Could they be any more obvious about it?

Just in case you somehow haven’t heard about it in the past couple of months, the Associated Press wanted to remind everyone this morning that South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford (who, to be clear, I believe should resign), who had AN AFFAIR(!!), went back to work today — and that this really, really deserved to be a national story, as shown in the mini-pic of the AP’s raw feed:

The unbylined AP item also reminded readers that Sanford “had been a GOP darling” earlier this year. Of course, there’s no bias in that dubious statement.

Here’s a picture of most of the short AP report, produced for the purposes of fair use, discussion, and ridicule:

You will note that there is no real news in the report. Apparently the only reason for running it is a need to keep fresh the memory that a fiscally conservative Republican had an affair.

Maybe someone at the AP is jealous that a book about a real “Culture of Corruption” is Number 1 on the New York Times Bestsellers List.

The AP would be better served if they paid attention to what is really in relatively important things like, oh, what’s in the health care bill. I’ll get to that shortly. (Update: It’s here.)

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Michelle Malkin’s “Culture of Corruption” will hit Number 1 on the August 16 New York Times Bestsellers List. Heartiest congrats.

Michelle notes that “It happened without a single review in a mainstream newspaper.” The “pretend it doesn’t exist” outlook was also present with Mark Levin’s seminal “Liberty and Tyranny,” which spent 12 of 13 weeks atop the NYT’s list.

___________________________________________

Sound-bite summary of this Mark Steyn critique of Jason Weisburg’s pathetic Obama excuse piece at Slate — “It’s getting a little old to blame Bush for the horrors of the Bush presidency. So why not blame Bush for the horrors of the Obama presidency?”

___________________________________________

Read Kurt Brouwer’s “Crackpot Economics & Cash For Clunkers.” It’s as good a collection of sound economic thought from a variety of sources, including Kurt himself, as I think you’ll find anywhere.

The consensus, not surprisingly: It stinks.

The post has a spot-on analogy that was originally at Econbrowser, referring to “the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, which paid farmers to slaughter livestock and plow up good crops, as if destroying useful goods could somehow make the nation wealthier.”

Disabling and destroying a perfectly usable car is really about the same. Personally, it never even occurred to me, and I suspect many others, that a program like this would mandate the substantive destruction of hundreds of thousands of cars. As so many commenters at so many places have already asked in one form or another, “Why not give the cars away to poor people, students, or struggling charities that need them?”

___________________________________________

Also noted at Kurt’s place in the same post — When Germany recently embarked on a similar plan, other consumer goods retailers complained that the program was “sucking out spending” from the retail sector.

There may be a parallel effect in play here. In the U.S., “…. retail sales decreased 0.2 percent for the week ending Aug. 1, the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) and Goldman Sachs reported Tuesday. On a year-over-year basis, sales were down 0.7 percent.”

The Associated Press’s Anne D’Innocenzio writes that “It’s still early, but analysts’ grades already are coming in: the back-to-school shopping season is off to a lousy start.” D’Innocenzio quotes an economist who, using a very appropriate verb, says that Cash for Clunkers “might siphon away sales from other categories like clothing and home furnishings.”

___________________________________________

Heard something really, really interesting yesterday — Glenn Beck told listeners during the 11 a.m. Eastern hour that he has refused to carry advertising from General Motors. I don’t know the specific date that this began, but I do know that it’s because Beck said he can no longer trust them. I also (I believe safely) assume that he objects to the government’s ownership.

I believe that if I were in Beck’s place I would have done the same thing. I certainly wouldn’t be doing what Sean Hannity has been doing. It’s not just that Hannity is still carrying GM ads; he’s narrating them. And it’s not just that he’s hawking the vehicles; he’s actually telling listeners to learn all about the “new GM” (I heard that pitch on Monday or Tuesday).

I don’t think I’m alone when I say that Mr. “Conservative Underground, Conservatism in Exile” is engaging in more than a little hypocrisy in taking money from a state-run enterprise that came into being largely by shafting bondholders out of their contractual rights.

I guess if Obama’s unwieldy health plan passes, we’ll hear Sean singing ad-driven praises of the Health Choices Administration and the Bureau of Health Information in the coming years.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, given that Hannity has been a virtually non-stop all-Mitt Romney, all-the-time lap dog for almost two years, despite Romney’s drop-dead obvious Objective Unfitness. But it’s deeply disappointing, given that Hannity (heaven help us) is Limbaugh’s heir apparent if/when El Rushbo ever hangs up the Golden EIB microphone.

I’m not up on what Rush has or hasn’t done since the GM bailouts began, or since the GM bankruptcy; but I don’t think he’s presently carrying GM advertising either, and I believe he hasn’t been for several months.

Here’s my bigger-picture take: GM, as I recall it, barely ever advertised nationally on conservative talk radio until mid- to late-2007. If there were any ads before that time, I don’t think the hosts ever narrated the pitches themselves. The company almost certainly wasn’t giving the hosts and their employees cars to try out for a few weeks before then. By late 2007/early 2008, almost all of them (Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, and Ingraham for sure) were narrating ads and singing the praises of the loaned models (i.e., putting their reputations on the line, as opposed to merely carrying canned ads).

I believe that GM did what it did largely to mute anticipated criticism of its likely plans to seek government help. Yes of course it wanted to sell cars, but conservative talk didn’t all of a sudden become an effective advertising medium in 2007.

By mid-2008, writers at Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and others were already speculating that the company appeared to be dressing itself up for a government bailout of some kind. In hindsight, it does seem that the company, with its hype of the barely on the drawing board Volt and other green and politically correct posturing, combined with seeming neglect of its core brands, was doing just that.

If buying off conservative talk radio was indeed the strategy, it worked well enough. You would expect the talkers to have been in all-out rant mode last December at bailout crunch time. Instead, my recall is that their criticism, though present, was comparatively perfunctory. If they feel I’m being unfair, they know how to contact me.

From Queensland, Australia:

12:00a.m. 3rd August 2009

The manager of a Buderim unit complex has been hailed as a hero by neighbours after he rushed barefoot to fight a fire in one of his apartments.

Emergency services received a report of a fire in ‘The Enclave’ apartment block on Fig Bird Crescent at 1.40pm yesterday.

Eyewitness Loreina Wilson said complex manager Greg Robinson ran from his own apartment without a second thought as flames and thick black smoke billowed from the ground floor apartment.

Fire fighters said the female resident first realised her apartment was on fire as she was driving home and saw the clouds of smoke.

Enclave resident of two years, Paul O’Ranje, said he and his family were just leaving for an afternoon bike ride when they saw the fire.

The 38 year old father jumped the tall wooden fence and grabbed another garden hose to help Mr Robinson fight off the blaze which started in a wheelie bin outside the unit.

“I only arrived afterwards. Greg was already there at that time,” Mr O’Ranje said.

….. Neighbours cried out their best wishes to Mr Robinson as the emergency vehicle left telling him there would be a drink waiting for him on return.

Go here for the whole story.

In the e-mail earlier today:

Really, if it weren’t for the help of the CNN folks, I would have thought that this was really bad news. (/sarc)

Context:

• Though it is subject to adjustment, as of this moment, June 2009 (NOT six months) was the worst June ever for what actually happened on the ground (110,000 jobs lost, not seasonally adjusted) since Uncle Sam’s Bureau of Labor Statistics began publishing monthly data. That’s true even if you express the June result as a percentage of the workforce.
• If the 371,000 is mimicked by BLS for the total job market in July (seasonally adjusted, including government), it will be the worst numerical seasonally adjusted result since 1956 (before adjustments for size of the workforce).

The POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy, now the POR Recession/”Repression” As Normal People Define It, marches on.

Go here for Doug Ross’s report, and here for his original post (“‘Blue Dog’ Steve Driehaus ripped, mocked, booed and laughed at during his Town Hall on Health Care”) before Drudge’s pickup.

Seeing as Driehaus has voted incongruently with every item on which he ran (life, fiscal responsibility, not being a hack, etc.), I’d say his time is up.

He has ruined his family name because he doesn’t have the brass to stand on principle. Pelosi cracks that whip and the pushovers gleefully rush to accommodate her.

Oh Th-teve, you’re thuch a thensitive lap dog! OK now, SIT! ROLL OVER! VOTE! LIE! STEAL TAXPAYER MONEY! VOTE AGAINST LIFE!

What a disgrace.

Note: Part 1 is here.

__________________________________________________________

That’s funny, I thought Joseph Stalin was dead…From the White House’s Communication Director of Healthcare Reform (HT Emailer):

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

You can find the actual WH link here.

That’s right ladies and gentlemen, now you too can be a spy just like Stalin’s KGB and Hitler’s STASI. This administration wants you to do your Communist er, Patriotic duty and turn in your neighbors essentially for having a different opinion about where their socialist healthcare plan (among others) will take this country.

In fact, Brad Woodhouse of the DNC just released a presser about those of us who disagree with ObamaCare (HT: Redstate). Here it is in its entirety:

Die Republikaner und ihre verbündeten Gruppen – verzweifelt nach zwei aufeinander folgenden Wahlen zu verlieren und alle wichtigen politischen Kampf auf dem Capitol Hill – Anstiftung sind wütend Monster von einer kleinen Zahl von wütenden rechten Extremisten von K Street Lobbyisten zu stören nachdenklich Diskussionen über die Zukunft der Gesundheitsversorgung in Amerika, die sich in Congressional Bezirke im ganzen Land. Allerdings, wie wir gesehen, auf der McCain-Palin Kundgebungen im vergangenen Jahr, wo Menschenmassen waren Ködern mit Schreie der “sozialistischen”, “kommunistisch”, und wo die birthers Bewegung geboren wurde – das Monster von Extremisten sind nicht interessiert an einer Diskussion über nachdenklich die Fragen – aber wie einige republikanische Führer gesagt haben – sie sind interessiert in “Bruch” den Präsidenten und die Zerstörung seiner Präsidentschaft. Diese Mobs sind bussed von finanziell gut ausgestattete, hoch organisierten Gruppen von republikanischen Genossenschaften und finanziert durch die besonderen Interessen, die verzweifelt versucht, um die Agenda für den Wandel der Präsident gewählt wurde, um in Washington.Trotz der Überschrift grabbing Charakter dieser böse Monster und ihre Störungen von Veranstaltungen, sie sind nicht widerspiegeln, wenn das amerikanische Volk auf die Fragen – oder die Hunderte von Tausenden von nachdenklichen Diskussionen rund um Küche Tabellen-, Wasser-Kühler und in den Häusern. Die rechte Extremisten “Dinge wie die Nutzung der Teufel Hörner auf die Bilder von unseren gewählten Vertretern, hängen die Mitglieder des Kongresses in Bildnis, atemlos Befragung der Präsident der Bürgerschaft und der Verwendung von Nazi-und SS-Symbole wie die nur zeigt, wie außerhalb des Mainstream der Republikanischen Partei und ihre Verbündeten sind. Diese Art von Wut und Zwietracht nicht dienen Republikaner auch im Jahr 2008 – und es ist verpflichtet, nach hinten wieder.

Hey, well said comrade.

Ya know, if we heard more dialog towards actually addressing valid, fact-based concerns about their take-over & reduced-care health deform, I might be inclined to think they are hon…hone..hones…(I can’t say it) trying to find points of error. But with every opportunity – speeches, town hall meetings, correspondence with Congress – all we hear is rhetoric. Ergo, their intent is quite clear. These people are capable of things that we think only other countries do…namely stripping away liberties, starving citizens and denying healthcare to anyone without blonde hair or blue eyes…oops, I’m sorry, I mean to anyone who becomes bothersome or too expensive.

That’s some change, Barry.

This short video is for any of you still believe the lies that the intent is not to move us to a single payer (100% govt. controlled system).

They are lying about their intent otherwise they wouldn’t be trying to rush it through. What criteria are determining this “crisis” and as such an immediate, comprehensive overhaul of a situation where 80% of Americans are content?

Answer: Power and control.

As is made clear in the following report by Dr. David Janda, this administration and its congress is focused only on reducing costs through reducing care. No tort reform or other options like better preventative care are even on the table.

Written by Dr. Dave Janda
Thursday, 23 July 2009

As a physician who has authored books on preventative health care, I was given the opportunity to be the keynote speaker at a Congressional Dinner at The Capitol Building in Washington last Friday (7/17).

The presentation was entitled Health Care Reform, The Power & Profit of Prevention, and I was gratified that it was well received.

In preparation for the presentation, I read the latest version of “reform” as authored by The Obama Administration and supported by Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid. Here is the link to the 1,018 page document:

http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/publications/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf

Let me summarize just a few salient points of the above plan. First, however, it should be clear that the same warning notice must be placed on The ObamaCare Plan as on a pack of cigarettes: Consuming this product will be hazardous to your health.

The underlying method of cutting costs throughout the plan is based on rationing and denying care. There is no focus on preventing health care need whatever. The plan’s method is the most inhumane and unethical approach to cutting costs I can imagine as a physician.

The rationing of care is implemented through The National Health Care Board, according to the plan. This illustrious Board “will approve or reject treatment for patients based on the cost per treatment divided by the number of years the patient will benefit from the treatment.”

Translation…..if you are over 65 or have been recently diagnosed as having an advanced form of cardiac disease or aggressive cancer…..dream on if you think you will get treated…..pick out your coffin.

Oh, you say this could never happen? Sorry…. this is the same model they use in Britain.

The plan mandates that there will be little or no advanced treatments to be available in the future. It creates The Federal Coordinating Council For Comparative Effectiveness Research, the purpose of which is “to slow the development of new medications and technologies in order to reduce costs.” Yes, this is to be the law.

The plan also outlines that doctors and hospitals will be overseen and reviewed by The National Coordinator For Health Information and Technology.

This ” coordinator” will “monitor treatments being delivered to make sure doctors and hospitals are strictly following government guidelines that are deemed appropriate.” It goes on to say…..”Doctors and hospitals not adhering to guidelines will face penalties.”

According to those in Congress, penalties could include large six figure financial fines and possible imprisonment.

So according to The ObamaCare Plan….if your doctor saves your life you might have to go to the prison to see your doctor for follow -up appointments. I believe this is the same model Stalin used in the former Soviet Union.

Section 102 has the Orwellian title, “Protecting the Choice to Keep Current Coverage.” What this section really mandates is that it is illegal to keep your private insurance if your status changes – e.g., if you lose or change your job, retire from your job and become a senior, graduate from college and get your first job. Yes, illegal.

When Mr. Obama hosted a conference call with bloggers urging them to pressure Congress to pass his health plan as soon as possible, a blogger from Maine referenced an Investors Business Daily article that claimed Section 102 of the House health legislation would outlaw private insurance.

He asked: “Is this true? Will people be able to keep their insurance and will insurers be able to write new policies even though H.R. 3200 is passed?” Mr. Obama replied: “You know, I have to say that I am not familiar with the provision you are talking about.”

Then there is Section 1233 of The ObamaCare Plan, devoted to “Advanced Care Planning.” After each American turns 65 years of age they have to go to a mandated counseling program that is designed to end life sooner.

This session is to occur every 5 years unless the person has developed a chronic illness then it must be done every year. The topics in this session will include, “how to decline hydration, nutrition and how to initiate hospice care.” It is no wonder The Obama Administration does not like my emphasis on Prevention. For Mr. Obama, prevention is the “enemy” as people would live longer.

I rest my case. The ObamaCare Plan is hazardous to the health of every American.

After I finished my Capitol Hill presentation, I was asked by a Congressman in the question-answer session: “I’ll be doing a number of network interviews on the Obama Health Care Plan. If I am asked what is the one word to describe the plan what should I answer.”

The answer is simple, honest, direct, analytical, sad but truthful. I told him that one word is FASCIST.

Then I added, “I hope you’ll have the courage to use that word, Congressman. No other word is more appropriate.”

Dr. Dave Janda, MD, is an orthopedic surgeon, and a world-recognized expert on the prevention of sports injuries, particularly in children. His website is noinjury.com.

Yep, those ads for Internment/Resettlement Specialists are making more sense with each passing day…

From Ukiah, California:

August 3, 8:03 a.m.

Meet Mariah Mountanos. At the age of twelve, five years ago, Mariah decided it was time she took action and put her love for dogs to the test.

In conjunction with her school’s program for community service, Mariah asked to work with the Ukiah Shelter in Ukiah, California. But what could such a young girl do to truly make a difference?

Ukiah did not have their own website and worked through Petfinder to promote their adoptable animals, so Mariah created a website for them, Paws to Adopt, to showcase the special animals up for adoption. How did Mariah decide that a new website was most needed?

“Ukiah is not a very populated community. Yet, the Ukiah Shelter is filled with more animals than can be adopted out in the area. So, getting people up to Ukiah from other areas is one of the greatest challenges. With the website, the awareness of animals in the Ukiah Shelter has greatly increased. With more exposure through the internet, more animals are adopted from the Ukiah Shelter and find forever homes.”

She particularly loves pits and shares information about training with the Pit Crew and has been instrumental in finding homes for several pits. Under the guidance and support of Sage Mountainfire, Adoption Coordinator, Mariah has worked with Ukiah every Wednesday for the past several years, currently volunteers at the Wasson Memorial Veterinary Clinic and hopes to attend UC Davis in 2010 s an Animal Science Major, on her way to veterinary school. ….

Go here for the rest of the story.

Well, it only took them about 3-1/2 months.

Yours truly and others have since April noted a precipitous and likely historic dive in Uncle Sam’s monthly collections. Year-over-year declines actually began last summer. The degree of monthly fall-offs has gotten “progressively” worse since then.

Yesterday, the Associated Press finally went beyond blandly reciting year-to-date comparisons to note the historic significance of the cash crash at the Treasury. Even then, Stephen Ohlemacher’s report understated the degree of the decline in receipts from economic activity (i.e., excluding last year’s stimulus payments, which were treated by Treasury as “negative receipts”). He also only carried his analysis through June 2009, even though sufficient information about the full month of July was available in Treasury’s last daily statement of the month released yesterday afternoon.

Here are highlights of Ohlemacher’s report:

Federal tax revenues plummeting

The recession is starving the government of tax revenue, just as the president and Congress are piling a major expansion of health care and other programs on the nation’s plate and struggling to find money to pay the tab.

The numbers could hardly be more stark: Tax receipts are on pace to drop 18 percent this year, the biggest single-year decline since the Great Depression, while the federal deficit balloons to a record $1.8 trillion.

Other figures in an Associated Press analysis underscore the recession’s impact: Individual income tax receipts are down 22 percent from a year ago. Corporate income taxes are down 57 percent. Social Security tax receipts could drop for only the second time since 1940, and Medicare taxes are on pace to drop for only the third time ever.

The last time the government’s revenues were this bleak, the year was 1932 in the midst of the Depression.

….. For this report, the AP analyzed annual tax receipts dating back to the inception of the federal income tax in 1913. Tax receipts for the 2009 budget year were available through June. They were compared to the same period last year. The budget year runs from October to September, meaning there will be three more months of receipts this year.

….. “The numbers for 2009 are striking, head-snapping. But what really matters is what happens next,” said (the Tax Policy Center’s William) Gale, who previously taught economics at UCLA and was an adviser to President George H. W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers.

“If it’s just one year, then it’s a remarkable thing, but it’s totally manageable. If the economy doesn’t recover soon, it doesn’t matter what your social, economic and political agenda is. There’s not going to be any revenue to pay for it.”

A small part of the drop in tax receipts can be attributed to new tax credits for individuals and corporations enacted in February as part of the $787 billion economic stimulus package. The sheer magnitude of the tax decline, however, points to the deep recession that is reducing incomes, wiping out corporate profits and straining government programs.

Estimating that collections for July will be $150 billion based on the breakdown at this link, here is how July 2009 and year-to-date fiscal 2009 compare to 2008:

July’s result only came in less negative than the rest of the fiscal year so far because it is a very light month for corporate income and individual non-withheld tax receipts. As shown in the graphic at this link, incoming receipts in those two categories, which arrive most heavily during months when quarterly estimated or final payments are due (April, June, September, and December for calendar-year corporate estimates, with final payments for such corporations due the next March; individual estimated payment dates are April, June, September, and the following January, but final payment is of course due the next April), were 37% and 35% lower, respectively, during the quarter that ended June 30, 2009 than in the same quarter of 2008.

Including July, year-to-date receipts from economic activity are down by over 20.4%. That, and not reported receipts, is the comparison benchmark Ohlemacher should have used, because it is the better indicator of what the recession and other influences have done to government tax inflows.

As to “other influences,” the decline in receipts since the recession as normal people define it (i.e., two consecutive quarters of economic contraction) began in the third quarter of 2008 has been exponentially worse than the decline in economic output, to the point where it’s plausible to believe that other influences indeed exist. For those who missed it, last week’s comprehensive revision by the Bureau of Economic Analysis told us that annualized GDP contractions since then have been as follows:

- Third quarter 2008, -2.7% (revised from -0.5%)
- Fourth quarter 2008, -5.4% (revised from -6.3%)
- First quarter 2009, -6.4% (revised from -5.5%)
- Second quarter 2009, -1.0% (preliminary)

So the economy, based on the most recent estimates, contracted by a bit less than 3.9% in the 12 months ended June 30. That degree of decline would not seem to fully explain a 20% receipts dive, which is why those who claim that the “going Galt” phenomenon is real seem to have a point.

Beyond that, what some call the FUD factor (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) also has to have some relevance. Barack Obama, both as the Democratic nominee and as President, with the help of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid during the entire time, has sown more than his fair share of FUD with TARP, government takeovers, and other actions and legislation. I also have to wonder if the blatant tax compliance problems of so many administration officials, up to and including the Secretary of the Treasury himself, isn’t beginning to have a negative impact.

Maybe it’s too much to expect AP reports and reporters to cite possible factors other than the recession on their own. But it isn’t unreasonable to expect that reporters like Ohlemacher would cite the disparity in the GDP v. receipts dive and ask economists and others who have looked at it why it has been so disproportionate.

As the receipts dive continues, it has to make you wonder not only if the second quarter’s -1.0% will hold up, but also if the return to positive growth that is supposedly the consensus for the second half of the year will really materialize.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Bret Stephens in today’s Wall Street Journal — China and India are rejecting carbon emission caps because they want their people to live longer. Specifically:

When Deng Xiaoping began introducing elements of a market economy in 1980, Chinese life expectancy at birth was 65.3 years. Today it is about 73 years. The numbers are probably a bit inflated, as most numbers are in the People’s Republic, but the trend line is undeniable. In India, life expectancy rose from 52.5 years in 1980 to about 67 years today. If this is the consequence of following the “American economic model” then poor countries need more of it.

The “American model,” of course has been one of industrial and economic expansion, by necessity requiring more energy and (gasp!) carbon emissions to make it happen. Environmental extremists are aghast at the idea that China and India want to raise the living standards of their people, many of who whom still subsist on $2 or less per day, using that same model — which, by the way, is the ONLY modern model that has ever raised large numbers of people up from subsistence.

Let’s not kid yourselves. Those attempting to force cap and trade on us are intent on bringing down our standard of living, which is bad enough. But in forcing their statist nonsense on the rest of the world, they also want to stop much of the rest of the world from EVERY emerging from dire poverty — in effect telling them they can drop dead, or at least do so earlier.

_______________________________________________________

Mickey Kaus makes a point I’ve made in a couple of comments (here and here) in the past few days, but misses the big point:

Tip for Dems: If you don’t want people to think that subsidized, voluntary end-of-of-life counseling sessions are the camel’s nose of an attempt to cut costs by limiting end of life care, then don’t put them in a bill the overarching, stated purpose of which is to cut health care costs! … I mean, did that provision have to be in the bill? If it really was just an added “benefit” for patients that had nothing to do with cutting costs (which I don’t believe for a minute), did it even belong in the bill? Isn’t there some group of Congressional Democrats–let’s call them “the leadership”–whose job it is to prevent their co-partisans from inserting into major legislation relatively minor provisions that will have the effect of sinking the whole package?

If it’s really not about advancing euthanasia, supporters would strip all of the end-of-life elements out of the bill.

But they won’t. That’s because there are dedicated care-rationers and “communitarians” in the highest reaches of the Obama administration who, along with the “leadership” in Congress, consider the end-of-life elements not nagging bugs, but critical features.

________________________________________________

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty went after Massachusetts’s statist CommonwealthCare aka RomneyCare in the Washington Post:

Massachusetts’s experience should caution Congress against focusing primarily on access. While the Massachusetts plan has reduced the number of uninsured people, costs have been dramatically higher than expected. The result? Increased taxes and fees. The Boston Globe has reported on a current short-term funding gap and the need to obtain a new federal bailout.

Imagine the scope of tax increases, or additional deficit spending, if that approach is utilized for the entire country.

But it would have been better if he had called out Romney himself. The Massachusetts mess is Romney’s handiwork, and he can’t walk away from it.

_______________________________________________________________________

From the WSJ’s July car sales report (it gets updated monthly):

Among the Big Six: Ford was up 1.6% over a year ago; GM was down 18.9%; Chrysler, -9.4%; Toyota, -11.4%, Honda, -17,3%; Nissan, -24.6%.

Worth watching: Toyota, which beat out Ford for second place in July, had total unit sales of 174,872. That’s less than 13,000 away from GM’s July total of 187,582. GM’s place as Number 1 is in legitimate jeopardy.

Worth noting: Since Cash for Clunkers used up its $1 billion allotment just before month-end, you would think that most of the 240,000 or so new vehicles sold under the program (I believe the average clunker credit came in at about $4,200) were delivered by July 31.

If so, there is little to celebrate in the industry’s sales figures. July 2009′s total of 998,000 was 12% lower than last year’s 1,136,000. Take away the clunkers, and the decline would have been a pretty steep 33%. Of course there was a substitution effect (people who brought their cars in as clunkers who would have bought anyway in July going the normal trade-in route), but at the least the intent was that C4C would create new sales that might not have otherwise occurred until many months if not years later. If it really worked out that way, the car business is in reality still in the doldrums.

Watch in awe, and be inspired (HT Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters):

Note: I am pleased to publish this column by Boston pro-life and pro-family activist Carol McKinley.

Her blog is Lead Us Not Into Temptation, an appropriate moniker for the topic of her guest column, which explores what a theologically correct Catholic (and, in my view, Judeo-Christian) position should be on the current health care legislation in Congress.

Carol’s column will stay at the top most of today.

* * * * *

Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way
by Carol McKinley

It’s been a tough few weeks for President Obama. The urban legends he has told to garner support for the march towards socialism are finally losing their traction.

You could hear the sound of screeching brakes all over America at the collision between an elite Harvard professor and a President making a racial incident out of a police officer’s response to a 911 call – and the government takeover of healthcare. America is coming out of the trance.

As a warrior in the trenches, I couldn’t count number of times prayer mercenaries have transformed a blunder into a period of grace. Catholics had better take full advantage of the reprieve. We have a lot to lose in the ethical conundrums of rationing treatment and mercy in a government-controlled HMO.

The mission of providing ethical, compassionate, quality healthcare to the sick and poor is about to be “reformed” into setting criteria that determines the value of the patient’s life measured against the cost of treating their illness.

The Church’s Teachings

Denying medical care to the poor, elderly and catastrophically ill to benefit the government is diametrically opposed to Catholic ethics and animus. Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical expounded on the the inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual as a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation (2273 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church) in his recently published encyclical Caritas in Veritate:

Openness to life is at the centre of true development. When a society moves towards the denial or suppression of life, it ends up no longer finding the necessary motivation and energy to strive for man’s true good.

…. In order to protect nature, it is not enough to intervene with economic incentives or deterrents; not even an apposite education is sufficient. These are important steps, but the decisive issue is the overall moral tenor of society. If there is a lack of respect for the right to life and to a natural death, if human conception, gestation and birth are made artificial, if human embryos are sacrificed to research, the conscience of society ends up losing the concept of human ecology.

…. To the tragic and widespread scourge of abortion we may well have to add in the future – indeed it is already surreptiously present – the systematic eugenic programming of births. At the other end of the spectrum, a pro-euthanasia mindset is making inroads as an equally damaging assertion of control over life that under certain circumstances is deemed no longer worth living. Underlying these scenarios are cultural viewpoints that deny human dignity. These practices in turn foster a materialistic and mechanistic understanding of human life. Who could measure the negative effects of this kind of mentality for development? While the poor of the world continue knocking on the doors of the rich, the world of affluence runs the risk of no longer hearing those knocks, on account of a conscience that can no longer distinguish what is human.

Obama projects that giving access to our healthcare system to 50 million more people will cost Americans less money than it does now. In fact, “at the breaking point,” Obama claims his healthcare program will start “paying for itself.” Like his projections about the economy, writing off the debt of irresponsible people who caused the mortgage crisis, cash for clunkers and “racial profiling,” Obama is once again, way off the mark. You don’t have to be a mathematician to figure out giving access to fifty million more people in an already burdened healthcare system, and spending less, means the patients currently in the system will be sacrificing their present level of care and services. There have been negative impacts to health care access, cancer survival rates, quality of life for the elderly, learning disabled and sick in every country where there has been a government takeover of healthcare. Obama can’t escape the laws of supply and demand. Supporting laws destined to place life-threatening hardships upon the disadvantaged and suffering is fundamentally immoral.

We’ve got to digest the threats to the sanctity of life and Catholic conscience protections, educate grassroots Catholics and make a lot of noise in the public square in the next several weeks. We’re going to see Obama infomercials pushing overhaul in the mainstream media in the month of August, ad nauseam. The theologically fallacious at “Catholics United” are firing salvos.  Catholic Charities USA, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and the Catholic Health Association are banding together to advance the taxpayer-funded abortions and euthanasia assistance crafted into the legislation.

Stand up and fight.

The Threat to the Elderly

Reading the proposals, there is no doubt that seniors will pay a heavy price. The White House has proposed the creation of an independent panel to recommend Medicare and Medicaid cuts. Seniors will not only be losing benefits – from all indications it appears that they will be losing control over life and death decisions and care. This is inhumane.

Last week, EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo put up a must read post on his blog raising the same concerns many have over disturbing references in the bill:

The elderly or people with catastrophic diseases are clearly in the sights of the Administration and the Congressional leadership for the simple reason that they cost too much. A quarter of all Medicare payments occur in the last year of life, costing the government more than 100 billion dollars a year according to Forbes Magazine.

“One troubling provision of the House bill compels seniors to submit to a counseling session every five years (and more often if they become sick or go into a nursing home) about alternatives for end-of-life care (House bill, p. 425-430). The sessions cover highly sensitive matters such as whether to receive antibiotics and ‘the use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration.’ This mandate invites abuse, and seniors could easily be pushed to refuse care.”

This “Advance Care Planning Consultation” would encourage all of us, but especially those with severe illnesses to submit to hospices rather than pursue expensive therapies that might extend life (and cost a bundle). The bill also establishes a tracking system to insure that doctors are advocating “advance care dir ectives” where you predetermine what type of care you would accept or refuse at the end of life. The problem with all of this is it assigns a utilitarian value to human life. If you are too old or disabled, there will be a built in incentive to push you into hospice and palliative care rather than work to beat the disease.

This isn’t hype and hysteria from the fringe. Calm, credible people reading the bills are drawing these same conclusions across the board. Arm yourself with citations from the bill, go to senior centers in your hometown and educate them about the contents of the “reforms.” The mainstream media is not going to publish the truth but there is nothing holding us back from doing a little “community organizing” of our own.

“By Their Fruits, You Will Know Them”

Seniors, and in fact most people in this country, are unaware that Obama recently appointed a science czar (John Holdren) who co-authored a book entitled “Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment.”  Among his philosophies are the following:

• Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
• The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation’s drinking water or in food;
• Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
• People who “contribute to social deterioration” (i.e. undesirables) “can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility.”

This comports with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s recent breathtaking admission that “Roe was to rid undesirables” and “growth populations we don’t want to have too many of.”

The President has surrounded himself with radical proaborts, including Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who will have a heavy hand of influence in shaping and executing policies. Catholics, Christians, and decent people can’t ignore the dangers of giving such people power over life, death, and health. Educate your priests and those in your parish. With enlightenment on Obama’s trajectory, the healthcare bill will take on a new patina.

The Massachusetts Experience

Catholics should be outraged that the poor are being used and exploited by the White House to swindle them out of benefits and life itself. Catholics United, Catholic Charities and the myths of other social pirates articulating that healthcare reform is about servitude to the poor should be vigorously debunked and castigated. The poor already have health coverage in combined federal and state subsidized programs (Medicaid, MassHealth and SCHIP in MA). In Massachusetts where healthcare “reform” was instituted in 2007, benefits have been siphoned from the indigent and transferred to households earning $77,400 for a family of 4. For a family of 8, the household income can be up to $111,000. But families earning $30,000, previously eligible for free healthcare, are burdened with premiums and co-payments costing nearly $10,000 for the least expensive plan.

In fact, in early July, the Boston Medical Center (formerly known as Boston City Hospital serving the poorest of the poor in Boston) filed a lawsuit against the Commonwealth of Massachusetts alleging the Commonwealth has reduced reimbursement rates and stopped paying “reasonable costs ” for treating poor patients”

The suit says the hospital will lose more than $100 million next year.

“We filed this suit more in sorrow than in anger,” said Elaine Ullian, the hospital’s chief executive. “We believe in health care reform to the bottom of our toes, but it was never, ever supposed to be financed on the backs of the poor, and that’s what has happened in Massachusetts.”

The central charge in the suit is that the state has siphoned money away from Boston Medical to help pay the considerable cost of insuring all but a small percentage of residents.

According to the suit, Massachusetts is now reimbursing Boston Medical only 64 cents for every dollar it spends treating the poor. About 10 percent of the hospital’s patients are uninsured — down from about 20 percent before the law’s passage in 2006. But many more are on Medicaid or Commonwealth Care, the state-subsidized insurance program for low-income residents…

Astoundingly, with all the rancor and rhetoric from Democrats about the compassionate immigration policies absent in the Republican agenda, when the cost of operating “healthcare reform” produced an ever-growing deficit, 30,000 legal immigrants were the first people thrown under the bus by the Democratic-controlled Massachusetts Legislature: thirty-thousand of them received letters of healthcare termination.

The cost of providing healthcare to the 30,000 immigrants is approximately $130 million a year. A vote last Wednesday’s restored $40 million of the budget, leaving uncertainty about the effect of eliminating $90 million in coverage for permanent residents who have had green cards for less than five years.

Karl Rove provided an informed analysis of the siphoning funds from the poor:

Mr. Obama’s problem is that nine out of 10 Americans would likely get worse health care if Obam aCare goes through. Of those who do not have insurance—and who therefore20might be better off—approximately one-fifth are illegal aliens, nearly three-fifths make $50,000 o r more a year and can afford insurance, and just under a third are probably eligible for Medicaid or other government programs already.

For the slice of the uninsured that is left—perhaps about 2% of all American citizens—Team Obama would dismantle the world’s greatest health-care system.

Don’t Wait for Clerical Leadership

There are valuable lessons to be learned from the Catholic trenches in Boston in terms of what lies ahead nationally. In late February of this year, the Caritas Christi health care delivery network sought and was awarded a contract that includes providing abortions, family planning services and other moral evils upon the uncatechized, the unsuspecting poor and women emotionally distraught by an unplanned pregnancy. With the advice and public consent of Boston’s Cardinal O’Malley, Caritas gave the Commonwealth written assurances that Catholic medical staff would inform women of healthcare options, including abortions. They appointed NARAL members to serve as advisors and agreed to give them access to monitor Catholic healthcare workers to ensure compliance.

Caritas set up a corporation, sought out and signed contracts with abortionists, set up a 24 hour family planning/abortion hotline number and hired employees to direct women to the abortionists with whom they contracted and took a 51% interest in the operation. A handful of Catholics relentlessly exposed the arrangement and,  with some assistance from the American Life League, we were able to get the Cardinal to retreat from ownership in the operation. However, the arrangement marched forward with all the abortion contracts, the 24-hour hotline, written assurances and NARAL oversight of Caritas employees intact.

It should be noted that Cardinal O’Malley tried to generate support for the arrangement by purporting Catholic theology to include entering into a contract that binds a Catholic in the performance of moral evils; in effect, he claimed that even though we realize the sinful nature of performing those moral evils, so long as we recruit others to perform the evils, it does not violate Catholic ethics. Theologically, spiritually and ethically, nothing could be more unsound. Knowing something is wrong and sinful and thereby baiting somebody else into doing it who doesn’t know, compounds the sin. The Caritas arrangement is as ethical as hiring Kevorkian to kill your elderly parents when become a personal and financial burden.

The Cardinal outsourced his conscience to the National Catholic Bioethics Center who reportedly gave him a formal opinion stating the current arrangement iss ethically sound. Repeated requests to the Cardinal to release the opinion of the NCBC have been rebuffed.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is clear about those who give scandal by becoming his neighbors tempter. (CCC 2284-2287) Leading other to do evil takes on a particular gravity to those in authority who cause it:

2287 Anyone who uses the power at his disposal in such a way that it leads others to do wrong becomes guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that he has directly or indirectly encouraged. “Temptations to sin are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come!”

The fight for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for the next generation of Catholics is in the hands of lay leaders. Every one of us must raise our voices in the public square.

• Clarice Feldman at Pajamas Media — “President Obama, post-racial? No. And with their silence, the NAACP and ACLU are complicit in voter intimidation.”
• If I wrote or said this (even though probably true), the race police would be after me — “Hispanic stars are pushing the ‘cash for clunkers trade-in program. Bottom line: Hispanics are hot. Sean Wolfington, the organizer of CashForClunkersInformation.org, a nongovernment site, is focusing on that group because ‘a large number of clunkers are owned by Latinos.’“
• Go see the pathetic Washington Post video at this link. Watch them show a quick pic of Hillary Clinton while suggesting that “Mad B**ch” would be an appropriate libation for a beer summit with her. This is funny? This is a worthy investment of journalists’ allegedly precious time?
• Howard Kurtz (HT Michelle Malkin) — “Had Obama not answered the last question that evening — declaring that the Cambridge police had acted “stupidly” in arresting Henry Louis Gates Jr. at his home — the (July 22) news conference would have been almost totally devoid of news. And that raises questions about whether the sessions have become mainly a vehicle for Obama to repeat familiar messages.” Gee, ya think?
• Shock (not) — “Geither Won’t Rule Out New Taxes for Middle Class.” Via George Stephanopoulos — “When I gave him several opportunities to rule out a middle class tax hike, he wouldn’t do it.”