More Evidence of Political Chicanery at Work among Liberals

Investor's Daily tells us in this article just how ineptly the current administration is dealing with the two main institutional culprits involved in the crash of our financial system in 2008.  This article refers to the knowledgeable Peter Wallison of the AEI who provides here the missing link (at least in my mind) to the disastrous financial meltdown, the cause of our economic distress now and probably for the next decade.  Bottom line of both articles: the disastrous outcome whenever politics and the financial system collude.  In this case Barney Frank and his idiot liberal political allies (Maxine Waters, Chris Dodd, Chuck Schumer, Barack Obama (as Senator), Bill Clinton, Bob Rubin, et al) were able to get control of the major financial GSEs (Fred and Fan) by appointing their political soulmates (Frank Raines, Johnson) to key executive positions where they successfully thwarted attempts by Republicans to regulate and control their activities.  Not only did these worthies block attempts to regulate the GSEs, they cooked the books and lied about the classification of the mortgages they were taking on and thus hid from rating agencies and the public the enormity of the risks they were incurring on behalf of taxpayers.  All in the name of "affordable housing" for the poor.  Social engineering run amok, is what it should be called and all those responsible should be run out of the public square and made to live in one of the communities they wrecked with their liberal ideology.  Disgraceful!

Healthcare via the free market

Many solutions have been offered by way of solving the problem presented by our current healthcare system but none are better stated and argued than this one here

The Liberal way of thought -- PTS

The liberal mindset, logic and willingness to rewrite and manipulate history to fit a narrative is on display here, with Frank Rich's latest column in the NYT.  Leaving aside Mr. Rich's main theme that Tiger Woods's "deception" is but one in a decade long series deceptions produced by many business and a few political leaders, we are presented with Rich's Mother of all deceptions, those (guess who) who engineered the "predetermined march" into the unnecessary Iraq War.   What's wonderful about Mr. Rich's world is that he never has to make a life or death decision affecting the safety of others.  His decisions are what story to write today, and what facts to use and leave out of the story in order to fit the narrative he's pushing.  Incredibly, in today.s column during the discussion of the run up to the "fiasco" of the Iraq war there is no mention of:  the 9/11 attack by radical muslims and the death of 3,000 souls on American soil,  the 17 resolutions of the UN Security Council ignored by Sadam Hussein,  the ejection by Sadam of the UN inspectors looking for WMD (especially atomic weapons),  the prior use of WMD by Sadam on his own people (Kurds),  the use of WMD on the Iranians, Sadam's aggression against both the Iranians and the Kuwatis, and finally the use of torture and terrorism by his sons and his private police to keep the Iraqis subjugated.  Instead we are told that there were those (Obama among them) who made arguments (not provided) in opposition to the war from the get go but who were not heeded.  So?  Those people are right in their own eyes and in the eyes of those who then and now may believe as they do.  That's all.  The rest of us continue to believe, for those reasons given and others, that the Iraq War rid the world of one very evil regime that sooner or later would wreak major havoc on the world, havoc that could make 9/11 pale by comparison.  But again, in Mr. Rich's world, no one has to worry about anyone else's safety, just what the narrative of the day is.  Nice work.  Just not real work.

Meltdown financial crises revisited -- PTS

The Claremont Institute carefully analyzes many subjects, now turns its sights on the financial crises or meltdown, as sometimes called.  The article here, "Is Deregulation to Blame?", focuses on the history of CDSs (credit default swaps), and the so-called lack of regulation (actually overregulation in the eyes of the author), and other systemic failures as the cause of the collapse of the financial markets and institutions.  I found this article particularly interesting having just read two recent books on the housing meltdown causes, "Architects of Ruin", by Peter Scheitzer, and "The Housing Boom and Bust", by Thomas Sowell.  The former focuses on the politicization of the housing market and its players as the root cause, and the latter Sowell book more on the underlying economic fundamentals as the primary cause.  Both books make fascinating reading and their basic premises are underscored by the Claremont Institute piece linked to above.  Bottom line of all three sources:  Overregulation and over meddling by politicians in the dynamics of the free market economy, caused major distortions which led directly to the collapse of the housing market and the financial institutions involved in this market.  We are now witnessing the repeat of the regulatory mistakes made going back to the New Deal as the current administration sets about layering on more regulations the net effect of which will be to create more moral hazards and lead to another bust, sooner or later.  All three sources here argue for less regulation and more competition, especially in the area of free market rating agencies where excessive risks can and should be identified for investors.  The duopoly of Moody's and S&P's rating companies failed miserably in identifying risky behavior on the part of large banks and insurance companies largely because they were selectively endorsed by the SEC thus freezing out competitors.  This issue was not covered in the two books but supports their call for more competition and less regulation, certainly no more which we are about to get.

Additionally this blog pinpoints those responsible for the huge explosion in the mortgages promoted by the policies of the Clinton administration.  Specifically it was Andrew Cuomo when he became the head of HUD during the second four years of the failed Clinton administration who opened the floodgates for the bad paper that eventually sank the financial system.  Cuomo, whose father was a flaming liberal governor of NY, has social engineering in the blood.  What a joke.

The answer to healthcare conundrum -- PTS

As usual, Milton Friedman had the answer to the problem with the medical services industry in this country, outlined in this Hoover institute article provided here.  In brief, the reason medical expenditures comprise over 17% of the GDP in the US, compared with an average of maybe 12% or so in other OECD countries, is because of our reliance on 1) third party payers (employers and the government via medicare and medicaid), and 2) the enactment of medicare and medicaid programs in 1965.  Prior to those two factors in our healthcare delivery system, our costs were comparable to other OECD countries.  The solution, according to Friedman: Get rid of the third party payer system, medicare and medicaid, create HSAs (health care savings accounts), let insurance do what it's supposed to (not provide prepaid healthcare but insure against catastrophe), and watch costs plummet while provider services improve.  If one believes in free markets and we all should, Friedman has got it right.  This article is a must read.

American medical care at work -- PTS

A year and a half ago, a close friend, in a freak accident, suffered a severe neck injury.  Timely medical care, constant and dedicated support of a strong and caring wife, and extraordinary personal willpower, has led to an almost miraculous recovery, for which his family and many friends remain eternally grateful.

My friend was airlifted from a somewhat remote location in Maine where the accident occurred to a regional Maine trauma treatment center several hundred miles away.  He was operated on within hours of the accident by a skilled surgeon and started receiving physical therapy shortly thereafter.  Within two weeks he was transported nearly two thousand miles away to a paralysis treatment facility, underwritten largely by a Fortune 100 company  in the state of Georgia.   After two months of intensive, extremely rigorous rehabilitation he was released to return to his home in California.  Here in California he continued a regimen of strenuous rehabilitation with yet another highly skilled medical practitioner.  One year after this accident occurred, he began playing golf again.  While it took the encouragement and dedication provided by a exceptionally strong and devoted spouse, and while it took the indomitable willpower of a highly disciplined individual for this successful outcome, it most assuredly took medical practices and practitioners in all likelihood uniquely available in this country of ours. Why would anyone want to fundamentally change the entire medical system in a country that is capable of producing an outcome such as this one?  While reforms are needed in the healthcare delivery system, throwing the baby out with the bath water is surely not prudent.  Let's take our time and get these changes in the system right.

This post blog discusses how critical immediate intervention at many levels is in the prevention of permanent paralysis.

The KSM Trial, part II -- PTS

Geraldo Rivera of the Fox News program, and the editorialist at the San Francisco chronicle, both recently articulated the liberal position on the Attorney General's decision to move the trial of KSM, et al, from the scheduled military tribunal at Guantanamo to NYC and the civil authorities.  This position seems to be that it is right and just to try these criminals where they committed their crimes, that the citizens of NYC deserve this opportunity to "host" this trial, and that by trying them in civil courts with the full panoply of rights accorded the accused in our system of justice, we would demonstrate to the world our fairness and the strength of our judicial system.  Thomas Sowell offered some thoughts on this reasoning:

The mindset of the left behind such thinking was spelled out in an editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle, which said that “Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the professed mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, will be tried the right way— the American way, in a federal courtroom where the world will see both his guilt and the nation’s adherence to the rule of law.”

This is not the rule of law but the application of laws to situations for which they were not designed.

How many Americans may pay with their lives for the intelligence secrets and methods that can forced to be disclosed to Al Qaeda was not mentioned. Nor was there mention of how many foreign nations and individuals whose cooperation with us in the war on terror have been involved in countering Al Qaeda— nor how many foreign nations and individuals will have to think twice now, before cooperating with us again, when their role can be revealed in court to our enemies, who can exact revenge on them.

Behind this decision and others is the notion that we have to demonstrate our good faith to other nations, sometimes called “world opinion.” Just who are these saintly nations whose favor we must curry, at the risk of American lives and the national security of the United States?

Internationally, the law of the jungle ultimately prevails, despite pious talk about “the international community” and “world opinion,” or the pompous and corrupt farce of the United Nations. Yet this is the gallery to which Barack Obama has been playing, both before and after becoming President of the United States.

Sowell's column in its entirety is here.  It seems clear that what Obama and his crowd are doing is pandering to the extreme left (where they also reside) who want to put the Bush administration on trial for its conduct of the WOT.  At the very least this decision is extremely ill-timed  in view of the massacre at Ft. Hood and the fact the perpetrator was a radical extremist Muslim.  As much as the libs deny it, obviously the WOT is far from over.  In addition one of the inconvenient little facts bedeviling these libs is the absence of any attacks in America after 9/11 during the evil Bush administration's conduct of the war.  Revealing more state secrets through the discovery process in an open trial of these terrorists hardly seems wise.

Obama's KSM Decision -- PTS

Obama's decision to try Khalid et. al., in a civil criminal court in NYC represents probably the worst judgement ever by a President of the US.  There are likely nefarious reasons for this decision as pointed out here on this carefully researched blog from Powerline's Scott, entitled Trying KSM part2 .  More background on the reason for this horrible decision is found in this article by Paul Mirengoff in the Washington Examiner.  Obama is making Jimmah Carter look like Abe Lincoln.  

Diana West Weighs In Again -- PTS

Diana West, who has been arguing for sometime that we should leave the Middle East entirely, seal off our country's borders and economy from Muslims from the Middle East now has an ally  for her position in  a prominent British Labor politician, Kim Howells, who made news in Great Britain this week with a proposal summed up under the Guardian headline: "It's time to pull out of Afghanistan and take the fight to Bin Laden in Britain."  As Diana says, coming from a former Foreign Office minister who has supported the war in Afghanistan, "this proposal is guaranteed to crack the UK war debate wide open, something that has yet to happen in the US". Read her article here.  In another recent article here, Ms West discusses the evolution of the current administration's policy regarding jihad and the Islamic faith, the US military's embrace of politically correct diversity in the army, and concludes Americans are at serious risk.  

Obama Hates America

American Spectator columnist Mark Hyman describes here, why he believes Obama viscerally hates America.  It seems quite clear, based on his past associations and what he wrote in his autobiography, that he does truly despise America.  Many warned from the  beginning of Obama's campaign for the presidency that not enough was known about his past, and what was known was deeply concerning.  Hyman has catalogued all these incidents prior to and since his election that lead him to the conclusion Obama truly despises America.  It is difficult to imagine how Obama supporters can refute this devastating recitation of evidence, to be sure they will try.  Obama is a fraud, a narcissistic strutting peacock, whose election to the highest office in the land will haunt this country for at least three more years.  The damage he is doing and can do is incalculable.  He and his administration must be resisted.

ADDED 5/16/10:  Victor Davis Hanson lays out his view of Obama's career here, rise to the presidency, and more.  The comments section of this post is an interesting read in that there are lots of theories as to what O is up to, how he got where he is, and what is going to happen in the future.

Pelosi/Obamacare what's really in the just passed outrageous bill -- PTS

The Wall Street Journal reporter Betsy McCaughey tells us here, what's in the bill just passed in the House.  Horrifying, unless you're a socialist or a government employee.  Forgive me, I repeat myself.  This bill has no redeeming features whatsoever. None.  While healthcare reform is necessary and desirable, the creation of 111 new bureaucracies to administer rules, regulations and prices is not the reform we need.  Market based incentives, beginning by eliminating the employer based third party payer system we now have, creation of HSAs for everyone, allowing interstate insurance company competition, tort reform with teeth, and cleaning up the fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid are a few starters.  Not one of these reforms are in the monster program created by the socialist in the WH and the HoR.  The Democrats are insane.

The Horror and Lessons of Communism -- PTS

 Click here, for a fascinating blog by C.J. Rummel, a political scientist of great repute (taught at Yale, among many other "elite" schools).   His subject is demotics or the murder of human beings by oppressive regimes, mostly communist.  This enlightening blog is replete with charts that provide the specific numbers of deaths caused by the various totalitarian regimes over the past century of the experiment with communism.  Mr. Rummel has written extensively on warfare, it's causes, results, and avoidance.  It's no surprise that he offers extensive evidence that democracies rarely, if ever,  attack one another and are, by far, the best antidote to general warfare.  His home page provides access to much of his work over many years in the study of war and it's cause.  Fascinating stuff.

The Left and the Hasan outrage -- PTS

In his most recent article here, J.R. Dunn, a regular contributor to The American Thinker emagazine, has captured the essence of the reaction of the leftmedia, its ennablers and assorted fellow travelers, to the Muslim Hasan's murderous rampage at Ft. Hood.  Dunn does a first rate job of providing the history of the leftists in this country dating back to the '50's McCarthy era and the "witch hunt" atmosphere then that gave them the "cover" ever since to undermine the legitimate efforts of various Republican administrations to provide for the security of the American people.  His message is a call to arms for those of us not infected with the deadly virus (pacifism, anti-Americanism, socialism) of the left to stand up to them, shuck our normal reluctance to be abrasive and confrontational, take down names and numbers and begin to call them out.  Much like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are no doing on their radio and TV programs.  No more Mr. Nice Guy.

The Lesson of Ft. Hood -- PTS

Before all is said and done, Diana West, who has spent her adult life studying and coming to grips with the many issues concerning the Middle East and the West, will have much to say about the significance of the Ft. Hood massacre.  What she will probably say is this tragic episode was predictable and is just another chapter in the clash of two irreconcilable civilizations.  Ms West has argued for many years that this clash between civilizations is inevitable, because it represents irreconcilable views of the value of individual life in civil society, and in general of the purpose of life here on earth.  She has written extensively about the gradual and relentless insinuation of Muslims into the economic and cultural life of European countries and Great Britain cautioning that individual assimilation into these societies is not occurring and what's more cannot for many reasons.  Paramount among these reasons is the Western concept of the separation of church and state, an issue that was resolved in the West over two hundred years ago. Most Muslims, no matter where they live, believe in Sharia Law, such as we see in Iran today.  Religious leaders dictate the terms and conditions of civil life, there is no toleration of dissent, freedom of choice, speech, or other individual freedoms valued in the West.  Fatwas, edicts from the Mullahs, determine customs, and proscribe how individuals are to lead their lives.  There is no room for compromise between these two opposite constructs for society.  There are, in this view, no moderate or liberal practicing Muslims with whom we in the West can identify or make common cause.  We will forever see eruptions like the Ft. Hood massacre as a consequence of the intolerance of Sharia law as the unifying force in the Muslim world.  An AP report describing the horror at Ft. Hood which appeared in the Minneapolis newspaper is here.

Where does the debt lead us? -- PTS

Robert Samuelson, a well-known and respected economist as far as I know, writes about the government debt here, in an article in this week's Newsweek Magazine.  The bottom line of his argument: because we are in unchartered waters, along with Japan and other Western industrialized countries, there's no way of knowing the consequences of this pileup of debt until we face a crises that provokes a sudden loss of confidence.  Samuelson doesn't say what this crises might be but presumably it would be the inability to continue selling debt in the amount required to keep financing budget shortfalls.  He does suggest that when the crises occurs the solution will be to default on the existing debt with consequences to be determined since we and other responsible countries have never done this before.  These are interesting times.

The Shame of Yale -- PTS

Diana West, an accomplished reporter whose work has appeared in many leading publications over the years, is best known for her knowledge and writing about the Middle East and the rise of radial Islamic states and organizations.  It is her belief that we in the West are far too complacent about the threat posed by this rise, and in particular are not doing enough to counter it.  Coincidentally she does not believe the wars in Iraq or Afgahanistan are an effective response by the West to the threat of radical Islam.  Her point of departure in these accompanying articles for this point of view is the issue involving the publication of cartoons depicting Mohammed that appeared in a Danish newspaper some time ago and the concomitant violent reaction to this event by the Moslem community in Denmark and worldwide. Recently Yale University Press agreed to publish a book about these cartoons and their significance and subsequent freedom of speech issues raised by those events in Denmark.  Her two recent articles relating to this matter are here, and here.  There's not a lot to be said about the Yale Administration in this matter other than that it is obvious that both the Administration and the student body are deeply mired in the swamp of politically correct multiculturalism.   Diana West's articles are enough to make an alumnus cringe.

Helen's Cuisine Extraordinaire -- PTS

Sausage and friends with red tomato garnish

One of the benefits of living with an accomplished cook is the serendipitous experience of watching and tasting the mundane become the exceptional. Such is the case with the dish above which doesn't really have a name but might be described as fried sausage, cauliflower and friends.  According to the creator the ingredients are:  turkey sausage, fresh cauliflower, 4 sliced fingerling potatoes, one sliced red onion,  fennel seeds, and finally a pinch of red pepper flakes.  Begin by sauteeing onions and potatoes in one tablespoon of canola oil in a frying pan over high heat.  Add sausage mixing well all ingredients.  Simmer 10 minutes.  Add cauliflower with 2 ounces of water and simmer until cauliflower is tender and browned, adding a bit more water if necessary.  Sprinkle fennel seeds and pepper on top and serve.  It's as tasty a meal as it is simple.  My mouth waters just thinking about it once again.

Public Option debate -- PTS

There are many issues in the healthcare debate, but none more controversial than the so-called "public option". A link to Paul Samuelson's article in WAPO is here, where he explains the issue.  For an even more in-depth article by a free lance economist, Morgen Richmond, go to here, and here, for parts one and two. Richmond lays the blame for the confusion about the public option squarely on the shoulders of the press for not explaining how Obama and others have been consciously and consistently misleading the public on the intent of this part of the plan for reforming healthcare.  It is a sordid story and highlights how corrupt the media has become, and how little it can be trusted to fairly explain issues because of its bias.


JDW adds:  These articles conclusively prove that this whole public option is, as advertised, a Trojan horse that the Democrats understand will lead them to their promised land, the single payer system.  This system is failing in both Great Britain and Canada.  Is there any reason why we should want it here in the US?

Chris Matthews, POTUS, and the left's agenda -- PTS

It's hard to believe how disgusting Chris Matthews, most other leftie commentators, and the POTUS are when it comes to the 24/7 Bush bashing they engage in week in, week out.  Once again tonight Matthews, as he does almost weekly on his MSNBC program, accused George Bush of lying about the intelligence that led to the Iraq war. Matthews in the course of noting that some organization recently invited Bush to talk to them about leadership, and so forth, wondered why anyone who dragged us into two wars that were unnecessary and ill-advised would be invited anywhere to speak about leadership, or anything else, for that matter.  Same old same old.  Matthews is a broken record on the subject, and the POTUS rarely fails to mention all the messes he inherited from Bush every time he is delivers speeches.  Once and for all doesn't he, and all the rest of the facts deprived left recall that every intelligence organization in the western world thought Hussein possessed WMD, and no one doubted that he would use them since he already had on his own people, that he was harboring or at least allowing al Queda groups to train their recruits on Iraqi territory?  Do they forget that authorization for Bush to go to war with Hussein was almost unanimously voted by members of both political parties? Furthermore is there any doubt that Hussein refused to allow UN inspections of suspected atomic weaponry facilities and that he defied United Nations resolutions on seventeen separate occasions. What's behind all this silly whining by these puerile talking heads and the president who repeatedly ignore facts and distort history?  The bigger story is probably the plan liberals have to change the American way of life. To do this they must discredit any and all attempts by conservatives to preserve the old way of life.  Here's what Thomas Sowell,  one of the clearest thinking pundits out there had to say in a published column today:

Nothing so epitomizes President Obama's own contempt for American values and traditions like trying to ram two bills through Congress in his first year-- each bill more than a thousand pages long-- too fast for either of them to be read, much less discussed. That he succeeded only the first time says that some people are starting to wake up. Whether enough people will wake up in time to keep America from being dismantled, piece by piece, is another question-- and the biggest question for this generation.

It begins by degrading the goals, objectives, and values of any conservative leaders and ends up touting the cause of those who believe that all nations are better served by giving up their sovereignty to a world order and governance under the banner of some transnational organization like the UN. Defense? Who needs defense in a world where every state's rights are equally valid and must be protected from an aggressive super power, like the US.  Obama and his crowd are taking this Republic into territory we've never seen before.  It is dangerous.  If one wants to know how dangerous it is, here's a link to an article that sheds light on this administration and it's putative leader: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/narcissistic_rage_in_the_white_1.html, for a link to an article in American thinker that should give everyone pause.