Yesterday National Review posted an article by Duncan Currie taking a closer look at how many Americans do not have health insurance. 

The article states:

“According to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS), that’s roughly how many people (the more precise figure was 45.7 million) lacked health insurance at a given moment in 2007 — nearly one-sixth of the entire U.S. population. The latest CPS data show that 46.3 million were uninsured at a given moment in 2008.”

The article explains why that figure is misleading.  Economist Keith Hennessey has analyzed the numbers and come to a very different conclusion.  Many of the people currently enrolled in government insurance programs such as the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) were not counted as enrolled (a phenomenon known as the “Medicaid undercount”).   Many people eligible for federal programs were not enrolled, some of the uninsured were illegal aliens, many were childless adults between 18 and 34 years old, and many of the uninsured were families earning well above the poverty level who simply chose not to have insurance.  When you eliminate all of the above groups of people, the number becomes about 10.6 million Americans who do not have health insurance.

The article concludes:

“The emergence of such a (dynamic, conpetitive market for individual insurance)…would not guarantee universal health-insurance coverage — but neither would the Baucus bill, according to the CBO. Health-care reforms that reduced costs, increased value, enhanced insurance portability, improved transparency, and promoted competition would also substantially boost coverage. Lawmakers must remember that an expansion of insurance coverage could either mitigate or exacerbate America’s underlying health-care problems, depending on how it is achieved. Implementing price controls and costly mandates would only make those problems worse.”

We need to examine the history of the cost of government programs.  Government programs very rarely (if ever) cost less than their predicted cost.  The also tend to be less effective than the private sector because they do not have to be efficient–there is no reason to be efficient–there is no profit involved.  Please read the article at National Review.  It is long, but has a lot of good ideas on the subject of health insurance reform.

Today’s New York Post has an opinion piece by Peter Brookes dealing with the changes America has made in the missile shield promised to Poland and the Czech Republic.  Vice-President Biden visited those two countries last week to explain the program the White House is planning to put in place there. 

The new plan for a missile defense shield is based on a new evaluation of existing intelligence on the Iranian ballistic-missile threat.  The Pentagon currently says that short and medium range missiles from Iran are more of a threat than any long range missiles.  The decision to use US Navy ships to defend Europe from Iranian missiles is a good idea if the threat is from short and medium range missiles; however, the system promised by the Bush Administration would also have been an early warning system to protect the US. 

The article points out the future dangers to the US in terms of our own missile shield:

“The Alaska and California sites could take out an Iranian ICBM targeted at much of the United States, but there are serious questions about coverage — including New York and Washington — because of the missiles’ trajectory and range.

Worse yet, President Obama decided to reduce the number of West Coast interceptors from 40 to 30, which would limit the capability to take out incoming ICBMs, because several interceptors would be fired at each missile to ensure a kill.

That means there’s a gap in our defenses against an Iranian ICBM strike until the land-based SM-3s are operational, which, by the way, will almost certainly face funding and engineering-development challenges.

In the end, the Biden proposal not only lags the Bush plan’s deployment time frame, it’s possibly more expensive and probably only equally as capable. Plus, the Russians (and Chinese) may try to get us to stand down on the new, “juiced” land-based SM-3, arguing that they’re a counterspace weapon in the arms-control talks many think the Obama administration is interested in opening on the weaponization of space.”

We currently live in a very complex world.  I am not sure our present administration is equipped to deal with the complexities of that world.

The Hill is reporting today that Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander said that the climate change bill currently being promoted by President Obama would “deliberately” kill American jobs. 

According to the article Senator Alexander has an alternative program to the one being discussed:

“…Alexander said he accepts the science behind global-warming and the need for a climate-change bill, but emphasized the Republican approach is superior. As he has for several weeks, Alexander said the country should devote itself to building 100 more nuclear power plants over the next 20 years, converting half of the country’s autos to electricity in the next 20 years; increase offshore oil exploration and increase investments in energy research and development.”

Democrat Senator John Rockefeller is also opposed to the current bill.  The current emission standards in the bill would devastate the coal industry in his state.

There is a related article in Newsweek this week about the negative effects of the amount of money being invested in green energy worldwide right now. 

The Newsweek article points out:

“Energy economist Manuel Frondel of Germany’s RWI Institute says the country’s lavish subsidies have blocked innovation and delayed the advent of cost-competitive solar power worldwide. For several years solar-module costs stagnated because German subsidies sucked up global production at virtually any price. Only when Spain decided in 2008 to scrap a similar subsidy scheme it had copied from the Germans did the global solar bubble collapse and costs fall. The German solar case also defies the green-jobs model. The idea is that subsidies create a new industry and a lot of high-tech jobs. Yet Germany’s solar producers are downsizing. With little pressure to become efficient and cost–competitive, they are now getting crowded out by Chinese producers.”

Government is never a successful innovator and more government subsidies do not lead to economic growth.  We need to use the energy we have in America as we let the marketplace freely determine our energy supplies of the future.

Hot Air posted an article today on Tim Pawlenty’s comments of the New York 23rd Congressional District race. 

According to the article:

“Governor Pawlenty sent RedState the following statement:

“We cannot send more politicians to Washington who wear the Republican jersey on the campaign trail, but then vote like Democrats in Congress on issues like card check and taxes. After reviewing the candidates’ positions, I’m endorsing Doug Hoffman in New York’s special election. Doug understands the federal government needs to quit spending so much, will vote against tax increases, and protect key values like the right to vote in private in union elections.””

I understand that there is a fairly good chance that Tim Pawlenty will make a run for President in 2012.  I don’t know if this statement was made with that in mind, but I totally agree with what Mr. Pawlenty said.  Bad policy is bad policy–it really doesn’t matter which party enacts it.  The Congressional spending by Republicans under George Bush was deplorable (it would have been deplorable regardless of which party did it).  I realize that we are a country at war and that is expensive, but there is a lot of other spending that could easily be cut.  I hope more Republicans remember that they were sent to Washington to make government smaller–not drive the country into bankruptcy.

Yesterday the blog at the Weekly Standard posted an article on NATO’s reaction to the delay in President Obama’s committing more troops to Afghanistan.  This is an interesting situation.  President Bush tried very hard to obtain larger troop commitments from our NATO allies and was often unsuccessful.  In many cases when the troops were granted, they were restricted as to what their activities could be.  Now, as President Obama is still deciding what to do, in Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel is considering increasing the number of German troops and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has stated that he will be sending 500 more troops to Afghanistan.

This reminds me of a debutante playing hard to get.  I don’t think that President Obama necessarily planned it this way, but the results are interesting.  Because America is quietly stepping away from her role as the world’s protector of freedom and democracy, the rest of the world is getting nervous.  The question is, “If America leaves a vacuum as it steps down from the role of world policeman, who will fill that role?”  I realize that some Americans will welcome the pulling back of America from its role, but we need to consider who will take our place and what they will stand for.  The logical successor to America as the leader of the world is China–it has the largest population and the strongest economy.  When you consider the civil rights record of China, I can understand why our NATO allies are getting nervous.

To me, the question is whether or not America has a responsibility to work toward freedom for everyone.  What form should that work take?  We have been free and prosperous for a long time.  Even in the current economic times, poor Americans have a standard of living that is the envy of many people in other countries.  What responsibility do we have to share our freedom and prosperity?

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article today about the profit margins of the insurance companies that the Democrats have so often characterized as greedy.  It turns out that according to their annual reports, health insurance profit margins typically run about 6 percent, give or take a point or two.  Last year they were very low.  Profits barely exceeded 2 percent of revenues in the latest annual measure. That doesn’t seem particularly greedy to me.

In contrast, trial lawyers showed a profit margin of almost 14%,  I have never heard Democrats demonize trial lawyers because of their profit margin, despite the fact that it is more than six times the profit margin of insurance companies.  Donations by trial lawyers comprise a major part of Democrat fund raising, so I guess it’s ok for them to have a large profit margin.

Anyway, next time you hear the Democrats talk about the greedy insurance companies, think about the greedy trial lawyers who support the Democrat party!

Power Line today posted an article by Scott Johnson.  The article lists statements by Kristofer Harrison, who served as the Chief of Staff to the Counselor of the Secretary of State during the Bush administration.  Mr. Harrison writes to comment on Paul Mirengoff’s post “No class, bad character” on Dick Cheney’s speech this past week, Stephen Hayes’s Weekly Standard article “Obama’s minions are ingrates,” and Scott’s post “No class, bad character: The inside story”.

Mr. Harrison confirms that both presidential candidates were briefed on Afghanistan before the election.  He confirms the fact that the Obama administration asked the Bush administration to keep the findings of their in-depth study of Afghanistan secret. 

Mr. Harrison points out:

“In March, when Obama announced his new Afghanistan strategy, I did not notice a single change from the new plan that we had given him…only Obama did not resource it with enough troops.”

The Power Line article points out that in blaming President Bush for not giving him information on the situation in Afghanistan does not affect President Bush–the stalling in sending more troops does, however, affect the troops on the ground now.  This is the kind of political game that the Democrat party played in Viet Nam that caused the unnecessary deaths of many American soldiers.  I hope President Obama is not going to do the same thing again. 

Last week, Sky News posted a story about the death of a British Nuclear Expert.  The man fell from the 17th floor of the United Nations offices in Vienna.  It has been reported that four months ago another UN worker also believed to be British fell from a similar height in the same building. 

According to the article:

“The latest incident happened on Tuesday as the United States, France, Russia and Iran held talks nearby about Tehran’s nuclear programme.”

The man who fell worked for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, an international agency charged with uncovering illicit nuclear tests.

I originally came across this article at Lucianne.com.  Based on the comments at that website, the average American internet reader is not very trusting of official reports regarding the death of nuclear experts.  The timing of the man’s death does make me wonder, although a UN spokesman in the Austrian capital said there were no “suspicious circumstances” surrounding the man’s death.

Hot Air posted an article today by Ed Morrissey addressing the question as to whether or not mandatory healthcare is constitutional.  I am by no means a legal scholar, and much of the argument was way above my pay grade, but the case Mr. Morrissey made was interesting.

In response to an argument made by Kathy Kattenburg at The Moderate Voice, Mr. Morrissey points out:

“I’ll allow for the sake of argument that the government has a several-decades-old precedent for establishing government delivery of medical care, but Medicare and Medicaid are entirely voluntary. No American citizen is forced to accept Medicare or Medicaid, as anyone arguing on behalf of the “47 million uninsured Americans” should know.  Several million of the uninsured are people with eligibility in one of these federal programs who have declined to enter them.”

There are a few aspects of this question I had not considered.  When required health insurance is compared to required car insurance, the argument falls down–driving a car is a privilege–it is optional.  If you don’t want to be required to purchase car insurance, you can choose not to drive.  If you don’t want to be required to purchase medical insurance, refusing to see a doctor or obtain medical care is not really an option.  Breathing is not optional. 

I love this story.  Power Line posted a story yesterday about 24 50-inch flat screen television sets that the State of Minnesota had purchased for a facility in Moose Lake that houses sex offenders.  Good grief!  Governor Tim Pawlenty heard about the purchase and had the television sets distributed among four Minnesota homes for veterans instead.  Wow!!  I am impressed.  Can Governor Pawlenty come to Massachusetts for a while?

Freedom of the press no longer involves companies with large printing presses who buy ink by the ton.  Today’s press includes television, radio, newspapers, and the internet.  Some of these sources are slanted toward one opinion and admit it; some of these sources are slanted toward one opinion and don’t admit it.  Some of our news sources are not news sources–they are opinion sources.  There really is nothing wrong with that as long as the people consuming the news are aware of what they are consuming.  The problem occurs when opinions are stated as facts or facts are left out of the story.  That is part of the cause of the deep political divide in this country right now.   Conservatives and liberals are not always working from the same fact base, and not everyone has all the information they need to form opinions.

Having said that, there were two articles up on the internet last week that may be an indication of danger to our current freedom to access information.  The first article is at the Wall Street Journal‘s Best of the Web column yesterday.  The second article is at Breitbart.com.

The Wall Street Journal article reminds us of Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals,” published in 1971.  I have cited this book before as a guide to how the Obama Administration deals with opposition.  Four of the rules from “Rules for Radicals” that we are seeing play out here as we watch the war on Fox News are as follows:

1.  Pick the target.

2.  Freeze the target (freeze the perception of the target by the public).

3.  Personalize the target (separate it from the other media).

4.  Polarize it (recommend that other media disregard Fox News).

The idea here is to take out Fox with the consent of the other media.  This also serves as a warning to other media to be careful what stories they cover.

The second internet article that got my attention was the announcement at Breitbart that the FCC is going to begin crafting “net neutrality” rules.  According to this article:

“FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said regulations are needed to ensure that broadband subscribers can access all legal Web sites and services, including Internet calling applications and video sites that compete with the broadband companies’ core businesses.”

No they’re not.  Anytime the government regulates something, they make it worse.  Politics comes into play, and life gets very complicated.  The dangers of having a ‘government regulated’ internet outweigh anything that may be happening now that is unfair.  The danger here is that new laws would be passed to favor companies that are in political favor with whatever administration is in power.  We have seen this type of favoritism in the way the stimulus money was distributed, the way the auto industry was taken over, and the way Fox News has been dealt with.  Why in the world would we want to pass laws that encourage more of this type of behavior?  

I realize this article may not belong in the midst of what is an attempt at serious political commentary, but I will miss Soupy Sales.  I spent my teenage years in New Jersey, about thirty minutes outside of New York City.  After my classmates and I outgrew American Bandstand, we turned to Soupy Sales when we came home from school.  I really can’t say what his humor was, but we all loved him.  He represents a time when television stars were gentlemen, well-mannered, and freely gave autographs.  He will be missed.

Fox News has posted the Associated Press write-up on his career.

Fox News today posted the story on what happened at the White House yesterday when President Obama tried to exclude Fox News from a briefing by “pay czar” Kenneth
Feinberg.  Mr Feinberg was going to be available for interviews to every member of the White House
pool except Fox News. The pool is the five-network rotation that for
decades has shared the costs and duties of daily coverage of the
presidency.

The Washington bureau chiefs of the five TV networks decided that if Fox News was not included, they did not want to do the interviews.  Because the other networks took a stand to defend Fox News, the White House backed down and gave Fox News access to the “pay czar.”  The Obama Administration has been at war with Fox News for some time now; when President Obama made his rounds of the Sunday talk shows recently, he omitted Fox News.  This is very petty behavior on the part on the President.

Power Line last night posted a very good article on the pay cuts being put in place by the Pay Czar.  Aside from the basic question, “Where is the pay czar in the Constitution?”, there are some interesting repercussions on this legislation.

The pay cuts, expected to be significant, only apply to certain companies.  Some executives are expected to receive cuts of as much as 90 per cent (For many of the executives, the cash they would have received will be replaced by stock that they will be restricted from selling immediately).  As a taxpayer who helped bail out these companies, you may agree with that, but stop and think a minute about the law of unintended consequences.  These executives are not stupid people.  In most cases, the problems these companies encountered had more to do with government policies on sub-prime mortgages than they did with executive decisions.  I am sure the majority of these executives have impressive resumes. 

The salaries of the executive positions were cut–there is nothing written anywhere that says that the people currently in those positions have to stay there–I am sure they are updating their resumes as I write this. 

The article at Power Line lists many of the aspects of the move to control executive salaries that have been overlooked thus far in the discussion.  Please read it for more information on the consequences of this action.

The two sources for this story are The Hill (an article posted last night) and Thomas.gov (the Congressional website that gives information on votes and activities in Congress on a daily basis).

Yesterday in the Senate twelve Democrats and one Independent joined all Republicans to defeat a bill to halt Medicare cuts affecting doctors.  (Just as a side note, if the fact that Olympia Snow voted to get healthcare out of committee and onto the Senate floor, makes that a bipartisan vote and signals cooperation, isn’t this vote bipartisan?)   The tactic here was to keep this aspect of healthcare out of the healthcare reform bill as it would increase the cost of the bill and make it harder to pass the bill.  The change that was voted down will have to be dealt with in some way in the near future, but evidently some Congressmen did not want to be a part of pulling the wool over the public’s eyes in terms of passing this separately.

The link provided above to Thomas.gov has the specifics of the vote.  The hope was that the passage of this legislation would convince doctors in the AMA to support the larger healthcare reform package that Congress is putting together. 

Harry Reid is, of course, blaming the Republicans, but if all the Democrats had voted for halting cuts in Medicare reimbursement fees, the measure would have passed.  It was defeated in a bipartisan manner–not along party lines.

The full test of the speech Dick Cheney gave last night is at The Weekly Standard blog.

The source of this story is Fox News.  Regardless of how you feel about Dick Cheney, he tends to be blunt.  Yesterday, he responded to the Obama Administration’s charge by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel that the Obama administration had to form an Afghan war strategy from scratch because the Bush administration hadn’t asked any key questions about the war and left it “adrift.”

According to Mr. Cheney, the Bush administration had developed a new strategy on the war in Afghanistan before leaving office — a strategy that he said “bears a striking resemblance” to the one announced by President Obama in March.  The Bush Administration was asked not to reveal their strategy publicly and complied with that request. 

The claim that there was no strategy when President Obama took office has been one of the excuses used to justify the dithering about following the recommendations of General McChrystal. 

According to the article:

“(Rahm) Emanuel told CNN that the president is “asking the questions that have never been asked on the civilian side, the political side, the military side and the strategic side.”

“It’s clear that basically we had a war for eight years that was going on, that’s adrift, that we’re beginning at scratch, just at the starting point…and that there’s not a security force, an army, and the types of services that are important for the Afghans to become a true partner.””

The lack of honesty and transparency of this administration is unbelievable.  At some point, President Obama needs to stop whining about what everyone else has or hasn’t done and step up to the plate and deal with the issues of the day.

Despite the fact that Congress years ago passed a resolution to recognize an undivided Jerusalem as the capital of Israel (a resolution that has never been carried out), the State Department has a different take on the subject.

According to Huliq News, the children born to American citizens living in Jerusalem, whether in West or East Jerusalem, are not recognized by the US State Department as being born in Israel. 

According to the article:

“However, regarding births in any of the Arab towns or Jewish communities, the rules read “The birthplace for people born in the West Bank or in the No Man’s Lands between the West Bank and Israel is WEST BANK…Those born in 1948 or later may have their city of birth as an alternate entry.”

This situation, protest Jewish Americans living in the area, is illogical. The “West Bank” never existed as a geo-political entity until 1950, when Jordan annexed the area. That annexation was never recognized by the United States. Moreover, the place names used by the British Mandate as well as by the United Nations in its 1947 Partition Resolution, the same decision the US uses to avoid listing Jerusalem as in Israel, were actually “Judea” and “Samaria. A baby born to American citizens in Shiloh, for example, should be registered as “Shiloh, Samaria”.”

Does this mean that children born in Texas are Mexican?  Israel is the only country in the world that when she was attacked and defeated her attackers was not allowed to keep the land she gained. 

To quote Walid Shoebat, “Why is it that on June 4th 1967 I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Palestinian?”

This is the stupidity of the worldwide war that is happening against Israel.

Today’s St. Petersburg Times posted an article by Dave Mica on the benefits offshore drilling would bring to the American economy.

Mr. Mica points out:

“According to an ICF International study, commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute, development of America’s vast domestic oil and natural gas resources that had been kept off-limits by Congress for decades could generate $1.7 trillion in revenue for federal, state and local government. According to the same study, domestic development could also create thousands of well-paying jobs. Given the benefits, why does the administration continue to delay new and increased development?”

While the American Congress prohibits American companies from offshore drilling, other countries (less careful about the environment) are drilling in these waters.  It is economic foolishness to keep any restrictions on offshore drilling for American companies in place. 

There are a lot of complex issues involved in the energy debate.  What would be the impact of American oil independence?  There is a move right now to make the American dollar no longer the currency used to buy oil.  If America were oil independent, would this matter?  Our dollars would be going to American companies–balancing our trade and putting Americans to work.  I also wonder how powerful OPEC would be if America were energy independent. 

There is also another issue here that may be below the radar.  In the 1970’s an agreement was made with Saudi Arabia that we would support their government in exchange for their support of the dollar being used to trade oil.  That explains a lot of the schizophrenic policies we have had toward Saudi Arabia over the years.  Offshore drilling would make that a moot point and might result in saner policies in the Middle East.

Why is our government unwilling to reach for energy independence?

Yes, I realize that statement is inflammatory, but it is also true.  General McChrystal asked for reinforcements in August; it is criminal to leave troops there without providing the requested reinforcements.

Investor’s Business Daily (now Investors.com) posted an editorial yesterday on the need to follow the recommendations of General McChrystal.  The article points out that although the election was far from perfect, the election is not the sole reason we are there.  I would also like to point out that in Iraq, an entire section of the population boycotted the first election.  We continued our mission to bring order to the country, and those people voted in the next election.  To deny our troops the reinforcements they need because of an imperfect election is reckless and puts our troops at risk.  It also emboldens the terrorists we are trying to defeat.

Where was all this concern about honest elections in Iran and Venezuela?

The article points out:

“The delay makes winning more difficult, and it’s a betrayal of U.S. troops who are fighting and dying in a war they can’t suspend just to let Afghanistan get its electoral act together. The troops need backup, and to them more support is not a political carrot.”

If the request for more troops is not granted in a timely manner, we can expect to see more American and civilian deaths in Afghanistan while the President dithers.  We could also see the terrorism against Pakistan increase and the nuclear arsenal that Parkistan possesses fall into terrorist hands.  That would be a horrible nightmare for the free world.

I am a football fan.  I live about ten minutes from where the New England Patriots play.  Having spent my teenage years in New Jersey, I am a Jets fan, but I still like the Patriots.  I watched Sunday’s game from the comfort of my living room as I watched the snow fall outside–in October!!  I felt sorry for Tennessee–I think they just wanted to go home.

The current consensus of opinion is that since 1998, the earth is cooling.  There are a number of theories as to why that is happening, my favorite website on global warming is Watts Up With That.  If you want to follow the science of climate change, that is a good place to do it. 

This is not an article about global warming; it is an article about what is being planned to combat global warming regardless of whether or not it is actually happening.

Human Events posted an article yesterday about the Congressional law requiring all of us to use compact fluorescent bulb — CFLs.  The mandatory phase-out of incandescent bulbs starts in 2012.  Let’s look at the CFL’s for a moment.  CFLs contain mercury, a hazardous waste, so the EPA wants you to discard them only according to its guidelines. 

In his article at Human Events Ernest Istook points out:

“My complaints are widely-held but poorly-publicized. Buried in the back pages are details about the new bulbs: poorer quality lighting; overstated claims of long life; and that they’re mostly (80%) made in China.”

In the name of preserving the planet, we are shipping jobs overseas to a country that does not have the anti-pollution standards that we have.  That makes a lot of sense.

Watts Up With That has the video of a speech given by Lord Monckton October 14th, 2009 at a climate skeptic event sponsored by the Minnesota Free Market Institute.  They also have the powerpoint presentation he used.  For me, the bottom line on this speech is his comment on the United Nations Climate Change Treaty:

 “I have read that treaty.  And what it says is this: That a world government is going to be created.  The word “government” actually appears as the first of three purposes of the new entity.  The second purpose is the transfer of wealth from the countries of the West to Third World countries, in satisfaction of what is called, coyly, “a climate debt,” because we have been burning CO2 and they haven’t and we’ve been screwing up the climate.  We haven’t been screwing up the climate, but that’s the line.  And the third purpose of this new entity, this government is “enforcement.””

To be totally honest, I don’t know what to think of this.  I know that the majority of Americans do not want to be part of a treaty that takes away our sovereignty.  I hope the President and Congress read this treaty carefully before taking any action on it.

Power Line posted an article yesterday detailing the negotiations currently going on in Vienna concerning Iran’s nuclear program. 

The government of Iran is telling the Iranians that the Obama administration has consented to Iranian enrichment of uranium.  Power Line earlier reported on the Iranian mullahs’ official Friday night sermon (which essentially stated that Iran had won the right to have nuclear weapons).

The article posted yesterday reports:

“Iran repudiated the deal. Now, Iran wants a foreign country, France or someone else, to ship it the nuclear material it needs for civilian purposes, but it wants to keep its own enriched uranium at home:

The move came as Iranian officials held talks with representatives of America, France and Russia in Vienna. An earlier meeting in Geneva on Oct 1 had yielded an agreement which some saw as a possible breakthrough.

Iran has amassed at least 1.4 tons of low-enriched uranium inside its underground plant in Natanz. If this was further enriched to weapons-grade level – a lengthy process – it would be enough for one nuclear weapon.

But Iran agreed to export 75 per cent of this stockpile to Russia and then France, where it would have been converted into fuel rods for use in a civilian research reactor in Tehran. This would have been a significant step towards containing Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Before talks, however, Iranian officials signalled they would renege.”

Hopefully it will occur to someone in the Obama Administration that the more time we spend in negotiations with Iran, the more time they have to perfect their nuclear weapons and delivery systems.  The time for negotiations is over; the time for action is here.  It is a shame that neither the UN or the US has the political will to impose strong sanctions–in not doing anything both the UN and the US have made the world less safe.  It will probably be left to the Israelis to solve the problem, and the world will condemn them for their solution (while many countries silently breathe a sigh of relief!).

There are two sources for this article, Politico, which is reporting on the healthcare bill that has come out of the Finance Committee, and The Hill, which is reporting on the deal offered to doctors in return for their support of the bill.

Politico reports:

The bill that has come out of the Finance Committee is 1,502 pages long.  Politico has a link to the entire bill, but also posts highlights at the link above.  Some of the highlights:

Some of the Senators are concerned that the tax on high-end health insurance plans will also be levied on plans that are not so high end.  The 40 percent tax on high-end insurance plans will apply to plans that cost an individual more than $8,000 and a family more than $21,000 would be taxes.  That’s a plan costing a family $1,750 a month.  That is not high end.  In Massachusetts, that’s probably low for a good plan.

This is not the final form of the bill.  Senate Majority Leader Reid and Sens. Max Baucus and Chris Dodd along with senior White House aides are merging the Finance and Health Committee legislation into one bill that will be considered on the floor of the Senate.  This will go on behind closed doors, and we probably won’t have a chance to study the bill that comes out of that merge.  So far, there is no transparency in this process.

The Hill reports:

Senator Harry Reid met with doctors’ groups last week and said the Senate would consider legislation separate from the healthcare bill to halt scheduled Medicare cuts in doctor payments over the next 10 years.  Senator Reid stated that in return he expected doctors to support his healthcare reform bill.  Senator Reid also asked doctors not to push for tort reform in the legislation.  Trial lawyers are a major part of the Democrat party donors, and those lawyers oppose tort reform.

I am also convinced that the purpose of the $250 payment to senior citizens who are not getting a cost of living increase in their Social Security payments is to distract them from what the Obama Administration is about to do to their Medicare coverage.

Healthcare reform without tort reform and without portability of personal healthcare insurance across state lines is not healthcare reform–it is only a government takeover of the healthcare insurance industry.

The Hill‘s Blog Briefing Room is reporting today that Senator Joseph Lieberman (the Independent from Connecticut) will hold hearings on Thursday to explore the role of ‘czars’ in the executive branch. 

According to the article:

“Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) will convene the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee on Thursday to explore “The Past, Present, and Future of Policy Czars.””

Why is it that an independent Senator has the intestinal fortitude to do this and the Republicans in Congress do not? 

Some of the witnesses at the hearing will be former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, George Mason University Professor James Piffner, Attorney Lee A. Casey, and Harold Relyea, a former researcher at the Congressional Research Service.

Previous Presidents have also appointed ‘czars’.  The issue is what the specific responsibilities of the czars are and whether or not they are involved in determining policy.  They are not confirmed by the Senate and there is some real question as to whether or not they are constitutional.

The Blog at the Weekly Standard posted an article by William Kristol yesterday about the delay in sending more troops to Afghanistan.  As the mother-in-law of a Marine headed there shortly, I am very interested in this debate.

According to the article:

“”It would be reckless to make a decision on U.S. troop level if, in fact, you haven’t done a thorough analysis of whether, in fact, there’s an Afghan partner ready to fill that space that the U.S. troops would create and become a true partner in governing the Afghan country.” — White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, on CNN today (Sunday)”

William Kristol has four arguments against this statement:

1.  Many of the people in the current White House were against sending more troops even before the election in Afghanistan took place.  Rahm Emanuel and Joe Biden were both on the record as opposing more troops. 

2.  President Obama announced his Afghanistan strategy on March 27.  The Obama team had months to move to insure that the election would be carried out honestly.  There was no doubt that without political and diplomatic moves, the election would be corrupt.  Then, on August 17, President Obama restated his commitment to win in Afghanistan, when it was known that the election would be corrupt.  Now the administration is acting as if a corrupt election was a surprise.

3.  If the White House complained about General McChrystal publicly stating his opinions about what was needed to win the war, what is the justification for Rahm Emanuel going on CNN and voicing his opinion?

4.  The policy of delay is stupid and reckless.  We are leaving 68,000 undersupplied troops in Afghanistan to do a job that requires 108,000.  When you consider the lessons learned (we hope) in Iraq, this is foolish.  The political history in that part of the world shows that the people in Afghanistan will side with the group they feel will protect them and that will stand with them against the weaker group.  There is no morality involved; it is matter of survival. 

There were a number of things that turned the tide is Iraq.  One was the troop surge which allowed us to bring peace to troubled areas and stabilize the situation.  The other thing that made a difference in Iraq was the unbelievable cruelty practiced by Al Qaeda in Iraq against the Iraqis. 

Afghanistan has lived under the Taliban.  They know what it is like.  The women in that country know what it is like.  The dithering at the White House may cost us our allies in the region and it will definitely cost American lives.  President Obama needs to live up to his campaign pledges and do what we need to do to win.

Friday’s Washington Examiner posted an article on the difficulties of claiming ‘global warming’ when looking at the recent weather statistics and the statistics for the past ten years.  The article points out:

“…what has happened is global temperatures have dropped every year since 1998, recent peer-reviewed research has uncovered the decisive influence of hot and cold cycles in the oceans on land temperatures, and growing numbers of scientists with unquestioned credentials are stepping forward to question the conventional wisdom.”

The bottom line here is that we don’t know all we think we know!  The raw data on which the landmark 1996 United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change based its conclusion has been destroyed.  The University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit has discarded the data that the 1996 United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change used to conclude that the earth was warming rapidly due to carbon emissions.  The data that was used to predict the end of the world in five years due to global warming has disappeared.

The article points out:

“The Competitive Enterprise Institute has formally requested that the Environmental Protection Agency, which helps fund CRU, “reopen the record” and allow CEI and others to submit newly uncovered information regarding the East Anglia data destruction. The conservative think tank also wants to submit information about flaws in other data EPA is using as it devises stringent new anti-global warming regulations. Congress should also investigate the dumping of data partially paid for by U.S. taxpayers and other suspicious global warming anomalies, such as the temperature readings taken from “ghost weather stations” like the one at Maine’s Ripogenus Dam. It was officially closed in 1995 but allegedly is still transmitting climate data 14 years later. Such questionable data sources must be eliminated if credible policy decisions are ever to be reached.”

Does it make sense to cripple the United States economy for an idea based on questionable data that has been destroyed?  As this discussion continues, I would like to point out that it snowed yesterday in Massachusetts.  That is the earliest snowfall we have had in thirty years.