The Smoke Break

You want some brie with that whine?

The Recipe For Disaster Is Bubbling Up

By

“This chart depicts the health care nightmare that House Democrats have planned for families and small businesses.  This isn’t reform; it’s a recipe for disaster that will lead to higher health care costs, lower quality, rationed care, and bureaucrats making medical decisions instead of doctors and patients.  Families shouldn’t have to answer to shadowy Washington bureaucrats when they’re seeking health care treatments for themselves and their loved ones.

“If this isn’t bad enough, this new maze of government bureaucracy will be funded by a new small business tax that will cost more American jobs.  During a time of economic recession, the last thing Congress should be doing is punishing small businesses that create a majority of the jobs in this country.  If Democrats are serious about job creation and real health care reform, they’ll scrap this plan and start working with House Republicans on solutions the American people want.  Republicans have offered a plan to reduce costs and expand Americans’ access to quality care – without a small business tax.  I want to thank Rep. Brady and House Republicans on the Joint Economic Committee for their work in exposing the truth about what the Democrats’ plan means for families and small businesses.”

(Representative John Boehner, R-OH)

DemHealthPlan

Listening to the House Ways and Means Committee discuss provisions of their version of a health care reform bill (HR 3200) makes it very clear that this is, indeed, a fine representation of the hands reaching for your wallet.  It is a gigantic behemoth of federal rat mazes that creates a fiscally unsustainable and inherently inefficient bureaucracy that will have the final say over whether you live or die.

By 2013, the lowest surtax to be levied against the “wealthy” goes up unless savings are realized.  But the truth is that the government NEVER saves money when it runs programs so small business owners will be hit harder and harder as time goes by.  (It is important to remember that small business owners pay taxes via their personal 1040 returns so those “wealthy” folks making over $250,000 aren’t really taking home that amount; many are making far smaller amounts of real, spendable dollars.)  This plan for more taxpayer money going to feed the government health care machine means there will continually be less and less money available for small businesses to expand (or even be created) and thereby create jobs.  Which in turn will force more people to accept the government’s version of health insurance, thereby putting further strain on this essentially unfunded program.

If you’re thinking that this is really no big deal because you’ll just keep the health care insurance you have today or go buy your own, think again.  There’s a provision that outlaws individual private coverage:

Called… “Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage,” the “Limitation On New Enrollment” section of the bill clearly states:

“Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day” of the year the legislation becomes law.

So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won’t be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.

And this is only the first instance in this latest 1,000-page boat anchor where the federal government crosses the Constitutionally-defined line.

The legislation will also contain the usual amount of sheer idiocy (read:  more ways to force part you from your hard-earned money) like defining the sale of your house as a “life-changing event” that will impact your medical benefits.

It is time to contact all of your Congress critters and tell them to vote NO on this unconstitutional intrusion into your personal life.

Pay Your Neighbor’s Mortgage, Pay For Their Abortion, Too

By

Your tax dollars are working so hard.  Paying for your neighbor’s mortgage, paying for Goldman Sachs’ employees to make enormous bonuses thanks to their government bailout money being laundered through AIG (courtesy of all the Goldman Sachs alumni in the Obama administration).

Now, if Senate Democrats have their way, regardless your opinion of the procedure, you’ll be paying for your neighbor’s abortion(s), too.

Last week, Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski, chairing the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee’s efforts to draft health care legislation, added an amendment that mandates organizations like Planned Parenthood be included as “essential community providers” of women’s health care in the state and federal partnership “gateways” (basically the federally-subsidized insurance plan).

She tried to cover it with the usual legal vagueness.  But her intentions were caught and it was apparently Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) who called her out on it.  Even Senator Bob Casey Jr. (D-Pennsylvania) objected, but Mikulski refused to even consider adding language that plainly states, “Not including abortion services.”  So if anyone making up to $88,000/year wants free health insurance and an abortion, the rest of us will pick up the tab.

Senator Mikulski’s amendment passed.

This week, Senator Hatch introduced an amendment that would prohibit any funding of abortion through federally- funded health insurance programs except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother.

Senator Hatch’s amendment was defeated.

Sonia Sotomayor’s “Unique”; Just Like All Of Us

By

Senate confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor have begun and the first day was a stereotypical dog & pony show of left-wing / right-wing ideological debate, but for those who not only heard it but actually listened to what was being said, it was an education in the purpose of the Supreme Court and its critical role in protecting America’s foundation of Constitutional freedoms.  It also provided insight into how various Congress critters view and/or defend them.

Democratic senators played to lowest common denominator “enquiring minds” by touting Sotomayor’s overcoming of her “life struggles” as something worthy of an Oscar, while Republican senators spoke to the seriousness of the undertaking for which she has been nominated.

In my mind, that she “done good” for herself is no different than what has been done by millions of Americans.  Indeed, this opportunity to make good is one of the reasons America has been the dream of people around the world since her birth.  This great nation contains far more rags-to-riches stories than it does stories of unearned “privilege” such as the born-to-wealth Kennedy offspring or the married-into-wealth types like Pelosi, Sanford, etc.  That Sotomayor had to earn her way mirrors the path taken by the vast majority of us, and that’s a good thing.  It is the work she has done while following her own, personal path that raises questions about her ability to manifest the blind objectivity required to, as she stated in her remarks to the Senate, maintain “fidelity to the law”.

What she also chose to say in her remarks to the Senate give some insight as to her perspectives as much as do rightful concerns over the opinions she has expressed over the years when not sitting on the bench. 

Over the past three decades, I have seen our judicial system from a number of different perspectives — as a big-city prosecutor, as a corporate litigator, as a trial judge and as an appellate judge. My first job after law school was as an assistant district attorney in New York. There, I saw children exploited and abused. I felt the pain and suffering of families torn apart by the needless death of loved ones. I saw and learned the tough job law enforcement has in protecting the public. In my next legal job, I focused on commercial, instead of criminal, matters. I litigated issues on behalf of national and international businesses and advised them on matters ranging from contracts to trademarks.

What she tells us here is that her past three decades of experience includes a good deal of trial experience that is, in my mind, limited in scope.  She worked as a “big-city prosecutor”, worked as a prosecutor in private practice, and then “litigated issues” and “advised” in what has been shown to be, again, a prosecutorial perspective.   Simply put, she’s made her life’s work going after the bad guys, whether “bad” is defined as a breaker of laws on the books or a breaker of moral law (e.g. the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, now known as “LatinoJustice PRLDEF“, aka “press 1 for English”).  The thing that stands out for me as a glaring ommission that would perhaps have perhaps given her some of the real “wisdom” she claims is that she has never sat at the defense table as the protector of an accused criminal’s rights.

Various analyses of her rulings involving discrimination suits find her quick to dismiss the vast majority of them though only one of them involved having to actually look at the issue of racial discrimination itself (versus ruling because of the more usual legal technicalities).  Whether this is good or bad isn’t yet clear to me but others say it shows her lack of prejudice.  It does explain to me, in part however, why she did not do anything more than coast through the appellate appeal in Ricci vs. New Haven. 

So what does one make of a life perspective being one in which fighting against discrimination by whites has been the primary mission?   Right now, Sonia Sotomayor’s work remains subject to the collective wisdom and avowed Constitutional and blind defense of the United States Supreme Court.  While she has mostly been a herd animal in her appellate decisions, with said herd decisions being overturned more often than not by the Supreme Court, this then unfortunately means there is no evidence to say she would uphold the judicial vow if put on the Supreme Court bench.

This is troubling.

As troubling on the backpedaling she’s now doing about her “wise Latina” comment being nothing more than a bad joke.  A joke so bad she’s repeated it ad nauseum throughout the years like it’s some personal mantra.

Troubling….

Quote Of The Day

By

Courtesy of Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), in yesterday’s Congressional record:

“After the massive amounts of government spending he has signed into law, President Obama had the audacity to proclaim in an April 18 weekly address that we need to restore responsibility and accountability to our Federal budget. Who are we kidding? The President cannot put us on the course to a $9 trillion deficit and then tell us we need to be more fiscally responsible. That is akin to someone killing their parents, and then complaining about being an orphan.”

Quote Of The Day

By

“I’ve had mothers coming up to me with two-year-old children in their arms saying:  ‘Don’t you have any kind of morality? This child’s future is being destroyed.'”

Plimer’s response … is typically robust. 

“If you’re so concerned, why did you breed?”

 

(From James Delingpole’s interview with Professor Ian Plimer, the Australian geologist whose new book shows that “anthropogenic global warming” is a dangerous, ruinously expensive fiction, a “first-world luxury” with no basis in scientific fact.)

Redefining “Modest”

By

We all know that Democrats in this day and age have no shame.  So the word “modest” has never been applied to them.

But it’s definition as traditionally applied to money is now taking a decidedly Democratic turn.  Which means:  not for the better.

Buried in the Senate’s version of the “health reform” legislation are what are being described as “modest” sums equaling BILLIONS of dollars to be used to improve local infrastructures, such as parks, bike paths, etc.  Good things, to be sure, but things that are the responsibility of the individual states and the local communities who are supposed to use them for their “healthier lifestyles”.  But it seems the non-profit Trust for America’s Health, with its links to progressive causes like the myth of global warming, needs to make sure their grants are funded so what better opportunity than to write the wording for the earmarks themselves?

No matter how they try to justify it, calling a billion dollars a “modest” amount of money is wrong.  And when you don’t even have those billions of dollars in your pocket to spend, it’s stupid.  This is all nothing more than the stereotypical pork and earmarks and special interests we’ve come to expect from the bottom-feeders in Washington.

Damned If They Do, Damned If They Don’t

By

It’s being reported that some major banks are now beginning to draw the line with California’s teenager-like spending habits, saying they are going to stop accepting state IOUs after Friday as the California state government remains stuck in a budget impasse.

Can’t say I blame them.  They have a business to run and their customers to protect.  But some groups are now starting to demand that the federal government force these banks – private businesses – into playing along with yet another phantom-money shell game, and there’s even talk of creating a “market” for selling or trading the California IOUs.  All because the banks were previously bailed out by the feds.

But perhaps having learned their lesson about good credit risks versus bad credit risks with the mortgage meltdown, the banks aren’t the bad guys this time.  Perhaps – unlike Barney Frank, who’s now asking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to “relax” rules the purchase of condominiums – they’ve figured out that loaning money to those who can’t pay it back doesn’t make good business sense. 

California created this mess so let California clean it up.

Vendors and contractors holding IOUs could potentially use them to pay state taxes, fees and liens under a bill passed by a [California] state Assembly committee Tuesday. The bill would require the state to accept its own IOUs in lieu of money owed the government.

No Support For U.S. Constitution So Why Respect Honduras’?

By

During my perusing of what our unrepresenting representatives were up to today in Washington, I happened to read the following statement by Jim DeMint (R-SC) in the Senate records.  For those who have perhaps paid little attention to or have perhaps even been a bit confused about the events in Honduras, since the news as we know it has disgustingly been overshadowed by the media’s piranhic feeding frenzy over the death of Michael Jackson, Senator DeMint elegantly laid out the facts and makes it quite clear this is another example that the administration’s idea of foreign policy leaves much to be desired.

In his own words (emphasis mine):

The facts on the ground in Honduras are neither disputed nor confusing, but they have been largely ignored by an international media distracted by the death of a celebrity.

   Let me read these facts into the record.

   Honduras is a constitutional republic and a longtime ally of the United States. It is one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere, especially since it was ravaged by the direct hit of Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

   In 2005, Hondurans elected as their President Manuel Zelaya, a left of center but seemingly moderate candidate from the Liberal Party. Given Latin America’s troubling history of military coups and self-appointed Presidents for life, the Honduran Constitution strictly limits Presidents to one term.

   So seriously do Hondurans take their Presidential term limits that in Latin America, the phrase–and I will butcher this Spanish, but I want to give it a try–“continuar en el poder.”  It means to continue in power.  It carries with it a dark connotation to the region for everyone living there.

   For a President to overthrow the Constitution and violate term limits is violating the constitutional form of government. So seriously that article 238 of the Honduran Constitution says any President who even proposes an extension of his tenure in office “shall immediately cease performing the functions of his post.’‘  So it is a de facto resignation of office in Honduras for a President to attempt to do what their President did.

   Zelaya’s 2005 campaign was supported by Hugo Chavez, the Marxist Venezuelan dictator bent on amassing power in the Western Hemisphere at the expense of what he calls “the North American empire.”  That is us.

   Zelaya quickly aligned his government with Chavez’s and joined anti-American socialists, such as the Castro brothers in Cuba and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, in Chavez’s economic cartel.

   With Zelaya’s term coming to an end early next year, Chavez convinced him to do as he has done in Venezuela:  to force a constitutional amendment extending his Presidential term.  This would be in direct violation of what their Constitution says.

   Earlier this year, Zelaya called for a referendum to initiate a constitutional convention. In the ensuing litigation, the Honduran courts ruled the referendum was unconstitutional and illegal, as the Honduran Constitution explicitly gives only its Congress the power to call such a vote.

   Zelaya forged ahead, calling his referendum a “nonbinding survey.”  This, too, the supreme court found unconstitutional.

   Zelaya then ordered the head of the Honduran military, General Vasquez, to conduct the election anyway. Vasquez expressed concerns about the vote’s legality, so Zelaya fired him.

   The supreme court ordered Zelaya to reinstate Vasquez, and Zelaya refused. The supreme court ordered the military to seize the referendum ballots to prevent Zelaya from going ahead with the illegal vote.  Zelaya then personally led an armed mob to steal back the ballots, which, it should be noted, were suspiciously printed in Venezuela.  Zelaya ordered his government to set up 15,000 polling places to conduct the referendum for June 28.

   On Friday, June 26, the Attorney General of Honduras, Luis Rubi, filed a complaint before the Honduran Supreme Court petitioning for an arrest warrant for President Zelaya. The court issued the warrant unanimously and, according to the Constitution, ordered the Honduran military to execute it.

   Early in the morning of Sunday, June 28, the day of the vote, the military arrested President Zelaya at his home. They put him on a plane to Costa Rica, as Honduras has no prison capable of withstanding a mob riot of the sort they feared Chavez and Ortega might whip up.  So they did it for his safety.

   That same day, the Honduran Congress, controlled by his Liberal Party–his own party–voted 125 to 3 to replace Zelayawith their speaker, Roberto Micheletti, as a member of the Liberal Party. This transfer of power was strictly in keeping with Honduras’s constitutional line of succession as the Vice President had recently resigned.

   The regularly scheduled general elections remain set for this November, and interim President Micheletti is not a candidate.  The previously nominated candidates from the two major parties remain on the campaign trail, and both candidates and parties overwhelmingly approved the ouster of Zelaya.

   At every step in the process, the legitimate democratic government strictly adhered to the Honduran Constitution and civilian leadership of the military remained intact.  The military did not execute a coup.  It thwarted the coup plotted by Hugo Chavez and implemented by Manuel Zelaya.

   Honduras’s democratic institutions are operating today, and its government functions are secure. The only aggrieved party in this process is Mr. Chavez, whose brazen attempts to corrupt Honduran democracy was thwarted by what has now been nicknamed “the little country that could.”

   The people of Honduras stood up to Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, the Castro brothers, and they stood up for freedom and the rule of law. For their courage, President Obama has condemned them. He has called the constitutional ouster of President Zelaya not legal, claiming an expertise in Honduran law over and above that of a unanimous Honduran Supreme Court and a nearly unanimous Honduran Congress.

   Secretary of State Clinton lazily joined the international media in calling the removal of President Zelaya “a coup,” a term fraught with dark memories of military juntas and banana republic.  Of course, this is the same administration that insists on calling the recent fraud in Iran an election.

   The Obama administration joined Chavez’s preposterous Soviet-style propaganda resolution in the Organization of American States condemning Honduran democracy. Hondurans I have spoken with–I have spoken with a number of folks who have missionary groups there, medical groups.  I have talked to Miguel Estrada who was born and raised in Honduras and is now a constitutional expert in this country. This morning I talked to former Honduran President Ricardo Maduro. They are all totally befuddled at the strange response they are getting from the supposedly free world, including our own administration. Why are we siding with Hugo Chavez?

   This morning in Russia, President Obama reiterated his support for Zelaya, the would-be dictator, as the rightful President of Honduras. According to ABC News, he said:  “America supports now the restoration of the democratically elected President of Honduras, even though he has strongly opposed American policies.” 

   Continuing with the quote from President Obama:  “We do so not because we agree with him. We do so because we respect the universal principle that people should choose their own leaders, whether they are leaders we agree with or not.”

    The President appears to think his support for Zelaya is based on some principles of self-determination. He speaks as if opposition to Zelaya is based on partisan political differences. Zelaya was not ousted by political enemies; he was ousted by a government controlled by his own party. He was ousted by a unanimous supreme court operating in accordance with the Honduran Constitution and in conjunction with the nation’s attorney general and Supreme Electoral Tribunal. These folks followed the rule of law.

   The Honduran people have chosen their own leaders. Those leaders–in a constitutional, bipartisan, and nearly unanimous process–removed Manuel Zelaya from office. The Honduran people have upheld our President’s so-called universal principle. The people seeking to undermine that principle are Hugo Chavez, the Castro brothers, Daniel Ortega, Mel Zelaya, and–unbelievably–the Obama administration.

   This is not about politics. This is about the rule of law, freedom, and democracy, all of which are being defended by the Hondurans right now against their enemies–of which we appear to be one. Why are we not standing with them?Blood was shed in Iran while we stood idly by.  Zelaya’s return to Honduras on a Venezuelan jet and with the moral authority of the United States will almost certainly lead to more bloodshed. What are we doing on the side of tyrants and sworn enemies of freedom; going as far, on their behalf, to threaten economic sanctions against one of our poorest and bravest allies?

   Secretary of State Clinton is reportedly planning a meeting with Mr. Zelaya in Washington this week. I implore her to reconsider that meeting. Elevating an impeached and disgraced autocrat is more than an insult to Honduran democracy, it is a green light to other would-be Chavezes around Latin America. It is a signal to the enemies of democracy and freedom that the United States no longer stands as a beacon of liberty. It is a signal that the rule of law is now passe in Latin America and that Hugo Chavez and his corrupt and brutal idealogy has free rein to meddle wherever he pleases in the Western Hemisphere.

   What do we stand for, if not for freedom, democracy, and the rule of law? Where is the spine of the administration to stand up to anti-American and antidemocratic thugs in our own back yard? Where is the intellectual clarity to see the facts on the ground as they are? Manuel Zelaya is a criminal, a constitutionally removed former President of a proud and noble country. To my knowledge, no administration official has refuted or even grappled with the facts regarding Zelaya’s attempted coup.

   Given those still undisputed and documented facts, on what basis does the administration demand Zelaya’s reinstatement? His removal from office was no more a coup than was Gerald Ford’s ascendance to the Oval Office or the election to the Senate of our newest colleague, Al Franken. It is bad enough that the President’s ad hoc and highly personalized foreign policy seems to be less about supporting the rule of law than it is about supporting particular rulers. But the last 4 weeks suggest that the President cannot even be counted upon to support our legitimate allies.

   What happened in Honduras last week was not a tragedy, it was a triumph of democratic courage and the unyielding determination of a free people to stand up to despotism. The tragedy has been the failure of the West and of our own government in Washington to stand up for justice and freedom in Latin America.

   It is not too late. I have written to Secretary Clinton, and there is growing congressional support for the legitimate government in Honduras. Everywhere I go someone comes up to me and tells me to stand up for freedom in Honduras. There is still time to look at the facts, even to visit Honduras itself. Call down there, talk to the people, even Americans in the Peace Corps or on missionary work, and ask them if they are living under an oppressive military junta. They will laugh and tell you they are living under an independent and vibrant democracy, with a representative government led by people they elected. They will tell you about the free and open debate in the ongoing Presidential campaign and whom they are supporting in the November elections.

   There is still time to correct our position and support our true allies. And because we can, we should. We must. Because today–and I will try my Spanish again–“un amigo de libertad es un amigo de Honduras”–a friend of freedom is a friend of Honduras.

If your head now hurts, imagine how the people of Honduras must feel.  Betrayed is one word that comes to mind.  I’d say I just don’t get it, but unfortunately this support of dictator-style government is exactly what President Obama promised on the campaign trail.

I wonder just how many allies we’re going to lose over the next 3 1/2 years?  According to even the Wall Street Journal, certainly not Obama’s buddy in Venezuela.

Waxman In Their Ears

By

Henry Waxman is feeling like a big shot these days, what with the narrow passage of the unavailable and unread 1,300+ page cap & trade bill and a new book hitting the liberal spin market. 

He’s feeling so big, in fact, that normal concerns expressed by any responsible person who wonders how you pay for something when you not only have no money, but have massive amounts of debt and no way to repay it, now earn the Waxman’s scornful moniker of “unpatriotic”.  Yes, Americans, in Henry Waxman’s world, if you don’t think you should spend money you don’t have, you’re some sort of a traitor.  In his own words:  “…want(ing) to deny President Obama success … means, in my mind … rooting against the country, as well.”

Sorry, Henry, old boy, but fiscal responsibility is both as sensible and as patriotic as baseball and apple pie.  No matter how you twist facts, no matter how much Obama and now the G8 think they can control Nature (laughably, today they all agreed to “keep” the Earth’s temperature from rising no more than 3 degrees Farenheit), the truth is that you are only trying to force your will upon the majority for the ill-gotten gains of a few.  And patriotic Americans, those who support her and the Constitution upon which she was founded, can see right through it and will continue to call it by its proper name.

Wrong.