Barry's Peace Prize - Consent

I knew there was a restriction in the constitution. I didn't know there was a law. But I'm still waiting to see if Obama will prove his constitutional credentials or his contempt for the law.

Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, Rep. Cliff Stearns, and Rep. Ron Paul say “no,” and have sent a letter to the President asking him to request congressional consent, which they expect would be speedily given. They point to the example of President Theodore Roosevelt, who created a committee, including the Chief Justice, to hold Roosevelt’s Nobel Peace Prize money in trust until he left office. After leaving office, Roosevelt asked for congressional consent to disburse the money to particular charities.

Article I, § 9, clause 8, of the Constitution states that “no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

When Roosevelt won the Peace Prize, there was apparently no controlling statute. Today there is: 5 USC § 7342 (titled “Receipt and disposition of foreign gifts and decorations”) sets out the conditions under which foreign gifts can be accepted without a separate action of Congress. The statute applies to an “employee,” which includes “the President and the Vice President.”

A “foreign government” includes ” any agent or representative of any such [foreign] unit or such organization, while acting as such.” Since the Nobel Peace Prize committee is, as the Representatives note, appointed by the Norwegian Storting (the legislature), it would seem to be within the scope of the statute.

A “gift” is “a tangible or intangible present (other than a decoration) .” A “decoration” includes a ” medal, badge, insignia, emblem, or award.”

By the statute, Congress explicitly consents to employee receipt of gifts of “minimal value,” which is “means a retail value in the United States at the time of acceptance of $100 or less.” The statute authorizes the Administrator of General Services to make regulations to adjust “minimal value” to reflect changes in the Consumer Price Index, beginning in 1981, and reflecting CPI changes in the previous three years. Roughly speaking, $100 in 1978 is about $327 today.

A Peace Prize laureate receives a diploma, a 196-gram gold medal, and a large check (10 million Swedish crowns in 2007). The spot price of gold is $33 a gram, so the medal and the check obviously do not qualify for the “minimal value” exception. The diploma, as a piece of paper, could, although not if it were delivered with an expensive frame.

In the statute, Congress also formally “consents” to an employee receiving and keeping “a decoration tendered in recognition of active field service in time of combat operations or awarded for other outstanding or unusually meritorious performance, subject to the approval of the employing agency of such employee.” The diploma and the medal both fit within the definition of “decoration.” As President, Obama is the head of his own “employing agency,” and therefore can approve his receipt of the medal and the diploma.

The check is not a “decoration” and is of much more than “minimal value.” Employees may not accept gifts of more than minimal value. However, there are various exceptions, and the relevant one is that a gift may be accepted “when it appears that to refuse the gift would likely cause offense or embarrassment or otherwise adversely affect the foreign relations of the United States, except that– (i) a tangible gift of more than minimal value is deemed to have been accepted on behalf of the United States and, upon acceptance, shall become the property of the United States.” It would seem to be within the foreign policy discretion of President Obama to determine that refusing the Nobel check could cause offense, embarrassment, or an adverse effect on foreign relations.

Then, “Within 60 days after accepting a tangible gift of more than minimal value,...an employee shall– (A) deposit the gift for disposal with his or her employing agency; or (B) subject to the approval of the employing agency, deposit the gift with that agency for official use.” Accordingly, it would appear that President Obama must turn the check over to the United States government, for official use. I have not researched whether there are regulations detailing precisely how gifts which a President receives are to be disposed. It would appear that President Obama cannot personally give the Nobel money to charity.

Thus, it seems clear that the statute already supplies the constitutionally-required congressional consent for President Obama to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, and no further action by Congress is needed, provided that President Obama signs the check over the government, as the statute requires.

Makes you wonder if the check will be signed over to the government.

In a lot of ways this is more about what Obama will do with regards to the law rather than the money. But, it does appear to be something that should be noted as a real world indication of what he does rather than says.

Crime and Criminilizing the Citizen

I've been reading a bit on this topic and have to admit this does scare me. I don't even know if I would understand what laws I'd be breaking if this is accurate, and from what I've been reading, it sounds to be.

Fear makes for easy politics. It both wins votes and primes us to give government more power at the expense of personal liberty. And that's certainly true when it comes to crime. With the possible exception of an incumbent mayor, politicians only benefit from exaggerating the threat of violent crime. Senators, Congressmen, and even governors are rarely held responsible when the crime rate goes up. But they do win votes by proposing new powers for police and prosecutors to bring it down.

The result has been a one-way ratchet effect on crime policy. We're perpetually expanding police and prosecutorial power, a process only occasionally slowed by the courts. Congress and state legislatures rarely take old criminal statutes off the books, but they're always adding new ones. A 2008 report from the Heritage Foundation estimates that at the federal level alone, Congress has been adding about 55 new crimes to the federal criminal code each year since the 1980s. There are now about 4,500 separate federal crimes. And that doesn't include federal regulations, which are increasingly being enforced with criminal, not administrative, penalties. It also doesn't include the increasing leeway with which prosecutors can enforce broadly written federal conspiracy, racketeering, and money laundering laws. And this is before we even get to the states' criminal codes.

In his new book, the Boston-based civil liberties advocate and occasional Reason contributor Harvey Silverglate estimates that in 2009, the average American commits about three federal felonies per day. And yet, we aren’t a nation of degenerates. On the contrary, most social indicators have been moving in a positive direction for a generation. Silverglate argues we're committing these crimes unwittingly. The federal criminal code has become so vast and open to interpretation, Silverglate argues, that a U.S. Attorney can find a way to charge just about anyone with violating federal law. In fact, it's nearly impossible for some business owners to comply with one federal regulation without violating another one. We're no longer governed by laws, we're governed by the whims of lawyers.

Just more reasons to avoid the police. And people wonder why LEO jobs are so hard. People don't want to talk to police because you could innocently be stepping into a felony arrest that you neither understand nor can avoid.

War on Drugs Gets Bitten

This is a bit old (Dec. 2008) but I still find it remarkable.

Right up front I think the war on drugs has become a farce if it wasn't one to begin with. The institutionalization of the tactics and the laws that allow the various travesties of justice are astounding if one takes the time to view how often the innocent get bitten. I have no doubts that power proves irresistible in many of the cases and police forces tend to have a lot of people who go into crusader mode when they think there is an issue. No knock raids killing LEO and citizens isn't highly common, but it is far too common for what should be some basics in investigations. Police forces profiting from drug arrests and seizures just feeds into corruption.

Now a TeeVee program in Texas bites back. I am just astounded at the cajones of the guys who did this. In fact, I'd love to see this performed more broadly throughout the country.

"KopBusters rented a house in Odessa, Texas and began growing two small Christmas trees under a grow light similar to those used for growing marijuana," claims a release from NeverGetBusted.com "When faced with a suspected marijuana grow, the police usually use illegal FLIR cameras and/or lie on the search warrant affidavit claiming they have probable cause to raid the house. Instead of conducting a proper investigation which usually leads to no probable cause, the Kops lie on the affidavit claiming a confidential informant saw the plants and/or the police could smell marijuana coming from the suspected house."

"The trap was set and less than 24 hours later, the Odessa narcotics unit raided the house only to find KopBuster's attorney waiting under a system of complex gadgetry and spy cameras that streamed online to the KopBuster's secret mobile office nearby.

"The attorney was handcuffed and later released when eleven KopBuster detectives arrived with the media in tow to question the illegal raid. The police refused to give KopBusters the search warrant affidavit which is suspected to contain the lies regarding the probable cause.

"It is not illegal to grow plants under a light in your home but it is illegal to lie on an affidavit and plant drugs on a citizen. This operation was the first of its kind in the history of America. Police sometimes have other police investigating their crimes but the American court system has never dealt with a group of citizens stinging the police. Will the police file charges on the team who took down the corrupt cops? We will keep you posted."

I wonder if they have any grounds to get the original affidavit. No doubt the police will keep it out of public view because it's an ongoing investigation, but I do think there are legal actions to be taken around this.

And note, I don't blame the police for using the tools that the politicos have handed them, but on the reverse, it is about time that citizens fight back with those tools that they have. If our society is to be truly free then all portions of the legal system has to be open to review and change. This is especially true of those that people rarely dare challenge alone.

Michael Moore - Capitalist Whiner

The Fat Fuck From Flint is whining that capitalism did nothing for him. This is just too funny considering the amount of money he has. But then it appears that his point is that is was hard.

CNSNews.com asked: “Critics may say, when they see this movie, Michael Moore has amassed a fortune of over $50 million, some have said and –”

Moore said: “Really? Are you kidding me? Seriously? Wow. Where did it go?”

CNSNews.com then asked Moore: “Critics would say he’s [Moore] been very successful under a capitalist system. How would you justify making a movie where you paint capitalism as evil?”

Moore said: “Well, capitalism did nothing for me, starting with my first film.”
“You know, I had to pretty much beg, borrow and steal,” he said. “The system is not set up to help somebody from the working class make a movie like this and get the truth out there.”

“In fact, in Fahrenheit 9/11 if you remember, capitalism, the Disney Corporation, tried to kill that film--tried to make it so that people couldn’t see it,” said Moore. “My book Stupid White Men--Harper Collins tried to kill that book so that people couldn’t see it. It's only because I put the light of day on it and told people what was going on did people get the chance to see these things.”

According to Fortune Magazine, Moore’s films have grossed over $300 million worldwide. His highest grossing film was “Fahrenheit 9/11,” which critiques the Bush administration’s handling of the war in Iraq and earned over $200 million worldwide.

Moore reportedly was paid $21 million by Disney for producing, directing and creating the film.

Moore also earned 50 percent of the profits of his 2007 film “Sicko,” totaling $25 million plus DVD sales, according to Vanity Fair.

"Oh no the capitalists tried to kill my movies and books, but yet went on to produce them for me and then gave me huge quantities of money. Those evil bastards."

What a fucking hypocrite. Imagine Michael Moore in China or the USSR. He'd have been allowed to shovel snow and never would have made a rubel, but no doubt he'd have had great health care and no worries about guns.

Fucking idiot.

Fools

Interesting articles from the past couple of days that frankly just fall under the heading of fools.

Let's start off with another of the Czars. This one isn't nearly the Prat that VanJones was, but then, this is a bit hard to swallow from a government official without reading an underlying tinge of threat. You can determine the amount of threat for yourself.

Mr. Lloyd said in a formal statement provided to the Washington Times through the FCC that his comment was being misinterpreted.

"The point I was trying to make was that there was dramatic social change in places like Rwanda and Venezuela and that media played an important part in that. I am not a Chavez supporter. I do not support any political leader other than the president of the United States. I do believe all Americans would benefit from more opportunities to participate in media and that the answer to ugly speech is not censorship, but more speech."

At another conference, Mr. Lloyd spoke about the need to remove white people from powerful positions in the media to give minorities a fairer chance.

"There's nothing more difficult than this because we have really truly, good, white people in important positions, and the fact of the matter is that there are a limited number of those positions," he said.

"And unless we are conscious of the need to have more people of color, gays, other people in those positions, we will not change the problem. But we're in a position where you have to say who is going to step down so someone else can have power."

He added: "There are few things, I think, more frightening in the American mind than dark-skinned black men. Here I am."

Emphasis is mine. Note that Lloyd is a politico of undetermined power since he isn't in a defined position and we don't know what he will be allowed to set policy on. Statements like that clearly indicate that he believes that someone can push aside executives of private companies in order to meet some diversity plan. We've seen how they've pushed out execs in the major car companies. Could this be an extension of that?

If you want diversity in the media, it should come from the free market and not from some forced conception of what is fair. I doubt you'll be seeing many MSM execs jumping off the pier to make way for diversity.

The article has a bunch of other interesting info on Lloyd. Have fun.

Then there is Joe Scarborough. This fool thinks Glen Beck is bad for conservatism. I'd like to point out to Joe, SO WHAT? Beck may posture as a clown, but deprecating humor aside, he is asking questions and demanding the viewer figure it out. These people apparently don't listen to what he says. That's quite obvious when you get to the point where they demand to know how he's going to take responsibility for what happens. Well, so far I think he's done a very good job of keeping it peaceful and has forced a lot of people to actually do a lot of due diligence on topics he's handled.

I think Joe should stop pissing himself and realize that conservatives have pissed off far too much of the population in recent years. Now the Dems are doing the exact same thing, only difference is that they took the republican's irresponsible spending to the next level. Both groups miss what the middle/majority really want. But please Joe, continue attacking Beck with the Progressives. It will just make his points appear more valid to more people.

And lastly there are the fools in the UN. I'm just going to skip the general BS that is flying about. But there is an interesting point here:

One of the lead authors of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Prof. Mojib Latif of Germany's Leibniz Institute, has admitted the Earth is entering a one to two decade cooling period. You haven't seen this reported in the mainstream media because they are too interested in shilling for the global warming crowd. They don't want to report this "inconvenient truth." BBC blogger Tom Feilden brings it home in this excerpt.

The global warming narrative - that mankind's addiction to burning fossil fuels is rapidly changing the climate - may be about to go seriously off message.

Far from suggesting the planet will get warmer, one of the world's leading climate modellers says the latest data indicates we could be in for a significant period of steady temperatures and possibly even a little global cooling.

Professor Mojib Latif, from the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University in Germany, has been looking at the influence of cyclical changes to ocean currents and temperatures in the Atlantic, a feature known as the North Atlantic Oscillation. When he factored these natural fluctuations into his global climate model, professor Latif found the results would bring the remorseless rise in average global temperatures to an abrupt halt.

"The strong warming effect that we experienced during the last decades will be interrupted. Temperatures will be more or less steady for some years, and thereafter will pickup again and continue to warm".

With apologies to Al Gore, professor Latif's finding is something of an "inconvenient truth" for the global warming debate.

Nothing like having your main support scientist suddenly shouting out that the UN politicos of the IPCC don't have a clue.

MSM to Become the Ministry of Truth

So Obama thinks this is worthwhile.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) has introduced S. 673, the so-called "Newspaper Revitalization Act," that would give outlets tax deals if they were to restructure as 501(c)(3) corporations. That bill has so far attracted one cosponsor, Cardin's Maryland colleague Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D).

Hmm. I wonder if there are any impediments placed on such groups for political speech. Well, I suppose they could overlook such restrictions being that they are only reporting the truth and not opinion as they constantly remind us.

But of course Obama thinks this all wonderful.

Obama said that good journalism is "critical to the health of our democracy," but expressed concern toward growing tends in reporting -- especially on political blogs, from which a groundswell of support for his campaign emerged during the presidential election.

"I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding," he said.

Hmm. Funny that he doesn't seem to be reading any of the criticism of the papers. No doubt he honestly believes that the NYTimes isn't carrying his water, or that of liberals in general. I suppose that is all "good" journalism since many media outlets failed to bother reporting his associations with radicals or corrupt political groups like say ACORN.

It may not be 1984, but there certainly are a lot of things that smell fouly with regards to this idea.

Vacation Pictures

These first are the nicer pictures of some of the places we went on Mount Desert Island. This first is the Witch Pond Bridge. I think it is the finest of the bridges that Rockefeller placed on the island.


The rocky coast. I think this was somewhere near Otter Cliff.


Sunrise on Mount Cadillac. Damn cold and windy. Well, it was pretty.


Somme Sound fjard. I guess it doesn't quite qualify as a fjord, but it was interesting.


And this one really pissed me off. Look at the word "America" at the bottom right of the plaque.

Town Hall Security

I couldn't get to the original article quoted, but this one will do. Seems the local Sheriff decided to pull up some rather big crowd control devices from the town hall meetings. I'm still wondering why he thought this level of device would be necessary considering that no town hall meeting in the US has come to an actual riot.

Rep. Susan Davis-D Calif. and Rep. Darrell Issa-R Calif. held town halls that exceeded capacity (10,000+ total attendees) and prompted the Sheriff’s Department to have Long-Range Acoustic Devices(LRADs) standing ready.

Both town halls took place without incident; however the use of the military device concerned San Diegians. The LRAD crowd control is primarily used in Iraq to control insurgents and can cause serious and lasting harm to humans.

According to the manufacture, American Technology Corporation, the LRAD provides “military personnel the capability to transition through the rules of engagement to determine a target’s intent and also provides greater assurance that innocent lives on both sides of the device are not lost due to miscommunication.”

That being said why would local law enforcement feel the need to have such drastic measures on standby? Did the Sheriff Department have reason to believe a catastrophe was in the making?

In an interview with East County Magazine, Sheriff Gore answered a couple of questions. When asked about the use of sonic cannons directing a deterrent sound and the fact they are used in Iraq, Sheriff Gore replied; “That’s a precaution in case you need it.”

Well, hell, where are the flame-throwers and tanks then? You know just in case. What an imbecile.

Got to love this perspective as well.

At a Sheriff’s debate Gore was asked directly (by this writer) why he felt the need to place such heavy-handed piece of military equipment at two area town halls.

“The LRAD was purchased as a crowd dispersal unit,” Sheriff Gore explained. “It was held in reserve in both Susan Davis-D CA. and Darrell Issa-R CA/Duncan Hunter-R CA. events should there be any problems. We could use the LRAD in place of pepper spray.”

Although Gore said the LRAD was held in reserve, a photo taken at the town hall proves otherwise, said a Department of Defense Security Contractor source close to the story.

Gore continued to add that the devise is a non-lethal piece of equipment.

However that couldn’t be further from the truth. Sheriff candidate Jay LaSuer said, “I dispute this answer. It’s a very, very lethal weapon and they (LRAD) have no place in law enforcement.”

“Why would you use a LRAD when members of Congress invited people to talk about health care? The majority of the attendees are probably on Medicare. Are we going after terrorists on walkers now?” LaSuer said.

Spokesperson, Joe Kasper from Congressman Hunter’s office had this to say.

“We were not aware of any type of technology being used to monitor the event at which the Congressman appeared. Law enforcement always stands to benefit from more advanced equipment but, regardless of the system, these tools should be utilized in a manner that is both safe and responsible. More importantly, there are certain systems that should only be used when absolutely necessary, so I think it’s reasonable to question the practicality of this particular technology in this situation.”

Numerous calls made to Congresswoman Davis’s office went unreturned.

Further disputing the call to place military weaponry at town hall events came from a military insider who has been to Iraq and was a part of the testing of the LRAD in San Diego.

“Let me be real clear, this weapon can cause serious injury to the inner ear or result in death if utilized improperly within 30-feet. Furthermore, the LRAD requires explicit training so not to accidentally deploy the weapon which causes hearing loss as well as death,” the DOD source said.

Lovely. I'm sure using such a device in a huge crowd filled with the elderly wouldn't have been dangerous, not even taking into account the misuse of such a device.

If the Sheriff thought this was appropriate, then someone may want to reconsider his appropriateness for filling that post.

Merge the Databases, and Privacy Be Damned

No doubt the rush to get health care reform through during an unassociated economic crisis is the legitimizing factor to place huge risks in the privacy of all the proletariat.

One of the problems with any proposed law that's over 1,000 pages long and constantly changing is that much deviltry can lie in the details. Take the Democrats' proposal to rewrite health care policy, better known as H.R. 3200 or by opponents as "Obamacare." (Here's our CBS News television coverage.)

Section 431(a) of the bill says that the IRS must divulge taxpayer identity information, including the filing status, the modified adjusted gross income, the number of dependents, and "other information as is prescribed by" regulation. That information will be provided to the new Health Choices Commissioner and state health programs and used to determine who qualifies for "affordability credits."

Section 245(b)(2)(A) says the IRS must divulge tax return details -- there's no specified limit on what's available or unavailable -- to the Health Choices Commissioner. The purpose, again, is to verify "affordability credits."

Section 1801(a) says that the Social Security Administration can obtain tax return data on anyone who may be eligible for a "low-income prescription drug subsidy" but has not applied for it.

Over at the Institute for Policy Innovation (a free-market think tank and presumably no fan of Obamacare), Tom Giovanetti argues that: "How many thousands of federal employees will have access to your records? The privacy of your health records will be only as good as the most nosy, most dishonest and most malcontented federal employee.... So say good-bye to privacy from the federal government. It was fun while it lasted for 233 years."

Interesting, but the journalist in this case seems to not be convinced of the threat. Note to self, never take security or privacy advice from a journalist.

I'm not as certain as Giovanetti that this represents privacy's Armageddon. (Though I do wonder where the usual suspects like the Electronic Privacy Information Center are. Presumably inserting limits on information that can be disclosed -- and adding strict penalties on misuse of the information kept on file about hundreds of millions of Americans -- is at least as important as fretting about Facebook's privacy policy in Canada.)

A better candidate for a future privacy crisis is the so-called stimulus bill enacted with limited debate early this year. It mandated the "utilization of an electronic health record for each person in the United States by 2014," but included only limited privacy protections.

It's true that if the legislative branch chooses to create "affordability credits," it probably makes sense to ensure they're not abused. The goal of curbing fraud runs up against the goal of preserving individual privacy.

He adds an update that EPIC condemns the bill. I just find it fascinating that he is willing to weight fraud prevention equally against opening everyone's records to bureaucrats at the state and federal level. No doubt there won't be any abuse anything like what happened to "Joe the Plumber." The more people have open and free access to information, the more probable abuse will become. Legislating this with no limitations on access is asking for abuse.

Wonder why he won't mention that little things like databases can be accessed by programs to determine whether the person can receive benefits. If the program is in the IRS and will provide a simple yes or no answer to the query then there would be no reason for anyone to have full and open access. But hey, let's just open it all up instead of thinking about implementations.

UPDATE: In timely fashion here is a Schneier post that aids my point.

Those Poor Unfortunate Federal Workers

This makes me feel so bad for them:

Citing the current economic recession -- and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks eight years ago -- President Obama says he will use emergency powers to cut the programmed across-the-board January increase in federal employees' pay from 2.4 percent to 2.0 percent, according to a letter he sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Monday.

The move was not a surprise, as Obama telegraphed a 2 percent increase in the budget he proposed earlier this year. But it's certainly not welcome news for federal employees, whose unions protested when Obama's budget was released.

Let's see, I took a 10% pay cut this summer and haven't had a raise in 3 years, yeah I'm sympathetic with them getting a RAISE!

Jackass. Missing the economic situation and his out of control spending, he's still handing out raises. Nice responsible government.

Just Not Getting It

Jim Jones is Obama's National Security adviser, and frankly is a clueless git.

In an interview with ABC News, Jones said Obama's efforts to reach out to world leaders and improve relations with law enforcement agencies had made it easier to track and kill terrorists than during the Bush administration.

"We have better human intelligence. We know where the terrorists are moving," Jones told ABC.

"Because of the dialogue and the tone of the dialogue between us and our friends and allies ... the trend line against terrorism is positive," he added.

and

While noting that he was not keeping tallies of enemy combatants killed and captured under Obama and Bush, Jones said the numbers were going up as a result of good intelligence.

"We are seeing results that indicate more captures, more deaths of radical leaders and a kind of a global coming-together by the fact that this is a threat to not only the United States but to the world at-large," he said.

and

Jones did not, however, counter Cheney's argument that Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to investigate suspected CIA prisoner abuses could have a chilling effect on the work of the intelligence agency.

"I think it is something we have to address," Jones said. "I think anybody who works in a law enforcement agency ... have to know clearly what the rules are."

So let's get this straight, the increased intelligence and success in taking down terrorist leaders is due to Obama being nice to foriegn leaders, not the fact that the intelligence systems had been put in place (by the Bush administration) and are now being focused on in the Pakistan/Afghanistan region. Fascinating that he can take credit for doing nothing. No evidence is provided that would actually show how the Obama administration's change in tactics demonstrably has caused this.

And you have to love the last quote about the CIA. They are most certainly NOT an LEO. It is primarily an INTELLIGENCE gathering department that also does covert activities. They aren't enforcing laws. He may actually want to read the National Security Act of 1947. This bit being relevant:

(d) HEAD OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY. - In the Director's capacity as head of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Director shall -

(1) collect intelligence through human sources and by other appropriate means, except that the Agency shall have no police, subpoena, or law enforcement powers or internal security functions;

Pretty plain wording. Too bad Jones doesn't know what his own intelligence services are required to do.

Carol Ché -Porter - Time for Change

I'm not a constituent, but when you pull this bull-shit in NH you deserve to be booted from office.


From Now Hampshire:

In four short years Carol Shea-Porter has evolved from a rabble-rousing, town hall disrupting anti-war activist who once had to be forcibly removed from a President George Bush event in Portsmouth to a Member of Congress who instructed armed security guards to remove a frustrated voter from her own town hall event in Manchester on Saturday.

In the appended video, Shea-Porter can be seen instructing security to remove a man for standing to ask a question without a ticket. Shea-Porter previously held a lottery to determine who could ask questions . She can also be heard taunting the man on his way out by saying, “I do hope the movie theater can be a little quieter for you.”

Nice, Gotta love the taunting of the constituent. No doubt that will be on a campaign commercial in the next election.

And you have to love the fact that she's apparently forgotten completely where she started. Not only has she completely failed to meet with the constituents in anything but a hyper-controlled and small meeting, but she's denigrating those who are using her former tactics. (h/t Hot Air)

She chose what sounded like a derogatory reference to opponents, some of whom sprang from the Tea Party rallies across the country against Obama's fiscal agenda.

"They walked around me and they're videotaping me," Shea-Porter said at the Spring Street home of an Obama supporter, according to Foster's Daily Democrat.

"I chose to go there because I wanted to talk to them about what this is really about. And I ask you to do that also. Don't be so divided and so put off that you don't feel like you can have a conversation."

That's fine and admirable, but this is when it got a little unhinged.

"Find those tea-baggers who don't like the idea of this and talk to them. You won't get all of them, but I think when they realize we're still going to be an employer-based insurance system in this country, and that it is a choice – one choice among many choices – it takes away that sense of fear, that sense that they're losing control over their lives.

and

The irony is, of course, that Shea-Porter used to be a "tea-bagger'' on the left. She stalked then-congressman Jeb Bradley at town hall-style meetings the 1st District Republican incumbent held throughout his district.

Time for a Chénge.

Canadian Medical Association Says Canadian Healthcare Broken

Here's statements on the Canadian Healthcare System being broken. Not much details though.

SASKATOON — The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says this country's health-care system is sick and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it.

Dr. Anne Doig says patients are getting less than optimal care and she adds that physicians from across the country - who will gather in Saskatoon on Sunday for their annual meeting - recognize that changes must be made.

"We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize," Doing said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

"We know that there must be change," she said. "We're all running flat out, we're all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands."

...

His thoughts on the issue are already clear. Ouellet has been saying since his return that "a health-care revolution has passed us by," that it's possible to make wait lists disappear while maintaining universal coverage and "that competition should be welcomed, not feared."

In other words, Ouellet believes there could be a role for private health-care delivery within the public system.

He has also said the Canadian system could be restructured to focus on patients if hospitals and other health-care institutions received funding based on the patients they treat, instead of an annual, lump-sum budget. This "activity-based funding" would be an incentive to provide more efficient care, he has said.

I hadn't realized that hospitals were paid in lump sums. That sounds like a guarantee for inefficiency. There isn't any incentive to do anything more than the minimum. Also makes you wonder how they pay their staffs and improve facilities. Not that they need to go overboard like hospitals in the US with massive luxury hotel style improvements, but every facility requires repair and updating periodically.

Apparently they are looking for a solution, but don't want what the US has either.

Doig, who has had a full-time family practice in Saskatoon for 30 years, acknowledges that when physicians have talked about changing the health-care system in the past, they've been accused of wanting an American-style structure. She insists that's not the case.

"It's not about choosing between an American system or a Canadian system," said Doig. "The whole thing is about looking at what other people do."

"That's called looking at the evidence, looking at how care is delivered and how care is paid for all around us (and) then saying 'Well, OK, that's good information. How do we make all of that work in the Canadian context? What do the Canadian people want?' "

Can't blame them for trying to find what works, but from what I see here, they aren't going to find it.

Ethics for the Intelligence Officer

Interesting piece that Schneier quotes. I can't get to the article, but the quote is the point.

Draft Statement of Ethics for the Intelligence Community

Preamble: Intelligence work may present exceptional or unusual ethical dilemmas beyond those of ordinary life. Ethical thinking and review should be a part of our day to day efforts; it can protect our nation's and our agency’s integrity, improve the chances of mission success, protect us from the consequences of bad choices, and preserve our alliances. Therefore, we adhere to the following standards of professional ethics and behavior:

1. First, do no harm to U.S. citizens or their rights under the Constitution.
2. We uphold the Constitution and the Rule of Law; we are constrained by both the spirit and the letter of the laws of the United States.
3. We will comply with all international human rights agreements that our nation has ratified.
4. We will insist on clarification of ambiguities that arise between directives or law and the principles of this code. We will protect those within our institutions who call reasonable attention to wrongdoing.
5. Expediency is not an excuse for misconduct.
6. We are accountable for our decisions and actions. We support timely, rigorous processes that fix accountability to the responsible person.
7. Statements we make to our clients, colleagues, overseers and the U.S. public will be true, and structured not to unnecessarily mislead or conceal.
8. We will resolve difficult ethical choices in favor of constitutional requirements, the truth, and our fellow citizens.
9. We will address the potential consequences of our actions in advance, especially the consequences of failure, discovery, and unintended or collateral consequences of success.
10. We will not impose unnecessary risk on innocents.
11. Although we may work in secrecy, we will work so that when our efforts become known, our fellow citizens will be proud of us and of our efforts.

Interesting in that I find this hard to stomach when the operative is answerable to the politician who doesn't have to meet these requirements.

Missing His Own Lesson

Obama in Portsmouth on the Government Insurance option.

Now, the only thing that I have said is that having a public option in that menu would provide competition for insurance companies to keep them honest. Now, I recognize, though, you make a legitimate -- you raise a legitimate concern. People say, "Well, how can a private company compete against the government?" And my answer is that if the insurance -- private insurance companies are providing a good bargain, and if the public option has to be self-sustaining -- meaning, taxpayers aren't subsidizing it, but it has to run on charging premiums, and providing good services and a good network of doctors just like any other private insurer would do, then I think private insurers should be able to compete. They do it all the time.

(APPLAUSE)

I mean, if you think about it, you know, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? No, they are. I mean, it's the post office that's always having problems. So, right now, you've got private insurers who are out there competing effectively even though a lot of people get their care through Medicare, or Medicaid, or the VA. So, there's nothing inevitable about this somehow destroying the private marketplace as long as -- and this is a legitimate point that you're raising -- that it's not set up where the government is basically being subsidized by the taxpayers. So that even if they're not providing a good deal, we keep on having to pony out more and more money. And I've already said that can't be the way the public option is set up.

OBAMA: It has to be self-sustaining.

So does he really want to use the USPS as an example of a program that competes with private enterprise? I can see his point in a twisted sort of way, that private health insurace should be able to compete against the governments plan, but what about those people who don't get the choice? If your company dumps your insurance policy and you can't get a non-government plan what are you getting? And how would a government plan save the economy and help the deficit if it works as well as the postal service?

Daniel Hannan on HealthCare Reform

I saw this on Beck last week. Hannan is quite informative on the British NHS and provides some interesting information about its history that many people seem to forget.

HANNAN: Listen, our system, our NHS came out of a peculiar time, we were basically under full mobilization when we invented this, right? It was.

(CROSSTALK)

HANNAN: It's Word War II, 1944. So, it was a time when we had food rationing, when everything had been nationalized, when he had hugely high taxes, you know, because everything had been conscripted into the war.
That was the product — that was the thinking that led to the state health care system.

I find it incredible that a free people living in a country dedicated and founded in the cause of independence and freedom can seriously be thinking about adopting such a system in peacetime and massively expanding the role of the state when there's no need.

BECK: Because they would say that this is going to save us money.

HANNAN: Well, you know it is the single biggest item of our government budget. And, it's — you know, the state generally doesn't do things as efficiently as the market does. Of course, it doesn't. If you know that you're getting the same treatment without paying for it, you have no incentive to keep costs down.

The NHS came out of a time when Britain was not only broke, but almost broken. The NHS was a great thing at the time because it ensured that people would at least be capable of getting the minimum health support for regular lives. That's not the problem today in the USA. Why would we choose to strap on a system that all examples show ends in inefficiency and red tape?

And the truly disturbing point:

HANNAN: We have 1.4 million people employed by the National Health Service. It is the third biggest employer in the world after the Red Army in China and the Indian National Railways. Most of those 1.4 million people are administrators, that the managers outnumber the doctors and nurses. And that is the electoral bloc that makes it almost impossible to get rid of.

So, if you do this thing, if — you know, you're going to decide.

That bothers me to no end. If we become like the Brits, our version of NHS will be disturbingly powerful just as an electoral bloc. Imagine how the Unions are salivating over that bit of gold that they can pack into their coffers. Power in that combination will be destructive to everyones detriment.

Good for Them

Saw this linked at Insty. I'm rather glad that they feel this way. Now if they can get the Congresslime to listen.

The White House disagreed this afternoon with the contention by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, that the disruptions at town hall meetings are "un-American," as the Democratic congressional leaders contended in a USA Today op-ed this morning.

"I think there's actually a pretty long tradition of people shouting at politicians in America," White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton told reporters on Air Force One when asked about the comments.

"The President thinks that if people want to come and have a spirited debate about health care, a real vigorous conversation about it, that's a part of the American tradition and he encourages that, because people do have questions and concerns ...And so if people want to come and have their concerns and their questions answered, the President thinks that's important. Now, if you just want to come to a town hall so that you can disrupt and so that you can scream over another person, he doesn’t think that that's productive. And as a country, we've been able to make progress when people actually talk out what our problems are, not try to shout each other down."

I agree that it isn't very productive, but that method of protest is very common on the left, including in Obama's own support organizations. I just would like the meetings to have sufficient civility that it wouldn't happen. No doubt the SEIU bullying people out of the room as has been seen at several of the town hall meetings is sufficient proof of their own tactics.

At his town hall meeting in Portsmouth, NH, tomorrow, Burton said, President Obama "thinks that we're going to be able to have a constructive conversation tomorrow and he'll continue to do that at the town hall later in the week and throughout this effort."

No doubt Obama will have a nice supportive meeting in Portsmouth. Seeing that it is probably the most liberal city in the state it would be surprising that it isn't just loaded with his supporters and union storm troops. I'd be surprised if the seats are already all occupied for the event.

I wonder how many Free Staters are going to try to get in. Should be interesting.

The Specter of Tort Reform

No not related to the Obamacare fiasco, rather a little gift Arlen (D) wants to hand out to the bar.

Arlen Specter became a Democrat this year, but there’s one party we’re confident the Pennsylvania Senator will never abandon—the trial bar. He’s recently introduced legislation to repeal two important Supreme Court business rulings in order to create a new lawsuit bonanza.

In Stoneridge v. Scientific Atlanta, five Justices ruled in 2008 that companies can’t be sued merely for doing business with another firm that commits fraud. This followed the 1994 precedent in Central Bank of Denver v. First Interstate Bank of Denver, in which the Justices limited liability claims against alleged “aiders and abettors.” Both decisions undermine “scheme liability” suits, which are the kind of elastic legal claim that gives U.S. civil justice a bad name.

Enter Mr. Specter and Rhode Island’s Jack Reed, who say the decisions deny fraud victims their day in court. Their bill would amend the 1934 Securities Exchange Act specifically to authorize a private right of action for aiding-and-abetting liability. The two Supreme Court rulings interpreted the law narrowly to apply only to primary offenders, who can still be sued by genuine—and even not-so-genuine—victims of fraud.

Nice that he thinks so much of those poor lawyers that he want to help them make even more money against the fair decision by the SCOTUS.

Spending Like Barney Frank on Meth

This is disturbing. I was irritated when they were proposing four new planes which the Military didn't request, now they've jumped the number to eight.

WASHINGTON -- Bipartisan opposition is emerging in the Senate to a plan by House lawmakers to spend $550 million for additional passenger jets for senior government officials.

The resistance to buying eight Gulfstream and Boeing planes comes as members of both chambers of Congress embark on the busiest month of the year for official overseas travel. The plan to upgrade the fleet of government jets, which was included in a broader defense-funding bill, has also sparked criticism from the Pentagon, which has said it doesn't need half of the new jets.

"The whole thing kind of makes me sick to my stomach," said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.) in an interview Sunday. "It is evidence that some of the cynicism about Washington is well placed -- that people get out of touch and they spend money like it's Monopoly money."

Several other senators said they share the concerns and will work to oppose the funding for the jets when the legislation is taken up by the Senate in September, including Sens. John McCain (R., Ariz.,) Jack Reed (D., R.I.), Richard Burr (R., N.C.), Christopher Bond (R., Mo.) and John Thune (R., S.D.).

The funding for new planes is "a classic example of Congress being out of touch with the realities of deficit spending," said Mr. Thune.

Nice to see that at least there is issues with this in both camps. This is completely out of control. They want to, allegedly, reduce the deficit, and pay for all these new entitlements, yet they still seem to think that spending more on toys for their own use is a good idea.

This makes the cash for clunkers spending seem responsible.

MaineCare the Smell of Obamacare

Here's something you should be interested in. Just think of this as the end game when it gets to the national level.

A hospital in Maine lost its challenge to a state law requiring all hospitals to provide free, unlimited health care to low-income families after the 1st Circuit sided with a lower court and tossed the complaint.
Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington, Maine, is a nonprofit hospital with a "tradition of voluntarily providing free and reduced price medical care to low income families," according to the ruling. It sued state officials, alleging that the free-care laws were tantamount to unconstitutional takings of property.
The hospital further argued that "there is no difference in the government occupying a room or the government ordering that a room be made available to someone it designates."
But the Boston-based federal appeals court sided with a district judge in dismissing the complaint, noting that the hospital "is not required to serve low income patients; it may choose to stop using its property as a hospital, which is what makes it subject to Maine's free care laws."
Maine has required hospitals to provide free, unlimited medical services to low-income patients without reimbursement since 1989. Maine pays for some treatment through its Medicaid program known as "MaineCare," but reimbursements are often well below the hospitals' actual cost.

Fascinating eh?