Hot and Dry in the Hill Country

Driving down to Austin from West Texas yesterday was quite an experience. Starting out, the countryside was pretty lush from recent rains. The crops looked pretty good all the way to Sweetwater and beyond.

Between there and Brady, on the western edge of Texas' Hill Country, the landscape was pretty average for summer in Texas. A bit hot, of course, but not entirely bone dry.

Once past Brady, however, it became a sudden desert. Temps were over a hundred degrees, and the land was parched like I have never seen it in the Hill Country, which covers 70 years.

The Pedernales River was bone dry as I crossed it on Highway 71. Boathouses were stranded on the cracked, dry riverbed for as far as one could see downriver.

I am told that Lake Travis is much the same in many areas.

Sad.

Pray for rain.

Utopia Versus Freedom

Thomas Sowell has a very thoughtful article on this subject over at Real Clear Politics. He is absolutely right about what he says.

We are in the midst of a great debate between liberals who want to impose, through the government, a utopia on all of us, and those who would rather preserve their freedom. His thought:

"... If everything that is wrong with the world becomes a reason to turn more power over to some political savior, then freedom is going to erode away, while we are mindlessly repeating the catchwords of the hour, whether "change," "universal health care" or "social justice.""

And that is it in a nutshell. Turning your life over to the government erodes your freedom. Its really as simple as that.

He goes on to say:

"Ultimately, our choice is to give up Utopian quests or give up our freedom. This has been recognized for centuries by some, but many others have not yet faced that reality, even today. If you think government should "do something" about anything that ticks you off, or anything you want and don't have, then you have made your choice between Utopia and freedom."

Our health care system is not perfect, but 80% of Americans are satisfied with their coverage. Everytime we ask the government to do something about that, or anything else, it usually leads to more imperfections. The track record of the government is not good. See the Veteran's Administration for the operation of hospitals, and see Medicare and Medicaid for its operation of insurance. Nothing the government has ever done in this area has been done without far exceeding its projected costs. The example of the VA is horrendous. Medicare and Medicaid are merely broke

Anytime you get politicians involved in anything, it is all about distributing largesse, not about doing it right.

The message I have to all the people who want the Democrats to lead us to a socialist utopia is to understand that people who love their freedom will not stand for it.

A hat tip to William Katz at Urgent Agenda.

Sheer Stupidity

The Washington Post today has a story that the Obama Administration is studying moving some of the terrorists at Guantanamo Bay to a prison in the United States where thay could be tried by courts or military commissions.

Now we have a very secure facility down at Gitmo that is a virtual country club compared to prisons in the United States, but we are going to close it down and move the terrorists to the US?

Why?

Sheer stupidity, that is why.

Its the same reason why in the middle of a deep recession we are going to tax everyone's energy, and raise another $1 trillion to finance socialized medicine.

It makes one feel like Alice in Wonderland.

Nothing Obama does makes any sense, unless he is trying to destroy our country.

Will ObamaCare Ration Health Care to Seniors?

Absolutely YES.

Senator Brownback, in a post on NRO lays it on the line:

"This became abundantly clear when Senator Mike Enzi (R., Wyo.) introduced an amendment designed to ensure that the new center could not put a value on life-saving treatment by using “quality of life” and “cost-effectiveness” measures “for the denial of Medicare benefits to patients against their wishes.” Because Democrats rejected the amendment in a party-line vote, the proposed new entity would be able to impose restrictions on access to treatment, as is common in European countries with socialized medicine. Elderly, disabled, and medically dependent patients would be at greatest risk of being denied necessary care."

Medicare certainly needs fixing, but there are many ways to do it that do not include denial of health care to the elderly and infirm.

The fact that we are being lied to about it, makes it even worse.

I am working and then out of town most of this week, but I do have some thoughts about how to help fix the Medicare problem that I will try to post at some point.

The conduct of the majority party in Washington is shameless.

Birds of a Feather?

In the early hours of the morning on June 28 this year, soldiers of the Honduran Army, bearing an order from the Honduran Supreme Court, arrested and then exiled Honduran President Zelaya.

The order from the Supreme Court, with the approval of the duly elected Congress of Honduras, came after Zelaya had disobeyed a direct order from the Court and was proceeding with a referendum that had been found to be unconstitutional.

A member of Zelaya's own party was appointed by Congress and sworn in as temporary President until an election could be held on November 29.

The hue and cry from the Marxist/Communist/Socialist dictators from south of our border was instant and loud.

The esteemed Hugo Chavez vowed to reverse the situation. The socialist government of Ecuador announced they would not recognize the new government.

The Castros of Cuba were outraged and demanded sanctions.

The old Sandinista from Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, joined the other extreme leftists.

And then came Barack Obama. He stepped into it with both feet.

Eventually the Organization of American states demanded that Zelaya be restored, and called for sanctions.

The United States immediately suspended military aid, and has since revoked the visas of four diplomats representing the new government.

So let us get this straight.

We have a guy in Honduras, Zelaya, who is trying to establish a dictatorship, a la Chavez in Venezuela, who is legally removed for having violated the Constitution of Honduras, and the President of the United States is helping him, and trying to get him restored to power.

Somehow, that just seems un-American for some reason. There are thousands of reasons we might have to avoid having another Chavez, or Castro, or Ortega in Central America, but I cannot think of a single, solitary reason why the interests of the United States could be served by having another Marxist/Communist/Socialist dictator down there.

So why would Obama take that position? Could it be that he is birds of a feather with Castro, Chavez, Ortega and the others?

My Mom always told me that birds of a feather flock together.

Perhaps his associations with Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dorhn, Rev. Wright and the other radicals that hate the United States were not so benign after all.

Look out, a big one is coming

Heh. There is a story over on Politico by Andie Collier about Obama's favorite phrase: "Let me be clear...."

In the story, there is a dissection of what it really means. It is a pretty interesting story, with a number of ideas about what he is meaning to say.

My view: when I hear him say that, I think of the phrase "I'm not lying to you" that is heard just before a big one.

Mr. Obama is anything but clear on most things, mostly because he doesn't know anything about that of which he speaks.

This includes the contents of his health care initiative, or the cap and trade disaster, or his foreign policy.

Clear, indeed. That makes me laugh. Sadly.

Waste of Time

I see from U. S. News and World Report that Americans spent 9.9 billion hours doing government paperwork last years, a waste of $460 Billion of costs.

The time spent was a 25% increase from 2004.

Just think what Obama's programs are going to add.

A crushing blow to the economy.

Who really believes the government can do anything right? Or efficiently?

Anybody?

A hat tip to Hotair.

Good Enough For Us, But Not For Them

The Great, Fabulous health care bill that will have deep and lasting effects upon all of us, has been determined by the House Energy and Commerce Committee to be not good enough for the President and the Congress.

I see this over at Redstate in a post by Jeff Emmanuel.

The committee site is here, but it is not functioning because of the high traffic, and has not kept up with the voting.

The first vote was on an amendment to permit all Americans to share the same medical plan that Congress has. That was voted down by the Democrats by 31-28.

The second would have required all Members of Congress and Federal public officials to be automatically enrolled in the so-called public plan.

This was ruled not germane by Democratic Chairman Waxman, saving the Democrats from having to vote on it.

Surprise, surprise.

Who would have thought that we would see Congress feeling that their plan was too good for us peons, and their plan for us was not good enough for them?

That is precisely what they have done.

Outrageous.

But what can we expect from that den of thieves?

Will Rogers was right:

"The only native criminal class in America is Congress."

And the worst are Democrats.

Who do they work for?

Daniel Henninger over at the Wall Street Journal has a piece about the Blue Dogs where he asks the title question.:

"....The issue is: Do they work for us, or do we work for them? "

That is a question we can ask about all of our folks in the Federal Government including all of Congress, the Executive and the Judiciary.

Who is the master, and who is the slave?

If you explore almost any issue, it comes down to this: one group up there is pro government, and wants the government to make sure we are led down the "correct" paths. These are mostly Democrats. Another group mostly favors (they say) having the private sector do the leading. These are mostly Republicans. The last group is on the fence. They cannot decide who to favor, the government or the people. This includes the Blue Dogs and so-called "moderate" Republicans.

The problem we have is that when the pro-private sector folks have gotten in charge, they have joined the pro government group.

The result has been an unprecedented growth in government the last 80 years. This has left us all less free and less well off than we otherwise would be.

Our government has gotten to the point that it serves the special interests that feed it, and not the people who, through their taxes, are required to support it.

Just look at the absolutely huge sums expended by lobbyists and other big special interests to support the power and elections of the politicians. Is it any wonder that the whole system has become so corrupt?

We all need to send a message to the politicians: you represent us, or you are gone.

Actually, we just need to throw all the bums out and start over.

Read all of Henninger's article here.

Big Bankers Legally Steal Public Funds

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, doing a job that apparently nobody else wants, has blown the whistle on the Treasury and the large financial institutions that the Treasury has been bailing out.

Nine big banks which received $175 Billion in TARP funds from the Treasury paid a total of $32.6 Billion in bonuses to their employees.

Anyone that is not outraged at this must be living in a cave in Afghanistan.

These people steered their companies into the greatest bust since the Great Depression, and they get bonuses like that for their performance? With our tax money?

Something is very rotten here.

And why are not the politicians that supposedly are representing the people not doing something?

Follow the money.

Lots of campaign contributions, and lots of lobbyist money.

Stories on this are here, and here.

The Pelosi Payroll Tax; UPDATE:Demo says even they don't understand the bill

The Wall Street Journal today points out that there is more than one tax in the proposed health care reform bill.

Its an up to 10% payroll tax on workers whose employers don't provide health insurance. Now it is in the bill as a tax on employers, but it is no secret that such taxes will result in lower pay and benefits for the workers.

"To put this in actual dollars, a worker earning, say, $70,000 a year could lose some $5,600 in take home pay to cover the costs of ObamaCare. And, by the way, this is in addition to the 2.5% tax that the individual worker would have to pay on gross income, if he doesn’t buy the high-priced health insurance that the government will mandate. In sum, that’s a near 10-percentage point tax on wages and salaries on top of the 15% that already hits workers to finance Medicare and Social Security."

This is just one of the things that would not be discussed if the bill had been hurried through like she tried to do.

The four Blue Dogs who caved in yesterday at least give us some time to carefully go through this bill, something we were not able to do with the cap and trade bill.

It will be interesting to discover what else is hidden in the legislation.

Isn't it nice to have such open and transparent processes in the Democrat Congress?

Criminal, at best.

UPDATE: According to Politico, even Democrats in Congress don't understand the health care reform:

"A Democratic lawmaker, Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, agrees. “The members don’t even understand what’s in it,” he confessed of the legislation. As for his constituents? They are “not exactly sure what this is about, and they’re not really sure whether they like it or not.” "

What does that say about them and their haste to rush it through? Transparency? Hope and change? Tyranny of the majority?

Blue Dogs Cave on Health Care Reform; Updated: No vote until late September or later: Obama

There are reports out this afternoon that the Blue Dog Democrats have compromised with the "yellow dog" Democrats, and have agreed on an outline of a bill that would radically change health care in the United States.

Given that the Congressional Budget Office has cited the huge costs of the bill...over one trillion dollars..... the Blue Dogs could be said to have caved in by agreeing to reduce the costs by only an estimated one hundred billion dollars. That is a lot of money, but only a drop in the bucket.

So, what else did they get? Well, they didn't get the national insurance out of the provisions, but they did require that government insurance company negotiate fees with doctors rather than unilaterally set them like it does with Medicare. But that still gets the government's nose under the tent, and we all know where that will go.

They did get a increase in the ceiling for mandatory insurance, doubling it to payrolls of $500,000 or less. That is still too low by far.

There is no mention of Medicare.

It seems a lot of the savings will come from two places, as reported by the New York Times:

"¶ Medicaid would be expanded, as under the original bill, but states would have to pay a small share of the additional costs, perhaps 7 percent. The federal government would have paid the entire cost under the original bill.

"¶ Workers would have to pay slightly more of their income on premiums for employer-sponsored insurance — 12 percent, rather than 11 percent — before they could qualify for federal subsidies."

So savings would come from charging workers more money, and putting additional costs on the states. Isn't that nice? Guess who still pays?

What do we have at the end of the day? The best part of it is that they delayed the bill from coming up for a vote until after Labor Day.

That will at least mean that someone will have a chance to read the bill after it is marked up in committee, and before it is presented to the House for a vote.

That is a change. Celebrate the small things.

They won't be able to change that sow's ear into a silk purse during the recess. But they will try to sell it as one.

And the so-called "conservative" Democrats, the Blue Dogs, showed their true colors once again.

The term "conservative" Democrat is an oxymoron, by the way. If they were conservative, they would not be Democrats. It has been thirty years since there was a real live conservative in the Democratic Party. We all left back then.

UPDATE: Obama is quoted this evening as saying there will not be a vote on the Health Care Reform Bill until late September or mid-October.

This is a major defeat for Obama and Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership.

"End of Life" Counselling

There was too much work yesterday to post, but here goes one for today.

At the beginning, please understand that I am opposed to the health care reform being proposed in Congress. There are many, many aspects of it that I find deeply troubling.

There is one that is being used by opponents to scare senior citizens in the same way the Democrats have always done on Social Security reform. That strategy has been very effective for the Democrats, of course, but that doesn't make it right.

There is a provision in the bill that amends the Social Security Act (the part that applies to Medicare reimbursements) to provide for payment for end of life counselling for seniors every five years, and more frequently if the senior has a terminal illness.

I have read the two bills, and there is no requirement that anyone have the counselling as the fearmongers say. It just permits them to have it, and be covered by Medicare.

My view is that every senior should have the counselling provided for in the bill whether or not the bill is passed with that in it. The last couple of times I have gone to the hospital, I have been asked if I had a directive to physicians and a medical power of attorney. I have, and so should everyone if you want your wishes to be honored.

There is, in fact, another provision that provides for such counselling already in the Medicare Act.

There are a lot of reasons to oppose the bills before Congress, but this is not one of them.

You may find the provision at issue here.

The part of the Social Security Act being amended is here.

Defend Your Health Care

In trying to research the health care matters before Congress one particular website stands out. Its called Defend Your Health Care. It is run by Betsy McCaughey, PhD, a former Lt. Governor of the State of New York.

You can hear an interview with her at this site.

Everyone should go to the web site and check it out. The first thing you will see is something I have also pointed out in an earlier post:

"Whatever health insurance bill is passed in Congress MUST apply to members of Congress and other federal employees. No Exceptions.

If it isn't good enough for them, it isn't good enough for us.

We are calling on members of Congress to propose an amendment to the Kennedy Health Bill requiring all federal employees to enroll in a "qualified" health plan just like the rest of us. "

The only way for us to get the scheming politicians in DC to pass anything reasonably fair is to require that they be subject to the same provisions.

The fact that they choose to exempt themselves is certain evidence that they know its a bad bill.

This whole matter is outrageous.

The politicians, particularly those on the left, are trying to steal our country.

Between the health "reform," the cap and trade bill, the huge deficit spending, and a whole big bunch of other things, they will destroy our freedom if we permit them to do it.

A political revolution is needed.

Who will lead it?

Slammed by CBO Again

The Congressional Budget Office has slammed ObamaCare once again for failing to do anything to cut costs.

"For the second time this month, congressional budget analysts have dealt a blow to the Democrat's health reform efforts, this time by saying a plan touted by the White House as crucial to paying for the bill would actually save almost no money over 10 years. "

Republicans had a response:

""This letter underscores the enormous challenges that Democrats face trying to pay for their massive and costly government takeover of health care. In their rush to pass a bill, Democrats continue to ignore the stark economic reality facing our nation," said Boehner spokeswoman Antonia Ferrier. "Let's scrap the current proposal and come together in a meaningful way to reform health care in America by reducing cost, expanding access and at a price tag we can afford.""

Clearly, the "reform" proposed by the left includes so much government that it could not possible be efficient or fair.

Of course, to the left, its more about control than costs or fairness.

Senator Charles Grassley, however, says that a reform bill will be passed this year:

"“They said we’ve got to show the Democrats they don’t have a vote to nationalize health insurance and then they’ll come to us and we’ll get a compromise,” Grassley said, describing conversations he has had with the other leaders."

Everyone, it seems, thinks we have to reform medical insurance, and that is fine. But will it be good enough for Congress and the President to include themselves in the reform?

And how can you compromise a bill that is so bad?

Current legislation would exempt all the Feds, so they must not think its a very good deal.

The public should demand that any reform that is passed apply to everyone, and not leave out a privileged few.

It is very apparent that the few in Washington consider themselves far above those of us out in the hinterland.

We should throw them all out. All of them.

Memo to the President and Congress re: Health Care

Mr. President and Congress, you are presently trying to pass a health care reform bill. You have exempted yourselves and all Federal employees from the provisions thereof.

You need to pardon me for shouting, but:

I WILL ACCEPT ANY REFORM OF MEDICAL CARE THAT YOU AND ALL FEDERAL EMPLOYEES WILL BE SUBJECT TO, AND NONE OTHER.

PERIOD.

I do not know why you believe that you have some kind of superior rights to the rest of us, but rest assured, you do not.

The South Plainsman

Bored?

Last night's press conference shows that Americans are becoming bored with Obama. It was the lowest rated yet in terms of viewers.

It was also the lowest rated in terms of substance.

Called to help bolster the sagging health care agenda, the presser demonstrated that Obama does not have a clue about the subject matter.

Even with the adoring White House press corps asking softer than goose down questions, Obama couldn't get into the swing of things. From the first question until the last, he gave circuitous, meaningless answers to the easy questions.

The last, of course, was the doozy about racial profiling, where he took a stand before he even had heard the evidence.

If everyone keeps the heat on their Congressmen and Senators, ObamaCare should be defeated.

Hopefully the same for the cap and tax, er, trade, bill.

Meantime, at the stock markets, Obama's lackluster performance gave it a boost above $9,000 on the Dow Jones Average today.

So perhaps he did accomplish something.

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head......

Wow. Got up this morning and drove to work in the rain. Finished, and drove home in the rain. Its still raining....a nice constant rain.

Here we are in West Texas on the 22nd of July, and it is 64 deg. and raining.

Sounds like time for a good nap.

Public Enemies

We went to the movies today. I don't usually go, but this one was about John Dillinger, the bank robber active back during the Great Depression.

Good movie. I recommend it for those that like action.

It occurred to me during the movie how much things had changed since then. Back then, guys like Dillinger, "Baby Face" Nelson and "Pretty Boy" Floyd were the bad guys, robbing and killing folks.

Today, its entirely the opposite. Now the banks and financial institutions, particularly the great big ones on Wall Street, are the ones doing the robbing and pillaging.

Just think. They had that huge bubble that blew up courtesy of the Federal Reserve and the helpful politicians of both parties in Washington. Those banks and financial institutions sold all kinds of paper, all represented to be good, while at the same time, they and the government were encouraging the public to borrow more and more.

Huge bonuses piled on huge bonuses for the perpetrators of all of this. They all got tremendously wealthy.

Then the house of cards crashed down.

Retribution for their excesses? Of course not. Their enablers in the government decided to bail the perps out with money that will have to be taken from the victims of all of this, namely the US taxpayer.

Instead of ending up like Dillinger, at least figuratively, most of them are going to get even richer off of the bailouts.

I understand from Mr. Barofsky, who is the authoritative person in this issue, that the US taxpayer may get stuck for as much as 23.7 TRILLION DOLLARS.

We need to throw out all of the pols in the government that were, and continue to be, behind this.

Quickly.

Birth Certificate Issue Makes it to Congress

It seems that those who question Obama's natural born citizen status have gotten some Congressmen to jump on the bandwagon.

There is a bill co-sponsored by 9 Congressmen, including our own Randy Neugebauer, that would require any candidate for President to produce his or her birth certificate.

John Avlon, writing over at The Daily Beast, thinks that is rather silly, and it certainly may well be.

"All this might be laughable, if there weren’t deadly serious hyper-partisan hatred behind it all. There is plenty to debate over the administration’s policies, but Obama Derangement Syndrome is not healthy for our democracy—it is pathological hatred of the president posing as patriotism."

Those are pretty harsh words for what might seem a reasonable sort of request. Reminds me of the Bush Derangement Syndrome we saw for 8 years.

My view is that Obama should release his birth certificate. If he is who he says he is, and I have no reason to doubt it, then he could put this business to rest very quickly, and send the "birthers" running with their tails between their legs.

The only thing that gives this life is Obama's strenuous efforts to hide the birth certificate and other records that most Presidents release.

Is he trying to hide something?