Litigation Increases Medical Costs, but Lawyers Block Reform

The following excerpts come from Trial Lawyers Inc which is - for lack of a better word - a blog of the Manhattan Institute For Policy Research. The title below is Hyperlinked to the article in full. I encourage everyone to read it.

HEALTH HAZARD:
Litigation Increases Medical Costs, but Lawyers Block Reform

In his nationally televised speech before both houses of Congress on September 9, President Obama made news by acknowledging that medical-malpractice litigation "may be contributing to unnecessary costs" in the U.S. health-care system. The president's comments were in keeping with popular opinion: 72 percent of Americans think that fear of lawsuits compromises doctor decisions, and fully 83 percent want any health-care reform to address medical-malpractice litigation.

Notwithstanding the president's remarks and popular opinion, Congress has been laboring to expand medical liability against nursing homes, medical-device makers, and military doctors—changes that would be expected to drive up, not down, health-care costs. The reason is simple: with massive campaign contributions and lobbying clout, the organized plaintiffs' bar—whom the Manhattan Institute has dubbed "Trial Lawyers, Inc."—has bought Congressional leaders' support. In the last election cycle, the trial lawyers' political action committee gave over $2.5 million to Congressional Democrats, making the plaintiffs' bar the second largest donor after the electrical workers' union (see graph). Overall, lawyers and law firms gave almost $234 million to federal campaigns in 2008, including almost $127 million to Congressional candidates—more than any other industry group and significantly more than all health-care-related contributions combined (see graph).

.....

THE COST OF MALPRACTICE LITIGATION

In noting that malpractice lawsuits "may be contributing to unnecessary costs" [emphasis added] in the health care system, the president was needlessly cautious. Thoughtful analysts of varying political stripes understand that litigation matters in explaining America's high cost of health care. The respected left-leaning health economist Uwe Reinhardt, for instance, singles out "our uniquely American tort laws" as one of four "prominent" reasons for "excess" health spending.

Trial lawyer lobby groups—the American Association for Justice and its assorted allies like Public Citizen and the Center for Justice and Democracy—regularly argue that litigation is an insignificant contributor to health care cost escalation because it only accounts for a tiny fraction of health costs. In making this argument, such organizations play the "denominator game": the tiny fraction they point to takes the total $2.2 trillion in U.S. health expenditures as its denominator and an absurdly narrow definition of health-care litigation as its numerator.

To begin with, such groups typically use as a numerator medical-malpractice losses as reported by insurance companies—numbers that ignore legal defense costs as well as the fact that most major health systems in the U.S. cover at least a portion of their medical malpractice losses without insurance. More comprehensive estimates by the insurance consulting firm Tillinghast Towers-Perrin place the total direct cost of medical-malpractice litigation at $30.4 billion annually—an expense that has grown almost twice as fast as overall tort litigation and over four times as fast as health-care inflation since 1975 (see graph).

This direct cost represents only a portion of the cost imposed by medical-malpractice lawsuits. "Defensive medicine"—"the application of tests and procedures mainly as a defense against possible malpractice litigation, rather than as a clinical imperative"—is widespread. In a 2005 survey published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 93 percent of doctors said they had practiced defensive medicine and 92 percent said they had made unnecessary referrals or ordered unnecessary tests or procedures. The cost of defensive medicine likely exceeds the total cost of malpractice liability itself because doctors themselves bear the cost of any potential litigation (even if their insurance companies cover their losses, doctors must endure the time, stress, and reputational effects of dealing with the lawsuit), while they bear little cost for imposing extra tests and procedures (since patients with low-deductible health insurance are not price-sensitive, in part because the expenses are borne by their insurance companies).

Putting an estimate on the cost of defensive medicine is difficult. Many studies have extrapolated from a 1996 study by Stanford economists Daniel Kessler and Mark McClellan which found that tort reforms lowered costs by 5 to 9 percent without worsening health outcomes. Based on this study, PriceWaterhouseCoopers estimated that 10 percent of all health care spending is consumed by medical-malpractice-liability-related defensive medicine and insurance costs-a total sum of $210 billion, or almost one-third the difference between the cost of U.S. health care and that in other developed nations.

Some of my readers may remember a post I put up back in July titled Lawyers & ObamaCare: A Nice Return on Their Investment where I pointed out that Obama took in nearly $43 Million Dollars in contributions from lawyers during the 2008 election cycle making him the top recipient of campaign contributions from lawyers. I can't overstate the corrosive influence that the Trial Lawyers' Associations have on the political process in this country. Nutshell: its killing the Republic.

Obama on Diplomatic Mission to Negotiate with SoCal Wildfire.

And from The Onion comes this funny video about Obama's Diplomatic efforts to persuade a SoCal wildfire to put itself out... Enjoy!



Obama To Enter Diplomatic Talks With Raging Wildfire

Mr. Tingle Up His Leg Hopes Limbaugh Dies a Painful Death

I'm not a huge Limbaugh fan, but I find him funny enough that when I'm in my car, I'll flip him on for his wit and often wily sarcasm.

Below, from Real Clear Politics comes a video of Chris Matthews expressing his wish for Rush's painful demise by homicide.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews Fantasizes About Murder Of Rush Limbaugh

There's video of Matthews expressing his sick fantasy here: LINK

Also, here's the Transcript:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: You guys see Live and Let Die, the great Bond film with Yaphet Kotto as the bad guy, Mr. Big? In the end they jam a big CO2 pellet in his face and he blew up. I have to tell you, Rush Limbaugh is looking more and more like Mr. Big, and at some point somebodys going to jam a CO2 pellet into his head and hes going to explode like a giant blimp. That day may come. Not yet. But well be there to watch. I think hes Mr. Big, I think Yaphet Kotto. Are you watching, Rush [Matthews cackling]?

And my comment on the video:

Chris: In the event you ever read this comment, unlikely as that is, never before I saw this clip would I have wished for anyone's death, but now I have to admit - having seen and heard you spew your offensive verbal diarrhea - that I might just get a "tingle up my leg" if what you wished upon Rush Limbaugh happened to YOU, you narcissistic jerk!

BBC: Global Warming is ... ummmm ... well ... maybe not.

UPDATE Here is a great piece from Real Clear Politics that expands on the BBC story below. Hopefully the tide is turning and serial Graduate School dropout AL GORE will be sent back to Tennessee to enjoy his retirement tippering back Mint Julips.

With Hat Tip to my friend and fellow Fairfield County CT blogger Christopher Fountain who writes For What its Worth comes this story from BBC's Climate correspondent Paul Hudson doing a better than fair Roseanne Rosannadanna impression:

What happened to global warming?

By Paul Hudson
Climate correspondent, BBC News

This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.

But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.

And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.

So what on Earth is going on?

Climate change sceptics, who passionately and consistently argue that man's influence on our climate is overstated, say they saw it coming.

They argue that there are natural cycles, over which we have no control, that dictate how warm the planet is. But what is the evidence for this?

During the last few decades of the 20th Century, our planet did warm quickly.

Sceptics argue that the warming we observed was down to the energy from the Sun increasing. After all 98% of the Earth's warmth comes from the Sun.

But research conducted two years ago, and published by the Royal Society, seemed to rule out solar influences.

The scientists' main approach was simple: to look at solar output and cosmic ray intensity over the last 30-40 years, and compare those trends with the graph for global average surface temperature.

And the results were clear. "Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can't have been caused by solar activity," said Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, a leading contributor to this year's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

But one solar scientist Piers Corbyn from Weatheraction, a company specialising in long range weather forecasting, disagrees.

He claims that solar charged particles impact us far more than is currently accepted, so much so he says that they are almost entirely responsible for what happens to global temperatures.

He is so excited by what he has discovered that he plans to tell the international scientific community at a conference in London at the end of the month.

If proved correct, this could revolutionise the whole subject.

For the rest of this interesting piece click here

UPDATE LINK (Well sort of, since it links to a 2007 post):

Weather Channel Founder: “Global Warming is the Greatest Scam in History”

Independents Jumping Off Sinking Ship Obama

As can be expected, Sammy Benoit over at YidWithLid delivers yet another exceptional post on what is shaping up to be a mass exodus of independent voters from the Obama Camp:

Independents Move Away From Obama Accelerating

For any candidate, independents are the most important voters. In most cases they are the difference between winning and losing. This was especially true in the last presidential campaign. Independents went for Obama in a huge way, and they were one of the keys to his victory.

Independent voters are abandoning the President faster than people driving out of town just before a hurricane hits.

According to the IBD/TIPP poll since February support for the President among independents has dropped from 73% to 45%. And even worse for the POTUS, the President has lost independent support on the Economy, Health Care, The Federal Budget, and Foreign, Policy:

Independents Lose Faith In President Amid Big Job Loss

By SEAN HIGGINS,

They may love him in Norway, but President Obama is rapidly losing favor with the independents that boosted him to the White House.

His support among self-described independent voters has fallen from about 73 in February to just 45 this month, according to the IBD/TIPP Presidential Leadership Index.

The survey found that some 44% of independents say his handling of the economy is poor or unacceptable vs. only 29% that gave him high marks. Similarly negative results were found on handling the budget (48%-23%); health care policy (54%-24%); Iran (38%-28%); Afghanistan (38%-25%); and foreign policy overall (38%-32%).

Obama still enjoys strong support from his base, keeping his overall Presidential Leadership number at a positive 54.2. But that is his lowest reading yet in the IBD/TIPP survey. The poll surveyed 927 adults from Oct. 5-10.

Economic woes, which helped propel Obama to the White House, are now working against him. Unemployment has hit a 26-year-high 9.8%, and is expected to keep rising. Since he signed the $787 billion stimulus bill in February, the U.S. has lost 2.7 million jobs.

Raghavan Mayur, president of Technometrica Market Intelligence, which conducted the survey, says the economy is the key.

"It comes down to the ability to create jobs," he said. "People are running out of patience."

Independent seniors also have been turned off by parts of Democrats' health care proposal.

"They don't like it because of the (proposed) $500 billion in cuts to Medicare," Mayur said.

While Obama drove turnout of traditional Democratic voters to record levels in 2008, support from independents was crucial.

He won 52% of the independent vote last year vs. 44% for GOP candidate John McCain, according to CNN exit polls. Independents accounted for 29% of overall voters.

He also beat McCain 60%-39% among self-described moderates — 44% of all voters.

Such losses bode ill for Democratic lawmakers ahead of the 2010 midterm elections. Democrats lead in the latest Gallup generic congressional vote by 46%-44%, among their narrowest edges in years. Several dozen Democrats were elected in districts carried by McCain last year.

Democrats hoped the call to pass Obama's agenda would help them retain their majorities. But polls suggest they may face the typical voter backlash against the president's party during an administration's first off-year election.

BOTUS "extends a hand" to the Mullahs

From today's New York Times comes this story of the flight of journalists from Iran who had covered the massive street demonstrations in the wake of that country's fraudulent elections in June.

October 13, 2009

Iranian Journalists Flee, Fearing Retribution for Covering Protests

By NAZILA FATHI

TORONTO — For two months Ehsan Maleki traveled around Iran with a backpack containing his cameras, a few pieces of clothing and his laptop computer, taking pictures of the reformist candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi during the presidential campaign. He did not know that his backpack and his cameras would soon become his only possessions, or that he would be forced to crawl out of the country hiding in a herd of sheep.

Mr. Maleki, 29, is one of dozens of reporters, photographers and bloggers who have either fled Iran or are trying to flee in the aftermath of the disputed June presidential election. Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based organization that promotes press freedom and monitors the safety of journalists, said the number of journalists leaving Iran was the largest since the years after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The wave of departures reflects the journalists’ anxiety over the retribution many of them have faced for reporting on the government’s violent suppression of the post-election protests. As bloody clashes unfolded in the streets of Tehran, the government went to great lengths to restrict the flow of information to the outside world. Foreign journalists were banned, and local reporters and photographers were warned to stay at home.

A number of Iranian journalists defied those orders, disseminating information in phone interviews, on Internet sites and through pictures sent to photo agencies. Now, they say, they are paying the price.

Many journalists in Tehran, including a Newsweek reporter, Maziar Bahari, who is also an independent filmmaker, were among the hundreds of Iranians arrested and jailed. Some are defendants in the mass trials the government is conducting. The wife of one journalist, Ahmad Zeidabadi, said he had been tortured while in prison.

The editors of some opposition blogs, which reported the killings and the mass burial of protesters, have gone into hiding, and their whereabouts are not clear. The homes of some journalists, like Mr. Maleki, have been ransacked.

Click here to read the whole article.

But where is Mr. Obama on this? Well, from here it sure looks like he's in a Full Court Kowtow Press "against" the Mullah's of Qom. From Gateway Pundit comes this stunning piece of news about Obama's feckless Human Rights agenda:

Today we find out the Obama Administration has defunded the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, an organization that investigates human rights abuses by the killer regime.
The Boston Globe reported:

For the past five years, researchers in a modest office overlooking the New Haven green have carefully documented cases of assassination and torture of democracy activists in Iran. With more than $3 million in grants from the US State Department, they have pored over thousands of documents and Persian-language press reports and interviewed scores of witnesses and survivors to build dossiers on those they say are Iran’s most infamous human-rights abusers.

But just as the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center was ramping up to investigate abuses of protesters after this summer’s disputed presidential election, the group received word that - for the first time since it was formed - its federal funding request had been denied.

“If there is one time that I expected to get funding, this was it,’’ said Rene Redman, the group’s executive director, who had asked for $2.7 million in funding for the next two years. “I was sur prised, because the world was watching human rights violations right there on television.’’

Many see the sudden, unexplained cutoff of funding as a shift by the Obama administration away from high-profile democracy promotion in Iran, which had become a signature issue for President Bush. But the timing has alarmed some on Capitol Hill.

“The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center is at the forefront of pioneering and vitally important work,’’ said Senator Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, in a statement yesterday. “It is disturbing that the State Department would cut off funding at precisely the moment when these brave investigations are needed most.’’

In his Inaugural address Obama said:

"To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."

On January 20th, those words seemed to be what the world wanted and needed to hear. Today, as the administration's policy plays out, its plain for all to see that they were nothing but beautifully crafted and stunningly delivered vacuity.

Barack, you should be ashamed of yourself. But I know you aren't. Narcissists aren't capable of humility, introspection and genuine compassion for others.

Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree I Sold You And You Sold Me

IN THE CATEGORY OF ALL HAIL BIG BROTHER comes this A.P. Story on how the F.B.I. is trolling North Carolina's DMV license photo database to catch bad guys, before rolling out the project nationwide. God help us all (that's right, I'm not an atheist).

FBI delves into DMV photos in search for fugitives

By MIKE BAKER (Associated Press Writer)

From Associated Press

October 12, 2009 6:17 PM EDT

RALEIGH, N.C. - In its search for fugitives, the FBI has begun using facial-recognition technology on millions of motorists, comparing driver's license photos with pictures of convicts in a high-tech analysis of chin widths and nose sizes.

The project in North Carolina has already helped nab at least one suspect. Agents are eager to look for more criminals and possibly to expand the effort nationwide. But privacy advocates worry that the method allows authorities to track people who have done nothing wrong.

"Everybody's participating, essentially, in a virtual lineup by getting a driver's license," said Christopher Calabrese, an attorney who focuses on privacy issues at the American Civil Liberties Union.

For the rest of this noxious story click here

“And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads”

Massatwoshits heading for medical care rationing and stratification of care

WOW, THE BLOGOSPHERE HAS BEEN A VIRTUAL TREASURE TROVE OF GREAT STORIES TODAY.

No introduction commentary needed from me on this one from SisterToljah's guest blogger Steveegg. It speaks for itself on the dangers of governmental meddling in the market for medical services...

Health-care rationing coming to Massachusetts

Posted by: steveegg on October 12, 2009 at 1:57 pm

(H/T – Instapundit via Ed Morrissey)

The Boston Globe reports on efforts to cut the costs of RomneyCare:

The state’s ambitious plan to shake up how providers are paid could have a hidden price for patients: Controlling Massachusetts’ soaring medical costs, many health care leaders believe, may require residents to give up their nearly unlimited freedom to go to any hospital and specialist they want.

Efforts to keep patients in a defined provider network, or direct them to lower-cost hospitals could be unpopular, especially in a state where more than 40 percent of hospital care is provided in expensive academic medical centers and where many insurance policies allow patients access to large numbers of providers….

A state commission recommended in July that insurers largely scrap the current fee-for-service system – in which insurers pay doctors, hospitals, and other providers a negotiated fee for each procedure and visit – and instead pay providers a per-patient annual fee to cover all of the patient’s medical care.

Where do I begin with this one? It is absolutely no wonder to one who knows human nature that, when there is no perceived difference in personal cost between one option and the next, one will seek out the most-expensive options in the belief that it is the best.

The whole reason HMOs, which are defined provider networks, have been reviled is that they do limit access to where one gets health-care treatment. As the article notes, with the average resident of Massachusetts having freedom of movement, reinstituting an HMO-style limitation on where one can get health care is going to go over like a lead balloon.

Yet even that limit isn’t the only item being talked about. The proposed “solution” to the problem of too much money going out the door for health care, a hard cap on how much will be paid for all health care for a particular patient, is even worse. What happens when the cost of the next medically-necessary procedure, even if it’s done in a third-rate care clinic, busts that cap (after all, several things can happen in a compressed timeframe)? The Professor’s close is a good one – “Think of them as ‘life’ panels, because they’ll decide if you get to live!”

A third idea is limiting the amount of money the “expensive” teaching hospitals get for procedures. I’ll let Ed handle the bulk of that argument:

The result of that approach will be very easy to predict. The best hospitals will take primarily those patients who can afford to pay their premium prices, leaving the poor and middle-class patients to get treated elsewhere. It will stratify health care much more than before Massachusetts enacted its “reforms”, giving the rich almost exclusive access to the best care. And thanks to lousy compensation rates, fewer new providers will be around to meet the new demand in second-tier care, meaning much longer wait times for the poor and middle-class patients.

There is another bad side effect of limiting payments to teaching hospitals; they will either have to charge even more for tuition to the student-doctors, or they will have to accept fewer student-doctors. In either case, that will reduce the future availability of health care.

False Religion Debunked: Scientists Prove Human Induced Climate Change a Crock of ....

From CNS News via Sammy at Yid With Lid comes a great piece on mounting challenges to the Left's favorite false religion "Human Induced Climate Change"

Sammy's preface:

Under the cap and trade scheme advocated by Democrats, the federal government would set a limit on the amount of a pollutant that could be emitted. If a company plans to exceed the government cap, it would have to purchase credits from a company that has polluted less. And the fun part is they wouldn't be able to buy the credits directly from the other company, they would have to do it through the US Government. This cap and trade is just another big government tax program. Some studies have said that the plan will increase your household energy bill by $3,100/yr. Even President [Obama] has admitted this proposal will cause the price of your energy to “necessarily skyrocket.”

The worst part of the whole scheme is that the reason for the tax program has not been proved. In fact, recently the evidence disproving the claim that man has anything to climate change. While the President was accepting his Nobel award and John" Why the Long Face" Kerry was writing op-eds supporting camp and trade, a team of scientists were at Capitol Hill, explaining that the Church of Global Warming Moonbats, have been proven wrong:

Scientists Rebut Claim That Man Causes Climate Change
Monday, October 12, 2009
By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer

Fred Singer, founder and chairman of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, holds up a book "Climate Change Reconsidered" that contains hundreds of scientific studies that dispute global warming and CO2 as a pollutant that causes global warming. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)

(CNSNews.com) – As the world focused on President Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, a small group of determined scientists gathered in a Senate office building to present evidence backing their claim that climate change is caused not by man but by nature, and that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but the hope for a greener planet.

John Kwapisz, organizer and moderator at the panel discussion, recalled Obama’s speech at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, Pa., last month as a way of illustrating the dramatic tone used by those who embrace global warming as a dire and eminent threat.

“That so many of us are here today is a recognition that the threat from climate change is serious, it is urgent, and it is growing,” Obama said on Sept. 22 at the summit. “Our generation's response to this challenge will be judged by history, for if we fail to meet it -- boldly, swiftly, and together – we risk consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe.”

“No nation, however large or small, wealthy or poor, can escape the impact of climate change. Rising sea levels threaten every coastline,” Obama said. “More powerful storms and floods threaten every continent. More frequent droughts and crop failures breed hunger and conflict in places where hunger and conflict already thrive.”

“On shrinking islands, families are already being forced to flee their homes as climate refugees,” he said. “The security and stability of each nation and all peoples – our prosperity, our health, and our safety – are in jeopardy. And the time we have to reverse this tide is running out.”

The scientists said they were on Capitol Hill to challenge the president’s claims and show that Mother Nature controls climate around the world and that CO2 in the atmosphere benefits people, plants and animals.

“Nature, not human activity rules the planet,” said Fred Singer, an atmospheric and space physicist and research professor at George Mason University and professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Virginia. “And once you’ve decided that on the basis of evidence, then everything else falls into place.”

“A lot of the problems that President Obama seems to be concerned about are no longer a concern,” Singer said.

H. Leighton Steward holds up his book as he speaks to a crowd on Capitol Hill about the benefits of CO2 to the planet, people, plants and animals. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)

“When there’s more carbon dioxide put into the air, the plants respond in an astonishing fashion,” said H. Leighton Steward, geologist, environmentalist, author and founder of the Web site plantsneedco2.org.

Steward said that since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in 1860, the amount of CO2 put into the air has increased average plant growth by 12 percent and average tree growth by 18 percent around the world.

“So if we want to green the earth,” Steward said, “we need to put more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It’s the earth’s greatest airborne fertilizer.”

“If we want the ecosystems and the habitats to be more robust and hold more animal life, more plant life, we need to put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,” Steward said, adding that proponents of man-made global warming have given CO2 a bad name.

“It’s now being looked at and called a pollutant. I can tell you, I’ve asked every scientist that I’ve ever run into, chemical expert,” Steward said. “There is not one, I repeat, not one instance in which carbon dioxide is a pollutant.”

Roy W. Spencer, researcher at the University of Alabama-Huntsville, author, and a former senior scientist at NASA, presented his research on natural global warming and cooling, including the role that cloud cover and the sun play in the changes of the earth’s climate.

In keeping with scientific protocol, much of the presentation consisted of graphs, charts, and other data to make the case that much of climate change is the result of natural phenomenon rather than human activities and that any contribution by humans is miniscule.

The event on Capitol Hill was not without a political twist, with some global warming advocates speaking out during the question-and-answer period. One scientist from NASA claimed he was available after the discussion if anyone was interested in hearing the other side of the issue.

Many in the room laughed at his comment, but the crowd that gathered in the Rose Garden just moments earlier heard Obama use his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech as an opportunity to again issue a warning about the threat of global warming.

“We cannot accept the growing threat posed by climate change, which could forever damage the world that we pass on to our children – sowing conflict and famine; destroying coastlines and emptying cities,” Obama said.

Marc Morano, former congressional staffer and founder of the Web site climatedepot.com, told the crowd that he thinks the tide is turning against what he called global warming alarmists. He cited a call by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to hold a global warming trial.

“The Chamber seeks to have a complete trial ‘complete with witnesses, cross-examinations and a judge who would rule, essentially, on whether humans are warming the planet to dangerous effect,’” Morano wrote in an editorial he distributed at the event.

DEMS TRADE DOLLAR STATUS FOR UTOPIAN PIPE DREAM

From Breitbart.com via Drudge comes this alarming report of heavy pressure on the greenback as foreign central banks begin to shift their reserves away from the dollar.

It will be exceedingly difficult to muster up any sympathy for Democrats who lose their seats in 2010 and 2012 as a result of their economic and financial betrayal of their constituents in their mindless pursuit of Obama's utopian fantasies.

Dollar facing 'power-shift': analysts

The dollar's position as the world's leading reserve currency faces increased pressure as the financial crisis allows emerging economies greater influence on the world stage, analysts said.

A report last week in The Independent claiming that China, Russia and Gulf States are among nations prepared to ditch the dollar for oil trades has heightened the uncertainty surrounding the US currency's future.

The dollar slumped against rivals last week in the wake of the British daily's controversial report.

"The US dollar is being hurt by the continued talk of a shift away from a dollar-centric world," said Kit Juckes, an analyst at currency traders ECU Group.

"Three conclusions stand out very clearly. Firstly, the shift in economic power away from the G7 economies is continuing. "Secondly, there is a growing acceptance amongst those winners that one consequence of this power shift will be to strengthen their currencies.

"And finally, as long as the US economy is not strong enough for any rise in interest rates to be conceivable for a long time, the dollar's underlying downtrend will remain in place," added Juckes.

And Now For Something Completely Different .....

Man cannot live by berating Statist scum alone. Today I had the pleasure of "catching" this Heron at the end of a field adjacent to my property. These birds are rare in my parts, so I'm sure you can imagine how very privileged I felt to have one stop by for a visit. Its simple events like this that make life in the "Boonies" all worthwhile. Can't get this in NYC!!!!

BOYCOTT ROLL INDUSTRIES PRODUCTS

Eric Dondero over at Libertarian Republican has persuaded me to sign on to a boycott of Stewart Resnick's Roll Industries' products. His persuasive post is here. Normally, I'm not a big fan of boycotts because they tend to hurt people who are entirely innocent of nasty conduct (I know this from personal experience).

God knows, I'm also not a giant Sarah Palin fan, but I don't hate her by a long shot. What I do hate however is billionaire industrialists like Stewart Resnick who have benefited mightily under our capitalist system to then use their massive wealth to try to close the system unto themselves. I also can't abide it when they use their power and wealth to attack and damage others, so I reluctantly join this boycott against Resnick's companies and their associated products, a partial list of which follows here-below:

Franklin Mint unique gifts & collectibles (in my opinion, schlock product anyway)

Teleflora, the largest flower delivery service in the world (Don't often send flowers, no big deal)

FIJI bottled water (No great loss to me, metallic after-taste, I prefer Evian anyway)

POM pomegranate products (This one hurts a bit. I liked the Pom drinks, though I didn't buy them too often due to the high sticker)

Paramount citrus and nuts (don't know it, but will use care now when I buy pistachios)

Suterra Pest Control products & services (won't use 'em)

Fire Station Advertising Agency (now I suppose I'll have to track down their clients and boycott them too)

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE COMMITTEE COMMITS CREDIBILITY HARA KIRI

Catchy title isn't it?

I wasn't planning on writing anything on Obama's win of the Nobel Peace Prize today given the extensive and mostly high quality of the coverage in the rational blogosphere (I'll link to some of these at the end of this post) but temptation got the better of me.

Actually I don't think that the NPP Committee (hereinafter "Committee") has in fact - with this award bestowal - committed ritual credibility suicide for the simple reason that one cannot commit suicide TWICE.

From my perspective the Committee's credibility demise dates back to its 1994 award of the prize to Yasser Arafat. Some readers of this blog (to the extent that any exist at all beyond my fifteen "official" followers) may have forgotten just what a venal monster Arafat was, so I'll do a short but hardly comprehensive re-cap of the crimes of this vicious little Nobel "Peace" Laureate.

Yasser Arafat formed Al-Fatah in 1959 and served as the Chairman of the PLO from 1969.

The PLO was an umbrella organization for several different radical Palestinian political/para-military terrorist organizations, of which Fatah was the largest.

Among the many terrorist activities attributable to the PLO over the years were:

• The 1970 Avivim school bus massacre by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), killed nine children, three adults and crippled 19.
• In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the second-largest PLO faction after al-Fatah, carried out a number of attacks and plane hijackings mostly directed at Israel, most infamously the Dawson's Field hijackings, which precipitated the Black September in Jordan crisis.
• In 1972 the Black September Organization carried out the Munich massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes.
• In 1974 members of the DFLP seized a school in Israel and killed a total of 26 students and adults and wounded over 70 in the Ma'alot massacre.
• The 1975 Savoy Hotel hostage situation killing 8 civilians and 3 soldiers, carried out by Fatah.
• The 1978 Coastal Road massacre killing 37 Israeli civilians and wounding 76, also carried out by Fatah.
• The 1985 Achille Lauro Hijacking during the course of which Leon Klinghoffer, an American Jewish tourist was murdered by 5 PLO terrorists including Abbu Abbas.
  The PLO was sued for its role in the death of Leon Klinghoffer. The $1.5 billion suit was dropped when the PLO paid an undisclosed sum to Klinghoffer's daughters.^[1] The family founded the Leon and Marilyn Klinghoffer Memorial Foundation in cooperation with the Anti-Defamation League, which works to combat terrorism through legal, political and educational means.^[1]

Arafat wasn't just a terrorist, he was also an accomplished corruptocrat who kept his own people in abject poverty while diverting as much as $1 Billion Dollars to his personal accounts:

In August 2002, the Israeli Military Intelligence Chief alleged that Arafat's personal wealth was in the range of USD $1.3 billion,^[92]. In 2003 the International Monetary Fund (IMF) conducted an audit of the PNA and stated that Arafat diverted $900 million in public funds to a special bank account controlled by Arafat and the PNA Chief Economic Financial adviser. However, the IMF did not claim that there were any improprieties, and it specifically stated that most of the funds had been used to invest in Palestinian assets, both internally and abroad.^[93][94]

However in 2003, a team of American accountants–hired by Arafat's own finance ministry–began examining Arafat's finances; this team reached a different conclusion. The team claimed that part of the Palestinian leader's wealth was in a secret portfolio worth close to $1 billion, with investments in companies like a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Ramallah, a Tunisian cell phone company and venture capital funds in the US and the Cayman Islands. The head of the investigation stated that "although the money for the portfolio came from public funds like Palestinian taxes, virtually none of it was used for the Palestinian people; it was all controlled by Arafat. And none of these dealings were made public."^[95

So, as I said before, the credibility of the Committee, at least from my perspective, is long dead. The subsequent awards of the prize to Jimmy Carter, the principle Western author of the brutal human rights abusing clerical regime ruling a now nuclear Iran; Al Gore, law school dropout, divinity school dropout and failed politician turned man-made global warming myth-huckster and snake oil salesman and now, Barack Obama, are just more dirt on the grave of the already credibility dead Committee. Or perhaps a better analogy: just more foul smelling gaseous emissions from the Committee's unburied rotting corpse.

Other rational blogs discussing this story:

Left Coast Rebel
SisterToljah
The Reaganite Republican
Not A Potted Plant
Michelle Malkin
Atlas Shrugs
Legal Insurrection
Hot Air
Track-a-'Crat

BREAKING NEWS: OBAMA ACCEPTS TALIBAN ROLE IN AFGHANISTAN

Word is out that BOTUS has announced a willingness to accept a role for the Taliban in Afghanistan's political structure. My immediate question is: in exchange for what? Not too many soccer stadium executions? A lead on Osama's whereabouts perhaps? We'll see... I will Update as information becomes available and as appropriate.

U P D A T E

from The American Pundit

White House: On Second Thought, The Taliban Isn’t Really An Enemy

by Stephan Tawney

Desperation. That’s the only way to describe this new talking point from the White House. According to them, the Taliban that’s been killing American soldiers isn’t really the enemy. In fact, the Obama Administration believes that the terrorist group has a positive role in Afghanistan’s future.

Why this new talking point? Obama doesn’t want to commit more troops to the war, as it would end up pissing off his far-left, anti-war base. So he’s trying to eliminate the enemy by pretending the enemy is no longer an enemy. We’re going to fight a war by pretending that the people we’re fighting are really good people we no longer need to fight. Smart power.

Click the linked Title above to read the whole post.

YID With LID: Oklahoma ACORN Abandons Papers in Old Office--Illegal Tactics Revealed

YID With LID: Oklahoma ACORN Abandons Papers in Old Office--Illegal Tactics Revealed

Sammy Benoit at Yid With Lid has a superb post on papers left behind in a hastily "evacuated" ACORN office in Oklahoma City. Click the link above to read it.

Citizens Against Government Waste - The Senate's "ACORN 7" are September's Porkers of the Month Honorees

Once again, CAGW has found a truly worthy group of recipients for its Porker of the Month award. This time it was a seven way tie. Congratulations Ladies and Gentleman of the U.S. Senate! No doubt you'll wear the distinction proudly.

Seven Nutty Senators Supporting ACORN are CAGW’s September Porkers of the Month

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named the seven senators who voted on Monday, September 14 to continue sending tax dollars for housing and community development programs to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) its September Porkers of the Month.

The seven senators are Roland Burris (D-Ill.), Robert Casey (D-Pa.), Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). The 83-7 vote to cut off funding for the group in the fiscal year 2010 Department of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act came on the heels of the release of explosive video footage of ACORN’s employees in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Brooklyn, giving questionable legal and tax advice to filmmaker James O'Keefe and a female friend who posed as a pimp and a prostitute. ACORN’s employees gave guidance on how to illegally shelter income, mislead the Internal Revenue Service, and obfuscate the ages and immigration status of underage girls who were going to be used as prostitutes in a make-believe brothel. All of the videos can be viewed at http://www.biggovernment.com/.

“Cutting off funds to ACORN should have been the easiest vote of the year, yet these senators could not bring themselves to do it,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz. “Taxpayers should not be accomplices in the rampant malfeasance of ACORN. Sen. Gillibrand deserves special opprobrium for her vote, since one of the videos was shot in Brooklyn’s ACORN office, and the New York Post had a story on the scandal prior to the vote. Apparently Sen. Schumer reads the local papers and Sen. Gillibrand does not. There is enough in these videos to warrant a nationwide Justice Department investigation into ACORN’s potentially criminal activities. All funds for ACORN should be cut off, in both the rest of the appropriations bills, and also for any stimulus money for which the group is eligible,” added Schatz.

According to an analysis by the Office of House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), ACORN has received at least $53.6 million in taxpayer-funded grants since 1994, not including millions more from states and localities, as well as foundations. Fannie Mae, for example, which was taken over by the federal government a year ago, bestowed millions in grants on ACORN over the years.

BOTUS Approval Index Slides Again: -11

Obamas Approval Index as measured by Rasmussen Reports polling of likely voters shows that BOTUS is slipping again after a slight uptick following his Health Care speech of a few weeks ago.


Here it is in part:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 28% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-nine percent (39%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -11 (see trends). Republicans have a very slight edge on the Generic Congressional Ballot.

Fifty-one percent (51%) say the President has not been tough enough on Iran while just 30% have confidence in the United Nations’ ability to combat terrorism.

Barack, it seems like your "Fiddling While Rome Burns" strategy isn't gonna cut it. You really are in way over your head.

Shadowstats.com: U.S. Economy Is in a Multiple-Dip Depression.

From Shadowstats.com's publicly available archive comes this very sobering report on the current state of the U.S. economy. I am no economist but this report hews awfully close to my experience and observations over the last few years and indicates that our "leaders" in Washington have indeed sold us out.

DEPRESSION SPECIAL REPORT

Number 52

August 1, 2009

__________

Current Economic Downturn Is Worst Since Great Depression

Recession Started a Year Earlier Than Official Reckoning

Business Contraction Triggered Systemic Solvency Crisis
Not the Other Way Around

Still Heavily Gimmicked, Post-Revision GDP Shows More Realistic Numbers

Economic Crisis Is Far from Over

__________

OVERVIEW

U.S. Economy Is in a Multiple-Dip Depression. The grand benchmark revision of the national income accounts on July 31, 2009 confirmed that the U.S. economy is in its worst economic contraction since the first downleg of the Great Depression, which was a double-dip depression. The current economic downturn increasingly will be referred to as a depression, and it is far from over. There will be intermittent blips of new activity, such as the current cash-for-clunkers automobile giveaway program that appears to be generating a one-time spike in auto sales. Yet, this downturn will continue to deteriorate, proving to be extremely protracted, extremely deep and particularly nonresponsive to traditional stimuli.

As discussed in recent writings, the economy suffers from underlying structural problems tied to consumer income, where households cannot keep up with inflation and no longer can rely on excessive debt expansion for meeting short-falls in maintaining living standards. The structural issues are not being addressed meaningfully and cannot be addressed without a significant shift in government economic and trade policies, which under the best of circumstances still would drag out economic woes for many years.

The current depression likely will show multiple dips in business activity, as was seen during the Great Depression and in the double-dip recession of the early-1980s. I shall argue that the current downturn started at least a year earlier than the December 2007 onset proclaimed by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), official arbiter of U.S. recessions. The current depression is the second dip in a multiple-dip downturn that started back in 1999, and it preceded and in fact was the proximal trigger for the systemic solvency crisis that rose to public view in August 2007. The ensuing systemic problems did not cause the slowdown in business activity, but they exacerbated it significantly.

While the current circumstance should become recognized as a "depression," worse lies ahead as the U.S. government’s long-range insolvency and current efforts at debasing the U.S. dollar trigger a hyperinflation in the next five years. Risks for the onset of a hyperinflation in the United States are particularly high during the next year. As will be discussed in the soon-to-be-updated Hyperinflation Special Report (see the existing April 2008 version for basic background), the United States would be particularly hard hit by such a circumstance. Unlike Zimbabwe, which has been able to maintain some level of functioning commerce during its hyperinflation, due to the backstop of an active black market in U.S. dollars, the United States has no such backstop. Accordingly, a U.S. hyperinflation likely would force cessation of regular commerce, triggering a great depression of a magnitude never before seen in the United States.

Read the rest of this compelling report here

OBAMACARE SUPPORT HITS NEW LOW AMONG LIKELY VOTERS

From Scott Rasmussen's outfit comes a new poll report on health care coverage legislation shaping up in Congress that shows that support for the Democrat plans has hit a new low among likely voters.

Just 41% of voters nationwide now favor the health care reform proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s down two points from a week ago and the lowest level of support yet measured.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% are opposed to the plan.

Senior citizens are less supportive of the plan than younger voters. In the latest survey, just 33% of seniors favor the plan while 59% are opposed. The intensity gap among seniors is significant. Only 16% of the over-65 crowd Strongly Favors the legislation while 46% are Strongly Opposed.

Read the whole report here

Holder Busts Polanski:

Child molester and Oscar winning director Roman Polanski was arrested in Zurich, Switzerland on September 26 on a U.S. warrant seeking his extradition to the United States for his 1978 Flight from justice. Polanski fled the U.S. before sentencing on a reduced charge of unlawful intercourse with a minor, down from a statutory rape charge, for having sex with a 13 year old girl in 1977 at Jack Nicholson's house where Polanski was staying.

Polanski had plead guilty to the reduced charge that sent him to jail for 42 days observation, however he fled California and the United States when he learned that the judge who had initially approved his plea deal, was attempting to renege on it and send the Director to the can for an extended sentence.

Polanski is a darling of the Hollyweird elite. In the eyes of the glitterati, he can do no wrong, from their perspective even un-consenting sex with a child (a legal redundancy) is heavily outweighed by his brilliant artistry as a director. Why should mundane laws like statutory rape apply to him, he's an artist and therefore he's ENTITLED to an exemption from kid-rape rules. So then what the F**K is Eric Holder thinking????

Eric, you dumb-ass, you really know how to step in it dont'chya? You just succeeded in pissing off pretty much ALL of your Boz's Hollywood constituency. JUST BLOODY BRILLIANT MATE!!!

Bring Roman back for sentencing or maybe to get off the rap too, since it seems Polanski may very well have a strong case to void his earlier plea deal on the grounds of both judicial and prosecutorial misconduct in the original case. Time will tell.

In the meantime, Hollywood is PISSED OFF, the French are PISSED OFF, and you and yer Boz keep looking like bumbling nincompoops as we come nose to nose with Ahmedi-Nejad and his impending nuke arsenal.

ANGER MANAGEMENT: Rasmussen Poll Shows "59% Say Americans Angrier Now Than Under Bush"

More bad news for the Demoncrats from Rasmussen Reports:

59% Say Americans Angrier Now Than Under Bush

Fifty-nine percent (59%) of U.S. voters believe that the current level of political anger in the country is higher than it was when George W. Bush was president.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 22% think the level of political anger is lower now, while 16% rate it as about the same.

Despite frequent Republican complaints about the vitriol leveled at President Bush, 69% of GOP voters say the level of anger is higher now, a view shared by 53% of Democrats and 56% of voters not affiliated with either party.

But just 12% of voters nationwide say that the opposition to President Obama’s health care plan and other initiatives is racist, as some prominent Democrats, including former President Jimmy Carter, have charged.

....

Sixty-six percent (66%) of all voters say they’re at least somewhat angry about the current policies of the federal government, including 36% who are Very Angry.

Among those voters who are Very Angry, 74% say the level of anger is higher now, while 13% say it’s lower and 12% say it’s about the same.

Even the majority of those who are now very or not at all angry about the government’s actions right now say the level of political anger is higher under Obama. For the rest of the poll report, click here

Here's a tip for you Democrats who don't want to see your party swirl down the bowl in 2010 with a second flush in 2012: Get over your enthrallment by Barack Obama and his crooked crew of Chicago cohorts.