Walter Reed Sycophants Urge "Fundamental Change" In Military Healthcare

The L.A. Times reports that the Beltway's insiders, in the form of a "commission" appointed by Bush and who are ever supportive of the putrid government-run, government-owned, and government-operated Walter Reed Hospital, Army Center, and Healthcare System, are urging "reforms" in the government's military healthcare system.

These ignoramuses will never accept the fact that the government healthcare system is shoddy and crappy while a true laissez-faire free market healthcare system is the cure-all for the wounded and maimed soldiers (who are dying more so in record numbers day after day after day in Iraq). What will it take for them to realize that they can't reform a system that will never work the way they want it to? What will it take for them to understand that Socialism is an inherent evil, is unworkable, and will collapse just like how Communism fell in the Soviet Union?

Congressional Republicans "Jihadists"?

National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez, who's normally a Big Government Neo-Con, must have been breathing fire when she blogged this tidbit on NR's server -- a report that was initially posted on the Congressional Quarterly's website:

Republicans are uttering a word that for 12 years has been utterly unspeakable.

Shutdown.

It’s a word that can send shudders through those who saw the last one — actually, two — play out after Republicans took control of Congress in 1995. The Newt Gingrich-Bill Clinton standoff was so traumatic that since then, neither party has ventured anywhere in that direction.

This year’s appropriations tug-of-war between a new majority in Congress and a president of the opposing party does not appear to be headed for a government shutdown, but a rhetorical taboo was lifted when the word became part of the partisan message of the moment.

“The obvious plan of the Democrats is to not do appropriations bills but put everything together in a giant omnibus appropriations bill in a kind of legislative blackmail with all of the policy and increased spending, to in effect threaten the president to either sign the bill or be accused of shutting down the government,” Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the chairman of the Republican Conference, said Wednesday.

President Bush has threatened to veto seven appropriations bills because together they would exceed his discretionary spending limit by more than $20 billion.

Congressional veterans are certain the two sides are headed for a whopper of a fight over a catchall, omnibus appropriations bill.

BusinessWeek: "Minimum Wage Increase Means Tax Breaks"

BusinessWeek's John Tozzi, on the subject of the federal minimum wage hike, writes that the bipartisan minimum wage increase was accomplished with the promise of tax breaks given to small businesses.

Here's an excerpt of what he wrote:

Workers earning the federal minimum wage enjoyed a boost from $5.15 to $5.85 an hour on July 24, the first of three annual hikes that will bring the rate to $7.25 in 2009. But along with the raise, Congress passed a package of $4.8 billion in tax breaks for small businesses that go into effect this year. While employers in 30 states and the District of Columbia won't be hit directly in the first year of the raise because state laws already mandate wages higher than the new federal rate, those businesses can still take advantage of the new tax breaks.

The biggest boon for most small-business owners is an expanded deduction for new purchases. Any firm making purchases of pretty much anything from livestock to software, real estate excluded, can take advantage of this so-called Section 179 deduction. The new law allows business owners to deduct $125,000 in purchases, up from $112,000. Only businesses that spend less than $500,000 on eligible equipment—a ceiling that was raised from $450,000—can qualify. Spend above $500,000 and the size of the deduction starts to shrink.

Teenage Butt-Grabbing Case Ignites National and International Furor

The Paddleton Middle School butt-grabbing incident, which I have been covering for the last several days here and here, has sparked a national and internatinal outcry from online readers and the public at large.

Here's an excerpt of the piece that appeared today on the Oregonian's website:

Two McMinnville middle-schoolers facing sex abuse charges for spanking girls in the hallway probably will not do jail time or be required to register as sex offenders, the Yamhill County district attorney said Monday as the case against the boys grew into a media sensation.

The comments from Bradley Berry outraged the parents of the two 13-year-olds, Ryan Cornelison and Cory Mashburn, who with their lawyers were deluged with calls from ABC, CNN, Fox, Court TV and radio stations across the country a day after a story about the prosecution appeared in The Sunday Oregonian.

Until now, Berry has declined to discuss specifics of the case or explain why it merits criminal charges. After spending most of Monday fielding complaints, however, he elaborated for the first time.

"From our perspective and the perspective of the victims, this was not just horseplay," Berry told The Oregonian. "People may disagree, and I understand that."

Based on his experience in similar cases, Berry said it's unlikely the boys, if convicted, would be sentenced for the maximum jail time for each of the counts. "That type of sentence has never been imposed in my county or in any county that I know of for these types of offenses," he said.

Berry said he, too, was inundated with calls and e-mails from readers who complained that charging the boys with 10 counts of sex abuse and harassment was an overreaction, as their parents maintain. Lawyers for the boys say each count could bring a year in confinement and mandatory registration as sex offenders.

Berry said a judge could lift the registration requirement after it was imposed. "These youths can petition the court relatively quickly for relief from that," he said.

The boys' families said they were furious at what appeared to be backpedaling on Berry's part.

"It makes us angry that they can overcharge . . . and make us think this could happen," said Tracie Mashburn, Cory's mother. "Why would they do that and threaten us with that if they're not going to do it?"

"He's just doing damage control," added Joe Cornelison, Ryan's father. "I want to ask Brad Berry, what kind of due process is this?"

(Thanks goes to Radley Balko who cross-posted this on his blog and his Reason blog.)

The DEA's War on Medical Marijuana Tenant-Supporting Landlords

The Leviathan's vile Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has just launched its war on California's landlords who rent their property to medical marijuana activists. According to U.S. Today, the DEA raided 10 marijuana medical pot clinics in Los Angeles.

It's idiotic that marjuana, which is legal under California for medicinal use, is illegal under federal law for the same use. These evil, despicable statists who go after these activists just because they are violating federal law will surely, one way or another, get their comeuppance.

With the Drug War spilling into legal prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, this war has no end in sight. These government bureaucrats who think they are doing this for the activists' "own good" are just deluding themselves. As one medical pot activist correctly noted in the article:

"It's clearly not about compassion or care at this point," Pullen says. "It's about money."

Teenage "Pedophiles" May Be Sentenced to Jail, Including Sex Registry System

The two Oregon middle school boys, whom I blogged about last night, are now facing possible jail time for their purported role in slapping the posteriors of two teenage females, both of whom are 13 years old. According to ABC News's online website:

The local district attorney has since backed off -- the felony charges have been dropped and the district attorney said probation would be an appropriate punishment. The Mashburns' lawyer said prosecutors offered Cory a plea bargain that would not require him to register as a sex offender, which the family plans to reject.

But the boys, if convicted at an Aug. 20 trial, still face the possibility of some jail time or registering for life as sex offenders.

The incident, which took place last February and has garnered some attention from the mainstream "government" media, has led to the boys spending five days in a detention cell and then, according to AOL News, being charged "with several counts of felony sex abuse for what they and their parents said was merely inappropriate but not criminal behavior."

What's even interesting is that an AOLNews.com poll was taken, in which it showed that an overwhelming 87 percent of the respondents said "No" to the question asking whether the boys should be charged with a sex crime. Only 8 percent of the respondents said "Yes."

The interesting aspect of this case is that two of the girls -- the alleged victims of the boys' antics -- have since retracted their charges. The problem is that, once a victim of a purported crime (especially when that "victim" happens to be an underage female) presses charges against her alleged perpetrator, it's too late to drop them. And the thing is, if the court determines that the victim lied to the local authorities about the charges (or even made false statements against the accused), she will most likely be charged with perjury and can face legal trouble as well.

In this case, the odds of that happening are pretty much nil, given the age of the "victims" and the accused and the politics of the sex registry system and the case in question.

Six States Considering Federal Bailout for Hisk-Risk Homeowners

According to Fox News.com (and I even saw the interview in which Neil Cavuto conducted with State Senator Liz Krueger, a Democrat from New York), six states are now pondering a federal bailout for high risk homeowners.

Krueger, when asked by Cavuto whether this was really a bail-out, went so far as to say that it was not a bail-out, but rather "an investment in mortgages that will get repaid to the government." Gee, what a nice play on words there, Senator!

(Thanks to the staff at Fox News.com for this rushed transcipt.)

Two Middle School Boys Accused of Being Sexual Predators

The state's nonsensical logic has never amazed me, but if there's one thing that has amazed me about these tyrannical stooges, it's that they never give up without a fight.

According to Sunday's edition of the Oregonian, two middle school boys were arrested for purportedly running down the hall of their school and slapping the buttocks of two 13-year-old girls -- an act that is largely viewed as a common form of greeting. According to the paper, such an act is "against school policy in McMinneville Public Schools." Considering this is a violation of public "government" school policy, the seventh grade boys, according to the article, were sent to "the office, where the vice principal and a police officer stationed at the school soon interrogated them."

But here's the eerie thing about this incident that people should find out. Read this paragraph, and you'll see my meaning:

the office, where the vice principal and a police officer stationed at the school soon interrogated them.

But here's an interesting twist to this incident that no one's been able to learn before:

Last year, in a previously undisclosed prosecution, he charged two other Patton Middle School boys with felony sex abuse for repeatedly slapping the bottom of a female student. Both pleaded guilty to harassment, which is a misdemeanor. Berry declined to discuss his cases against Mashburn and Cornelison.

Think about it. A similar incident like this has happened before, and the vile, diabolical prosecutor refuses to comment on that particular incident.

But this is where it gets REALLY interesting. Read this one part here, and you'll get my drift:

The outlines of the case have been known. But confidential police reports and juvenile court records shed new light on the context of the boys' actions. The records show that other students, boys and girls, were slapping one another's bottoms. Two of the girls identified as victims have recanted, saying they felt pressured and gave false statements to interrogators.

In other words, these two boys weren't the only ones who were slapping the girls on their buttocks. The other two girls (who happen to be 13, by the way) were the doing the exact same thing, yet only the two boys -- Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison -- have been charged with committing a sexual crime. Gee, a double standard here, don't you think?

This is what happens when you get the state involved in matters such as education, parental control and responsibility, and juvenile behavior. It also explains why teenagers who are growing from the age of 13 to well beyond their adult years are being treated like children and not as adults by their parents and the government. The sex registry system, even though it was designed to protect little children from sexual predators and pedophiles, has metastasized into a government-sanctioned, government-protected industry, in which individuals who would normally not be charged with "deviant sexual crimes" and other arbitrary crimes under the old judicial system prior to the enactment of the SRS will and must be charged with these crimes under the new judicial system. It has basically encouraged parents to abdicate their responsibility as far as protecting their children from true, dangerous predators and enabled the state to have complete control and care over the lives of the parents' children and raise them according to its perverted values.

Let's be clear about something: a child has been defined by medical and psychological groups as one who, according to the Free Dictionary, "between birth and puberty," or one, according to Wikipedia.org, "has not reached puberty, but also refers to offspring of any age." That would correctly apply to children who age from the time and day they are born (as infants) to the age of 11. An adolescent, or teenager, has been defined by the medical and psychological establishment as one who has, according to Wikipedia.org, transitioned between the stages of childhood and adulthood. A teenager is a young individual who is competent and capable of making adult decisions on his or her own. It goes without saying that teenagers often do and will make mistakes, but it's better for them to make mistakes and learn from them than to protect them from the world in which they live and the vices that are a part of that world.

Worse, teens are usually treated like children, even though their minds and bodies convince them otherwise. Dr. Robert Epstein, the former editor of Psychology Today, even illustrates this in his new book The Case Against Adolescence: Rediscovering the Adult in Every Teen, in which he explains that teens are far more competent than they are or have been portrayed and they are capable of making adult decisions in their early years. He even argues that age of consent laws and child labor laws are part and parcel of the problem that involves our youth, which keep teenagers unemployed and trapped in that childlike mindset that society, parents, and government at all levels insist that they remain as such.

If anything, what happened to these two middle school boys shows that, when you have a government involved in prevention of sexual activity between teenagers or teens and adults, you create more problems than you've bargained for. Once you open the political Pandora's Box, it's almost impossible to fix the problem as long as those who want the vile system remain in control of it.

Rather than undermining parents' obligations to protect their children and their abilities to educate their teenage children, the state would be wise to leave parents and their children to their own devices and work out their problems their own way. With that said, it's time to abolish the sex registry system and all other laws that prevent teens from making adult decisions. But let's go further than that: it's time to get the government out of the lives of parents and children and the schools to which these parents send their kids.

Americans Disapprove of Bush's Handling His Job as President, Says New Poll

A new ABC News-Washington Post poll, which breaks down Bush's approval ratings and tracks them from February 25, 2001 to July 21, 2007, shows that Americans are entirely dissatisfied with Bush's handling of his job as president.

Here's an excerpt of the poll questions and the results that are shown on the site:

1. Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president? Do you approve/disapprove strongly or somewhat?

-------- Approve -------- ------- Disapprove ------ No
NET Strongly Somewhat NET Somewhat Strongly opinion

7/21/07 33 16 17 65 13 52 2

As for Bush's handling of the War in Iraq, the war on terrorism, and ethics in government, the poll also found the following:

2. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Bush is handling (ITEM)?

7/21/07 - Summary Table*

Approve Disapprove No opinion
a. The situation in Iraq 31 68 1
b. The US campaign against terrorism 43 56 2
c. Ethics in government 31 65 4

So much for the conservatives and neoconservatives' claim that the "liberal media" is terribly biased, given that the government media is leaking out the truth about how many Americans are disillusioned with the entire political process.

At least Ron Paul is revving things up for the public as well as many disenfranchised voters.

Government Study Says Diet Sodas Linked to Heart Disease

The collectivists in the government's own medical research establishment must be on psychotropic drugs when it comes to studying dietary merchandise. According to the latest new study, diet drinks are purportedly linked to heart disease.

These collectivistic, social engineering-worshipping ignoramuses are trying to snooker the public into thinking that a can of soda that has NO sugar and with some flavoring to make it taste like a regular soda is somehow linked to heart disease. They are sticking to this arbitrary and warped bogus claim that one can of diet soda a day will increase your risk of heart disease by 48 percent. Yeah.....right.

Here's a key passage in the piece, which may be of interest to anyone here:

The study's senior author, Dr. Vasan Ramachandran, emphasized the findings don't show diet sodas are a cause of increased heart disease risks. But he said they show a surprising link that must be studied.

Emphasis mine.

But here's the shocking kicker that's been largely ignored by the mainstream press:

"There's too much contradictory evidence that shows that diet beverages are healthier for you in terms of losing weight that I would not put any credence to the result on the diet (drinks)," said Barry Popkin, of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, who has called for cigarette-style surgeon general warnings about the negative health effects of soda.

Susan Neely, president of the American Beverage Association, said the notion that diet drinks are associated with bulging waistlines defies common sense.

"How can something with zero calories that's 99 percent water with a little flavoring in it ... cause weight gain?" she said.

The questions that ought to be asked here are: where are the authors of this "study" getting their information? What research methods did they employ to gather their "findings"? Isn't it more than likely that the government's medical lobbyists and their stooges were behind the fudging of these "findings"?

These anti-sugar zealots and Nazis, with the help of the medical corporatocrats and the entire medical establishment, are doing everything they can to outlaw dietary soft drinks. I bet anyone with a modicum of intelligence $100 that your Diet Pepsi or Diet Coke Plus will either be outlawed in the next several years or heavily taxed and regulated for the "high costs of health care."

What's next? Flavored bottled water? Sugar-free candy? Low fat milk? Hostess Light Cup Cakes and Twinkies?

What's pathetic about this is that too many people truly buy into this malarkey and never question the veracity of these findings or any other findings of any study, whenever they are published and reported by Big Media a.k.a. the government media. Too many Americans take what these studies say for granted and swallow this medical garbage hook, line, and sinker. They accept this nonsense at face value, without taking into account that the creators of these studies are the recipients of federal subsidies (a.k.a. taxpayer money) at the expense of taxpayers.

Anyone with a brain should know that drinking a can of diet soda more than once a day is particuarly not good for them. The best way to lose weight is a well-balanced diet, exercise, and drinking plenty of water (best to have vitamins in them). There are no short cuts when it comes to controlling one's health and weight reduction.

Libertarians, free marketeers, anarcho-capitalists, paleolibertarians, and other advocates of liberty will be wise to ignore the advice dispensed by these medical whackjobs, health groups, and medical corporatocrats.

Federal Minimum Wage to Go Up Today

The federal minimum wage begins hiking for the first time in a decade today, boosting from $5.15 an hour (the wage set by Clinton and his congressional cronies in 1996) to $5.85 an hour (one of three hikes to be raised each summer until 2009). After three hikes, it'll be officially at $7.25 an hour.

Thanks goes to Herr Bush who signed the wage edict into law last May. Obviously, the Republicans caved into the demands of the Democrats for fear of being viewed as "heartless" and "unsympathetic to the poor." But then again, the GOP supports minimum wage edicts as long as they are crafted in their favor.

Wait until the unemployment rate starts to rise again. By then, the collectivistic leftists and rightists on both sides of the aisle will blame the market for "market failure" as they usually do.

For more on the minimum wage claptrap, click here.

For facts on why minimum wage laws are job killers, click here.

Federal Agents Raid Offices On Suspicion of Alleged Terrorist Ties

Federal agents raided two offices in Dearborn (which is in Wayne County, right under where I live) today, acting on the suspicion that they had terrorist ties to Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). These offices, which were owned by two charitable groups (Goodwill Charitable Organizations and Al-Mabarrat Charitable Organization), were cleaned out by the FBI, IRS, and the Secret Service, who were seen to be hauling away files and placing them into a van outside.

Here's an excerpt of the Detroit Free Press article, which covered it by the way:

Federal agents are raiding today the Dearborn offices of two charities suspected of having ties to terrorist groups in the Middle East.

A Dearborn police officer guarded the entrance to the office of the Goodwill Charitable Organization, a fund-raising office established by the Martyrs Foundation in Dearborn, on Warren Avenue, tucked between a grocery store and an import store.

The charity is not affiliated with Goodwill Industries, said Christine Bragale, spokeswoman for Goodwill Industries International.

Goodwill Industries International has sent the Muslim charity a letter in the past to get it to stop using the Goodwill name, Bragale said.

In Dearborn, several uniformed and plainclothes law enforcement officials shuttled in and out of the office, while bystanders and neighbors stood by watching.

The Treasury said in a news release that it "targeted Hizballah's support network by designating the Iran-based Martyrs Foundation, including its U.S. branch, and the finance firm Al-Qard al-Hassan."

The government also has frozen the assets of the Goodwill Charitable Organization, according to the news release.

"We will continue to target those who form the financial backbone of Hizballah, Hamas, PIJ and other terrorist groups that are attempting to destabilize Lebanon and target innocent civilians," said Stuart Levey, under secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, in the news release. "We will not allow organizations that support terrorism to raise money in the United States or to evade our measures and continue to operate simply by changing their names."

A search warrant was executed at the Goodwill Charitable Organization office, according to Imad Hamad, regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

According to the Treasury, the Martyrs Foundation "channels financial support from Iran to several terrorist organizations’’ including “Hizballah, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)."

Federal agents are also raiding the Al-Mabarrat Charitable Organization, which has a Dearborn office on Schaefer Road, north of Warren Avenue.

Agents with the FBI, IRS, and the U.S. Secret Service were seen hauling away files and placing them into a van outside the office. Al-Mabarrat, whose headquarters is based in Lebanon, has held fund-raisers in metro Detroit in recent years.

Smoking Ban Passes in Michigan's State House Committee

The anti-smoking Nazis have won Round One in their fight to outlaw smoking in public in my home state of Michigan. According to today's online edition of the Detroit Free Press, an anti-smoking bill passed in the Michigan Legislature's State House Committee by a vote of 12-4. Interestingly enough, the bill is faced with massive opposition from many bar, restaurant, and casino owners from all over the state.

One of the collectivists in the State House Committee -- Committee Chairman Rep. Andrew Meisner, D-Royal Oak, -- claims that this bill, which was in fact pushed by "health and consumer organizations, will "put Michigan in the forefront of cultural change on attitudes toward smoking," which is something that these collectivists claim the state needs to discard "its aging, smokestack reputation."

A key passage in the article says in part:

The bill approved today contains exemptions for existing tobacconists and cigar bars, where Meisner said owners have invested in “tobacco infrastructure.”

Interesting. The bill, if it were pass in the House and the Senate and signed into law by Governor Granholm in its current form, will outlaw smoking in workplaces all over the state, including bars, restaurants, and casinos, but tabacconists and cigar bars are excluded from the measure.

I wonder which "health and consumer organizations" in my state lobbied for this bill and how much they were paid to get it on the legislative table.

WSJ's John Fund on Ron Paul

The Wall Street Journal's top Bush brown noser John Fund, who has thumbed his nose at Ron Paul in the past, writes in part today:

While Dr. Paul isn't about to win any GOP primaries this year, he is in solid political shape back home. He has won election six times from his Texas district since 1996. Dr. Broun could have similar electoral success if he sticks by the principles that got him elected and patiently explains to voters his reasons for doing so.

Could it be that the Neo-Cons and their collectivistic, social engineering-loving mouthpieces are finally vexed at the massive popularity of Paul's campaign? Is it possible that they are finally sweating over Ron's political viability on the campaign radar?

Inquiring minds certainly do want to know.

(Thanks goes to Thomas Woods for his posting of this on LRC today.)

Better angels

While at the Young Republican national convention during the July 4th celebrations we had 37 people with signs for Ron Paul.

NONE of the "brand X" Republicans had anybody with signs. Drivers who honked, waived, gave us up were 20-25% of the traffic. We calculated 1,000 cars per hour. There were four negatives: three anti-Pauline, one pro-Kucinich.

One of the media there interviewed me and I found myself explaining my support for Dr. Paul. It was an epiphany for me.

What has inspired me about Ron Paul is that he does appeal to the "better angels" in us. Of all the candidates running he is the one who most resembles Ronald Reagan's approach to political discourse.

I don't always have that transcendent quality. Ron Paul inspired me to try to appeal to the better and not attack those who I find myself in opposition with.

Of all the good Ron's race is doing, the elevating of the discourse, tone and approach may be, all by itself, the most worthwhile achievement.