Dodd, At It Again

Source: http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=512318

11/12/2009

Financial 'Reform': Sen. Chris Dodd's proposed overhaul would replace the Federal Reserve with a "super regulator" to oversee the banking and financial industries. Will it work? Consider the source.

Along with fellow Democrat Barney Frank, now chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Dodd, who heads the Senate Banking Committee, has done as much to damage this nation's financial system as anyone — and that includes all the CEOs and subprime scoundrels as well as former Fed chief Alan Greenspan, whom many blame for lax oversight and too-loose credit in the run-up to the meltdown.

What did Dodd do? In recent decades, he and his fellow Democrats created a system of perverse incentives by unleashing the Community Reinvestment Act to force banks to make bad loans, then encouraging Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to finance the scheme with taxpayer-guaranteed borrowing.

It led to Fannie and Freddie virtually taking over the mortgage industry. It also led to the financial meltdown that began in 2007, from which we're still trying to escape. Now Dodd wants to "fix" what he and his pals broke.

In particular, Dodd's bill would shrink the duties of the Fed. As the Washington Post put it, his plan "would impose the most fundamental change in the Fed's mission since the Great Depression, leaving it responsible for little besides setting monetary policy."

For those who ask "so what?" — let's start with the obvious: The Fed did not create the financial crisis, though it's possible that holding interest rates at a 40-year low for nearly a year in 2003 and 2004 contributed to its severity. No, our system melted down because the banks did what they were told by Dodd and others in Congress: lend money, even when it was financially unwise to do so.

Dodd and other believers in government's omnipotence think regulators can know at all times what's going on in the economy — and control it. They can't. The economy is far too complex — and the temptations to corruption and greed far too great.

As economist Don Boudreaux wrote: "These unavoidable realities of the human condition will result in the One Big Regulator ... injecting into financial markets systematic risks far greater than those that already exist."

Dead on. It will, in short, be worse than what we currently have.

By handing off the Fed's risk-management, consumer-protection and bank-regulation responsibilities to a new super agency, we wouldn't just be shuffling responsibilities — we'd also be fostering the dangerous delusion that all our economic ills require massive new bureaucracies to cure them.

Why would Dodd & Co. do this? One reason might be that the Fed by law is highly independent. So the senator and others in Congress can't tell it what to do, or even threaten it through the budget. This builds resentment in Congress. And as we all know, Congress is all about control. Having once ruined our financial system, they now seek even more control.

The Fed isn't perfect, but it is independent. And a number of studies in recent years have shown that central banks around the world do a better job when they're free of direct political pressure.

We may take issue with the Fed's role in bank bailouts, or its conduct of interest-rate policy, but we don't think those would be corrected by having a super regulator in charge. Quite the contrary.

Perhaps Dodd expects us to forget his role in the 2007-09 financial fiasco — how he was part of Congress' oversight of the banking system as he and others in the legislative branch accepted sweetheart loans from the very banks they were supposed to oversee.

Well, we haven't. Such incompetence and venality cost us trillions of dollars in bailouts, phony stimulus and TARP funding. Our financial system doesn't need more oversight of this sort.

Stimulus Fraud

Source: http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=512766

11/17/2009

The Economy: We knew something was funny when the White House claimed that 640,000 to 1 million jobs had been created from this year's stimulus. What we didn't know was that it would turn into a massive fraud.

Not only have 640,000 new jobs not been created from the stimulus — an absurd claim, given the economy's loss of nearly 4 million payroll positions this year — but it now seems that even the jobs themselves are fictional.

Thanks to the digging of a number of data sleuths, it turns out that many of the jobs reported by states come from made-up congressional districts.

This would be funny if it weren't a criminal waste of public funds. And yet, G. Edward DeSeve, who runs the government's economic recovery program, says the errors are "relatively few" and "don't change the fundamental conclusions one can draw from the data."

Excuse us? The "relatively few" errors are in fact thousands in number. But that's the pernicious place we find ourselves today — a public official defending shoddy accounting that looks an awful lot like fraud to the tune of billions of dollars.

One example: the 15th Congressional District of Arizona, where 30 jobs were salvaged with $761,420 in spending, according to Recovery.gov, the official government Web site. As ABC News reports: "There is no 15th Congressional District in Arizona; the state has only eight districts."

States as diverse as Kansas, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Ohio, Minnesota and West Virginia also reported phony jobs.

Stimulus jobs were also reported in 35 congressional districts in Washington, D.C., and four U.S. territories. The problem: None of those jurisdictions even has congressional districts.

All told, according to the useful Web site Watchdog.org, some $6.4 billion was spent to "create or save" 30,000 jobs in phantom districts. That comes out to about $225,000 per nonexistent job. And that's only what's been found so far.

The Washington Examiner's bogus-job count is even higher — at 75,343, a figure likely to climb as more are discovered.

Some cases were egregious. California's state university system took in $268.5 million in stimulus funds, claiming it "saved" 26,000 jobs. It has since admitted that few, if any, jobs were really at risk.

The government's response to all this? "Human beings make mistakes," shrugged Recovery Board spokesman Ed Pound on Monday. But by Tuesday, as the furor grew, the board's DeSeve was vowing to go through reports with a "fine-tooth comb."

But this should have been done all along. The official Web site vows that stimulus spending will "be subject to unprecedented transparency and accountability," and that inspectors general of 28 federal agencies will "continually review" their spending.

To our knowledge, however, none of the errors was found by an inspector general. All were discovered by private individuals curious about what their tax dollars were being spent on.

Imagine for a moment a CEO standing before the public and claiming similar bookkeeping errors. He'd be arrested for fraud, frog-marched from his office, tried, convicted and left to rot in jail.

We said from the start that the stimulus and TARP programs would be an invitation to fraud, waste and abuse. Sadly, this has proved true. Yet no one is likely to suffer so much as a reprimand.

As the White House talks about another stimulus, Americans need to know that the promises of transparency and openness in the first program haven't been kept. And that billions of their tax dollars are being wasted.

Civilian cop Mark Todd was REAL hero whose shots ended Ft. Hood masscare, says his mom! By Rich Schapiro

Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2009/11/12/2009-11-12_civilian_cop_mark_todd_was_real_hero_whose_shots_ended_ft_hood_masscare_says_his.html

November 13th 2009

Sgt. Mark Todd, 42, of the Killeen police department is the person who actually shot Major Nidel Malik Hasan in last week's massacre.

My son's a hero, too!

The mother of a civilian cop whose role in ending the Fort Hood massacre was overshadowed by his tiny, female partner insisted Thursday her son deserves commendation.

"When he told me what happened, I was thinking, 'Why are they giving this woman all the credit?'" Mary Todd, 66, the mother of Sgt. Mark Todd, told the Daily News.

"I don't want to diminish what she did. I just hope they give him credit, too."

In the days after Thursday's mass shooting at Fort Hood, Sgt. Kimberly Munley was widely lauded for her role in taking down gunman Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.

One Fort Hood official described how a wounded Munley stayed on her feet in a raging gun battle with Hasan and ended his rampage with two well-placed bullets into his torso.

That account appears to be false.

Todd, 42, said Thursday his bullets felled Hasan. Providing the most detailed account of the takedown, Todd said he and Munley arrived at the base processing center at the same time, but split up.

Munley encountered Hasan first and was shot three times in the ensuing gun battle. It's unclear if Hasan was hit.

Still on his feet, the blood-thirsty Army psychiatrist paused to load his handgun before Todd found him.

"I came around. I challenged him. I saw him turn toward me and I started taking fire again, and then I returned fire," Todd told NBC's "Today" show.

Todd said that his shots knocked Hasan off of his feet and he then he checked the gunman for other weapons.

"I thank God to this day that I wasn't hit," Todd added. "It was a miracle."

Wake Up America, Your Standard of Living Is In Jeopardy! By Mallory Factor

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/11/09/mallory-factor-america-decline-standard-living-downhill/

November 09, 2009

Old-fashioned parents know how important it is to teach their children the “value of a dollar.” Uncle Sam doesn’t seem to have learned this lesson though, which has grave implications for our future standard of living.

For most of this decade, the Federal Reserve has pursued a policy of having a “weak” dollar, a dollar that’s cheap in relation to other currencies. Current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke prevailed on former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan to adopt this policy, and Bernanke is now continuing it. And if continued much longer, a weak dollar policy—combined with overspending and bad tax policy--will irreparably reduce America’s standard of living.

Inherent in the idea of standard of living is the level of our present and future consumption. America’s “standard of living” is generally considered a measure of how easy it is for us to satisfy our material desires. There are many ways we might look at this--how many televisions or computers we have per household, how much health care we consume on a per capita basis and how many families in our nation live below the poverty level. But however our standard of living is measured, current monetary, fiscal and tax policies will diminish it if we stay on our current path.

Now, clearly some people benefit from a weak dollar. Farmers and other exporters who sell abroad benefit because their products are cheaper (and thus more attractive) on world markets. But because we purchase so many more foreign goods than we export, a weak dollar policy is very bad for consumers and decreases our purchasing power.

Over the last 20 years, America’s appetite for foreign goods has increased multifold. And it is not that easy just to “buy American.” In many cases, there may not be an American choice in a particular product category and if there is, the “American” product may still have significant foreign content in it. This means that as the dollar weakens, our purchases of foreign goods cost much, much more. We will see our household purchasing power decline in future years as effects of the weak dollar policy filter through our economy.

Another effect of a weakening dollar is that investors fear holding assets in dollars. And so the steadily weakening dollar has produced capital flight from the U.S. which harms our economy, as investors seek assets denominated in other, stronger currencies. This leads to a downward spiral as dollars become less and less desirable.

U.S. per capita gross domestic product (GDP) has fallen over 25% since 2000 when measured in euros (a more stable gauge of value than the weak dollar), according to top Wall Street economist David Malpass. Germany’s GDP has overtaken America’s GDP on a per capita basis. And America’s standard of living relative to the rest of the world is falling off a cliff -- with President Obama’s policies giving it a two-armed push over the edge.

Spending plays a major role. The Obama budget also includes record shattering federal spending increases and trillion dollar annual deficits, doubling the national debt in five years, and tripling it in ten. The Administration’s own budget numbers now show total Federal debt reaching $23.3 trillion in 2019. That debt will exceed 100% of GDP by 2011, giving us the honor of the 7th highest government debt-to-GDP ratio in the world. As Judy Shelton recently reported in The Wall Street Journal, that puts us in the company of Zimbabwe, Lebanon, Singapore, Jamaica, Japan, and Italy.

To put our national debt in perspective -- a country cannot even join the European Union unless its government debt-to-GDP ratio does not exceed 60%. This means that even if we wanted to join the EU, our economic fundamentals may soon be seen as too weak.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) projects that under current policies, the federal debt will climb to almost 300% of GDP by 2040. Even during World War II, the national debt peaked at 113% of GDP. This was only a temporary condition and at least we vanquished Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in return for spike in the debt. Now, huge debts are a way of life in America. Obama’s budget busters include increasing federal welfare spending by one third in just his first two years, with total welfare spending soaring to $1 trillion by 2014 and $10.3 trillion over the next 10 years, according to the Heritage Foundation.

Consider also the effect of taxes. President Obama’s budget provides for increasing the capital gains tax rate by 33% at the start of 2011. The top federal income tax rate would also increase by almost 30% if a health care reform bill similar to the one passed by the House this weekend becomes law. These prospective tax increases on earnings in dollars would cause further capital flight, increasing the downward spiral of the dollar and our standard of living.

These soaring tax rates and crushing deficits will lead to a continued decline of American living standards. Based on the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s GDP and inflation assumptions, continued declines in household wealth holdings are projected from 2009 to 2014, with real U.S. per capita GDP falling to below 2000 levels. So much for the Obama recovery.

But the hit to our standard of living could be much worse than even these numbers show. The economy has performed substantially worse this year than was assumed in the Obama budget, with our growth lower and unemployment at a much higher level. Economists predict that these negative trends will continue in the near future. -- This means future deficits and debt will be far higher than the administration projects.



Unlike our government, Americans have drastically cut back on their discretionary spending in response to frightening economic conditions. In some cases, Americans have done this because they are unemployed and can’t afford to spend, but many others have done this out of fear of what may be to come. We may think that it is appropriate for Americans to learn to consume less. But even if we chose now voluntarily to reduce our consumption of cars, electronics and houses, we still want to be able to afford to purchase them in the future.

The decline of America’s standard of living can be reversed with a dramatic change in course to pro-growth economic policies. But American voters need to wake up, or face declining standards of living far into the future. While a Susan B. Anthony dollar may be larger than a euro in size, it will take change to our fiscal and monetary policies to make the value of our dollar approach that of the euro any time soon.

Mallory Factor is the co-chairman and co-founder of the Monday Meeting, an influential meeting of economic conservatives, journalists and corporate leaders in New York City. Mr. Factor is a well-known merchant banker and speaks and writes frequently on economic and fiscal topics for news stations, leading newspapers and other print and online publications. Mr. Factor appears  on "Fox & Friends,"  "The Strategy Room" and other Fox News Channel programs. He is a frequent contributor to the Fox Forum . Contact him at mallory.factor@malloryfactor.com.

Health Reform Would Bury Small Business By Sally Pipes

Source: http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=511634

11/06/2009

President Obama recently delivered a special address aimed at quelling small-business owners' concerns about Democratic plans for health care reform.

The legislation, he assured, would "benefit millions of small businesses" and was "being written with the interests of Americans like you and your employees in mind."

That's a nice sentiment. But it's not backed up by the facts. Several new studies show that ObamaCare will dramatically increase health costs for most small businesses.

One study relied on actuarial data from WellPoint, a large health insurer that provided customer data in 14 states where it operates Blue Cross plans. The report concluded that 70% of small businesses would experience higher health insurance premiums if the Democrats' health plan passes.

For the average small employer in New York City, the increase in premiums would be modest — just 6%. But in Franklin County, Ohio, a typical small business would be hit with an 86% increase. Similarly sized businesses in Louisville, Ky., and Richmond, Va., would see their premiums go up 20% and 25%, respectively.

These findings align with the results of a different study, produced by Blue Cross Blue Shield and the consulting firm Oliver Wyman. It estimated that the average small business would experience a 19% jump in premiums within the first five years of ObamaCare's passage.

A third study, from America's Health Insurance Plans and PricewaterhouseCoopers, found that the reform bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee would result in a 28% increase in premiums for firms with fewer than 50 workers by 2019.

Simply put, the Democrats' reform plans would raise the cost of insurance for small businesses. A quick look at the various elements of their legislative package shows why.

For starters, the Democrats' proposal would require every insurance policy to cover a minimum set of benefits, even if the customer doesn't want or need them. At the state level, such benefit mandates can increase the cost of a basic insurance plan by 20% to 50%.

Why? Insurers price their products based on how much they might have to pay out in claims. The more treatments an insurer is on the hook for, the more costly it is to cover each customer, and therefore the higher the premium.

The Democrats' package would also institute a federal "guaranteed-issue" law, which would prohibit insurers from denying coverage to customers based on pre-existing conditions.

This reform is well-intentioned. But it ensures that many people will wait until they get sick to buy health insurance. Insurers' risk pools will dry up until only those with chronic health problems remain. Companies will respond by jacking up premiums. Indeed, states that have implemented guaranteed-issue laws have seen premiums jump 227%.

Of course, rising health-insurance prices hurt all employers — big and small. But the bigger ones have the luxury of spreading those costs among many workers. They can also use their purchasing clout to negotiate lower rates with carriers.

Small businesses don't have these advantages. That's why, on average, they pay 18% higher premiums than their large counterparts, according to the Commonwealth Fund.

Even without the Democrats' "reforms," small-business health premiums were expected to go up, on average, by 15% over the next year. And to add insult to injury, the House would also impose a 5.4% surtax on individuals with annual incomes of more than $500,000 and families of more than $1 million.

The tax would not be adjusted for inflation, so more and more small-business owners would be ensnared by it each year.

Managers would likely compensate for these new costs by discontinuing health benefits, cutting wages, holding off on new hires or even laying off workers. Can the Democrats' efforts really be called "reform" if they'd leave workers and businesses alike worse off?

The administration has dismissed accounts critical of its health reform plan out of hand. But the facts don't lie. The Democrats' reform package will make health insurance more expensive for small firms. If the president and his congressional allies are serious about defending the interests of small businesses, they need to get a new plan.

• Pipes is president and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute. Her latest book is "The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care."

Warden Pelosi

Source: http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=511806

11/09/2009

Health Care Reform: Failure to buy health insurance in the just-passed health care bill could get you five years in jail with a $250,000 fine. How can violating a law that's unconstitutional be a felony?

The passage last Saturday night of the House health care measure by a fragile 220-215 margin may well prove to be a Pyrrhic victory. In polls, townhall meetings and tea parties, Americans have shown they don't want a "reform" that costs a staggering $1.2 trillion yet fails to meet the left's desire of insuring all the uninsured.

And they certainly don't want a bill that threatens them with incarceration if they don't comply.

This monstrosity would raise insurance premiums and taxes to prohibitive levels and add unconscionably to the national debt.

It will force physicians to leave the medical profession in droves, exacerbating an already perilous doctor shortage. This and so-called cost controls will lead to rationing.

The mechanisms for deciding who gets what, if any, care — and even what care will be available — are already in place. Some, like a cost-effectiveness board, slipped into the failed stimulus bill.

Under sections 7201 and 7203 of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's bill, Americans who don't maintain acceptable health insurance coverage and who choose not to pay a fine/tax of up to 2.5% of income are subject to fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.

As Dave Camp, R-Mich., ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee, observed, "This is the ultimate example of the Democrats' command-and-control style of governing — buy what we tell you or go to jail."

Evading the income tax is punishable by jail time. But the income tax required a constitutional amendment; it was not imposed by judicial fiat.

When asked by CNSNews where in the Constitution Congress is authorized to force Americans to buy insurance or imprison them, Pelosi gave the wide-eyed response, "Are you serious?"

Yes, Madam Speaker, we are. The Supreme Court, in United States vs. Lopez in 1995, has already specifically rejected the idea that Congress can regulate non-economic activities of individuals simply because, through a chain of events, they might have some impact down the road.

The U.S. Senate should give this nonsense a decent burial. Otherwise, that classic film line might take on a whole new meaning: "What are you in for?"

Friends hail police Sgt. Kimberly Munley for taking down Fort Hood gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan By Rich Schapiro

Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2009/11/06/2009-11-06_police_sgt_kimberly_munley_credited_with_ending_fort_hood_gunman_maj_nidal_malik.html

November 6th 2009

Police Sgt. Kimberly Munley is credited with ending the Fort Hood mass shooting before even more people were shot."

The hero cop who ended the bloody rampage at Fort Hood by pumping four bullets into the crazed gunman even though she was wounded is known for her toughness, friends say.

Before relocating to Texas, civilian police Sgt. Kimberly Munley spent about five years as a cop in North Carolina where she forged a reputation as a no-nonsense officer.

"I'd like to say I'm surprised, but I'm really not," said close friend Drew Peterson, 27.

"She was born and bred to be a police officer. If you were ever to be in a fight, she'd be the first person to stand up next to you and back you up. She's a tough cookie."

Munley's toughness and grace under pressure were on display Thursday when she and her partner responded within three minutes of reported gunfire, said Army Lt. Gen. Bob Cone.

Munley, who had been trained in active-response tactics, rushed into the building and confronted the shooter as he was turning a corner, Cone said.

"It was an amazing and an aggressive performance by this police officer," Cone said.

Munley was only a few feet from Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan when she opened fire.

Wounded in the exchange of bullets, the 34-year-old Munley was reported in stable condition at a local hospital.

In a posting on her Twitter page before the shooting, she wrote: "I live a good life....a hard one, but I go to sleep peacefully @ night knowing that I may have made a difference in someone's life."

Munley's brother Daniel Barbour told ABC News that his sister had been shot three times in the hand and the leg.
One of the bullets pierced an artery, requiring her to undergo surgery Friday.

The diminutive Munley - she stands 5-foot-4 and weighs about 120 pounds - served as a cop in Wrightsville Beach,
N.C., before she moved to Texas to enlist in the military, friends said.

She is married with two daughters and is no longer in the armed forces.

"She's the happiest, sweetest, most fun-loving girl you'd ever want to be friends with - and never want to cross," Peterson said.

The hero cop spent Thursday night phoning fellow officers to let them know she was fine and to find out about casualties in the attack - the deadliest ever on a military base in the U.S., Cone said.

Cone said Munley's aggressive response training taught her that "if you act aggressively to take out a shooter you will have less fatalities."

"She walked up and engaged him," he said. He praised her as "one of our most impressive young police officers."

10 Failed Doomsday Predictions By Benjamin Radford

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/10faileddoomsdaypredictions

Nov 4, 2009

With the upcoming disaster film "2012" and the current hype about Mayan calendars and doomsday predictions, it seems like a good time to put such notions in context.


Most prophets of doom come from a religious perspective, though the secular crowd has caused its share of scares as well. One thing the doomsday scenarios tend to share in common: They don't come to pass.


Here are 10 that didn't pan out, so far:


The Prophet Hen of Leeds, 1806


History has countless examples of people who have proclaimed that the return of Jesus Christ is imminent, but perhaps there has never been a stranger messenger than a hen in the English town of Leeds in 1806. It seems that a hen began laying eggs on which the phrase "Christ is coming" was written. As news of this miracle spread, many people became convinced that doomsday was at hand - until a curious local actually watched the hen laying one of the prophetic eggs and discovered someone had hatched a hoax.


The Millerites, April 23, 1843


A New England farmer named William Miller, after several years of very careful study of his Bible, concluded that God's chosen time to destroy the world could be divined from a strict literal interpretation of scripture. As he explained to anyone who would listen, the world would end some time between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844. He preached and published enough to eventually lead thousands of followers (known as Millerites) who decided that the actual date was April 23, 1843. Many sold or gave away their possessions, assuming they would not be needed; though when April 23 arrived (but Jesus didn't) the group eventually disbanded-some of them forming what is now the Seventh Day Adventists.


Mormon Armageddon, 1891 or earlier


Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon church, called a meeting of his church leaders in February 1835 to tell them that he had spoken to God recently, and during their conversation he learned that Jesus would return within the next 56 years, after which the End Times would begin promptly.


Halley's Comet, 1910


In 1881, an astronomer discovered through spectral analysis that comet tails include a deadly gas called cyanogen (related, as the name imples, to cyanide). This was of only passing interest until someone realized that Earth would pass through the tail of Halley's comet in 1910. Would everyone on the planet be bathed in deadly toxic gas? That was the speculation reprinted on the front pages of "The New York Times" and other newspapers, resulting in a widespread panic across the United States and abroad. Finally even-headed scientists explained that there was nothing to fear.


Pat Robertson, 1982


In May 1980, televangelist and Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson startled and alarmed many when - contrary to Matthew 24:36 ("No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven...") he informed his "700 Club" TV show audience around the world that he knew when the world would end. "I guarantee you by the end of 1982 there is going to be a judgment on the world," Robertson said.


Heaven's Gate, 1997


When comet Hale-Bopp appeared in 1997, rumors surfaced that an alien spacecraft was following the comet - covered up, of course, by NASA and the astronomical community. Though the claim was refuted by astronomers (and could be refuted by anyone with a good telescope), the rumors were publicized on Art Bell's paranormal radio talk show "Coast to Coast AM." These claims inspired a San Diego UFO cult named Heaven's Gate to conclude that the world would end soon. The world did indeed end for 39 of the cult members, who committed suicide on March 26, 1997.


Nostradamus, August 1999


The heavily obfuscated and metaphorical writings of Michel de Nostrdame have intrigued people for over 400 years. His writings, the accuracy of which relies heavily upon very flexible interpretations, have been translated and re-translated in dozens of different versions. One of the most famous quatrains read, "The year 1999, seventh month / From the sky will come great king of terror." Many Nostradamus


devotees grew concerned that this was the famed prognosticator's vision of Armageddon.

Y2K, Jan. 1, 2000

As the last century drew to a close, many people grew concerned that computers might bring about doomsday. The problem, first noted in the early 1970s, was that many computers would not be able to tell the difference between 2000 and 1900 dates. No one was really sure what that would do, but many suggested catastrophic problems ranging from vast blackouts to nuclear holocaust. Gun sales jumped and survivalists prepared to live in bunkers, but the new millennium began with only a few glitches.


May 5, 2000

In case the Y2K bug didn't do us in, global catastrophe was assured by Richard Noone, author of the 1997 book "5/5/2000 Ice: the Ultimate Disaster." According to Noone, the Antarctic ice mass would be three miles thick by May 5, 2000 - a date in which the planets would be aligned in the heavens, somehow resulting in a global icy death (or at least a lot of book sales). Perhaps global warming kept the ice age at bay.


God's Church Ministry, Fall 2008

According to God's Church minister Ronald Weinland, the end times are upon us-- again. His 2006 book "2008: God's Final Witness" states that hundreds of millions of people will die, and by the end of 2006, "there will be a maximum time of two years remaining before the world will be plunged into the worst time of all human history. By the fall of 2008, the United States will have collapsed as a world power, and no longer exist as an independent nation." As the book notes, "Ronald Weinland places his reputation on the line as the end-time prophet of God."

Video: 2012 Cataclysm or Ancient Myth?


Benjamin Radford is managing editor of the Skeptical Inquirer science magazine. His books, films, and other projects can be found on his website. His Bad Science column appears regularly on LiveScience.

Let states lead the way: Washington's one-size-fits-all reform won't work By Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/05/AR2009110504328.html

November 6, 2009

Congress is on the verge of enacting the largest unfunded mandate in American history. At a time when most states are struggling with rising unemployment, declining tax revenue and the worst national economic climate in 30 years, Congress is demonstrating that it is more out of touch than ever.

The Democratic health "reform" bill in the Senate would require states to expand Medicaid to include all people earning up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, or $29,327 for a family of four. House Democrats want to require expansion to 150 percent of the poverty level, or $33,075 for a family of four. Even Texas, which has a balanced budget and nearly $9 billion in its rainy-day fund, isn't prepared to absorb this type of blow.

Complaints from majorities of Republican and Democratic governors alike continue to fall on deaf ears. Congress seems intent on forcing a one-size-fits-all mandate on states, some of which actually have solutions to repair their health-care systems that Washington is preventing them from trying.

Texas, for example, has adopted approaches to controlling health-care costs while improving choice, advancing quality of care and expanding coverage. Consider the successful 2003 tort reform. Fewer frivolous lawsuits have attracted record numbers of doctors to the state as medical malpractice insurance premiums dropped by half. Christus Health, a large Catholic nonprofit system with a significant presence in Texas, spent about $100 million on liability defense payments in 2003. Last year, Christus spent $2.3 million on such payments. Much of that savings has gone into expanding health-care services in low-income neighborhoods.

You might think Washington would be curious about plans to provide more low-income Texans with insurance, reduce expensive emergency-room visits for basic care and make it easier to buy into employer-sponsored insurance. Unfortunately, Washington has failed for 18 months to give Texas permission to use Medicaid dollars for these policies.

Historically, the federal government has paid an average of 57 percent of state Medicaid costs. In a transparent attempt to bribe governors and state legislatures into accepting 15 million to 20 million new people nationwide onto Medicaid rolls, Congress is proposing a series of additional subsidies to states to cover 90 percent of the costs of the newly mandated populations. In true Washington form, these handouts would be debt-financed, through the generosity of foreign bankers, to be paid back by future generations of American taxpayers.

Expanding the Medicaid program in Texas alone to include an additional 2 million people would cost $20 billion to $30 billion over the next 10 years. Regardless of how that cost is shared between the federal and state governments down the road, we believe that level of new mandated spending is grossly unacceptable.

Even more stunning than this fiscal irresponsibility is Congress's disregard for the quality of the Medicaid program and the well-being of the people in it. Medicaid is the lowest payer in the health-care system. It reimburses physicians 20 to 30 percent less than even Medicare, which pays costs at a much lower rate than do private insurers. If a doctor or hospital is facing bills, staff salaries and medical malpractice premiums, it is obvious which patients will get preference.

We note with concern that the Government Accountability Office reported in January that Medicaid made an estimated $32.7 billion in improper payments in 2007, equal to a full 10 percent of the program. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) pointed out that the average improper payment rate for non-health government programs is 3.9 percent. He introduced an amendment in the Senate Finance Committee that would have prevented expansions of Medicaid until the secretary of health and human services could certify that its improper payment rate was equivalent to that of non-health programs, but that amendment failed on a party-line vote. The rate of improper payments needs to be addressed.

The Democratic health-care proposals do nothing to expand choice, lower costs and empower patients. They would add to, without reforming, bulky, overpriced programs that would in turn add to our already crushing burden of national debt. Reckless expansion would ultimately reduce the quality of U.S. medical care.

Such tragedies can be averted if the powers-that-be in Washington set aside their devotion to centrally planned, debt-financed, one-size-fits-all solutions and work cooperatively with those laboratories of innovation known as states. Otherwise, we'll end up with a one-size-hurts-all situation.

Newt Gingrich, founder of the Center for Health Transformation, was speaker of the House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. Rick Perry is governor of Texas.

Health Reform Faces Moment Of Untruth By Sen. Tom Coburn and Rep. Paul Ryan

Source: http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=511167

11/03/2009

As Congress works to "make history" with health care reform, the American people have a far more sensible ambition for policymakers: get a grip on our unsustainable fiscal course.

By 2-to-1, Americans continue to believe that Congress should address the deficit first, then health care. Yet the best that Congress has come up with to address our entitlement and fiscal crisis is to create a costly new open-ended entitlement.

The American people suspect what we know to be true: Congress really has no idea how to pay for "reform," or anything else for that matter. Fiscal restraint remains off the agenda, while there is of course the desire to appear to be fiscally responsible.

Behind closed doors, negotiators have been performing budget gymnastics. House and Senate leaders have been fudging their cost estimates to meet the president's demand of not adding a dime to the deficit.

For instance, the bill won't be fully implemented until 2013, but tax hikes will take effect immediately. This gimmick will produce 10 years of revenues but only seven years of cost. Once fully implemented, however, the plan will cost nearly $2 trillion over 10 years — double the $900 billion touted as a passing grade from the Congressional Budget Office.

Still, congressional leaders are sticking to their talking point. "We're very excited by the CBO scores," Speaker Nancy Pelosi said gleefully when the plan's Enron-style accounting produced a positive score. The CBO, however, is less excited about Congress' fiscal management. As it recently told Congress, "Slowing the growth rate of outlays for Medicare and Medicaid is the central long-term challenge for federal fiscal policy."

President Obama seems to agree. He recently said: "If we do nothing to slow these skyrocketing costs, we will eventually be spending more on Medicare and Medicaid than every other government program combined. Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close."

He's right, which makes the fiscal irresponsibility of the "reform" process all the more breathtaking. The current bills dump half of the uninsured in Medicaid, create new federal handouts paid for by taxpayers, and build on the unsustainable Medicare status quo while cutting what's working best in Medicare.

Budget gimmicks are not only disingenuous, but will harm our economy. Sustained economic growth is not possible should Congress continue to pile debt on top of debt, or attempt to tax our way out of our fiscal hole.

As the CBO reminded Congress, "If spending grew as projected and taxes were raised in tandem, tax rates would have to reach levels never seen in the U.S. High tax rates would slow the growth of the economy, making the spending burden harder to bear."

Especially troubling is the fact that Congress' long-term cost estimates of government-run health programs have been notoriously inaccurate. When Medicare was created, Congress predicted it would cost $12 billion in 1990. It cost $110 billion in 1990. Medicaid now costs 37 times what it did when it was launched in 1965; Medicare 16 times, both adjusted for inflation.

If the current reform bill outperforms Medicare and Medicaid and grows by a factor of 10, it will cost $1.8 trillion every year. If it follows the path of Medicaid, it will cost $6.7 trillion every year.

What is at stake in this process is not merely a lower standard of living for future generations, but a decline of freedom at home and abroad. We are risking our own national economic stability and security if we continue — through excessive borrowing — to hand potential adversaries leverage over our foreign and domestic policy.

We believe health care needs to be reformed, which is why earlier this year we introduced detailed legislation, the Patients' Choice Act. We drafted our plan cognizant of the fact that we already spend more than 2 1/2 times per person on health care than any other country in the world.

If our health care sector were a stand-alone economy, at $2 trillion it would be the eighth largest in the world, ahead of countries like India and Russia. We don't need to spend more, nor do we need to raise taxes. Instead, we need to direct resources to actual health care rather than the bureaucratic management of health care.

The current reform product does not meet the test of either real reform or fiscal responsibility. Nor does it represent the best of both parties. It represents the frustrated ideological ambitions of one party that believes the way to pull the welfare state back from bankruptcy is by expanding it.

We can fix what's broken in health care without breaking what's working, and without creating a huge new entitlement program that will accelerate the bankruptcy of this country. The American people deserve better.

• Coburn, a practicing physician, is the junior senator from Oklahoma.

IN DEFENSE OF CALLING OBAMA BY THE ADJECTIVES HE DESERVES: ON THE DELICATE BUT IMPORTANT TASK OF DESCRIBING OUR PRESIDENT By Herb Denenberg

Source: http://www.thedenenbergreport.org/article.php?index=1551

November 01, 2009

THE PHONY, FAKER, FRAUD, FOUR-FLUSHING FIBBER WHO HATES AMERICA AND MARCHES US STRAIGHT TOWARD SOCIALISM, FASCISM, AND DESTRUCTION. OR DO WE LET CIVILILITY, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, AND FAUX POLITNESS TRUMP THE TRUTH?

My recent column titled “Obama Taking Us on a Path to Fascism” (October 28, 2009) started an explosion, with both praise and criticism bursting forth. So I thought I’d write a column explaining and justifying some of the uncomplimentary adjectives I’ve aimed at President Barack Hussein Obama, ‘Mm, ‘Mm, ‘Mm. Many people aren’t used to having their political Messiah described with the parade of pejoratives I’ve been launching since the earliest days of the 2008 presidential election.

What happens when legitimate criticism, when telling like it is, when calling a spade a spade and a phony a phony, when the plain unvarnished truth goes out of style because of demands for civility, because of the pressure of political correctness, because of fear of being accused of name-calling, and because of an assumed need for faux politeness when describing our president? And I might add when legitimate criticism and truth telling are jarring because the critic wants to describe the president of the United States in most uncomplimentary but truthful terms. I happen to be in the cross fire on this issue because as soon as Barack Hussein Obama emerged as a serious candidate, I labeled him as a world-class liar, phony, fraud, fibber, faker and four-flusher who also can’t be trusted because of his long association with America-haters, bigots, racists, and even terrorists. That crew of Obama’s close associates includes Rev. Jeremiah “God Damn America” Wright, Bill “Terrorist” Ayres, Father Michael “Racist” Pfleger, Bernadine “Terrorist” Dohrn, and all the rest.


I responded to my critics that I was not name-calling, as I had carefully documented those well-chosen adjectives describing Obama in over 100 columns written for the Philadelphia Bulletin. I believe in civility in public discourse, but civility should not trump truth telling, and political correctness can be potentially fatal and dangerous, as it is when the Obama administration refuses to use the words “war against terror” and “jihadism” and wants to substitute such words as “overseas contingency operation.” That kind of denial is not just semantic shading; it is insanity pure and simple. It is denial and dangerous delusion wrapped in deception. Can you defeat an enemy you are unwilling to correctly describe and instead insist on sanitizing and euphemizing those posing an existential threat?


Take a few of the adjectives used above and consider their applicability to President Barack Hussein ‘Mm ‘Mm ‘Mm Obama. I know this is a hard dose of truth and reality, especially when the mainstream media and much of the public view this man as a Messiah, the Anointed One, and the Chosen One.


LIAR. This is perhaps the easiest case to make, starting with his denial of knowing what Rev. Jeremiah “God Damn America” Wright was up to. After sitting in the pews of his church for twenty years, after closely working with him, after selecting his church to facilitate his own (i.e., Obama’s) political advancement, after using the title of one of his sermons for the title of his book, Obama claims to have heard nothing, to have read nothing, and to know nothing about Rev. Wright’s bigoted views. After being an active community organizer and politician in Wright’s community and being exposed to all kinds of stories and discussions of Wright and his philosophy, he still knows nothing. This means Obama is either the biggest liar in the world or the biggest idiot. I give him the benefit of the doubt by charitably accepting the former rather than the latter explanation. For further proof of Obama’s status as an habitual world-class liar consider a few of the things he’s said about Obamacare: If you like your doctor or your health insurance plan, you can keep it. The bill does not cover illegal immigrants or abortion. The bill will not add one dime to the deficit. Remember his campaign promises to keep lobbyists out of his administration and to accept public financing of his election. And what about his constant theme of bipartisanship and transparency? He is as bipartisan as Genghis Khan and as transparent as a 12-inch wall of lead.


PHONY AND HYPOCRITE. Obama clearly does the opposite of what he says. He was the great non-partisan, bipartisan hope, a man who saw not Blue States and Red States but the United States. In practice, over his career and certainly in the White House he is the most partisan of politicians. He says he wants to listen to all points of view, but comes over as one who rejects all criticism as the “old politics” and as “game playing.” He is a thin-skinned crybaby who apparently has never learned to take criticism and listen to opposing points of view. He promises a most transparent administration and then delivers the opposite. He stands by without objection as the Democratic Congress ignores and locks out the Republicans. The latest outrage is that they can’t even look at the Senate bill that just came out of committee.


SOCIALIST. This description came into vogue after his “spread the wealth” remark to Joe “The Plumber.” But his whole history shows not only Marxist and Communist associations, but also his frequent statements of that philosophy. He criticized the U.S. Constitution for not providing for “economic freedom” and redistribution of wealth. And now his answer to every problem is to redistribute wealth and soak the rich. Under his sweet rhetoric there is a full-scale class war going on, in which capitalism, profit, and free markets are demonized. In March, the Pew Research Center found 70 percent of Americans believe in the free market system, but a socialist, anti-free-market system is being rammed down their throats.


FASCIST. I’d add one final description, perhaps the harshest but nonetheless on target. Elements of fascism include the suppression of opposition and the suppression of private enterprise. Both are obvious Obama’s objectives. The latter is most obvious, as he expands the reach of government, takes over auto companies and banks, and expands government and our national debt in an unsustainable and reckless manner, thus crowding out private enterprise. He wants to take over the health care industry, one-sixth of the economy, and the energy sector, with Cap and Trade (and Tax) legislation. Then there is the attempt to regulate the pay of executives in financial institutions, not just the ones taking federal bailout money. As Steve Moore of the Wall Street Journal put it, this is an unprecedented government regulatory grab, subjecting private enterprise to a Pay Czar “Mussolini.” Every move is to expand government programs and government itself. There’s an entitlement or a bag of them for one Democratic interest group after another. And now look what he is doing with critics. Humana and other insurers were subjected to a “gag order” when they criticized Obamacare. The Fox Cable News Network has been the subject of a White House attack that attempts to destroy, delegitimize, and demonize a major television network. He is after the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as an evil demon, that spends a half a billion dollars on lobbying, to defeat essential reforms. He moves to punish critics in the insurance industry by trying to repeal their anti-trust exemption. He moves or his Congressional supporters move on all kinds of anti-democratic measures to silence critics and aid supporters –such as the Fairness Doctrine, diversity and localism to kill conservative talk radio, the Net Neutrality Rules to launch a government takeover of the Internet, and the Employee Free Choice Act to strengthen his friends, the labor bosses, and to destroy the secret ballot in union elections and put decision making on union contracts in the hands of government bureaucrats. Then there is Obama’s close association over many years with ACORN, the corrupt community organization that has often used intimidation to force businesses to take action on the ACORN agenda. But what did you expect when Obama surrounds himself and brings into the White House Marxists, communists, extremists, radicals, those who view Chavez’s revolution as “democratic,” and look to Mao for advice and wisdom, those who disparage America and seem to carry a portfolio of anti-American values and programs?


Don’t kid yourself. America, as we know it, America, as conceived by the Founding Fathers, is under attack by Obama, the Democratic Congress, and the Obama Administration. He has to be stopped if America is to be saved. The great columnist Thomas Sowell is right when he said that it’s time to stop weighing the evidence, and start stopping Obama as his anti-American programs and values are crystal clear to anyone paying attention. This will require an organized uprising of citizens to stop his programs, especially the most dangerous and damaging ones such as Obamacare and Cap and Trade. The time for action is right now, and any delay may be fatal to the survival of the greatest nation in the history of the world. We better hear “freedom’s call” and answer it now in its defense in every legal and appropriate way. Or we may be well on the way to becoming a broken down banana republic, a European socialist-style state or worse. There is a war going on against America values, and we better fight back in full force or we will lose that war and will lose America.


(Herb Denenberg is a veteran Philadelphia journalist, writing columns and doing television for over 30 years. He has served as Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner, and the Loman Professor of Insurance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has also served as a consultant to over a dozen government agencies, and has won over 100 journalistic awards, including 42 local Emmys and awards from the National Press Club and the American Board of Trial Advocates. He has often testified before Congress on such matters as consumer protection, health care and insurance regulation, and co-authored “The Social Protection Plan of Puerto Rico,” the first no-fault law passed in a U.S. jurisdiction and was Associate Director of the Wisconsin Laws Revision Commission that was responsible for the most comprehensive revision of insurance laws in American history. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He blogs for “Freedom’s Call,” an activist organization that was recently launched. He is a graduate of Johns Hopkins (B.S.), Creighton University’s Law School (J.D.), Harvard Law School (LL.M.) and the University of Pennsylvania (Ph.D.) He has also received honorary degrees from Allentown College (now DeSales University) and Spring Garden College. He can be reached at hdenenberg@aol.com.)




Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, professor at the Wharton School, and Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and is a board member of the Center for Safe Medication Use. He is an adjunct professor of insurance and information science and technology at Cabrini College. You can write Herb at POB 7301,St. Davids, PA e-mail him at hdenenberg@aol.com or reach him at his two Web sites: thedenenbergreport.org or denenbergsdump.org

A 1,990-Page Medical Monstrosity

Source: http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=510810

10/29/2009

Medical Care: Speaker Nancy Pelosi's cry in unveiling the House's massive reform bill might as well have been "Viva la health care revolution!" America never voted for change like this.

Just as most congressional Democrats refused to listen to the angry public at town halls in the summer, Speaker Pelosi was not interested in ordinary Americans attending the outdoor rally on the West Front of the Capitol, where she and her fellow House Democrats rolled out their 1,990-page monster health reform bill on Thursday.

YouTube recorded someone not on the RSVP list being refused entry and asking a staffer why the announcement of legislation that will radically affect the lives of all Americans isn't open to the public. "Because that's how we're handling this event," she told him.

Truth be told, most lawmakers are excluded too. As the Hudson Institute's Hanns Kuttner noted on the National Review Web site, you would have to devour 221 pages a day to have read this life-changing legislation in its entirety before it comes to a vote, promised for before Veterans Day, Nov. 11.

Weeks after its unveiling, new tricks are still being discovered within the Senate health bill. Kaiser Health News' Julie Appleby reported Thursday that, despite claims the bill will limit what those in the lower and middle income groups will pay for health insurance, "The fine print shows that, over time, the premium costs could rise well beyond those caps."

The reason for this, Appleby explains, is "the cost of coverage would shift from a percentage of income to a percentage of the premium, no matter how high the premiums go." This will be a big, unpleasant surprise for the working middle class.

Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson on Wednesday revealed that the Senate bill's excise tax on "Cadillac" plans "targets a lot of Chevy plans as well." The tax follows a formula based on the consumer price index plus 1%. But if medical costs and insurance premiums rise significantly higher than the CPI — a near sure thing — a lot more plans get taxed.

Reminiscent of the Alternative Minimum Tax, a measure to soak the rich will end up drowning Joe Sixpack. Meyerson warns: "If employers opt for cheaper policies to avoid the excise taxes on more-expensive plans, their savings may not be passed on to workers as higher wages but simply kept by the employers. Out-of-pocket health costs for workers would rise, but into-pocket wage increases to cover those costs might not be forthcoming."

What similar horrors await detection within Nancy Pelosi's 1,990-page behemoth? Time will tell, but it may take a lot more time than the 13 days House Democrats are giving America to digest this revolutionary proposal.

We already know it contains an aggressive version of the government-run public option, and the 39 Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies warned after the Thursday unveiling of "devastating consequences."

"Millions of people would lose their current private coverage they are happy with," the companies warned. "In addition, the government will underpay providers — even if negotiated rates are initially used — creating major access issues, including long waits for services, with some providers closing their doors."

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association also pointed out how any "government-run plan will use its built-in advantages — no matter how it is initially structured — to take over the market" through "price-setting based on Medicare" or by using "existing government programs as leverage for negotiations."

A government option would also enjoy "many financial advantages right from the start, including an exemption from federal and state taxes and other assessments that private plans must pay, immunity from state lawsuits, as well as a host of other state rules and regulations." Plus it will get "at least $2 billion in startup capital."

The insurers also warn that the young would see their premiums rise 69% on average, according to research by the Oliver Wyman actuarial firm. Americans for Tax Reform detailed 13 new taxes the House health bill would create, from a 5.4% surtax on individuals and small businesses to a 2.5% excise tax on medical devices.

Both the House and the Senate are set to wreck the greatest health care system in the world — unless those now taking it for granted raise a ruckus, and fast.

Special Address - General Stanley McChrystal

Source: http://www.iiss.org/recent-key-addresses/general-stanley-mcchrystal-address/



On Thursday 1 October 2009, General Stanley McChrystal, Commander, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Commander, U.S. Forces Afghanistan gave a Special Address on Afghanistan to the IISS

Watch the Address and the Q&A Session

I.                  Preamble

It is an honour for me to be here and I would like to thank you for giving me the time.  I would also like to thank not only my hosts but also all of you who took time to be here today.  This is an extraordinarily important subject: we have young people – not only from the coalition but also young Afghans – in the field today, who depend on the decisions we make and the analysis we do.  Taking the time to talk and think about it is always time well-spent, so I thank you for that.

I am privileged to speak here today as the Commander of NATO’s ISAF forces, representing people from 42 troop-contributing nations.  I represent them today and I hope to do that well.  As you know, I have a British deputy, Lieutenant General Jim Dutton, who is coming to the end of his term and will soon be replaced by another great British officer, Lieutenant General Nick Parker.

Before I continue, I would like to recognise the enormous sacrifice that families here in the UK have made.  As you know, the losses that we have suffered are significant in terms of those who have fallen, suffered life-changing injuries, or given up parts of their life just by being away from family.  I am in awe of the performance of the British brothers whom I have been honoured to work with for a number of years now.

I am humbled to be here because I do not claim to be in the same category as people who have been talking here, such as Prime Minister Brown and President Zardari, who expressed their views on this complex subject.  I do, however, believe that I can offer some perspectives and will try to do that today.  I will start by posing seven questions before attempting to answer them.  If this works according to my plan, it will totally exhaust your appetite for this issue and I will leave the room to wild cheers and lucrative job offers.  If my plan fails, as most of mine do, I will be happy to field any questions that we have time for.

II.              What is the Right Approach to Use in Afghanistan?

1.                  People’s Own Suggestions

People ask me this question all the time; many people offer their own suggestions.  There is a multitude of approaches to what to do.  Some people say that we should focus primarily on development; others say that we should conduct a counterterrorist-focused battle, given that this really started after 9/11 and Al-Qaeda’s strikes.  Other people say that we should conduct counterinsurgency (COIN).  A paper has been written that recommends that we use a plan called ‘Chaosistan’, and that we let Afghanistan become a Somalia-like haven of chaos that we simply manage from outside.

2.                  The Complexities of Afghanistan

a.                  The delicate balance of power

I arrived in Afghanistan in May 2002 and I have spent a part of every year since then involved in the effort.  I have learned a tremendous amount about it and, every day, I realise how little about Afghanistan I actually understand.  I discount immediately anyone who simplifies the problem or offers a solution, because they have absolutely no idea of the complexity of what we are dealing with.

In Afghanistan, things are rarely as they seem, and the outcomes of actions we take, however well‑intended, are often different from what we expect.  If you pull the lever, the outcome is not what you have been programmed to think.  For example, digging a well sounds quite simple.  How could you do anything wrong by digging a well to give people clean water?  Where you build that well, who controls that water, and what water it taps into all have tremendous implications and create great passion.

If you build a well in the wrong place in a village, you may have shifted the basis of power in that village.  If you tap into underground water, you give power to the owner of that well that they did not have before, because the traditional irrigation system was community-owned.  If you dig a well and contract it to one person or group over another, you make a decision that, perhaps in your ignorance, tips the balance of power, or perception thereof, in that village.

Therefore, with a completely altruistic aim of building a well, you can create divisiveness or give the impression that you, from the outside, do not understand what is going on or that you have sided with one element or another, yet all you tried to do is provide water.

b.                  COIN mathematics

There is another complexity that people do not understand and which the military have to learn: I call it ‘COIN mathematics’.  Intelligence will normally tell us how many insurgents are operating in an area.  Let us say that there are 10 in a certain area.  Following a military operation, two are killed.  How many insurgents are left?  Traditional mathematics would say that eight would be left, but there may only be two, because six of the living eight may have said, ‘This business of insurgency is becoming dangerous so I am going to do something else.’

There are more likely to be as many as 20, because each one you killed has a brother, father, son and friends, who do not necessarily think that they were killed because they were doing something wrong.  It does not matter – you killed them.  Suddenly, then, there may be 20, making the calculus of military operations very different.  Yet we are asking young corporals, sergeants and lieutenants to make those kinds of calculations and requiring them to understand the situation.  They have to – there is no simple workaround.

It is that complex: where you build the well, what military operations to run, who you talk to.  Everything that you do is part of a complex system with expected and unexpected, desired and undesired outcomes, and outcomes that you never find out about.  In my experience, I have found that the best answers and approaches may be counterintuitive; i.e. the opposite of what it seems like you ought to do is what ought to be done.  When I am asked what approach we should take in Afghanistan, I say ‘humility’.

III.           What Environment Are We Operating In?

1.                  Generally Accepted Truths

The answer to this question starts with some generally accepted truths about Afghanistan, which we all know to be true:

• It is a graveyard of empires.

  
  



• Afghanistan has never been ruled by a strong central government.

  
  



• Afghans do not consider themselves Afghans. 

  
  

All three are untrue.  If you ask an Afghan what he is, he will say, ‘I am an Afghan’.  There have been strong central governments, although different from what you think of as central government.  In the sense of governance, there have been periods when Afghanistan absolutely had a central government.  Therefore, we have to start by not accepting any of the generally accepted ‘bumper sticker’ truths.

2.                  Real Truths

a.                  Complex, difficult geography and demography

In terms of real truths, it is complex, difficult terrain, both in terms of land and people.  It is also a tribal society with a culture that is vastly different from what most of us are familiar with.  There are variations around the country; you cannot assume that what is true in one province is true in another.  That goes for ethnic, geographic and economic issues.  You cannot even assume that what is true in one valley is true in the next any more than you can assume that one neighbourhood in London is exactly the same as another.  We would not generalise here, yet sometimes, as outsiders, we want to do that.

b.                  A long period of conflict

I would also remind people that we have been waging a war for eight years, yet the Afghans have been at it for 30.  Life expectancy in Afghanistan is 44 years, so not many people remember pre‑conflict life in Afghanistan.  Of those 30 years, about 10 were spent fighting the Soviets, followed by six years of ‘warlordism’ and a further six years of Taliban rule and civil rule, and the last eight years have been eight more years of fighting.

One elder said something that really struck me one night as we were talking: ‘What you see in Afghanistan now is a reflection of pieces of each of those eras’.  It is now a mosaic of the experiences of all those eras.  If you think about the impact of 30 years on people and on a society, calculations change.  The certainty that you have when you walk through your neighbourhood in London is not the certainty that they have.  The expectation of the future is not the expectation that they may have.  The opportunities to be educated and to associate with different ethnic groups, which have become more of a challenge in recent years, are very different.

c.                  A damaged society

The society is what I would call ‘damaged’.  Individuals may not be damaged, but the society is not as it was.  It is not so uniformly; nor can you say ‘it is all different here’.  Tribal structures, relationships and expectations are uncertain now.  When you go into a village in a Pashtun area, traditionally you could have predicted what the role and interrelationships of the mullah or the elders would be.  That is no longer true.  It varies based upon the experience of that area.  In some areas, some have disproportionate influence and others have none.  Some have been killed.  In other cases, elements like the Taliban have come in and completely turned upside down the traditional structures.  You can also not assume that traditional structures have disappeared, so you have to go in and learn what the structure is and how people deal with it.

3.                  A Uniquely Complex Environment

What we face, then, is a uniquely complex environment, where there are at least three regional and resilient insurgencies, with further sub-insurgencies.  They have intersected on top of a dynamic blend of local power struggles in a country damaged by 30 years of war.  You then run into someone who raises their finger and says ‘here is the solution’ – they can have my job.

4.                  A Crisis of Confidence

We also face a crisis of confidence.  Afghans are frustrated after the most recent eight years of war, because in 2001 their expectations skyrocketed.  Along with the arrival of coalition forces, they expected a positive change.  They saw that initially and then waited for other changes – economic development and improvements in governance – that, in many cases, may have been unrealistic but, in many cases, were unmet.  Therefore, there was a mismatch between what they had hoped for and what they have experienced.  Again, as we learn in all societies, expectations and perceptions often matter as much as the reality.

IV.           What Is the Situation Now?

1.                  Serious and Deteriorating

The situation is serious, and I choose that word very carefully.  I would add that neither success nor failure for our endeavour in support of the Afghan people and government can be taken for granted.  My assessment and my best military judgment is that the situation is, in some ways, deteriorating, but not in all ways.

2.                  Tremendous Progress

I can also point out areas in which tremendous progress is evident: the construction of roads, provision of clean water, access to healthcare, the presence of children in school, and access to education for females.  All of these are up dramatically and hugely positive, and portend well for the future.

3.                  A Need to Reverse Current Trends

However, a tremendous number of villagers live in fear, and there are officials who either cannot or do not serve their people effectively.  Violence is on the increase, not only because there are more coalition forces, but also because the insurgency has grown.  We need to reverse the current trends, and time does matter.  Waiting does not prolong a favourable outcome.  This effort will not remain winnable indefinitely, and nor will public support.  However, the cruel irony is that, in order to succeed, we need patience, discipline, resolve and time.

V.              Who is Winning?

1.                  A Battle of Minds and Perceptions

a.                  Not a game with points on a scoreboard

The answer to this question depends on who you ask.  This is not like a football game with points on a scoreboard; it is more like a political debate, after which both sides announce that they won.  That matters because we are not the scorekeepers: not NATO ISAF, not our governments, and not even our press.  The perception of all of these entities will matter and they will affect the situation, but ultimately this is going to be decided in the minds and perceptions of the Afghan people of the Afghan government and of the insurgents, whether they can win or are winning, and, most importantly, the perception of the villager who casts his lot with the winner.

b.                  Villagers make rational and practical decisions

Villagers are supremely rational and practical people: they make the decision on who they will support, based upon who can protect them and provide for them what they need.  If a villager lives in a remote area where the government or security forces cannot protect them from coercion or harm from insurgents, he will not support the government – it would be illogical.  Similarly, if the government cannot provide him with rule of law, the basic ability to adjudicate requirements legally, or just enough services to allow him to pursue a likelihood, it is difficult for him to make a rational decision to support the government.  The Taliban is not popular.  It does not have a compelling context.  What it has is proximity to the people and the ability to provide coercion and, in some cases, things like basic rule of law, based upon the fact that they are there and can put themselves in that position.  The perception of the villager matters in terms of which side he should support, so winning the battle of perception is key.

c.                  Allowing the facts to speak for themselves

I also think that winning the battle of perception, as it applies everywhere but particularly to us, is about credibility.  As I told you, the situation is absolutely not deteriorating by every indicator, but I will not stand up and say that we are winning until I am told by indicators that we are winning.  For me to stand up and claim good things that are not supported by data in order to motivate us and make us feel good very rapidly undermines our credibility.  Our own forces are smart enough to do that, so I intend to tell people the best assessment that we can, as accurately as possible, and allow the facts to speak for themselves.

VI.           It Has Been Eight Years – Why Is It Not Better?

This is a fair question for the Afghan people and for societies that have supported this effort.  It is true that, after eight years of tremendous effort and expenditure and the loss of good people, many things are worse.  Why have eight years of effort not made things better?  There are a number of complex reasons:

• The insurgency grew.

  
  



• Expectations – both expected and unexpected – were not met, which has created frustration.

  
  



• It took us longer than I wish it had to recognise this as a serious insurgency.  As the Taliban started to regain its effectiveness, we lagged in terms of accepting that as a clear reality.

  
  

Through our actions, we – i.e. the coalition and its Afghan partners – sometimes exacerbate the problems.

• We have under-resourced our operations.

  
  



• In some areas, we have underperformed; in others, we have under-coordinated.

  
  



• We have struggled with unity of effort, national agreements and chains of command that are complex to say the least.

  
  



• In some ways, we have not overcome some of our intrinsic disadvantages.  We are operating in a very different culture, with language differences, relationships that do not exist and a complex situation that takes time to understand, yet we have not effectively developed enough expertise, continuity of people or sufficient numbers of language-trained people to deal with the situation as effectively as we could have.

  
  



• Most importantly, our own operational culture – and by ‘our’ I mean coalition forces – and manner of operating distances us physically and psychologically from the people who we seek to protect.  We need to connect with people, yet physical or linguistic barriers make it increasingly difficult.  Ultimately, our security comes from the people.  We cannot build enough walls to protect ourselves if the people do not.

  
  

We must, then, operate and think in a fundamentally new way.

VII.       Can We Succeed?

1.                  Protecting the Afghan People from the Enemy

We can succeed.  We must redefine the fight.  The objective is the will of the Afghan people.  We must protect the Afghan people from all threats: from the enemy and from our own actions.  Let me describe it: a few days ago, just before we left to travel here, a bus south of Kandahar struck an improvised explosive device (IED) killing 30 Afghan civilians.  That is tragic.

On the one hand, you might say that the Afghan people would recoil against the Taliban who left that IED.  To a degree, they do, but we must also understand that they recoil against us because they might think that, if we were not there, neither would be the IED.  Therefore, we indirectly caused the IED to be there.  Second, we said that we would protect them, but we did not.  Sometimes, then, the most horrific events caused by the insurgents continue to reinforce in the minds of the Afghan people a mindset that coalition forces are either ineffective, or at least that their presence in Afghanistan is not in their interest.  That does not happen all of the time.  There are times when they feel differently, but you have to put things in that context to understand what we must do.

2.                  Protection from Our Own Actions

a.                  Respecting the people

We also need to protect them from our own actions.  When we fight, if we become focused on destroying the enemy but end up killing Afghan civilians, destroying Afghan property or acting in a way that is perceived as arrogant, we convince the Afghan people that we do not care about them.  If we say, ‘We are here for you – we respect and want to protect you’, while destroying their home, killing their relatives or destroying their crops, it is difficult for them to connect those two concepts.  It would be difficult for us to do the same.  The understanding, then, must be that we respect the people.

b.                  Changing our mindset

We must assign responsibility because, ultimately, the Afghans must defeat the insurgency.  As a force, however, we must change our mindset.  Whether or not we like it, we have a conventional warfare culture – not just our militaries but our societies.  Our societies want to see lines on a map moving forward towards objectives, but you will not see that in a counterinsurgency because you do not see as clearly what is happening in people’s minds.  We will have to do things dramatically and even uncomfortably differently in order to change how we think and operate.

In short, we cannot succeed by simply trying harder.  We cannot drop three more bombs and have a greater effect; it is much more subtle than that.

3.                  Crucial Next Steps

In my mind, therefore, what we must do over the next period of time is:

• Gain the initiative by reversing the perceived momentum possessed by the insurgents.

  
  



• Seek rapid growth of Afghan national security forces – the army and the police.

  
  



• Improve their effectiveness and ours through closer partnering, which involves planning, living and operating together and taking advantage of each other’s strengths as we go forward.  Within ISAF, we will put more emphasis on every part of that, by integrating our headquarters, physically co-locating our units, and sharing ownership of the problem.

  
  



• Address shortfalls in the capacity of governance and the ability of the Afghan government to provide rule of law.

  
  



• Tackle the issue of predatory corruption by some officials or by warlords who are not in an official position but who seem to have the ability, sometimes sanctioned by existing conditions, to do that.

  
  



• Focus our resources and prioritise in those areas where the population is most threatened.  We do not have enough forces to do everything everywhere at once, so this has to be prioritised and phased over time.

  
  

4.                  A Need for Resolve

As you know, the concepts that I have outlined here are not new, but if we implement them aggressively and effectively, we can create a revolution in terms of our effectiveness.  We must show resolve.  Uncertainty disheartens our allies, emboldens our foe.  A villager recently asked me whether we intended to remain in his village and provide security, to which I confidently promised him that, of course, we would.  He looked at me and said, ‘Okay, but you did not stay last time.’

VIII.    Why Bother?

1.                  The Risk Posed by Al-Qaeda

Afghanistan is difficult, so why bother?  It is a long way away.  It is not our business.  As we know, however, 9/11 brought us here to the latest interaction, and transnational terrorist threats absolutely remain.  I believe that the loss of stability in Afghanistan brings a huge risk that transnational terrorists such as Al-Qaeda will operate from within Afghanistan again.

2.                  High Stakes for Afghanistan and the Region

I also believe that the stakes are high for Afghanistan and for the region.  An unstable Afghanistan not only negatively affects what happens within its borders but also affects its neighbours.  Afghanistan is, in many ways, one of the keys to stability in south Asia.  A state that can provide its own security is important to all international security, and certainly to that of the UK, the US and our international partnership.  The Afghan people are worth bothering about and they deserve that.

IX.           Conclusion

In conclusion, I am exceptionally proud to serve at ISAF.  Within my office, I have a picture of a British battle group, led by Lieutenant Colonel Gus Fair, with whom I worked for a long time in Iraq.  He is with his soldiers, who I had the opportunity to speak with when I visited them during operations in Spin Majid this summer in the Helmand River valley.  I keep that picture because, when I looked into their eyes, which were bloodshot with fatigue, I remember the extraordinary professionalism, competence and sheer courage of those young men.  Whenever I come to London, I like to run through the city, and I particularly like the statues that you have erected to heroes.  I hope that you erect one to that generation – they have earned it.  Thank you.

The McCrystal Report By Edward W. Ross

Source: http://ewross.blogtownhall.com/2009/10/05/the_mccrystal_report.thtml

October 05, 2009

Reading Gen Stanley McCrystal's unclassified 66-page report to Sec. of Defense Gates, I could not help but think back to my two tours of duty in Vietnam. I kept substituting South Vietnam for Afghanistan and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) for the Afghan National Army. The Vietnam and Afghanistan wars are two vastly different conflicts, of course; and the US armed forces that are fighting in Afghanistan are much different from their Vietnam War predecessors. Nevertheless, the two wars have something important in common. The right counterinsurgency strategy was the key to victory then, and it's the key to victory now.

When General Creighton Abrams assumed command from General William Westmorland in June 1968 he abandoned Westmorland's search-and-destroy strategy and began pursuing a clear-and-hold counterinsurgency strategy, and he expanded training and equipping the ARVN. His strategy was extremely successful and led to major South Vietnam victories over the North Vietnamese Army. Unfortunately, the 1968 Tet Offensive had truned American public opinion against the war, and it was too little too late. General McCrystal's and CENTCOM commander General David Petraeus' recommendations reflect their understanding of the lessons of Vietnam and Iraq wars.

We've been at war in Afghanistan for eight years already, and, as during Vietnam, the American people are war weary. It's not too late in Afghanistan, however, to do the right thing. President Obama should accept McCrystal's recommendation and avoid what happened in Vietnam.

Read my weekly columns and my current sidebar at http://ewross.com

Read Previous EWRoss at http://ewross.com/Sidebar.htm

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Why eligibility story is still alive: Public awareness triggered by Farah's billboard campaign

Source: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=105168

July 27, 2009

WASHINGTON – How did a supposedly "bogus" story questioning Barack Obama's eligibility for the presidency get to the top of the news budgets of every major media outlet in the country?

It didn't happen by accident.

Three months ago, Joseph Farah, editor and chief executive officer of WorldNetDaily, the largest independent news source on the Internet, hatched a plan to do just that – create public awareness and media curiosity.

Frustrated by the lack of coverage of what he considered to be an issue of extraordinary importance, Farah launched a national billboard campaign asking the question: "Where's the birth certificate?"

The campaign raised nearly $100,000 in its first week and resulted in billboards springing up around the country. Even more important to the plan was the controversy it engendered.

Three major outdoor advertising companies rejected the ad for reasons of suitability.

"The plan was to create some buzz – to get people talking about a grave constitutional issue," he explained. "Before that campaign began, this really was a dead story, other than in WND. Now, every major media outlet is covering it – if only in covering the tracks of their previous ineptitude and negligence."

The facts are simple, says Farah. No controlling legal authority in America ever checked to see if Obama was a "natural born citizen" as the Constitution requires. They took at face value Obama's story as told in his autobiography and accepted a document he released that could never prove his eligibility.

Farah says the release of Obama's long-form birth certificate is vitally necessary even to begin proper vetting as to his constitutional qualifications.

While the media is now on to the story, Farah says, they seem to be more interested in killing it than exploring. CNN President Jon Klein even went so far as to issue a memo to his news staff declaring it dead because the state of Hawaii had supposedly destroyed original long-forth birth certificates in 2001.

"Where is the curiosity among my media colleagues?" Farah asked. "If this were Watergate, would they be calling the story dead because of the 18-and-a-half-minute gap in the recording? This is incredible!"

As WND has reported, Obama has also failed to release his school records, his Occidental College records, his Columbia University records, his Columbia thesis, his Harvard Law School records, his Harvard Law Review articles, his scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, his passport, his medical records and his files from his years as an Illinois state legislator.

WND has produced hundreds of stories reporting on dozens of legal challenges to Obama's status as a "natural born citizen" and other issues. The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."

Some of the challenges question whether he was actually born in Hawaii, as he insists. If he was born out of the country, Obama's American mother, the suits contend, was too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship to her son under the law at the time.

Other challenges have focused on Obama's citizenship through his father, a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of his birth, thus making him a dual citizen. The cases contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born.

Additionally, questions have been raised about Obama's move to Indonesia as a child and the passort he used to travel to Pakistan as a young man.

Complicating the situation is Obama's decision to spend sums estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to avoid releasing a state birth certificate and other documentation, such as educational records, that would put to rest the questions.

The billboards, also, have remained a key to raising the question.



The billboard campaign follows an ongoing petition campaign launched several months ago by WND Editor and Chief Executive Officer Joseph Farah.

Send a contribution to support the national billboard campaign that asks a simple question: "Where's the birth certificate?"

If you are a member of the media who would like to interview Farah about this story, e-mail press@wnd.com.

Time To Stop Amuck Acorn's Bank Enablers By Rep. Michele Bachmann

Source: http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=510298

10/26/2009

The Community Reinvestment Act has increasingly been at the core of controversy, most recently for its role in the financial meltdown that began in 2008.

Many economists have long questioned whether the CRA's mandates, which encouraged subpar lending standards, harmed the housing market.

Now we have news of a new controversy that brings the CRA together with the infamous Acorn, which has been a prime beneficiary of the act's mandates.

Acorn has earned a reputation with the public for persistently unethical behavior and repeated disregard for voter registration and other federal and state laws.

Recent videos showing Acorn employees giving advice on how to set up a prostitution ring as a legal enterprise by violating tax and immigration laws and abusing government housing grants have demonstrated Acorn's flagrant abuse of the public trust and complete disrespect for the law.

Abundant evidence shows that this is more than a case of a few bad apples; the organizational structure promotes and nurtures this behavior.

Since 1994, Acorn has received $53 million in direct federal funds. In addition, state tax dollars regularly flow to Acorn.

Now we know that banks have been funneling money to Acorn in order to comply with the federal mandates of the CRA.

Originally unveiled in 1977, the CRA was meant to ensure that low-income individuals and minorities were receiving fair and equal access to credit. But over the years it was distorted, shifting its focus from process to outcomes. This shift forced banks to loosen lending standards and make mortgages that wouldn't have otherwise passed muster.

For banks that wanted to protect themselves from regulators, they saw an alternative: donate or partner with groups, such as Acorn, that gave financial advice to the communities singled out by the CRA.

The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council Web site, which links to CRA ratings and evaluations conducted by banking examiners, shows that many banks have donated to or partnered with Acorn to comply with CRA mandates.

Acorn's name is employed like a code word used to convey to federal regulators with a wink and a nod that these banks are serious about meeting CRA mandates. Indeed, Acorn Housing's Web site proclaims that it "provides one-on-one mortgage loan counseling, first-time homebuyer classes, and helps clients obtain affordable mortgages through unique lending partnerships."

For example, Citizens Bank of Massachusetts "offers an affordable mortgage program through Acorn for low- and moderate-income homebuyers with below market rates, expanded ratios and a low down-payment requirement."

Northeast Bank in Minnesota "donated $2,000 to Acorn." Independence Community Bank "provided grants to the New York City Office of the Acorn Housing Corp." And New York Community Bank "participated as a co-sponsor of the Bank Fair hosted by New Jersey Acorn."

The smaller banks aren't alone in boasting of their Acorn ties to meet federal regulators' standards. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and other big names have given millions as well.

BofA, which was one of Acorn's biggest corporate sponsors — giving $2 million to Acorn Housing Corp. in Chicago — has ended donations to Acorn in the wake of the most recent scandalous headlines.

Government must re-examine the rules that encourage the relationships that banks have with Acorn. Acorn employees are clearly incapable of offering reliable, let alone legal, financial counseling, as illustrated by the undercover videos in Acorn offices. We can surely find better ways of meeting the CRA's stated goals of fair and equal access to credit.

I have urged the FDIC and FFIEC chairman, Sheila Bair, to conduct a thorough examination of Acorn's role in helping banks satisfy their CRA obligations and to issue clear guidance that prohibits banks from receiving CRA credit for donating to or partnering with Acorn.

If the CRA is about ensuring fair and equal access to credit, banks should be judged on whether they provide such access and not on whether they have paid protection money to a politically favored group.

It is disturbing that in addition to mandating subpar lending standards, the CRA is guilty of promoting borderline extortion by an organization that has demonstrated a pervasive culture of corruption.

For years, Democrats have ignored the consequences the CRA has had on the housing market and our financial infrastructure.

The time to pay attention is now. Congress is considering additional, overreaching financial regulatory legislation.

Americans should look at the CRA's example and be wary of new government mandates on our nation's private companies.

• Bachmann, a Republican, represents Minnesota's 6th Congressional District and is a member of the House Financial Services Committee.

Insuring Doom

Source: http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=510340

10/26/2009

Health Care: Washington's latest target is America's "fat cat" health insurance companies. A closer look reveals a vital but vulnerable industry, not the greedy, profiteering image pushed by health reformers.

We've seen "Big Oil" dragged to Capitol Hill to be slandered by power-hungry senators and congressmen for finding, extracting and refining the lifeblood commodity of the global economy. We've seen the pharmaceutical industry drawn and quartered for doing what it takes to discover, make and market lifesaving and life-enhancing drugs.

The latest villain in the politicians' demagogic fantasyland is private health insurance. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has accused private insurers of making "immoral profits." And they're a prime target for taxes to pay for the health care revolution Congress and the White House have planned.

But in fact, as we pointed out recently in these pages, this is an industry that actually lags many others in the U.S. economy. Plenty of other sectors of private industry are doing far better.

And some of the things Washington has planned — in particular a "public option" — would leave private insurers bankrupt.

As the Associated Press recently reported, the health insurance industry's profit margins tend to be in the 6% range, not impressive at all when compared with other areas of insurance. Margins shrank to 2.2% last year, with health insurers ranking 35th on the Fortune 500 list of industries. As a result, the credit ratings of some leading insurers have been downgraded to negative.

Health insurers' earnings grew less than 9% in the last five years, and they now rank below communications firms, railroads, beer companies, detergent makers, fast-food restaurants, kitchen utensil manufacturers, and chocolate makers.

Watch out — one of those might be Uncle Sam's next target.

Recently, representatives of the private insurers dared to commission a PricewaterhouseCoopers study with evidence of the huge cost increases Americans can expect if Congress' transformation of the greatest health care system in the world is passed into law.

The anti-business liberals who run Congress have unsheathed the long knives. As Steve Forbes recently pointed out in IBD, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and his colleagues "are openly engaged in a campaign of harassment and intimidation against 52 of America's largest health insurance providers."

Forbes charged that "they seek nothing less than to silence all voices opposed to their government-run health care proposals."

Waxman is nosing into and demanding every detail on executive and employee salaries and expenses for the past five years — information irrelevant to health reform but very useful as a political tool to blackmail the industry into submission under the threat of congressional subpoena. There's a name for this: witch hunt.

When Congress is finished with the U.S. medical system, Americans may in a short time think they live in France or Britain, where waiting lists for vital surgeries and treatments are the norm.

How ironic if they were deluded into believing that the villains are the companies that have, until now, saved them from such mediocrity and incompetence.

Nanny State, Squared

Source: http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=510032

10/22/2009

Big Government: Hardly a day passes without the unveiling of some new federal intrusion into our lives. At some point Americans must say "enough's enough," or sit silently as all our precious liberties are taken away.

The Democrats in Congress and the White House are pushing through the most sweeping changes toward direct government control of our economy since at least the Great Depression. Consider just a few news items from recent days:

• The Senate moves to give the Food and Drug Administration huge new power over what we eat and drink, and what medicine we take.

• A House panel OKs a new Consumer Finance Protection Agency that will have direct control over consumer credit from banks and businesses — potentially killing a private system of consumer borrowing that, whatever its flaws, has led to unparalleled consumer wealth and access to credit.

• A new "bailout" is proposed for small businesses that will further distort markets, punish successful companies and reward failure. The opposite, in other words, of a free market economy.

• Execs of companies that took government bailouts get their pay slashed — courtesy of U.S. "paymaster" Kenneth Feinberg.

In ways large and small, it's easy to see we're building a nanny state that will make Europe's seem modest by comparison. After all, this doesn't even include health care "reform" or cap-and-trade. Soon, the federal government will control every aspect of our lives — though the Constitution explicitly forbids it.

This is the inevitable result of the massive expansion of government over the past year. The $700 billion TARP program, the $787 billion stimulus, a planned "second stimulus," $13 trillion in new debt over the next decade — inevitably, we'll see new government controls and regulations on nearly everything.

"They are awakening a vast regulatory apparatus with authority over nearly every U.S. workplace, 15,000 consumer products and most items found in kitchen pantries and medicine cabinets," the Washington Post has observed.

Too bad none of it's working. White House economic adviser Christina Romer acknowledged Thursday the stimulus is running out of steam — despite the $194 billion spent.

Meanwhile, the TARP czar admits that, despite comments last year that the bailout could end up paying for itself, very little of the more than $700 billion will be paid back.

What do we get? A slow-growing economy, fewer jobs, government-controlled incomes and trillions in new debt. Some nanny.

The Middle-Class Health Tax Heist Of 2009 By Sally C. Pipes

Source: http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=510094

10/23/2009

Poring over the details of the 1,501-page health care bill that came out of Sen. Max Baucus' Finance Committee, it's clear that the financing is so full of smoke and mirrors that one has to wear a respirator and hard hat to get through it.

But by the time one gets to the end of the bill, estimated to cost $829 billion over 10 years, clarity emerges — the Democrats plan to finance their expanded government care on the backs of America's middle-class taxpayers.

Baucus and company have decided to tax what the press calls "Cadillac" health plans. Prior to hitting the fine print, this indicates that only excessive, gold-plated plans found in the executive suites would be hit.

Baucus' "mark," however, shows that it's more likely the janitor who will be paying the tab.

Included in the bill is a confiscatory excise tax of 40% on "Cadillac" health plans that cost more than $8,000 for an individual or $21,000 for a family. This appears reasonable, as today most plans are well under these limits.

However, it's not actually health plans that are taxed at 40%, but the aggregate benefits that relate to health care that employers offer, regardless of whether they are funded by the employee or employer. The limits apply not only to employer-sponsored medical care but also to vision and dental plans.

The most damage is done by Baucus' attack on Flexible Spending Accounts, lifelines for families with high medical bills that allow them to set aside their own money — not the government's and not the employer's — to fund health-related spending with pretax dollars.

Baucus would cap these at $2,500 — half of what the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan currently offers federal employees — and adds this to what he considers a Cadillac.

This tax-increasing cap applies in 2010, long before any additional health benefits are offered.

And it's not only definitional handiwork that does damage. Baucus sets the prices today, doesn't start indexing them until 2014, and then indexes them at a rate well below historical health insurance inflation rates.

If we start with today's reality and use history as a guide, it is clear Baucus is doing damage to the middle class.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average employer pays $13,375 for a family plan this year, a rate that's increased at 8.7% annually for the last decade. Add to that the average $1,569 a family passes through flexible spending, and $1,000 for dental and vision and, in 2009, the total taxable spending for Baucus is $15,944.

This will likely inflate at the historical rate of health insurance spending, yet Baucus holds his $21,000 bogey constant. It's not until 2014 that he allows his Cadillac to increase in price.

In 2013, when the tax kicks in, the average employer-provided package will already be roughly $21,000, if the last decade serves as a reliable guide.

Every year hence, the employer will be on the hook for the massive tax. By 2023, the average cost of a family plan will be $47,337, and the allowable deduction will only be $30,018. The difference — $17,319 — will be taxed at 40%, costing employers an additional $6,927.

Employers will not pay this tax. Instead, they will cut benefits, shifting costs that must be paid with after-tax dollars to an already burdened middle class.

This is only the damage done to the average American in an average year. Millions of Americans experience years in which they have extraordinary health expenses, perhaps braces for a child that they manage to fund by deferring their own money into Flexible Spending Accounts.

Millions of other families have members with expensive chronic health conditions, such as a child with autism or some other special need. They use flexible spending to purchase therapy and treatments not covered by insurance. Capping Flexible Spending Accounts at $2,500 is a harsh tax that will extract billions of dollars from those who can least afford to pay it.

Baucus' bill is certain to increase taxes on ordinary Americans spending their own money on health care.

Health reform is no longer about getting coverage to those who need it, but getting a bill for a Democratic Congress and president who want it.

• Pipes is president and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute. Her latest book is "The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care: A Citizen's Guide."

Cheney: “We cannot protect this country by putting politics over security, and turning the guns on our own guys”

Source: http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p18209.xml

Center for Security Policy | Oct 22, 2009

On Wednesday night, October 21, former Vice President Dick Cheney received the Center's 20th Keeper of the Flame Award.

 

Here are the Vice President's prepared remarks:

 

Thank you all very much. It’s a pleasure to be here, and especially to receive the Keeper of the Flame Award in the company of so many good friends.

I’m told that among those you’ve recognized before me was my friend Don Rumsfeld. I don’t mind that a bit. It fits something of a pattern. In a career that includes being chief of staff, congressman, and secretary of defense, I haven’t had much that Don didn’t get first. But truth be told, any award once conferred on Donald Rumsfeld carries extra luster, and I am very proud to see my name added to such a distinguished list.

To Frank Gaffney and all the supporters of Center for Security Policy, I thank you for this honor. And I thank you for the great energy and high intelligence you bring to as vital a cause as there is – the advance of freedom and the uncompromising defense of the United States.

Most anyone who is given responsibility in matters of national security quickly comes to appreciate the commitments and structures put in place by others who came before. You deploy a military force that was planned and funded by your predecessors. You inherit relationships with partners and obligations to allies that were first undertaken years and even generations earlier. With the authority you hold for a little while, you have great freedom of action. And whatever course you follow, the essential thing is always to keep commitments, and to leave no doubts about the credibility of your country’s word.

So among my other concerns about the drift of events under the present administration, I consider the abandonment of missile defense in Eastern Europe to be a strategic blunder and a breach of good faith.

It is certainly not a model of diplomacy when the leaders of Poland and the Czech Republic are informed of such a decision at the last minute in midnight phone calls. It took a long time and lot of political courage in those countries to arrange for our interceptor system in Poland and the radar system in the Czech Republic. Our Polish and Czech friends are entitled to wonder how strategic plans and promises years in the making could be dissolved, just like that – with apparently little, if any, consultation. Seventy years to the day after the Soviets invaded Poland, it was an odd way to mark the occasion.

You hardly have to go back to 1939 to understand why these countries desire – and thought they had – a close and trusting relationship with the United States. Only last year, the Russian Army moved into Georgia, under the orders of a man who regards the collapse of the Soviet Union as the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century. Anybody who has spent much time in that part of the world knows what Vladimir Putin is up to. And those who try placating him, by conceding ground and accommodating his wishes, will get nothing in return but more trouble.

What did the Obama Administration get from Russia for its abandonment of Poland and the Czech Republic, and for its famous “Reset” button? Another deeply flawed election and continued Russian opposition to sanctioning Iran for its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

In the short of it, President Obama’s cancellation of America’s agreements with the Polish and Czech governments was a serious blow to the hopes and aspirations of millions of Europeans. For twenty years, these peoples have done nothing but strive to move closer to us, and to gain the opportunities and security that America offered. These are faithful friends and NATO allies, and they deserve better. The impact of making two NATO allies walk the plank won’t be felt only in Europe. Our friends throughout the world are watching and wondering whether America will abandon them as well.

Big events turn on the credibility of the United States – doing what we said we would do, and always defending our fundamental security interests. In that category belong the ongoing missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the need to counter the nuclear ambitions of the current regime in Iran.

Candidate Obama declared last year that he would be willing to sit down with Iran's leader without preconditions. As President, he has committed America to an Iran strategy that seems to treat engagement as an objective rather than a tactic. Time and time again, he has outstretched his hand to the Islamic Republic's authoritarian leaders, and all the while Iran has continued to provide lethal support to extremists and terrorists who are killing American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Islamic Republic continues to provide support to extremists in Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories. Meanwhile, the regime continues to spin centrifuges and test missiles. And these are just the activities we know about.

I have long been skeptical of engagement with the current regime in Tehran, but even Iran experts who previously advocated for engagement have changed their tune since the rigged elections this past June and the brutal suppression of Iran's democratic protestors. The administration clearly missed an opportunity to stand with Iran's emocrats, whose popular protests represent the greatest challenge to the Islamic Republic since its founding in 1979. Instead, the resident has been largely silent about the violent crackdown on Iran's protestors, and has moved blindly forward to engage Iran's authoritarian regime. Unless the Islamic Republic fears real consequences from the United States and the international community, it is hard to see how diplomacy will work.

Next door in Iraq, it is vitally important that President Obama, in his rush to withdraw troops, not undermine the progress we’ve made in recent years. Prime Minister Maliki met yesterday with President Obama, who began his press availability with an extended comment about Afghanistan. When he finally got around to talking bout Iraq, he told the media that he reiterated to Maliki his intention to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq. Former President Bush's bold decision to change strategy in Iraq and surge U.S. forces there set the stage for success in that country. Iraq has the potential to be a strong, democratic ally in the war on terrorism, and an example of economic and democratic reform in the heart of the Middle East. The Obama Administration has an obligation to protect this young democracy and build on the strategic success we have achieved in Iraq.

We should all be concerned as well with the direction of policy on Afghanistan. For quite a while, the cause of our military in that country went pretty much unquestioned, even on the left. The effort was routinely praised by way of contrast to Iraq, which many wrote off as a failure until the surge proved them wrong. Now suddenly – and despite our success in Iraq – we’re hearing a drumbeat of defeatism over Afghanistan. These criticisms carry the same air of hopelessness, they offer the same short-sighted arguments for walking away, and they should be summarily rejected for the same reasons of national security.

Having announced his Afghanistan strategy last March, President Obama now seems afraid to make a decision, and unable to provide his commander on the ground with the troops he needs to complete his mission.

President Obama has said he understands the stakes for America. When he announced his new strategy he couched the need to succeed in the starkest possible terms, saying, quote, “If the Afghan government falls to the Taliban – or allows al-Qaeda to go unchallenged – that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can.” End quote.

Five months later, in August of this year, speaking at the VFW, the President made a promise to America’s armed forces. “I will give you a clear mission,” he said, “defined goals, and the equipment and support you need to get the job done. That’s my commitment to you.”

It’s time for President Obama to make good on his promise. The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger.

Make no mistake, signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries. Waffling, while our troops on the ground face an emboldened enemy, endangers them and hurts our cause.

Recently, President Obama’s advisors have decided that it’s easier to blame the Bush Administration than support our troops. This weekend they leveled a charge that cannot go unanswered. The President’s chief of staff claimed that the Bush Administration hadn’t asked any tough questions about Afghanistan, and he complained that the Obama Administration had to start from scratch to put together a strategy.

In the fall of 2008, fully aware of the need to meet new challenges being posed by the Taliban, we dug into every aspect of Afghanistan policy, assembling a team that repeatedly went into the country, reviewing options and recommendations, and briefing President-elect Obama’s team. They asked us not to announce our findings publicly, and we agreed, giving them the benefit of our work and the benefit of the doubt. The new strategy they embraced in March, with a focus on counterinsurgency and an increase in the numbers of troops, bears a striking resemblance to the strategy we passed to them. They made a decision – a good one, I think – and sent a commander into the field to implement it.

Now they seem to be pulling back and blaming others for their failure to implement the strategy they embraced. It’s time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity.

It’s worth recalling that we were engaged in Afghanistan in the 1980’s, supporting the Mujahadeen against the Soviets. That was a successful policy, but then we pretty much put Afghanistan out of our minds. While no one was watching, what followed was a civil war, the takeover by the Taliban, and the rise of bin Laden and al-Qaeda. All of that set in motion the events of 9/11. When we deployed forces eight years ago this month, it was to make sure Afghanistan would never again be a training ground for the killing of Americans. Saving untold thousands of lives is still the business at hand in this fight. And the success of our mission in Afghanistan is not only essential, it is entirely achievable with enough troops and enough political courage.

Then there’s the matter of how to handle the terrorists we capture in this ongoing war. Some of them know things that, if shared, can save a good many innocent lives. When we faced that problem in the days and years after 9/11, we made some basic decisions. We understood that organized terrorism is not just a law-enforcement issue, but a strategic threat to the United States.

At every turn, we understood as well that the safety of the country required collecting information known only to the worst of the terrorists. We had a lot of blind spots – and that’s an awful thing, especially in wartime. With many thousands of lives potentially in the balance, we didn’t think it made sense to let the terrorists answer questions in their own good time, if they answered them at all.

The intelligence professionals who got the answers we needed from terrorists had limited time, limited options, and careful legal guidance. They got the baddest actors we picked up to reveal things they really didn’t want to share. In the case of Khalid Sheik Muhammed, by the time it was over he was not was not only talking, he was practically conducting a seminar, complete with chalkboards and charts. It turned out he had a professorial side, and our guys didn’t mind at all if classes ran long. At some point, the mastermind of 9/11 became an expansive briefer on the operations and plans of al-Qaeda. It happened in the course of enhanced interrogations. All the evidence, and common sense as well, tells us why he started to talk.

The debate over intelligence gathering in the seven years after 9/11 involves much more than historical accuracy. What we’re really debating are the means and resolve to protect this country over the next few years, and long after that. Terrorists and their state sponsors must be held accountable, and America must remain on the offensive against them. We got it right after 9/11. And our government needs to keep getting it right, year after year, president after president, until the danger is finally overcome.

Our administration always faced its share of criticism, and from some quarters it was always intense. That was especially so in the later years of our term, when the dangers were as serious as ever, but the sense of general alarm after 9/11 was a fading memory. Part of our responsibility, as we saw it, was not to forget the terrible harm that had been done to America … and not to let 9/11 become the prelude to something much bigger and far worse.

Eight years into the effort, one thing we know is that the enemy has spent most of this time on the defensive – and every attempt to strike inside the United States has failed. So you would think that our successors would be going to the intelligence community saying, “How did you did you do it? What were the keys to preventing another attack over that period of time?”

Instead, they’ve chosen a different path entirely – giving in to the angry left, slandering people who did a hard job well, and demagoguing an issue more serious than any other they’ll face in these four years. No one knows just where that path will lead, but I can promise you this: There will always be plenty of us willing to stand up for the policies and the people that have kept this country safe.

On the political left, it will still be asserted that tough interrogations did no good, because this is an article of faith for them, and actual evidence is unwelcome and disregarded. President Obama himself has ruled these methods out, and when he last addressed the subject he filled the air with vague and useless platitudes. His preferred device is to suggest that we could have gotten the same information by other means. We’re invited to think so. But this ignores the hard, inconvenient truth that we did try other means and techniques to elicit information from Khalid Sheikh Muhammed and other al-Qaeda operatives, only turning to enhanced techniques when we failed to produce the actionable intelligence we knew they were withholding. In fact, our intelligence professionals, in urgent circumstances with the highest of stakes, obtained specific information, prevented specific attacks, and saved American lives.

In short, to call enhanced interrogation a program of torture is not only to disregard the program’s legal underpinnings and safeguards. Such accusations are a libel against dedicated professionals who acted honorably and well, in our country’s name and in our country’s cause. What’s more, to completely rule out enhanced interrogation in the future, in favor of half-measures, is unwise in the extreme. In the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half exposed.

For all that we’ve lost in this conflict, the United States has never lost its moral bearings – and least of all can that be said of our armed forces and intelligence personnel. They have done right, they have made our country safer, and a lot of Americans are alive today because of them.

Last January 20th, our successors in office were given the highest honors that the voters of this country can give any two citizens. Along with that, George W. Bush and I handed the new president and vice president both a record of success in the war on terror, and the policies to continue that record and ultimately prevail. We had been the decision makers, but those seven years, four months, and nine days without another 9/11 or worse, were a combined achievement: a credit to all who serve in the defense of America, including some of the finest people I’ve ever met.

What the present administration does with those policies is their call to make, and will become a measure of their own record. But I will tell you straight that I am not encouraged when intelligence officers who acted in the service of this country find themselves hounded with a zeal that should be reserved for America’s enemies. And it certainly is not a good sign when the Justice Department is set on a political mission to discredit, disbar, or otherwise persecute the very people who helped protect our nation in the years after 9/11.

There are policy differences, and then there are affronts that have to be answered every time without equivocation, and this is one of them. We cannot protect this country by putting politics over security, and turning the guns on our own guys.

We cannot hope to win a war by talking down our country and those who do its hardest work – the men and women of our military and intelligence services. They are, after all, the true keepers of the flame.

Thank you very much.