Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - ccp

Pages: 1 ... 293 294 [295] 296 297 ... 371
14701
Politics & Religion / The next step towards single payer government run health care
« on: May 22, 2014, 07:33:03 AM »
Most employers could shift healthcare coverage to exchanges by 2020, report says
Switch from employer to individual plans could save businesses $3.25 trillion

Publish date: MAY 15, 2014
Print


By: Rachael Zimlich
 
A new report is gaining attention for its prediction that U.S. companies could save trillions of dollars over the next decade by using the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) healthcare exchanges, and eliminating employee health plans.

The report, prepared for the financial services industry by S&P Capital IQ Global Markets Intelligence, predicts that companies could shift 90% of their workers from employer-based healthcare to individual coverage on insurance marketplaces by 2020. If all U.S. companies with 50 or more employees transferred coverage for their employees to the marketplace, they could save $3.25 trillion by 2025, the report predicts. If only Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 companies did so, they would save between $690 billion and $800 billion over the same period.

The premise of the ACA is to shift the responsibility for healthcare insurance to employees. This will put corporate America in a position to redefine its role in healthcare, the report states.

S&P 500 companies employ about 138 million people, or 20% of the American workforce. So when S&P companies adopt a practice, it often indicates the start of a new, large-scale trend among employers.

The report predicts that when the switch from employer to individual insurance begins, it won’t take long to complete, with 10% of S&P companies expected to begin transferring coverage to workers by 2016, 30% by 2017, 70% by 2019 and 90% by 2020. Low- and middle-income employees, entry-level workers or new college graduates, and part-time employees will be pushed into individual coverage first and will receive federal subsidies to help afford their new plans. Higher-income workers will follow later, likely with stipends to help cover the cost of their coverage, the report predicts. Those stipends will eventually become part of employee pay, completing the transition to a complete corporate abandonment of providing healthcare coverage.

But with all that money saved, someone is going to have to pay more, whether it is employees or the government. According to the report, employees moved to the exchange would pay nearly $2,800 more for their health benefits in 2016 compared with what they paid under an employer-provided insurance plan, or an increase of about 50%. But many low-wage, and even some middle-wage, employees will be eligible for a government subsidy to offset the cost of their their premiums which will also increase the financial burden of subsidizing healthcare for the federal government, the report predicts.

On the other hand, the more individuals that purchase healthcare coverage through the exchanges, the more affordable and competitive the market will become, the report explains. Purchasing individual coverage also will reduce the stress caused by changing jobs, because coverage won’t change with the employment. Overall, the shift could give employees more control over their healthcare coverage and more stability, but could also result in higher premiums for anyone not eligible for federal subsidies or offered stipends from their employers.

The report predicts that employee costs for healthcare will more than double by 2025, although they will be paying the same percentage—about 26%—of their premiums over that period. Employers’ share of premiums will drop from roughly 70% to 33%, while the government’s share is predicted to jump from less than 4% to about 41%.

 

14702
Politics & Religion / "Obama Republicans"
« on: May 21, 2014, 08:03:54 PM »
I can't post under "future of Republican party"  ; it is locked.

So I post here.  Good lead article on Breitbart today:

Rise of the 'Obama Republicans'



 
 

 394

 2

 804

 8


 


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Email ArticlePrint articleSend a Tip
by Craig Shirley  21 May 2014, 10:48 AM PDT 710  post a comment 

The 1980 campaign brought about the dissolution of the old New Deal Coalition and the rise of the Reagan Democrat, a phrase coined by Newsweek political writer Peter Goldman after that historic election.
Yet all campaigns cannot be viewed as isolated incidents but rather as a river flowing from one through the next. Conservative Democrats broke with Adlai Stevenson in 1952 to support Eisenhower and many broke with Hubert Humphrey in 1968 to support Republican Richard Nixon or George Wallace, another Democrat.

By 1972, many conservative Democrats supported Nixon over George McGovern so at least in presidential campaigns, culturally conservative Democrats were already moving away from their historic home. Only the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976, a southern populist reformer--and Watergate--and Betty Ford’s liberalism--forestalled the inevitable.

The Gipper’s massive victory in 1980 was fueled by more that 30 percent of Democrats nationwide, who took a powder on Carter after he moved to the left. Reagan received the same amount in the 1984 election in part because he’d done nothing to disappoint them and the liberal establishment nominated Walter Mondale, a good man who was trapped in a New Deal past.

Reagan ran again as the anti-establishment candidate of the future and swamped the lifetime Democrat, ironically with the help of Democrats. Yet the Establishment Republicans simply could not abide by the realigning elections of 1980, 1984, and 1994.

By the final years of the last century, some inside the GOP wanted the Reagan Revolution to be over, thus the phrase “compassionate conservative.” George W. Bush ran and lost the popular vote in 2000 without once ever calling for a spending cut or the elimination of one single wasteful federal program. After that, the GOP would continue to embrace the persona of Reagan--they had little choice--but no longer would they embrace the American conservative philosophy of the Gipper.

Hence, the stirrings of the Obama Republicans.

What has altered the storyline in the past several years is not the emergence of the Tea Party but rather the permanent entrenchment of Big Government Republicans, aka Obama Republicans. President Obama has had that much effect on the national debate, which has had a direct effect on the national Republicans.

The last gasp of principled conservatism may have come in 2010 with the rise of the Tea Party, but this also gave rise to the countervailing force of the Obama Republicans, resulting in the nomination of Mitt Romney in 2012.

In spite of losing five of the previous six presidential contests, it is the Obama Republicans who now rule the party apparatus of the GOP. Obama Republicans have also spread out among the state bureaucracies, the academies, Wall Street, Detroit, and nearly all of corporate America.

They have bought into Obama’s Oligarchy of big business and big government doing business together, at the expense of the little guy.

Obama supported TARP. Bush supported TARP. The ruling classes supported TARP. Wall Street supported TARP. Therefore, $750 billion--initially--was taken from the rest of the country to “rescue” the corrupt elites of Wall Street.

And never one prosecution or investigation. The greatest wealth transfer in American history and the elites of both parties were in on the score. The Republicans pulled of the heist and the Democrats drove the getaway car.

Other examples abound.

The new Obama Republicans are members of the bureaucratic classes, are pro-government, pro-gay marriage, pro-abortion, pro-NSA, and pro-amnesty. They are sophisticated, urban, and have utterly nothing in common with the Tea Party Reaganites. Indeed, they are culturally closer to Obama’s and Romney’s view of the world than Reagan’s.

Power is everything. Power vindicates all. The shady forces of the national GOP party committees supported a pro-abortion, pro-Obamacare stalker in Oregon’s senate primary because she is a) a woman and b)…? The national GOP plays the very same identity politics that Obama and the Democrats have played for years by embracing one victim group after another. (Shirley & Banister assisted Jason Conger in Oregon’s GOP primary because he was the ethical conservative candidate.)

The Obama Republicans are fueled in part by old Bush speechwriters and neocons and High Tories who sometimes make a pass at talking about conservatism but that is mainly to keep the yokels at the grass roots guessing. Mostly though, they spend their time bashing the Tea Party Reaganites.

There is a dialectic to American presidential politics which occurs every generation or two. From Jefferson’s “New American Revolution” to Jackson’s “Democratic Populism” to Lincoln and the rise of the Republican reformers to Teddy Roosevelt and then to FDR’s “New Deal” and two generations later to Reagan’s “New Federalism,” and now to Obama, 28 years after Reagan--right on schedule--we may be witnessing a paradigm shift again in American politics.

It should be no surprise that the Republicans on Capitol Hill offer nothing of opposition to Obama. They can best be labeled the “Rollover Caucus.” Oh, they will run commercials and mouth platitudes to fool conservative voters to get their money and their votes for this fall, but everybody knows they’ve signed on to Obamacare because their corporate masters in the insurance companies and pharmaceutical industries told them to do so. They have always supported immigration reform because, again, their corporate masters told them to do so.

The Administrative state is here to stay, as long as the status quo holds. The only question now is how long the Tea Party Reaganites stay with a party which is fundamentally opposed to them and despises them.


14703
Politics & Religion / 2 nd post today
« on: May 21, 2014, 06:07:46 AM »
I haven't the time this AM to review this site.  Looks like it might give us more info on illegal immigration.  A colleague told me he heard illegals commit crimes way out of proportion to their numbers but when I did a very quick search this AM I find one review titled something to the effect that their crimes are blown way out of proportion and another that says their crimes are quite scary.  So finding the truth among the agendas is not easy.  And of course no one is really counting anyway.  The Feds under this WH can not be counted on to tell us the truth about what they at least really think is going on.

This might be helpful. 

http://www.illegalimmigrationstatistics.org/

14704
Politics & Religion / Re: Immigration issues
« on: May 21, 2014, 05:57:21 AM »
I like Doug's dream act.

But most immigrants illegal or not vote Democrat.  They want the benefits.  Except for many Florida Cubans and some Eastern European who were enslaved under Communism.

The rest see they can game a system for benefits and don't see the forest for the quick cash.  All is asked in return is their vote.

They duly comply.

In conclusion, Doug's well thought out and correct dream act is more of a "dream" for Doug, me, and those of us who really believed in America as exceptional.

14705
Politics & Religion / Re: Immigration issues
« on: May 20, 2014, 06:43:43 PM »
They know Obama will grant amnesty.  Either next year after this Nov election or before he leaves office.   

14706
Politics & Religion / We can thank LBJ for Vietnam and the beginning of the demise of USA
« on: May 19, 2014, 05:52:55 AM »

How LBJ ruined America:

**********Great Society's decline: The high cost of Lyndon Johnson's grand project

 By George Will 

 JewishWorldReview.com |    Standing on his presidential limousine, Lyndon Johnson, campaigning in Providence, R.I., in September 1964, bellowed through a bullhorn: “We’re in favor of a lot of things and we’re against mighty few.” This was a synopsis of what he had said four months earlier.

Fifty years ago this Thursday, at the University of Michigan, Johnson had proposed legislating into existence a Great Society. It would end poverty and racial injustice, “but that is just the beginning.” It would “rebuild the entire urban United States” while fending off “boredom and restlessness,” slaking “the hunger for community” and enhancing “the meaning of our lives” — all by assembling “the best thought and the broadest knowledge.”

In 1964, 76 percent of Americans trusted government to do the right thing “just about always or most of the time”; today, 19 percent do. The former number is one reason Johnson did so much; the latter is one consequence of his doing so.

Barry Goldwater, Johnson’s 1964 opponent who assumed that Americans would vote to have a third president in 14 months, suffered a landslide defeat. After voters rebuked FDR in 1938 for attempting to “pack” the Supreme Court, Republicans and Southern Democrats prevented any liberal legislating majority in Congress until 1965. That year, however, when 68 senators and 295 representatives were Democrats, Johnson was unfettered.

He remains, regarding government’s role, much the most consequential 20th-century president. Indeed, the American Enterprise Institute’s Nicholas Eberstadt, in his measured new booklet “The Great Society at Fifty: The Triumph and the Tragedy,” says LBJ, more than FDR, “profoundly recast the common understanding of the ends of governance.”

When Johnson became president in 1963, Social Security was America’s only nationwide social program. His programs and those they subsequently legitimated put the nation on the path to the present, in which changed social norms — dependency on government has been destigmatized — have changed America’s national character.

Between 1959 and 1966 — before the War on Poverty was implemented — the percentage of Americans living in poverty plunged by about one-third, from 22.4 to 14.7, slightly lower than in 2012. But, Eberstadt cautions, the poverty rate is “incorrigibly misleading” because government transfer payments have made income levels and consumption levels significantly different. Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, disability payments, heating assistance and other entitlements have, Eberstadt says, made income “a poor predictor of spending power for lower-income groups.” Stark material deprivation is now rare:

“By 2011 . . . average per capita housing space for people in poverty was higher than the U.S. average for 1980. . . . [Many] appliances were more common in officially impoverished homes in 2011 than in the typical American home of 1980. . . . DVD players, personal computers, and home Internet access are now typical in them — amenities not even the richest U.S. households could avail themselves of at the start of the War on Poverty.”

But the institutionalization of anti-poverty policy has been, Eberstadt says carefully, “attended” by the dramatic spread of a “tangle of pathologies.” Daniel Patrick Moynihan coined that phrase in his 1965 report calling attention to family disintegration among African Americans. The tangle, which now ensnares all races and ethnicities, includes welfare dependency and “flight from work.”

Twenty-nine percent of Americans — about 47 percent of blacks and 48 percent of Hispanics — live in households receiving means-tested benefits. And “the proportion of men 20 and older who are employed has dramatically and almost steadily dropped since the start of the War on Poverty, falling from 80.6 percent in January 1964 to 67.6 percent 50 years later.” Because work — independence, self-reliance — is essential to the culture of freedom, ominous developments have coincided with Great Society policies:

For every adult man ages 20 to 64 who is between jobs and looking for work, more than three are neither working nor seeking work, a trend that began with the Great Society. And what Eberstadt calls “the earthquake that shook family structure in the era of expansive anti-poverty policies” has seen out-of-wedlock births increase from 7.7 percent in 1965 to more than 40 percent in 2012, including 72 percent of black babies.

LBJ’s starkly bifurcated legacy includes the triumphant Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 — and the tragic aftermath of much of his other works. Eberstadt asks: Is it “simply a coincidence” that male flight from work and family breakdown have coincided with Great Society policies, and that dependence on government is more widespread and perhaps more habitual than ever? Goldwater’s insistent 1964 question is increasingly pertinent: “What’s happening to this country of ours?”

 

 

 

14707
Politics & Religion / We have LB Jerk to thank
« on: May 18, 2014, 07:27:12 PM »
How LBJ ruined America:

**********Great Society's decline: The high cost of Lyndon Johnson's grand project

 By George Will 

 JewishWorldReview.com |    Standing on his presidential limousine, Lyndon Johnson, campaigning in Providence, R.I., in September 1964, bellowed through a bullhorn: “We’re in favor of a lot of things and we’re against mighty few.” This was a synopsis of what he had said four months earlier.

Fifty years ago this Thursday, at the University of Michigan, Johnson had proposed legislating into existence a Great Society. It would end poverty and racial injustice, “but that is just the beginning.” It would “rebuild the entire urban United States” while fending off “boredom and restlessness,” slaking “the hunger for community” and enhancing “the meaning of our lives” — all by assembling “the best thought and the broadest knowledge.”

In 1964, 76 percent of Americans trusted government to do the right thing “just about always or most of the time”; today, 19 percent do. The former number is one reason Johnson did so much; the latter is one consequence of his doing so.

Barry Goldwater, Johnson’s 1964 opponent who assumed that Americans would vote to have a third president in 14 months, suffered a landslide defeat. After voters rebuked FDR in 1938 for attempting to “pack” the Supreme Court, Republicans and Southern Democrats prevented any liberal legislating majority in Congress until 1965. That year, however, when 68 senators and 295 representatives were Democrats, Johnson was unfettered.

He remains, regarding government’s role, much the most consequential 20th-century president. Indeed, the American Enterprise Institute’s Nicholas Eberstadt, in his measured new booklet “The Great Society at Fifty: The Triumph and the Tragedy,” says LBJ, more than FDR, “profoundly recast the common understanding of the ends of governance.”

When Johnson became president in 1963, Social Security was America’s only nationwide social program. His programs and those they subsequently legitimated put the nation on the path to the present, in which changed social norms — dependency on government has been destigmatized — have changed America’s national character.

Between 1959 and 1966 — before the War on Poverty was implemented — the percentage of Americans living in poverty plunged by about one-third, from 22.4 to 14.7, slightly lower than in 2012. But, Eberstadt cautions, the poverty rate is “incorrigibly misleading” because government transfer payments have made income levels and consumption levels significantly different. Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, disability payments, heating assistance and other entitlements have, Eberstadt says, made income “a poor predictor of spending power for lower-income groups.” Stark material deprivation is now rare:

“By 2011 . . . average per capita housing space for people in poverty was higher than the U.S. average for 1980. . . . [Many] appliances were more common in officially impoverished homes in 2011 than in the typical American home of 1980. . . . DVD players, personal computers, and home Internet access are now typical in them — amenities not even the richest U.S. households could avail themselves of at the start of the War on Poverty.”

But the institutionalization of anti-poverty policy has been, Eberstadt says carefully, “attended” by the dramatic spread of a “tangle of pathologies.” Daniel Patrick Moynihan coined that phrase in his 1965 report calling attention to family disintegration among African Americans. The tangle, which now ensnares all races and ethnicities, includes welfare dependency and “flight from work.”

Twenty-nine percent of Americans — about 47 percent of blacks and 48 percent of Hispanics — live in households receiving means-tested benefits. And “the proportion of men 20 and older who are employed has dramatically and almost steadily dropped since the start of the War on Poverty, falling from 80.6 percent in January 1964 to 67.6 percent 50 years later.” Because work — independence, self-reliance — is essential to the culture of freedom, ominous developments have coincided with Great Society policies:

For every adult man ages 20 to 64 who is between jobs and looking for work, more than three are neither working nor seeking work, a trend that began with the Great Society. And what Eberstadt calls “the earthquake that shook family structure in the era of expansive anti-poverty policies” has seen out-of-wedlock births increase from 7.7 percent in 1965 to more than 40 percent in 2012, including 72 percent of black babies.

LBJ’s starkly bifurcated legacy includes the triumphant Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 — and the tragic aftermath of much of his other works. Eberstadt asks: Is it “simply a coincidence” that male flight from work and family breakdown have coincided with Great Society policies, and that dependence on government is more widespread and perhaps more habitual than ever? Goldwater’s insistent 1964 question is increasingly pertinent: “What’s happening to this country of ours?”

14708
Politics & Religion / Re: The electoral process, vote fraud, SEIU/ACORN et al, etc.
« on: May 17, 2014, 06:50:33 PM »
They have no problem when their fellow Democrats win ridiculous awards.   Every other week I see Hillary winning some award which is really a thinly veiled bribe to the next potential President.   :x

I heard no disclaimer from Shapman about George Herbert Bush winning an award recently at the Kennedy Center for you know what - his bravery at raising taxes against his campaign promise.   For THAT the "F" left has an award for him.  Not any other service he provied the country his entire life.  Just for raising taxes. 
And worse, he goes and "graciously" accepts the phony award.   The Bushes are great Americans.   Their politics suck.

 :x

14709
Science, Culture, & Humanities / Economist on Marx de jour's economics
« on: May 17, 2014, 06:43:52 PM »
Piketty fever

Bigger than Marx

A wonky book on inequality becomes a blockbuster
 May 3rd 2014  | From the print edition


Timekeeper  

Making equations cool again

IT IS the closest thing to a pop-culture sensation heavyweight economics will ever provide. “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”, a vast work on the past and future of inequality by Thomas Piketty, a French economist, has become the best-selling title at Amazon.com. In America the online retailer has run out of the 700-page hardcover, which it sells for $25.

“Capital” has many virtues. It is a clear and thorough analysis of one of the foremost economic concerns of the day. It provides readers with a simple explanation for rising inequality. Wealth generally grows faster than the economy, Mr Piketty argues. What is more, there are few economic forces that counteract its natural tendency to become concentrated, as greater wealth brings greater opportunity to save and invest. In the absence of exceptionally rapid growth or a nasty period of geopolitical instability like that between 1914 and 1945, inequality therefore grows.



The book has attracted much criticism, however. The most common complaints fall into four broad categories. The first concerns Mr Piketty’s tone, beginning with the title. A deliberate allusion to Karl Marx’s magnum opus, it suggests both immodesty and an innate antipathy to markets. Some critics object to Mr Piketty’s use of words like “appropriation” to describe the rising share of income going to the rich. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Shuchman, a fund manager, fumed at the book’s “medieval hostility to the notion that financial capital earns a return”.


This is not just a matter of presentation. There is no disguising that Mr Piketty is keener on redistribution than many of his critics. Clive Crook, a columnist at Bloomberg (and former deputy editor of The Economist), asks whether the levels of future inequality the book predicts are really as “terrifying” as Mr Piketty claims.

Others find fault with the book’s economics. The statement “r > g” (meaning that the rate of return on capital is generally higher than the rate of economic growth) is central to the book’s argument that wealth tends to accumulate over time. But some complain that r is too mushily defined, especially by comparison with the calculus-strewn pages of much economics research. Writing in Foreign Affairs, Tyler Cowen of George Mason University reckons Mr Piketty sees capital as a “growing, homogeneous blob”, and so fails to take account of the variation, across time and investments, in the returns to wealth.

Happily, “Capital” is not written in economist-ese. There is relatively little mathematics; Mr Piketty uses 19th-century literature to illustrate many of his points. He freely acknowledges that riskier ventures are more lucrative than safer bets like government bonds. But he is less interested in individual investment choices than in the overall growth in value of an economy’s wealth, including everything from industrial machinery to summer homes and art collections. His data suggest that, with the exceptions mentioned, wealth of this sort does tend to grow faster than the economy as a whole. Since 1700, he reckons, wealth globally has enjoyed a typical pre-tax return of between 4% and 5% a year—considerably faster than average economic growth.

Doubting Thomas

Other critics claim that Mr Piketty ignores bedrock principles of economics. Those dictate that the return on capital should fall as it accumulates. The 100th industrial robot does not provide nearly the same boost to production as the first. Kevin Hassett, of the American Enterprise Institute, a free-market think-tank, reckons the return should fall fast enough as wealth builds that the share of income that goes to the owners of capital should not rise (as Mr Piketty suggests it does).

This disagreement is partly a problem of definitions. Capital in Mr Piketty’s book includes forms of wealth, such as land, that would not figure in economists’ models of production; his rate of return is the pace at which such wealth grows rather than the benefit to firms of investing it. Mr Piketty’s data appear to justify this approach: in the past, at least, the rich have been able to shift resources into higher-yielding forms of wealth when over-investment slashes the return. Mr Piketty also argues that the return on capital can be propped up by technology, which could lead to new ways of substituting machines for people.

A third category of criticism focuses on whether Mr Piketty overstates the extent to which the future is likely to resemble the past. Mr Cowen wonders whether r, however defined, is likely to continue to be higher than the rate of economic growth. Writing in the National Review, Jim Pethokoukis predicts that the same excessive pessimism about economies’ capacity for growth that sank Marx’s prophecies would also undermine Mr Piketty’s.

In a similar vein, some critics question the parallel between today’s wealth (which is mostly the product of soaring labour incomes) and that of the “idle rich” of the 19th century, living off inheritance. The long-run relationship between r and g has little to do with the fortunes accumulated by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.

Mr Piketty acknowledges the point, but does not let it distract him from his broader emphasis on the long-run returns to wealth. That is not an absurd decision. Some fortunes, like Warren Buffett’s, seem a confirmation of the contention that r is greater than g. Mr Piketty rightly points out that self-made riches may become tomorrow’s family fortune, given the propensity of wealth to perpetuate itself.

The book’s final section, on how policy should respond to rising inequality, has provoked the most disagreement. Mr Piketty’s proposal for a global tax on wealth is widely written off as politically impossible (which he concedes). Critics like Mr Cowen and Greg Mankiw, an economist at Harvard University, argue that his recommendations are motivated by ideology more than economics.

“Capital” does give unduly short shrift to conservative concerns. Mr Piketty glosses over the question of whether attempts to redistribute wealth will weaken growth. He also assumes, rather blithely, that growing inequality leads to instability. Yet that is not always the case: many democracies have managed such challenges without upheaval. Given the mass of data Mr Piketty has assembled, he might profitably have analysed in what circumstances inequality generates conflict. Then again, the success of his book, and the ever-expanding commentary it has provoked, will doubtless inspire others to do so soon.

From the print edition: Finance and economics

14710
Politics & Religion / Re: Benghazi and related matters
« on: May 16, 2014, 05:09:39 PM »
I wondered about that too.  Wasn't he sodomized according to reports?  I suppose she would conclude it was necrophilia.

14711
Politics & Religion / Re: Benghazi and related matters
« on: May 15, 2014, 08:02:38 AM »
Of course I never expect any real objectivity from Eleanor Clift.  I only bother to post this crazy piece to highlight how the left simply refuses to recognize and criticize a cover-up just before an election.   Just outrageous.  It really is like mafia.  Simply bribe voters with taxpayer money and we have half the population agreeing to ignore this:

*******Eleanor Clift

05.15.14

My Benghazi Scandal

I may be under fire from conservatives for saying Ambassador Stevens wasn’t murdered in Benghazi, but I’m not backing down. Here’s why I said what I did.

After getting hammered by the right for remarks I made on the McLaughlin Group last weekend, I’d like to put what I said into the context that my critics omit. My information came from a former ambassador who lamented that complex and chaotic events in Benghazi are being way oversimplified. He pointed out that Ambassador Chris Stevens died of smoke inhalation in the safe room of a CIA outpost, that he wasn’t murdered in the sense that word is normally used. I thought this was an appropriate observation and still do, despite the hysteria my saying so has ignited on the right.

There is shared blame for the fact that Stevens wasn’t properly guarded and defended, but the chaos of that night and the days following stemmed from herculean efforts to keep the CIA’s involvement secret. Stevens was a very brave and assertive ambassador. He knew the language and the people, and he took risks he shouldn’t have. The former ambassador whose views I relied on believes that Stevens was in Benghazi to confront the CIA about prisoners they were holding and interrogating at the outpost. He speculates the attack on the facility was to free the prisoners.

If these are the kinds of questions that the select committee examines, maybe it will be a worthwhile exercise.

In the meantime, for perspective, I urge everyone to read Jane Mayer’s article “Ronald Reagan’s Benghazi,” which recounts a series of terrorist attacks in Beirut beginning with the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in April 1983, when 17 Americans, including seven CIA officers, were among the 63 killed. In October 1983, a truck filled with explosives rammed a Marine compound, killing 241 unarmed Marines in their sleep. Next was the torture and murder of the CIA station chief in Beirut, followed by yet another bombing of a U.S. outpost in September 1984, two months before the presidential election.

No administration is immune to tragic events in troublesome spots in the world, and not every tragedy is a scandal.

A House investigation of the Marine barracks bombing found “very serious errors in judgment” and recommended additional security measures around the world. When the September ’84 bombing occurred nearly a year later and the security was not yet in place, Democrats did not see it as an opportunity to score political points. Instead they accepted President Reagan’s explanation that repairs take time: “Anyone who’s ever had their kitchen done over knows that it never gets done as soon as you wish it would.”

Today no one in either party would accept such a benign explanation for a lapse in security, nor should they. But no administration is immune to tragic events in troublesome spots in the world, and not every tragedy is a scandal. Poking around for partisan gain in what lawmakers now know were clandestine activities for answers to questions that for the most part have already been answered is the scandal

14712
Politics & Religion / My first thought when I saw this picture
« on: May 15, 2014, 07:50:35 AM »
I wonder if this is what the explosion of the "crater" at the battle of Petersburg, Virginia in 1864 looked like:

http://news.yahoo.com/massive-tunnel-bomb-hits-syrian-army-video-095628015.html

14713
Politics & Religion / Re: The Hillbillary Clintons long, sordid, and often criminal history
« on: May 15, 2014, 07:45:18 AM »
GM, what do you think?

Can we banish or send her on a long vacation to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elba

????

We need to rid the world of her where she can do no further harm.

14714
Politics & Religion / Re: The Hillbillary Clintons long, sordid, and often criminal history
« on: May 15, 2014, 07:35:14 AM »
One of my fellow neurologist friend whose politics would fit well on this board said she was lucky to come out of it without (obvious) brain damage.   It is not my area, but my understanding from him is that some of these people do suffer strokes and permanent brain damage.

Of course she had immediate and top of the line care.  Suppose it was someone who was home alone.

14715
Science, Culture, & Humanities / Remarkable life of a former slave: Robert Smalls
« on: May 13, 2014, 07:56:40 PM »
Escaped slavery with others by hijacking a gun boat and dressing up as whites and sailed out of Charleston harbor.
Served for the Union as a civilian advisor and met Abraham Lincoln in 1862 helping to convince the President and Sec of War Stanton to allow Blacks to fight for the Union.
Later became a Republican Congressman and served several terms.

Wrote legislation that led to the first *mandatory* public schools in the country.

Wrote legislation that would have essentially provided for racial integration of the military but it was never "considered" roghly 80 years before the military was integrated.

Gotta love the next quote from him.  How times have changed:  


Smalls identified with the Republican Party, saying it was

"The party of Lincoln which unshackled the necks of four million human beings." In his campaign speeches he said, "Every colored man who has a vote to cast, would cast that vote for the regular Republican Party and thus bury the Democratic Party so deep that there will not be seen even a bubble coming from the spot where the burial took place." Later in life he recalled, "I can never loose [sic] sight of the fact that had it not been for the Republican Party, I would have never been an office-holder of any kind—from 1862—to present."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Smalls

14716
Politics & Religion / Re: Benghazi and related matters
« on: May 11, 2014, 10:01:10 AM »
Apparently the CIC feels it is none of the public's business where he was.

Could anyone imagine the MSM accepting that as an answer if it were Nixon?

14717
Politics & Religion / The "crises"
« on: May 11, 2014, 09:59:02 AM »
Fits Hillary's narrative doesn't it?   Butchery in Africa.  Who knew?  How convenient:

http://news.yahoo.com/katie-couric-kidnapping-nigeria-bringbackourgirls-184944658.html

14718
Politics & Religion / Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of His Glibness
« on: May 10, 2014, 10:37:46 AM »
good point

14719
Politics & Religion / Re: Iraq
« on: May 10, 2014, 10:36:42 AM »
"BARAQ THREW IT AWAY"

He would see it in his political interests that the mission is not a long term success.  Fits the Democrat/Socialist Party narrative.

No coincidence.

14720
Politics & Religion / Re: The Politics of Health Care
« on: May 10, 2014, 08:30:16 AM »
My post from last year.  I pointed out I agreed with Ezekial Emanuel that there IS NO shortage of doctors or at least primary care:

*****Follow up to previous post.  Went to meeting of the New Jersey american college of physicians few weeks ago and listened to Ezekiel's talk.

Basically he starts with a bunch of charts and graphs describing what we all know - health care costs are going up and are unsustainable.

His prescription is basically for provider groups to form and control costs by monitoring what they do "outcomes" and basically what managed care has been doing for decades now.   I guess the difference is really now the politburo types are requiring we do it on industrial scale with industrial level quality control with reems of data, measurements, more data of the data more measurements and every penny counted.  He gave one example from a gourp of several hundred physcians Caremont though I don't remember where they are located and I haven't looked into it - yet.

Supposedly they cut costs while increasing the bottom line.  Thus this is a model for all.

He also explains the cost rising is down form over 2% to around 0.8%.  Of course he is suggesting he and the rest of the politburo are responsible for cost savings - not that the economy is so bad for most people they can't aford their co pays their deductables their premiums and neither can as many employers.

I only had a chance for one question so I asked him about Clay Christiansens theory that Nurse Practitioners will supplant primary care doctors and it is inevitable and no stopping it.  He said PCP's are not replaceabale by nurses and that he doesn't think that would happen - though we are clearly seeing that trend.

He doesn't believe that there is a doctor shortage.  Indeed I agree with him on that.  There probably is a shortage of a few specialties and doctors in some low income urban areas or in the boondocks but certainly not in the north east and probably the West coast.

Indded if any group feels threateneed by the low wages of illegals /legal immigrants no where is this felt more than in health care.

All we see here are doctors born everywhrere else.  The schools of course also like to play the shortage gimmack so they can get more money to churn more graduates out and the nursing programs the same.

Getting back to Emanuel his personality is the same as his brother Rahm.    He ran out after one question after mine.  I guess he had his next speaking engagement.l****

The doctors exist and are being churned out left and right.  Except is some rural areas as always.  If there are going to be longer waits it would be a  result of some doctors refusing to accept patients our of principle or more they refuse to accept the lower pay coverage.   As always follow the money.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/05/10/obamacare-surge-primary-care-overload/8894227/

14721
Science, Culture, & Humanities / FEC chair was ? Republican
« on: May 10, 2014, 08:18:05 AM »
A Republican trying to silence Drudge and Hannity?  Wow.  Is this an example of the Washington "Establishment" steamrolling conservatives OR just Democrat politics?:

http://www.fec.gov/members/goodman/goodman_bio.shtml

14722
Politics & Religion / most defense projects go over budget
« on: May 10, 2014, 07:40:27 AM »
With the recent announcement of the new multibillion dollar Presidential helicopter program the question remains will it even remain within the budget.  Answer is almost certainly no.   

http://gizmodo.com/5637188/is-this-the-reason-why-most-military-projects-go-over-budget/all

14723
Politics & Religion / I wish I could be as optimistic as you.
« on: May 10, 2014, 07:31:45 AM »
Doug writes,

"President Obama's magnificent political success can be attributed to one main cause:  weak opponents."

No doubt Republican candidates are all with flaws. 

But we are up against a very antagonistic media.

We are up against a very antagonistic educational class.

We are up against racial and gender and class politics.

We are up against buying of votes that cold hard taxpayer cash can buy.

Worse, "establishment Republicans" certainly are part of the problem.

Doug I hope your are right and I am wrong.   I think it is too late. 



14724
Politics & Religion / Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of His Glibness
« on: May 10, 2014, 07:25:02 AM »
The side by side comparison of the pictures is really creepy.   They are nearly identical in appearance.

Did his mother know this guy before he was born?  I am not clear.

14725
Politics & Religion / Re: Iraq
« on: May 10, 2014, 07:16:32 AM »
Saddam,

" I like to call a spade a spade" when speaking of Zionists and Americans.  Just not himself or his sons.

Bush thought Iraqis would be dancing in the streets when we rid them of this monster.  Some Iraqis felt that way.  But not enough.   How many Iraqis died since then 100K?

Our country did a glorious deed.  Our troops are heroes to the World.  And look at the thanks we get.  Look at the Democrat Party twisting this for political gain.

Disgusting and sad.

14726
Politics & Religion / Re: US Foreign Policy
« on: May 08, 2014, 09:09:58 AM »
" G.W.'s screw-up was thinking that we had any business (let alone any chance of success) in trying to institute a democratic, human-rights-based government in Iraq.  This is a society which has been governed by Islam, which is inherently anti-individual, and until and unless this changes, instituting a democracy there, or in any other Middle Eastern society is a fool's errand."

I agree with this.  I was wrong too because I was for getting rid of that monster Saddam.  But so was the hILL  :wink:  Ten years of "girl power" driven down our throats day in and day out.  Perhaps we can form an alliance with White, Black, Asian, Latino men  :lol: 

14727
Politics & Religion / Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the left
« on: May 08, 2014, 09:05:26 AM »
Agree with two previous posts.  I am very pessimistic that it is already too late.  The left is winning big.
We have immense corruption in government, wall street and the rest.  We hear about "1% ers" when it suits the left's political purposes.  The answer is always to tax the rich and buy votes with the cash.  Obamster reduced funding for the FBI for white collar crime.  And yet the illegals get more legal help than the rest of us:


******Administration to pledge equal education for illegal immigrants
 .

By Benjamin Goad - 05/07/14 02:27 PM EDT

The Obama administration announced Wednesday it would issue new guidance requiring U.S. schools to provide equal education to all children, regardless of their immigration status.

Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are expected to detail the proposal Thursday morning during a conference call with reporters.

The Justice and Education departments sought through 2011 guidance to ensure equal treatment for children living in the U.S. illegally in accordance with the Supreme Court’s 1982 Plyler vs. Doe ruling, which prohibited a school district from charging illegal immigrants extra tuition fees.

“The Obama administration continues to receive reports that school districts are adopting policies and practices that have the effect of discouraging, and in some cases preventing, undocumented children and children from immigrant families from enrolling in public schools,” the Justice Department said in announcing the follow-up guidance. “The new guidance is intended to help address these issues.“

The updated guidance is intended to help schools understand their responsibilities under Plyler vs. Doe and other federal civil rights laws..

Read more: http://thehill.com/regulation/205484-administration-to-pledge-equal-education-for-illegal-immigrants#ixzz318lrFiIR
Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook

14728
Politics & Religion / One of the biggest threats to our nation; under the Godless
« on: May 08, 2014, 08:46:36 AM »
The cover up of Benghazi and the complicity of the entire Democrat establishment either by ideology, bribery, and extortion is one of the threats to our country @ this time.

I don't recall any other time in history wherein we had top members of a Presidential administration cover up a terrorist attack on Americans and just before an election and there appears to be No accountability.  

For those of us who are old enough to remember Watergate the comparison is stark.  I was 15 or 16 at the time and I remember vividly how the MSM in newspapers and TV news networks were ALL OVER this story driving it home till Nixon resigned before he was impeached.  Most people in the beginning didn't even pay attention or care.  Most people still favored Nixon.  In retrospect I am not even sure that when he resigned he might not still have had more favorable voters than not.

The MSM were tripping and stepping over each other to get him (the Republican) with hysteria and demonical fervor.  

Fast forward to the present.   Any objective person can say the Benghazi cover up is far worse then was Watergate.   Bernstein says, but Nixon's crimes were not just about Watergate but an entire "shadow" government.   Don't we see an entire shadow government and press now??

The entire integrity of the Presidential Office is at stake in my opinion.   If there is no accounting of this and it is allowed that it is OK for such deceit to be inflicted on our people without holding those responsible then we are finished.  Clinton started this kind of thinking.  He may be popular but he did great damage to the integrity of the Office or the Presidency as well as our country.  

Republicans must not let this stand.  Not just for political reasons but for the future integrity of that office and our country.  

If the MSM continues to threaten Fox, talk radio, Republicans away from this.   "They risk it backfiring", "nothing there", "already old story", " we already investigated this as did the (Democratic controlled) Senate and all the rest.

Almost all the Dow companies have ties to Clinton Foundation.  So what about the 1% ers?  Republicans have to reach out to the ALL voters and point this out.  
Today the Democratic Party is the Socialist Party.  Propaganda and all.  Big problem for our future.  

14729
Politics & Religion / Re: The Hillbillary Clintons long, sordid, and often criminal history
« on: May 08, 2014, 08:28:41 AM »
The hILL is already out along with Obamster on the talk circuit turning this into the her image of girl power.  Of course this is horrific.  Along with all the other horror stories that come out of Africa as long as I can remember.   Black on Black crime.  Remember Bush I going into Somalia for humanitarian reasons?

But she seizes on this to change the topic from Lewinsky and it fits her gender twist.  IF 200 Black boys were murdered she would have been silent.

Typical Clinton change the story, twist to her political game and benefit and the journalist MSM do everything to give HER free press.  Why is it her opinion even matters now on this?

Ten more years of the Clintons.... :cry: :x :roll:

14730
Science, Culture, & Humanities / substances harder than diamonds discovered
« on: May 06, 2014, 07:38:44 PM »
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16610-diamond-no-longer-natures-hardest-material.html#.U2mb-xXD_b0

14731
Science, Culture, & Humanities / "E" cigarettes
« on: May 04, 2014, 07:34:53 AM »
My 2 cents again.  I think E cigarettes are a great idea.  A patient told me he uses one without the nicotine and flavored which helps with the "habit" part of smoking: 


*******U.S. e-cigarette experiment inspires new medical device

Reuters
By By Toni Clarke 2 hours ago
 
Electronic cigarette vaporizers Cera and Luna by Thermo-Essence Technologies are pictured in San Carlos

(L-R) Electronic cigarette vaporizers Cera and Luna by Thermo-Essence Technologies are pictured in San …
By Toni Clarke

(Reuters) - When Noah Minskoff's mother died of lung cancer in 2007, e-cigarettes were just entering the U.S. market. Minskoff, who had just started medical school in Utah, wondered whether the devices might have saved his mother's life by helping her quit smoking. Later, he sent some samples to his boyhood friend Nathan Terry, a mechanical engineer, and asked for his opinion.

Terry, who was working in Germany for the French industrial firm Areva, took apart the products to see how they were made. What he found disturbed him: at the heart of the devices were heater wires of unknown quality wrapped around bundles of glass fibers and surrounded by steel wool, silicon, plastic, tape and adhesives.

Wires between the heater, circuit board and batteries were connected with lead solder and also housed in tape and plastic. Everything was close to the heat source, meaning consumers were at risk of inhaling fiber and metal particles as well as toxic fumes from hot plastic and lead.

"There were red flags everywhere," Terry said.

Still, he liked the concept and decided to design a version of his own, avoiding the use of fiberglass, plastic and solder and sourcing his materials entirely in the United States. In 2009 he reunited with Minskoff in California and formed a company, Thermo-Essence Technologies, to sell the product.

At $300 a piece, the e-cigarette serves a niche market, albeit one with a loyal following among medical marijuana patients and smokers looking for a high-end e-cigarette. As many as 30,000 have been sold.

But what began as a quest to develop a better e-smoke has broadened into an ambitious effort to design a new medical device: an inhaler that delivers measured doses of nicotine to help people quit smoking. The technology could also eventually be used as an abuse-resistant delivery device for other drugs, including opioid painkillers.

If successful, the inhaler could become the first new smoking-cessation product to emerge from the e-cigarette field and would compete with products such as GlaxoSmithKline Plc's nicotine gum and Pfizer Inc's antismoking drug, Chantix.

A STARTUP WITH BIOTECH FUNDING

To develop the inhaler, Terry formed a second company, Minusa LLC, which is based in Newtown, Connecticut. Minskoff left Thermo-Essence for family reasons and is not involved in Minusa. Terry himself is leaving Thermo-Essence, which is currently being sold, to concentrate on Minusa.

The new company obtained initial funding from Michael Breede, a commercial real-estate-turned-biotech investor whose father suffered from drug and alcohol addiction and who is eager to see an abuse-resistant painkiller device.

"This is in my wheelhouse," he said. "I think we can put a serious dent in this problem."

When Terry developed his e-cigarette he assumed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would begin regulating the industry, as it has recently done, proposing a ban on sales to people under the age of 18 and requiring companies to register. Later it could impose product standard and quality controls.

Terry wanted to create a product that would pass any FDA inspection. He used a pure metal wire wrapped around a rod made from magnesia-stabilized zirconia, a highly durable ceramic material. Instead of meshes, tape and plastic he used novel porous ceramics and surgical-grade alloys, and instead of soldering parts together he connected them mechanically, fitting components together like Legos to complete the circuits.

He built on that design to create his drug-delivery device, known as Envi, a single-user, tamper-resistant, metered-dose inhaler.

Envi is about the size of a short cigar and comes with a spare in a case the size of a deck of playing cards.

The nicotine or other drug will come in a sealed cartridge that the patient will insert into the inhaler. To activate the device, the user will have to enter a code. The inhaler will be programed to deliver a certain amount of drug and then turn off.

When the device is returned to the case, which is required after each dose to activate it for the next dose, data on the patient's usage will be downloaded and available to be viewed electronically by the prescribing physician.

"It will only let you take your prescription," Terry said. "It will log your usage and transmit it in real time, and make it easier for the doctor to monitor and interact with the patient."

BUILDING A BETTER INHALER

Terry, 37, who grew up on an organic farm in Ohio to "hippy commune" parents and studied mechanical engineering at the University of Idaho, faces multiple challenges.

Inhalers are typically more expensive to develop than pills, and ensuring patients get the right dose is more complicated.

"I can see a lot of barriers, but the idea is certainly interesting," said Dr. Ben Forbes, a Reader in Pharmaceutics, broadly the equivalent of a U.S. professor, at King's College London who specializes in inhaled medications.

There needs to be a good reason to target a drug to the lungs, Forbes said. Drugs that are inhaled may work faster than pills, so a device that offered quick pain relief in an abuse-resistant form would be "brilliant" if it could be produced economically, he added.

"Changes in inhaler technology have been very incremental over the years, so maybe something like this would have a place."

In the meantime, big tobacco companies are developing alternative nicotine products they hope one day will carry a "modified risk" of harm. Some are dispensed through an inhaler.

Unlike Terry's smoking-cessation device, which he plans to file with the FDA's drug division, these products would be marketed as less risky alternatives to smoking and be processed through the FDA's tobacco division.

However smokers end up using the new products will be the subject of intense research by the FDA.

Terry believes he is creating a product that will survive any market configuration. Minusa has a long way to go, and human trials may be two years off. Eventually he hopes to partner with a big drug company.

"I think we can change how drugs are delivered."

(Reporting by Toni Clarke in Washington; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Prudence Crowther)


14732
Politics & Religion / frack boom
« on: May 04, 2014, 06:47:05 AM »
My 2 cents first:

I recall in the late 1990s how one expert said we were at peak oil and the world supply will forever begin to decline.
Fast forward -  yes the biggest obstacle now are the environmentalists and the liberals.  I do agree we can't allow the frackers to simply scorch the Earth and leave vast wastelands for our descendants but we needn't go the other extreme either.  Need to rid the World of Obama first.   Probably even the Clintons would sign on to the Keystone pipeline.  Even they were not that destructive of the USA as the present guy.  (They are as destructive in other ways - ethics, honesty, etc.)

 
************Jeff McMahon Contributor

Follow   

I cover green technology, energy and the environment from Chicago. full bio →


Tech 5/04/2014 @ 8:58AM 682 views

Fracking Insiders See No End To Boom
 
Despite official predictions that the U.S. energy boom will pop like a bubble in the next 20 years, people engaged in drilling for oil and gas—from the financiers to the frackers—see no end to boom times or low gas prices, industry insiders said in Chicago Friday.

Late last year the International Energy Agency predicted the U.S. would surpass Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest energy producer by 2015 but would run out of gas, so to speak, in the 2020s. The U.S. Energy Information Administration made a similar assessment  last year, predicting production would decline after 2020 and then increased demand would drive up gas prices.

But such glum assessments underestimate not only the amount of domestic shale oil and gas, but also the ingenuity of those  tapping it, the insiders suggested Friday at the Energy Forward conference hosted by the Chicago Booth Energy Group.

“It’s amazing how much is out there, and we have very high confidence on most of these plays that they’re going to be very long lived,” said Robert Beck, who explores for Anadarko Petroleum Corp.

Most shale oil wells today start strong but taper off quickly compared to conventional wells, and some cease production in 7.5 to 8 years. But drilling technologies are evolving quickly to change that, said James King, a vice president for well competition with Baker Hughes, an oilfield services company.

“There are a lot of bright minds working today to make the wells have higher rates of production, slower decline curves, better terminal production and at less cost,” King said. “In the long term I think there will be technological solutions to fast decline curves and short-life wells.”

The U.S. will set records for oil production this year, King said. ”I would expect it’s sustainable. The technology didn’t just happen, it wasn’t just switched on, it evolved over time, and we’ll have better technologies than we did before.”

New technologies are likely to be employed re-fracking wells that seem depleted to current technologies.

“There’s nothing to keep you from fracking the same well a second time or a third time. As we go back to fracking these existing wells, what we might find is that we’ll have more patience and spend a little more money on the science up front to determine where to stimulate an existing well, and so we’ll be able to bring wells back on at least as strong as they were originally.”

The U.S. has an estimated 5 to 6 trillion barrels of oil locked up in shale, said Vance L. Scott of the management consulting firm A.T. Kearney—resources up to 15 times the size of the largest oil field in Saudi Arabia, he said. “To date we’ve used as a species, depending on the source, 700 billion to a trillion in oil.”

In its 2013 Outlook, the Energy Information Administration predicted gas prices would increase by 2040 to $7.65 per million BTU. The industry insiders at Friday’s conference, while not venturing so precise a prediction so far ahead, expect prices to stabilize at a lower level for the foreseeable future.

“Eventually we think the markets are going to balance between $4 and $5—$5.50 kind of the upper bound,” Scott said.

The financial advisory firm Lazard also expects gas prices to stabilize between $4.50 and $5. The firm hired “very contrarian thinkers” to try to burst the bubble of optimism within the industry, said George Bilicic, Lazard’s global head of power, energy and infrastructure.

“We hired a consultant about 18 months ago to do a very elaborate study for us on natural gas. We said, it cannot be that everyone is right about natural gas…. We said prove why everyone is wrong. And they came back—these very contrarian thinkers—they came back and said everyone is right.”

Asked how confident he was in Lazard’s $4.5o price estimate, Bilicic said “I’m not confident at all.” There’s an argument between bulls who see prices rising with economic growth and LNG exports and bears who expect the demand for gas to be undercut by energy efficiency, renewable energy, and environmental concerns. But Lazard’s calculations place the price in that range.

“We’re not so sure where gas prices will be over the long term. We do a highly proprietary and, of course because its Lazard, highly sophisticated levelized cost of energy analysis where we use long-term gas prices at about $4.50 or $5 across the U.S.”

 “When we look at the reserves and we look at people’s ability to drill it’s hard to see how you’re going to see anything other than” that price, Bilicic said.

Environmental concerns remain the most overt threat to the boom.

“If you look at the carbon effects of natural gas and carbon is the issue, the difference between an all natural gas system and the system we have now, it’s not that much better from a carbon perspective, even displacing a lot of the coal,” Bilicic said. ”So we’re a little worried, but we think that’s the right outlook on things right now.”

Constraints could also come from unforeseen directions. Two years ago, there was a shortage of guar gum from India, a component of fracking fluids, and this winter’s polar vortex slowed transports of fracking sand from Wisconsin.

“Who would have thought little bitty things like guar and sand could slow the unconventional growth curve,” said Beck from Anadarko. “That’s another way the industry is different nowadays.”

Follow Jeff McMahon on Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, or email him here.


14733
Politics & Religion / Re: Media Issues
« on: May 04, 2014, 06:37:03 AM »
"If the left didn't have double standards, they'd have no standards at all."

Good point.  No standards at all except what suits them.  Either personally or with their progressive agenda.

14734
Politics & Religion / Drudgereport giving me heartburn
« on: May 04, 2014, 05:21:39 AM »
My second 'negative' pessimistic post of the day.  I wake up feel refreshed and then I go to Drudge just to get aggravated.  
The media had no problem with releasing the contents of an illegally recorded *private* conversation between Sterling and his essentially prostitute friend ("I should have paid her") because it fit their liberal narrative, but now suddenly how dare this guy release to the public Kerry's comments which are FAR more important to the world because it is not in *their* narrative:

****Josh Rogin 
Washington Bureau
  
05.02.14

Damn Right I Taped Kerry’s ‘Apartheid’ Talk

And if I had to do it all over again, I’d do it in the exact same way.

Ten years ago, when I was a rookie reporter for the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, I looked up to Joseph Nye as a sacred figure, the preeminent American expert on Japan. So it hurt a little when Nye wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday to accuse me of “sneaking in” to a meeting of the Trilateral Commission last week in Washington, where John Kerry made explosive remarks warning that Israeli could become “an apartheid state.”




But I don’t blame Joseph Nye for accusing me of unethical journalism practices. He is not a journalist and he does not know the “rules” of journalism, both written and not so. I do. I’m a reporter. I know the rules and I follow them meticulously. In ten years of reporting for five different top news organizations, I’ve never broken an agreement with an official or a source and I never will. My living is dependent on that reputation and I worked hard to earn it.

If a reporter agrees that a conversation or event is off-the-record, then of course he cannot print what was said during that interchange. But the unwritten rule—the one that directly applies here—is that if a reporter enters an off-the-record event uninvited and has not agreed to the off-the-record terms, he is free to report what happens inside that event. It’s the responsibility of the event organizers to keep reporters from entering events without invitations. As long as the reporter does not misrepresent himself and does not attempt to conceal a recording device, the event is fair game. That’s the rule.

Did I enter the Trilateral Commission event with Kerry, tape it, and then reveal to the world what our Secretary of State is saying to influential world leaders behind closed doors?

Damn right I did.

Other outlets, including Politico, rushed to publish posts alleging I “sneaked” into the meeting and “secretly” recorded Kerry, based on the Nye letter. They reported “great frustration at the State Dept.” over the story. Politico also dredged up a story from 2009 when Jeffrey Goldberg accused me of being a bad Jew and worse for reporting on his interview of the Israeli ambassador at a local synagogue on Yom Kippur.

(I did issue a minor correction to that story. But on the charge of being a bad Jew? Like Hebrew National, I answer to a higher authority.)

The Daily Caller pointed out that even as Politico called me a “repeat offender,” its reporter acknowledged that although attendees agreed to keep the meeting off the record, “Rogin, who was not invited to the event, was not bound by this agreement.”

The Huffington Post pointed out that Nye didn’t actually present any real evidence that I was inside the meeting at all, saying only that I was recognized by a “friend” who was a member of the commission. The unnamed “friend” would not put his name in front of the accusation. Nye declined multiple times to explain why. But it really doesn’t matter.




“If Rogin attended and did not explicitly agree to any off-the-record ground rules, and did not misrepresent himself in the process, the comments are fair game to report.”

“If Rogin attended and did not explicitly agree to any off-the-record ground rules, and did not misrepresent himself in the process, the comments are fair game to report from a journalistic standpoint,” the Huffington Post explained.

Reporters can never reveal how they get their stories. Our processes, even our tricks, are sacred. They are the only advantage we have against the powerful people and organizations trying to keep information out of the public eye. They have hundreds of public affairs personnel, millions of dollars, and the ability to enforce tight control of media access to the leaders we trust with our national security and diplomacy. We have only our sources, our savvy, and our willingness to do what’s necessary to find out the things our government is trying to hide, within the bounds of the rules.

Nevertheless, in the interest of transparency, I will make this one time exception to my rule of never talking about my reporting process. Here is exactly what happened.

Friday morning I got a tip from a source that Kerry would be speaking at the Trilateral Commission meeting at the Mandarin Oriental hotel, a luxurious place just far enough away from downtown DC to avoid random foot traffic but still only 10 minutes from my office by taxi. The State Department had disclosed Kerry’s appearance there and marked it “closed press” in their daily scheduling note, but had not disclosed the location. I hopped in a cab.

I got there early so I parked myself in an empty room near the lobby and finished up another story I was working on. At about 2:30, the time of Kerry’s scheduled remarks, I walked over to the meeting room, walked straight to the front entrance of the room, nodded politely to the staffer at the door (she nodded back) and entered along with dozens of other people who were filing in.

Nobody ever asked me who I was. I didn’t have a name tag but many of the invited attendees weren’t wearing theirs so nobody thought anything of it. As the approximately 200 attendees got settled in for the Kerry speech, I found a seat in the corner, opened up my laptop, placed my recorder on my lap in plain sight, turned it on, and waited for the fun to begin.

A fellow journalist—I won’t say who, but you can read a list of the ones that attended the event here—spotted me in the hallway before the event. We made chit chat and talked about The Trilateral Commission in general terms. He mentioned that he was a member of the Commission. He didn’t ask me if I was a member or was invited and I didn’t volunteer any information either way. I have no idea if he is the “friend” who ratted me out to Joseph Nye.

Kerry stuck mostly to his script, but veered off at times, as he often does. I was focused on his remarks about Ukraine, when he seemed to reveal new information about intelligence collection on Russia and promised new sanctions. (I finished up a story from the room, and attributed Kerry’s remarks to “an attendee,” because there I was. Once I got home and had a chance to listen to the tapes, I sourced Kerry’s remarks to a recording obtained by The Daily Beast.) Kerry’s remarks on Israel were typical for him, until he dropped the now infamous A-bomb.

I left in the middle of the Q&A because I had another appointment. We will probably never know what else Kerry told the Trilateral Commission behind closed doors. I was proud to be able to bring my readers a story about what our top diplomat says about an important issue when he didn’t think the cameras were rolling. I expected some pushback and anger from the State Department. I was surprised that so many people bought the spin that I somehow I had done something unethical.

If I had to do it all over again, I would do it in the exact same way. Event organizers and public officials should be forewarned. The public disclosure of this episode may make it harder for me to enter rooms the powerful people don’t want me in, maybe not, we’ll see. If it does, no worries, I’ve got plenty of other ways to get important and true information about our government to my readers. I don’t have to break the rules to break news.

I will admit to one ethical indiscretion in the reporting of these stories. While I was waiting for Kerry to get to the meeting, I partook of the lunch buffet and made myself a plate of pork loin, chicken, and a very nice rice pilaf. Professor Nye, my apologies. Please send me a bill.****

14735
Politics & Religion / The Clintons
« on: May 04, 2014, 05:09:23 AM »
Sorry Doug.  As much as I wish you are right I beg to differ......

"And Geffen, who gave Obama his first big Hollywood fund-raiser in 2008 and broke with the Clintons because he felt they lied “with such ease, it’s troubling,” now says he will “absolutely” support Hillary in 2016, calling her “an extraordinary, smart, accomplished woman.”

This country is so screwed.  Barring an unforeseen event or events the Republican party which by the way also does NOT represent me, but is closer to my values, has NO chance of defeating this *machine*.  The machine is far greater than the Clintons themselves.  It truly is remarkable how all Crats consistently fall into line when needed.  Just remarkable.
Any semblance of honesty or ethics is right out the window.  Lock step Jack footed boots; in lock step, and marching forward:

****Maureen Dowd

42 and 45 Overpower 44
MAY 3, 2014

Maureen Dowd  
WASHINGTON — THE First Family is all over the news, discussing the management of the economy, income inequality, raising the minimum wage, the vicissitudes of press coverage and the benefits of healthy eating.

Everywhere you look, the Clintons rule.

Bill popped up on the front page of The Times giving a speech at his alma mater, Georgetown University, in which he defended his economic policies and chastised the press for its tendency to create a “storyline” that doesn’t match reality. (Sort of like the storyline the Clintons created about Monica Lewinsky being a delusional stalker.)

Hillary’s Apache dance with the press is detailed in the new issue of Politico Magazine, a piece that got a lot more buzz than the news the White House was excited about on Friday: a sharp drop in the unemployment rate.

Chelsea is serenely smiling from the cover of Fast Company for a story on how “the product of two of the most powerful brands in the world” is “carving out her own identity — by joining the family business,” as vice chair in charge of shaping up the tangled finances of the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation. Her impending baby is being treated with enormous fanfare and exhaustive political analysis, like America’s answer to Britain’s bonny Prince George.

Obamaworld was even paranoid that Hillaryland would hijack the B-list festivities associated with the annual White House Correspondents Dinner this weekend.

The former and future Democratic regime is clearly itching to get back in the saddle and relieve a president who is stalled on every front, and who never really got any joy from working the joystick of power or appreciated the value of the carrot-stick approach that helped Lincoln and L.B.J. bend history.

Both President Obama and Hillary have recently referred to leadership as a relay race. And if a fatigued and fed-up Obama looks ready to pass the baton early, the ravenous and relentless Clintons look ready to grab it — and maybe give him a few whacks over the head with it.

Obama’s reign has become increasingly bloodless, and while the Clintons are not new blood, they do convey more vitality than the formerly electrifying politician in the White House.

Things have now reached the point where it feels as though 42 and 45 have already taken over the reins of Washington power from 44, who is fading Snapchat-fast.

The Clintons now have Obama, as one top Democrat said, “totally at their mercy” because they “take the oxygen out of the room.”

Hillary’s stock is so high — almost as high as her speaking fees — that in The Daily Beast, Tina Brown urged the front-runner to skip the campaign and simply go straight to becoming “post-President.”

Just to make the Clintons feel completely at home as they ramp up to the restoration, there is even a congressional investigation spurred by the vast right-wing conspiracy.

House Speaker John Boehner announced Friday that he would call a vote to set up a select committee to look into the Benghazi debacle, and whether Congress was misled by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others in the Obama administration.

As Slate’s Dave Weigel tweeted, “The nice thing about having a Benghazi select committee is you can roll it over into the Hillary presidency.”

Many of those who aroused the Clintons’ opprobrium and well-known taste for vengeance by supporting the rookie Barack Obama in 2008 thought they were headed to a fresh era in politics, moving past the gnarly braiding of the personal and political that led to chaos in the Clinton era.

But the Clinton machine, once described by David Geffen as “very unpleasant and unattractive and effective,” has a Rasputin resilience. And now those who broke away are in the awkward position of having to make nice with the woman they helped vanquish.

Samantha Power recently said that she regretted calling Hillary a “monster” and offered her new view: “She just brings such rigor and conviction to everything she touches.”

Claire McCaskill, who endorsed Obama in 2008 and said she didn’t want her daughter near Bill Clinton and confided to a friend that she was nervous to be alone in an elevator with Hillary, announced in June that she is “Ready for Hillary.”

Caroline Kennedy, whose endorsement in 2008 comparing Obama to her father was pivotal, told NBC’s Chuck Todd: “I would like to see her run if that’s what she wants to do. I think she would be great.”

The will take a 42 and 45 anytime over a 41, 43 and 45.
There's just enough time for Barry to resign, make Joe president and show Bill and Hill he door.
 
Geffen might note the Clinton's still lie at ease, but next to Obama, they sound like saints. Come to think of it, Richard Nixon was a saint...
 
 And Geffen, who gave Obama his first big Hollywood fund-raiser in 2008 and broke with the Clintons because he felt they lied “with such ease, it’s troubling,” now says he will “absolutely” support Hillary in 2016, calling her “an extraordinary, smart, accomplished woman.”

Elizabeth Warren, who criticized Hillary in a 2003 book for an unprincipled stand on a bankruptcy bill, siding with the big banks she needed to bankroll her political career, lets Hillary off the hook in her new book.

Leon Panetta, who served as chief of staff for Bill Clinton and secretary of defense for Obama, told The Times that Obama had not yet defined America’s 21st-century role in the world.

“Hopefully, he’ll do it,” Panetta said, “and certainly, she would.”

The president who dreamed of being “transformative” seems bummed, and that’s bumming out Americans.

But when you talk about batting singles, you’re just asking to be overshadowed by the next big draft pick. If you’re playing small ball and you’re articulating your diminished expectations, it’s only natural that someone is going to fill the void.

Some Obama aides get irritated when Hillary distances herself from Obama and when her advisers paint her as tougher than Obama, someone who wouldn’t be afraid to drop the hammer and sickle on Vladimir Putin.

And some in Obamaworld think she could have skipped her $200,000-plus speeches to Goldman Sachs and helped the stumbling president make his push on health care, given that the push was focused on moms and kids, an area of interest for the woman who would be the first woman president.
Continue reading the main story  239Comments
But they were hoisted on their own petard. It was the lone-cat President Obama who ignored the usual practice in politics — dancin’ with those who brung ya and dismantling your bitter rival’s machine — and encouraged the view of Hillary as the presumptive nominee over his unfailingly loyal vice president, Joe Biden. Three of his key political advisers — Jim Messina, Jeremy Bird and Mitch Stewart — have gone to super PACs supporting Hillary.

David Plouffe, the president’s former top political adviser, said Hillary could call him for advice and told Bloomberg’s Al Hunt that “there’s very little oxygen” for another Democrat to challenge her.

As Obama has learned, to his dismay, there’s now very little oxygen for him, too.
 
A version of this op-ed appears in print on May 4, 2014, on page SR1 of the New York edition with the headline: 42 and 45 Overpower 44. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe  

14736
Politics & Religion / Re: US Economics, the stock market , and other investment/savings strategies
« on: May 02, 2014, 07:43:25 PM »
Fair enough as long as you keep posting him when the market tanks as it inevitably always does.  OF course he or I know not when.  But he will still be talking his same schpeel.  (nicer Yiddish version of  bull shit).

14737
Politics & Religion / Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the left
« on: May 02, 2014, 07:39:15 PM »
I only post this liberal propaganda because of this line:

"The Republican "more drilling brings the price down" argument clearly isn't working. It is, however, making oil companies a hefty profit at our taxpayer-subsidized expense."

I have to ask, since when does the left give a crap about taxpayers.  Leave it up these people and our taxes would be substantially higher.  Yet here he tries to sound like he is protecting taxpayers. 

******Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva Become a fan
Co-chair, Congressional Progressive Caucus

'Drill, Baby, Drill' Has Failed -- And Now We Can Do Something About It
 

 Posted:  05/02/2014 11:18 am EDT    Updated:  05/02/2014 11:59 am EDT   

 In the next few weeks, Congress will decide the country's Fiscal Year 2015 funding priorities. A lot is riding on whether we fund necessary environmental, clean energy and reclamation programs or leave them to wither. I'm hoping we do the right thing.

It's important to know the context. Americans paid an average of $3.57 for a gallon of gasoline last year. Compare that to the $2.40 per gallon average in 2009. The Republican "more drilling brings the price down" argument clearly isn't working. It is, however, making oil companies a hefty profit at our taxpayer-subsidized expense. We need a better national strategy.

This year President Obama requested about $6.9 billion for clean energy technology programs at the Department of Energy, the Department of Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency. Many parts of his proposal are smart investments in our environmental future. Unfortunately, the administration wants to accelerate the already rapidly expanding exploitation of domestic oil and gas fields. This would do grave damage to our already heavily stressed climate.

How stressed? Last month, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a series of reports finding once again that human activities are the leading cause of higher atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) levels and a warming climate. The reports find that CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industrial processes have contributed 78 percent of total GHG emissions since 1970. The scientific community expects the volume to double -- some even say triple -- by 2050.

Unfortunately, my Republican colleagues have other things on their minds. In the guise of being worried about the economy, they have introduced a number of bad bills to allow oil and gas companies to drill and frack wherever and however they please. This won't help the consumer. Since 2008 oil production from federal lands and waters has gone up 7 percent and 35 percent, respectively. Despite that dramatic increase in extraction, gas prices haven't gone down since 2009.

More oil and gas activity adds more CO2 to the atmosphere, causing our climate to get warmer. The scientific consensus on those questions is overwhelming. The only debate today exists in professional climate change denial circles. If my conservative colleagues are concerned about the country we leave our children, my question is this: Is our environmental debt out of control? Is it time for us to scale it back?

Solving environmental degradation and curbing climate change are not easy tasks. But I believe we have the chance to do what's right for our future now, without waiting. We need to curb the carbon dioxide emissions already polluting our atmosphere; just as seriously, we need to start making sustained investments in a cleaner future. Part of the president's proposed budget would address this, especially through increased renewable energy production investments and through the Climate Action Plan.

Republicans keep arguing for sequestration as the only way to reduce the deficit. I think they're wrong, but their argument raises an important question: When you see a problem, when is it time to stop contributing to it? When is enough enough? When Congress finalizes the FY2015 budget, I hope my colleagues bear in mind the need to start chipping away at the environmental debt we're leaving our children. Coming generations of Americans will judge us harshly if we continue to pollute our atmosphere in the name of short-term profits, especially when there's a better way.

This post is part of a series from the Safe Climate Caucus. The Caucus comprises 38 members of the House of Representatives who have committed to ending the conspiracy of silence in Congress about the dangers of climate change. For more information, visit the Safe Climate Caucus website and like the Safe Climate Caucus on Facebook.*****

14738
Politics & Religion / My thoughts
« on: May 02, 2014, 06:10:52 PM »
Benghazi - just "right wing" hysterics because "they can't come up with anything else so says MSLSD's Chris Hayes pounding the table today @ the same time Fox is covering the story in an honest and legitimate way.

This is just as much BS as the Black Caucus Congressman saying anyone opposed to Obama is not opposed to him because he is a lying, manipulative, pompous, arrogant asshole who deceives, distorts, cons, robs, breaks laws, hates Jews, hates whites, hates America, hates capitalism, is a Communist, is a megalomaniac, but because, get this, he's black.   

No Congressman, you can talk stupid but many of us are not as dumb as you.

14739
Politics & Religion / Re: US Economics, the stock market , and other investment/savings strategies
« on: May 02, 2014, 05:58:02 PM »
"Either way, Q1 is in the rear-view mirror and real GDP is set to accelerate sharply in Q2."

I told you.  Growth at minus 01%.   No biggy.   Oh growth is set to accelerate big time next quarter.

Sorry.  Yeah this guy happened to be right the last couple of years.  He is still a horses ass. 

14740
Politics & Religion / Re: The Politics of Health Care
« on: May 01, 2014, 08:36:56 AM »
"Howard Dean, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, warned that "The IPAB is essentially a health-care rationing body"

Well of course.  That is also what the whole electronic medical record, the expansion of codes by several times, the reporting of "data" are about.  It is all about control and cutting costs.  Under the guise of better "quality" care of course.

As for the rich being able to get better care - it has and will always be that way.  This is NOT new.  Anyone know of any famous person who could NOT get an organ transplant?

Name one!

14741
Science, Culture, & Humanities / Re: Privacy, Big Brother (State and Corporate) and the 4th & 9th Amendments
« on: May 01, 2014, 08:32:05 AM »
Government could be even more corrupt than private organizations.  Nothing in this piece surprises me.  I have patients who are Federal employees who have told me stories.

I have witnessed cover-ups first hand at the Copyright Office.

Very few watchdogs exist and from what I see they are up against people who may know more but fear for their jobs and will "sacrifice" or "get involved" to become a whistleblower,  massive backscratching among managers, bribery,  and agency lawyers who are more concerned about covering up the agencies problems for reputational reasons then rooting out illegal/unethical activity.

 

14742
Politics & Religion / Here it comes: "Save the political system"
« on: May 01, 2014, 08:23:15 AM »
By making voting mandatory!
Voting is a right and a privilege.  Not a taxable offense if you don't vote.   First the comparison to jury duty is not equivalent.  People are screened before sitting on a jury.
Second, can anyone imagine the fraud if we all start voting from smartphones and other gadgets?  Third there is NO question this about progressives getting more of people who are big government advocates to dish them more money to vote.   All this will do is increase the centralization of power even more.  This will not fix the "system".  It will result in even more of our rights being taken away.   Fourth micro-targeting will not go away as suggested.   The battle for ideas will not go away.  Manipulating voters views will not go away.  Indeed it will likely and inevitably serve to have more ignorant people vote on emotional issues or whoever promises the most benefits to them.
Fifth, what if some people simply do not want to vote?  Now they commit a criminal offense?  This is purely a big moneyed Democrat trying to con us to coercing more Democrat votes.    (Didn't the napster punk steal the idea from someone else?)   These silicon guys may or may not be great business people but some still seem like punks to me.

The time should never come for this:   

****The time has come to make you vote

By Matt Bai 6 hours ago Yahoo News

Voting booths are set up in Waterloo, Iowa. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Word is that Sean Parker, the 34-year-old Web visionary who built Napster and then helped grow Facebook, is the latest billionaire with an idea to save the political system, or at least a lot of money in search of an idea to save the political system. Parker and other investors are said to be planning a startup aimed at organizing disaffected voters. They've hired some well-connected Washington consultants, because that's what you do when you really want to stick it to the status quo.

This isn't new space, exactly. A few years ago, some moderate operatives in both parties got together and started something called "No Labels," which sends a lot of admonishing petitions to Congress about partisanship and which has the backing of politicians who like to expound on the ugliness of our politics but don't actually want to do anything too controversial.

The truth is that incivility is more a symptom than a sickness; the root cause of our problem is the antiquated system by which we choose our leaders. And if Parker and his high-tech friends really want to "disrupt" our political stalemate in the way they disrupted record labels, then they should consider something more drastic than urging people to get involved. Maybe it's time we coerced them.

Let's first consider the situation in which we find ourselves. Once again this year, the two parties that dominate our politics will conduct parallel campaigns aimed at two distinct subsets of Americans, rather than engaging in any actual debate. One side will scream about liberal overreach and the other will scream about conservative greed and bigotry, and whoever arouses the most passion in their most reliable voters (generally the party out of power at the moment) will probably win.

It wasn't like this when we were a nation that joined and trusted institutions, including political parties. But now that fewer and fewer Americans feel compelled to support their local parties or even register as affiliated, primaries are dominated by an ever dwindling number of hardcore activists, and they're deciding options for the rest of us. And since more than half of voting-age Americans will find those options so uninspiring that they would rather stay home than vote this November, the vast majority of time and money on both sides will be focused on motivating voters who already agree with them.

There are some promising reform ideas out there. Californians have had some success with nonpartisan elections, which bypass the traditional primary system. There's a lot of talk about curtailing all the outside money flowing into campaigns, too – though the Supreme Court is unlikely to cooperate. Taking the responsibility for redistricting away from politicians is a no-brainer for everyone but the parties themselves, which continue to resist it.

But I recently heard a more radical argument from my friend Jonathan Cowan, who runs Third Way, the centrist Democratic think tank. Cowan has been kicking around the idea of compulsory voting – or, in other words, a government mandate just like the one that now forces you to buy health care insurance, except it would require everybody to vote.   

I first heard a version of this argument back in 2008, when I gave a series of talks in Australia. The Australians have compulsory voting and they're quite proud of themselves for it, and some of their politicians had fun engaging me in a spirited debate about whose democracy was really more of a model for the world, since they could boast 100 percent voter participation in every election.

The concept struck me then as essentially un-American. After all, as I argued to my Australian friends, part of being a free country is having the freedom to abstain. And anyway, as I rudely pointed out, a country whose Parliament can technically be dissolved by the British queen can hardly go around calling itself a democracy, much less a perfect one.

But Cowan makes a compelling case that compulsory voting in federal elections would actually be the most elegant way to revitalize our democracy overnight, without having to chase a series of piecemeal reforms in dozens of legislatures. Think about it: If voter participation suddenly went from, say, 40 percent in an off-year election to 95 percent (assuming there will always be some slackers and protesters who defy the law and risk the penalty), then the modern industry of voter turnout operations would magically go away.

No more arcane microtargeting and database wizardry. No more overwrought direct mail playing to the most irrational fears of gun owners or xenophobes. No more "base elections" where the only message is that the other guy is a Satan worshipper who will call forth the horsemen of the apocalypse if you let him win.

Suddenly candidates would have to think about ideas again – about how to persuade all of these skeptical, unaffiliated voters that they actually have a plan to govern. The parties would almost certainly open their primaries to independents, if not move entirely to nonpartisan elections, because it would be the only way to make sure their nominees had broad enough appeal to win. Candidates would have to be more responsive to the broad electorate than to the tiny number of wealthy contributors who currently help them get out the vote.

You'd have to decide, of course, whether to tax people who refuse to vote or whether to treat it as a criminal offense, like refusing to register for the draft. (Probably the former, practically speaking.) You'd have to make sure voters could still come to the polls and formally abstain, so there's no violation of free speech. And you'd have to make it a lot easier to vote than it is now, which means extending the voting period well beyond a single day and letting people e-vote from home.

(And before all you professors send me mail again telling me how the Internet can't even protect your credit card, much less protect your vote from Chinese hackers, let me just say: Yes, I know, online voting can never be as failsafe as, say, the days when we trusted some guy in Chicago to count up a box full of paper ballots and take them in his trunk to the county office. But I think we can figure it out.)

You could argue that Parker and his fellow investors would be wasting their time to campaign for something so hard to achieve. It's not entirely clear to scholars who've looked at the issue whether you could impose compulsory voting by statute, which would be pretty hard to do, or whether the Supreme Court would ultimately require a constitutional amendment, which might be nearly impossible.

But there's a value to starting a national conversation about ways to modernize the electoral system, which is long past due. And it's hard to imagine that even Silicon Valley's brightest minds can build a real movement of unaffiliated voters without having at least one big, serious proposal to rally them around.

Is compulsory voting un-American? No more so, now that I think about it, than making people serve on juries for their own civic good – which everyone complains about but no one really resents. I find the argument persuasive, which is more than you can say for our campaigns

14743
Politics & Religion / Re: US Economics, the stock market , and other investment/savings strategies
« on: May 01, 2014, 06:54:21 AM »
Wesbury will talk down the deterioration of growth and say it is at least not yet anything to woryy about but something just to keep an eye on.  He will then spew his usual rant about how the economy is hunky dory, etc. 


14744
Politics & Religion / Re: Benghazi and related matters
« on: May 01, 2014, 06:52:16 AM »
Yep.  This is clearly a bigger scandal than Watergate ever was.   Only difference is that now it is *their* guy, so the MSM refuses to do anything about it.

Yet we here over and over again about Sterling's private conversations that were illegally taped and released to the media.  It is really terrible how the NBA players are treated isn't it?  :-P

14745
Science, Culture, & Humanities / Charen on Race "preferences"
« on: April 29, 2014, 06:00:41 PM »

What Race Preferences Hide

Mona Charen
By Mona Charen April 25, 2014 3:00 AM
   
Sonia Sotomayor is a wonderful role model. Truly. Through hard work, brains and rare self-discipline at an early age, she was able to overcome poverty and family dysfunction to become what she is today. She was diagnosed at the age of 7 with Type 1 diabetes, and because her father was an alcoholic and her mother a full-time nurse, it fell to her to manage the daily insulin injections and testing that are part of the required treatment. The image, in her memoir, of a small girl dragging a chair to the stove so she could sterilize her syringes before school is poignant indeed.

Any person attempting to overcome hardship can look to Sotomayor for inspiration. But as she demonstrated in her long, impassioned dissent in the case of Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, the experience of benefiting from race preferences has left her prickly and defensive on the subject. As others, including her Supreme Court colleague Justice Clarence Thomas, have argued, that kind of gnawing insecurity is one of the consequences of preferences. Others are never sure if you've achieved your position entirely on merit, and neither are you.

Sotomayor's argument rests entirely on a fallacy — that lowering admission standards for certain minority applicants is the only possible response to concerns about racial and ethnic disparities in American life. "Race matters," she scolded again and again in her dissent. Actually, she went further and argued that a Michigan constitutional amendment that explicitly forbids racial discrimination amounts to racial discrimination.

The contention that white, Asian and other students should be disadvantaged because of discrimination against blacks that ceased decades before they were born is facially unjust. Under the regime of preferences, the white child of a poor waitress from Scranton, Pennsylvania, who would be the first person in her family to ever attend college, will have to get SAT scores about 300 points higher (depending upon the school) than the black daughter of a dermatologist from Beverly Hills, California. An Asian student would have to score even higher, because that minority is, according to those who insist on counting by race, "overrepresented."

Admissions officers at selective schools pretend they are offering opportunity to "underserved" minorities, but in reality, they are simply lowering standards for already-privileged students with the preferred skin tone. Ninety-two percent of blacks at elite colleges are from the top half of the income distribution. A study a decade ago at Harvard Law School found that only a third of students had four African-American grandparents. Another third were from interracial families. The rest were children of recent immigrants from Africa or the West Indies.

Should mixed-race students get half a preference? Should their scores be 50 percent higher than students with two black parents? These are the kinds of absurdities our current system presents.

Racial and ethnic preferences are unjust — reason enough to abandon them — but there are other reasons as well. They serve to perpetuate, rather than combat, racial stereotypes. They encourage gaming the system (as when Elizabeth Warren claimed to be Native American). They permit students from certain groups to coast in high school knowing they will get an automatic golden ticket to college. They encourage intergroup resentment. They result in what Stuart Taylor Jr. and Richard Sander have rightly called "mismatching" students — so that all but the very top minority students wind up attending schools that are a little out of their league. This, in turn, causes more minority students to abandon demanding majors like science and technology (so necessary for the economy's flourishing), and to drop out in numbers far higher than other students. Black students are about a third more likely than similarly qualified other students to start college, but less likely to finish.

When California outlawed racial preferences in 1996, preference advocates predicted apocalyptic consequences. Instead, as Taylor and Sander reported, "Black and Hispanic students improved their academic performance, stuck more successfully to (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) majors, and graduated at stunningly improved rates."

Dropping preferences is not harmful to minority students; it's beneficial. It should not be the end of the story, though. The gap in achievement between some minority groups and others can and should be addressed. Contra Sotomayor, it's not so much that "race matters" as that schools matter. The shame of the nation is that poor children continue to be so trapped in terrible schools. That is the disgrace that race counters cloak.

To find out more about Mona Charen and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2014 CREATORS.COM

14746
Politics & Religion / Re: Venezuela
« on: April 29, 2014, 06:00:25 AM »
"Perez said construction began without checking water availability and now a dam would have to be dug to make the project viable."

We here of government project over runs here too.  I don't know the statistics but we here all the time of defense cost "overruns" on basically every single project.

Stadiums always cost more to build then "projected".  I don't understand why we don't have contracts that limit the amount available and the entity that accepts the contract must meet those limits.  Or they borrow money privately and then pay the overdrawn balance back.

14747
Politics & Religion / Off the Drudgereport
« on: April 29, 2014, 05:54:29 AM »
I don't often post off of Drudge because I figure we all can see it easily but I think this video highlights the crucial problem facing "America" today.   It shows quite clearly the wrapped hatred of the liberals for our country and how they love to foster hatred, anger, jealousy, envy, racism, and the blame someone else game to garner support for more centralized governmental power.   This is the central issue we face in America IMHO.   Who is going to win this debate.  Unfortunately, as long as big gov keeps buying votes 40% will not even listen to the debate.  They won't care.  They just want subsidies paid for by others.  ("The rich")  Always the "rich".

The closest people able to respond to the socialist view are some talk show hosts and a few others like VDH etc.  I still have not heard one well known politician deal with this effectively.  We have no  mouth piece in politics.   No one represents many of us.   I liked Santorum's points on the 2016 Presidential thread that I posted a few days ago. 

www.deadline.com/2014/04/hot-trailer-dinesh-dsouzas-america/

14748
Politics & Religion / Re: The Way Forward for the American Creed
« on: April 29, 2014, 05:46:26 AM »
Yes this is unbelievable.    :cry:   To think some of these idiots vote.   Of course 40% will always vote for the government to continue handing them more and blame someone else for their woes. 

These people interviewed appear to be born American.  At least they don't have any foreign accents.   I've heard years ago that immigrants used to be more up to date on our history than many born here. 

I don't think that is even remotely true now in the sense that the people coming here are much less of European ancestry and from countries with less in common than Europe had with us.

They are much more expectant of government subsidies today.   

 

14749
Politics & Religion / Re: US Economics, the stock market , and other investment/savings strategies
« on: April 28, 2014, 06:31:06 PM »
One can notice that there is a pattern change around 10Am to trading though it could go up or down, but something does happen 1/2 hour in.


14750
Politics & Religion / Re: Politics
« on: April 27, 2014, 05:32:37 PM »
Good article by DVH on Harry Reid.

I recently read somewhere about the fortunes of past Presidents.  Many in the 19th century died with nothing or very little.  Unlike politicians of today who get wealthy either while in office or by selling their connections later.   Their families all seem to cash in too.

Pages: 1 ... 293 294 [295] 296 297 ... 371