the houston conservative: News and Commentary

TPPF COMMENTARY: More health care requires more choices

2008-07-03T11:01:00.001-05:00

More health care requires more choices
By Kalese Hammonds

Texas has the highest ratio of uninsured residents in the country. With nearly one in four Texans uninsured, legislators and other stakeholders tirelessly look for the silver bullet to guarantee that everyone has access to health care. Many have concluded that the answer is lies in getting as many of the uninsured covered as possible.

Strategies for reducing Texas’ five million uninsured have come from a variety of angles, but most involve additional government assistance and impose a greater burden on taxpayers. The more modest proposals expand existing programs and increase outreach to eligible citizens, while the extreme measures would require every individual to buy health insurance and force the government to subsidize those who couldn’t afford it.

Others have proposed a backdoor approach by addressing the cost of health insurance, but such attempts have been just as heavy-handed. Suggestions that the state provide reinsurance for companies that pay out expensive claims would place an unnecessary burden on the state and taxpayers, while imposing requirements that would force insurers to forego risk-adjusted premiums in favor of a community-rated pricing method would make health insurance less expensive for risky individuals but more expensive for everyone else.

Early results from these reforms have been less than stellar. In Massachusetts, the individual mandate and state subsidies have led to massive cost overruns. The newly insured have flooded doctors’ offices, creating a shortage of providers and forcing doctors to either turn down patients or put them on a waiting list.

What Massachusetts has found – and what advocates for the uninsured fail to recognize – is that health insurance does not necessarily mean access to health care. In fact, health insurance is partially responsible for the continuing decay of our health care system. Its desensitization of consumers from the cost of health care has created an environment that encourages overutilization.

As the demand for health care services has risen, so have their prices; proof that the economic principles of supply and demand do, in fact, apply to health care.

For those who question the viability of free markets and competition in health care, they need only look at the field of Lasik eye surgery. Because consumers pay the full cost of their procedures, competition has led to lower prices and an abundance of providers.

Experience teaches us that the best way to lower prices is to pump more products into the market, allowing consumers to decide which of the options gives them the most bang for their buck.

Primary health care services would benefit from a similarly competitive environment where a broader range of providers would afford consumers more choices at varying price levels. Nurse practitioners and retail clinics offer basic health care at lower prices and during more convenient times, giving consumers alternatives to expensive doctor visits and crowded waiting rooms that are only open during work hours.

Unfortunately, Texas laws restrict these alternatives by tying the number of nurse practitioners to the number of physicians, and limiting the services they can provide. Other Texas laws that ban the practice of corporate medicine and place unnecessary regulations on health care facilities make it difficult for Texans to have a wide range of choices for health care. The majority of health care consumers are trapped in a system that gives them few options and even less information about the price they are paying for services.

Just like getting health insurance for everyone will not cure our health care system, providing less expensive alternatives to current health care is not the silver bullet either. But it is a solution that would not place additional burdens on taxpayers, require expansion of government programs, or increase insurance premiums for people who already have it.

Giving consumers more choices would improve access to health care by providing individuals with more choices that would be affordable, regardless of insurance status.

Kalese Hammonds is a health care policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin.

"No Bill!" Harris County Grand Jury Refuses to Indict Joe Horn

2008-06-30T13:51:00.004-05:00

That' right folks, Joe Horn is a free man.

The Harris County grand jury investigating Joe Horn voted today not to indict Pasadena, Texas resident Joe Horn for shooting to men he witnessed burglarizing his neighbor's house.

Justice prevails still here in Texas!!!

Here's the Houston Chronicles report:

Joe Horn cleared by grand jury in Pasadena shootings
Panel issues no-bill after two weeks of testimony

By BRIAN ROGERS and RUTH RENDON
June 30, 2008, 1:08PM
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

A Harris County grand jury decided today that Joe Horn should not be charged with a crime for shooting two suspected burglars he confronted outside his neighbor's home in Pasadena last fall.

The decision to clear Horn of wrongdoing came two weeks after the grand jury began considering evidence in the case, including Horn's testimony last week.

Horn, a 62-year-old retiree, became the focus of an intense public debate after the Nov. 14 shootings. Many supporters praised him as a hero for using deadly force to protect property, while others dismissed him as a killer who should have heeded a 911 operator's instructions to stay in his house and wait for police.
For background:

http://houstonconservative.com/2007/11/american-hero-joe-horn-pasadena.html

http://houstonconservative.com/2007/11/more-on-joe-horn-shootings.html

God Bless You Joe Horn.

May you live a less eventful life in the future. Know that to many Americans, you are a hero.

Foundation debuts TexasHigherEd.com website

2008-06-30T12:57:00.000-05:00

AUSTIN – The Texas Public Policy Foundation announced that it had created a new website, www.TexasHigherEd.com, to promote goals and specific reforms that will establish Texas as the outright leader in 21st century higher education.

“Texas can be the nation’s leader in higher education reform and provide a home to the best teachers, researchers, and students from around Texas and the nation,” Foundation president Brooke Rollins said. “This ambitious goal, however, requires a fundamental shift in higher education policy that puts students first.”

To support state elected policymakers, university system regents, and campus leaders in reform efforts, the Texas Public Policy Foundation created www.TexasHigherEd.com to provide important information about the cost and quality of higher education in Texas. It attempts to dispel the many myths that prevent our institutions of higher education from becoming the student-focused centers of learning that Texans should all demand.

Last month, the Foundation facilitated the Governor’s Higher Education Summit, an unprecedented dialogue between the regents from Texas’ public university systems and top education reformers from around the country. www.TexasHigherEd.com highlights the goals for improving Texas higher education that were discussed at the Summit:

• Measuring teacher efficiency and effectiveness through student evaluations;
• Requiring evidence of teaching skill for a majority of new tenure appointments;
• Supporting the creation of a new accrediting agency with results based on student learning and workforce readiness versus the number of books in a library or tenured professors with PhD’s;
• Recognizing and rewarding extraordinary teachers;
• Splitting teaching and research budgets to reward exceptional individuals in each area;
• Using “results-based” contracts with students to measure academic quality; and
• Putting state funding directly in the hands of the students through scholarships.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin, Texas.

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Supreme Court Rules 5-4 in favor of Heller and Against Washington D.C.

2008-06-26T17:24:00.007-05:00

Will Malven
June 26, 2008

In a very narrowly worded decision the Supreme Court, in a disturbingly slim 5-4 majority decision confirmed what any half-witted reader of the American Constitution and the Bill of Rights could have told them from the beginning, the Second Amendment to the Constitution protects the right of the individual to keep and bear arms.

Having this giant leap of imagination and comprehension (somehow complex pharases like "shall not be infringed," that most people find very straight forward, they find perplexing) they went on the limit the breadth of their decision by back pedaling as fast as they could.

Apparently even Chief Justice Roberts and his fellow Conservative Justices Alito, Thomas, Scalia (who wrote the majority opinion) can't bear the concept of a civilian population which would actually be capable of standing in battle against the military of an oppressive government, which is, with no ambiguity whatsoever, precisely what our founding fathers envisioned.

Being neither fish nor fowl, this decision, while important for its establishment of the right to keep and bear arms (RTKB) as an individual right, is not a great decision, rather it is a frightening decision.

It is frightening to me that four of the nine justices are so willing to ignore our constitution and the inescapable intent, as made clear both in the phrasing of the Second Amendment (using the imperative "shall not be infringed") and in the extensive writings of the framers, to pursue their own political agenda.

Stevens in his comment:
"[The majority decision] would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons."
And his further comment that that evidence for such a limit (on the tools available to elected officials to regulate civilian uses of weapons) "is nowhere to be found."
If those two statements weren't so bone-chilling in their portent and so ominous in their implication of a desire to strip us of our God given, inherent rights, they would be laughable.

Here's a clue for Justice Stevens, our forefathers provided no such tools...anywhere.Our forefathers preserved for all posterity our right to protect ourselves against any and all threats whether it involves a matter of self-defense or a matter of the tyranny of the state.

Breyer's comment:

"In my view, there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas."

is at least consistent with his Kelo (Kelo v. City of New London) vote. Apparently Breyer doesn't believe any right of the people is an absolute right.

Unfortunately the five most Liberal Justices (the Foul Four, Breyer, Gisburg, Souter, and Stevens, + Kennedy) are all amenable to the abrogation of any right of the American People as protected by the Bill or Rights, even the right of property, which our forefathers believed to be the primary and most fundamental right.

As for Heller, Justice Kennedy doesn't get it write very often, but at least this time he managed to muddle his very mediocre way to a correct decision.

What part of the word "right" don't these "scholars of law" understand? Far from finding this decision reassuring, it frightens the heck out of me.

It frightens me that the American people were one president away from having "the right which protects all other rights" stripped away from them. Had Albert Gore, Jr. rather than George Walker Bush won the election in 2000, what Heller has barely preserved, would have been lost forever.

It is unimaginable to me today that there are so many citizens in our society who are so blasé about their rights as protected by the Bill of Rights.

We are as near to becomming a society of sheep as we can without losing outright all of our freedoms.

Dr. James McHenry (a Maryland delegate to the Constitutional Convention) tells us that When the Constitutional Convention ended on September 18, 1787, "a lady asked Dr. Franklin, 'Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy? "A republic.' the doctor replied, 'if you can keep it.'"

Unfortunately, it appears that we are all too near losing that which Messrs. Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, and McHenry attempted to leave us.

Well, at least they got this one partially right and realized that the RTKBA is an indvidual right.

Long Live Our American Republic!!!

Texas PolicyCast: A History of Lawsuit Reform in Texas, Part 1

2008-06-26T11:09:00.003-05:00

Last month, the Texas Public Policy Foundation released the report, "A History of Lawsuit Reform in Texas," authored by TPPF Senior Fellow, The Honorable Joe Nixon. Besides being an accomplished litigator, Nixon served six terms in the Texas House of Representatives, the last two as Chairman of its Civil Practices Committee. In this two-part interview, we look at the evolution of Texas' civil justice system and the actions taken in recent years to strike a fairer balance between plaintiffs and defendants.

The Texas PolicyCast is the weekly audio magazine of the Texas Public Policy Foundation. A new edition is posted each Thursday morning. To listen to the current or previous editions online, please visit the Texas PolicyCast page at www.TexasPolicy.com. You can also subscribe using your RSS reader or iTunes.

TPPF COMMENTARY: The importance of business friendliness

2008-06-26T10:08:00.002-05:00

Earlier this week, Comptroller Susan Combs issued preliminary estimates on the first batch of receipts from Texas' new margins tax. While the elected officials wring their hands over whether the tax brings in as much revenue as expected, TPPF Senior Fellow William Murchison writes in this week's commentary that they ought to also concern themselves with how the tax affects its long-standing positive relationship with businesses.

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The importance of business friendliness

By William Murchison

We understand desirability well enough in human terms. Don’t we?

Want a friend, be a friend, is the rule. Figure out the relationship in terms of mutual satisfactions. OK?

Why is it so hard, in that case, to apply the rule of thumb to governments and the ways they order, or disorder, their relationships with businesses whose job-creating, tax-paying potential they can’t live without? A state (or a city or a county or a country) that wants to be loved, economically speaking, must make itself lovable, by implementation of business policies that business loves.

Which brings us, with some satisfaction but just a bit of trepidation, to the question of how we’re doing in Texas along those lines.

So far, so good, is the immediate answer. But there’s the future to think about.

Texas likes business. Its fiscal and regulatory policies generally inspire business to like Texas in return. Forbes magazine calls modern Texas the fourth-best state for business. Not bad – except a year earlier, it was second best; falling this year behind No. 1 Virginia, No. 2 Utah, and No. 3 North Carolina. Hmmm.

Let’s see what the Washington, D. C.-based Tax Foundation has to say, based on its analysis of our state’s tax policies. Yes, again, we’re doing reasonably well: No. 8 in the country for “tax climate.”

The top three – Wyoming, South Dakota, and Nevada – aren’t strictly comparable to a semi-industrialized state with 24.1 million people and 254 counties, so let’s not start getting jealous. Let us note instead that Texans pay only 9.3 percent of their income to state and local government, compared with a national average of 11 percent. No small reason for our standing, as practically all Texans know, is the absence of a state income tax. Only six other states enjoy that blessing.

So what’s the problem here? Is there a problem?

A new feature of life called the Margins Tax – a 1 percent gross receipts tax – has begun to haunt those who ponder the state’s economic future. Enactment of the Margins Tax, in 2006, as replacement for Robin Hood property tax reductions, caused Texas’ drop to eighth place in tax climate from a consistent sixth dating back to 2003.

Where’s this thing going? That’s the question we have to ask with intensity and persistence. The last thing Texas should want at this stage is the inadvertent shaping of tax policies that undermine its relationship with business – that make our state not a more, but rather a less, desirable place to set up shop and hire people and send goods to market.

As the Tax Foundation observes, “The modern market is characterized by mobile capital and labor. Therefore, companies will locate where they have the greatest competitive advantage. States with the best tax system will be the most competitive in attracting new businesses and most effective at generating economic and employment growth.”

Whining and sniveling – the “don’t they love us anymore?” stuff – won’t help a bit. A relationship of mutual satisfactions entails projection of those satisfactions in both directions. When, for one reason or another, those satisfactions wane, new considerations take over. Suddenly the friends, the pals, the running mates, see each other as strangers.

A “business friendly” environment depends directly on acts of friendship: like saying, through specific tax policies, hey, we want you here. It’s harder than it sounds. A state growing as fast and as unpredictably as Texas finds itself challenged to expand essential services at prudent cost. What has to drive budgeting in Texas, at all governmental levels, is scrupulous consideration not of what we might want if we had all the money in the world, but rather of what we need most, and how we might most prudently pay for it.

We’ll never quit wrangling over taxes. No society does. We’ll know we’re getting somewhere when our political leaders signal with one heart and one accord their understanding of tax policy as a two-way street: as even and well-paved for those who pay the taxes as for those who consume the services.

William Murchison is a Senior Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin.

Obama's Truth Problems Continue

2008-06-23T22:19:00.000-05:00

It seems to be happening with dazzling regularity...Obama promises one thing and delivers another.

Now we have his reversal on public financing. This man has the audacity to speak against private funding for our elections, supports the McCain-Feingold (constitutionally suspect) Campaign Finance restrictions...right up until it becomes politically expedient to tosses it aside.

Typical of Democrats, he is congenitally incapable of telling the truth. He saw the dollar signs in front of his eyes, to the tune of an estimated $300 million in potential contributions from his big money buddies and their bundling corporate friends like George Soros, and his morals, what few he can lay claim to, go right out the window.

Let's see now:

Obama pledged to "take public financing in the general election if the Republican nominee agreed to do so as well."

A pledge you can believe in?

Earlier this month, Obama agreed to holding a series of "town-hall" style debates in various venues around the nation.
Obama has now abandoned that agreement.

A man of his word?

He denied ever having heard any of Wright's egregious sermons even though he was a member of the church for 23 years and a regular attendee.

The truth?

He dumped Wright from giving the invocation only hours before he took the stage to announce his candidacy because he believed him to be controversial for comfort.

He then denounced Wright's statements after videos of his fiery, anti-American speeches became public, declaring that Wrights Afro-centric, black separatist statements, "in no way reflect my attitudes and directly contradict my profound love for this country."

Are we to believe this from the same man who wrongly claimed that there are more young black males in our prison than in our colleges.

He described Pastor Wright as being "like an old uncle who sometimes will say things that I don't agree with," but that he would "not repudiate the man...who I have known for 17 years. He helped bring me to Jesus and helped bring me to church."

Telling the truth?

He then severed Pastor Wright's involvement with his campaign's African American Religious Leadership Committee.

Less than a month later, he unceremoniously dumped the "good" Reverend Wright.

A truthful man, or a calculating, lying, African-American Democrat trying to have it both ways?

Want more? How about this?

Obama stated in no uncertain terms, during one of the Democrat Party debates, that he would meet with the leaders of Iran, Cuba, Syria, Venezuela, and North Korea, in the first year of his administration, without preconditions.
Obama has now "clarified" that position (as he has so very, very many), saying that those meeting would only occur "if we had done sufficient preparations for that meeting."

A man of consistent, strong character?

Now we have Obama lying again, this time by omission, saying that he would agree to more drilling if it would lower the price of gasoline for people this summer...a claim that no one has ever made.

It is his way of saying that he favors higher gasoline prices as a means of restricting our use of our automobiles. He as much as admitted this when he slipped up the other day and said "the adjustment [in gasoline prices] "came too rapidly."

He, like all Liberals see it as his duty to save us from ourselves by imposing restrictions on freedoms.

Conservation by starvation...what a novel concept.

His arguments on his opposition to drilling are as dishonest as he is. Democrats are playing a shell game (no pun intended) on drilling for new oil. They claim that the "Big Oil Companies" already have over 5000 leases in their possession but they aren't drilling on them, so why should they be given more?

What is not being said is that those leases have been tested and will not produce enough oil and gas to make them worthwhile exploiting. The mere existence of leases does not mean that they have oil and gas beneath them, it only means that the oil companies have the right to drill on them should they turn out to be viable.

About 80% of the leases held by oil companies are being exploited, but many are never going to be productive. The arguments of the Democrats and Obama are intellectually dishonest.

Obama repeats the same old line we've been hearing for well over a decade (a very interesting length of time as you will see) about drilling in ANWR and offshore Florida and California that, paraphrasing now, "even if we began drilling today, Americans would not see any relief from the production at ANWR for (you guessed it) 10 years...a decade.

So like doesn't that mean that if Democrats had approved exploration and exploitation of the ANWR oil fields when it was first suggested and slapped down by congress, we would be completely free of the need to import oil from Saudi Arabia?

These Obamalies are becoming awfully commonplace now aren't they.

A truthful, honest broker who offers hope for America, or a slick shyster lawyer/politician scamming the country with some slick patter and an empty suit?

I think maybe the latter. Seems "A change you can believe in," has become "the same old Democrat socialist with a new face."

Obama is honest, no really, don't make me laugh. My sides are already splitting from the gullibility of so many of his empty headed supporters.

P.T. Barnum said it first, "There's a sucker born every minute." Seems Obama has hit the mother lode.

Puck:
"Captain of our fairy band,
Helena is here at hand,
And the youth,
mistook by me,
Pleading for a lover's fee.
Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!"
-Shakespeare
A Midsummer Nights Dream Act 3, scene 2, 110–115

...and the Democrats playing mischievous (some might say malevolent), destructive Puck to the Republican's Oberon.

Long Live Our American Republic!!!

Kelo Day

2008-06-23T11:02:00.000-05:00

Today is the third anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s egregious Kelo vs. New London decision, in which a 5-4 majority expanded the ability of governments to use the power of eminent domain to include "economic development." The ruling dealt a tremendous blow to individual property rights and has drawn sharp rebuke from across the philosophical spectrum.

Over the last three years, the Texas Public Policy Foundation has extensively researched the question of how the state can preserve individual property rights in a post-Kelo world. Last month, Bill Peacock and Drew Thornley testified before a House committee on eminent domain and condemnation compensation, respectively. And last fall, Bill Peacock gave a presentation on how eminent domain harms those in need of affordable housing.

Texas has made some progress to protecting Texas landowners from eminent domain abuse, but much more needs to be done.

- David Guenthner

How "inconvenient"

2008-06-18T17:53:00.002-05:00

Last year, our friends at the Tennessee Center for Policy Research obtained the energy bills from Academy Award-winning documentarian Al Gore’s Nashville mansion. They found, among other things, that Gore’s electricity usage in August 2006 was more than twice what the average American household uses in an entire year.

Gore family spokesman Kalee Kreider responded that, “the bottom line is that every family has a different carbon footprint. And what Vice President Gore has asked is for families to calculate that footprint and take steps to reduce and offset it.”

So TCPR just took another look at Nobel laureate Al Gore’s energy bills to see how their “reducing and offsetting” was going. What they found: Even after a “green” retrofit in June 2007 that included new solar panels, a geothermal heating system, lighting upgrades, and an overhaul of the windows and ductwork, Gore’s home energy usage in the 12 months following the renovations was more than 10% higher than the 12 months before.

The average American household consumes 11,040 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity per year. Gore’s Nashville mansion uses an average of 17,768 kWh per month.

And that doesn’t include the carbon footprint from Al Gore’s private jet and Lincoln Town Car transport, his Live Earth concerts, or his 2007 book and arena tours.

“Actions speak louder than words, and Al Gore’s actions prove that he views climate change not as a serious problem, but as a money-making opportunity,” Johnson said. Al Gore is exploiting the public’s concern about the environment to line his pockets and enhance his profile.”

Even after all of his mansion renovations, Al Gore has quite a bit of work to do to get his proverbial carbon house in order.

...but We Can Tax Our Way Out???

2008-06-18T13:35:00.002-05:00

This is too stupid for words...straight from Democrats.Senate.gov:

June 18, 2008

Reid: Bush And McCain Still Don't Get It - We Cannot Drill Our Way Out Of This Energy Crisis

Washington, DC—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made the following statement today in response to President Bush’s proposal to drill offshore for oil:

“This week’s flip-flop on offshore oil drilling by President Bush and Senator John McCain is nothing more than a cynical campaign ploy that will do nothing to lower energy prices and represents another big giveaway to oil companies already making billions in profits.

“The facts are clear: Oil companies have already had ample opportunity to increase supply, but they have sat on their hands. They aren’t even using more than half of the public lands they already have leased for drilling. And despite the huge tax breaks President Bush and Republican Congresses have given oil and gas companies to invest in refineries, domestic production has actually dropped.

“Despite what President Bush, John McCain and their friends in the oil industry claim, we cannot drill our way out of this problem. The math is simple: America has just three percent of the world’s oil reserves, but Americans use a quarter of its oil. And the Energy Information Administration says that even if we do open the coasts to oil drilling, prices wouldn’t drop until 2030.

“President Bush and John McCain are not serious about addressing gas prices. If they were, they would stop offering the same old ideas meant to pad the pockets of Big Oil and work with Democrats to reduce our dependence on oil, invest in the renewable energy sources, crack down on excessive speculation and stand up to countries colluding to shake down American consumers.

“Bush-McCain Republicans just don’t get it. Their commitment to the failed policies of yesterday is why we have energy, economic and national security crises today. They want to feed our addiction to oil; Democrats want to end it.”

Democrats just don't get it, you CAN'T TAX YOUR WAY OUT OF THIS ENERGY CRISIS.

Democrats know this, they simply want the American people to pay high prices for gasoline. Al Gore is on record as suggesting radically higher gasoline prices as a means of forcing the American people to reduce their "carbon footprints."

The truth is that if Congress would act, senators, our nation could be completely energy independent within 10 years.

FACT: Estimated oil reserves in the United States contained in the oil shale formations in Colorado and Wyoming are about 3 1/2 Trillion (yes that's TRILLION) barrels. That's roughly 10 times the known oil reserves in all of Saudi Arabia.

The technology to extract that oil exists, is environmentally friendly, and is financially viable at less than half the current price for oil.

So why don't we exploit those resources? Democrats don't want to. That's it in a nutshell. Democrats want super high gasoline prices so that they can gain a political advantage...at the expense of voters.

They don't care about your needs, my needs, or about the national security implications of an energy independent America...they only want to win in November.

Should Obama win in November, you will see Democrats falling all over themselves to increase domestic exploration. The clamor from the citizens for lower prices will spark a panic in these Democrat weasels.

I predict that they will be completely deaf to all complaints by the Greens, the Global warming alarmists and the enviro-mental-ists as they expand domestic drilling...that is if they can prevent our nations destruction by the enemies they think they can negotiate with sans pre-conditions.

That naivete is also the reason that I predict that Iran will succeed in their efforts to become a fully operational nuclear weaponed nation shoulc Obama be elected.

Long Live Our American Republic!!!

The Next Obama Bus Hit and Run Victim, Richard Danzig?

2008-06-18T09:22:00.004-05:00

Watch out Richard!

Look for Richard Danzig's name to be added to the "Thrown under the Obama Campaign Bus" list.

Who is Richard Danzig? Danzig is a foreign policy advisor for the Obama Presidential campaign. He served as Secretary of the Navy under President William Jefferson "Bubba" Clinton from November 16, 1998 through the end of the Clinton debacle (AKA the Clinton Presidency).

He is reported to be on the short list for National Security Advisor in an Obama-nation...perhaps I should say was. Like all Democrats on the Left, Danzig has brilliant ideas.

Perhaps the pinnacle of his brilliance shone forth yesterday June 17, 2008 in a speech he gave to the Center for New American Security, wheh he is quoted in an article in the Daily Telegraph as saying:

“Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security.”
Umm...interesting Richard, tell us more.

Barack Obama aide: Why Winnie the Pooh should shape US foreign policy

By Tim Shipman in Washington
Last Updated: 2:04AM BST 17/06/2008

Winnie the Pooh, Luke Skywalker and British football hooligans could shape the foreign policy of Barack Obama if he becomes US President, according to a key adviser.

Richard Danzig, who served as Navy Secretary under President Clinton and is tipped to become National Security Adviser in an Obama White House, told a major foreign policy conference in Washington that the future of US strategy in the war on terrorism should follow a lesson from the pages of Winnie the Pooh, which can be shortened to: if it is causing you too much pain, try something else.

Mr Danzig told the Centre for New American Security: “Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security.”
He apparently then went on to quote from A.A. Milne's wonderful children's book:

“Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump on the back of his head behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming down stairs. But sometimes he thinks there really is another way if only he could stop bumping a minute and think about it.”
Now don't get me wrong, I believe that Winnie the Pooh is an excellent series of tales for little boys and girls to read or be read to from; It may even be an excellent philosophical lesson in facing the difficulties of life with aplomb, as described in Benjamin Hoff's book, The Tao of Pooh, but I hardly think that I would recommend it as an instructive for how to deal with our international and philosophical enemies.

If it is too painful then find a different path? This is the path that Obama would take on conducting foreign policy? I hardly thing Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, or George Washington would concur.

This is typical Liberal "vision." So simplistic and inane that Danzig should have been laughed off the stage, but for Liberals, it is a profound statement that plucks the strings of their inner desire to be "well thought of."

Being "nice" to one's enemies is a basic tenet of those on the Left...unless those enemies are political opponents here in America, in which case no perjorative is outside the bounds of good taste.

Unfortunately for Mr. Danzig, he made a fatal flaw that will cost him his position as trusted advisor to the Obama campaign and the possible nomination as Nation Security Advisor, he told the truth about that which Liberals believe. He exposed the naivete of Liberal foreign policy.

For that crime, I suspect that Richard Danzigs name will soon be added to the growing list of those who have been "thrown under the bus" by Barack Hussein Obama.

With advisors like Danzig around him, no wonder Liberals are so enamored of his candidacy, he lives in the same fantasy world in which they live.

Long Live Our American Republic!!!

Growing Blogger Boycott over AP "Fair Use" Complaints

2008-06-16T21:41:00.002-05:00

When writing a blog or editorial, I often lift limited quotations from my news sources to reinforce a given point.

In quoting a news item for commentary, my normal restriction is to limit my quotations to no more than four (4) paragraphs - this usually means about four sentences as most news outlets make a new paragraph for each sentence. I have felt that this limit is normally sufficient to prove any point I wish to make, or provide my reader with enough of the targeted article so that they may get the "feel" of the author's tone while keeping my lifting of quotations within the spirit of the "fair use doctrine" as provided by the courts in copyright infringment cases.

No more!

Last week AP sent a letter to the parody web site " The Drudge Retort" asking that seven articles containing quotations from A.P. stories be removed from their website. The offending quotations contained 39 to 79 words each.

It appears that The Associated Press doesn't want bloggers to use their news stories as references in their own postings.

I say, "Fine. You want it, you got it!"

I will oblige them in their fondest wish. There are a large number of news sources on the web and in the conventional media; more than enough to supply the information I require to write my blogs without using A.P. as a source, and therefore without including a reference to their news story.

Since organizations like A.P live and breathe by the readership they receive, and every quotation used by every blogger normally contains a link to the original material, to my mind they are cutting their own throats, but if that is their wish, so be it.

I will no longer be referencing any Associated Press articles in my editorials nor will I excerpt them in my blogs.

It appears that I am no alone in my reaction to A.P.'s activity. The website TechCrunch has just released the following on their website.

Here’s Our New Policy On A.P. stories: They’re Banned

Michael Arrington

The stories over the weekend were bad enough - the Associated Press, with a long history of suing over quotations from their articles, went after Drudge Retort for having the audacity to link to their stories along with short quotations via reader submissions. Drudge Retort is doing nothing different than what Digg, TechMeme, Mixx and dozens of other sites do, and frankly the fact that they are being linked to should be considered a favor.

After heavy criticism over the last few days, the A.P. is in damage control mode, says the NYTimes, and retreating from their earlier position. But from what I read, they’re just pushing their case further.

————————snip——————–

The A.P. doesn’t get to make it’s own rules around how its content is used, if those rules are stricter than the law allows. So even thought they say they are making these new guidelines in the spirit of cooperation, it’s clear that, like the RIAA and MPAA, they are trying to claw their way to a set of property rights that don’t exist today and that they are not legally entitled to. And like the RIAA and MPAA, this is done to protect a dying business model - paid content.

So here’s our new policy on A.P. stories: they don’t exist. We don’t see them, we don’t quote them, we don’t link to them. They’re banned until they abandon this new strategy, and I encourage others to do the same until they back down from these ridiculous attempts to stop the spread of information around the Internet.

The arrogant jerks at A.P. believe they can bully those of us in the so-called pajamas media without consequences. I've got news for them, it is they who are going to feel the crunch.

The Arrogant Press has always been a Left leaning biased and quite often anti-American operation. Attacking our troops, our president, and our values with impunity. With this push on their part to oppress their primary competition, it is time for all bloggers to take the boycott pledge - it is the smart thing to do - it is the legally shrewed thing to do - it is what I am doing.

Hey A.P. you've got your wish, I hope you choke on it…have a nice slow, painful, death.

Long Live Our American Republic!!!

...Of course there is a more cynical take on AP's actions, it has occurred to me that by banning direct copy or quotation, any claimed summary of their reports can be denounced as false with the simple act of withdrawing the offending content from their web pages.

Any blogger without the documentation of a direct copy and quote then suddenly becomes vulnerable to charges of manufacturing a story with intent of harming AP...of course that is just a cynical take and no such policy decision would be in the least conceivable to such an august member of the Paleo-media...would it?

The muzzling of free speech and of the "pajamas media" will occur with a whimper, not a bang. Rights are generally removed from the people gradually, by stages, rarely are they stripped away wholesale.

BOYCOTT THE ASSOCIATED PRESS!!!

Barack Obama's Little Problem with the Truth

2008-06-14T18:16:00.002-05:00

Barack Obama doesn't like lobbyists (unless they remain undiscovered on his advisory committees).

“I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists
that their days of setting the agenda in
Washington are over. I have done more than any
other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists
– and won. They have not funded my campaign,
they will not get a job in my White House,
and they will not drown out the voices of the
American people when I am president.”
-- Barack Obama, Speech in Des Moines, IA, November 10, 2007

This from The Sydney Morning Herald:

"Top Obama aide forced to step aside

John Broder and Leslie Wayne in Chicago
June 13, 2008

JAMES JOHNSON, the consummate Washington insider who Barack Obama tapped to head his vice-presidential search, has resigned abruptly to try to silence a growing furore over his business activities.

His departure deprives Senator Obama of decades of experience and access to Washington's power elite.

Mr Johnson has been a fixture in political and legal circles for three decades, and he led the vice-presidential search team for Senator John Kerry, the Democrats' presidential nominee in 2004.

His resignation came after days of intense scrutiny from the news media and attacks from Senator John McCain and Republican Party officials over mortgages Mr Johnson, a former chief executive of the home mortgage financier Fannie Mae, received on favourable terms from the Countrywide Financial Corporation, the mortgage company that was a central player in the subprime lending crisis."

Whoops! Hey, who knew? Hint: Obama knew and dismissed this conflict of interest.
Coming soon to a bus near you, "Throw Eric Holder Under the Bus."

From "The Toledo Blade:"

We may see this pattern repeated soon. The more problematic appointment to his vice presidential search committee may be Eric Holder, deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration. Mr. Holder was a key figure in the last-minute pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, whose ex-wife, Denise, was a major contributor to Clinton campaigns and to the Clinton library fund.

Mr. Rich, who fled to Switzerland to avoid prosecution on 51 counts of tax fraud, was not eligible for a pardon under Justice Department guidelines. But Mr. Holder circumvented normal procedures and kept other Justice Department lawyers in the dark. A congressional committee described his conduct as "unconscionable."
Keep watching folks. The Obama express is slowly but surely destroying itself as the inevitable conflicts of interest, lies, and corruption inherent in his campaign begin to unravel and are revealed to the public.

Obama is as corrupt as any politician coming from Chicago can be. He's Daily's man and he learned his politics on the South Side of Chicago...what else could you expect?

Long Live Our American Republic!!!