California Bar Exam: Round Two

The bloggers of Conservative Samizdat are currently studying for the California Bar exam and are unable to post any blogs until after we take the exam in February 23-25.

Wish us luck!

The Media's Failure to Fact Check Obama & Global Warming

Many news organizations have done some fact checking of some of Obama's claims that he made in the State of the Union Address. 

Yet, no fact checking has been done about Obama's statement he made about climate change during his first State of the Union Address last night.

The President made this statement:  

I know there have been questions about whether we can afford such changes in a tough economy; and I know that there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change. 

Overwhelming evidence!? I think there is a tidal wave of evidence showing that Climate Change is based on very bad science.  Let us go through four recent examples showing how bad the science is on Global Warming?

1) Special interest groups like World Wildlife Fund are the source of many claims made by the "scientific" IPCC AR4 report.

2) Many claims within the IPPC, such as the melting glaciers on the Himalyas, are not even based on formal research but a short telephone interview with a scientist who based his claim on mere speculation.

3) There is strong evidence that Global Weather Stations are being intentionally cherry picked to show an increase in the global temperature. 

4) Scientists in England, New Zealand and Australia have been found to be manipulating, distorting, massaging and dumping their raw data in an effort to promote Climate Change.  In the United States, there a few different lawsuits pending, to determine if science agencies have been manipulating the climate change data too.

I could go on with more examples of reports and articles showing whatever "overwhelming evidence" in support of it rests on bad science. 

All these examples are from recent news articles covering global warming which shows that what Obama is essentially saying is that we should embark on this costly endeavor EVEN IF the science is wrong. Our President either be willfully ignorant or in willful denial about the quality of "science" behind global warming.

And with as much money as our government is spending on programs based on bad science, the media is failing in doing its fact checking  to ensure that our government relies on the right scientific evidence. 

Massachusetts suddenly becomes Texas

So Massachusetts elects the first Republican senator in forty years, and the first republican in this particular seat since Henry Cabot Lodge. Scott Brown pulls off one of the biggest upset in a state that went for Obama by 26 points.

How do you explain it?

Racism
Racism II
Not Radical enough
Sexism
Illogical Anger
More Sexism
Date Raping the Mass Electorate (I kid you not)

And when you consider the unmitigated anger by liberals at losing one of their safest areas in the country, they do not seem to be learning anything from their own mistakes. After running a candidate who ran a campaign that was based on the assumption that an empty soda can could win in Massachusetts (complete with incompetence on an incredible level) and being anchored with a very unpopular liberal agenda, there seems to be no attempt to look at what they have done and take stock. Instead they continue to operate under the assumption that the bluest of blue states has all of a sudden become Bull Conor's Alabama of 1960; a bastion of anti-black sentiment.

Let's be frank, if you can lose this badly in Mass then you are at risk everywhere. If the democrats continue to push forward with an agenda that is completely unpopular with the electorate, they will lose to such a degree that it'll make the 1994 republican revolution look like a minor storm. And yet based on all the pundits and major liberal leaders, they not only will not falter in their push but will instead re double their efforts.

When your opponent is doing everything in your favor, do not oppose him.

Scott Brown Victory!!

Schadenfreudeliscious!!!

Please Call It MassDemCare, Not RomneyCare

Many people call the current Massachusetts health care plan RomneyCare. The truth is that it really should be called "MassDemCare" for the following reasons:

#1. Romney’s healthcare plan was vastly different BEFORE the Massachusetts Democratic Congress modified and changed Romney’s plan.

The original RomneyCare was but a skeletal form of what is has blossomed into because of legislative tinkering after the fact:

"The legislature made a number of changes to Governor Romney's original proposal, including expanding MassHealth (Medicaid and SCHIP) coverage to low-income children and restoring funding for public health programs. The most controversial change was the addition of a provision which requires firms with 11 or more workers that do not provide "fair and reasonable" health coverage to their workers to pay an annual penalty. This contribution, initially $295 annually per worker, is intended to equalize the free care pool charges imposed on employers who do and do not cover their workers. The legislature also rejected Governor Romney's proposal to permit even higher-deductible, lower benefit health plans.

Source.

Here's how the Democrats altered Romney's original health care plan :

1) At the core of the House plan is the controversial payroll tax, which would be levied on businesses with more than 10 employees if they do not provide insurance to their workers. Romney and Travaglini oppose the tax.

But last night's 129 to 24 House vote on the payroll tax would be enough to overrule a Romney veto, and earlier this week House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi suggested that many senators support the idea, despite Travaglini's reservations.

2) House leaders amended the bill so that the salaries of highly paid employees would count only up to $94,200 in calculating overall payroll costs. They also exempted from the calculation employees getting healthcare coverage through their spouses.

Part-time workers would count as full-time employees in calculating the payroll tax, a detail designed to persuade employers to offer them coverage.

3) In addition to pushing employers to cover their workers, the House plan would also require people who can afford health insurance to buy it, provide subsidies to lower-income people to help them pay premiums, and raise the income limits for MassHealth, the state's Medicaid program, so an additional 130,000 people can enroll.

Background source for #1-3 is here.

4) Romney also vetoed provisions providing dental benefits to poor residents on the Medicaid program, and providing health coverage to senior and disabled legal immigrants not eligible for federal Medicaid. The legislature promptly overrode six of the eight gubernatorial section vetoes, on May 4, 2006, and by mid-June 2006 had overridden the remaining two.

Source.

Thus, we can see that Romney fought with the Democrats who controlled both houses in Massachusetts and was unable to win since they were able to override ALL of his eight vetoes.

After unsuccessfully attempting to keep the democrats from modifying his original health care plan, Governor Mitt Romney signed the health legislation on April 12, 2006

#2 The supposed problems with Romney’s health care program in MA are attributable to the changes made by the new governor, Democrat Deval Patrick.

Not only did the Democrats make changes to Romney's health care plan, but the successor to Mitt Romney, Deval Patrick made additional changes:

With Washington watching, the state’s leaders are again blazing new trails. Both Gov. Deval Patrick, Mr. Romney’s Democratic successor, and a high-level state commission have set out to revamp the way public and private insurers reimburse physicians and hospitals. They want a new payment method that rewards prevention and the effective control of chronic disease, instead of the current system, which pays according to the quantity of care provided. By late spring, the commission is expected to recommend such a system to the legislature.But Mr. Patrick has shown signs of playing tough with the state’s hospitals and insurers. Responding in January to a series in The Boston Globe that exposed how the state’s most influential hospitals negotiate high reimbursement rates, Mr. Patrick announced that he would explore whether the state could regulate insurance premiums.
“Frankly, it’s very hard for the average consumer, or frankly the average governor, to understand how some of these companies can have the margins they do and the annual increases in premiums that they do,” Mr. Patrick said in an interview. “At some level, you’ve just got to say, ‘Look, that’s just not acceptable, and more to the point, it’s not sustainable.’ ”
Source.

What Massachusetts has now is MassDemCare, not RomneyCare.

Therefore, any criticism of the current state of the Massachusetts health care system should be laid at the feet of the democrats, NOT Romney.

The REAL lesson of MassDemCare is that you don’t let Democrats anywhere near health care reform at the state or federal level. They’ll screw the original plans up.

#3 RomneyCare: The Power of Conservative Princples Even In Liberal States.

Some people think that the distinctions between the Massachusetts health care plan and Obama care are blurring together, but that not is true.

The key distinction between ObamaCare and the underlying principle that Mitt Romney preserved in his health care plan, is that it is the private sector, not the public sector, that provides coverage to the Massachusetts citizens.

Mitt Romney was able to keep the most crucial aspect of his health care plan from being completely corrupted by the Democrats. He made sure that there was minimal government intervention in the Massachusetts health care plan.

Lets be clear: Mitt Romney's plan is not a single payer takeover of government. Scott Brown, the Massachusetts candidate, who is currently running for the late Senator Kennedy's seat explained it this way:

“What we have here is a free-market enterprise where we’re providing insurance on various levels to people in Massachusetts,” Brown said. “The plans in Washington are a one-size-fits-all plan that’s going to cost almost $1 trillion-plus and raise taxes at a time when we don’t need it.”

Source.

The Massachusetts health reform bill is far from the ideal plan to reform health care, but even with its flaws, it is fairly successful and it works. (For a good rebuttal of typical arguments against Mitt's health care plan, I suggest reading this blog.)

That's what makes Romney's health care plan so amazing.

Despite the fact that Massachusetts democrats have altered, modified and tinkered with his original health care plan, the underlying conservative principal of minimal government intervention can shine through the muck of liberal policies and be successful.

Conservatism is a hardy, rough and strong ideology that can survive even in the most harshest of circumstances if the basic principles are preserved. If those core principles are protected, it will bring positive results into the individual lives of each citizen regardless of what liberal additions or alterations are made on top of it.

That's the important lesson that every Conservative or Republican should learn from the story of RomneyCare: The basic and successful principles of conservatism cannot be suppressed by liberal policies.

That is what Mitt Romney is about. He has demonstrated that the essential core conservative principles are worth fighting for. He has demonstrated that the basic conservative ideas work even when its implemented even in a liberal state like Massachusetts.

UPDATE (2.9.10): A recent poll shows that the people of Massachusetts actually like Romney's health care plan:

A poll conducted this week by The Washington Post of 880 Massachusetts residents who said they voted in the special election found that 68 percent support the Massachusetts plan. Even among Brown voters, slightly more than half backed the 2006 law. (Source.)

A Simple Campaign Promise Any President Could Keep

Recently, C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb took Obama up on his campaign pledge and asked in a letter that lawmakers let his cameras in during the final deal-making between the House and Senate.

During the 2008 Presidential elections, President Obama promised to bring in transparency in our govermnet by televising the health care debates on at least eight different occasions. Obama is clearly refusing to honor such a simple campaign promise. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs isn't making things easier in his inability to explain why Obama isn't keeping this promise.

Brian Lamb is clearly unhappy with President Obama's refusal to honor his campaign promise stating that the C-SPAN was used as political football during the Presidential elections.

Its pretty obvious that televising the Congressional discussions on health care is the easiest campaign promise President, Republican or Democrat, could keep.

How hard is it for Obama to keep that promise? All he has to do is say yes to C-SPAN's request and Obama's promise is kept. Its that simple.

For such an EASY promise to keep, why is Obama and the Democrats refusing to let the American people watch the very people they elected to represent them discuss Health Care Reform?

Mike Huckabee: A Portrait of Bad Judgment

Mike Huckabee is a case study of a politician who has a history of making bad choices. Especially, when it comes to pardoning criminals.

Many people are justifiably outraged that this isn't the first time that Mike Huckabee has exercised poor judgment in deciding whether or not to allow a convicted criminal to go free. The former Arkansas Governor supported the parole of a a convicted rapist named Wayne Dumond, who, upon his release from prison, raped and murdered a woman. We now learn that Maurice Clemmons, the man who killed four police officers in Washington, is the second example of Mike Huckabee's inability to protect the public from dangerous criminals.

However, what is equally outrageous is Mike Huckabee's press release made in response to this tragedy:

"The senseless and savage execution of police officers in Washington State has saddened the nation, and early reports indicate that a person of interest is a repeat offender who once lived in Arkansas and was wanted on outstanding warrants here and Washington State. The murder of any individual is profound tragedy, but the murder of a police officer is the worst of all murders in that it is an assault on every citizen and the laws we live within.

Should he be found to be responsible for this horrible tragedy, it will be the result of a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington State. He was recommended for and received a commutation of his original sentence from 1990, making him parole eligible and was paroled by the parole board once they determined he met the conditions at that time. He was arrested later for parole violation and taken back to prison to serve his full term, but prosecutors dropped the charges that would have held him. It appears that he has continued to have a string of criminal and psychotic behavior but was not kept incarcerated by either state. This is a horrible and tragic event and if found and convicted the offender should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Our thoughts and prayers are and should be with the families of those honorable, brave, and heroic police officers."

As expected, Mike Huckabee doesn't admit his role in the release of Marice Clemmons. Instead, he shifts the blame on the "failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington State." Yet, we all know that as Governor of Arkansas, he granted clemency to Clemmons, commuting his lengthy prison sentence despite the protest from prosecutors.

But it isn't surprising that Mike Huckabee is attempting to distance himself from the controversy. The former Arkansas Governor played the same blame game when Wayne Dumond raped and murdered a female victim after he obtained freedom from prison.

Mike Huckabee clearly has a history of making bad choices. Granting freedom to violent criminals does call Huckabee’s judgment into question. However, the greater problem is the lack of character displayed by the statement he released. His eagerness to throw everyone under the bus to absolve himself of blame is pretty disgraceful.

Mike Huckabee's choice in refusing accept responsibility for allowing Wayne Dumond and Maruice Clemmons to go free is just further evidence that Mike Huckabee is man who continually makes one bad decision after another.

As more facts come to light concerning the clemency of Maurice Clemmons, you can expect Mike Huckabee to evade, spin and blame others for allowing a criminal to roam the streets of America.

At least Mike Huckabee made the right choice to not run in 2012.