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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Health</title>
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		<title>If Ayatollah Khamenei Dies, What Next?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/if-ayatollah-khamenei-dies-what-next/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=if-ayatollah-khamenei-dies-what-next</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 17 Oct 2014 04:40:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ayatollah Khameini]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islamic  Republic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prostate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sick]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Preparing for the post-Khamenei era. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #1a1a1a;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/10653322_941581589191709_3639992395284817096_n.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-243067" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/10653322_941581589191709_3639992395284817096_n.jpg" alt="10653322_941581589191709_3639992395284817096_n" width="298" height="270" /></a>The news regarding the health of the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has become unprecedented in the last few months. Several other indications suggest that Khamenei&#8217;s health is not only deteriorating but it is cause for a security concern. For example,  following Khamenei’s recent surgery on his prostate, high level officials such as Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Hassan Rouhani, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made an unprecedented visit to the ailing leader.</p>
<p style="color: #1a1a1a;">This issue raises the question of what will happen if Iran’s current Supreme Leader, who has the final say in the Islamic Republic’s domestic and foreign policy affairs, dies. Who would be the successor? Will the Islamic Republic refashion its foreign policy towards the West, particularly the United States and Israel?</p>
<p style="color: #1a1a1a;">First of all, we have to understand Iran’s political structure and power relations in order to develop possible projections. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Velayateh Faqhih, is chosen by the Assembly of Experts, which has 86 members. According to Iran’s revised constitution, “In the event of the death, resignation, or dismissal of the leader, the (Assembly of Experts) shall take steps within the shortest possible time for the appointment of the new leader. Until the appointment of the new leader, a council consisting of the president, head of the judiciary, and a jurist from the Guardian Council, upon the decision of the nation’s Expediency Council, shall temporarily take over all the duties of the Leader.”</p>
<p style="color: #1a1a1a;">Although Iranian people elect the members of the Assembly of Experts, it is crucial to point out that the Guardian Council, another crucial political power, vets the candidates beforehand. Only the previously selected members can run for the Assembly of Experts. In other words, the election is just a façade and purely ceremonial. In addition, the turnout for the elections for the members of the Assembly of Experts has always been very low. This is due to the fact that many Iranian people question the legitimacy of these candidates or do not believe that their votes can bring fundamental change.</p>
<p style="color: #1a1a1a;">The members of the Guardian Council, on the other hand, are either directly selected by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (six members), or by the Judiciary and Majlis, Iran’s parliament (the other six members).</p>
<p style="color: #1a1a1a;">The other key player in making decisions in selecting the next Supreme Leader is the Expediency Council, which oversees disputes over legislation between the Guardian Council and the Islamic Republic’s parliament. It is worth noting that the members of the Expediency Council are also selected by the Supreme Leader. In other words, the aforementioned political bodies have never questioned the decisions, the power, or the political and divine authority of the Supreme Leader.</p>
<p style="color: #1a1a1a;"><strong>The Most Crucial Player in Post-Khamenei Era</strong></p>
<p style="color: #1a1a1a;">Without a doubt, when it come to choosing the next Supreme Leader and making a decision on the nation’s post-Khamenei era, the most powerful political organization is Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). First of all, the IRGC not only militarily and politically controls the domestic and foreign affairs of the Islamic Republic, but it also owns main economic sectors of the country. Under the rule of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps gained more power to suppress domestic oppositions and intervene in domestic affairs of other countries in the Middle East. In addition, the senior cadre of IRGC has control over Iran’s nuclear program.</p>
<p style="color: #1a1a1a;">As a result, having control over the economy, military, politics, and nuclear program, the IRGC will wield the most influence in choosing the next Supreme Leader. Although the Assembly of Experts might ceremonially elect another Ayatollah, the future Supreme Leader will have been chosen by the high officials of IRGC in advance. This suggests that it is likely that the IRGC leaders already have an option or list of names in their agenda.</p>
<p style="color: #1a1a1a;">Nevertheless, the key question is what kind of cleric or political figure will the IRGC be looking for as the next Supreme Leader. Although some scholars have put out some names of influential Ayatollahs and clerics as potential and prospective Supreme Leaders for the Islamic Republic, it is less likely that the senior cadre of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps will desire to choose a powerful Supreme Leader who would fully control their activities. In other words, a charismatic, powerful and influential Ayatollah and political figure will be considered a threat to the rule of the senior cadre of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. The best option for the IRGC is a weak figure whom they can control.</p>
<p style="color: #1a1a1a;">Even when Khamenei was selected, he was considered a weak candidate in comparison to more powerful figures such as Ayatollah Montazeri or Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani at that time. At the time, Khamenei was not even a Mujtahed, a senior jurist who can issue fatwas. As time passed, Khamenei consolidated his power by marginalizing powerful opposition clerics and giving more power to the senior cadre of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.</p>
<p style="color: #1a1a1a;">In addition, the IRGC will attempt to choose an individual who serves the IRGC’s objectives: obtaining nuclear capabilities, having a monopoly over economic and political affairs, having power in foreign policy and having the capability to intervene in other countries&#8217; affairs without hurdles from any political figures including the Supreme Leader.</p>
<p style="color: #1a1a1a;">In other words, the senior cadre of the IRGC will attempt to further consolidate its political and economic power by selecting a weak candidate. It follows that one should not expect any fundamental changes in the Islamic Republic’s domestic or foreign policies even if Supreme Leader Khamenei dies. In fact, the power of the elite of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps will increase, and their pursuit for regional hegemonic ambitions will intensify.</p>
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		<title>Downgraded: Insurance Companies Taste Wrath of ObamaCare</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/downgraded-insurance-companies-taste-wrath-of-obamacare/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=downgraded-insurance-companies-taste-wrath-of-obamacare</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 24 Jan 2014 05:51:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[downgrade]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Insurance Companies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[medical]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Moody's]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[The beginning of the downward spiral. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/barack-obama-302.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-217180" alt="barack-obama-302" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/barack-obama-302-450x337.jpg" width="270" height="202" /></a>Another day, another dose of bad news for ObamaCare. On Thursday, Moody’s Investor Service announced it was </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/196203-moodys-downgrades-health-insurers-over">downgrading</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> its outlook for America&#8217;s healthcare insurance sector from &#8220;stable&#8221; to &#8220;negative,&#8221; due to ObamaCare. “While all of these issues had been on our radar screen as we approached 2014, a new development and a key factor for the change in outlook is the unstable and evolving regulatory environment under which the sector is operating,” Moody&#8217;s said. “Notably, new regulations and presidential announcements over the last several months with respect to the ACA have imposed operational changes well after product and pricing decisions had been finalized.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Moody&#8217;s is being polite. It is no secret that President Obama has made unilateral and constitutionally suspect decisions to postpone or alter major sections of the law. His ham-fisted attempts to mitigate the political damage attending the disastrous website rollout, and his oft-repeated lie that Americans could keep their insurance policies and doctors, has wreaked havoc on insurers struggling to keep up with the massive fiscal adjustments those decisions engendered.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Moody&#8217;s also cited the the lack of enrollment by younger, healthier Americans needed to keep the healthcare plan fiscally viable as another reason for the downgrade. “Uncertainty over the demographics of those enrolling in individual products through the exchanges is a key factor in Moody’s outlook change,” the ratings agency added.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Moody&#8217;s must be referring to uncertainty going forward, because it&#8217;s not uncertain as to what the demographic totals are so far. On January 13, the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/hhs-report-shows-obamacare-behind-on-signing-up-young-americans/article/2542086">announced</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> that only 24 percent of Americans signing up for ObamaCare were part of the coveted youth demographic. That’s well below the 39 percent the White House contended was necessary for the law to work. They also revealed that as of Dec. 28, the </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">total</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> number of signups for ObamaCare had reached 2.2 million, well below the 3.3 million they had </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://waysandmeans.house.gov/uploadedfiles/enrolltargets_09052013_.pdf">targeted</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to sign up by that time.</span></p>
<p>And that&#8217;s signups. At a House hearing on Jan. 16, Centers for Medicaid &amp; Medicare (CMS) official Gary Cohen, the director of Medicare’s Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/01/16/cms-official-admits-obama-admin-has-no-idea-how-many-people-have-actually-paid-for-obamacare/">admitted</a> the administration has no clue how many people have actually paid for their premiums. &#8220;We don’t know at this point how many people have actually paid for coverage?” asked Congressman Greg Harper (R-MS) during the hearing. “That’s right,” replied Cohen. Cohen also admitted something far more ominous. “The automated process for payments is still being built, but we have a process in place that is working and payments will be going out next week,” he said.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The &#8220;automated process for payments,” also referred to as the &#8220;back end&#8221; of the ObamaCare website, is the most critical component of the system because it matches peoples&#8217; policies and their subsidies with their insurance carriers. Yet back in November, Henry Chao, the deputy chief information officer for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://alineofsight.com/BlogRetrieve.aspx?PostID=1153919&amp;A=SearchResult&amp;SearchID=5817279&amp;ObjectID=1153919&amp;ObjectType=55">conceded</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to Congress that 30-40 percent of the back end still needed to be built. &#8220;We still have to build the payment systems to make payments to issuers in January,&#8221; Chao said.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">As Fox News </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/01/22/administration-fears-part-health-care-system-so-flawed-it-could-bankrupt/">reveals</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, the effort is hardly proceeding as planned. They note that while the administration remains upbeat in public, &#8220;privately it fears one part of the system is so flawed it could bankrupt insurance companies and cripple ObamaCare itself.&#8221; </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">That part of the system is the back end. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The administration revealed the truth when it fired CGI as the lead contractor, and replaced it with Accenture. Because it gave Accenture a no-bid contract, they had to justify it by releasing documents from the Department of Health and Human Services and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Those documents revealed that problems with the website puts &#8220;the entire health insurance industry at risk &#8230; potentially leading to their default and disrupting continued services and coverage to consumers.&#8221; Even worse, they noted that if the problems weren&#8217;t fixed by mid-March &#8220;they will result in financial harm to the government,&#8221; and that, absent those fixes, &#8220;the entire health care reform program is jeopardized.&#8221;</span></p>
<p>HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius insisted that everything would work out fine in the end, despite the reality that insurers are currently enduring massive amounts of confusion and uncertainty regarding who is signed up and what subsidies, if any, they are entitled to. &#8220;I mean we will get them paid,” she said. “There is no question about that, so we are on track.&#8221;</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">That would be the same Kathleen Sebelius who unilaterally </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/sebelius-urging-insurers-cover-people-who-havent-paid">changed</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> the signup deadline for ObamaCare from Dec. 23 to Dec. 31, and &#8220;strongly encouraged&#8221; insurance companies to treat out-of-network providers as in-network and refill prescriptions for medication covered by previous plans until ObamaCare could catch up with reality. Thus, her definition of &#8220;on track&#8221; is suspect at best. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">And as of now, much like the administration was forced to do to determine whether Americans were </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/07/06/not-qualified-for-obamacares-subsidies-just-lie-govt-to-use-honor-system-without-verifying-your-eligibility/">eligible</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> for subsidies, they will have to rely on the honor system to determine how much they will owe insurers. Jim Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center illuminated what that means from the insurers’ point of view. &#8220;Here&#8217;s who we think we have, and here&#8217;s the subsidy we think they&#8217;re owed,&#8221; he explains. &#8220;Please send us a check from the treasury.&#8221;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Treasury is a polite way of saying the American taxpayers, whose involvement in underwriting ObamaCare could turn out to be far more expansive than they currently imagine. That&#8217;s because if the insurance companies do run into financial trouble, ObamaCare puts the taxpayers on the hook to </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://healthpolicyandmarket.blogspot.com/2014/01/will-there-be-obamacare-death-spiral-in.html?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=Feed:+HealthCarePolicyAndMarketplaceBlog+(Health+Care+Policy+and+Marketplace+Blog)&amp;m=1">bail</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> them out until 2017. As Charles Krauthammer </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-stop-the-bailout-now/2014/01/02/6b3087a2-73d7-11e3-8def-a33011492df2_story.html">reveals</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, Section 1341 of the bill, the &#8220;reinsurance fund,&#8221; collects $63 from each insurer and self-insuring employer, who will undoubtedly pass that cost on to the consumer. That raises approximately $20 billion over three years to cover insurers&#8217; potential losses. In addition, Section 1342, the &#8220;risk corridor,&#8221; has taxpayers underwriting up to 80 percent of insurance company losses.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">As bad as that is, it gets worse. As Robert Laszewski, a prominent consultant to health insurance companies </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://healthpolicyandmarket.blogspot.com/2014/01/will-there-be-obamacare-death-spiral-in.html?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=Feed:+HealthCarePolicyAndMarketplaceBlog+(Health+Care+Policy+and+Marketplace+Blog)&amp;m=1">explains</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, because they are insulated from losses, they will hold their rates down for one more year, no matter how bad a beating they take. &#8220;I expect that the health insurance industry will be content to give the Obama administration one more chance to reboot Obamacare in the fall of 2014, when the 2015 open enrollment takes place,&#8221; he writes. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In other words, because the insurance companies don&#8217;t have to worry about losing money, they&#8217;ll hold rates down &#8212; no doubt by sheer coincidence &#8212; until after the 2014 election.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&#8220;But that is all the patience I see the industry having,&#8221; Laszewski continues. &#8220;While they will continue to be protected from losses in 2016, two years will be enough patience for them and they will be eager to at least begin to transition their rates to the proper level in 2016 rather than face a huge adjustment in 2017 when the reinsurance program ends.&#8221; That will undoubtedly be huge adjustment </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">upward</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> in insurance rates.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">His conclusion? &#8220;What consumers/voters will be thinking about Obamacare come November 2014 is still to be determined. But insurers won&#8217;t be losing a lot of sleep over it.&#8221;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">So why is Moody&#8217;s losing sleep? Why a downgrade now if taxpayers are being forced to bailout insurance companies until 2017? Bloomberg News columnist Megan McArdle </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-21/resolved-obamacare-is-now-beyond-rescue.html">offers</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> a clue. &#8220;The law still lacks the political legitimacy to survive in the long term,&#8221; she writes. &#8220;And in a bid to increase that legitimacy, the administration has set two very dangerous precedents: It has convinced voters that no unpopular provisions should ever be allowed to take effect, and it has asserted an executive right to rewrite the law, which Republicans can just as easily use to unravel this tangled web altogether.&#8221;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">With regard to Republicans, Krauthammer has already suggested as much, saying the GOP should pass &#8220;The No Bailout for Insurance Companies Act of 2014&#8243; and tie it, and nothing else, to the debt ceiling debate. &#8220;Dare the president to stand up and say: &#8216;I’m willing to let the country default in order to preserve a massive bailout for insurance companies,&#8217;” he writes. He foresees the gambit as a win-win for Republicans. &#8220;Let the Senate Democrats decide: Support the bailout and lose the Senate. Or oppose the bailout and bury Obamacare.&#8221;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In December, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/debt-ceiling-deadline-date-jack-lew-2013-12">reminded</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> Congress that the debt limit needs to be raised. It has been suspended until Feb. 7 as part of the deal that re-opened the government following the shutdown. He urged lawmakers to raise it before that date and &#8220;certainly before late February.&#8221; </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Michael Steel, spokesman for House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), insisted that &#8220;a &#8216;clean&#8217; debt limit increase simply won’t pass in the House.&#8221; Looks like Krauthammer is onto something. Moody&#8217;s may be as well. Both may have come to the same conclusion: an &#8220;unstable and evolving regulatory environment&#8221; can cut both ways.</span></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Parents: The Glue Holding Our Civilization Together</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/jack-kerwick/parents-the-glue-holding-our-civilization-together/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=parents-the-glue-holding-our-civilization-together</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/jack-kerwick/parents-the-glue-holding-our-civilization-together/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 31 Dec 2013 05:05:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jack Kerwick]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Andy Tobias]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[civilization]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fund]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[parents]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[How supporting families supports civilization.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/at.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-214252" alt="at" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/at-450x337.jpg" width="315" height="236" /></a>“Thank you for your service.”</p>
<p>Whenever these words are uttered, it is always—<i>always</i>—a soldier to whom they are directed. And while police officers aren’t typically singled out for random expressions of gratitude, they too are held in particularly high esteem, for like soldiers, police officers are seen as constituting the line between civilization and savagery.</p>
<p>That this popular view is true as far it is goes is undeniable. Equally undeniable, however, is that it only goes so far.  And it doesn’t go very far at that.</p>
<p>The reality is that, first and foremost, it is upon the shoulders of <i>the parent </i>that civilization depends.</p>
<p>More so than anyone else, conservatives know that this is the case.  Soldiers and police officers are <i>government </i>actors.  Yet government is and can only be as good as the citizenry over which it presides.  In other words, in spite of what Big Government ideologues would have us think, governments do not create civilizations. Governments <i>cannot </i>create civilizations.</p>
<p>Fundamentally, a civilization is a composition, authored, as it were, over the span of many thousands of years and by countless numbers of people, of a complex of refined <i>manners</i> or <i>habits.</i></p>
<p>To put it more simply, a civilization is not <i>natural.  </i>It is even <i>un</i>natural.  Rather, civilizations are like works of arts: they are hard won achievements.</p>
<p>What this means is that no one is born a civilized person.  The civilized are not born at all. Savages are born—each and every time a human being comes into the world. The civilized, though, are <i>made. </i></p>
<p>And they are made by their mothers and fathers.</p>
<p>Nature brings individual <i>homo sapiens</i> into the world. But parents cultivate <i>persons.  </i>Through a mostly informal education in the habits of its civilization, parents domesticate the wild animal that is the child.  Through sacrifices small and large, the parent labors tirelessly for years to slay the savage to which they gave birth.</p>
<p>Of course, both father and mother are equally essential to the creation and sustenance of civilization. But fathers are especially important, for not only is the father the protector of his family, in many respects it is the father who teaches both son and daughter what it means to be <i>a man.  </i>As the renowned cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead famously said, “Motherhood is a biological fact, while fatherhood is a social invention.”  She also remarked that “Fathers are biological necessities but social accidents.”</p>
<p>The family transforms males into men and men into fathers. A preponderance of fatherless homes does not bode well for a civilization.</p>
<p>Sometimes homes are rendered fatherless through <i>choice.  </i>Other times, as in the case of the family of Andrew “Andy” Tobias, there is no choice.</p>
<p>I haven’t seen or spoken to Andy Tobias in well over 20 years.  We met when we were in the first grade together, and then several years later in high school. But the woman with whom he would eventually fall in love and form a family, Laura—also an old classmate of mine—would occasionally touch base with me on Facebook.</p>
<p>This past Christmas, just hours before their children would be up ripping open the presents that Santa would bring them, Andy died of a massive heart attack. He was just 41 years old.</p>
<p>Andy was a plumber and Laura had been a stay-at-home mother. Given that, by all accounts, Andy had been in good health, his death obviously came as a great shock. For Laura and her three children, an old friend of the family has set up a fund—“<a href="http://www.giveforward.com/fundraisers?query=The+Andy+Tobias+Family+Fund">The Andy Tobias Family Fund</a>”—at <a href="http://www.giveforward.com/">giveforward.com</a>.</p>
<p>To the readers of this column, Andy’s and Laura’s are but two arbitrarily selected names from an infinite sea of the tragedy-stricken. Still, <i>I </i>make this plea on their behalf because I know their circumstances.  I know that Andy and Laura are two people who valued <i>family </i>above all. It is this that accounts for why Andy became a father to, not just the two year-old girl he shared with Laura, but the two children the latter had from a previous marriage. It is their abiding love for family that explains why the two did their best to insure that Laura could be a stay-at-home mom.</p>
<p>Now, Laura and her children need help.</p>
<p>As I write this, the terrorist attacks that have just been visited upon Russia at this time leading up to the Winter Olympics remind us of just how precarious is civilization.  Parents, mothers and fathers, are the glue holding it together.</p>
<p>Andy and Laura tried to do right by their family and their civilization.  Please pray for them now and, if able, do your best to help Laura and her children by contributing to <a href="http://www.giveforward.com/fundraisers?query=The+Andy+Tobias+Family+Fund">The Andy Tobias Family Fund</a> at <a href="http://www.giveforward.com/">giveforward.com</a>.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>.   </b></p>
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		<title>A Nutrition Lesson from PETA</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/steven-plaut/petas-nutritionists/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=petas-nutritionists</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/steven-plaut/petas-nutritionists/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 25 Jul 2013 04:25:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Steven Plaut]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[diet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nutrition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PETA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vegan]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=198105</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Left's latest scientific fraud. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/0523-fr_A12_peta_0523.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-198158" alt="0523-fr_A12_peta_0523" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/0523-fr_A12_peta_0523.jpg" width="295" height="212" /></a>PETA or the “People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals&#8221; is the largest and goofiest group <a href="http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=8422">of “animal rights” nuts</a> on the planet.  They consider the eating of chicken <a href="http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=15882">to be the moral equivalent</a> of the Nazi Holocaust of Jews.  They advocate euthanasia of humans if it helps preserve any animals.  PETA has <a href="http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=6138">had ties to terrorist</a> organizations.  Its <a href="http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=9997">chairwoman wrote Yassir Arafat</a> and asked him to spare the animals while he was murdering Jews.</p>
<p>T. Colin Campbell is a biochemist at Cornell University.  He has also emerged as the ultimate “scientific” advocate of “vegan” diets and other features of the PETA agenda.  He has spent much of his career publishing books about nutrition, the best known of which is “The China study.”  Published in 2006, it was celebrated by much of the liberal media down to and including Oprah.  The NY Times called it “the Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” Campbell <a href="http://search.huffingtonpost.com/search?q=colin+campbell&amp;s_it=header_form_v1">himself often appears</a> on the Huffington Post.</p>
<p>While Campbell is not himself a physician, he <a href="http://www.pcrm.org/about/">sits on the advisory board</a> to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (<a href="http://www.pcrm.org/about/">PCRM</a>), an advocacy group of doctors and researchers with strong ties to PETA.  PCRM has essentially the same political agenda as PETA, down to and including <a href="http://www.pcrm.org/good-medicine/1999/winter/pcrm-steps-up-campaign-to-endlive-animal">prohibiting use of laboratory animals in medical research</a>.  It received $850,000 from PETA between 1988 and 2000.   The chairman of PCRM sits on the board of the PETA Foundation and writes a medical column for <i>Animal Times</i>, PETA&#8217;s magazine.  The American Medical Association has called PCRM a &#8220;pseudo-physicians group&#8221; and claimed that PCRM’s dietary advice &#8220;could be dangerous to the health and well-being of Americans.”  The <a href="http://www.ncahf.org/index.html">National Council against Health Fraud</a> has strongly criticized <a href="http://www.ncahf.org/articles/o-r/pcrm.html">PCRM’s activities as quackery</a>.</p>
<p>Campbell’s main book, The China Study, is co-authored with his son, Thomas M. Campbell II, who <i>IS</i> a physician and teaches clinical family medicine at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.  Their book has become the new gospel of radical vegetarians and animal rights activists.</p>
<p>It purports to be an in-depth study of the role of nutrition in human mortality and morbidity.  It is based upon health data gathered in China, and hence its title.  But far from being a neutral exploration, the book is a naked work of advocacy for radical “vegan” diets.  Its agenda is apparent on every single page of the book.  Eating animal products, by which the authors mean not only meat but also fish, eggs and dairy products, is unambiguously unhealthy.  They claim a strict vegan diet not only makes you healthier, it also will prevent you from getting cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, and many other diseases.</p>
<p>The reliance of the authors on Chinese data is problematic for lots of reasons.  First, Chinese data in general are notoriously suspect regarding everything.  Second, the “Study” is only partly based upon analyzing the health histories of individual people in China.  Much of it is instead based upon analysis of Chinese counties, comparing one county to the next, including regarding mortality and dietary indicators.</p>
<p>But there are oodles of other differences across Chinese counties besides diet.  There are sharp age differences because of internal Chinese migration, and these age differences are reflected in morbidity and mortality rates.  The climate differences across different parts of China may be the most extreme for any country on earth. China is probably the most polluted country in the world and the pollution is higher in industrialized areas (meaning wealthier areas).   All in all, their study examined 6500 Chinese individuals in 65 Chinese counties.  Neither of these is a large enough number for persuasive conclusions. Counties of China where people eat more meat may be wealthier, explaining how they can afford meat in the first place.  Wealthier Chinese may smoke more and may be better educated.  Separating all these factors to isolate the role of diet is methodologically difficult.  The authors resolve the difficulty by not trying at all to do so.  Finally, Chinese are different in lots of ways from people in other countries, so any conclusion one could derive from studying the relations between diet and health must be taken with many a grain of salt.</p>
<p>Even with all those caveats, many of the authors “conclusions” simply do not hold up under examination.  The MUSLIM areas of China seem to have higher life expectancy than elsewhere!  It is NOT because they are vegetarian.  Parts of Tibet, where almost everyone is a Buddhist vegetarian, have HIGH mortality rates.</p>
<p>The authors’ thesis may be best summed up by themselves (on page 105):  “Almost all of us in the Unites States will die of diseases of affluence.” Affluence in the world is (unfortunately, to their minds) associated with unhealthy diets, including of course eating animal products.  Throughout the book they insist over and over again that nothing good can come from eating animal products, including dairy products.  Only a 100% plant-based diet can keep one healthy.</p>
<p>To sell this message, the authors are not above the most cynical manipulation of data. Campbell the Father openly admits to examining the data gathered by The China Project with intention of showing associations between animal food consumption and disease. Much of the “analysis” in the book is nothing more than seeking pairs of raw correlations.  So if women with high calcium in their urine tend to have worse problems with osteoporosis and women who eat dairy tend to have more calcium in their urine, then <i>ipso facto</i> eating dairy causes osteoporosis.  Never mind that every gerontologist on earth urges older women to eat more dairy to prevent osteoporosis!</p>
<p>The problem of course is that people who ingest a lot of calcium, more than their body needs, will tend to expel the excess.  This would include older women who eat a lot of dairy.  The conclusion that osteoporosis is CAUSED by eating dairy is completely spurious and is a good example of why the authors have been dismissed as quacks. Campbell <a href="http://www.ncahf.org/articles/o-r/pcrm.html">himself has admitted</a> that his claim that eliminating dairy products from the diet helps osteoporosis is bunk.</p>
<p>The book was dismissed as unscientific by the “<a href="http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/385/">Science-Based Medicine</a>” web site.  One <a href="http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/385/">reviewer there wrote</a>: “This is a cautionary tale. It shows how complex issues can be over-simplified into meaninglessness, how epidemiologic data can be misinterpreted and mislead us, and how a researcher can approach a problem with preconceptions that allow him to see only what he wants to see.” A health blogger named Denise Minger has probably devoted the most energy and time <a href="http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/07/07/the-china-study-fact-or-fallac/">to debunking Campbell’s work</a> and is worth reading.</p>
<p>There is a well-known difficulty of strict vegans in getting enough protein.  No problem at all, insist the authors, because protein is BAD for you.  Never mind that a major factor explaining the differences in life expectancy across countries is protein intake, where more protein is associated with longer life expectancy.</p>
<p>They attempt to peddle this snake oil by pointing out all the bad things that come from obesity and from eating high-fat high-cholesterol foods.  No one seriously denies that obesity is a serious and growing health problem in the United States, the UK, and elsewhere.  But that hardly means protein is bad for you.</p>
<p>The authors are slick and sneaky when it comes to presentation of evidence.  Right after they denounce butter as the most unhealthy of animal-based foods, especially for heart disease, they present a table (page 116) that shows that the French have one of the lowest rates of heart disease on the planet.  But as everyone knows, the French guzzle butter with almost every meal and also eat globs of beef and pork!   In other cases the authors present tables and charts and simply presume their readers are too stupid to read them.  For example, they present a chart on breast cancer and dietary fat, but readers can see that there is no relationship at all between the variables! The same is true of some of their other charts.</p>
<p>They are a bit shady when it comes to tradeoffs. Suppose one could be convinced that there really is a positive correlation between dietary fat and breast cancer.  There could also be a hundred NEGATIVE connections between OTHER diseases and dietary fat, so the argument that fat endangers your (net) health and life expectancy would still be dubious.  As blogger <a href="http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/07/07/the-china-study-fact-or-fallac/">Denise Minger has shown</a>, the authors left out lots of correlations between diet and disease having the OPPOSITE direction of what their agenda demanded and they simply suppressed and ignored these in the book.</p>
<p>The book repeatedly insists that affluence is bad for us all, health-wise.  Yet everywhere on earth, health is <i>positively</i> associated with income and wealth!  But the point they miss is that affluence has been so successful in creating conditions where many other possible causes of death have been eliminated, from malnutrition to communicative disease.  So what is left are the diseases that are less effectively eliminated by means of affluence (heart disease and cancer).</p>
<p>Finally, the authors’ chapter near the end of the book on the conspiracies of &#8220;Big Medicine&#8221; undermines any residual credibility for the rest of the book and could have been written by 9-11 Troofers.  But as PETA nutritionists, there was not very much credibility even before this chapter.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Shocking Video: Muslim Women Drinking Camel Urine for ‘Good Health’</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/raymond-ibrahim/shocking-video-muslim-women-drinking-camel-urine-for-good-health/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=shocking-video-muslim-women-drinking-camel-urine-for-good-health</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/raymond-ibrahim/shocking-video-muslim-women-drinking-camel-urine-for-good-health/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Oct 2012 04:05:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Arab Spring]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[camel urine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mohammed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sharia]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=148423</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Sharia medicine on full, disturbing display.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/raymond-ibrahim/shocking-video-muslim-women-drinking-camel-urine-for-good-health/picture-18-11/" rel="attachment wp-att-148705"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-148705" title="Picture-18" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Picture-18.gif" alt="" width="315" height="214" /></a>A video just appeared further substantiating my recent report, “<a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/raymond-ibrahim/sharia-medicine-egyptian-clinic-treats-people-with-camel-urine/">Sharia-Medicine: Egyptian Clinic Treats People with Camel Urine</a>,” which documents how several Islamic authorities praise the practice of drinking camel urine for good health—based on the advice of Muslim prophet Muhammad—and how in Egypt there is now even a clinic that treats people by giving them camel urine to drink.</p>
<p>The video appeared on Dream TV, with talk show host Wael Ibrashi narrating.  It shows men collecting camel urine in buckets and giving it to people who are, in Ibrashi’s words, “looking to be healed from influenza, diabetes, infectious diseases, infertility,” etc.</p>
<p>Several women are shown drinking camel urine—and doing all they can to keep it down and not vomit.</p>
<p>Ibrashi concluded by saying he is not airing this video to mock or disgust but to determine “whether we are moving forward, or whether we are moving backwards.”</p>
<p>Indeed, the growing popularity of drinking camel urine is but the latest example of the true nature of the “Arab Spring.”</p>
<p>http://youtu.be/PqEXfxXrhbg</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>The Welfare State and the Selfish Society</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dennis-prager/the-welfare-state-and-the-selfish-society/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-welfare-state-and-the-selfish-society</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dennis-prager/the-welfare-state-and-the-selfish-society/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 27 Apr 2011 04:09:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dennis Prager]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afternoon Edition]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=91503</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why the entitlement mindset produces far more selfish people. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/dsc_00151.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-91504" title="dsc_00151" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/dsc_00151.gif" alt="" width="375" height="271" /></a></p>
<p>In the contemporary world, where left-wing attitudes are regarded as normative, it is a given that capitalism, with its free market and profit motive, emanates from and creates selfishness, while socialism, the welfare state and the &#8220;social compact,&#8221; as it is increasingly referred to, emanate from and produce selflessness.</p>
<p>The opposite is the truth.</p>
<p>Whatever its intentions, the entitlement state produces far more selfish people — and therefore, a far more selfish society — than a free-market economy. And once this widespread selfishness catches on, we have little evidence that it can be undone.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s an illustration: Last year, President Obama addressed a large audience of college students on the subject of health care. At one point in his speech, he announced that the students will now be able to remain on their parents&#8217; healthinsurance plan until age 26. I do not ever recall hearing a louder, more thunderous and sustained applause than I did then. I do not believe that if the president had announced that a cure for cancer had been discovered that the applause would have been louder or longer.</p>
<p>It is depressing to listen to that applause. To be told that one can be dependent on one&#8217;s parents until age 26 should strike a young person who wants to grow up as demeaning, not as something to celebrate.</p>
<p>Throughout American history, the natural — or at least hoped for — inclination of a young person was to become a mature adult, independent of Mom and Dad, and to become a grown up. But in the welfare state, this is no longer the case.</p>
<p>In various European countries, it is increasingly common for young men to live with their parents into their 30s and even longer. Why not? In the welfare state, there is no shame in doing so.</p>
<p>The welfare state enables — and thereby produces — people whose preoccupations become more and more self-centered as time goes on:</p>
<p>How many benefits will I receive from the state?</p>
<p>How much will the state pay for my education?</p>
<p>How much will the state pay for my health care and when I retire?</p>
<p>What is the youngest age at which I can retire?</p>
<p>How much vacation time can I get each year?</p>
<p>How many days can I call in sick and get paid?</p>
<p>How many months can I claim paternity or maternity care money?</p>
<p>The list gets longer with each election of a left-wing party.</p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Contempt for the Free Market</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tait-trussell/obamas-contempt-for-the-free-market/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-contempt-for-the-free-market</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tait-trussell/obamas-contempt-for-the-free-market/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 15 Apr 2011 04:04:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tait Trussell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[ceo of ibm]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[sam palmisano]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=90362</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The president snubbed a golden opportunity for the private sector to reform health care in America. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/1207-obama-bush-tax-cuts_full_380.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-90368" title="1207-obama-bush-tax-cuts_full_380" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/1207-obama-bush-tax-cuts_full_380.gif" alt="" width="375" height="276" /></a></p>
<p>While President Obama and the then-Democrat controlled Congress strutted with pride on the enactment of the nation’s budget-busting health-care overhaul, the CEO of a major private corporation offered to “improve the quality and reduce the cost of health-care by $900 billion” for free. But Obama turned it down.</p>
<p>Sam Palmisano, chairman and CEO of IBM, revealed this historic incident in a little-known <a href="http://online.wsj.com/ad/article/viewpoints-palmisano.htmlhttp:/online.wsj.com/ad/article/viewpoints-palmisano.htmlhttp:/online.wsj.com/ad/article/viewpoints-palmisano.htmlhttp:/online.wsj.com/ad/article/viewpoints-palmisano.html">interview</a> with The Wall Street Journal’s Alan Murray, editor of the paper’s on-line program. But, strangely, the jarring rebuff by Obama seemingly was brushed aside by the Journal.</p>
<p>No stranger to health care, IBM announced April 11 that it was marking its 100 years in business by celebrating its “<a href="http://www.mtbeurope.info/news/2011/1104008.htmhttp:/www.mtbeurope.info/news/2011/1104008.htmhttp:/www.mtbeurope.info/news/2011/1104008.htm">contributions</a> to fighting infectious diseases and contributions to world health.” Over the years, IBM has created hardware and applications specifically designed to improve care, diagnosis, and treatment of disease and advance how medical knowledge is shared.</p>
<p>A blog, Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential, on Feb. 23 said IBM’s CEO had offered the administration a free<a href="http://www.commentsonnationalamnesia.com/2011/02/24/obama-turns-down-ibm-offer-to-cut-medicare-fraud-by-900-billion-dollars/http:/www.commentsonnationalamnesia.com/2011/02/24/obama-turns-down-ibm-offer-to-cut-medicare-fraud-by-900-billion-dollars/http:/"> software</a> program that “would have cut Medicare and Medicaid fraud by almost a trillion dollars.” The transcript of the interview, which I obtained, isn’t clear, however, how Palmisano was offering to solve the health crisis.</p>
<p>If the administration had accepted IBM’s offer, it could have saved the taxpayer at least <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-turn/2011/01/democrats_and_liberal_pundits.html">$700 billion</a> piled on the budget deficit over 10 years, not to mention the frustrations and confusion caused by the ever-building bureaucracy of the Affordable Care Act, commonly called ObamaCare. Enacted March 23, 2010, the law’s costs were detailed in a Washington Post story in January.</p>
<p>The revealing transcript of the Sept. 14, 2010 program, which IBM gave me, “speaks for itself,” an IBM spokesman said. He declined to explain or elaborate further. Palmisano said he had been at the White House talking about ways to improve the functioning of government, but “we haven’t made much progress. I mean, we’ve done tons of work, and for whatever sets of reasons, we haven’t been able to establish being in synch with the priorities. I’ll give you one example. We could have improved the quality and reduced the cost of the healthcare system by $900 billion&#8230;.It was self funding. You could have insured anybody you wanted to, illegal aliens, dogs, cats, ponies, whatever you want&#8230;.It did not require any big legislative change to do that.</p>
<p>Murray: So, why wouldn’t they do it? That’s money on the table.</p>
<p>Palmisano: You’d have to ask them&#8230;.I said we’d do it for free to prove that it works.</p>
<p>Murray: Why?</p>
<p>Palmisano: You’d have to ask them.</p>
<p>Murray: But so, that gets to kind of a fundamental question.</p>
<p>Palmisano: Free. Free wasn’t good enough.</p>
<p>Murray: But “why” is the right question, right? I mean&#8230;</p>
<p>Palmisano: I think what it is, I mean, not to be judgmental about these things: I really do think what it is is that we weren’t aligned with the priorities of the Administration&#8230;. So, the priority at the time, if I stay on my example of health care, was not to reduce costs and improve quality. It was to provide insurance and coverage for more people&#8230;.All we said, if you did this you could fund the priority without increasing the deficit, taking taxes up. And we couldn’t sell the case.</p>
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		<title>Never Letting a Serious Crisis Go to Waste</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/dov-fischer/never-letting-a-serious-crisis-go-to-waste/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=never-letting-a-serious-crisis-go-to-waste</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Jun 2010 04:00:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dov Fischer]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Will Obama exploit the BP oil fiasco to further his environmentalist agenda?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/photo_1268888322112-4-0_77266_G.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-61963" title="photo_1268888322112-4-0_77266_G" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/photo_1268888322112-4-0_77266_G-300x191.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="191" /></a></p>
<p>White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel gained notoriety for declaring his credo: “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yeA_kHHLow" target="_blank">You never want a serious crisis to go to waste</a>.” In other words, when there is tragedy and suffering, intense human pain and disaster, a political expert enjoys a unique opportunity to push the least popular parts of his agenda past a distracted electorate.</p>
<p>No sooner had President Barack Obama entered the White House than the Emanuel Doctrine was put into motion with the 1,073-page $787 billion “stimulus bill” that had to be <a href="http://www.nwfdailynews.com/opinion/bill-15375-welfare-people.html" target="_blank">rushed through Congress, seemingly overnight</a>.  As <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/jan/26/joe-barton/Congress-getting-little-review-of-stimulus-bill/" target="_blank">Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) said</a>: “We have not had a single hearing on anything in front of us&#8230;.We’ve been told that even one hearing would be one too many, and that we have a single day to approve these five complex propositions that will affect the lives of millions.”</p>
<p>Faced in January 2009 with a looming national financial catastrophe, as a crash in the residential real estate market prompted a grave Wall Street crisis, the Obama White House detected cover to raid the public till and reward staunch Democrat loyalists under the rubric of a “stimulus bill.”  Beneath the public radar and buried within <a href="http://bailout.uslaw.com/?p=453" target="_blank">the bill’s 1,073 pages</a>, the “stimulus” allocated <em>inter alia</em> $50 million to the National Endowment for the Arts, nearly half a billion dollars for people interested in researching “global warming,” even <a href="http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/07/18m-being-spent-to-redesign-recoverygov-web-site.html" target="_blank">at least $18 million for the website</a> that reports how the “stimulus” funds are allocated.  Overturning a prime achievement of the Clinton Administration, the “stimulus” <a href="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2009/02/Welfare-Spendathon-House-Stimulus-Bill-Will-Cost-Taxpayers-787-Billion-in-New-Welfare-Spending" target="_blank">restored key elements of the welfare practices</a> that America had abandoned. Over time, the “stimulus” has trickled down to fund $233,825 for <a href="http://stimuluswatch.org/2.0/awards/view/2798/explaining-the-african-vote" target="_blank">explaining voting patterns in Africa</a> and $363,760 for two jobs “<a href="http://stimuluswatch.org/2.0/awards/view/21694/develop-real-life-stroies-that-underscore-job-and-infrastructure-related-to-arra-research-findings" target="_blank">[d]evelop[ing] &#8216;real life&#8217; st[or]ies</a> that underscore job and infrastructure related to [the Stimulus Bill] research findings.”</p>
<p>In sum, there was crisis – thus opportunity.  The sweaty-palms sense of crisis that demanded virtually overnight passage before Congressional representatives could read its encyclopedic contents has long since proven exaggerated.  The vast majority of the bill’s funds still have not stimulated anything.  Much of it still has not been infused into the economy.</p>
<p>This is the Emanuel Doctrine:  never let a crisis go to waste.  This doctrine similarly was implemented after <a href="http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/19/brown-coakley-massachusetts-business-healthcare-senate.html" target="_blank">the ObamaCare health measure had been all-but-abandoned</a> when Scott Brown surprisingly defeated Attorney-General Martha Coakley in the race for United State Senator from Massachusetts.  Soon after, unexpectedly, a national pseudo-crisis emerged when Anthem Blue Cross, a California health insurer, sought to raise its health premiums by <a href="http://www.californiahealthline.org/articles/2010/2/5/anthem-blue-cross-to-hike-premium-rates-for-individual-policy-holders.aspx" target="_blank">as much as 39 percent</a>.  The crisis was not wasted by Washington.  Within days, ObamaCare was rushed back onto the House calendar.  Forgotten amid the federal legislative carnage that followed – most recently credited with helping bring down <a href="http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/05/senior-house-democrat-rep-david-obey-to-resign/" target="_blank">Rep. David Obey</a>, <a href="http://img.thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/91307-stupak-to-retire" target="_blank">Rep. Bart Stupak</a>, and Sen. Arlen Specter – is that <a href="http://www.californiahealthline.org/articles/2010/4/30/anthem-blue-cross-to-withdraw-planned-rate-hikes-could-refile-soon.aspx" target="_blank">Anthem Blue Cross ultimately withdrew their rate-hike request</a> as the California insurance oversight system effectively regulated as intended.</p>
<p>Considered in the light of this prior experience, it becomes understandable why the Obama Administration has opted to curtail oil-exploration, suspending and rescinding permits, in response to the tragic Deepwater Horizon oil rig spill off the Gulf  of Mexico.  The story is fresh in the public mind. In raw numbers, eleven have died, and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/27/AR2010052701957_2.html?wpisrc=nl_headline&amp;sid=ST2010052704421" target="_blank">between 18 million and 39 million gallons</a> of oil have gushed along America’s Gulf Coast, already exceeding the <em>Exxon Valdez</em> disaster that spilled nearly 11 million gallons of oil into the waters along Alaska. One of America’s fiercest Democrat partisans, New Orleans resident James Carville, <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill" target="_blank">went on an extraordinary tear</a> last week against the Obama Administration:  “The President of the United States could’ve come down here. He could’ve been involved with the families of these 11 people&#8230;.These people are crying. They&#8217;re begging for something down here, and it just looks like he&#8217;s not involved in this. Man, you got to get down here and take control of this. Put somebody in charge of this and get this thing moving. We&#8217;re about to die down here.” Observing that “[t]he political stupidity of this is just unbelievable,” Carville emphatically repeated his call: “There&#8217;s a thousand things that he could do. He just needs to get down here and start doing something, people are dying.”</p>
<p>By last Thursday, the <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll" target="_blank">daily Rasmussen tracking poll</a> revealed that 26 percent of Americans strongly approve of the President’s job performance, while 42 percent strongly disapprove, giving Mr. Obama a Presidential Approval rating of minus-16.  A <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_pl2270" target="_blank">USA Today/Gallup survey</a> found that 53 percent of Americans rate his handling of the crisis as “poor” or “very poor” while only 43 percent still are satisfied.  Nevertheless, Americans continue to support oil exploration. By a <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_state_surveys/texas/65_in_texas_still_support_offshore_drilling" target="_blank">significant margin, Texas voters</a> still want more offshore oil drilling.  <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/offshore_drilling/64_favor_offshore_oil_drilling" target="_blank">Similar percentages hold nationally. </a> However, for this White House, proceeding with new drilling would “waste” the crisis.</p>
<p>If Obama’s goal were to evaluate ecologically responsible alternatives to drilling for oil a mile below the gulf’s surface, the White House could <a href="http://www.anwr.org/ANWR-Basics/Top-ten-reasons-to-support-ANWR-development.php" target="_blank">reconsider exploring for oil and natural gas in ANWR</a>, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in the north Alaskan coast.  Of ANWR’s 19 million acres, there is enormous potential in a small section, the “10-02 Area,” which still would leave 92% of ANWR untouched. Only one-ten-thousandth of ANWR – a section smaller than LAX airport – actually would have surface drilling rigs. ANWR exploration could pump scores of billions of dollars into the national economy, create half a million great-paying jobs, and reduce American fuel-import expenditures by hundreds of billions of dollars.  Moreover, the local caribou population fare <a href="http://alaskaspirit.com/alaska-travel/the-trans-alaska-pipeline-the-must-see-attraction-for-the-caribou/" target="_blank">better around oil pipelines</a> than environmentalists ever expected.</p>
<p>The Obama White House also could focus its response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster by intensifying federal efforts to clean the environmental catastrophe to Louisiana’s fishing waters, and by <a href="http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/gov_bobby_jindal_state_will_co.html" target="_blank">moving rapidly to approve</a> Gov. <a href="http://www.wwl.com/Jindal---We-won-t-wait-for-federal-permission-to-s/7163295" target="_blank">Bobby Jindal’s almost-frantic pleas for federal permission to erect more protective sand berms</a> along the coast.  However, prior crisis behavior by this White House – whether prompted by a devastating Wall Street collapse or an outlier health insurer inordinately applying to raise rates by 39 percent – reflects that President Obama deems moments like these as unique <em>opportunities</em> for “<a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/11/obamas_transformative_powers.html" target="_blank">transformative</a> social change.”  Thus, we may well anticipate an intensified effort in the near term to resuscitate the moribund “<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124588837560750781.html" target="_blank">Cap and Trade</a>” bill which would add <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504383_162-5314040-504383.html" target="_blank">between $1,761 and $3,100 in annual energy costs</a> for most American homes.</p>
<p>For the President’s <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100528/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill_obama_glance_2" target="_blank">longer-range vision</a> of this crisis, we again encounter his determination to pursue ideological goals that <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/environment_energy/56_don_t_want_to_pay_more_to_fight_global_warming" target="_blank">clash with the American people’s concerns</a>.  He is now stopping new oil exploration: suspending plans for exploratory drilling off the Virginia and Alaska coasts; stopping 33 exploratory drilling projects in the Gulf of Mexico, and; continuing a six-month moratorium on all permits for offshore drilling.  Although our Outer Continental Shelf contains <a href="http://www.mms.gov/offshore/" target="_blank">as much as 86 billion barrels of oil</a>, with possibly <a href="http://www.mms.gov/offshore/220.htm" target="_blank">130 million barrels off the coast of Virginia</a> alone, the President’s response means that we instead will continue importing <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2175rank.html" target="_blank">approximately 13.5 million barrels daily</a> – more than twenty percent of that <a href="http://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/wps/portal/rielcano_eng/Content?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/elcano/elcano_in/zonas_in/ari+74-2006" target="_blank">from the Persian Gulf dictatorships</a> – at prices that now hover around $70 a barrel. We will send Arab Gulf despots some $175 million daily or some $65 billion a year, even as our deficit-driven economy starves for capital, and as our unemployed search for good-paying jobs at home.</p>
<p>Our nation consumes more than <a href="http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_con-energy-oil-consumption" target="_blank">20 million barrels of oil daily</a>, importing nearly <a href="http://www.nationmaster.com/country/us-united-states/ene-energy" target="_blank">sixty percent</a> from foreign countries whose production standards are far less friendly to the polar ice caps than ours.  <a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Earth/Saudi_Arabia_dirtiest/articleshow/3816750.cms" target="_blank">Saudi Arabia, for example, ranks last</a> as the dirtiest emitter of greenhouse gases among the 57 countries rated on one NGO’s “Climate Change Performance Index.” Moreover, our imported oil necessarily arrives in tankers – the petroleum obviously cannot be delivered any other way – and those tankers pose <a href="http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/coal-oil-gas/biggest-oil-spills-in-history" target="_blank">even more extreme environmental risks</a>.  The 1979 <em>Atlantic Empress</em> tanker spilled 88.3 million gallons of oil.  The <em>ABT Summer</em> tanker spilled 78 million off the Angola Coast in 1991.  The <em>Castillo de Bellver </em>spilled 78.5 million.  The <em>Amoco Cadiz</em> tanker lost 68.7 million gallons off France’s Brittany coast.  The <em>Odyssey</em> spilled 43 million off Nova Scotia. The <em>Haven </em>poured 42 million gallons in the waters outside Italy.  <a href="http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001451.html" target="_blank">The list goes on.</a> Yet oil-importing tankers have not been suspended from sailing America’s waters.  Nor do we suspend air travel after a tragedy in the sky nor rail transportation after a train wreck.</p>
<p>President Obama has long opposed new oil exploration. In <a href="http://www.ontheissues.org/SenateVote/Party_2005-288.htm" target="_blank">November 2005</a>, he voted against oil and gas leasing in the Alaskan Coastal Plain.  On April 20, 2007, rolling out his “Initiative to Combat Global Warming,” he told students in New Hampshire that “[i]t will take a grassroots effort to make America greener and <a href="http://www.barackobama.com/2007/04/20/barack_obama_unveils_initiativ.php" target="_blank">end the tyranny of oil</a>.”  Weeks later, he told a crowd: “<a href="http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2007/05/obama_the_age_of_oil_must_end.html" target="_blank">The age of oil must end</a>.” In his <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/07/presidential.debate.transcript/index.html" target="_blank">second Presidential Debate</a> against John McCain, he stated: “[W]e can&#8217;t simply drill our way out of the problem. And we&#8217;re not going to be able to deal with the climate crisis if our only solution is to use more fossil fuels that create global warming.”</p>
<p>Now, with a crisis too opportune to waste, the President has chosen not to respond with a comprehensive proactive approach to America’s energy choices.  He could have encouraged safe new exploration by directing his Interior Secretary henceforth to administer and enforce competently the safety regulations already on the books, but which his <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/04/AR2010050404118.html" target="_blank">Minerals Management Service ignored on his watch</a> during the construction of Deepwater Horizon. He could reconsider opening ANWR to drilling, encourage efforts to expand clean-coal technology, and even order a prioritized review aimed at reviving the construction of nuclear power plants in America. (America has <a href="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-04/28/content_438216.htm" target="_blank">not built a new nuclear power plant in more than thirty years</a>, even as France’s <a href="http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf40.html" target="_blank">sixteen nuclear power plants generate nearly 80 percent</a> of that country’s electricity.) Instead, this Administration, which knows that <a href="http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2008/07/14/4425084-drilling-debate-part-2" target="_blank">it can take ten years</a> from licensing exploration until newly discovered oil reaches market, is prepared to risk laying the foundations for a future crisis by presently deterring new exploration and instead tilting disproportionately at windmills.</p>
<p><em>Dov Fischer is a legal affairs consultant and adjunct professor of the law of civil procedure and advanced torts. He was formerly Chief Articles Editor of UCLA Law Review and writes extensively on political, cultural, and religious issues.  He is author of general </em><em>Sharon</em><em>’s War Against Time Magazine and blogs at <a title="blocked::http://www.rabbidov.com/ http://www.rabbidov.com/" href="http://www.rabbidov.com/" target="_blank">www.rabbidov.com</a></em></p>
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		<title>More Than Bluster</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/joseph-klein/more-than-bluster/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=more-than-bluster</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 27 May 2010 04:03:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[North Korea ups the ante. Will the world's democracies fold? ]]></description>
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<p>Tensions are rising in the Korean Peninsula, following confirmation by international investigators that North Korea torpedoed a South Korean ship in March, killing 46 sailors which were South Korea’s worst military fatalities since the Korean War ended in 1953.</p>
<p>South Korean President Lee Myung-bak vowed to cut off nearly all trade with North Korea and to deny North Korean merchant ships permission to use South Korean sea lanes. South Korea also plans to broadcast propaganda messages into the North and to drop leaflets by air.</p>
<p>The United States is planning joint military exercises with South Korea in a show of resolve.</p>
<p>China does not want to do anything that might further inflame the situation, while its friends in North Korea are talking about going to war.</p>
<p>As for the United Nations, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told reporters at his monthly press conference at UN headquarters in New York that the evidence laid out in the report of the international investigators &#8220;is overwhelming and deeply troubling.&#8221;  Ban Ki-moon expressed his grave concerns, not only on behalf of the United Nations but also personally as a South Korean citizen. “I have a very strong attachment and even a sense of responsibility,” he told reporters.  “Now, serving as Secretary-General, this is most troubling for me to see what is happening in the Korean Peninsula &#8211; that’s my motherland.”</p>
<p>The Secretary General said that the Security Council will be conferring on what “appropriate” measures to take against the rogue regime. What that means is anyone’s guess, since China will most likely use its veto power to make sure that North Korea gets no more than another slap on the wrist following the ineffective sanctions imposed after North Korea’s missile and nuclear arms testing.</p>
<p>China’s solicitude for North Korea should not be surprising, considering that China has been North Korea’s largest trading partner and supplier of assistance (through subsidized trade and direct transfers).  Moreover, as pointed out by the Congressional Research Service, “Beijing values North Korea as a buffer between the democratic South Korea and the U.S. forces stationed there, as a rationale to divert U.S. and Japanese resources in the Asia Pacific toward dealing with Pyongyang and less focused on the growing military might of China.”</p>
<p>For its part, the United Nations itself is still throwing North Korea a lifeline, so to speak. Irrespective of its government’s aggressive actions, humanitarian aid to North Korea will continue, promised Ban Ki-moon.  He emphasized the needs of the malnourished children, calling them “the leaders of our future generations.”</p>
<p>After his formal news conference was over, I approached the Secretary General and asked him what level of confidence he had that the humanitarian aid would actually reach the people in North Korea who needed it.  I reminded him how previous aid projects to help the people sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme had failed.</p>
<p>All that Ban Ki-moon could say in response was that “We have to try.”</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it is a doomed effort. The North Korean regime has a habit of raiding the UN piggybank.  For example, it convinced the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to provide hard currency payments without any safeguards. Those funds ended up lining the dictator Kim Jong-Il&#8217;s pocket. At least $20 million was transferred from the UNDP directly to the North Korean regime for so-called development projects. The UNDP enabled North Korea to use UN-affiliated accounts to launder money and to import dual-use technology.  As a consequence of this scandal, the UNDP had shut down its North Korea operations, but has since decided to resume them.</p>
<p>The terrible malnutrition that Ban Ki-moon laments is a direct result of the regime’s cruel neglect and mismanagement.  It lets its people suffer from severe food shortages and a near-total breakdown in the public health system while it squanders money on nuclear arms and missiles.  The UN’s World Health Organization has managed to get some limited rations delivered to less than a third of the neediest people. While the World Health Organization claims it has international staff monitoring distribution of food aid, reports have surfaced that people getting food are giving it back to the government.</p>
<p>As long as this closed regime stays in power, there is little the United Nations can do to really break through and reach the imprisoned population with humanitarian aid, even with the best of intentions. The aid will be squandered by Kim Jong-Il and his henchmen, as they have done before with development assistance.  The UN is simply enabling the government to continue to survive.</p>
<p>The back of this regime must be broken by strangling its economy and quarantining entry and exit of ships to and from North Korean ports suspected of carrying nuclear or other military equipment and materials.  There is no other way to save its people.</p>
<p>Article Seven of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines various categories of acts that constitute crimes against humanity including murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation or forcible transfer of population, imprisonment, torture, rape, sexual slavery or enforced prostitution, persecution and enforced disappearance of persons. North Korea is guilty of virtually all of these horrendous crimes against its own people, yet nothing is being done to hold its leaders to account.</p>
<p>Even if the International Criminal Court should take some action against the North Korean regime, it will mean nothing.  Kim Jong-Il need only look at what is happening with Sudan’s Omar Hassan al-Bashir as an example. The Court issued a warrant for al-Bashir’s arrest more than a year ago on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Not only is al-Bashir still free, but he will be serving yet another term as president.  Two top UN officials in Sudan are even planning to attend his inauguration ceremony.</p>
<p>Decisive action against North Korea, beyond what the United Nations is capable of doing, is needed immediately.  Will the world’s democracies finally have the courage it takes to put this aggressive dictatorship in its place once and for all? So far, it does not look promising.</p>
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		<title>The Alarmist Presidency</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/rich-trzupek/the-alarmist-presidency/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-alarmist-presidency</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 13 May 2010 04:03:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rich Trzupek]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=59994</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Barack Obama never wastes an opportunity to expand government regulation. ]]></description>
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<p>There’s a school of thought among conservatives and libertarians that liberals knowingly seed and fertilize phony crises in order to cultivate even more big government. While I don’t wholly discount that point of view, I think the sky-is-falling mentality that permeates the Obama administration’s approach to environmental issues is more the result of living within the liberal echo chamber for so long.</p>
<p>Environmentalists and their Democrat allies spent eight years screaming that the Bush administration and corporate America were destroying the environment and putting our lives at risk. Having been handed the keys of state, Obama naturally embraces those voices that offer “solutions” to a problem that never actually existed. Democrats being Democrats, those solutions naturally involve benevolent government intervention.</p>
<p>It’s a chicken and egg argument in any case. Does the liberal desire for socialism consciously create phony problems, or does it merely exploit crackpot ideas that fit in with the program? Either way, this administration hasn’t yet met an environmental “crisis” it isn’t willing to address by rolling up its sleeves and getting down to the dirty work of drawing up more rules that will protect the ignorant masses who have been exploited by big businesses for so long. The latest example of this phenomenon is <a href="http://deainfo.nci.nih.gov/advisory/pcp/pcp08-09rpt/PCP_Report_08-09_508.pdf">a report from the President’s Cancer Panel</a> which attributes cancer to the supposed poisoning of America. Entitled “Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk: What We Can Do Now,” the report was prepared by a couple of academics: LaSalle D. Leffall, Jr., M.D. of the Howard University College of Medicine and Margaret L. Kripke, Ph.D. of the University  of Texas. A couple of paragraphs from the letter that accompanies the report, signed by Leffall and Kripke, gives you the flavor:</p>
<blockquote><p>“The Panel was particularly concerned to find that the true burden of environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated. With nearly 80,000 chemicals on the market in the United   States, many of which are used by millions of Americans in their daily lives and are un- or understudied and largely unregulated, exposure to potential environmental carcinogens is widespread. One such ubiquitous chemical, bisphenol A (BPA), is still found in many consumer products and remains unregulated in the United States, despite the growing link between BPA and several diseases, including various cancers.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>Environmental exposures that increase the national cancer burden do not represent a new front in the ongoing war on cancer. However, the grievous harm from this group of carcinogens has not been addressed adequately by the National Cancer Program. The American people—even before they are born—are bombarded continually with myriad combinations of these dangerous exposures. The Panel urges you most strongly to use the power of your office to remove the carcinogens and other toxins from our food, water, and air that needlessly increase health care costs, cripple our Nation’s productivity, and devastate American lives.”</p></blockquote>
<p>When somebody trots out bisphenol A as their showpiece problem, what follows isn’t going to be pretty. The evidence linking BPA to adverse health effects of any kind is <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352478,00.html">remarkably weak</a>, much less to cancer. But this is a chemophobic administration and Leffall and Kripke dutifully deliver a report that raises chemophobia to new heights. The report was so hysterical and full of unsubstantiated conjecture that even the American Cancer Society rolled their eyes. Consider this from <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/health/research/07cancer.html">a New York Times’ piece</a> that was surprisingly critical of the Cancer Panel’s report:</p>
<blockquote><p>“Dr. Michael Thun, an epidemiologist from the cancer society, said in <a title="The statement from the cancer society." href="http://acspressroom.wordpress.com/2010/05/06/cancer-and-the-environment/">an online statement</a> that the report was “unbalanced by its implication that pollution is the major cause of cancer,” and had presented an unproven theory — that environmentally caused cases are grossly underestimated — as if it were a fact.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Leffall and Kripke’s underlying assumption – that the 80,000 chemicals in use in America are “unregulated or virtually unregulated” – is utter nonsense. Every chemical is evaluated by the EPA as part of the Agency’s obligations under the <a href="http://www.epa.gov/lawsregs/laws/tsca.html">Toxic Substances Control Act</a> (TSCA) in order to determine if the chemical presents a possible threat to the environment or human health. If the Agency determines that there is a potential problem, it is charged with regulating said chemical appropriately. Further, the vast majority of those 80,000 chemicals are used in small quantities and could not therefore effect the environment on a macroscopic scale in any case. The EPA goes beyond the requirements of TSCA when it comes to the 3,000 or so chemicals that are used in large quantities. The Agency has gathered and continues to gather even more information on the health and safety effects under its “<a href="http://www.epa.gov/chemrtk/index.htm">High Production Volume</a>” chemicals program.</p>
<p>Beyond that, we have EPA rules covering chemical discharges to the air, to surface water, to ground water and in the soil. We’ve got OSHA, NIOSH and the American Conference of Governmental and Industrial Hygienists, all of whom spend a great deal of time looking at the effects of chemicals on human health and environment. Rather than proposing new studies, new restrictions and new regulations, Leffall and Kripke would do better to propose a study that would study the huge pile of studies we already have. That would serve the dual purposes of keeping academics happily engaged in a pointless task, and allowing the rest of us could to avoid further benevolence from Big Brother.</p>
<p>We haven’t even gotten to cap and trade yet and already Obama’s EPA is working up the most restrictive air quality standards in history, creating new ways to regulate vast swaths of oceans, pushing for sweeping new stormwater regulations and now this. A rational president would take one look at the President’s Cancer Report and quietly deposit it in the circular file. But Barack Obama? This kind of hysterical alarmism is just the kind of excuse this president needs to regulate, well – everything.</p>
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		<title>The Road to Big Government</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/rick-moran/the-road-to-big-government/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-road-to-big-government</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 04 May 2010 04:01:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rick Moran]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=59383</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why “comprehensive reform” will lead to more government and less freedom.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/ist2_2175985_big_government-732426.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-59385" title="ist2_2175985_big_government-732426" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/ist2_2175985_big_government-732426-266x300.jpg" alt="" width="266" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>The Obama administration came to power promising to &#8220;transform&#8221; America and they have attempted to make good on that promise. The White House and Congress have broken with the American past in ways that few administrations have done, unmooring the ship of state from safe harbor and sailing ahead without the slightest idea of where their &#8220;transformation&#8221; is truly taking us.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s more than just establishing a Euro-style social democracy in a nation that consciously rejected the European model of government 221 years ago. That would be bad enough under any circumstances &#8212; even when justified by their belief that no crisis should go to waste, and that the economic downturn offered the opportunity to greatly enhance the power of the federal government.</p>
<p>To that end, the Democratic Party and its leftist allies have chosen the most monumentally imprudent gamble since the New Deal, with little thought to the unforeseen consequences that will flow from their efforts.</p>
<p>The manner in which they are seeking to impose their new-fangled vision of America on the rest of us is by using the moniker of &#8220;comprehensive reform&#8221; on three of the most important sectors of our society &#8212; health, banking, and energy &#8212; to radically alter the structure of government, and forever change the relationship between the ordinary citizen and Washington,  D.C.</p>
<p>Not content with seeking to wrap government&#8217;s tentacles around those three vital economic spheres of influence, the Democrats are also seeking comprehensive reform of immigration and labor law &#8212; both of which have far more to do with enhancing their political position with electoral allies than with addressing problems in those areas.</p>
<p>Whenever a politician says he wants &#8220;comprehensive reform&#8221; of anything, grab your wallet. History has shown us that such efforts always lead to unintended consequences that redound unfavorably to the individual citizen&#8217;s wealth and liberty. Whenever government&#8217;s reach exceeds its grasp &#8212; as in passing a 3,000-page health insurance reform bill &#8212; it is certain that we will be paying more, getting less, and enjoying fewer choices, thus incrementally reducing our freedoms.</p>
<p>Take comprehensive campaign finance reform. Democrats are apoplectic over the recent <em>Citizens United </em>decision that tossed out several odious portions of the McCain-Feingold Act regarding corporate participation in the political process. But that act was meant to alter the 1974 comprehensive campaign finance reform amendments that gave us the Federal Election Commission, limits on contributions, and disclosure requirements. At the time, we were assured that the &#8220;reforms&#8221; would reduce the influence of special interests in the electoral process while curbing the appetites of &#8220;fat cats&#8221; to contribute. How&#8217;s that working out for you guys?</p>
<p>Each and every &#8220;reform&#8221; in campaign finance has led to the ludicrous spectacle of special interest lobbyists finding giant loopholes. The unintended consequences of well-intentioned reform have been a bigger role for special interests, a larger slice of fundraising being done by fat cats, and more corruption of electoral politics. It&#8217;s hard to imagine how anything decided by the Supreme Court in <em>Citizens United</em> could give corporations and unions any more influence with candidates and political parties than they enjoyed previously.</p>
<p>With health insurance reform, we still don&#8217;t know where some of the slippery slopes will lead, or what kind of massive dislocations are in store for us as a result of Congress passing this comprehensive monstrosity. But even before most of this comprehensive reform bill goes into effect, we are seeing the fruits of Congress&#8217; imprudence. Told by almost every opponent of the measure that comprehensive reform would cause insurance premiums to skyrocket, Democrats referred to those making such charges as <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/201002250042">&#8220;liars&#8221;</a> and assured us day after day that premiums would actually come down.</p>
<p>The president&#8217;s own Health and Human Services Department begged to differ. More than a week prior to the final vote, Medicare&#8217;s Office of the Actuary <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100423/ap_on_bi_ge/us_health_care_law_costs;_ylt=Av3ZBzS5NQb8WEBazpB2ENes0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNvaDA5c2s2BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwNDIzL3VzX2hlYWx0aF9jYXJlX2xhd19jb3N0cwRjY29kZQNtb3N0cG9wdWxhcgRjcG9zAzEEcG9zAzIEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcnkEc2xrA3JlcG9ydGhlYWx0aA--">delivered a report</a> concluding that premiums for individuals and companies would rise significantly under Obamacare. There is <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0410/Actuary_denies_delaying_report.html">some debate </a>over whether the report could have come out prior to the vote (whether it would have changed anybody&#8217;s mind is another question) but the fact remains; the rise in premium costs were not intended by the president or congress and yet, the unanticipated has become reality.</p>
<p>Of course, this is the tip of the iceberg. The same will hold true for comprehensive financial reform now being considered by the senate. Despite differences in the Senate and House bills, there is going to be some kind of <a href="http://www.investmentadvisor.com/news/2010/3/Pages/Banking-Committee-Passes-Financial-Reform-Bill.aspx">&#8220;consumer protection&#8221; agency</a>. The thought of government &#8220;protecting&#8221; consumers or anyone else should give us all pause. In this specific case, the House bill would set up a board to determine whether financial instruments &#8212; stocks, mutual funds, mortgages &#8212; were too complex for the consumer to understand when the broker sold the product. Aside from protecting us from our own stupidity, the board will have the power to come down like a ton of bricks on both the broker and the company employing him with fines and even jail time.</p>
<p>The makeup of the board would be determined <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/03/dodds-bureau-of-consumer-financial-protection/37528/">by the president</a>. Imagine the politics that could be played in this scenario if a large financial institution won&#8217;t contribute to Democrats or otherwise play ball with the party in power. The board&#8217;s discretionary power would be immense and much mischief could be in the offing if the House version of the agency becomes law.</p>
<p>It doesn&#8217;t matter what putative tasks that government wants to assign for itself, anytime that Congress comprehensively tries to address a supposed injustice, or take on a big problem, it is a given that government will carve out a role greater than it had previous to the reform. It is a sure means of growing the size of the federal behemoth. Unintended consequences notwithstanding, you can take that to your federally run bank and cash it.</p>
<p>Will &#8220;comprehensive immigration reform&#8221; slow the number of illegals coming into this country? That&#8217;s what we will be told it is intended to do. Will making it easier to set up a union shop via the so-called &#8220;card check&#8221; bill &#8212; the most comprehensive &#8220;reform&#8221; of labor law in a generation &#8212; raise wages and increase job opportunities? That&#8217;s the bilge that will be pumped out of Washington when the Democrats try and sell the undemocratic measure. Will cap-and-trade lower the emissions of greenhouse gasses by one molecule? Not on your life; but it sure will give the feds a stranglehold on energy production in America.</p>
<p>Prudence as a civic virtue has disappeared from public life. It&#8217;s just not the style in these days of massive, nation-changing legislation and a president with one eye on the polls and the other on the history books. One of Cicero&#8217;s <a href="http://www.idehist.uu.se/distans/ilmh/Ren/civ-cicero-virtue01.htm">Four Cardinal Virtues</a>, prudence, he wrote, &#8220;is the knowledge of what is good, what is bad, and what is neutral.&#8221; <a href="http://www.kirkcenter.org/kirk/ten-principles.html">Russell Kirk </a>believed that prudence was one of the ten most important conservative principles, saying, &#8220;[a]ny public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity.&#8221; It would seem that both classical and contemporary philosophers had a better handle on what the liberals are doing than Republicans in Congress.</p>
<p>In an age where anything is justified in the cause of &#8220;social justice,&#8221; or advancing &#8220;positive rights,&#8221; the Left&#8217;s massive attempts at &#8220;comprehensive&#8221; reform are unsettling society, discarding America&#8217;s first principles, and uncoupling citizens from the traditions that have been lovingly and courageously handed down by our ancestors at great cost in blood and treasure. It is being done without so much as a sniff in the direction of continuity in government, as Democrats seek to shatter convention and substitute an alien philosophy that alters society in ways that most of those who voted for &#8220;change&#8221; in 2008 could never have dreamed. What is really needed in America today is not comprehensive reform but a comprehensive cleaning of our House – and the Senate.</p>
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		<title>A Madman’s Blaze of Glory</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/matt-gurney/a-madman%e2%80%99s-blaze-of-glory/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-madman%25e2%2580%2599s-blaze-of-glory</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 27 Apr 2010 04:06:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matt Gurney]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attack]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[How much provocation can South Korea take?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/kimjongil.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-58926" title="kimjongil" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/kimjongil.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="289" /></a>One month ago, March 26, the South Korean warship <em>Cheonan</em> was sailing near Baengnyeong Island. This island is a frequent site of clashes between North and South Korea; while the island belongs to the South, the North claims the waters around it. In the evening dark, a massive explosion rocked the warship. Her back broken by the blast, the ship split in two and <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/03/26/south.korea.ship.sinking/index.html">went down</a>. Of the 104 officers and crew aboard, 46 died. A 47<sup>th</sup> man, a Navy rescue diver, died shortly thereafter while trying to save others.</p>
<p>Suspicion, naturally, turned to the enigmatic, unstable North Korean regime of Kim Jong-il. The North Korean dictator, known for his paranoia and provocative acts, is believed to be in <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/16/kim-jong-il-birthday-celebrations">poor health</a>. Increasingly irrational behavior was one concern shared by many international experts; the man was dangerously unstable when he was in good health. How much more psychologically deranged would he become as his health worsened and his days drew short? Sinking a South Korean warship without provocation would seem to offer evidence of just how far the regime is now willing to go.</p>
<p>While the South Korean government has yet to officially declare the <em>Cheonan</em> was lost to an attack by the North, the writing is on the wall. The <em>Cheonan</em>’s broken hull was raised from the bottom and examined. The explosion that sank the ship was not the result of an accidental collision or an internal malfunction. South Korea’s Minister of Defense <a href="http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2010/04/25/general-as-skorea-ship-sinks_7545773.html?boxes=Homepagebusinessnews">has said</a> that the information indicates that a “bubble jet,” or an underwater explosion, struck the vessel. This type of explosion is exactly what one would expect from a torpedo, such as the ones used by the North Korean navy.</p>
<p>And yet South Korea still is playing their cards very close to the vest. Despite the mounting evidence that North   Korea attacked without warning and killed 46 South Korean soldiers, official reaction has been muted. The <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8598267.stm">government has promised</a> to get to the bottom of the issue, but has refrained from assigning any blame to North   Korea. The Minister of Defense has speculated that it might have been an attack from the North, but now that it’s virtually proven, South Korea’s silence is almost comical.</p>
<p>Almost, but not quite. If South Korea were to officially declare that the sinking of the <em>Cheonan</em> was a hostile attack, it would be very hard for the country to refrain from some kind of retaliation. The South Korean public is outraged over the loss of their warship and the government is facing intense pressure to strike back. And yet, as is always the case when democracies go to war, a campaign that starts off with the full support of the people can quickly find its support ebbing away once soldiers start coming home in body bags.</p>
<p>South Korea would risk more than most democracies were it to go to war. Unlike the Europeans and Australians, Canadians and Americans, the South Koreans don’t have the luxury of fighting their battles in someone else’s backyard. Their capital city, Seoul, is well within range of North Korean artillery. Even though the South Korean military is far more advanced than the obsolete (if numerically large) North Korean forces, quantity has a quality all its own. North Korea’s Stalin-era weapons would fare poorly in battle, sure…but could make life unbearable for South Korea’s citizens and devastate its economy.</p>
<p>For South Korea, there are few good options. Even if it did wage war successfully against North Korea, what would it have gained? It would conquer the world’s largest refugee camp, a nation of some 24 million half-starved fanatics, victims of arguably the most oppressive totalitarian regime the world has ever known. The responsibility of feeding that many people, of building their economy up from virtually nothing and of finding some way to integrate the captive North Korean population, is a task so daunting as to ensure that South Korea would never attempt it.</p>
<p>North Korea’s nuclear stockpile would likely not play a decisive role in the conflict. They are believed to have enough fissile material to have constructed up to eight warheads, but it is uncertain whether or not any of those potential weapons have been assembled and are capable of being used in combat (building a nuclear bomb is hard enough, making it small enough to fit atop a missile is something else entirely).</p>
<p>Even if the North was incapable of using its nuclear weapons decisively, however, they would still be an incredibly destabilizing factor in any potential war. The United States would be unhappy to see nuclear weapons used, as it would then be expected to protect its South Korean allies, or else risk discrediting the concept of its “nuclear umbrella” of protection it affords its allies. China and Japan, similarly, would be most displeased at the thought of nuclear warheads exploding on the Korean peninsula and spreading radioactive fallout over their countries. And the mere threat of nuclear attack would be enough to cause panic and economic chaos in South Korea. All things considered, unless North Korea’s atomics could be reliably attacked and destroyed at the outset of any war, South Korea would do well to avoid a fight.</p>
<p>South Korea, with no good options, will almost certainly find a way to keep the peace. It might declare that it can’t reliably prove that North Korea attacked the <em>Cheonan</em>, thus having an excuse to get out of war. It might call for, and get, tough international condemnation and possibly economic sanctions. It might even refer the incident to the United Nations, where it will be studied in committees and eventually reported on after tempers have cooled. That will infuriate the families of the lost sailors, but is the right choice in the short term.</p>
<p>But in the long term, South Korea must contend with a newly aggressive North Korean regime that has shown that it is willing to commit unprovoked acts of war. South Korea will understandably want to avoid going to war today. But it must prepare itself for the bleak possibility that the next North Korean provocation might not be as easy to ignore than the deaths of 46 sailors. If Kim Jong-il chooses to mark his last days with a blaze of glory, he’ll get his wish. And all Koreans will pay the consequences.</p>
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		<title>The Left Squashes Life&#8217;s Little Pleasures</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/dennis-prager/the-left-squashes-lifes-little-pleasures/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-left-squashes-lifes-little-pleasures</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 13 Apr 2010 04:00:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dennis Prager]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Why every poll has concluded that liberals are less happy than conservatives. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/happy.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-58045" title="happy" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/happy.jpg" alt="" width="425" height="282" /></a></p>
<p>Reading the onslaught of angry  denunciations of Burger King by mental health organizations and mainstream media  reporters this past week reminded me of a characteristic of the Left not often  commented on: a certain joylessness, even an antipathy to the little joys that  contribute more than almost anything else to most people&#8217;s ability to endure the  difficulties of life.</p>
<p>These characteristics further  reinforce the view that Leftism functions as a (secular) religion. Like medieval  Christians who wore hair shirts and Puritans who thought dancing was  sacrilegious, the Left, consciously or not, is uncomfortable with many of the  joys &#8212; with notable exceptions such as sex and drugs &#8212; that people  experience.</p>
<p>Needless to say, the Left always has  noble explanations &#8212; usually, the protection of people&#8217;s emotions and health &#8212;  for opposing and even banning many joys of life. But the end result is fewer of  these little joys that mean a great deal to people.</p>
<p>Burger King&#8217;s ad was innocuous and  innocent. It featured the company&#8217;s royal mascot running through a building,  knocking a person over and crashing through a glass window to deliver the new  Burger King Steakhouse XT burger. Called &#8220;crazy&#8221; by those present, he was  finally tackled by men in white coats. &#8220;The king&#8217;s insane,&#8221; the ad noted, for  &#8220;offering so much beef for $3.99.&#8221;</p>
<p>This has triggered a storm of  criticism from activists (a term which, unless otherwise specified, means  liberal or left).</p>
<p>Michael Fitzpatrick, executive  director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, called the ad &#8220;blatantly  offensive &#8230; I was stunned. Absolutely stunned and appalled,&#8221; he said. David  Shern, president and chief executive of Mental Health America in Alexandria, Va., echoed this assessment. And reporters  from the Associated Press to the Washington Post all  agreed.</p>
<p>If this were isolated, it would be  worth mentioning only in the context of wondering why people who run mental  health &#8212; and most other activist &#8212; organizations seem to have little common  sense. They should listen to William Gardner of Los Angeles, who wrote to  me:</p>
<p>&#8220;I am a father of a 24 year old son  with mental health issue. I am particularly tuned to protecting my son&#8217;s  self-image. My son and I have both seen the Burger King Ad that you have  referred to. It did not occur to either of us that the Burger King Ad was  offensive in any way. Why would I raise my son to be hyper-sensitive about his  disability? My objective as a parent is to strengthen him. Making him  hyper-sensitive would have the opposite effect.&#8221;</p>
<p>But the Left has problems with much  else as well: smoking (including cigars and pipes); virtually all kids games  that can make a kid feel at all bad or get hurt; wood-burning fireplaces; cars;  most jokes or any flirting in the workplace; incandescent light bulbs; cool  homes in summer; and more.</p>
<p><strong>Smoking</strong></p>
<p>One of life&#8217;s great little pleasures  is tobacco. Just watch old war reportage to see the serenity and joy a cigarette  brought to a wounded soldier. Though I do not smoke cigarettes, I have been  smoking cigars and pipes since I was in college (my father still smokes cigars  daily at age 91), and it would be difficult to overstate how much I enjoy  both.</p>
<p>No one opposes educating the public  about the dangers of cigarette smoking. Cigarette smoking shortens the lives of  up to a third of smokers, often in terrible ways, and that is what public health  organizations should be saying. But the battle against smoking and tobacco has  become a religious crusade for anti-smoking zealots, who are almost invariably  on the Left. If the Left hated Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro as much as it hates  &#8220;Big Tobacco,&#8221; the world would be a better place.</p>
<p>But because the Left hates the fact  that people smoke (tobacco, not marijuana, which the Left defends) it uses  totalitarian (I use that term with no exaggeration) tactics to eliminate it.  Just as the Soviets removed Trotsky from old photos, anti-smoking zealots have  forced the removal of cigarettes from old photos &#8212; from photos of FDR, from the  famous Beatles photo &#8212; and from movies whenever possible. Torture and murder  are ubiquitous in films, but smoking is all but banned &#8212; even cigars are now  banned from James Bond films.</p>
<p>Smoking has been banned in entire  cities, outdoors as well as in. In Pasadena, Calif., one cannot even smoke in a cigar  store. That the Left has contempt for Prohibition reveals a lack of  self-awareness that is quite remarkable.</p>
<p>Kids Games such as Tag, Dodgeball,  Soccer, Touch Football, Monkey Bars</p>
<p>Virtually every game I played as a  child during school recess is now banned because organizations such as the  National Program for Playground Safety deem games in which kids are &#8220;running  into each other&#8221; as too dangerous. Someone might get hurt.</p>
<p>Until a few years ago, just about  every American boy, and many girls, played dodgeball. No more. This joy, too,  has been eliminated from American life. &#8220;We consider it inappropriate to use  children as human targets,&#8221; said Mary Marks, physical education supervisor for  Fairfax County, Va. And it may hurt the feelings of kids who  are eliminated. For the same reason &#8212; potential hurt feelings of those  eliminated &#8212; musical chairs is no longer played in some  schools.</p>
<p>Some might argue that these bans are  not because of Leftism but because of fear of lawsuits. But in light of how  leftwing the trial bar is, that only reinforces my  argument.</p>
<p><strong>Pinups</strong></p>
<p>For men working in, let us say, a  car repair shop, there is not much by way of excitement or visual beauty. So the  typical repair shop or factory had its pinup calendar &#8212; a calendar featuring a  photo of a beautiful woman in a sexy pose, usually clad in no more than a  bikini, sometimes less. The Left, in another totalitarian move, has banned  pinups. The reasons: Sexism and possible Hostile Environment. How can a woman  possibly work or bring her car into a repair shop where there is a picture of a  scantily clad woman? The same people who clamor for a woman&#8217;s right to walk in  public with no top on (because men are allowed to) have banned photos of women  with no top on.</p>
<p><strong>Flirting at  Work</strong></p>
<p>A joy in life since the advent of  men and women has been men flirting with or &#8220;chatting up&#8221; women. No more.  Virtually anything related to a male reaction to a fellow employee who is female  can be grounds for his losing his job and worse. What began as a campaign  against bosses trading professional advances for sexual favors has degenerated  into the elimination of essentially all the fun &#8212; and, yes, potential emotional  hurt &#8212; of man-woman dialogue. At work, a man never knows what comment to what  woman will trigger his being sent, a la Communist regimes, to a &#8220;re-education&#8221;  program, being fined, having charges leveled against him, being humiliated,  having a permanent mark on his employment record, and, of course, losing his  job.</p>
<p>There is no question that some men  went too far in their sexually charged comments to women. But as a rule, we have  wildly overreacted. Women are not wimps. But the Left has inculcated a sense of  victimhood into large numbers of women and thereby rendered them weak &#8212; just as  it has, in ways too numerous to mention, emasculated men. I deplore crude  comments. But in the America I grew up, it was legal to  speak crudely, and either decent men would shut the crude man up or women would  give the man a well-earned smack across the face.</p>
<p>Today, any hint at the sexual  tension that naturally and joyfully exists between the two sexes has been  banned. In the attempt to eliminate all pain caused by potentially inappropriate  comments, the Left has done what it tries to do about all pain &#8212; ban actions  that may lead to it. As a result, gone are the joys of the man-woman repartee in  the workplace.</p>
<p><strong>Cars</strong></p>
<p>For most Americans, the car is not  only a source of much pleasure, it is also rightly identified with individual  liberty. But here, too, to the extent the Left is able to, it will tell you what  kind of car you can drive and, if possible, get you out of your car and into  mass transit.</p>
<p>The Home</p>
<p>To the Left, your home is not your  castle; it is another place of too many joys that the Left would like to  ban.</p>
<p>One joy I particularly identify with  is the wood-burning fireplace. In California, activists on the Left, aka  environmentalists, have banned them from being built in all new homes. Too many  harmful emissions. Meanwhile, at the other end of the temperature spectrum,  activists wish to determine how low you can set your air conditioner, lest you  use more energy than the Left believes you should.</p>
<p>Do you like your present light  bulbs? The Left has banned them in favor of CFLs that contain mercury. These new  bulbs give a fair number of people headaches, emit less pleasant light, are  initially much more expensive and, if broken, necessitate opening windows even  in winter, and people and pets must leave the area. The EPA has issued a  16-point procedure to follow if a CFL bulbs breaks.</p>
<p>Indeed, if the Left had its way, the  house would eventually become an anachronism as everyone gradually moves into  space-saving, less polluting, less energy-wasting apartments.</p>
<p>Every poll has concluded that  liberals are less happy than conservatives. There are many reasons for this, and  given the importance of little joys to happiness, the Left&#8217;s religious-like  opposition to many of them is surely one of those reasons. The problem for the  rest of us, however, is that, like most unhappy people, many folks on the Left  don&#8217;t like seeing anyone happier than they are.</p>
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		<title>Where Do Jews and Christians on the Left Get Their Values?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/dennis-prager/where-do-jews-and-christians-on-the-left-get-their-values/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=where-do-jews-and-christians-on-the-left-get-their-values</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 01 Apr 2010 04:01:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dennis Prager]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Why Leftism, though secular, must be understood as a religion.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/leftc.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-56873" title="leftc" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/leftc.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="223" /></a></p>
<p>Many Americans find it difficult to understand why Jews on the Left &#8212;  including many who would call themselves &#8220;liberal&#8221; rather than &#8220;Left&#8221; &#8212;  continued to enthusiastically support President Obama after the revelations  about the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish views of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the  religious mentor and close friend of Obama. This confusion is all the greater  now that Obama has humiliated the prime minister of Israel and  created the most tense moment in American-Israel relations in  memory.</p>
<p>Likewise, many Americans wonder how Democratic congressmen who claim to  be faithful Catholics and are pro-life could vote for the health care bill that  allows for federal funding of abortions &#8212; after opposing it up to the last  day.</p>
<p>There is an explanation.</p>
<p>Leftism, though secular, must be understood as a religion (which is why I  have begun capitalizing it). The Leftist value system&#8217;s hold on its adherents is  as strong as the hold Christianity, Judaism and Islam have on their adherents.  Nancy Pelosi&#8217;s belief in expanding the government&#8217;s role in American life, and  therefore her passion for the health care bill, is as strong as a pro-life  Christian&#8217;s belief in the sanctity of the life of the  unborn.</p>
<p>Given the religious nature and the emotional power of Leftist values,  Jews and Christians on the Left often derive their values from the Left more  than from their religion.</p>
<p>Now, of course, most Leftist Jews and Christians will counter that  Leftist values cannot trump their religion&#8217;s values because Leftist values are  identical to their religion&#8217;s values. But this argument only reinforces my  argument that Leftism has conquered the Christianity and the Judaism of Leftist  Christians and Jews. If there is no difference between Leftist moral values and  those of Judaism or Christianity, then Christianity is little more than Leftism  with &#8220;Jesus&#8221; rhetoric added, and Judaism is Leftism with Jewish terms &#8212; such as  &#8220;Tikkun Olam&#8221; (&#8220;repairing the world&#8221;) and &#8220;Prophetic values&#8221; &#8212;  added.</p>
<p>But if Christianity is, morally speaking, really Leftism, why didn&#8217;t  Catholics or Protestants assert these values prior to 19th-century European  Leftism? And, if Judaism is essentially a set of Left-wing values, does that  mean that the Torah and the Talmud are Leftist documents? Or are the two pillars  of Judaism generally wrong?</p>
<p>More questions:</p>
<p>Why are almost no Christians and Jews who believe that God is the author  of the Bible (or, in the case of Jews, the Torah) on the  Left?</p>
<p>Why are so few pro-life Catholic and Protestant Christians on the Left?  Do they not care about &#8220;the poor&#8221;?</p>
<p>Of course, that is what people on the Left believe. As former head of the  Democratic Party Howard Dean said, &#8220;Our moral values, in contradistinction to  the Republicans, is, we don&#8217;t think kids ought to go to bed hungry at  night.&#8221;</p>
<p>They believe such things despite the fact that traditional Protestants  and Catholics have created more institutions to take care of the sick and needy  than probably any other groups in the world. And despite the fact that religious  Americans give more charity and volunteer more time than secular Americans  do.</p>
<p>And why have the great majority of Orthodox Jews rejected the Left? For  Jews on the Left, the explanation is simple: Orthodox Jews have primitive  beliefs and therefore primitive values.</p>
<p>The obvious response is that for the Leftist, all opposition to the Left,  secular or religious, is primitive and usually worse (Racist, Sexist,  Homophobic, Xenophobic, Ignorant, Bigoted, Intolerant, Mean-Spirited, etc.). So  this doesn&#8217;t tell us much. What might tell us much is this: With a handful of  exceptions, Orthodox Jews know Judaism far better than non-Orthodox Jews do.  Given how few of them are Leftist, this would suggest that Judaism and Leftism  are indeed in conflict.</p>
<p>But that doesn&#8217;t matter to most Jews on the Left because to be a good  person (and, to those for whom it matters, to be a good Jew), one need not know  Judaism, let alone follow Judaism. One needs only to feel what is right (Leftism  is overwhelmingly based on feeling); and, when in doubt, one can determine what  is right from The New York Times, not from sacred Jewish  texts.</p>
<p>One of the many fundamental differences between Leftism and Judaism  concerns evil. Jews and others on the Left (everywhere, not just in  America) have a real problem  identifying, let alone confronting, evil. Yet, for Judaism, identifying and  confronting evil is as basic a Jewish value as exists. That is why, for example,  there is no pacifist tradition in Judaism.</p>
<p>Regarding evil, the Psalmist writes &#8212; and this is recited in synagogue  every Sabbath &#8212; &#8220;Those who love God &#8212; hate evil.&#8221; And as regards pacifism, one  of the Prophets, Joel (3:10), inverts what became the much more famous quotation  of Isaiah and Micah: &#8220;Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks  into spears.&#8221; And later, the Talmud, almost equivalent in importance to the  Bible, teaches (Berakhot 58a): &#8220;The Torah has said: If a man comes to kill you,  rise early and kill him first.&#8221;</p>
<p>In contrast, Leftists, including Leftist Jews and  Christians:</p>
<p>&#8211; were the loudest in condemning President Ronald Reagan when he labeled  the Soviet Union an &#8220;evil  empire.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8211; devoted much of their lives to opposing the war in Vietnam, which  they labeled immoral even though it was a war against Stalinist  tyranny.</p>
<p>&#8211; opposed deposing the mass murderer Saddam Hussein. Many even opposed  the Gulf War.</p>
<p>&#8211; believe that the moral wasteland known as the United Nations is, or  must be the greatest force for good on earth, not the United  States.</p>
<p>&#8211; oppose allowing the American military to recruit on  campuses.</p>
<p>And the further Left one goes, the more one demonizes free  Israel and supports the  dictatorships that wish to destroy Israel.</p>
<p>Indeed, Israel provides the clearest proof of  how Leftism is stronger than the Jewishness of most Jews on the Left.  Israel is threatened with a  Holocaust by Iran and tens of  millions of Islamic supporters outside of Iran, and  Palestinian society is saturated with the most virulent Jew-hatred since the  Nazis. Yet while today&#8217;s Jew- and Israel-haters call the Left home, Jews on the  Left continue to be proud members of the Left. Such is the power of Leftism, the  most dynamic religion in the world for the last 150 years.</p>
<p>And that explains Bart Stupak&#8217;s vote, too. In his inner conflict between  Catholicism and Leftism, the more dynamic religion won.</p>
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		<title>Health Care: a Culture Issue</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/s-t-karnick/health-care-a-culture-issue/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=health-care-a-culture-issue</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/s-t-karnick/health-care-a-culture-issue/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 26 Mar 2010 04:00:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[S. T. Karnick]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=55992</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Taking the option of personal choice away from individual citizens.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/cultureissue.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-55994" title="cultureissue" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/cultureissue.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>Despite the successful (kind of, sort of) passage of the Obama-Reid-Pelosi  health care bill, the debate is far from over, it seems, and the underlying  issues will only become more incendiary: the health care fight has served as a  proxy for a deeper debate over the ongoing transformation of the United States  into a European-style “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_despotism" target="_blank">soft despotism</a>,” to use <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_de_Tocqueville" target="_blank">Tocqueville</a>’s astute description.</p>
<p>Quoted in <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/428833/paul-ryan-is-not-ready-to-give-up-on-health-care/robert-costa" target="_blank">an article in National Review Online</a> this morning, Rep. Paul  Ryan (R-WI) of Wisconsin identified very well the way the health-care debate has  exemplified the vast difference between two cultures in the United States  today:</p>
<blockquote><p>Health care is really the issue that speaks to the relationship between the  citizen and the government in America. It shapes the fiscal trajectory and the  economic trajectory. This whole debate has been a proxy fight about what kind of  country America will be—whether we’ll become a cradle-to-grave welfare state or  stay a free-market democracy. The Democrats who are being told that the wors[t]  is over should know that the battle has not even begun. It’s up to us to now  bring the case to the American people—a real moral, philosophical, and economic  case— asking about our values, our founding principles, and if we really want to  move toward a Western European–style system. . . .</p>
<p>What’s really happening here is the president is saying to the American  people that you’re stuck in your current station in life, you’re frozen, and the  government is here to help you cope with it. But that’s not who we are. We are a  dynamic society where people have the will and incentive to make the most of  their lives, to reach their potential. With this bill, that whole mindset, the  American idea is upended.</p></blockquote>
<p>Matt Peterson put it succinctly in <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/03/where_were_you_when_the_republ.html" target="_blank">an essay in The American Thinker</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>In November 2008, Americans elected a socialist as their president. In March  2010, they woke up stunned to find themselves living in a socialist  country.</p></blockquote>
<p>He goes on to explain the enormity of this power-grab:</p>
<blockquote><p>Health insurers–once private companies–are now organs of the federal  government. Every citizen is a ward of the state, which can now compel you to  have insurance, punish you if you don’t; determine if your insurance is  acceptable, punish you if it isn’t. Thousands of new federal bureaucrats will  soon spill from the D.C. Beltway and flood the country, scrutinizing our  finances to verify compliance with this new law.</p>
<p>A government that grants itself this kind of power over us can conceivably do  anything to us.  For our own good, of course. Such a country is in no meaningful  sense “free.”. . .</p>
<p>There’s a reason why Democrats were desperate to ram this through at any  cost–once enacted, such things are all but perpetual. Former freedom-loving  peoples begin to tell themselves that it’s really not so bad. Sure, government  is forcing you to eat state-approved gruel, but hey, at least they hold the  spoon, and they even pour a little sugar on top when you’re  good.</p></blockquote>
<p>Tarren Bragdon, president of the Maine Heritage Policy Center, notes that the  health care overhaul legislation has energized the opposition to a degree that  hasn’t been manifested by non-progressives in many years—perhaps more than a  century:</p>
<blockquote><p>Last night’s vote was an assault on the fundamental American values of  freedom, individualism and limited government, but this fight isn’t over.  The  unprecedented level of activism and engagement among Americans to oppose the  president’s health care takeover will carry through to the November elections  and beyond.  We will not be silenced.  We will continue to fight to protect  Maine families from an intrusive, unaccountable, and now, greatly expanded  federal government.</p></blockquote>
<p>This issue indeed lays bare the great divide between two cultures in the  contemporary United States: a European-style, “progressive” rule by elites,  versus a consumer-oriented, reformist coalition based on the premise of natural  rights embedded in the Declaration of Independence. Like the Tea Party movement,  the “unprecedented level of activism and engagement among Americans” in  opposition to Obamacare is evidence of a long-delayed recognition by much of the  public that what’s wrong with progressivism is not the particular policies it  espouses but its assumption that rule by elites is better than freedom of  choice.</p>
<p>The passage of this health care bill is a great triumph of progressivism.  Under the spell of progressive ideology, for the last few decades public schools  across the country have increasingly refused to educate children in the founding  values of the nation and in fact have often openly taught contempt for them. In  turn, a public without a strong understanding of what individual freedom really  means and the reasons why it is precious has little defense against the  ever-increasing encroachments of government—until something as obviously  grotesque, wrongheaded, and overweening as this health care bill comes  along.</p>
<p>That’s what makes this fundamentally an issue of culture, and it’s why those  stubborn souls who persist in believing in individual rights must engage the  culture, especially by wresting control of the public schools from the hands of  the progressive myrmidons who have debauched it.</p>
<p>Certainly the particulars of the health care bill energized many people, both  for and against, insofar as they actually were spelled out and became known to  the public. Nonetheless, it’s clear that the real concern was that the option of  personal choice was being taken away from individual citizens in this vital area  of life. The power to control people’s health care, in addition to the hegemony  over the one-sixth of the economy which it represents, conveys to the government  an enormous amount of control over individual lives, a level of control surely  unprecedented in this nation.</p>
<p>This is not regulation; it is rule. And the public finally realized that the  current government does not intend to be gentle in its rule.</p>
<p>The revolt against the Tyranny of the Majority has begun. Whether it will  succeed over the long term will be decided in and through the culture.</p>
<p><em>S. T. Karnick edits </em><a href="http://culture.stkarnick.com/"><em>the  American Culture</em></a><em>, </em><a href="http://culture.stkarnick.com/"><em>http://culture.stkarnick.com</em></a><em>,  where this article first appeared.</em></p>
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		<title>Pelosi Thanks Religious Left for Obamacare Support</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/mark-d-tooley/pelosi-thanks-religious-left-for-obamacare-support/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=pelosi-thanks-religious-left-for-obamacare-support</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 25 Mar 2010 04:02:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark D. Tooley]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=55823</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Speaker Nancy Pelosi was careful to thank the Religious Left for its ardent support of Obamacare before the fateful vote in the U.S. House of Representatives. &#8220;That is why we&#8217;re proud and also humbled today to act with the support of millions of Americans who recognize the urgency of passing health care reform,” she declared [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Pelosi2.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-55834" title="Pelosi2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Pelosi2.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="333" /></a></p>
<p>Speaker Nancy  Pelosi was careful to thank the Religious Left for its ardent support of  Obamacare before the fateful vote in the U.S. House of  Representatives.</p>
<p>&#8220;That is why  we&#8217;re proud and also humbled today to act with the support of millions of  Americans who recognize the urgency of passing health care reform,” she declared  from the House floor.  “And more than 350 organizations, representing Americans  of every age, every background, every part of the country, who have endorsed  this legislation.”  She specifically cited the Catholic Health Association and  the United Methodist Church for having lobbied Congress to “Say yes to health  care reform.”</p>
<p>Pelosi’s website  lists all the major pro-Obamacare groups to which special thanks are due.  It’s  mostly labor unions but also lists the National Council of Churches, the United  Methodist Board of Church and Society, and a coalition called Faithful Reform in  Health Care that included Mainline Protestant agencies plus Jim Wallis’  Sojourners and the Islamic Society of North America.</p>
<p>A government  take-over of America’s health care system is a long sought, messianic dream of  many decades for the Religious Left.  But the version of Obamacare that Congress  approved is still somewhat of a disappointment to the true believers, who still  insist that direct federal control through a single payer system is God’s plan  for medical justice.   “We are not  finished,” aptly explained a cautiously pleased Jim Winkler of  the United  Methodist lobby office.  “There is more work to be done in the weeks, months and  years ahead to fulfill the need for health care around the globe.”  As Winkler  explained divine sanction for Obamacare:  “Jesus’ ministry serves as an example  and a call to serve the least and the last among us. He asked us to love our  neighbor as we love ourselves — setting forth a faith grounded in God’s  abundance, generosity and a capacity for love that knows no  bounds.”</p>
<p>The Religious  Left version of Jesus’ love is an unceasingly expanding federal welfare state  that coercively seizes assets from one segment of society for redistribution to  other segments, according to coarse political calculations, and with all the  efficiency and compassion for which mammoth state bureaucracies are renowned.    Traditionally, Christianity and Judaism have understood charity as voluntary  expressions of love channeled primarily through families, religious institutions  and private philanthropies, with the government called to do only what other  equally important social institutions cannot do for themselves.  But for the  Religious Left, the state is God’s primary mediating institution.</p>
<p>According to the  United Methodist Church’s official Social Principles:  “We believe it is a  governmental responsibility to provide al citizens with health care.”  With all  the theological and economic wisdom characteristic of the Religious Left, the  United Methodists further declare:  “Like police and fire protection, health  care is best funded through the government’s ability tax each person equitably  and directly fund the provider entities.”  Apparently God endorsed government  controlled health care in Ezekiel 34:4 when he told ancient Israel:  “You have  not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up  the injured.”</p>
<p>Of course, this  divine admonishment could just as well be aimed at modern Communist Cuba’s  government health care, where hospital patients commonly languish without food  or proper medicine or even clean sheets, absent special bribes for officials or  intense attention from their families.  And it could also apply towards more  democratic forms of socialized medicine in places like Great Britain, where  patients must await approval for advanced medical techniques from rationing  government regulatory agencies, sometimes too late.   The  Religious Left  generally is not as interested in quality of result as in equality of result.   Though even the latter proves elusive in socialized medicine, which creates its  own new variations of inequalities and favoritisms, as politically determined by  governments rather than private forces.</p>
<p>Naturally, Evangelical Left icon Jim Wallis of Sojourners was much relieved  by Obamacare’s passage, although he also still dreams of more direct socialized  medicine. “From the very beginning, more than a year ago, the faith community  called on the president and Congress to follow three principles in health-care  reform:  that it be framed as a moral issue; that it provide coverage to all who  need health care, and that the sanctity of life be respected with no federal  funding for abortion.”  Wallis claimed that Obamacare achieved all three goals,  although his third claim is especially disingenuous.</p>
<p>Wallis is still distressed by many Americans’ continued resistance to  government-controlled health care, which evinces America’s supposedly “poisonous  political atmosphere.” Inevitably, he rehashed accusations that “anti-health  care ‘tea party’ demonstrators” hurled racial epithets at pro-Obamacare  congressmen.  After all, what else could explain opposition to Big Government  than racism as part of a larger “massive campaign of distortion and fear?”    Wallis ominously opined that Obamacare will be “improved over time” and one  “step” towards fixing a “broken system.”</p>
<p>Professional Religious Left activists like Wallis primarily see religion as  an organizing tool for extinguishing private alternatives to state control of  health care and virtually every other facet of human life.  Obamacare, with its  frustrating maintenance of private insurance, is an insufficient but a hoped for  first step towards the eradication of private medicine and, the Religious Left  inwardly hopes, ultimately of the private economy and private charity.   After  all, there is no salvation outside Big Government.</p>
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		<title>Universal Health Care Action Network</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/john-perazzo/universal-health-care-action-network/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=universal-health-care-action-network</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/john-perazzo/universal-health-care-action-network/#respond</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Mar 2010 11:31:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[John Perazzo]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=55451</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Founded in 1992, the Universal Health Care Action Network (UHCAN) supports a single-payer health care system controlled by the federal government. It has partnered in its national campaigns with the George Soros- and Teresa Heinz Kerry-funded Health Care for America Now!. UHCAN&#8217;s  former Executive Director Ken Frisof worked closely with the Democratic Socialists of America to promote a single-payer system.  To view the full [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/UHCAN1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-55454" title="UHCAN" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/UHCAN1.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="375" /></a></p>
<p>Founded in 1992, the Universal Health Care Action Network (UHCAN) supports a single-payer health care system controlled by the federal government. It has partnered in its national campaigns with the <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=977" target="_blank">George Soros</a>- and <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1629" target="_blank">Teresa Heinz Kerry</a>-funded <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7488" target="_blank">Health Care for America Now!</a>. UHCAN&#8217;s  former Executive Director Ken Frisof <a href="http://www.dsausa.org/LatestNews/2004/healthcare%20study.html">worked closely</a> with the <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6428">Democratic Socialists of America</a> to promote a single-payer system. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7506"><strong>To view the full UHCAN profile, click here.</strong></a></p>
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		<title>ObamaCare On the March</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/obamacare-on-the-march/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamacare-on-the-march</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Mar 2010 05:30:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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Congress]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=55386</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A bad bill is passed by even worse means. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/f3bc80e69629408aa924ec70d1a3cd20.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-55390" title="APTOPIX Health Care Overhaul" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/f3bc80e69629408aa924ec70d1a3cd20.jpg" alt="" width="410" height="398" /></a></p>
<p>It took a seedy campaign of intimidation, <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/30/the-300-million-louisiana-purchase/">bribery</a>, and back-room deal-making worthy of Tammany Hall, but Democrats have nearly pulled off the radical transformation of the American health care system that they – if not the rest of America – so desperately desire.</p>
<p>With yesterday’s <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703775504575135440191025592.html">219-to-212 party-line House vote</a>, made possible by the last-minute collapse of a holdout block of anti-abortion Democrats led by Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak, the federal government’s intrusion into one-sixth of the economy is one step closer to becoming a reality. All it cost the Democratic majority was the prospect of fiscal responsibility, the pretense of bipartisanship, and any remaining confidence that the American public may have had in its elected representatives.</p>
<p>Sunday’s legislative “victory” was achieved despite the flaws of the House health care bill, which are by now well-documented. Of these the most notable is the staggering ten-year price tag for the legislation: $940 billion, complete with tax increases totaling $400 billion. Even in its enormity, that figure does not factor in the expensive new federal bureaucracy that the bill would create. For instance, some 16,500 new IRS workers will be <a href="http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=12179683">needed</a> to collect, examine and audit the new tax information that families and small businesses will have to provide to comply with the bill’s provisions. Nor does it include the penalties – up to $700 in some cases – that Americans will be forced to pay lest they fail to purchase insurance.</p>
<p>Billions in new entitlement spending may seem troubling, especially during an economic recession, but Democrats have sought to dismiss any anxiety about the health care bill’s effect on the deficit. To that end, Democrats spent the week gleefully touting the Congressional Budget Office’s projection that the House bill would reduce the deficit by $138 billion over ten years. If CBO projections could be taken at face value, that would be encouraging news. But as the <em>Washington Post</em> <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/18/AR2010031805445.html">reported</a>, the real budget outlook is far more dire, since the CBO’s estimates are based on the expectation of savings and cuts that may not come to pass. Medicare is a prime example. While CBO estimates factor in cuts in Medicare reimbursements, such cuts are politically unlikely and, indeed, no Congress in recent history has dared to make them. Assuming that those cuts will take place this time around is little more than wishful thinking. As it stands, the health care overhaul seems more likely to confirm another of the CBO’s projections: that public debt will rise to 90 percent of GDP by 2020 under President Obama’s budget.</p>
<p>As awful as the substance of the House bill is, the process by which it was passed may be even worse. By embracing a series of shady procedural stratagems – from the dubiously constitutional “deem and pass,” in which the Senate version of the health care bill would be deemed to have passed without the formality of an actual vote, to “reconciliation,” usually reserved for budgets of bills that are already law – Democrats sowed widespread distrust and even alienated some media allies. At the height of the health care subterfuge, even the <em>Washington Post</em> was stirred to editorialize against the Democrats’ “<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/15/AR2010031503156.html">unseemly</a>” tactics. If last night’s vote was, as House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34767.html">suggested</a>, the conclusion of “a national conversation” on health care, it was a conversation carried on largely without the nation.</p>
<p>This go-it-alone arrogance, magnified with unprecedented media coverage, sheds light on the profound cynicism that has set in with the American public. A new NBC News/<em>Wall Street</em><em> Journal </em>survey finds that <a href="http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/wsjnbcpoll03162010.pdf#page=14">76 percent</a> of Americans do not trust the U.S. Congress. That distrust extends to health care. Polls show that the plurality of the American public opposes the health care reform efforts in Congress – a striking statistic when one considers that the need for the reform was one of the few original points of consensus in the health care debate. With their scorched-earth campaign to pass the bill, Democrats have almost singlehandedly destroyed a once-promising political landscape. The Tea Party protestors who flocked to Capitol Hill yesterday to voice their opposition were only the most visible sign of the public’s sour mood.</p>
<p>To be sure, ObamaCare is not yet the law of the land. The companion legislation to the House bill still needs approval in the Senate. There, the Democrats’ majority is far more tenuous, thanks to the recent of Massachusetts’s Scott Brown on the campaign pledge of opposing ObamaCare. But if the House vote sets any kind of precedent, it is that Democrats will stop at nothing to force through their signature legislation.</p>
<p>Whatever the ultimate outcome of the health care battle, the democratic process has clearly become a casualty. The American public is more cynical about its government that at any time in recent history. Next fall’s elections may yet bring a measure of retribution for the Democrats’ overreach. But by then the damage – all $940 billion of it – may be irreparably done.</p>
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		<title>The Future of Capitalism</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/the-future-of-capitalism/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-future-of-capitalism</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Mar 2010 04:24:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Ira Stoll surveys the economic scene. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/nyc-wall-street-bull.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-54745" title="nyc-wall-street-bull" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/nyc-wall-street-bull.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="338" /></a></em></p>
<p><em>[Editor&#8217;s note: Amidst a global financial meltdown and an increasingly activist federal government in Washington, it’s become fashionable to assert that the days of free-market capitalism are numbered. Despite the historical failure of governments based on his theories, Karl Marx is suddenly <a href="http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5169802,00.html">in vogue</a> as the voice of economic reason. On his new website, </em><em><a href="http://futureofcapitalism.com/">FutureOfCapitalism.com</a>, Ira Stoll surveys the economic scene and finds that the conventional wisdom is wrong: reports of the death of capitalism are very much exaggerated, while the causes of the current economic downturn are often misunderstood. The author of </em><em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743299124?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=futureocom-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0743299124">Samuel Adams: A Life</a>, Stoll was vice president and managing editor of </em><em>The New York Sun, which he helped to found. He lives in New York City. Ira Stoll joined </em>Front Page<em> to discuss the roots of the economic crisis, </em><em>Friedrich </em><em>Hayek’s legacy, the illusions of ObamaCare, and much more.]</em></p>
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<p><strong>FPM: How did you get the idea for the site and what do you hope it will accomplish? </strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Stoll:</strong> The closing months of the <em>New York Sun</em> were some of the most dramatic months of the financial crisis, and, at the time, the paper’s editorial stance on the Bush administration’s actions was quite an unusual one. Senators McCain and Obama, Secretary Paulson, Speaker Pelosi, President Bush, the <em>Wall Street Journal</em>, the New York Post, Mayor Bloomberg, Senator Clinton, and Rep. Barney Frank all supported TARP. The New York Sun opposed it with editorials like <a href="http://www.nysun.com/editorials/the-bailout-bust/86857/">this one</a>. While other papers were cheering on the administration’s seizure of Fannie Mae, which Secretary Paulson has since <a href="http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/959/on-the-brink">conceded</a> was an “ambush,” we were opposing it with editorials like <a href="http://www.nysun.com/editorials/paulsons-seizure/85327/">this one </a> and <a href="http://www.nysun.com/editorials/paulsons-pretext/85469/">this one</a>.</p>
<p>When the <em>Sun</em> closed, I wanted to stay with this story, which seems to me to be one of the hottest of our day and one in which I have a point of view that isn’t widely expressed elsewhere in the press. <em>FutureOfCapitalism.com</em> seems like the best way to do it. I hope it will challenge some of the dominant narratives about the financial downturn, help people better understand some of the issues involved, expose some of the self interest and hypocrisy and moral obtuseness among some of the others speaking out on these issues, and help defend the system of private property rights and rule of law and freedom that has helped allow America to prosper.</p>
<p><strong>FPM: One of the immediately interesting things about your site is the title, <em>Future of Capitalism</em>, which goes against the brooding consensus on some quarters of the Left and the Right that capitalism has no future. For some on the Left, the financial downturn and the ongoing recession is evidence of capitalism’s demise. For some on the Right, the government takeover of banks, automobile companies, and possibly even one-sixth of the economy through an expanded role in health care, is a sign that capitalism is dead and socialism has arrived. What is your prognosis for capitalism? </strong></p>
<p><strong>Stoll:</strong> I think it has a future, because it is better than any of the known alternatives at generating innovation, growth, and prosperity. But there are all kinds of varieties of capitalism out there – crony capitalism, Chinese Communist-style state capitalism. The critics have taken to calling real capitalism “unrestrained market capitalism” or something like that. I think that a capitalism in which most of the decisions on allocating capital are made by individuals, rather than the government, does have a future. At least, I am trying to do my part to make sure it does.</p>
<p><strong>FPM: You recently highlighted a useful piece of wisdom from the economist Friedrich Hayek. He observed that “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” Based on its handing of the economy to date, do you think the Obama administration appreciates Hayek’s insight?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Stoll:</strong> Well, it’s ironic, because one of Obama’s top economic aides, Lawrence Summers, was <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2004/01/11/friedrich_the_great/">quoted</a> in the <em>Boston Globe</em> in 2004 reaffirming his 1998 statement,</p>
<blockquote><p>“What&#8217;s the single most important thing to learn from an economics course today…What I tried to leave my students with is the view that the invisible hand is more powerful than the hidden hand. Things will happen in well-organized efforts without direction, controls, plans. That&#8217;s the consensus among economists. That&#8217;s the Hayek legacy.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Hayek did write in favor of both a safety net and social insurance. And the Obama people will argue that by not nationalizing the banks, and by supporting a health care overhaul that neither makes all doctors immediately federal employees nor replaces all health insurers with a federal “single payer,” they are respecting markets and avoiding the arrogance of central planning. But in an <a href="http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2010/02/interview-with-bruce-caldwell-editor-of-collected">interview</a> collected for <em>FutureOfCapitalism.com</em> Hayek biographer Bruce Caldwell told me he thought Hayek would have opposed ObamaCare. Hayek had a son who was a doctor in Britain’s National Health Service and hated the bureaucracy.</p>
<p>It does seem to me that Hayek’s insights have been insufficiently heeded, not only by the Obama administration, but by the Bush administration, which, in its treatment of Fannie Mae and AIG shareholders, was as heavy-handed and misguided in my view as anything Obama has done. In holding over Timothy Geithner and Ben Bernanke, the Obama economic policy has really been in many ways a continuation of Bush rather than a radical departure from it.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>FPM: One of the biggest recent economic stories is the continuing saga of health care reform. How do you think the Obama administration has handled the process of passing the legislation and what do you make of the health care legislation that we’ve seen so far?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Stoll:</strong> As I noted in the <a href="http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/1079/health-care-turning-point">review</a> of the book <em>Health Care Turning Point</em> on the site, it’s amazing that they’ve gotten as far as they have. The federal government can barely afford the Social Security and Medicare entitlements it is already committed to. Yet Obama got both the House and the Senate to pass bills of 2000+ pages significantly expanding government’s obligations to fund health care.</p>
<p>I think the resistance they are running into is partly skepticism from the public, which quite sensibly doesn’t believe you can give 40 million more people health insurance without it costing the government more money. In fact, Obama would have us believe that we can cover 40 million more people and at the same time have it be deficit neutral or even bend the cost curve down. The ability of majorities in both houses of Congress to accept that proposition is a testament to something, maybe the power of wishful thinking.</p>
<p>But again, a point not often made, but one I have tried to make at <em>FutureOfCapitalism.com</em>, is that the Bush administration didn’t exactly cover itself with glory on the health care front, either. Total federal, state, and local government health spending in America grew to $1,036 billion in 2007 from $597 billion in 2000, an increase in the government’s share of overall spending to 45% from 43%. Those expenditures will grow further as more of the population ages into Medicare.</p>
<p><strong>FPM: A running theme on your site seems to be the low opinion in which the left-wing American elite, including the Obama administration, holds the American public. For instance, everyone from the president to administration friendly journalists are fond of saying that health care legislation has stalled because the public is insufficiently informed to appreciate its merits. Are they wrong?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Stoll:</strong> Obama has given at least 52 health care speeches since taking office. If the public is insufficiently informed, maybe the president isn’t as brilliant a communicator as he is given credit for. I actually think the public has a quite accurate sense of what the general direction of the president’s proposed changes will mean, though if they are uncertain of the details, it may have less to do with their alleged denseness and more to do with the fact that the Democrats have chosen to write 2000-page bills, the details keep changing amid the scramble for individual votes, and the texts of the bills sometimes aren’t released until the last minute.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>FPM: In the past you’ve noted that many of your colleagues in the press have, at best, mixed feelings about capitalism. How does that impact economic coverage in this country? </strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Stoll:</strong> Adversely. On the other hand, all sorts of incentives in journalism tilt the playing field toward negative coverage in all fields of endeavor, not just economics or business. You can sell more papers and get higher ratings and win more prizes by exposing corrupt politicians or horrible criminals than by profiling honest, law-abiding citizens. So it’s not just the businessmen who fall victim – Bill Clinton got some rough press coverage there for a while, too.</p>
<p><strong>FPM: A subject that you’ve often explored on the site is that role that religion plays in people’s understanding of capitalism. We saw a demonstration of that most recently during the Bernie Madoff scandal, which triggered a bout of anxiety from Jews concerned about how the story might play into classic anti-Semitic stereotypes. What are your thoughts on that aspect of the Madoff case and, more broadly, how religion colors people’s perception of capitalism?</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Stoll:</strong> I didn’t really see the Madoff case that way because so many of his victims were also Jewish. In my <a href="http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/939/capitalism-and-the-jews">review</a> on the site of Jerry Muller’s book <em>Capitalism and the Jews</em>, I wrote about what Professor Muller calls “The Long Shadow of Usury.” I think a lot of popular hostility toward financial capitalism is driven by age-old, mainly Christian, hostility to usury and its association with Jews, a theme that was taken up by both the Communists and the Nazis.</p>
<p><strong>FPM: You’ve recently editorialized against the so-called soda tax, which New York’s Gov. Patterson, among others, have suggested passing on sugary soft drinks as a way to fight obesity. Why do you object to the tax – particularly since, as you note, you don’t even drink soda?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Stoll:</strong> New Yorkers already bear one of the highest state and local tax burdens in the country. The politicians ought to be trying to find ways to cut our taxes, not dreaming up new taxes to impose.</p>
<p><strong>FPM: At the risk of ending on a bleak note, let me ask you about local politics. You seem somewhat pessimistic about the political and economic future of New York State. What would it take to put the state on the right track?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Stoll:</strong> Well, the best thing would be new leadership in Albany that understands that New York is competing for human and financial capital, both globally and within the laboratory of the states, and that acts accordingly. The big costs in the state budget are education and health care, and workers in both fields are represented by powerful public employee unions. But even with the right leadership in Albany, New  York will have a hard time succeeding if Washington is targeting the financial industry, which is a big job engine in New York.</p>
<p><strong>FPM: Ira Stoll, thanks very much for joining us. </strong></p>
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		<title>Obama to America: Bend Over and Cough</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/larry-elder/obama-to-america-bend-over-and-cough/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-to-america-bend-over-and-cough</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Mar 2010 04:01:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Larry Elder]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Americans resoundingly reject ObamaCare. What, then, accounts for the Democrats' determination?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/obama23.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-55113" title="obama23" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/obama23.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="356" /></a></p>
<p>Americans resoundingly reject ObamaCare. What, then, accounts for the Democrats&#8217; determination?</p>
<p>Democrats believe <a href="http://www.creators.com/opinion/larry-elder.html#" target="_blank">health care</a> is a right. Start with that premise and everything else makes complete sense. Rights — whether the right to vote or to freely assemble or to avoid self-incrimination — exist independent of popular feeling, poll numbers or even, in the case of health care, the Constitution.</p>
<p>Democrats don&#8217;t care how much ObamaCare costs. When President Barack Obama addressed Republicans, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., carefully outlined the costs of this &#8220;reform.&#8221; He explained why costs figure to go up, not down. To someone truly interested in a cost-benefit analysis, these points warrant a rebuttal. But as MSNBC host Ed Schultz said, when it comes to health care reform and money, &#8220;I don&#8217;t care how much it costs.&#8221; An owner of an NFL team fired his coach despite the team&#8217;s winning record. He explained, &#8220;I gave him an unlimited expense account — and he exceeded it.&#8221; To Democrats, &#8220;economic justice&#8221; knows no price tag.</p>
<p>Democrats consider election losses a small price to pay for health care &#8220;reform.&#8221; Predictions range from moderate fall election losses to a bloodbath resulting in a Republican takeover of the House and possibly even the Senate. To this Democrats say, &#8220;So what?&#8221; Once health care reform becomes law, that&#8217;s that. Only a Republican charge with a filibuster-proof Republican supermajority in the Senate could undo it. Besides, President Bill Clinton got re-elected when the Republicans took over the House. And although he gives Republicans no credit, Clinton thereafter governed closer to the center, turned House Speaker Newt Gingrich into a convenient whipping boy, cruised to re-election and left office with a budget surplus. Obama, Democrats figure, could do a lot worse.</p>
<p>Democrats blame Americans&#8217; confusion about ObamaCare&#8217;s virtues on Republican &#8220;lies.&#8221; Democrats claim that ObamaCare would decrease costs while retaining the same or better health care quality. Republicans say the opposite. Massachusetts&#8217; RomneyCare, which is similar to ObamaCare, has failed to reduce costs. The three big entitlement programs — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — are all in deep financial trouble. At inception, the programs&#8217; cost estimates were wildly underestimated. None of this provides cautionary lessons. Republicans lie.</p>
<p>Democrats believe that they truly care about people and that Republicans don&#8217;t. Obama tells of an uninsured self-employed Ohio woman receiving cancer treatment at the Cleveland Clinic.</p>
<p>The woman, he says, faces the prospect of losing her home because of the hospital bills. Never mind the Cleveland Clinic offers millions of dollars of non-reimbursed care annually. Never mind that the world-renowned medical facility said it has no intention of going after her home. And never mind that the woman, according to the hospital, is likely eligible for several charitable programs.</p>
<p>Democrats say, &#8220;If you like things as they are, don&#8217;t worry.&#8221; Eighty-five percent of Americans have health insurance, and 89 percent of them are satisfied with it. This poses a problem for &#8220;reform.&#8221; MSNBC&#8217;s Chris Matthews once wrote that because HillaryCare failed to calm the satisfied, it collapsed. &#8220;People,&#8221; said Matthews, &#8220;saw their hard-won benefits and options being siphoned off to fund the health needs of all comers. Instead of securing the health care of the &#8216;working family,&#8217; Hillary Clinton was offering &#8216;universal coverage&#8217; for those who didn&#8217;t work, financed by those who did. It was an offer people were eager and quick to refuse.&#8221;</p>
<p>Democrats say, &#8220;If you like your plan and your doctor, you can keep them.&#8221; But won&#8217;t some employers drop their employee plans, pay the fines and slough the costs onto the taxpayers? And won&#8217;t some doctors, as polls suggest, restrict their practices or quit altogether? No, because, well, they just won&#8217;t.</p>
<p>Democrats bask in an Obama-loving liberal traditional media. The media cheerlead for health care &#8220;reform&#8221; and desperately want to give the President a &#8220;victory&#8221; — while accepting preposterous claims at face value. ObamaCare promises to extend health insurance to 30 million people; promises financial assistance to those unable to afford insurance; requires all employers to offer health insurance or pay fines; requires every American to obtain insurance or pay a fine; and promises to attack &#8220;unwarranted&#8221; insurance premium increases while requiring insurers to enroll those with pre-existing illness without dropping anyone&#8217;s coverage. And it would lawfully achieve all of this without increasing the deficit!</p>
<p>Democrats believe that if people are too dumb right now to see the benefits of ObamaCare, someday they will. If not, opponents will be powerless to do anything. Some people refuse to see what&#8217;s best. That&#8217;s why God created Democrats.</p>
<p>Democrats ultimately want a Canadian-style single-payer system. ObamaCare will result in cost overruns, caregivers driven out of business, declining quality, rationing, reduced innovation and bureaucrats determining who gets what, how and when. What then?</p>
<p>When the complaints grow loud enough, Democrats will be ready — with a plan to &#8220;reform&#8221; the &#8220;reform.&#8221;</p>
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