2 years.
Or at the very least shut up and do as you are told.
Health Czarina and Grand Vizier, the Great and Powerful OZ Says so or else we will bring about our terrible wrath upon you!
You wouldn’t want to be on their Enemies List now would you?


ObamaCare gives Ms. Sebelius’s regulators the power to define “unreasonable” premium hikes, which will mean whatever they decide it will mean later this fall. She promised to keep a list of insurers “with a record of unjustified rate increases” and then to bar them from ObamaCare’s subsidized “exchanges” when they come on line in 2014. In other words, insurers must accept price controls now or face the retribution of a de facto ban on selling their products to consumers four years from now.
This is nasty stuff and an obvious attempt to shift political blame for rising insurance costs before the election. It’s also an early sign of life under ObamaCare, when all health-care decisions are political and the bureaucrats decide who can charge how much for a service or product.
Democrats built this system and they now own it politically. The least they could do is take credit for its consequences. (WSJ)

Senator Max Baucus recently admitted that he never read the Obamacare legislation.  But that hasn’t stopped him from trying to re-write it after the fact, asserting that Congress intended to give people even less choice of private health plans than described in the bill!
This overreach should encourage states that are trying to block Obamacare: It’s going to be even worse than we initially thought.
Obamacare reduces choice of health plans by giving government the power to control the Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) – the amount of dollars an insurer spends on medical care divided by the total premiums. Under Obamacare, policies that cover large businesses will have to achieve an MLR of 85 percent, while those for small businesses and individuals will have to achieve an MLR of 80 percent. This sounds simple but leaves many issues unresolved.
An important one is the treatment of taxes: Taxes are not medical care, but nor are they under health plans’ control. So, Obamacare excludes taxes from total costs used to calculate the MLR. Senator Baucus leads a group of senators who now assert that what they meant to pass was a bill that exempted some taxes from health plans’ MLR calculations, but not corporate income taxes.
If it prevails, Baucus’ flawed notion will lead to an immediate reduction of choice of health plans.  Suppose two insurers of the same size compete in a region’s large-group market. They earn premiums of $1 million each. They each spend $850,000 on medical claims, thereby achieving an MLR of 85 percent. One insurer is for-profit, earning a profit of 4 percent ($40,000), and pays combined federal and state corporate income tax of 45 percent ($18,000). Its MLR automatically shrinks to 83.5 percent and Obamacare shuts it down.
Even without Baucus’ newly invented interpretation, the MLR is deadly for increasingly popular consumer-directed plans. Suppose a traditional policy costs $4,000 and spends $3,400 on patient care, for an MLR of 85.00. With the consumer-directed policy, the patient controls $800 more of the medical spending than with the traditional policy, through a higher deductible, and his premium goes down by $800. In this case the MLR goes down to 81.25 ($2,600/$3,200). There is no real difference, but the accounting looks worse, and Obamacare shuts it down. (In fact, consumer-driven plans have lower total costs than in this simple example, because cutting out the middleman and giving more health dollars to patients to control themselves motivates them to get better value for money.)
MLRs are also irrelevant because the insured and their employers tend to choose health plans based on other criteria—likely invisible to politicians and bureaucrats. Plans with relatively low MLRs have increased market share in the last few years.
There is no doubt: Obamacare will severely reduce Americans’ choice of health plans. Fortunately, states are using a number of tools to resist Obamacare, until it is repealed. To impose its anti-choice regulations, the federal law relies on state-based “exchanges” that would choose health insurance for their citizens.
Tim Pawlenty, governor of Minnesota, has signed an executive order forbidding state bureaucrats from even applying for federal grants to set up an “exchange” to limit people’s choice of health plan. As Obamacare deploys its regulatory regime, other governors are likely to follow his lead.
So Happy Birthday to the worst political stink bomb in American History.

Adverse Selection

indyfromaz|

The leftists are all in a tizzy. A tizzy of their own making mind you.
But they’ll never see it that way. Because it was done “for the children” and the Insufferably Morally Superior Left doesn’t care about reality in their fantasies and delusions of “fairness” and “equality” in their own minds.
It makes them “feel good”.
Here’s a little lesson the Left refuses to hear about reality:
People who buy insurance often have a better idea of the risks they face than do the sellers of insurance. People who know that they face large risks are more likely to buy insurance than people who face small risks. Insurance companies try to minimize the problem that only the people with big risks will buy their product, which is the problem of adverse selection, by trying to measure risk and to adjust prices they charge for this risk. Thus, life insurance companies require medical examinations and will refuse policies to people who have terminal illnesses, and automobile insurance companies charge much more to people with a conviction for drunk driving or if you get into an accident (or if your neighbors are idiots you’re going to pay more because of a more adverse selection–that’s why “my rates keep going up but I haven’t caused any accidents”).
It describes a situation where an individual’s demand for insurance (either the propensity to buy insurance, or the quantity purchased, or both) is positively correlated with the individual’s risk of loss (e.g. higher risks buy more insurance), and the insurer is unable to allow for this correlation in the price of insurance. This may be because of private information known only to the individual (information asymmetry), or because of regulations or social norms which prevent the insurer from using certain categories of known information to set prices (e.g. the insurer may be prohibited from using information such as gender or ethnic origin or genetic test results). The latter scenario is sometimes referred to as ‘regulatory adverse selection’.
And regulatory adverse selection is what we have in droves in the Insufferably Morally Superior Left Health Care Cramdown.
And the little superior moralists are shocked and applauded that the insurance industry would actually follow these principle laid out above and not just roll over and kiss their morally superior asses and do  “the right thing for the children” and as they are told like a good little doggie.
Health plans in at least four states have announced they’re dropping children’s coverage just days ahead of new rules created by the healthcare reform law, according to the liberal grassroots group Health Care for America Now (HCAN).
The new healthcare law forbids insurers from turning down children with pre-existing conditions starting Thursday, one of several reforms Democrats are eager to highlight this week as they try to build support for the law ahead of the mid-term elections. But news of insurers dropping their plans as a result of the new law has thrown a damper on that strategy and prompted fierce push-back from the administration’s allies at HCAN.
The announcement could lead to higher costs for some parents who are buying separate coverage for themselves and their children at lower cost than the family coverage that’s available to them.
“We’re just days away from a new era when insurance companies must stop denying coverage to kids just because they are sick, and now some of the biggest changed their minds and decided to refuse to sell child-only coverage,” HCAN Executive Director Ethan Rome said in a statement. “The latest announcement by the insurance companies that they won’t cover kids is immoral, and to blame their appalling behavior on the new law is patently dishonest.
“Instead, they should reverse their actions immediately and simply follow the law. If the insurance companies can casually turn their backs on sick children now, who will they abandon next? This offensive behavior by the insurance companies is yet another reminder of why the new law is so important and why the Republicans’ call for repeal is so misguided.”
Health plans and state insurance commissioners in July raised concerns that the new rules could lead some insurers to stop children-only coverage because families could wait until their children get sick to buy coverage.
Days later, the Obama administration issued regulations clarifying that insurers would still be able to establish enrollment periods in accordance with state law.
“To address concerns over adverse selection, issuers in the individual market may restrict enrollment of children under 19, whether in family or individual coverage, to specific open enrollment periods if allowed under state law,” the Department of Health and Human Services clarified.
The issue had largely dropped out of sight since then, but insurers including WellPoint and CoventryOne have announced in recent days that they’re dropping children’s coverage in California, Colorado, Ohio and Missouri, according to HCAN. (The Hill)
I guarantee this is only the beginning. Trust me.
But the Insufferably Morally Superior Left will just sit there and be “appalled” and kick and scream and whine and moan “they aren’t doing what we told them to do whaaaahh!!!”
Then go to their government buddies and pass more regulations to have their way.
I say a new term in a headline recently that fit, LAWFARE. Waging a war by lawsuits and REGFARE, waging war by regulation.
That’s the Insufferably Morally Superior Left in a nutshell.
As I said repeatedly and often during the Health Care debate, it’s about the government and leftists wanting total control of who lives and who dies and you dependent on them for everything. Period. End of Story.
They want private insurance gone. But private insurance is not going quietly.
That would be a moral hazard.
In insurance markets, moral hazard occurs when the behavior of the insured party changes in a way that raises costs for the insurer, since the insured party no longer bears the full costs of that behavior. Because individuals no longer bear the cost of medical services, they have an added incentive to ask for pricier and more elaborate medical service—which would otherwise not be necessary. In these instances, individuals have an incentive to over consume, simply because they no longer bear the full cost of medical services.
And does this not sound like ObamaCare to you??

Did I Say That?

indyfromaz|

In the “WHOOPS! Did I say that?” Department:
As reported a few days ago about Colin Powell’s comments about illegal Aliens. Well, he’s gone into full reverse  mode!
In the interview , Powell said a path to legal status should be offered to illegal immigrants in the U.S. because they “are doing things we need done in this country.”
He added: “They’re all over my house, doing things whenever I call for repairs, and I’m sure you’ve seen them at your house. We’ve got to find a way to bring these people out of the darkness and give them some kind of status.”
This morning, however, comes word from Powell’s office that he “misspoke.”
Political Speak for I told you the truth of what I believe, but now it’s been pointed out that it’s bad politically to say it, so I am backpedaling like a maniac and a liar.
At least he didn’t say “misquoted” or “taken out of context”.
“I don’t hire illegal immigrants,” Powell says in a statement today. “On Meet the Press yesterday, I referred to illegal immigrants working around my house. I was referring to the many service contractors who work in my neighborhood, using mostly immigrant workers, who do good work. Some may well be ‘illegal.’ There are 11 million illegal immigrants in this country and most are working somewhere in our economy.”
An order of Foot (Foot in Mouth)  with side order of Crow for the General
*********************************************
Since the Media is now obsessed with politicians lives before their national prominence (cue Christine O’Donnell) here’s this ditty from The Washington Post  January 3,2007:
Long before the national media spotlight began to shine on every twist and turn of his life’s journey, Barack Obama had this to say about himself: “Junkie. Pothead. That’s where I’d been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man. . . . I got high [to] push questions of who I was out of my mind.”
The Democratic senator from Illinois and likely presidential candidate offered the confession in a memoir written 11 years ago, not long after he graduated from law school and well before he contemplated life on the national stage. At the time, 20,000 copies were printed and the book seemed destined for the remainders stacks.
As a presidential candidate, Bill Clinton thought marijuana use could be enough of a liability in 1992 that he felt compelled to say he had not inhaled. And President Bush has managed to deflect endless gossip about his past by acknowledging that he had an “irresponsible” youth but offering no details.
Through his book, Obama has become the first potential presidential contender to admit trying cocaine.
Do you think the media will be obsessed with this, or with what a teenager said once 12 years ago??
Depends on the party affliation.
Liberal Democrat: No
Republican and/Or Tea Party: 24/7 obsession.
But don’t worry, it’s “fair” and “balanced”.
And that matters to the Liberals.

“Christine O’Donnell is clearly a criminal, and like any crook she should be prosecuted,” CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan said in a release. “(Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington).

So Charlie Rangel, President Obama,Maxine Waters, Chris Dodd & Barney Frank, John Kerry,And other Democrats are next!

Too Bad the late Sen. Robert Byrd, Former Grand Wizard of the KKK isn’t still around.

Is that Hell Freezing over? Yes, I think it is…

The GOP’s chosen nominee for senator from Delaware is being asked to defend comments about the occult. Hey, it’s not as if she “dabbled” in the KKK or Marxism or seanced with a very dead Eleanor Roosevelt. Be careful whom you date in high school or what you dabble in to humor a boyfriend. Those skeletons in your closet may come back to haunt you, particularly if you become a conservative Tea Party candidate fighting to stop creeping socialism in America. Last Friday, comedian Bill Maher, whose cable show “Real Time” is considered by liberals as a real news source (unlike, say, Fox News), dug up and showed an 11-year-old interview from 1999 in which O’Donnell, then 30 years old, said she “dabbled in witchcraft” because she “hung around people who were doing these things” in high school.
O’Donnell graduated from Moorestown (N.J.) High School in 1987, a dozen years before the Maher appearance. If political candidates are to be judged by what they did or hung with in high school, we are taking the vetting process to extremes.
Two days later, pundit Karl Rove, whose primary night critique of O’Donnell caused a stir, was on “Fox News Sunday” saying: “In Delaware, where there are a lot of churchgoing people, they’re going to want to know what this is all about.”
Perhaps, but they also want to know about her position on the repeal of ObamaCare and extending the Bush tax cuts.
Delaware voters, many of whom probably check their horoscope before they go to church, might indeed want to know what a Delaware teenager was up to back then. She might even have dabbled in marijuana without inhaling.
But we suspect they might also want to know about her opponent, Chris Coons, dabbling in Marxism in college, writing a paper about his transformation to a “bearded Marxist.”
“There’s been no witchcraft since. If there was, Karl Rove would be a supporter now,” O’Donnell jokingly told a GOP picnic in southern Delaware on Sunday. To be fair, two groups started by Rove, Crossroads GPS and American Crossroads, have contributed mightily to Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Tea Party opponent, Sharron Angle. This makes Rove’s continued criticism curious.
Voters, we would think, would be more interested in Democrat Coons’ disastrous record as Newcastle County chief executive. During his tenure, spending increased 10% and he shifted the burden for his irresponsibility to taxpayers with property tax hikes of 5%, 17.5% and 25%. In 2008, Fitch Ratings downgraded the county’s “rating outlook” from stable to negative because the county’s cash balances were decreasing under Coons’ stewardship.
Republican voters have already decided that O’Donnell was a better choice to represent them than establishment Congressman and two-term former Delaware Gov. Mike Castle. If O’Donnell starts out behind in the polls, well, that’s why we have campaigns.
West Virginia voters tolerated Sen. Robert Byrd, who in his relative youth dabbled in racism and bigotry as a grand kleagle in the Ku Klux Klan. Byrd’s association wasn’t a high school fad. He joined the KKK in 1942, when he was 25; four years later, he was still talking about his hope for a KKK renaissance in West Virginia. And 18 years after that, he famously filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
“He once had a fleeting association with the Ku Klux Klan,” President Bill Clinton said of Sen. Byrd. “What does that mean? I’ll tell you what it means. He was a country boy from the hills and hollows from West Virginia. He was trying to get elected.” At least he didn’t dabble in Wicca.
Hillary Clinton, during her time as first lady, participated in seance-type sessions that included strange moments of imaginary conversation with a deceased Eleanor Roosevelt from the solarium atop the White House, according to Grove City College professor Paul Kengor’s biography, “God and Hillary Clinton.”
Keep rocking the establishment, Christine. Continue to do that voodoo that you do so well. (IBD)
Leftist Richard Cohen on “Witchcraft” : The unseen effects of witchcraft are clearly the reason about one-fifth of Americans believe Obama is a Muslim. In fact, as time goes by, more and more people subscribe to this belief — a phenomenon so at odds with logic or rational thinking that the explanation has to lie in the darkest of arts — witchcraft and voodoo.
This fatuous infatuation with the Constitution, particularly the 10th amendment, is clearly the work of witches, wiccans and wackos. It has nothing to do with America’s real problems and, if taken too seriously, would cause an economic and political calamity.
O’Donnell is where the GOP has been heading for some time. The party’s leaders have steadfastly refused to take a stand against any idiocy, even suggesting they agree that Obama might not be a Christian. Their intellectuals have supported and advanced the know-nothingness of Sarah Palin. Nothing to them is beyond the pale. This party is not fit to govern. It would support the Joker but not Batman, who hangs too much with Robin.
So now it has a candidate in Delaware who truly is a career politician. She seems to have no means of support except campaign funds. She supposedly lives in her headquarters, although this is somewhat in dispute. Whatever the case, she has no job and no views worth a moment’s consideration. (She even appalls Karl Rove.)
She’s not likely to win, but the way things are going this year, she just might. People are angry. People are mad. The night is dark. Witch way out of here?
Isn’t the dripping condescension and the ad hominems just glorious arrogant?
And it’s perfectly liberal.
You aren’t smart enough to see the hypocrites on the left for what they are.
And if the people voted for her, she now has to stand on her own against thre liberal attack machine, or just go quietly.
We’ll see.
But one things for sure, The Ministry of Truth will be digging through her birth records and interviewing every person (including the waiter at restaurant when she 2 that she spit up on ) she ever met in her entire life because they care about the facts and nothing but the facts, it’s not personal.
Sorry…Have to stop…. now…Hell… froze… over…