Let the Rationing Begin

“Tell me this isn’t a government-run operation.” Flight Director Gene Krantz, “Apollo 13”

According to CNS.com and Kaiser Health News, sixteen states have set a limit on the number of prescription drugs they will cover for Medicaid patients.  Seven of those states have enacted or tightened those limits in just the last two years.

“Medicaid, a federal program carried out in partnership with state governments, forms an important element because under Obamacare, a larger number of people will be covered by Medicaid, as the income cap is raised for the program.

“With both the expanded Medicaid program and the federal subsidy for health-care premiums that will be available to people earning up to 400 percent of the poverty level, a larger percentage of the population will be wholly or partially dependent on the government for their health care under Obamacare than are now.

“In Alabama, Medicaid patients are now limited to one brand-name drug; HIV and psychiatric drugs are excluded.  Illinois has limited Medicaid patients to just four prescription drugs as a cost-cutting move, and patients who need more than four must get permission from the state.”

Phil Galewitz, staff writer for Kaiser Health News, told C-SPAN’s Washington Journal that the move “only hurts a limited number of patients.  Drugs make up a fair amount of costs for Medicaid. A lot of states have said a lot of drugs are available in generics where they cost less, so they see this sort of another move to push patients to take generics instead of brand.”

“Arkansas, California, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia have all placed caps on the number of prescription drugs Medicaid patients can get.”

Galewitz also said, “So it seems like Medicaid’s sort of been one big experiment over the last number of years for states to try to control costs, and it’s an ongoing battle, and I think drugs is just now one of the … latest issues. And it’s a relatively recent thing, only in the last 10 years have we really seen states put these limits on monthly drugs,” he added.

Weren’t rising premiums and bureaucratic insurance companies the reason we were urged to vote for Obama and Obamacare?  We think of Medicaid in its original form, health care for the poor.  With the unemployment rate at 15 percent (the real number), we’re becoming the poor and we’ll be forced into the Medicaid category.

The elderly, as they’re pushed out of Medicare, will be especially affected by the prescription drug rationing of only four prescription drugs.  Pundits have predicted that as states bear the Medicaid burden, they’ll be forced into severe financial straits, and at that point, the Federal government will take over.

There was a great article in the May 14^th National Review by William Voegeli, entitled “Magic Accounting.”  Voegeli describes the trap Americans fell into with Social Security and Medicare, government entitlements to which workers felt entitled, since they were told they were paying for it themselves through their taxes.  He calculates that for someone born in 1965, earning a mid-range salary, had her Medicare withholding taxes been placed into an account that compounded annually at the inflation rate plus 2 percent interest, the account would be worth $87,000 by the time she retired in 2030 at age 65. But according to a report by the New York Times, he writes, “the government will then spend $275,000 on her medical care.”

Voegeli writes, “It was the liberal architects and defenders of the welfare state, not its conservative opponents, who created the myth that spawned the subsequent confusion.  Central to liberalism at high tide was a rhetorical effort to establish the untruth that Americans receiving social-insurance benefits were betting back nothing beyond what they had already paid for.”

“But the fulfillment of our social-insurance contracts has become a grave problem because the myth of social insurance cannot be reconciled with the reality, political and fiscal reality:  the value of social-insurance benefits is typically a multiple of the value of social-insurance taxes.”   In other words, the taxes a worker paid 40 years ago, having no capital investment (no interest, compounded or otherwise, as it would have been privately), cannot keep up with inflation or the inflated cost of health care.

In any case, the money isn’t even there; the government has already spent it.  Their only recourse to solving the deficit is to tax the next generation even further and increase taxes on those who have more money.

Yesterday, we talked about how the government wants to cut costs by reducing paperwork.  It is no coincidence that that is how they bankrupted hospitals and private doctors, through an increasingly paper-hungry bureaucracy that required hospitals and doctors to hire more paper pushers.  And today’s he’s bragged about the rebate checks he’s sent to citizens because the insurance companies charged them too much in administrative costs.  Well, guess whose fault that was?

Just as he’s pushing the blame for social bureaucracy off on insurance companies, he’s pushed the pill-dispensing off on the states. Woe to the state that rejects a grandmother’s request for an additional prescription.  But never fear – Obama is here.

A friend e-mailed me about how he and his wife returned from a meeting about health care.

“We were in a small health clinic where the doctors and health care nurses and councilors volunteer their time to treat people in need,” he says. “They don’t deal with insurance and are not regulated by government and they don’t ask for a lot of money.

“The meeting was not what we expected. They talked a little about how their facility works and it was the unanimous opinion that Obamacare must go.  But the rest of the meeting was about how the American Medical Association, the hospitals and the insurance industry are all woven together for their own benefit, to the extent that members of the board of directors of one organization also hold positions one or more of the others.”

Having worked in the insurance industry, that’s not surprising.  My company refused to sell health insurance in this state because of the corrupt bureaucracy.  Here in New Jersey, the governor is the nominal head of any insurance company that wants to do business here.

It would be interesting to see who these board members are, to learn about their history and politics.  Undoubtedly, radical socialists wormed their way onto these boards, and despite their aversion to capitalism, they are not above working their way up the corporate ladder to become board members in order to control companies.

Do you have a migraine headache, yet?  If you don’t, you will, and you won’t be able to get a prescription for it, either.

 

 

The Obamacare Saga

A friend asked if I would use my blog to highlight some of the horrors of Obamacare so people know what they’ve gotten themselves into it and consider it when they vote 99 days from now.

Seniors have been passing around an e-mail allegedly written to Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana by a Dr. Stephen E. Fraser, an Indianapolis anesthesiologist, or as a letter sent to River Cities Tribune, by former Judge David Kithil of Marbles Falls, Texas.  Snopes.com calls him “Judge Dread” and attributes the talking points to one Peter Fleckenstein, a blogger and former Marine from Phoenix, Ariz.

As we Freedom Warriors often do, we borrow from each other’s writings and apparently Dr. Fraser and Judge Kithil passed the word on. Snopes.com claims that Fleckenstein’s information is based on H.R. 3200, some 2,400 pages long, was never passed, and that what Congress passed was the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – H.R. 3590.

Snopes claims that “some” of the entries in the list are outdated and that they reflect aspects of the legislation that were never passed.  But let’s hang on a minute.  I spent most of Friday researching this matter.  I had to download both bills, and compare them and I found that most of what Fleckenstein writes are true –they’re just located in different parts of the bill.

Let’s just take two items, because I don’t have time to post the entire text of both bills.

First, let’s take Fleckenstein’s item on the government’s access to individual finances.  He was right in both cases.  Here is the wording from the original, 2400-page bill, H.R. 3200:

Section 1173A Standardize Electronic Administrative Transaction

(a)   Standards for Financial and Administrative Transactions. –

(1)   In General. – The Secretary shall adopt and regularly update standards consistent with the goals described in paragraph (2).

(2)   Goals for Financial and Administration Transactions. – The goals for standards under paragraph (1) are that such standards shall –

(A)  Be unique with no conflicting or redundant stanrds;

(B)  Be authoritative, permitting no additions or constraints for electronic transactions, including companion guides

(C)  Be comprehensive, efficient and robust, requiring minimal augmentation by paper transactions or clarification by further communications;

(D)  enable the real-time (or near real-time) determination of an individual’s financial responsibility at the point of service, and to the extent possible, prior to service, including whether the individual is eligible for a specific service with a specific physician at a specific facility, which may include utilization of a machine-readable health plan beneficiary identification card;

(E)   Enable, where feasible, near real-time adjudication of claims;

(F)   Provide for timely acknowledgement, response, and status reporting applicable to any electronic transaction deemed appropriate by the Secretary;

(G)  Describe all data elements (such as reason and remark codes) in unambiguous terms, not permit optional fields, require that data elements be either required or conditioned upon set values in other fields, and prohibit additional conditions; and

(H)  Harmonize all common data elements across administrative and clinical transaction standards.

Here is the same issue, now in Section 1004 of H.R. 3590:

Section 1104.  Administrative Simplification

(a)   Purpose of Administrative Simplification. – Section 261 of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (42 U.S.C. 1320d note) is amended –

(1)   By inserting “uniform” before standards”; and

(2)   By inserting “and to reduce the clerical burden on patients, health care providers, and health care plans” before the period at the end.

(b)  Operating Rules for Health Information Transactions. –

(1)   Definition of Operating Rules. – Section 1171 of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1320d) is amended by adding at the end of the following:

(9) Operating Rules. – The term “operating rules” means the necessary business rules and guidelines for the electronic exchange of information that are not defined by a standard or its implementation specifications as adopted for purposes of this part.”

(2)  Transaction Standard; Operating Rules and Compliance.  Section 1173 of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1320d-2) is amended

                (A) in subsection (a)(2), by adding at the end of the following new subparagraph:

                                (J) Electronic funds transfers.”;

                                (B) in subsection (a), by adding at the end of the following new paragraph:

(4) Requirements for Financial and Administration Transactions.-

               (A) In General. – The standards and associated operating rules adopted by the Secretary shall –

                (i)  to the extent feasible and appropriate, enable determination of an individual’s eligibility and financial responsibility for specific services prior to or at the point of care;

                (ii) be comprehensive, requiring minimal augmentation by paper or other communications;

                (iii) provide for timely acknowledgment, response, and status reporting that supports a transparent claims and denial management process (including adjudication and appeals); and

                (iv) describe all data elements (including reason and remark codes) in unambiguous terms, require that such data elements be required or conditional conditions (except where necessary to implement State or Federal law, or to protect against fraud and abuse).

                (B)  Reduction of clerical burden. – In adopting standards and operating rules for the transactions referred to under paragraph (1), the Secretary shall seek to reduce the number and complexity of forms (including paper and electronic forms) and data entry required by patients and providers.;

The legislation goes on (and on and on and on), justifying the reasons for going paperless.  Perhaps it’s because Congress is aware of the monumental bureaucracy it’s creating.  Or perhaps they’re displaying their environmental consciousness.  However, going paperless is monumentally dangerous and flouts the old legal rule:  “get it in writing.”

Then, there’s Fleckenstein’s charge that Obamacare will open up the health care system to illegal aliens.  They’re already receiving health care at the expense of the taxpayer.   H.R. 3590 does state:

Section 246.  No Federal Payment for Undocumented Aliens.

Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.

There is a caveat, however.  The bill makes an exception for the “Non-Traditional Medicaid Eligible Individual.”  Tracking down the Health Care’s definition of this non-traditional Medicaid eligible individual was an exercise in red-herring frustration.  The search led back to this section:

Section. 205 (e)(4)(C)

(C) Non-Traditional Medicaid Eligible Individual – The term “non-traditional Medicaid eligible individual” means a Medicaid eligible individual who is not a traditional Medicaid eligible individual.

For those of you too young to understand what Medicaid is, here’s Wikipedia’s definition (as always when reading a Wikipedia entry, do so with a skeptical eye):

Medicaid is the United States health program program for certain people and families with low incomes and resources. It is a means-tested program that is jointly funded by the state and federal governments, and is managed by the states. People served by Medicaid are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents, including low-income adults, their children, and people with certain disabilities. Poverty alone does not necessarily qualify someone for Medicaid.   Medicaid is the largest source of funding for medical and health-related services for people with limited income in the United States.

The legislation states that there will be no “Federal payment for undocumented aliens.”  Coupled with its very unhelpful definition of a “non-traditional Medicaid eligible individual” the language raises suspicions about just who this mysterious, non-traditional individual is.  Will states be obliged to foot the bill for the care of illegal aliens, leaving the Federal government free from charges of unconstitutionality?

The documents can be found online.

H.R. 3200

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-111hr3200rh/pdf/BILLS-111hr3200rh.pdf

H.R. 3590

http://housedocs.house.gov/energycommerce/ppacacon.pdf

There’s more to come in the next 99 days on Obamacare and on Obama’s decidedly Socialist bent and his Socialist connections, particularly with Acorn.

Fasten your seatbelts; it’s going to be a bumpy election.

 

 

 

 

 

Honoring Honus

Dear JD,

How are things going on the Farm?  The last note I got from you was that you were lonely there all by yourself, with the ladies all out on the road.  I’ve gotten FB messages from other “survivors” who say they miss the rest of us.  But it’s okay; I think if I’d had to do much more running around with the camera, I’d have collapsed from heart failure or something.

Glenn Beck held his third “Restoration” event in Dallas yesterday evening.  Now, if I’d signed up for a transfer to the Dallas offices, I could have seen it in person. If you’ll recall, I went to his first “Restoration” event in Washington, D.C.  He called it Restoring Honor, but it was more like “Restoring God” or “Restoring Faith” as he admitted last night.  The view was better from GBTV, though, or what he’s soon going to rename Blaze TV. I liked GBTV better, but whatever.

Remember how you taught me about Honus Wagner? You and ES were talking about “The Flying Dutchman” and I asked you if he was a pirate.  You and ES laughed at me at my ignorance.  “No, not the kind of pirate, you’re thinking of,” you and ES explained.  “He was a Pittsburgh Pirate and a very good one at that.”

Johannes Peter “Honus” Wagner, born on Feb. 24, 1874 (about the same time as my great-grandmother), was one of the first five baseball players to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.  Baseball historians declared him to be one of the greatest short-stop players ever.

But you said while he was a great player that’s not what made him famous.  You said that in those days, companies would sponsor baseball cards with famous players like Honus on them.   The company that sponsored Honus’ card was a cigarette company called “Sweetfield Cigarettes”.  At least, I think that was its name.  Or was it “Sweet Meadow?”  Anyway, if you had GBTV, you would have seen Glenn Beck honor Honus for having the courage to force American Tobacco Company to take his face off their card because, as a Christian, he didn’t believe in smoking.

As a result, the T206 Honus Wagner baseball card is one of the rarest and most expensive baseball cards in the world, as only 57 copies are known to exist. The card was designed and issued by the (ATC) from 1909 to 1911 as part of its T206 series. Wagner refused to allow production of his baseball card to continue. The ATC ended production of the Wagner card and a total of only 57 to 200 cards were ever distributed to the public. In 1933, the card was first listed at a price value of $50 in Jefferson Burdick’s The American Card Catalog, making it the most expensive baseball card in the world at the time.

Someone loaned Glenn Beck one of the cards to display during his Restoring Love event last night.  He even let some lucky kid hold the card during the performance (the kid had to return it, though).  Glenn said that the card is worth $2.8 million.  So you, see Glenn is worth the $10 a month [I believe] to watch his show.

Unless of course you have the card.  In which case, you don’t need to watch GBTV to see the card.  And you don’t need to worry about your retirement.

 

 

 

The Socialist Olympics

The 2012 Summer Olympic Games opened in London last night with a mixture of the fun– James Bond escorting Queen Elizabeth II to the opening ceremonies via a parachute jump Using a film clip and stunt doubles of course) and Mary Poppins nannies descending down into the stadium – and the bizarre – a tableau changing from the pastoral English countryside to the Industrial Revolution to a tribute to the National Health Service, England’s socialist health care system.

According to the Associated Press, the ceremony was “a celebration of free healthcare, the trade union struggle, the battle for women’s rights and a fleeting lesbian kiss: the Olympics opening ceremony Friday did not shy away from weighty social issues.”

Apparently, Americans (unless they were in London) got to see none of this, even though America’s National Broadcasting Company sponsored the televised event.  Initially, various website ran the James Bond clip, but were forced to take it down due to copyright issues.  The American television audience only got to see it on taped delay, and some say not at all, that the International Olympic Committee decided America didn’t deserve to see the opening ceremony.

The opening ceremonies were produced by Oscar-winning British director Danny Boyle (“Slumdog Millionaire”), known for his socialist leanings.    Alastair Campbell, communications chief to former British Labour prime minister Tony Blair, responded on Twitter: “Brilliant that we got a Socialist to do the opening ceremony.”

Perhaps Campbell thinks it was a brilliant strategy, but the Olympics is a rather strange venue for a Socialist message, with dancing Socialist health care nurses, no less.  Strange because the Olympics are all about handing out gold, silver and bronze metals to winners, to the best, to the successful.

Does the International Olympic Committee, who clearly approved the opening ceremonies and blacked out America from seeing it (guess it was no loss except for the bit about Queen Elizabeth and James Bond), intend to hand out participation medals to all the thousands of athletes, particularly those who come in dead last?

The pastoral setting doesn’t bear too close examination, by the way.  Peasants of that time period were legally bound to live in their communities.  They couldn’t move unless the receiving community decided they weren’t going to be a burden on the town.  Peasants moved to the industrialized cities in order to find work, so they wouldn’t starve.  The fuliginous environment may not have been very pleasant, and certainly unsanitary given the times.  London became crowded and dirty and the very poor were in dire straits.

Eventually, Britain straightened itself out.  The Poor Laws were finally abandoned in the 19^th Century.  Mass production did provide jobs and affordable goods.  England’s economy strengthened, and then along came the Socialists, agitating the poor in order to hijack an economy they had not created.

Violence and intimidation are the key to Socialist strategy.  For them to stage their drama in the midst of competition, fair play, and good sportsmanship is contrary to the principles of the Olympics; it’s an oxymoron.  Equality is not a component of the Games.

People view the Olympics to watch winners, not sore-loser Socialists.

 

 

 

The Bridge That Othmar Built

Obama didn’t build the George Washington Bridge, but the terrorist his Muslim-brotherhood pals are trying to spring from Federal prison, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahmen certainly wanted to destroy it back in 1993.

Othmar Hermann Ammann was a Swiss-American structural engineer who designed the bridge.  Ammann was born in Schaffhausen, Switzerland in 1879. His father was a manufacturer and his mother was a hat maker. He received his engineering education at the Polytechnikum in Zurich, Switzerland.  He studied with Swiss engineer Wilhelm Ritter. In 1904, he emigrated to the United States, spending his career working mostly in New York City. In 1905, he briefly returned to Switzerland to marry Lilly Selma Wehrli. Together they had 3 children- Werner, George, and Margaret- before she died in 1933. In 1924, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He then married Karly Vogt Noetzli in 1935 in California.

Ammann wrote two reports about bridge collapses, the collapse of the Quebec Bridge and the collapse of the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge (Galloping Gertie). It was the report that he wrote about the failure of the Quebec in 1907 that first earned him recognition in the field of bridge design engineering. Because of this report, he was able to obtain a position working for Gustav Lindenthal on the Hell Gate Bridge. By 1925, he had been appointed bridge engineer to the Port of New York Authority. His design for a bridge over the Hudson River was accepted over one developed by his mentor, Lindenthal.  Lindenthal’s “North River Bridge” – the Hudson was known as the North River at that time – designs show an enormous, 16-plus lane bridge that would have accommodated pedestrians, freight trains, rapid transit, and automobile traffic. The bridge, which would have entered Manhattan at 57th Street, was rejected in favor of Ammann’s designs primarily due to cost reasons.

Ultimately, this became the George Washington Bridge. Under Ammann’s direction, it was completed six months ahead of schedule for less than the original $60 million budget. Ammann’s designs for the George Washington Bridge, and, later, the Bayonne Bridge, caught the attention of master builder,

Robert Moses, who drafted Ammann into his service.  The last four of Ammann’s six New York City   bridges —Triborough, Bronx-Whitestone, Throgs Neck, and Verrazano-Narrows — were all built for Moses’ Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority. 

In 1946, Ammann and Charles Whitney founded the firm Ammam & Whitney. In 1964, Ammann opened the Verrazano Narrows Bridge in New York that had the world’s longest suspended span of 4,260 feet and the world’s  heaviest  suspension of its time. The Verrazano Narrows Bridge is currently the eighth-longest span in the world and the longest span in the Western Hemisphere. Ammann also assisted in the building of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, which is currently the ninth-longest span.

Through his career, Ammann was the recipient of several awards including the Thomas Fitch Rowland Prize (1919), the Metropolitan Section Civil Engineer of the Year (1958), the Ernest E. Howard Award (1960) and the National Medal of Science (1964).  

Many men and women helped construct the bridge, but before anyone could lay a girder, someone had to think of the design (which originally involved a cement casing but was left out due to budget constraints during the Great Depression) – and that was one smart, hard-working legal immigrant, not many –Othmar Ammann.

But it’s not one smart engineer who constructed the bridge whom Obama is heralding – Ammann died in 1965, a year after the opening of the  Verrazano Narrows Bridge.  It’s the twisted radical Islamic cleric Abdel Omar Rahmen and his evil masterminds who at least once planned to destroy the world’s busiest bridge (named after our first president), whom our current president is said to be planning to set free.

Just remember who built the George Washington Bridge – and who tried to destroy it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Banned in Boston

Chic-fil-A, an up-and-coming restaurant franchise, has been banned in Boston because of its president’s stance opposing gay marriage.

Earlier this month, Chic-fil-A President Dan Cathy told the Baptist Press that his company is “guilty as charged” in support of the Biblical definition of marriage and family.  Boston Mayor Thomas N. Menino, in a July 20  letter to Cathy, declared that he would block the chain from opening in Boston.

To Mr. Cathy,

In recent days, you said Chick-fil-A opposes same-sex marriage and said the generation that supports it has an “arrogant attitude.”

Now — incredibly — your company says you are backing out of the same-sex marriage debate. I urge you to back out of your plans to locate in Boston.

You called supporters of gay marriage “prideful.” Here in Boston, to borrow your own words, we are “guilty as charged.” We are indeed full of pride for our support of same sex marriage and our work to expand freedom to all people. We are proud that our state and our city have led the way for the country on equal marriage rights.

I was angry to learn on the heels of your prejudiced statements about your search for a site to locate in Boston. There is no place for discrimination on Boston’s Freedom Trail and no place for your company alongside it. When Massachusetts became the first state in the country to recognize equal marriage rights, I personally stood on City Hall Plaza to greet same sex couples coming here to be married. It would be an insult to them and to our city’s long history of expanding freedom to have a Chick-fil-A across the street from that spot.

Sincerely,

 

Thomas M. Menino Mayor, City of Boston

On the heels of Menino’s statement, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, and Obama’s former chief of staff, vowed to block Chic-fil-A from expanding in Chicago.

“Chick-fil-A’s values are not Chicago values,” Emmanuel risibly declared. “They’re not respectful of our residents, our neighbors and our family members. And if you’re gonna be part of the Chicago community, you should reflect Chicago values,” Emanuel said Wednesday.

Ald. Joe Moreno (1st) is using the same argument to block Chick-fil-A from opening its first free-standing restaurant in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood.   Chick-fil-A already has one Chicago store —at 30 E. Chicago near Loyola University’s downtown campus.

Menino talks about the Freedom Trail and Emmanuel espouses “Chicago values.”  The Freedom Trail represents freedom of the American colonies from Britian’s oppressive religious and speech laws.  If you disagreed with the Church of England, you could be declared a heretic and hung.  If you spoke against the Crown, you could be thrown in jail, tortured, and even executed.

Menino is reverting back to the repressive English model by preventing a private business from opening because he doesn’t like what its owner thinks.  Dan Cathy said nothing about banning people from his restaurants; only that he disapproves of gay marriage.  It’s unlikely that one the restaurant’s teenaged clerks would ask for a marriage license before taking someone’s order.

Then there’s Mayor Emmanuel talking about the values of Chicago, and respect for other people’s rights.  Like the respect that the United Neighborhood Organization of Chicago showed for U.S. Senator Charles Percy (R) in October 1984, when he tried to speak on a black radio talk show program?  The mob of 100 – mostly composed of illegal Mexican immigrants – ran the senator into a bathroom in order to prevent him from speaking on the show.  They were punishing him for refusing appear at a UNO forum.  Percy believed that UNO would stack the audience in favor of his Democratic challenger, Paul Simon.

How respectful was Chicago when it renamed a school in a middle-class, Mexican-American neighborhood Ninos Heroes, against the wishes of the majority of the residents? Using Alinksy-style tactics, UNO singled out a Latino school board member who opposed the renaming of the school, besieging him in his home.  According to Stanley Kurtz in his book, Radical-in-Chief, “The Chicago school board’s Hispanic president later decried UNO’s unruly ‘threatening’ tactics, but the board surrendered anyway.”

It was Rahm Emmanuel who led the attack on Sarah Palin during the 2008 presidential campaign, filing hundreds of frivolous lawsuits against her, care of the Alaskan taxpayers, until she finally resigned her office as governor of Alaska.  Chicago, to say nothing of the state of Illinois, is rife with corruption and vice.  Obama’s replacement as state senator was sent to jail.  Chicago is infamous for its voter fraud.  Chicago was the capital of crime during prohibition and is the murder capital of the nation.

Chic-fil-A would bring some decency back to the Windy City and restore freedom to Beantown.  Banning the franchise is yet another sign of government overreach and the encroaching socialism that has been gradually infecting our society.

If Chic-fil-A were to reflect Chicago’s values, they’d not only have to acknowledge and accept the socialist worldview of gay marriage, but they’d have to accept orders from dead people, as well.

 

Voter Fraud Correction

Our diligent Tea Party GOTV Committee was pleased to have some publicity on this blog.  They did send a correction, however:

 “One correction…we did not get to clear the rolls. What we did was to send those dead peoples names to the State and  Passaic County  so they can cross check the names on their rolls and then remove them if they find them. . our next job is to see if any of the dead voted. “

Crowing Over the Fight Against Voter Fraud

Even as Garry Trudeau, in his nationally-syndicated comic strip Doonesbury, tries to smear Conservatives and the GOP for fighting against voter fraud, accusing them of enacting Jim Crow laws, according to a report in today’s Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch, the Washington-based nonprofit group Voter Participation Center is under suspicion of mailing voter registration forms to children, family pets, and dead people.

Mitt Romney’s campaign is requesting that Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli launch an investigation into the errant mailings being sent to Virginia residents, leading to hundreds of complaints.

“The organization,” according to the Times-Dispatch, “has been mass-mailing the forms – pre-populated with key information such as names and address – to primarily Democratic-leaning voting blocs such as young adults, unmarried women, African-Americans, and Latinos.”

“In a letter to Cuccinelli’s office and the State Board of Elections, Kathryn Bieber, an attorney for the Romney campaign, calls for an investigation into the matter by law-enforcement  officials, claiming that the mailings appear to violate “at least one and maybe several Virginia laws aimed at ensuring a fair election.”

“Bieber refers to the mailings as ‘tactics that amount to, or at the very least induce, voter registration fraud’ and says the issue ‘presents a very significant risk to the proper administration of the upcoming general election.’

“Citing a Sunday Richmond Times-Dispatch story that brought the mailings to light, the letter also asks the State Board of Elections to require registrars to reject all pre-populated voter registration applications from the group and review the eligibility of all Virginians who have registered in the past two months.”

“’This is the only way for voters and other interested parties to regain confidence in the voter registration and electoral process that has been abused by the Voter Participation Center,’” the letter says.”

“On Monday, the Voter Participation Center responded to the Sunday Times-Dispatch story, stating in a letter on its website that ‘imperfections in the VPC vendors’ lists — while regrettable and unfortunate — should not be the reason or the excuse to call an entire process that is working into question.’”

“Justin Riemer, the State Board of Elections’ deputy secretary, said forms have been sent by the group to deceased infants, out-of-state family members, and non-U.S. citizens, among others.  In a letter this month, the State Board of Elections asked the group to cease pre-populating their forms and raised questions about how the group was obtaining lists of registered voters, citing the errant forms. He noted that pre-populating the forms violates rules set forth in the state code and the Virginia Constitution requiring that voters fill out their own forms.”

Here in N.J., a committee within a Tea Party group set to the task of clearing the deceased and non-residents from the voting rolls in Passaic County.  The result of their assiduous and time-consuming work was the clearing of over 300 ineligible voters from the rolls.

Trudeau cites the number 750,000.  Guess that-there number is now 749,700, eh “Jimmy Crow”? That’s in one small, though crowded, county in New Jersey.  Imagine if someone actually cleared the rolls in Chicago?

Mercy!

 

 

 

Windfall for Turbine Producers

“For my sole aim has been to arouse men’s scorn for the false and absurd stories of knight-errantry, whose prestige has been shaken by this tale of my true Don Quixote, and which will, without any doubt, soon crumble in ruin.”  Don Quixote.

If you’re looking for alternative information about alternative fuel sources, you need to turn to alternative information sources. As we all know by now, all the Media is spinning is a lot of hot air.  Al Gore and others have declared that “the debate is over.”

But the debate isn’t over.  Not if you watch the documentary Windfall, which is available on Netflix, or read the book, The Wind Farm Scam, by Dr. John Etherington, a former Ecology professor at the University of Wales.  The film Windfall is about two towns in New York State and their experiences with the installation of wind turbines in their rural communities.

Meredith, N.Y., is a dairy farming community northeast of the Delaware River that has fallen on hard economic times since the advent of factory dairy farms.  Wind turbine sales people came to town offering lucrative cash for the use of their farms to building wind turbines.  Lured by the promise of easy cash and the “opportunity to do their part for the environment,” half the town agreed to the deals.

The other half became skeptical when a local businesswoman gave them the real scoop on the dangers and the expenses of the giant turbines. The resulting controversy, involving the local town council and the planning board, divided the town in half.

The plan called for 40 industrial wind turbines.  These are not the quaint windmills of Holland and of Don Quixote.  These wind mills are 400 feet high, not counting the height of the blades or the depth of the foundation.  To their tips, the wind turbines can reach up to 650 feet.

Size is not the only gigantic thing about the turbines. Their enormous cost is subsidized by the federal and state government, and private investors such as General Electric and Goldman Sachs.  The companies grant the communities and the property owners a trifling amount – about $5,000 to the property owner and perhaps $20,000 to the municipality for something that gives very little return on investment and creates tremendous problems.

• Production.  You would think that the wind is always there.  But it’s not.  Wind power is touted as a renewable energy source.  But, in fact, not only is it not renewable, it’s not reliable.  Wind turbines, at best, produce only about 25 percent of their total maximum capacity. In other words, if full capacity is 100 percent – the wind turbine would be spinning constantly at a high enough rate to generate enough electricity –wind turbines only produce one-quarter of the amount of energy necessary to make them productive and viable.  So in order to produce enough energy, a wind turbine producer has to erect a number of these gigantic towers.  According to Dr. Etherington, however, as the number of wind turbines increases, the amount of wind they can use decreases, and so does the amount of energy.  The turbines also don’t produce well at lower levels, where the air is warmer.  Thus, the manufacturers produce taller and taller turbines to take advantage of cooler air and higher winds.
• Reliability.  Despite opinions to the contrary, the wind does not blow all the time.  Since energy cannot be stored in great volumes, it must be used immediately. But the wind doesn’t blow all the time and therefore, the turbines cannot produce energy on demand the way a nuclear power plant can, for instance.  What’s more, the turbines can only operate between speeds of about 7 and 39 miles per hour.  Below that wind speed, they can’t produce enough energy.  Above gale force, the winds become too dangerous for the turbine’s rotors to operate.
• Safety.  Numerous problems are cited in the documentary and Dr. Etherington’s book, including fires involving the rotor’s braking system, fires which local fire companies cannot put out because of the height of the towers.  On offshore wind turbines, helicopters must go out to sea to extinguish the fires, using more fossil fuel and creating more pollution (!).  Blades have flown off the towers in high winds and the towers themselves have been known to come toppling down, sometimes only mere feet from nearby homes.
• Efficiency.  Because the power is not reliable and can’t be store, wind turbine communities most rely on additional fossil fuel plants to serve as back-up to the turbines in case of an outage.  This means the building of additional plants which run full time but are only used in emergencies.
• Preservation.  For something that’s supposed to save the earth, the wind turbines are doing a pretty good job of wiping out our feathered friends, particularly the larger predators like the golden eagle, the hawk, and the owl, which fly at lower speeds and can’t get out of the way of the mammoth blades in time.  Another species which is falling victim to these monoliths is the bat.  They’re dying by the thousands as the production of wind turbines increases (39 percent in the United States).
• Disruptions.  Wind turbines have a significant disruptive effect on all sorts of electronics, including radar, cellphones, satellite and television reception.  The wind turbine’s answer was that cable television would solve that problem, an expensive solution for poor families.
• Health Hazards.  In addition to the obvious electricity hazards (like any power line), the wind turbines have a detrimental effect on the health of local residents.  The turbines produce a low-level vibration, a whumping similar to the sound of a teenager’s car stereo turned up loud, caused by the rotor passing the base of the tower. This sound is continuous, monotonous, and makes people sick.  Residents have experienced heart palpitations, seizures, headaches, dizziness, and nausea from the constant vibration.  There are also the continuous mechanical sounds of the rotor.  And finally, there’s the strobing effect of the blades’ shadows, which cause more physiological and psychological damage to residents.  Home owners have had to abandon their properties, which is very convenient to Agenda 21’s plans for confiscating rural lands and driving residents into urban and suburban communes.  There are also icing problems with the wind turbines, whose blades throw tons of ice hundreds of feet onto property, houses, and passing vehicles.

Meanwhile, the turbine owners are reaping in millions in subsidies for these useless windmills that do nothing to save the earth, energy, or the economy.  Just constructing these monsters involves the repaving of rural roads to accommodate the heavy equipment need to bring in the towers and blades.

To promote these ugly monstrosities (which also ruin beautiful landscapes and vistas), is to ask us to tilt at windmills, like Don Quixote. Indeed, these are windmills we must tilt at and defeat for the taxpayers are being scammed.

 

 

 

Dressed to Kill

Would someone legally carrying a concealed weapon have been able to stop James Holmes from massacring 12 innocent movie-goers and injuring dozens more at the cinema in Aurora, Colo.?

A pro-gun, gun-owning, Second Amendment advocate friend says, “Probably not.”   The problem, he says, is that Holmes was dressed to kill.  He was not only armed with the latest assault weapons, but clad practically head-to-toe in the latest bullet proof armor.  In addition to the chest protector, which covered him to his chin, he was also wearing a bullet-proof (begging your pardon) crotch protector, leggings and combat boots.  He was also wearing the latest in bullet proof helmets, which left only a small portion of his face exposed.

Once he got back into the theater, also wearing a hazmat suit and gas mask, he released a canister of gas which not only asphyxiated the audience but obscured any clear shot of him.  Holmes had his “performance”well-planned.

More information has been released about Holmes. According to a report in the UK Telegraph, emulating his idol, late actor Heath Ledger, he told police that he’d taken 100 mg of the prescription drug vicodin, the same drug on which Ledger overdosed and died. Vicodin side-effects can include euphoria, paranoia and, in rare cases, hallucinations.

“He described his fascination with altered states of mind in a lecture to other students, and dosed up on prescription medication before the atrocity, it emerged on Sunday.

“The first video footage of the suspect showed him as an awkward, nervous 18-year-old giving a talk at a science summer camp in San Diego on “temporal illusions”. It also emerged that in the days before the attack, Holmes, a cannabis smoker, joined a dating website seeking women for ‘sexy times’and also tried to join a gun club.

“The University of Colorado said it was investigating whether he used his position as a

neuroscience PhD student to order materials that he used to booby-trap his apartment.”

Other reports say that he was refused membership to Denver gun club due to bizarre behavior.

As soon as the furor has died down, gun control advocates will use this tragedy as ammunition to argue for further gun control and repeal of the Second Amendment.  Their energies would be better spent criminalizing drugs.  Still, if they insist on decriminalizing and even legalizing drug use, that’s all the more reason for citizens to legally own firearms in order to protect themselves.

Concealed carry has a good reputation:

• Concealed carry laws have reduced murder and crime rates in the states that have enacted them. According to a comprehensive study which reviewed crime statistics in every county in the United States from 1977 to 1992, states which passed concealed carry laws reduced their rate of murder by 8.5%, rape by 5%, aggravated assault by 7% and robbery by 3%.(4)
• Guns are used 2.5 million times a year in self-defense. Law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year—or about 6,850 times a day.(1) This means that each year, firearms are used more than 80 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives.(2) http://gunowners.org/fs0404.htm

Concealed carry would not have helped in this particular situation, but it has helped in millions of others.  Meanwhile, we shake our heads and say no one could see this coming. But, while there are few details due to the ongoing investigation, those that have surfaced indicate clear warning signs.

This was a young man who enjoyed experimenting with “altered states of mind.”  Unfortunately, since the Sixties, this has not only become an accepted part of our culture (think Woodstock), but it’s celebrated and about to be legalized, even as owning a gun for self-protection becomes a criminal offense.  He smoked pot and who knows what else.  He had Batman paraphernalia and was clearly a fan of the demented fictional character, The Joker.  Note the distinction between the character and the actor who portrayed him in 2008, Heath Ledger.

Our future is almost as scary as Gotham City.  Drugs being legalized, the lunatics will run the asylum.  Society will have only two choices to arm themselves or become a police state, with children having to go through metal detectors and possibly pat-downs at the local cinema just to be able to watch a movie, where the lunatics will be free to get high on their drug of choice.

But it’ll be okay because even if you can’t carry a firearm into the theater in case one of the lunatics takes into their head that they’re the villain up on the screen, Swat Teams will be stationed at every exit in case of trouble.

And someone can always send up the Bat Signal.