EAT THE RICH!

Is America really broke? Michael Moore (and others) tells us that there are oceans of cash being hoarded by the wealthy. But Iowahawk (iowahawk.typepad.com) did a little addition, and armed with these statistics Bill and the 'Hawk blow a hole in the "hoarding" lie big enough to fit a documentary filmmaker through.

Comment: Either you accept it or you refute it. And since you have not refuted it, you obviously accept it as truth. Thus your whole argument that the rich have inherited everything they have and do not work for anything is ignorant and uninformed. Now you must face a reality where chanting "Yes we can!", "Yes we did!", and "Obama!" can not overcome mathematics and the laws of nature. It will be tough at first, but you will be a better person for it in the long run. Read more.....

Obama Takes Off the Gloves

After three years of expanding the federal government's cost and scope, the guy who campaigned on a "net spending cut" pushes for a newly activist Washington

Finally!

"In Kansas," the New Jersey Star-Ledger editorialized this week, "Obama finally found his voice." By theatrically following Teddy Roosevelt's "New Nationalism" footsteps in Osawatomie, Kansas, the president had "finally seize[d] the moment," Michael Tomasky enthused at The Daily Beast. "With this speech, the President finally brings long-sought thematic and programmatic coherence to his many proposals and policy initiatives," Cornell University law professor Robert C. Hockett offered in an "expert available" press release.

The scent of sweet release wafted all over the media. "Obama appears finally to have recognized the fruitlessness of trying to govern in the post-partisan mode on which he campaigned for president," Bloomberg Businessweek columnist Joshua Green wrote. Former Bill Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich spoke for many when he said: "Here, finally, is the Barack Obama many of us thought we had elected in 2008."

This may well be true from the point of view of progressives. But the rest of us—a majority of Americans—are more apt to remember a candidate who won the election on an altogether different selling proposition. Read more...

Meet Thomas Massie, Kentucky's Next Rand Paul

Much like Rand Paul, Massie’s small-government instincts extend beyond keeping a tight grip on the checkbook.

Congressional Republican candidate Thomas Massie has a near-perfect resume. He earned two degrees from MIT, made a fortune with SensAble Technologies, Inc., and then returned to his hometown in Northern Kentucky, where he and his wife built a solar-powered house from locally harvested materials and are raising a brood of beautiful children. Now serving as the judge executive of Lewis County, Kentucky, Massie claims to have eliminated “enough wasteful government spending” in his first nine months in office “to pay his first three years salary as Judge Executive.”

Massie’s penny pinching has earned him the ire of most of his colleagues in the Lewis County government. And that’s what his supporters like about him. “He’s got the spine to stand up in the county,” says Ryan Hogan, the organizational muscle behind Massie’s run to replace Rep. Geoff Davis of Kentucky’s Fourth District. “The other elected officials or the magistrates, they completely don’t like him.” Read more..........

The Coming Medical Ethics Crisis

For the past several years, the medical profession has been undergoing a disturbing transformation. The process was begun by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in an effort to control exploding Medicare costs, and was accelerated by the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. As a surgeon in practice for over 30 years, I have witnessed this transformation firsthand. I fear that my profession will soon abandon its traditional code of ethics and adopt one more suited to veterinarians.

For centuries, my predecessors and I have been inculcated with what has come to be called the “Hippocratic Ethic.” This tradition holds that I am ethically required to use the best of my knowledge to recommend to my patient what I consider to be in my patient’s best interests—without regard to the interests of the third-party payer, or the government, or anyone else.

But gradually the medical profession has been forced to give up this approach for what I like to call a “veterinary ethic,” one that places the interests of the payer (or owner) ahead of the patient. For example, when a pet owner is told by a veterinarian that the pet has a very serious medical condition requiring extremely costly surgery or other therapy, the veterinarian presents the pet’s owner with one or more options—from attempt at cure, to palliation, to euthanasia—with the associated costs, and then follows the wishes of the owner. Read more.....

India's Growing Ties To Iranian Oil Could Bust U.S. Sanctions

The goal of U.S. and European sanctions on Iran is to crush the rogue regime’s economy and reduce its oil exports. European nations have already slashed their purchases of Iranian crude, and other big importers like Japan are gradually following suit ahead of a June deadline.

Yesterday the Obama administration secured promises from Saudi Arabia to ramp up its own oil output to make up for Iranian barrels kept off the market. And this morning came a report that Washington was in discussions with the United Kingdom on a plan to tap strategic reserves.

Yet those actions (plus oil’s roughly $20 per barrel insecurity premium) are in expectation of sanctions preventing a meaningful fraction of Iranian oil from getting to market.

But what if Iranian oil still manages to find its way to eager buyers who simply reduce their own imports of say, Saudi oil, in order to buy more heavily discounted Iranian crude?

That’s the question that is emerging now in regards to India. Instead of scaring India off Iran’s oil, so far it appears that U.S. sanctions are only having the effect of bringing India and Iran closer together. Read more.....

Catholic Bishops: Birth Control Is 'Ubiquitous And Inexpensive'

As part of their intensely focused effort to repeal the Obama administration's new contraception coverage policy, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released a manifesto of sorts on Wednesday, in which they assert that birth control is "ubiquitous and inexpensive."

"We wish to clarify what this debate is -- and is not -- about," the bishops said in the statement. "This is not about access to contraception, which is ubiquitous and inexpensive, even when it is not provided by the Church's hand and with the Church's funds."

What the debate is about, according to the statement, is the "unjust and illegal" mandate that "would force virtually all private health plans nationwide to provide coverage of sterilization and contraception -- including abortifacient drugs."

The bishops' statement is somewhat misleading. The new federal rule does not cover any drug that causes an abortion. It does cover emergency contraception, which prevents pregnancy. Read more.....

Tom Corbett, Pennsylvania Governor, On Ultrasound Mandate: Just 'Close Your Eyes'

During a discussion of a far-reaching mandatory ultrasound bill, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) on Wednesday dismissed off-handedly the insinuation that the measure goes too far, saying, "You just have to close your eyes."

Corbett reaffirmed his support for the "Women's Right to Know" Act, which would require doctors to perform an ultrasound on a patient, offer her two personalized copies of the image and play and describe fetal heartbeat in detail before she can have an abortion -- "as long as it's not obtrusive."

He did not indicate whether or not he considered a transvaginal ultrasound to be an intrusive procedure, which the bill would require doctors to perform on a woman whose fetus is not developed enough to be visible by a regular, "jelly-on-the-belly" ultrasound.

Asked if he thinks the bill goes too far to make a woman look at the ultrasound image, Corbett responded, "You can't make anybody watch, okay? Because you just have to close your eyes. As long as it's on the exterior and not the interior." Read more.......