The fate of the future of the nation's health care system and the American economy lies in the hands of these "Blue Dog" Democrats. Call them and tell them that either they're with the American people or they're with Nancy Pelosi. If it's the latter then they are likely to find themselves unemployed come next January.
Baron Hill (D-Ind.)
(202) 225-5315
Mark Schauer (D-Mich.)
(202) 225-6276
Michael Arcuri (D-N.Y.)
(202) 225-3665
Dan Maffei (D-N.Y.),
(202) 225-3701
Kathy Dahlkemper (D-Pa.)
(202) 225-5406
Chris Carney (D-Pa.)
(202) 225-3731
Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.)
(202) 225-6511
Tom Perriello (D-Va.)
(434) 293-9631
Steve Kagen (D-Wis.)
(202) 225-5665
Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.)
(202) 225-4172
Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.)
(202) 225-3452
Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.)
(701) 235-9760
Allen Boyd (D-Fla.)
(202) 225-5235
Bill Owens (D-N.Y.)
(202) 225-4611
Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.)
(202) 225-2315
Harry Mitchell (D-Ariz.)
(202) 225-2190
Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).
(202) 225-2542
John Barrow (D-Ga.)
(202) 225-2823
Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.)
(202) 225-4231
Baron Hill (D-Ind.)
(202) 226-6866
Jim Matheson (D-Utah)
(801) 486-1236
Charlie Melancon (D-La.)
(202) 225-4031
Mike Ross (D-Ark)
(202) 225-3772
Zack Space (D-Ohio)
(202) 225-6265
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Call the Blue Dogs! The Stop Obamacare Phone Tree.
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Generation Right Fan Page
The Facebook fan page for Generation Right is up and running. Not much there yet, but soon it will be full of useful info regarding the contents and the release of the book.
See the scaffolding here.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
The Audacity of Dem Hypocrisy
So this video exposes Obama and his fellow Dems as total hypocrites(but you probably already knew that). They also need to keep in mind that if they try to pull this off using reconciliation the GOP will have a free pass the next time we have a senate majority and we want to use reconciliation to pass something. And... it will be something the Dems really hate, like an end to the progressive income tax or private accounts for social security. Maybe even overturning this health care bill. Who knows? Sky's the limit!
Whatever the case, the GOP should totally play this video at tomorrow's health care summit.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Jason Mattera's CPAC Speech
Last Thursday at CPAC, Young America's Foundation Spokesman Jason Mattera gave a very good, very funny speech on attracting young people to the conservative movement. You can view the speech here.
I have no real problem with Materra's controversial statements or the dialect with which he delivered the speech.
Materra, who like myself, is the author of an upcoming book on this topic, was unfairly attacked by the New York Times on its blog which insinuated that parts of the speech were racist. This accusation has no basis in reality. Mattera took a few cheap shots at Obama, but said nothing that could be construed as even remotely bigoted by any intellectually honest observer.
Where I take issue with Mattera's speech was what I saw as an overly optimistic portrayal of the changing attitudes of young people towards the president. Mattera said:
“Actually, on the cocaine front, I do believe many people in America viewed Barack as they do drugs: it was a substance to experiment with.”
“But like most narcotics, the hangover afterward has them thinking, What the hell did I just do?”
A good analogy, but I don't see it.
Quinnipiac recently released a poll showing that 58% of voters between the ages of 18-34 still approve of the job that the president is doing. This is down only 8% points from his election night total and does not account for the fact that the poll adds voters aged 30-34 into the tally while the election result of 66% tallied voters between the ages of 18-29.
Only 33% of voters aged 18-34 disapproved of Obama's job performance. Given that those aged 30-34 are more likely to have a less favorable view of Obama it means that less than the 33% of voters 18-29 who cast ballots for John McCain, disapprove of the job Obama is doing.
All of this while the general population's approval of Obama has dropped nearly 23% since his inauguration.
All of these numbers mean one of two things. Both bad.
Either young people are still very supportive of Obama's hyper-liberal agenda or they're simply not paying attention to the current policy debate that has been taking place since the election season ended.
If it's the former,it means that young people are actually ideologically liberal and they were not simply reacting to Obama's soaring rhetoric and undefined promises of "hope" and "changed" when they overwhelmingly supported him in 2008.
If it's the latter, and the weak outpouring of activism from young voters when it came to Obama's health care push tells me it is, it means that these young people are oblivious to all of the damaging policies that Obama is currently proposing and will see no reason not to vote for Obama in 2012.
Mattera may have simply been trying to rally the troops with his impressive CPAC speech. But the glasses he was wearing appear to be a bit too rosy. An overly optimistic view of the situation could put the conservative movement at risk of assuming that young voters will turn against Obama automatically once the rest of the electorate does.
If this does not happen conservative candidates will remain in the same difficult position with young voters as the found themselves in a year ago.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Time to Get Behind Mark Kirk.
I know that we're not all happy about Mark Kirk being the GOP nominee for Barack Obama's old senate seat. Yes he voted for Cap & Trade (although I'm not so sure he'll back it if it ever comes up for another vote.) However, we Republican Beggars can't be conservative choosers here. Kirk is the best chance the GOP has at taking back a Democratic seat in a very blue state. If he turns out to be a RINO we can bitch about it for 6 years. but unless you want another Chicago style politician who's entrenched in that city's corrupt political machine in the Senate, then we have no real choice. And think about this. Let's say Harry Reid loses his seat, but the Democrats maintain their majority because Kirk loses in Illinois. You know who gets to be in charge of the Senate for the next two years? Either Dick Durbin, who is also neck deep in the corrupt Illinois system or Chuck Schumer. We need to think about those possibilities before we start applying a purity test to Kirk and looking for a Tea-Party alternative.
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
My First Webcast
For my first foray into the world of Webcasting (Is that a word?) I decided to go with topic that wasn't controversial. Hope you like it.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Curtis Gans thinks "Birthers" a Major Force Within GOP
Curtis Gans is the director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate at American University.
He was kind enough to offer up his opinion to CNN.com in an article concerning the GOP's prospects of picking up seats in the November mid-term elections.
In warning against the GOP moving too far to "the Right" he cites "birthers" and "Tea-Party" activists as posing the greatest danger to the GOP's prospects for a big mid-term win.
"If the 'birthers' and the Tea Party people win most of the primaries in the Republican Party, that may not yield as much of a Republican victory in the general election as if their more moderate elements win."
Gans goes on to slam Marco Rubio, the Florida senate hopeful currently giving Gov. Charlie Crist a run for his money in that state's GOP primary.
"Rubio has the enthusiasm of the birthers and the Tea Party people and others like that, and that may propel him to the nomination, but it will be harder for the Republican Party to win in Florida under Rubio than it would be under a more moderate person."
Gans manages to mention the "birthers" twice in the relatively short CNN article.
Now, Mr. Gans is a big time Democratic Party insider so his personal political preferences are obvious, however his attempts to attach the "birther" label to the entire Tea Party movement and Marco Rubio show that Gans is either being intentionally misleading or that he is hopelessly out of touch with the reality of the current divisions within the GOP.
In all honesty, I haven't heard anyone besides those on the Left even mention the "birthers" in at least six months.
Even if the dispute over Obama's birthplace were still being debated and the "birthers" demands to see President Obama's birth certificate were still being taken seriously by anyone in the media, what evidence does Gans have that "birthers" are making up a significant portion of Rubio's base?
I don't think he has any.
The reason Gans keeps bringing up the "birthers" in the CNN article--in which he was interviewed to represent the "non-partisan" group that he heads--is because Gans knows that the "birthers" show the GOP and the Tea Party movement in a negative light. They make the movement appear irrational and unbalanced.
Pointing to the "birthers" is quite common when leftist pundits and commentators are trying to prove that the Right's hatred for President Obama is just as visceral as the Left's was for George W. Bush.
Through his commentary, Gans is trying to hurt the GOP by falsely implying that the "birthers" are a powerful and organized force within the party. An individual in his position obviously knows that this is not the case.
Trust me Mr. Gans when I tell you that most conservative activists and talk-radio callers have long forgotten the non-controversy surrounding Mr. Obama's place of birth. Conservatives now have legitimate reasons to distrust President Obama. First and foremost among these, his repeated fallacious claims regarding his proposals for health care reform.
One also has to wonder if they read polls over there at the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. If they did they would probably have noticed that the Tea-Party movement is currently polling better than both of the major political parties.
A shout-out for shoddy journalism should also go to CNN reporter Kristi Keck for putting up a tub-thumper for the Democratic Party and selling him as an unbiased political analyst. Then again, if ABC can get away with it, putting George Stephanopoulos on the air every week, then I'm sure Keck will be just fine.
- Dan
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Dean Gets Crazy...er.
When Chris Matthews starts making sense, you know the Left has officially jumped the shark.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
O.F.A. Propaganda for the Obama Supporter Who'll Believe Anything.
Here's the first sentence of the e-mail that the White House's organizing arm "Organizing For America" sent to it's supporters today.
Albert --
Yesterday's disappointing election results show deep discontent with the pace of change. I know the OFA community and the President share that frustration.
This of course implying that people aren't upset with Obama and his "progressive" agenda.
Noooooooo! The voters of Massachusetts were clearly upset that the Obama Administration hasn't federalized the Health Care system fast enough!
They don't just want some terrorists to get civilian show trials in New York City! Uh-uh! Bay State voters were sending the message that they won't rest until every single accused terrorist has had his day in a New York City courtroom!
"Damn you Barack Obama! What haven't you spent more taxpayer money?!!!"
Wow! That's some audacious propaganda right there OFA! And many members of OFA are just delusional enough to believe it.
It's one thing if Obama's trying to pull the wool over the eyes of independent voters in order to garner support for an otherwise unpopular agenda. It's a very bad sign however when you have to try and convince your most dedicated supporters not to jump ship and you do so by telling them that the message that Massachusett's voters sent, was the complete opposite of what they were actually trying to say.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
The Massachusetts Tsunami
Given the current situation in Hispaniola, it may be a bit insensitive to use the term “political earthquake” to describe what will happen to the Democratic Party if Scott Brown ends up pulling off the political upset of the decade in the bluest of deep-blue states next week.
Whatever you want to call it, a victory will be all of the proof one requires to see that the recent liberal ascension was a farce and it will put a stopper in the progressive agenda for at least the next 7 years.
So do your part. Go here and donate $5 to Scott Brown’s campaign.
Next Tuesday night could mark the beginning of the end for Barack Obama and his liberal agenda. Even if Brown loses a close race, it’s a very good sign for our prospects in November.
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Man Of The Decade: George W. Bush
Damn Straight!
by Dan Calabrese
suppose some will agree with a mouthful of ashes: “Damn right Bush is the man of the decade – a decade that sucked!”
As you prefer. But the argument here is that George W. Bush ought to be the man of the aughts mostly for the right reasons. I would also argue that he is smack dab at the center of what was best and worst about this decade.
The best, because Bush was a rare president who saw governing as a higher calling than his own political self-preservation. This frustrated his opponents – who couldn’t intimidate him with polls and attacks – as well as many of his supporters, who couldn’t get him to fight back with the sort of ferocity it seemed might be necessary to fend off attacks from Democrats and the media.
The worst, because Bush’s presidency is a good example of how willing people were in the decade now past to believe the hints, innuendos and impressions they received from the popular discourse, without really thinking for themselves.
After twice cutting taxes in his first term, Bush ran for re-election with a strong, growing, job-creating economy. And yet his opponents and the media continued to insist that the economy was terrible. (For a real bad economy, see: Now.) For the most part, the public believed this nonsense, and seemed to re-elect Bush in spite of an economy that was actually quite good.
The public was willing to believe the conventional wisdom that Bush had alienated our allies, in spite of the fact that he had allies working with us on all kinds of innovative and effective counter-terrorism measures, and had good personal relationships with most world leaders. The public had no idea what kind of progress Bush made with world trade markets and opening up emerging parts of the world like Indonesia.
They just kept hearing on the news every night that the whole world hated us because of Bush, and they believed it.
They believed lots of other things. They believed Guantanamo Bay was a torture hell that needed to be shut down at the earliest opportunity, and didn’t start to believe the opposite until they elected a president who actually tried to do what they thought they wanted, and they started to realize Bush had been right.
And yet, in spite of the 29 percent approval rating with which he left office, Bush accomplished a lot. Throughout most of his presidency, unemployment hovered around a ridiculously low 5 percent, even as Democrats howled that it was somehow too high. If unemployment came in at 5 percent tomorrow, Democrats would throw the party of the millennium.
He ended the reign of terror of Saddam Hussein, ended Mohmmar Khadafy’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, drove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, marginalized Yasser Arafat in the Middle East and, best of all, accomplished all this over the objections of the United Nations, which he righteously told where it could stick its objections.
Bush was not perfect, and he was not effective at pushing through every good idea he had. But it counts for a lot in my book that he tried to do desperately necessary things most politicians are afraid to do.
He was the first president who took a serious crack at trying to reform Social Security, the third rail of American politics. He tried to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration. He tried as far back as 2003 to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Now, he would deserve a hell of a lot more credit if he had actually gotten these initiatives through Congress. But it’s never made sense to me that the one politician who had the courage to propose these things is blamed because the pantywaist cowards on Capitol Hill – mainly worthless pieces of crap from his own party – couldn’t muster the courage to get behind him on them.
If the departed and unlamented GOP Congress had possessed half the courage of George W. Bush, we’d be drilling in Alaska, setting up privatized Social Security accounts and maybe, just maybe, not picking up the pieces of an obliterated mortgage market.
Conservatives hold a grudge against Bush for the explosion of federal spending during his administration. This is an area where I believe he should have fought harder.
But there are some worthwhile arguments to make in Bush’s defense here. The vast majority of the increase in federal spending came from legally mandated, formulaic increases in entitlement spending, which Bush could not have stopped absent an overall reform in the entitlement programs, and from war spending. As Bush found out in 2005, Congress wouldn’t touch entitlements, and whether you liked it or not, Bush believed the right approach to fighting wars was to simply spend whatever it took.
Granted, Bush contributed to the problem with the Medicaid Part D expansion, although it can be said in his defense that at least it’s one of the few federal entitlement programs that actually seems to be working well for its recipients.
To the extent that the big-spending GOP Congress contributed to the spending spree in the areas of discretionary domestic spending, many criticize Bush for refusing to veto these budgets. I think he should have too. But if Bush felt he could only spend his political capital in certain areas, and he chose the war as his hill to die on, it’s hard to argue with that.
Supposedly Bush feared that taking on the Republican Congress publicly over their free-spending ways would create a media cause celebre that would help hand Congress back to the Democrats. If that was his thinking, it was obviously a political miscalculation. But I can’t repeat often enough that a Republican Congress never should have presented a Republican president with such a dilemma. They had the power of the purse. They could have exercised their power responsibly. They did not wish to do so.
Bush made other mistakes. He appointed Ben Bernanke to lead the Federal Reserve. He imposed steel tariffs for a brief time in 2001. He pushed through his own ineffective “stimulus,” although it was a pittance compared to Barack Obama’s, and at least Bush’s went directly to the American people instead of being plowed into pork boondoggles. He tried to put Harriet Miers on the Supreme Court, although he redeemed himself with his other choices.
And of course, it’s easy to forget now the courage, strength and resolve he exuded in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. When Bush quoted Flight 93 hero Todd Beamer in imploring the country, “Let’s roll,” you knew that he would follow his words with real action. And he did.
But a debate on the wisdom of Bush’s choices, or on the effectiveness of his style of governance, could last forever, and surely will.
In my mind, one thing sets Bush apart, and earns him the honor of representing the best of this decade: He did what he believed was right, without regard to polls or political consequences. Whether that applied to policy on embryonic stem cells or the war in Iraq, Bush was no finger-in-the-wind politician.
He was a leader. He led with class, grace and compassion. He may or may not have been a “true conservative,” whatever the hell that is supposed to mean, but he understood the presidency, and he understood this country. And he understood that he held the office to serve the interests of the people, not to serve his own.
A lot of things were wrong with the decade now passing. But the fact that Bush was president for most of it was one of the really good things. I realize not much of the public has thought so in recent years, although I suspect many are now starting to appreciate what they used to have, and are starting to ask, “Why exactly was it that we didn’t like him?”
And thinking it wouldn’t be so bad if we had him back now.
Oh, and Dick Cheney too.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Democrats: Lying Their Way to Reform
Here you have Rhode Island Jr. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse making some insane statements on the Senate floor.
Of course, as is standard practice for any Liberal attempting make a point, Whitehouse went on to compare the GOP to Jim Crow-era lynchers, and Nazis:
“History cautions us of the excesses to which these malignant, vindictive passions can ultimately lead. Tumbrils have rolled through taunting crowds, broken glass has sparkled in darkened streets. Strange fruit has hung from Southern trees. Even this great institution of government that we share has cowered before a tail-gunner waving secret lists."
Gross, but not at all surprising.
My question is, is this simply political rhetoric that the Senator knows to be an offensive exaggeration or is it really how the far-Left views the opposition to this Health Care bill?
Another piece of evidence that the Left may actually believe that our motives in opposing this health care monstrosity were something other than considered opposition to a bad piece of legislation, can be found in Clive Crook's pro-Obamacare piece in today's Financial Times, in which he opines:
"It does not matter that conservatives oppose this reform. Of course they do. Conservatives are unmoved by the plight of the uninsured, want to block this administration’s domestic initiatives regardless, and are incapable of uniting behind an alternative proposal. They have nothing to offer on the issue."
To Mr. Crook's credit, I don't think he actually believes what he wrote about conservatives. Any intellectually honest individual who has paid attention to this bloody, 8-month debate, knows full well that conservatives have proposed a number of ideas to make health care more affordable. His implication that conservatives are "..unmoved by the plight of the uninsured." Is tantamount to a conservative columnist writing that those who want premature withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq are unmoved by the plight of families who lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks.
The statement's silliness is clearly illustrated by the fact that the Democratic leadership had to bribe several senators of their own party in order to get the bill to the floor.
Crook knows better. What he's guilty of is laziness as it would require far more thought and time spent at the word processor to delve into the true reasons behind the unified conservative opposition to Obamacare than he is willing to give.
Senator Whitehouse's words are far more egregious. It's one thing when you find statements like these in a comment thread on Daily Kos or coming from the mouths of Bill Maher's guests or the wildly uninformed host himself. However when it comes from a member of the world's greatest deliberative body, it should give all of us pause.
Whitehouse's statement is just one more example of the tactics that the Democratic Party has used all along in its attempts to gain public support for it's health care legislation.
They lied.
Plain and simple. From the very beginning, when President Obama was telling American's that if they liked their current health care they could keep it, even with the existence of a Public Option. Or that that Public Option would "compete" with private insurers rather than put them completely out of business. Now we have the current Dem claim that this legislation will lower costs for the privately insured when almost every analysis shows that costs for the privately insured will rise substantially once this bill goes into effect. The Democratic Party has undeniably sold Obamacare almost exclusively by way of sophistry, half-truths and bald-faced lies.
Yet another stunning example of this was last week when President Obama himself claimed that passing his trillion dollar health care bill was the only way to save the country from bankruptcy. Not only does this statement defy common sense, but most American's (and the Chinese Government)understand that the exact opposite is true. If anything, the Democratic plan will put the United States closer to fiscal insolvency than ever before.
Obama says that care will improve across the board. Not true.
He says this bill is deficit neutral. It's not and incredibly dishonest budget gimmickry is the only way Dems could even achieve this result on paper.
One positive thing to come out of all this is that the majority of the American people are smart enough not to buy into the trickery of the lying Democrats. That's a good sign of things to come. The Democrat's failure to gain majority support for this bill and the anger that their actions have resulted in among independents, almost guarantees that they will be unable to achieve other damaging policy goals like Cap & Trade and amnesty for illegal immigrants. The failure of the Public Option is a huge victory for the conservative movement and leaves the current bill without a clear path to single-payer care, which was the Left's primary objective all along.
Most importantly however, we've seen first hand that the American Left must lie about the effects of its policy proposals, because if they are honest about the repercussions of their ideas, the American people will reject the progressive agenda outright. Fortunately, this time the American people saw through it and the Democrats will almost certainly pay a price for it come November.
So don't be too mad at Senator Whitehouse and Clive Crook. After all, hyperbole and misinformation is the only effective weapon they wield in the battle to implement the liberal agenda in center-right America.
-Dan Joseph
Friday, December 18, 2009
This Is It!
The fate of American health care rests in the hands of one man. Call Sen. Ben Nelson. 202-224-6551 Tell him to kill the bill.
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
The Death of Climate Alarmism: Poor Leadership 101
Here's Al Gore's Huffington Post, profile picture: 
Yeah. I know.
It's shocking that an individual so socially awkward and phony could be taken seriously by such a huge portion of the population. And yet, he's still around. The reason is obvious. On the Left, Bush derangement syndrome still lingers in the souls of many. It is still yet to be cured by the soothing yet thus far, completely ineffective, aroma of Campbell's "Hope, Change and Chicken Soup" which liberals have been feasting on since last November.
To the modern liberal, Gore represents an alternative universe, in which folks in Palm Beach County were actually able to figure out their simple ballots, designed by equally simple Democratic Party officials, on Election Day 2000. In the minds of these true believers, had Gore been elected, not only would 9/11 never had happened. Not only would the economic collapse had been avoided with risky mortgages being put into a "Lock-Box" instead of being sold in bundles to Fannie May and Freddie Mac. But the true challenge of our time, that of facing down the dangers of anthropogenic climate change or "global warming," would have been solved long ago. Because as a wise liberal professor once told me in college: "WAR BAD! ENVIRONMENT GOOD! ME LIKE NPR AND MOTHER JONES! LET'S GO PROTEST! BLAH-BLAH-BLAH! UHHHHHHHH..... Professor sleepy. Must....go home....read Chomsky...then...not...get...laid.
But here, in reality, Gore lost the 2000 election and I still thank God that the duty of waging a war against Islamic extremism and Saddam Hussein was not left in the hands of a Gore Administration. For those who think things would actually be better now had Gore had 8 years in the White House instead of Bush, one need only look at the recent climate change debacle to put any delusions regarding the superior competence or intellectual honesty of Mr. Gore's leadership to rest.
For a decade now, Al Gore has served as the voice of the Global Warming alarmists. That they chose him to represent their cause was their first big mistake.
If you want people to take your movement seriously and believe it when you claim that you are fighting for a cause backed up by a "scientific consensus," then the last thing you want is for your movement's leader to be the incredibly divisive, hyper partisan loser of the most controversial presidential election in American history. Of course it doesn't help that Gore is so uncharismatic that he makes Mitch McConnell look like a politically knowledgeable George Clooney.
But the movement had to be led by a liberal. Even with some believable evidence pointing to Global Warming being caused by man, the whole concept of the apocalyptic nature of climate change fits perfectly into the traditional dogma of the modern liberal.
It is based on the idea that human kind is so flawed that it is destroying the planet. As with most of the worlds problems, America is to blame for most of it. And of course, the solution is to punish corporations and others within the private sector. It's the perfect progressive blame trifecta. It fits in absolutely perfectly with the world view of the devout leftist. If the Left could have found some way to hold the military accountable for the rise in global temperatures over the last 50 years I'm positive that they would have not hesitated to do so.
Then Gore and his followers made another mistake typical of politicians. They took a limited amount of inconclusive data and used it to convince the public that the evidence was so strong that no debate was necessary on the subject. And it worked. For a while. Until that is, the situation changed and the warnings of continued warming that the alarmists had been giving us for twenty years failed to materialize.
Oops.
Plan B: Fudge the data. Hope the people don't find out.
Oops.
They found out.
Plan C: Repeat original claim. Hope no one notices.
Oops.
They noticed.
Ironically, it appears as though the debate on climate change actually is over. Gore and the alarmists have lost. There is no way that the American people are confident enough in the scientific community's theories, that they will sacrifice trillions in tax dollars and long-term economic growth for a cause whose leaders have engaged in trickery, irresponsible exaggerations and whose theories haven't panned out in the first place. Right now environmental and energy concerns rank dead last in terms of the issues that Americans view as important, tied with "something else" and "other" in almost every major poll. This weeks events in Copenhagen are a joke when viewed in light of climategate earthquake that occurred when those East Anglia e-mails popped up, forcing any common sense observer to reassess what they thought they knew about the end of the world.
It's difficult to feel very sorry for a character as unsympathetic as Al Gore and yet I do. Just when he thinks that his dreams of becoming a relevant figure in the annals of world history have been realized, those dreams are dashed by the reality of trying to lead a center-right and intellectually curious nation where non-partisan leadership and honesty are important qualities. The kind that is an unfortunate rarity in the rest of the world today.
But don't feel too bad for Mr. Gore. He may never be President. The prospects of the cause he has championed for decades may appear to have been devoured by the very polar bears that he sought to save and experiencing its last hurrah this week in Denmark. However, Gore has made a ton of money by spreading his climate change gospel to the true believers. So much money. Millions and millions of dollars. More money than you and I could possibly fathom. He did all of this without ever having to answer his critics or engage in a serious debate on the topic. That's talent.
-Dan Joseph
Here's a particularly disgusting piece of propaganda from the alarmists.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
The Feigned Indignation of Barbara Mikulski
Maryland's Senior Senator Barbara Mikulski got all upset the other day over the recent government panel recommendation that discouraged women under the age of 50 from getting annual mammograms. That's fine with me. But the reality is that Mikulski's objection was far from sincere. Had her outrage been based solely in a concern for women's lives her statements regarding the matter would have been far less politically charged and her support for the current Senate health care bill would not be as certain as it remains today.
Addressing the mammogram controversy, Mikulski said:
“....insurance companies may use this new recommendation as yet another reason to deny women coverage for mammograms.”
Sure. They may. But that's really a very backwards way of looking at the matter considering that if they did, it would be because a government panel told them that it was ok to do so.
The recommendations were not made by a group of independent doctors funded by the insurance industry. They came from doctors on a government panel, none of whom had expertise in the area of mammography. The same kind of government panel that will be making recommendations to the Department of Health and Human Services about what kind of care patients are eligible to receive under government run health care and what corners can be cut in order to save money. These types of recommendations are assured once the Health care bill making it's way through congress is hooked up with the mandates for comparative effectiveness research found in the stimulus package.
And Senator Mikulski is going to vote for all of it. Her cover? She turns the tables and attempts to make the insurance industry the bad guy. Sorry Barb. This is a preview of government oversight into women's health issues, not another instance of the dangers of the status quo. A status quo that is second to none in terms of breast cancer survival rates. But the fact that you're still going to vote for the monstrosity currently making its way through the Senate, proves that you really don't care.
I know that putting an end to breast cancer is an issue that many young people--especially young women who have family members or friends who have been afflicted with this terrible disease--care deeply about. But young people continue to be the demographic group supporting Obamacare with the most enthusiasm. You need to wake up. You're being duped into believing that poorly thought out recommendations made by the government can be remedied by giving more power to the people responsible for making those poorly thought out recommendations in the first place. It's ironic that Sen. Mikulski is about to vote to give additional power to the type of group who she sharply criticized just days earlier for putting women's lives at risk.
So come on people. It's time to start watching what the other hand is doing.
-Dan
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