BOcare, Wealth Transfer And Lies

Jonathan Gruber’s ‘Stupid’ Budget Tricks - WSJ - WSJ:

A Republican President that had a single attempted program that benefited say business, or families, or energy, or hard work, or thrift -- any of the horrors of existence that the left rails against, and was somehow exposed as having knowingly used subterfuge to accomplish it would have been removed from office within a year of the discovery.

We know this. We witnessed the level of media outrage over W's supposed shortcomings as a fighter pilot 30 years prior to taking office, the absolute meta-falsehood of "Bush lied, people died" where at worst he merely took action on information at the time, and has since been proved correct, and even the complete farce of Valerie Plame -- the "secret agent" who drove to work each day at CIA HQ ("Deep Cover")!

As I've said, none of this is new -- it's been exposed since before the bill was passed. It is absolutely clear that Americans were lied to big time by BO, the MSM and Democrats in general, but what is new? I can only assume that most Americans are OK with that -- although they may not like actually having their elite "experts" call them stupid to their face. Anyone that doesn't realize that the lefty elites think of them that way is either willfully not paying attention, simply doesn't care, or is actually stupid. "Bitter Clingers" anyone?

“this bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies.”

Yes, BOcare was always and still is a massive tax increase largely on the middle class and young to transfer dollars to those that failed to insure in the past and are now stuck with no insurance and existing conditions.

So it is all old news, but is there actually a limit to how much voters will put up with? The first mistake that folks like myself and likely readers of this blog make is that something like a "majority" of voters are actually aware of this -- I doubt it is covered on Jon Stewart, I've not heard it on MPR (I don't listen 24x7, but a casual listener certainly could have missed their coverage), and I'm certain it is sparse to non-existent on MSNBC, Huffpo, etc. I suppose some of their folks take the Pelosi dodge of "he didn't write it, I never knew him" ... followed by, OOOPS, big praise for him!

Such admissions aren’t revelations, since the truth has long been obvious to anyone curious enough to look. We and other critics wrote about ObamaCare’s budget gimmicks during the debate, and Rep. Paul Ryan exposed them at the 2010 “health summit.” President Obama changed the subject. 

But rarely are liberal intellectuals as full frontal as Mr. Gruber about the accounting fraud ingrained in ObamaCare. Also notable are his do-what-you-gotta-do apologetics: “I’d rather have this law than not,” he says.

Yes, BOcare is nothing but a gigantic wealth transfer fraud perpetrated on the American people, but will a DIRECT ADMISSION made by one of their own have any effect on the discussion?

So they used a decade of taxes to fund merely six years of insurance subsidies. They made-believe that Medicare payments to hospitals will some day fall below Medicaid rates. A since-repealed program for long-term care front-loaded taxes but back-loaded spending, meant to gradually go broke by design. Remember the spectacle of Democrats waiting for the white smoke to come up from CBO and deliver the holy scripture verdict.

The "savings"? A lie! The cost control?  Also a lie!

Then again, Mr. Gruber told a Holy Cross audience in 2010 that although ObamaCare “is 90% health insurance coverage and 10% about cost control, all you ever hear people talk about is cost control. How it’s going to lower the cost of health care, that’s all they talk about. Why? Because that’s what people want to hear about because a majority of Americans care about health-care costs.”

It's 90% wealth transfer, but people want to hear "lower costs", so they faked the numbers and lied about the particulars of the bill so that the MSM would make claims that BOcare "controlled costs".

The only way it "controls costs" is by putting middle class people like myself that formerly had good coverage into high deductible Vegas Style HSA plans so we use less healthcare!

We certainly made a horrible choice to allow BOcare to pass -- was it because of not paying attention, being lied to, or being stupid? I suspect there are plenty of each in the mix.

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W Is a WAY Better Ex-President Too

Jimmy Carter Now Pimps For Tyrants, So Of Course Jon Stewart Loves Him:



But don't expect to hear it in the media! Good column that covers the fact that Carter really isn't a successful ex-president either, even if you give him HUGE credit for some Habitat for Humanity work.



W OTOH ... well documented in the linked article if you care. I've heard the AIDs stuff quite a bit and I like this Bono / Jon Stewart interaction:

Bono discussed Bush’s President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. He said, “We’re hoping very much that President Obama is going to follow through on what President Bush did.” Stewart cringed and Bono patted his hand and said, “I know that’s hard for you to accept.” He added, “It is amazing. People like John Kerry worked for this. Hillary Clinton, and eventually President Clinton did some extraordinary stuff renegotiating the prices of these very expensive drugs down. But George Bush kind of knocked it out of the park.”

Bono is at the very least a strong Christian Sympathiser if not actually a Christian himself, WAY more talented than Jon Stewart, and wise enough to be very worthy to pat Jon's hand or head. Wisdom and class vs the spoiled adolescent.



Carter and Stewart have a lot in common (as they do with BO), as it seems that Bono and Bush do was well.



W was and is a good, decent, competent man. The country was lucky to have him as President 9-11-2001 and one really doesn't need to look at BO hard at all to see what a horrible mistake followed W in office.





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Obstruction, Stunts, Keystone

House, Senate to vote on Keystone XL pipeline - The Washington Post:

Canada is pumping oil from their oil sands, and the only question is where that oil goes to be refined. Overseas to China where the refining process is not under the watchful eye of the EPA, or to the US where American workers will be involved in the process and it will have at least SOME positive impact on jobs and energy prices. The president says very little, Canada, the oil industry and most voters say quite a lot.

Obviously the media finds Mr "Red Line" in Syria, "I did and didn't end the war in Iraq", and "You can keep your healthcare if you like it" to be a very trustworthy and thus believable source. Based on the election, it would seem that voters are generally not in agreement -- however BO and his true fans have decided that the appropriate electorate to "listen to" are those that stayed home on the couch.

Suddenly,  Mary Landrieu is a force for passing Keystone in the Senate. Imagine that!

For the first time in the six-year fight over the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, both houses of Congress will hold a vote on the proposed project, giving each side in a Louisiana Senate election a chance to boost its candidate.

So for 4 long years the Senate has been a firewall,  (2 years prior it was a partisan rubber stamp) along with the media, allowing BO to pontificate on issues without having to actually take the action of getting out a veto pen! The executive requirement to lead, follow, stand aside, or take some other specific action has been unscrupulously sidestepped! Harry Reid unilaterally controlled what bills passed by the house got a change to be seen in the Senate and surreptitiously passed enough "naming a new bridge" bills so that a pure comparison of numbers of bills passed by House and Senate would cover the tracks of his disingenuous ploy.

Naturally, in what is truly a monument to at least the inattention of the American People, the TP controlled media has run the nifty magic trick by which all problems with CONGRESS are converted to problems with THE HOUSE! The Senate, the supposed "greatest deliberative body", the "upper chamber" was nearly invisible save for occasional Harry diatribes on how bad things were in the House, the Koch brothers, or what life was like in Searchlight in medieval times.

The faint hope for the next two years is that BO will be given the opportunity to be an executive -- getting signed bills on his desk for things like Keystone, and we assume telling the shivering American public that the world has warmed significantly and is in the process of warming still more, so they ought to forgo heat to prevent that warming. Put on a sweater.

Perhaps, as he says this, a few Americans may take a couple minutes to consider that the ISSUE is ONLY about WHERE the oil gets refined -- and how it gets transported. The fact summary is:

• Not having Keystone is a windfall for Warren Buffett who owns the railroads -- since he is a BO supporter, TP regularly assures us his motives for opposing Keystone has nothing to do with owning railroads.  if you believe that wealth inequality is an issue, then you ought to support the Keystone! 
• The oil is being pumped and it WILL be burned. The only issue is if it is refined / burned in the US or refined / burned in China. If you believe in AGW, then it is BETTER to have the Keystone since the US is a more carbon friendly refiner and fuel user! 
• The ONLY people to which Keystone is bad is for are DEMOCRATS losing a wedge / funding issue! It has become a totem for low information voters to be against a pipeline that will HELP both the environment and wealth inequality -- supposed issues they care about, but apparently much less than fund raising! 

Congress needs to quit doing stunts -- the Landrieu bill is just a stunt to supposedly help her in her election, the bill won't actually make it out of the Senate, conference, or something. Stunts are part of Congress -- the difference is that when Republicans do it, the STORY is the fact that it is a STUNT!

There needs to be a signed bill on BO's desk so we can listen to whatever his lie dejour is once it gets there. Something new, or the same old spurious prevarication we have been listening to for 6 years now!








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Being Insulted To Your Face, BOcare Video Edition

Gruber strikes again | Power Line:

In terms of risk rated subsidies, if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in – you made explicit healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed… Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.

Transparency? Do you REALLY need to see all this to see the obvious that has been obvious from time immemorial? When you let government get too big and the folks that lust for POWER, not "service" take over, then "We the People" become "the proletariat", or "the masses", or "fly over country", or something derogatory, that basically means "stupid" -- unimportant, unaware, lacking power, basically scum.



Certainly not the people in charge! "The American voter" ... to be lied to, to be denigrated, to be treated like the serfs we have generally have become!



What part of "we have to pass it to find out what is in it"? (Pelosi) or the myriad of BO "modifications", "exemptions", "delays", etc -- none of which are legal under the Constitution. CONGRESS makes the laws -- the executive executes the laws AS WRITTEN!

I suppose our attention span is now so short that many actually have to watch the video.

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Bipartisanship, Pictorially

Let's face it, this pretty much covers it!

Oh, wait ... there is THIS! What happens when the after massive media pressure and a lot of assurances about "how loved" they will be if they ONLY play nice with the Democrats THIS TIME!

Naturally the Democrats in in the role of Lucy and the Republicans  in the role of Charlie Brown the blockhead!!

If you want to review a tiny bit of the sordid history of this, here is a start!

Detroit, New Orleans, Chicago, DC -- How TP Works

Did New Orleans PD not investigate alleged sex crimes? - CNN.com:



This specific case involves uninvestigated sex crimes against children in NO, but it could be any of TP's totally controlled centers of urban blight. Detroit is attempting to rise from bankruptcy, Chicago is murder central, and DC is the "Disaster of Columbia".

The detective in the case wrote in his report that the 2-year-old "did not disclose any information that would warrant a criminal investigation and closed the case," the inspector general's report said.

Gee, "the 2-year-old didn't disclose information". Imagine that -- 1,111 cases with no sign of investigation over a 3 year period. Hello single party government control!



It's worth a quick scan through this sorry report if you harbor any thoughts of government being some sort of solution to ANYTHING. This is local, major US city, no "new programs", advanced technology, partisan  politics, or any other of typical left wing excuse for why government doesn't work.



The fact is, it just doesn't, and people are hurt injured and die because of it.



Government CAN be IMPROVED (not fixed) via an ADVERSARIAL press and an ACTIVE two party system that keeps cronyism, featherbedding and just general corruption in check. BUT, when TP controls an area in total plus the media, the result is predictably NO, DC, Chicago, Detroit, etc.



Whis is it that this is hard for the left to understand????



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BOcare: King vs Burwell 87% Explained

Obamacare’s smoking gun | CharlotteObserver.com:

I've heard the SCOTUS decision to hear King v. Burwell" reported on NPR and other left outlets a couple of times. Their reporting is basically: "It is completely unclear why 4 judges would agree to hear this case. The INTENT of the law is OBVIOUSLY clear -- everyone gets subsidies!" ... followed by some thinly veiled assertions that the "4 judges" are probably politically motivated.I'm reminded of Asiana Flight 214 that clearly INTENDED to land safely on runway 28L at SFO, but did not. In the real world, "intent" and a couple bucks might get you a cup of coffee.

Oh, and BTW, about 5.5 million Americans have signed up for coverage in states where the Feds run the exchanges. And the vast majority of them, 87 percent, have received subsidies. ... now THAT is a figure that doesn't get much coverage! Taxpayers are paying a significant amount of the bribe to get 87% of the BOcare users to use this "successful" program! "Successful" at taking money from the pockets of earners and giving it to people that vote TP!

On its face this argument appears both plausible and reasonable. But it’s not. For openers you can be sure that the Senate Office of Legislative Counsel, which drafted Obamacare and which is made up of skilled lawyers whose independence and impartiality is above question, would have brought to the attention of the Senate Finance Committee from which the bill emerged the policy discrepancy concerning the section that placed the limitation on the subsidies. Had the language been a drafting error, it would have been rewritten. But it wasn’t.

"Intent" is notoriously hard to determine in laws -- in fact, SUPPOSEDLY, the SCOTUS interprets the "intent of the framers" in the Constitution. For more modern laws, the rule is "Congress can write laws that say what they mean". They are mostly lawyers after all, and they employ PLENTY of lawyers to write the laws in any case.

So why does this law clearly say that ONLY states that set up exchanges get subsidies?>

Jonathan Gruber is an MIT economist who helped design Obamacare. After the law passed he consulted with numerous states concerning the establishment of their exchanges. Here is what he said in January of 2012: “What’s important to remember politically about this is if you’re a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits.”

Isn't that a big surprise? The BO admin and TP congress (at the time BOcare was passed) were doing their best to follow their standard rule of "reward political friends (with tax money) and punish political enemies". It didn't work very well ... 37 out of 50 (or 59 if you are BO) states declined the bribe. Talk about a "program that is working well"!

As I've covered WAY too many times, this kind of nasty politics is exactly why the framers wanted the Federal government to be VERY limited -- and up about "the income tax" in 1913, it was . After the fall of the current US, hopefully future generations will realize that taxes MUST follow "equal protection"! In fact, if people want to be free, ALL LAWS have to follow equal protection so the government isn't in the business of the coercive picking of winners and losers -- thus prohibiting standard Chicago crony "reward your friends and punish your enemies"!

King v. Burwell is nothing less than preserving the constitutional doctrine of Separation of Powers. The Obama administration will soon urge the Court to enable it to deem the plain language of a statute passed by Congress to mean what it does not say. That is a precedent that should send a chill down the spine of all Americans.

Most likely the left leaning judges on the SCOTUS will rule in BO's favor, and most Americans will see this as "a waste of time" -- because we no longer value freedom, and are just fine with TP rewarding it's political friends and punishing it's enemies.

Therefore, we are not a free people.

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The Unalienable Right to Not Get What You Pay For

Blog: Obama calls for more regulation of the internet. What could go wrong?:



The poor Internet has been operating under near zero government regulation. Anyone notice how that has been working? Compare the growth, operation, reliability, cost, innovation, etc of the Internet with something with long standing and vast government regulation -- say health care,  the general US economy, US highway system, etc, and you can get a hint of the extent of the suffering.



Oh the humanity!



Right now Netflix, Amazon, YouTube and many other bandwidth hogs are reaping giant benefits of the "one price for all" bandwidth rates. BO thinks the government should step in and make sure they can't pay to get superior service.



Isn't that brilliant? In the economy he wants to penalize success at any way shape or form it rears it's (to him) ugly head -- MAKE THEM PAY!



Why so different on this front? Seems pretty easy to me -- get the government regulation foot in the door. Start picking winners and losers, start punishing his political enemies and rewarding his political friends. In his view, it is a very successful way to operate -- hell, all the people that didn't vote agree with his position. Just ask him!











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Government Healthcare, Dead Women

Sterilization Horror Shows Indian Women at Risk for $10 - Businessweek:

Government healthcare is cheap -- sometimes free, or they even pay you $10 for availing yourself of it! Of course, if you are dead, as 10 Indian women turned out to be, then someone else will need to spend your $10 -- but hey, it was government provided! It's not like it is YOUR fault!

How could anything go wrong? Once you get rid of all competition, make being a Dr as honorable as being a postal worker, and prevent malpractice by not allowing the government to be sued, things HAVE to get better. Don't they?

I suppose that given the power of lawyers in this country, lawsuits are secure -- however, once it is completely nationalized, that likely just means nasty poor government employed doctors with a ton more lawsuits paid by the government! Deep pockets! Then anyone trying to spend less on government healthcare OR lawsuits is guilty of a "war on women"!

The women butchered on the operating table are kind of TPs version of "collateral damage", although military collateral damage is the folks that happen to be in close proximity to terrorists, while TP collateral damage are the very women voters that sell their souls to them for "protection". No matter, the ways of TP are insidious and highly spun!

TP is good -- BY DEFINITION.

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Soul vs Demographics As Destiny (Election results)

The shrinkage of the Obama majority | WashingtonExaminer.com:

TP (The Party-D) is always claiming that they are the party of the future because of demographics -- race, age, gender, etc.

TP is actually the party of soulless animals of which common humans are not even their preferred cohort, and they regularly state it directly.  (TP elite is of course "special" -- they deserve all honor, laud and worship in their minds)

TP is willing, anxious even,  to slaughter human babies by the millions, but will endanger human lives and livelihood rather than to risk potential harm to owls, snail darters or polar bears. TP demands that claims to an eternal soul or any "special status" of humans be completely dismissed and suppressed, while loudly screaming that extreme special status must be granted to demographic groups they see as "supporters"-- blacks, hispanics (especially the illegal ones), women, gays, transgender, etc.

So TP doesn't just forget, it out-right and loudly denies that humans are unique in our God-given soul, free will and reason. Thus, they mistake demographics -- race, age, gender, sexual preference, etc for destiny. Or so they say. In reality, as BO so smugly claimed in his press conference yesterday, TP "hears" the 2/3rds of the "voters" who didn't vote.

As with all single party control oriented ideologies of the left (communism, fascism, socialism, dictatorship, etc), voting is at best a temporary and easily ignored nuisance, and the goal is monolithic rule by whatever means it takes. No matter the facts in the linked article -- the drive to a total takeover will continue by ALL means -- fraud, using tax dollars to buy votes, attacks on opposition through the IRS, legal, regulatory and government surveillance apparatus ...

The linked article is well worth reading in total, but this is the core:

(2) In seriously contested races Republican candidates were generally younger, more vigorous, more sunny and optimistic than Democrats. The contrast was sharpest in Colorado and Iowa, which voted twice for President Obama. Cory Gardner and Joni Ernst seemed to be looking forward to the future. Their opponents grimly championed the stale causes of feminists and trial lawyers of the past.

Democrats see themselves as the party of the future. But their policies are antique. The federal minimum wage dates to 1938, equal pay for women to 1963, access to contraceptives to 1965. Raising these issues now is campaign gimmickry, not serious policymaking.

Democratic leading lights have been around a long time. The party’s two congressional leaders are in their 70s. The governors of the two largest Democratic states are sons of former governors who won their first statewide elections in 1950 and 1978.

"Conservative" means continuation of and even reverence for PRINCIPLES that are timeless. Recognition of the position of man as eternally (and obviously to any that have eyes that see) special in creation, and recognition that it IS creation -- ordered, comprehensible, purposeful, meaningful. The acceptance and joy of being part of an ultimate purposeful existence passed down in a chain of civilization thousands of years old, with an INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY to act as a link in that divinely blessed chain of history.

We WERE a nation that was completely in touch with that sacred history -- take a few minutes to look at and consider the list of the 23 law givers in the chamber of the US House . We still knew our identity as late as 1949!

TP wants to replace the reverence of divinity, ideas and principles with reverence for POLICIES. Replacing God, classical literature, and history with the worship of minimum wage, equal pay for women, abortion, unisex bathrooms, condoms, welfare, government health care ... etc. NOTE, I did not say that in all cases everything about these policies is bad, what I said is that like ALL human enacted policy it is AT BEST temporal and often flawed, even in the extreme.

Principles are timeless, policies are temporal -- unless totalitarians win and they are embalmed like Lenin.  The reason that capitalism and democracy tempered by a constitution worked is because of the ability for CHANGE BOUNDED BY PRINCIPAL -- "creative destruction" is the engine of capitalism, supply and demand, profit and loss are merely feedback mechanism! Private property is a bound that insures the destruction / reconstruction and next cycles of feedback will be moderated.

My personal project of reading the Classics and key works of modern political thought is now nearly 40 years old -- roughly a 1979 beginning. I'm thankful to Jimmy Carter for being hapless and hopeless enough to spur me to start down the path that began with William F Buckley (SUPERB initials!) and National Review, led through Ayn Rand, and then an avalanche of books ... "Road to Serfdom", "Closing of the American Mind", "Ideas Have Consequences", "Wealth of Nations", "Theory of Moral Sentiments", "The Conservative Mind", "The Liberal Mind", "God and Man at Yale" .... and the list goes on and on.

Ultimately God will win temporally as he has already spiritually through Jesus Christ, but for now, it is a story with the end yet unwritten. HIS story, but we get to play a little part. I strongly encourage finding the time to read whatever puny part of the script each of us is able to manage!

It's OK to bask a BIT in Tuesday's results, but we are still in very grave danger.

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97% Of Scientists Rape College Girls

The Left's Tactics -- a Personal Example on Creators.com:

The linked article is well worth the read -- gives good insight into the real origin of the oft quoted "1 in 5 women are raped on college campuses", and a little extra insight into the wonderful civility and interest in reasonable dialogue from the left. NOT!

The 1 in 5 comes largely from some surveys that redefine "rape" to be "sexual assault" and then broaden sexual assault to include "unwanted kissing" ...  putting the "should I kiss her good-night or not" decision in a whole new light.

The comments from the left were the expected ... "Praeger should be castrated", "Without rape, 80% of Republicans would be virgins" and other similar civil and  intellectually helpful fare. A linked US News article used DOJ numbers to arrive at 6 out of 1000 rapes OR sexulal assaults for girls during college -- which was likely a 60% overstatement based on their research -- so more like 1 in 200 than 1 in 5, a relatively small statistical error by liberal "standards" I guess.

The 97% in the heading refers of course to the OFTEN quoted 97% of scientists are human caused global warming believers --- the bottom line covered in PL is that 97% of the scientists that WROTE PAPERS ON HUMAN CAUSED GLOBAL WARMING (AGW) endorsed it. ... well, Duh. How the hell was it not 100%? This is quoted CONSTANTLY -- I heard it again this past week on MPR being stated as FACT! Anytime there is a percentage that large on human opinion, I get VERY suspicious -- how can any thinking person not? Perhaps you could get to 97% on "guys that don't want their penis cut off" -- but it is a HIGH figure for human agreement!

How have we become so insanely credulous? A bunch of lefty sorts have been posting pictures of the F35 all over FB with links on "The 1.5 TRILLION" fighter plane!

I guess we now know how stupid people are ... that figure is OVER FIFTY YEARS!  Each plane costs about $100M, which for reference can be compared with a 747 that costs $350M.  The 747 was designed in the 60's ... it's development costs are "well sunk", and BTW, it doesn't hover, take off and land vertically, nor break Mach 1 (although it would be damned impressive if it did!).

Apparently the third of the population that votes is generally smarter than these three fine examples -- but then BO also wants to take the two thirds that didn't vote into consideration -- somehow I suspect at least 4 out of 5 of them would be right on board with the 1 in 5 rape figure, 97% AGW and the F35 costing $1.5T!

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BO: Narcissist or Psychopath?

Obama persists | Power Line:

Unfortunately I ended up hearing part of his press conference in the car yesterday. I ought to have shut him off as I have ever since he dissed the SCOTUS sitting right in front of him being civil and proper at one of the SOTU addresses. I wanted to believe that the day after the American People had spoken LOUDLY, there would be SOME measure of recognition. There was not, I ought to have trusted my instincts.

The opening in the linked article about how BO can't even let a comment by an aging basketball star (Jordan) roll off his back gives one pause relative to the line between narcissism and psychopathy. Anyone that writes two autobiographies prior to turning 50 is clearly a narcissist. Listening to the part of the press conference that I heard, I'm afraid that it is worse that that.

Note that while psychopathy is definitely a dangerous mental illness diagnosis, they are all around us and you no doubt know one or two ... read the "Psychopath Inside" if you want a very entertaining, enlightening and a bit scary detective story (it's non-fiction) where the detective finds out that he is not who he thought he was.

One form Obama’s anger takes is disparagement of the election results. “[T]o everyone who voted, I want you to know that I hear you. To the two-thirds of voters who chose not to participate in the process yesterday, I hear you, too.” In the radio interview above, Obama describes the nonvoters as those sitting at home on their couches. What does he hear them saying? They aren’t saying, and neither is Obama.

The sitting president of the US "hears" what the 66% of Americans that didn't vote are saying? Really? What are they saying and what other voices is he "hearing"?

Try to even imagine BO having 1/10th the graciousness of this exchange which Peggy Noonan commented on (her column is linked in the PL column):

For those who think Mr. Obama has faced unusual levels of rhetoric, consider this question from a reporter to Mr. Bush:

“Thank you, Mr. President. With all due respect, Nancy Pelosi has called you incompetent, a liar, the emperor with no clothes and, as recently as yesterday, dangerous. How will you work with someone who has such little respect for your leadership and who is third in line to the presidency?” 

This is how Mr. Bush replied. “I’ve been around politics a long time. I understand when campaigns end and I know when governing begins. And I’m going to work with people of both parties. You know, look, people say unfortunate things at times. But if you hold grudges in this line of work, you’re never going to get anything done. And my intention is to get some things done, and soon—we’re start visiting with her Friday with the idea of coming together.”

I don't expect BO to come close to the standard of graciousness of W, but equating those that voted with those that didn't and claiming he "hears" both? Narcissists are VERY hard of "hearing" when it comes to what others say ... they pretty much only hear things that reflect positively on the narcissist.

Psychopaths OTOH have no anxiety or concern about what others say, no respect for external rules beyond using them for their own benefit (eg. the Constitution), are very willing to act boldly on their own with little concern for the future (BOcare?), AND ... exceedingly mean and very prone to revenge, especially secretly "getting the other guy" ... always holding a grudge and being unwilling to "let things go".

The sitting president of the US can't let an off-hand comment from an aging well loved basketball star go? Or, as I think anyone has a right to expect from a man in BO's position, turn it into self-deprecating humor ... "Well, Michael is a much better athlete and golfer than I, and even a better basketball player!"  ... it doesn't even have to be sincere -- it is a softball opportunity to get a political "hit" (looking humble and loveable like Underdog) that even minor league pols regularly hit out of the park.

But not BO. Perhaps we don't really want to know why. 

The next two years remain a very  dangerous time for America!

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Christianity, China, Blessing

Religion in China: Cracks in the atheist edifice | The Economist:

An extremely interesting article that is a worthy read as it is written -- as an atheist sociologists view of a cultural phenomenon, the growth of Christianity in China. It closes with this:

The paradox, as they all know, is that religious freedom, if it ever takes hold, might harm the Christian church in two ways. The church might become institutionalised, wealthy and hence corrupt, as happened in Rome in the high Middle Ages, and is already happening a little in the businessmen’s churches of Wenzhou. Alternatively the church, long strengthened by repression, may become a feebler part of society in a climate of toleration. As one Beijing house-church elder declared, with a nod to the erosion of Christian faith in western Europe: “If we get full religious freedom, then the church is finished.”

As a believer, I choose to give another perspective.

The church will never be "finished" -- Christ promised that it will stand forever against the powers of Hell. It has stood for over 2K years. The Catholic Church is the oldest continuous institution on the planet, and I believe that it will remain so. If the climate industry had 2K years of human carbon emission led global warming fully documented, I suspect that they would consider their position "settled"! Since they claim to not be "faith based" however,  it is amazing that the climate industry seems to lack grave doubts after 15+ years of a warming "pause", in direct repudiation of their prophets.

Freedom of at least Christian worship existed in Europe for the entire time from Christ up to modern times. The Reformation -- nearing it's 500th anniversary in 2017, meant significant freedom from mandatory CATHOLIC worship, but Christianity was still in ascension -- in Europe and increasingly around the globe as explorers and immigrants, often seeking freedom to practice Christianity as they believed, sought new lands -- including America.

It wasn't religious freedom that caused the decline of Christianity in the west, it was the rise of the new state religion of Secular Humanism. Christianity in the west isn't "finished", it is no longer the dominant religion -- a place that has been taken (for now) by Secular Humanism, but Christianity is still a major factor.

In fact, since the dogmas of Secular Humanism include abortion, birth control, gay marriage and general lack of children. The population outlook for Secular Humanism is less than stellar. It is a religion reminiscent of the Shakers who famously believed in a life of celibacy -- thus limiting their future to little more than a single generation.

No, Christianity will continue to be blessed, in the West and in China:

That is largely because many officials see advantages in Christianity’s growth. Some wealthy business folk in Wenzhou have become believers—they are dubbed “boss Christians”—and have built large churches in the city. One holds evening meetings at which businessmen and women explain “biblical” approaches to making money. Others form groups encouraging each other to do business honestly, pay taxes and help the poor. Rare is the official anywhere in China who would want to scare away investors from his area.

The founders of the US were aware that the free society they were founding was impossible without the people being strong in religious belief -- generally, to their minds, Christianity. Personal responsibility, strong families, honesty, thrift, non-violence, vocation as service to God and a desire for a life ordered by God -- these and many other elements mean that a Christian population is highly prized, if not required for a growing successful nation that allows major individual freedoms -- freedoms that seem to be required for economic growth! Without such a religion, the state must be oppressive merely to keep the amoral population under control -- which is not conducive to economic growth!

Secular Humanist America and Western Europe are and will continue to fail -- and that is ultimately a blessing, because Christianity will rise from those ashes yet again and continue to be blessed.

How can Christians with 2K years of documented history that continues to fulfill prophecy in places like China today have less faith than Global Warmists with a scant 30 years of history --  with the last 15+ years of it failing to follow their prophecy?


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Global Poverty Shrinks, Western Economies Stagnate

Douglas Irwin: The Ultimate Global Antipoverty Program - WSJ - WSJ:

 Global poverty has been cut in half in 25 years!

The World Bank reported on Oct. 9 that the share of the world population living in extreme poverty had fallen to 15% in 2011 from 36% in 1990. Earlier this year, the International Labor Office reported that the number of workers in the world earning less than $1.25 a day has fallen to 375 million 2013 from 811 million in 1991.

The biggest dividend from the end of the Cold War was the bi-polar political sphere became uni-polar, so "what works" moved into ascension. Rather than two Superpowers sending "foreign aid" (bribes to keep countries in their sphere), the forces of the market -- the forces that work, were unleashed over much of the world. 

But we hear very little about this miracle here: 

The reduction in world poverty has attracted little attention because it runs against the narrative pushed by those hostile to capitalism. The Michael Moores of the world portray capitalism as a degrading system in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Yet thanks to growth in the developing world, world-wide income inequality—measured across countries and individual people—is falling, not rising, as Branko Milanovic of City University of New York and other researchers have shown.

We hear little about it here because it is WAY more than "Michael Moore" -- the myth of "Capitalist Injustice" is endemic in the political, media and educational systems here and in Western Europe. Why? Because successful economies are to bureaucrats and general government based looters as unprotected grain is to rats! The objective of government leaders and workers in wealthy countries (like wealthy companies) tends toward increasing the take of the leadership and the bureaucracy at the expense of all else.

It is easier to see in corporations than countries, because corporations still have to compete with quarterly profit / loss statements, and they have a hard time controlling all education and media! When Gerstner arrived in '93, bottom level IBM employees typically had greater than something like 10 levels of management between them and the CEO, he cut it to typically 4. He left, and now it is back to around 10 -- and IBM is again in crisis. The cat left, the rats took over -- quickly.

We generally all know what works -- hard work, living with and taking reasonable risks, suffering some losses and learning from them, merit based reward systems, responsibility, private property, rule of law, etc ...

We know that, but we WANT certainty, more leisure, freedom from or at least insurance against loss, we like to avoid responsibility for our failures, we like OUR stuff, but tend to think the "other guy" has too much, etc, etc.

There is a reason that capitalism is associated with "animal spirits" -- emotion, natural drives. We intellectually "know" lots of stuff, but it is our emotions that provide the DRIVE! As Adam Smith was very clear on in "The Theory of Moral Sentiments", we may THINK that if a million Chinese were killed by a natural disaster, that ought to weigh heavier on our minds this evening that say the pain from a finger we smashed in a door -- we may THINK that ought to be true, but we all know what IS true!

Capitalism works extremely well with what is. Socialism and Communism tell you that they can produce "what ought to be". The actual results are obvious -- but like the rats and unprotected grain, as soon as there is a "surplus", the looters show up and corrupt the working capitalist system to a wealth transfer system where the leading beneficiaries are the looters and ultimately destroy the working system yet again!

On top of this, the looters work overtime to convince us that there is a local and global zero sum relationship between poverty being reduced in China and stagnation here -- or, between people that make more money here and people that make less money. The capitalist system is driven off greed and produces growth and wealth. The looter system is based off envy and consumes wealth and produces decline. One might think they would "balance".

In the real world, much as with climate, one system is always driving -- "balance", as in "balance of nature" is a looter myth. The climate is always warming or cooling. Nations are always growing or declining.

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How Insane Can an ex Supreme Court Justice Be?

The five extra words that can fix the Second Amendment - The Washington Post:

The first 10 amendments to the Constitution placed limits on the powers of the new federal government. Concern that a national standing army might pose a threat to the security of the separate states led to the adoption of the Second Amendment, which provides that “a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” 

For more than 200 years following the adoption of that amendment, federal judges uniformly understood that the right protected by that text was limited in two ways: First, it applied only to keeping and bearing arms for military purposes, and second, while it limited the power of the federal government, it did not impose any limit whatsoever on the power of states or local governments to regulate the ownership or use of firearms. Thus, in United States v. Miller, decided in 1939, the court unanimously held that Congress could prohibit the possession of a sawed-off shotgun because that sort of weapon had no reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a “well regulated Militia.”

So there is no individual right to Free Speech (the 1st amendment)? A state may declare any speech it wants to be illegal and no challenge from the court will be forthcoming? I think not.

 How about the 4th? The vaunted "secure n their persons" -- the right to "privacy" the rubric under which Roe V Wade operates. Let's see, where does the SCOTUS of the US stand on THAT one of the first 10 amendments being "limiting only to the Federal Government"?

How can anything like this be taken seriously? It is obvious that there is no rule or principle of law operating here at all, and WORSE, not even any rule of "common sense", let alone "natural law", the real foundation of the Constitution. We know that in fact the SCOTUS runs the OTHER way on nearly every issue -- abortion, environmental rules, BOcare, gay marriage, etc -- the general policy of the time is if the federal government decrees it, the states MUST obey. Oh, but wait -- the 2nd amendment is different! On what principle other than Stevens wants it to be so?

The "magic 5 words are here":

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed.”

That's right. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Hamilton, etc REALLY went to the trouble of a 2nd amendment so the army could have weapons! They were such dolts that they thought it necessary to codify that in a written constitution! But they were just "bad writers" -- they left out the important part!

But they didn't, and they wrote that they didn't ... for example:

The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.
-- Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-188

One of the chief fears of the founders was a STANDING militia -- in other words, the very 5 words the insincere idiot Stevens would like to see added. To which George Mason said:

"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials."
— George Mason, in Debates in Virginia Convention on Ratification of the Constitution, Elliot, Vol. 3, June 16, 1788

So for 200 years the 2nd amendment was "understood" to mean that the army could have guns -- or so the ex justice says. But interestingly, not a lot of gun control seemed to be forthcoming in those 200 years!

How strange! Somehow I have a strong suspicion that if states in the American West were telling the pioneers that they couldn't have guns, they would have had a MUCH better response to guys like Stevens suggesting they give up their arms.

Tar and feathering really needs to make a comeback! Perhaps it is required to help the supposedly more intellectual understand common sense?

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