According to Bloomberg.com today, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel has announced that the health-care overhaul legislation being drafted by House Democrats will include $600 billion in tax increases and $400 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid,  The measure’s cost is reaching well beyond the $634 billion President Barack Obama proposed in his budget request to Congress as a 10-year down payment for the policy changes.  According to the article:

“Asked whether the cost of a health-care overhaul would be more than $1 trillion over a decade, Rangel said, “the answer is yes.” Some Senate Republicans, including Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, say the costs will likely exceed $1.5 trillion.”

The healthcare legislation that the Democrats are putting together would require all Americans to have health insurance, prohibit insurers from refusing to cover pre-existing conditions and place other restrictions on the industry.

The article concludes:

“Rangel said that while House Democrats will likely release more details about health policy changes in their legislation next week, the package of offsetting tax increases and spending cuts likely will come later. Democrats, he said, want to put forth the more-positive aspects of an overhaul first. Rangel also wants to let lawmakers have time to study and weigh in on proposed offsets.

“We have a problem in not wanting to attract enough negative attention to the bill in terms of the pay-fors,” he said. “Let them get a good feel for the coverage.””

National healthcare is not a good idea.  The government is not known for its efficiency or its fairness.  National healthcare will result in rationing.  Senior citizens and people with any sort of ongoing medical condition will not have access to the quality of care that they have access to today.  National healthcare with its government controlled pricing structure will also seriously slow down medical research.  If we accept national healthcare, we will be trading the Cadillac of healthcare for a yugo.  That is not a good idea. 

The New York Daily News is reporting that a New York judge has refused to block the takeover of the New York Senate by Republicans.  The Republicans attempted to meet today, but adjourned until Monday because only two Democrats showed up.  According to the article:

“The new leaders said they couldn’t conduct business because the Democrats locked away all the bills and other documents.

They also didn’t have the needed 32 votes to pass a bill because one of the dissident Democrats, Sen. Hiram Monserrate of Queens, said he won’t vote on anything until more Democrats join the session.

The abbreviated session began after Supreme Court Justice George Ceresia rejected a request from Democrats to delay the takeover – but agreed to hear more arguments.”

The Governor of New York has stated that he will work with the Senate’s elected leaders.  Stay tuned.

According to Power Line, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution held hearings yesterday on the legal, moral and national security consequences of “prolonged detention” of terrorist suspects.  Richard Klingler, who served in the Bush administration from 2005-2007, first in the Office of White House Counsel and then as General Counsel on the National Security staff, testified before the committee yesterday. 

The article at Power Line summarizes his testimony to the committee.  It is long and complicated and should be read in its entirety, but I will attempt to highlight it here.  Mr. Klingler stated:

“The lawfulness of ongoing detention of enemy combatants is clear and well-established. In short, such detention is a lawful incident of war, authorized whenever the exercise of war powers is proper. The Supreme Court has reached this conclusion for this specific conflict. The current Administration has correctly argued that “[l]ongstanding law-of-war principles recognize that the capture and detention of enemy forces are important incidents of war,” that our enemies are not confined to fixed battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that Congress has through the AUMF authorized ongoing detention.”

If detention is outsourced, prisoners would not be treated as well and might be released prematurely.  This has already happened with Guantanamo prisoners who have been caught or killed on the battlefield after their release.  The head of Al Qaeda in Yemen is a former Guantanamo inmate.

The article further points out:

“We should resist the return to pre-9/11 practice that exclusive reliance on criminal proceedings would reflect. We do not want to leave terrorists in the field, or send them there, simply because U.S. forces have not gathered evidence of past wrongdoing, admissible in court and provable “beyond a reasonable doubt.” We want them off the battlefield sooner, and to stay off longer. As the President says, we need “tools. . .to allow us to prevent attacks.””

We have an obligation to protect our soldiers as much as possible from terrorist attacks, and to protect our civilian population from a repeat of anything like 9/11.  There is no easy answer to the problem of what to do with terrorists except to handle it thoughtfully and proceed with caution.

Tuesday’s Investor’s Business Daily ran an editorial about how the statewide healthcare system is working in Oregon.  The statewide healthcare plan has been in operation since 1993.  The Health Services Commission has a list of 680 treatments, only 503 of which will be paid for by the Oregon Health Plan.  Treatments not in the top 503 have to be paid for by the patient.  The article points out that therapy for a cracked rib (No. 512), nasal polyps (No. 524), a broken big toe (No. 527) and liver cancer (No. 575) are not covered by the plan. However, those who abuse or are dependent upon psychoactive substances or are dependent on tobacco (Nos. 5 and 6) are covered.  As the system continues to operate, the ranking of treatments changes according to cost considerations.

Concerning the goal of the plan:

“According to the Willamette Week, Oregon’s program was designed “to broaden eligibility to the working poor” but not as an open-ended system that could be exploited. Reasonable limits — “no more liver transplants for alcoholics or boob jobs for transsexuals,” were part of the plan from the beginning.”

As the plan progresses, costs get higher and life-saving medical procedures move further down the top 503 list, and people are denied the healthcare they need.  The article concludes:

“Rationing should never be conducted by a bureaucracy, particularly one that’s heavily lobbied. But we are rapidly moving into the realm, as one of our readers has noted, of the veterinary ethic of health care. In this arrangement, a third party, not the patient, decides if the patient will receive treatment.

In a government-run system, we will all become dogs, awaiting the master’s decision from Washington. Human lives are devalued and individual well-being is subordinated to the collective. America is too prosperous, and most Americans are too self-reliant to deserve the punishment of such an arrangement.”

To my knowledge, there is no system of government-controlled healthcare that innovates and meets the needs of the people as well as the one we have in America now.  It is not perfect, but a complete government overhaul will only make it worse.

The basic story of what happened at the Holocaust Museum in Washington is at the New York Post today.  What happened there is horrible and should never have happened.  However, I have one question–this shooter was a convicted felon who had served time in jail, why was he allowed to own a gun?  I believe Americans have the right to own guns, but I do not believe convicted felons have the right to own guns.  We do not need tighter gun laws, we need common sense gun laws that are enforced.  I don’t know whether this man owned a gun legally or illegally, but either way, it illustrates the fact the we are not adequately enforcing our current gun laws.

According to the Washington Times today, Palau (one of a handful of countries that does not recognize China and maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan) agreed to accept the17 Uighurs that have been housed in Guantanamo since being captured in a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan.  Palau is a former U.S. trust territory in the Pacific that became independent in 1994 when it signed a Free Compact of Association with the U.S.  While it is independent, it relies heavily on U.S. aid and is dependent on the United States for its defense. Native-born Palauans are allowed to enter the United States without passports or visas.

The article points out:

“Two U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. was prepared to give Palau up to $200 million in development, budget support and other assistance in return for accepting the Uighurs and as part of a mutual defense and cooperation treaty that is due to be renegotiated this year.”

These people may be as pure as the wind-driven snow, but the fact remains that they were captured in Afghanistan in a terrorist training camp.  Shouldn’t we be thinking about why they were there and what the learned during their stay? 

National Review posted an article today about the Supreme Court allowing the sale of Chrysler to Fiat to proceed.  The article notes:

“It should be noted that Chrysler’s unions, unsecured creditors who jumped to the head of the line thanks to White House power play, did not give an inch on their base pay or pension terms.”

I am really sorry to see this happen.  Bankruptcy laws clearly state that secured creditors have to be paid in full before anyone else is compensated.  The Indiana pension funds, who were secured creditors, did make a very good case when they wrote to the Supreme Court:

“The public is watching and needs to see that, particularly when the system is under stress, the rule of law will be honored and an independent judiciary will properly scrutinize the actions of a massively powerful executive branch.”

The rule of law was not honored, and I am hoping that this is an isolated incident rather than the beginning of a trend. 

As the Weekly Standard reports today that the Obama administration is granting Miranda rights to detainees in Afghanistan, we need to look at some of the history of nonuniformed enemy combatants.

According to the Wall Street Journal on April 11 of this year, the Somali pirates capture of the Maersk Alabama this year created a legal problem for the current administration.  The article explains the history involved in the treatment of what are referred to as latrunculi (“the common enemies of mankind”).

“Though they don’t often employ the term, many legal experts agree that al Qaeda fighters are latrunculi — hardly distinguishable by their actions from pirates and the like. Robert Kogod Goldman, an American University law professor has commented: “I think under any standard, the captured al Qaeda fighters simply do not meet the minimum standards set out to be considered prisoners of war.” And according to Marc Cogen, a professor of international law at Ghent University in Belgium, “no ‘terrorist organization’ thus far has been deemed a combatant under the laws of armed conflict.” Thus al Qaeda members “can be punished for all hostile acts, including the killing of soldiers, because they have no right to participate directly in hostilities.” But the Obama administration is about to extend legal rights — intended to protect civilians — to the very latrunculi who want to blow them up by considering the possibility of trying them in U.S. courts. Indeed, Attorney General Holder did not rule out trying the Somali pirates.”

The Weekly Standard points out:

“But Republicans on Capitol Hill are not happy. “When they mirandize a suspect, the first thing they do is warn them that they have the ‘right to remain silent,'” says Representative Pete Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. “It would seem the last thing we want is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or any other al-Qaeda terrorist to remain silent. Our focus should be on preventing the next attack, not giving radical jihadists a new tactic to resist interrogation–lawyering up.”

According to Mike Rogers, that is precisely what some human rights organizations are advising detainees to do. “The International Red Cross, when they go into these detention facilities, has now started telling people — ‘Take the option. You want a lawyer.'”

Rogers adds: “The problem is you take that guy at three in the morning off of a compound right outside of Kabul where he’s building bomb materials to kill US soldiers, and read him his rights by four, and the Red Cross is saying take the lawyer — you have now created quite a confusion amongst the FBI, the CIA and the United States military. And confusion is the last thing you want in a combat zone.””

This is not the correct way to deal with terrorism, and I suspect the policy will be scrapped very quickly if this country is attacked.  One commentator I recenty heard pointed out that in World War II any enemy not wearing a uniform captured on or near the battlefield was immediately shot as a spy.  I think this is rather drastic (but effective), but I also think that reading terrorists their Miranda rights is rather drastic. 

On April 29 of this year, The Hill commented on a provision in a Federal Aviation Administration bill that had failed to be included in the bill.  The provision would have made it easier for employees of FedEx to unionize.  Only a fraction of FedEx’s more than 290,000 employees and independent contractors belong to unions, while more than half of UPS’s 425,000 employees are unionized.  UPS is hoping that a unionized FedEx will provide less competition than it currently does.  The article points out:

“Because FedEx started out as an airline, FedEx Express is covered by the Railroad Labor Act (RLA), which only allows unions to organize on a national basis. Because airlines tend to ship a higher percentage of goods across state lines, Congress saw an interest in preventing local unions from disrupting interstate commerce.”

This issue will show up again shortly.  According to a June 8, 2009 article in Business Week, which portrayed FedEx as anti-union:

“Twice in the past three months, in testimony by FedEx CEO Fred Smith before Congress and in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, Memphis-based FedEx has said its future Boeing (BA) 777 jet orders are contingent upon its workers remaining governed by the RLA.

The political spat in Washington comes at a time when both companies are facing serious financial troubles amid the global recession. In its latest earnings announcement, FedEx said revenues in the quarter ending Feb. 28 fell 14%, to $8.14 billion, with income plunging 72%, to $182 million. FedEx Express was a particularly dark spot, where operating profits dropped 90%. Meanwhile, at UPS, revenue in the quarter ended Mar. 31 fell 14% to $10.9 billion, with operating profits down 20%, to $718 million.”

Frankly, I think that unless Congress wants to see the economy further decline, they need to keep their hands off FedEx. 

Today’s New York Post has an article further explaining what happened in the New York State Senate yesterday.  The Republicans, at least temporarily, have taken control and restored Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos (R-LI) to the post of majority leader.  According to the article:

“The action throws the fate of nearly every item on Paterson’s agenda — from same-sex marriage to ethics reform to mayoral control in schools — in doubt just two weeks before the Legislature is scheduled to begin its summer recess.

Without a clear Senate leader, all action in the chamber will grind to a halt. Paterson defiantly said he would continue to recognize Smith as majority leader until the issue is resolved in the courts.”

I don’t know enough about the Senate rules to know if this is legal, but it sure is interesting!  The article states:

“While they controlled the floor, the Republicans quickly pushed through a package of rules that would, among other things, submit legislative leaders to term limits and require fair distribution of member items and legislative staff.

Even Mayor Bloomberg, a longtime ally of the Senate GOP, was stunned.

“I talked to the governor for two seconds earlier,” Bloomberg told reporters. “He was as floored as I was; he didn’t know any more then I did.””

I will admit I like the term limits part.

According to yesterday’s New York Times:

“One source of contention among Democrats recently has been Mr. Smith’s support for same-sex marriage. Senator Rubén Díaz Sr., a Democrat from the Bronx, has been outspoken in his insistence that legislation allowing gay couples to marry not be allowed to come to a vote. Some had speculated he might leave the Democratic Party if Mr. Smith were to allow a vote.

But Mr. Díaz did not join Mr. Espada and Mr. Monserrate in the leadership vote on Monday. It was not immediately clear whether the same-sex marriage legislation played any role in the leadership dispute.”

Hmmm.  I do have one observation on this.  The Democratic Party is made up of a lot of different groups with varying ideas.  Historically the southern Democrats  are more conservative than northern Republicans.  In New York State, Democrats have traditionally been more conservative than Republicans–contrast Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan with Republican John Lindsey.  Obviously, that is not always the case, but I wonder if the liberal agenda of Governor Paterson was a problem for the two Senators who joined with the Republicans.

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article this morning on President Obama’s claim that the stimulus package has saved or created 150,000 jobs.  That is quite an accomplishment since only 5 percent of the stimulus money has been spent.  It it also an amazing figure when you realize that the current unemployment rate is 9.4 percent.  We were told that if we passed the stimulus package, it would not increase over 8 percent.  Ooops.  The article points out:

“You created a situation where you cannot be wrong,” said the Montana Democrat (Senator Max Baucus). “If the economy loses two million jobs over the next few years, you can say yes, but it would’ve lost 5.5 million jobs. If we create a million jobs, you can say, well, it would have lost 2.5 million jobs. You’ve given yourself complete leverage where you cannot be wrong, because you can take any scenario and make yourself look correct.”

It would be nice if the news media would take a close look at these numbers and investigate their source.  If they cannot find a source for these numbers, the numbers should be exposed at the propaganda they are.

Tony Fratto, a senior member of the White House communications shop during the George Bush administration, has stated, “You would think that any self-respecting White House press corps would show some of the same skepticism toward President Obama’s jobs claims that they did toward President Bush’s tax cuts. But I’m still waiting.” 

The New York Post is reporting that this afternoon the Republicans took control of the New York State Senate away from the Democrats.  Evidently two dissident Democrats decided to form a coalition with the Republicans.  This must have been interesting.  The Post reports:

“Democrats tried to leave the chamber at one point — even turning off the lights briefly before order was restored.

“Democrats said they plan to take the fight to court.

“In a statement sent out by Smith’s office, a spokesman called the move “illegal and unlawful”

“Nothing has changed, Senator Malcolm A. Smith remains the duly elected Temporary President and Majority Leader,” the spokesman added. “The real Senate Majority is anxious to get back to governing, and will take immediate steps to get us back to work.””

I have no idea what the legal ramifications of this event are, but these events need to be followed to see how the courts will rule.  Evidently the revolt was the result of dissatisfaction with Senator Smith, who is the majority leader.  It will be interesting to see what happens next.

The (Canada) National Post published an article on May 12, 2009, regarding the success of wind power in Denmark.  The conclusions drawn were not what you might expect.  Michael Trebilcock, a Professor of Law and Economics, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, wrote the article.  The bottom line is very simple according to Professor Trebilcock:

“Next time readers see an ad from Vestas inviting them to “Believe in the wind,” they should ask themselves: If wind power has no significant impact on the problem we are trying to solve (i. e., CO2 emissions); if wind power costs two to three times as much as conventional sources of energy; if wind power kills twice as many jobs as it creates through its higher costs (except in the home countries of the major wind turbine manufacturers), then why would any right-minded person accept this invitation? We should also ask our politicians this question.”

Vestas, the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturer, is based in Denmark.  They have a market share of their industry of between 20 and 25 per cent.  The article points out:

“Most wind turbines run at about 25% of rated capacity, requiring back-up generation for the balance of the time. And because of their unpredictability, they require spinning reserves all the time, while conventional forms of electricity generation typically run at 75% to 95% of capacity utilization.” 

The article also points out that data from the International Energy Agency shows that the cost of residential electricity in Denmark in 2007 was US34¢ per kWh — the highest in Europe.  Denmark has yet to close a single fossil fuel plant and requires 50% more coal-generated electricity to cover wind power’s unpredictability, and that pollution and carbon dioxide emissions have risen (by 36% percent in 2006 alone).

The article futher states:

“…Denmark is heavily dependent on 728 local combined heat and power (CHP) plants which depend on fossil fuels. Energy statistics from the Danish Energy Agency for 2007 suggest that comparing changes between 1994 and 2007, coal production has fallen by 40% while natural gas production has increased by 203%. While proponents of wind power point to the 20% of Denmark’s electricity output met by wind power, they downplay, for example, that in 2004, 70% of Danish wind power was exported to Sweden, Norway and Germany, typically at a substantial loss, and that wind power accounted for only 6% of Danish consumption. In turn, Denmark imported significant quantities of hydro and nuclear generated power from Sweden, Germany and Norway. Thus, any sensible reading of these numbers renders it implausible that Danish wind power has displaced significant amounts of fossil fuel generation. To the extent that CO2 emissions from Danish electricity generation declined at all, this is as much attributable to hydro and nuclear imports as to wind power.”

There are some things to be considered as we search for alternative energy.  Man has been looking for the ‘perpetual motion machine’ since time began; we need to realize that the machine does not exist.  Alternative energy is a good idea, but let’s look at its track record before we decide how much we want to depend on it.

According to The Hill, the corruption trial of former Representative William Jefferson’s (D-La.) is scheduled to being on Tuesday (two years after he was charged).  According to the article, Jefferson’s attorneys will make the case that the bribe he took was not a bribe because it related to private business.

“The attorneys argue that the $100,000 Jefferson allegedly received in exchange for promoting donors’ business interests in the U.S. and Africa, including $90,000 found in his freezer, was not illegal because his dealings were related to private business and were not “official” in nature.”

There evidently is some basis for this argument based on a prior case:

“D.C. Police Detective Nelson Valdes accepted $400 from an uncover FBI informant in exchange for acquiring vehicle registration and arrest warrant information from a restricted police database. An en banc panel voted 7-5 to overturn an original conviction, finding that the government failed to show that Valdes had committed an “official act” within the meaning of the gratuities statute when he searched the police databases.”

There is also the issue of the $90,000 the police found in Representative Jefferson’s freezer in his Washington home.  I understand that under the laws of this country you are innocent until proven guilty, but logically this just doesn’t look good.

According to the American Thinker, the International Conference On Climate Change met in Washington, D. C., this week.  The article at American Thinker is very complex and very scientific, so I really can’t do it justice here.  I will try to highlight a few points, but I strongly suggest you click on the link and read the entire article for yourself.  Here is my feeble attempt to summarize.   MIT’s Richard Lindzen was one of the speakers.

“Lindzen explained why the process behind the U.N’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) claim of man’s responsibility for the warming since 1954 is “an embarrassment.” First they created a number of models which could not “reasonably simulate known patterns of natural behavior (such as El Niño (ENSO), the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO)), claiming that such models nonetheless accurately depicted natural internal climate variability.”  Then, when those models failed to replicate the warming episode from the mid seventies through the mid nineties, they proclaimed it proof that “forcing was necessary and that the forcing must have been due to man.”  And they relied upon those same “existing poorly performing models” which are fraught with “errors in the feedback factors” to make their argument that “sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 could be anything from 1.5 to 5°C based on the claimed range of results from different models.””

The article further explains:

“When Solar expert Willie Soon took the stage, he insisted that CO2 is not an “air pollutant,” but rather food for plants and marine life.  And that its atmospheric levels are controlled by temperature and other biological/chemical variables — not the other way around (quipped the astrophysicist: Lung Cancer does not cause smoking). But most of all, a magical CO2 knob for controlling weather and climate simply does not exist.” 

 

“Anthony Watts, editor of the fabulous WUWT (WattsUpWithThat), reported the latest data in his ongoing evaluation of highly-critical upstream temperature data collection – and the results are nothing less than startling. His team found more than half of the 1,221 stations audited to be inaccurate by at least 2°C. These discrepancies were attributed to various data corrupting violations, including stations located on dark albedo gravel or directly in proximity to hot AC exhaust (both of which bias readings to the upside).” 

The New York Times is reporting today that yesterday three Indiana State Funds asked the Supreme Court to delay the sale of Chrysler to Fiat.  According to the article:

“The three Indiana funds, which represent teachers and police officers, have sought greater compensation for their portion of Chrysler’s $6.9 billion in secured debt. They have also argued that the Obama administration illegally used federal bailout money earmarked for financial institutions to help Chrysler.”

The issue here is the secured debt.  The government is trying to pressure those who hold secured bonds to accept less than the value of the bonds so that other creditors can be paid.  We need to remember that one of the basic principles of bankruptcy law is that secured creditors (who loaned money only on the contractual promise that if the debt was unpaid they’d get specific property back)  get paid off in full before unsecured creditors get anything.  To do anything else is a violation of the US Constitution and its rules on private property rights.

The article further states:

“Last week, Judge Arthur J. Gonzalez of United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District in New York approved the sale to Fiat, overruling more than 300 objections. He later agreed to shorten a customary 10-day stay of the sale to four days, though the Court of Appeals stayed the transaction pending its hearing.

When Chrysler emerges from bankruptcy, a union retiree trust is to own 55 percent, Fiat a 20 percent share that could eventually grow to 35 percent and the United States and Canadian governments minority stakes.”

Anything the government wants to rush through quickly needs to be examined carefully.  The sale of Chysler to Fiat needs to looked at very carefully to make sure all the applicable laws are followed. 

The Hill today posted an article on Sarah Palin’s visit to Auburn, New York.  They estimated the crowd at 20,000.  They reported the part of her speech dealing with big government:

“Alaskans get tired of hearing that Washington bureaucrats know what’s best for us so we push and we fight and we challenge decision made inside the beltway when they’re not in our country’s best interest,” she said. “And we know decisions being made lately are not in our country’s best interest.”

She was loudly cheered after that statement.  As I previously reported, she was very warmly received, and I believe she has a role to play in the redesign of the Republican party.   This was not a local crowd–people had driven for many hours for the sole purpose of hearing her speak.  Regardless of how the press feels about her or how they report on her statements and activities, she is a rising star in the Republican party.

Blogging has been a bit sporatic this weekend because I am at a family wedding which took place in Aurora, New York.  Not knowing the area at all and not knowing exactly where many of the festivities would take place, I booked a hotel on the internet in a town called Auburn, New York.  I had no idea of the adventure that awaited.

When my husband and I drove into Auburn on Friday afternoon we noticed a hugh American flag hanging from a building a few doors away from where we were staying.  Being curious types, after we checked into the motel, we went for a walk to investigate.  Auburn was celebrating its first Founder’s Day with special guest speaker Sarah Palin, and we were staying two buildings away from the event!

Because we didn’t have to be at any wedding-related events until Saturday afternoon, we decided to hang around town and see Sarah Palin.  We managed to get our portable chairs fairly close to the podium.  There were an awful lot of people who came to town to see Sarah Palin.  We met people from Michigan and Ohio who had driven here specifically to see her and hear her speak.  There were a few thousand people who cheered for her when she was introduced and listened to what she had to say.

She was warmly welcomed by the people of Auburn and she warmly greeted them.  She had a very genuine connection with people when she spoke and was loudly cheered by the crowd.  I’m not sure what she represents to the crowd, but they saw something they liked.  I don’t know what the local politics are, but the enthusiam and positive feelings I saw today in people listening to Sarah Palin give me hope that there are still people out there who want less government and lower taxes.

And, oh yeah.  The bride was beautiful, the groom was handsome, and everything about the reception was fantastic!!!

The Hill reported yesterday that the Democrats are considering sanctions against some Republican members of the House Intelligence Subcommittee for leaking classified information.  This is the latest food fight over the ‘enhanced interrogation’ techniques.  According to the article:

“Following Schakowsky’s Thursday hearing, Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), a member of the subcommittee, said he left the hearings further believing that controversial interrogation methods have been effective.
 
“The hearing did address the enhanced interrogation techniques that have been much in the news lately,” Kline told The Hill. “Based on what I heard and the documents I have seen, I came away with a very clear impression that we did gather information that did disrupt terrorist plots.””

The Democrat’s complaint is that it was a classified briefing and a closed hearing and that by talking to THE HILL after the hearing, the Republicans were leaking classified information.  The Central Intelligence Agency has declined to comment. 

Would the Congress please grow up and stop fighting with itself.

Today is the 65th anniversary of the landing on the beaches of France by the Allied Armies.  General Dwight Eisenhower chose to go on that day because the weather reports showed that day as the only possible window in a stormy period.  He met with his troops before the invasion to talk to them and send them off with prayers and well wishes.  He composed a letter to be read in case the invasion failed.  The letter took full responsibility for that failure if it occurred.  Because of the leadership of Dwight Eisenhower and the courage of the American, Canadian, and British troops, we are free today to do our Saturday errands, enjoy our children, and generally live our lives in freedom.

Just a quick personal note about D Day.  My father was one of the soldiers who landed on Utah beach.  He never talked much about his wartime experiences, but there are two things I remember from talking to him.  When the Allied troops landed on Utah Beach, they had been blown off course by the winds and heavy surf.  Because of that, they encountered less resistence from the Germans and were able to more forward more quickly than they might have otherwise moved.  The other thing he mentioned was the total secrecy surrounding the invasion.  There were cardboard tanks placed in England to make it look as if they were going ashore at Calais (which was the closest point to England).  Everything was top secret–but the payday before the invasion, they were paid in French francs!!! 

According to today’s Wall Street Journal, President Obama is expected to name Kenneth Feinberg as the pay czar for the Treasury Department.  Mr. Feinberg will be in charge of overseeing the pay and bonuses paid to corporations that receive Troubled Asset Relief Plan (TARP) money.   According to the article:

“The Obama administration earlier this year issued guidelines that include limiting salary for top executives at some firms receiving TARP funds and requiring that additional pay be in the form of restricted stock, vesting only after the company repays its debt, with interest, to the government. Congress then chimed in with even tougher rules curbing bonuses for top earners at firms receiving TARP money. As part of that effort, lawmakers barred those firms from paying top earners bonuses that equal more than a third of their total compensation.”

The fact that the government has any say in what anyone in the private sector receives as pay or bonuses is troubling to me.  There will be no appeal of the decisions made by the “Pay Czar”.  Right now, this is only supposed to apply to companies that took TARP money, but I am convinced that we will see it extended to all companies in the near future.

Charles Krauthammer has an interesting article at Townhall.com regarding the Israeli settlements.  He points out the irony of the fact that after President Obama made such a point of saying to the Arab countries that America would no longer tell other countries what to do, he is telling Israel what to do concerning the settlements on the West Bank.  In his usual concise way, Charles Krauthammer points out:

“Over the last decade, the U.S. government has understood that any final peace treaty would involve Israel retaining some of the close-in settlements — and compensating the Palestinians accordingly with land from within Israel itself.

That was envisioned in the Clinton plan in the Camp David negotiations in 2000, and again at Taba in 2001. After all, why turn towns to rubble when, instead, Arabs and Jews can stay in their homes if the 1949 armistice line is shifted slightly into the Palestinian side to capture the major close-in Jewish settlements, and then shifted into Israeli territory to capture Israeli land to give to the Palestinians?”

Why has the State Department of President Obama refused to endorse these agreements or even say it will honor them?  The represents a definite change in American policy toward Israel.  The policy of this administration on the settlements is ‘no growth at all’–if a child is born in the settlements, someone has to move out in order for that child to live there.  This is not practical.

The article also points out:

“In the 16 years since the Oslo accords turned the West Bank and Gaza over to the Palestinians, their leaders — Fatah and Hamas alike — built no schools, no roads, no courthouses, no hospitals, no institutions that would relieve their people’s suffering. Instead they poured everything into an infrastructure of war and terror, all the while depositing billions (from gullible Western donors) into their Swiss bank accounts.”

Until the above situation changes, a two-state solution is a pipe dream.  All we would be doing by setting up a Palestinian state under the current conditions would be to establish a diplomatically recognized terrorist state.

Today’s Washington Times has an op-ed piece titled, “Immaturity In Power”.   The article makes some interesting points in its description of immaturity in the current ‘political class’:

“Current examples are all too numerous. Much of the present global financial crisis was caused by the issuance of too much debt by both governments and by private players. A mature thinker would understand that part of the solution must be a reduction in debt, and only an immature mind would advocate the creation of mountains of new and almost never-ending debt – yet this is precisely what the majority of the political class in the United States and many other countries is doing in issuing many trillions of dollars of new government debt.”

The article cites the consequences of the massive debt the government has recently incurred.   Stanford University economics professor John B. Taylor has shown how the proposed additional U.S. government debt could cause 100 percent inflation over the next few years, which means most people will see their real standard of living fall as prices double.  The obvious solution for the immature members of the political class is to raise taxes, but in order to cover the debt, taxes would have to be raised 60 per cent.  This would kill any incentive to grow the economy by the private sector.

The article lists some other aspects of the immaturity in our political class.  The move by the countries with high taxes on corporations to go after revenues earned in low-taxed countries is another example of this trait.  Rather than act responsibly with their own economic system, they attack the people who are successful because of wise tax policies.

Bloomberg.com reported yesterday that Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steven Ballmer said that if President Obama’s tax plan to impose higher taxes on U. S. companies overseas profits goes through Congress, Microsoft would move some employees offshore.  The idea of President Obama’s plan is to increase corporate revenue into the U. S. Treasury by changing the tax policies on U. S. business operating overseas.  There are, however, a few things that need to be considered.  Businesses are in business to make a profit.  If taxes on a business are increased, the business will either find a way to avoid those taxes or they will pass the cost of those tax increases on to the consumer.

There are two possible end results on changes to the tax laws concerning companies doing business overseas.  The first is that U. S. companies such as Microsoft will move jobs out of this country into other countries.  The second is that the companies affected by the changes in the tax code will simply charge more for their products, causing a possible reduction in sales.  Both actions result in less, not more, money coming into the treasury.  I think the Obama Administration needs to rethink this.

Today’s American Thinker has a few numbers on the cost of healthcare and where the increases in costs have been coming from.  President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) released a study listing several benefits that would result from lowering the annual growth rate of health care spending by 1.5 percentage points, including:

•    Increase gross domestic product by 8 percent in 2030
•    Increase family income by $10,000
•    Reduce unemployment by 500,000 people per year

Just for the record, there is no basis for these numbers.  According to the article:

“All of the benefits that the CEA attributes to President Obama’s health care plans are based on nothing but a political “goal.”  The bogus study released by the CEA simply assumes that President Obama will reduce health care spending increases by 1.5 percent per year, then lists pages of resulting benefits for the unquestioning media to report.”

Wow.  If I ran my household this way…   However, some of the study’s numbers are accurate.  The study notes that the share of U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) devoted to health care almost doubled between 1980 and 2007.   During the same time frame, the share of health care spending paid for by the government increased by 10.1 percent, while the share paid for privately decreased by 7.3 percent.   This is an indication that when the government begins to pay for something it gets more expensive (for a further example look at the rise of college tuition in relation to the availability of student loans!).

The transferring of healthcare from the private sector to the public sector will have a negative impact on the income of all working Americans who pay taxes.  It will also slow down economic growth in general.  Rather than helping end the current recession, it will prolong it and make it more difficult to maintain a healthy economy in the future.