Saturday, November 30, 2013

If a Tree Falls in the Forest...

If a tree falls in the forest and.... The New York Times fails to report it, did it really fall?

Clearly there is a recent and very disturbing trend of the major media that leans leftward to downplay or even ignore rather major news stories.  To be certain, news organizations whether they lean left or right have always modified their reporting in a way that places their philosophies and political leanings in a more favorable light.  Fox News does it and so does NBC News.  This leaning, if you'll pardon the pun, is not news.

But now we see major news organizations simply fail to report news at all, ignoring it as if it doesn't exist.

MSNBC is especially bad about failing to report news unfavorable to Democrats or the Obama administration.  Often, when major news breaks, most people channel surf to get the best reporting and the most viewpoints.  When they reach MSNBC they find there is no story at all, no coverage.  It's not that a story is painted in a positive light, it's that the story doesn't exist.

I'm not sure the public is harmed by this practice as there are many options for news and most people do scan the channels and surf the news websites.  It's not a cover-up.... well, at least it's not a successful cover-up.  

But to see this happen again and again in The New York Times is disturbing.  And it's a well documented and pervasive problem.

There is an example happening right now.  Our nation has been plagues with mostly teens committing assualts on primarily elderly white adults in what has been dubbed "Knockout Games."  The New York Times basically hasn't reported on this nationwide trend beyond a snippet claiming that such attacks doesn't exist or are an "urban myth."

This is all the more funny because even as the Times denies their existence, while city leaders denounce the growing attacks in New York as Hate Crimes. Here's just a small a report from CBS News Channel 2 in New York

Police have arrested four men in connection with an assault in Brooklyn. The suspects allegedly hit the victim without warning, similar to recent incidents related to the so-called “knockout game” in which mobs of young people randomly sucker-punch innocent people for fun.
Around 2:45 a.m. Friday, investigators said a 24-year-old Jewish man was surrounded by four men and punched in the face on 18th Avenue in Borough Park. NYPD officers were nearby in an unmarked police car, commissioner Ray Kelly said Friday afternoon. The victim told investigators he heard one of the attackers say, “I’ll do it to this guy,” right before he was surrounded and punched, sources told CBS 2.
 The suspects fled, but were quickly apprehended and taken into police custody, sources said. The victim identified the suspects, police said. “I commend the excellent police work that we saw this morning,” Assemblyman Dov Hikind said in a statement. “I am grateful that these four thugs are off the streets and am hopeful that they will be treated with the severity of the law. I urge continuing diligence in dealing with this issue.”
Hate crime detectives were interviewing the four suspects — three Hispanic men and one Indian male — and the victim at the 66th Precinct, sources said.  The four men face assault charges, but those may be upgraded, CBS 2′s Don Champion reported.
The suspects range in age from 28 to 38, police said. There have been seven so-called “knockout” or “polar bear” assaults in the Crown Heights and Midwood sections of Brooklyn since October, Kelly said Wednesday. The alternate name “polar bearing” comes from the fact that the victims are white.
Councilman David Greenfield said the attacks have targeted Jewish people, with victims ranging from a 12-year-old boy to a 78-year-old woman. “These are anti-Semitic knockout attacks and it’s not a game,” said Councilman David Greenfield, who is calling on the men arrested early Friday morning to face gang assault charges.
Conservatives are enraged that The Times, Slate Magazine and MSNBC continue to deny the attacks and to deny any racial overtones, in spite of overwhelming exidence.

As Liberals we ought to be even more enraged.  After all it is the Liberal Media denying us the news we need to make intelligent decisions and provide balanced responses to conservative hysteria.  The answer is not to cover-up the news but to cover it fairly.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

My Reply to Steve

Thoughtful, calm, intelligent and reflective are qualities that my friend Steve has possessed the entire time I've know him.  It's likely he's been this way all his life.  And, he has great balance in his life, able to separate politics from his family and personal life.  He keeps things in balance.  I urge you all to read his blog, The Peripatetic Blogger.  He generally posts only once a week,and only after great reflection and analysis.  He loves the Oklahoma Sooners and the Dallas Cowboys.

He wrote a blog this week which, in part, chastised some Democrats for breaking ranks with the President over the Affordable Care Act.  He feels they should "all hang together."  Indeed I'm tempted to agree with him, especially on the "hanging" part.  But, hey, I don't want to be accused of pulling a Martin Bashir, so please disregard that last comment.

I wrote a short response to Steve that I felt deserved repeating here.  In short I don't ever feel that Party Loyalty should ever interfere with good judgement.  Here is my response to Steve:

Dear Steve, 
I believe the President Obama had the very best of intentions.
And I know that our Congress is badly broken and that caused The ACA to be written in back rooms and passed late at night by a Congress that never read the bill or had the time needed to resolve potential defects.
And, even though not a single Republican voted for the act, they deserve equal blame for the dysfunction that forced Pelosi and Reid to act in a hurried and secretive manner.
Regardless of all this, the bill is nothing short of a disaster. Forget the website as that will get fixed. It’s not the problem anyway. As a result of the ACA more people, not fewer, will be uninsured. Most people will pay substantially more for insurance, not less. The blow to the middle class, financially, will be nearly unimaginable. Meanwhile the rich, who had Cadillac Plans to begin with, will be virtually unaffected.
This will all get fixed, eventually. But, in the meantime, the ACA doesn’t deserve the support of any self respecting Democrat (or Republican). Let’s admit our mistakes, avoid placing blame, and get on with the job of repairing the system.
---------------------
Here is just one of the first (and certainly the most ironic) examples of the financial disaster awaiting the middle class: Woman Hailed by President as Obamacare Success Story Now Can't Afford Obamacare


Saturday, November 16, 2013

Destroying the Very Fabric of the American Healthcare System

I wish that the politicians in Washington weren't so busy building sound bites for the 5 o'clock news that they could actually get together and save America's Health Care System, but, alas, they are incapable of compromise or even intelligent analysis.

Group "A" are so determined to save the reputation of the President they will never admit they made a (gigantic) mistake or compromise to find a solution.

Group "B" is so determined to bring down the President a notch or two that they cannot offer intelligent or reasonable compromises that just might solve the problem at hand.



And the public is so caught up in the political rhetoric, many do not see the tsunami on the horizon about to drown us all.  

But make no mistake about it, the entire Health Care System in the United States, unarguably the finest health care infrastructure in the history of mankind, is months away, a year at most, from complete and utter destruction.

And it's all being caused by The Affordable Care Act, the single worst piece of legislation ever passed by the United States Congress.

About 200 million Americans will lose their current Insurance.  The replacements, if they can be found, will be significantly more expensive for most Americans (about 4/5th will pay several thousand dollars more annually) and they new insurance will have significantly higher deductibles and may well (or most certainly will) force Americans to change their doctors and hospitals.

The hospital infrastructure will collapse.  Some hospitals will be forced to close.  Others will greatly curtail services.  A few, perhaps fifty or less nationwide, will become hospitals for the super rich, those able to afford completely private care.

Sarah Palin's Death Panels of non-medical actuaries will decide on care and payments, effectively making the best care treatments unavailable except to the super rich.

The total economy is mere months away from a total collapse into recession or depression.  The ACA (or ObamaCare) is a nothing more than a hidden super-tax that will drain hundreds of millions of dollars out the middle class taxpayer's wallets, through increased (and unaffordable) premiums and deductibles. 

It's happening every day now.  Moments ago REUTERS reported that insurer UNITED HEALTH CARE is being forced to drop thousands of doctors form Medicare patients programs due to Barack Obama's ego driven theft of millions of dollars from Medicare to fund his ObamaCare albatross.

This was one hundred percent foreseeable and avoidable. Many Republicans and many pundits and analysts and blogger like me have been correctly forecasting this for three years.  But we are all branded by Democrats and media not willing to actually read the ACA bill, as anti-Obama haters.  Alas, that was never true, we were and are the lookouts, warning the people of the on-rushing waves of health care and economic destruction, begging you to save yourselves and get to higher ground.  

Every day a few more are swept away and a few more listen.  I fear it's too late.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Bon Voyage, Titanic!

ObamaCare is destroying the American health care system.  One side casualty is the Democratic Party.  As of today not one single Democrat Senator can possibly be re-elected, regardless of how Blue his or her state may be.

And the intelligent Democrats know it.  And none is sharper or more savvy than former President Bill Clinton.  So President Clinton did what only a true elder statesman of the party can do. He politely told President Barack Obama to get his head out of his ..... and do everything necessary to fulfill his promises to the American people.

See CBS NEWS: Bill Clinton says Obama should honor health care promise




To be certain, former President Bill Clinton is also trying to protect future President Hillary Clinton.  Bill Clinton understands the politics. He understands the people.  He reads the dynamics.

He also would like the health care system to actually work.  We're at over FIVE MILLION INSURANCE POLICY CANCELLATIONS right now, on our way to nearly ONE HUNDRED MILLION!!!  The impact on people will be horrific.  The impact on the health care system itself will be catastrophic. Hospitals will close. Doctors will be forced out of work. People will suffer and some, perhaps many, will die.

And Democrats who lacked even the intelligence to read the bill before passage will all be forced out of office.  Today, they cannot be re-elected. They all need Bill Clinton. 

We all need Bill Clinton.

Thursday, November 07, 2013

"Nobody's madder than me,,."


As The Affordable Care Act disintegrates before our very eyes, Barack Obama has spoken nearly every day this week proclaiming "Nobody's madder than me about the fact that the website isn't working as well as it should," and other variations of the same message.

Sadly, it just isn't true. If President Barack Obama were really mad that an incompetent staff had nearly destroyed his signature achievement he would have demanded and received the resignations of those responsible, those who betrayed the President. For a man who rests his entire Presidential legacy on this one act, this particular failure is unforgivable.

If President Barack Obama was genuinely mad, he would demand to know why a "no bid" contract for over $400,000,000.00 was issued to a third rate Canadian company to build his signature website after he proclaimed in his election campaign that no bid contracts would end forever. He would most assuredly want to know why there were no penalties written into the contract for failure to produce the work. This, too, is a personal betrayal of the President and he should take it personally.

If President Obama were truly mad he would want to know who issued regulations that turned his oft repeated proclamation "If You like your insurance, you can keep it," into a complete falsehood.  If we assume President Obama meant what he said, he would demand this egregious error in regulation writing be corrected, fixed, and fixed immediately.

If President Obama were blazingly mad that a woman with cancer was being thrown off her insurance, the very act ObamaCare was designed to stop, he would explode in anger at the regulations written by bureaucrats into his law that forced this to happen.  He would have called the woman on the phone and guaranteed her he would fix this error.  He WOULD NOT have sent his minions out to attack the woman on Twitter, making her the villain simply because she told her story.

President Obama is not mad, except, perhaps, at me for writing this blog.