And intriguing enough is that it happened on CNN, whose reporting tends to be as supportive of the Obama administration as possible.

Of course, this is coming from the leader of the same department that earlier this year targeted “right-wing extremists” as high-risk for recruiting new members and conducting terrorist activities.

About the only spin one could put on this is that “…the system worked, but it’s broke”.  That perspective behind a statement like this is part of the problem.  Saying that everything worked like it’s supposed to but it’s not supposed to work that way just leaves one wondering how much thought is going into the design of the process that is supposed to be protecting our country.

Clearly the system is broke.  To think that someone who has been identified as a terrorist risk like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab could be allowed onto a passenger jet without careful screening is just insane… and there are 500,000 people on the list he was placed on a month ago!  As I shared in my piece at the Des Moines Register yesterday, the entire focus of trying to fix this is over-reactive toward making a show instead of fixing the real problem of utilizing the data we have in hand in the right way.

Instead, our leaders are stuck in spin mode trying to distract us from the truth, and slowly eroding our freedoms in the process.  Unfortunately, they’re only succeeding in eroding our confidence.

Oh for one honest politician that can just say “We screwed up”.

Hat tip to Politico, via Hot Air, via Red State.

You can also checkout more info at Shane Vander Hart’s Caffeinated Thoughts, Eric Florack’s Bitsblog and Michelle Malkin’s site as well.

The bill stinks.

Put aside the fact that it expands Medicare.

Put aside the fact that it establishes coverage mandates (you will be forced to buy health insurance somehow).

Put aside the fact that it is a colossal power grab for an industry that has been well managed by the states for a long time.

Put aside the fact that it will increase taxes.

Put aside the fact that it will dramatically increase the cost of insurance for everyone (and they sold this to us originally as being needed to stop the soaring cost of insurance!).

Put aside the fact that it will wreak havoc on the tax code, balloon the size of the IRS and increase the size of corporate tax management teams (which will increase consumer costs in all industries).

Put aside the fact that this bill is overloaded with earmarks… in a bill that was intended to bring equality in health care.

Put aside all of those issues and focus on the one true deception that will be broadcast throughout the weekend and coming weeks: that the Congressional Budget Office has determined that the bill will have a reducing impact the deficit.

The lie here is that although the Federal deficit will certainly, according to the new CBO report (which only reviews the original November 19 Senate bill plus the “Manager’s Amendment” but NOT include any of the other amendments approved since November 19) , have about a $132 Billion negative impact over 10 years, it will dramatically increase overall spending and taxation or reductions in other services.

This is not free.  The bill plans on the Federal government spending of about $871 Billion over 10 years.  And in order to spend $871 Billion on supposed reform, the Government is going to take almost ONE TRILLION DOLLARS out of our pockets.

That averages out to about $300 per person (every man, woman and child) per year.

But wait, there’s more.

The total estimated 10 year (2014 – 2023) cost is about $2.5 Trillion.  That’s total government and industry costs.  Wait, why am I looking at 2014 – 2023?  Because the real spending starts in 2014!  The first four years is spent taking our money, with little in the way of benefits.  The real (99%) benefits kick in starting in 2014.

I am anxious for Health Care Reform.  Health Care Reform should be about reducing the cost of health care in order to make it more affordable for more people (preferably by fixing the broken tort system and providing greater transparency to competitive costs), ensuring that people with pre-existing conditions are not kept from affordable health care, and fixing the flagrant fraud that is corrupting the already bloated Federal segment of health care.

This bill does NOTHING to reduce health care costs and does NOTHING to fix fraud.  It actually does the EXACT OPPOSITE. While many of us have come to expect nothing else from the Washington elite, how can we possibly come to accept this morose   of legislation?

The bad news is that a lot of the costs will be exacted from us starting on January 1, 2010.  The good news is that the system does not become fully engaged until 2014.  That means if we can get the right people into Congress in 2010, we have a good chance of rolling this unmitigated piece of garbage back and work toward REAL reform that actually makes the lives of ALL Americans better and more secure.

HOWEVER, now is the time to act, even if you have been acting consistently up until now.  Contact your congressman, senators and the White House.  Continue to call into radio shows and write to your newspapers and leave comments on web sites like this.  Keep the pressure up!

African Americans, who had been freed from slavery by Abraham Lincoln, were forced to endure a century of contempt, disdain and abuse from white Americans.  Our society, although founded by men who rejected the concept of social classes, was maintaining a dual class existence and legally forcing people of color to live a servile existence.

This was wrong.

By the power and grace of God, this finally changed in America as a result of the boycotts, rallies, legal wranglings, and efforts of the Federal Courts and finally Congress.  Although one may believe strongly in the sovereignty of the states, clearly the rights of United States citizens was being abridged by the actions and/or inaction of many of those states, and the Federal government needed to act.

When I contemplate these events, it always amazes me that human beings can be so incredibly dysfunctional.  It certainly makes greater sense to me to see an individual here or there who is so stupid that they actually think they are superior to others.  But to think that large swathes of our society would actually continue to look down on others because of a history that is over two generations old, and especially in a time following the horrors of Nazi Germany, that they could continue to look upon other humans as just wild cattle that had been let loose and whose status as free men and women had to be tolerated.  How could our country reach this point?

I think the answer to that question is somewhat complicated, but part of the answer come when people take a “not my problem” attitude to the issues surrounding us.  We have a tendency to try to insulate ourselves from the problems in the world, especially if they do not impact us directly. It may come as a big shock, but we are selfish.

When in comes to injustice, one must consider two important points.  One is that injustice, left unabated, will grow like a sore and devour us.  A trivial wrong will lead to greater and greater wrongs until any of us might find ourselves in a class of people whose liberties are stripped from us and where radical evil imposing itself unabated in the name of the “needs of society”.  Any of us could end up metaphorically segregated.

The second is more important than the first.  Our prime directive, so to speak, should be to do what is right.  Allowing anyone or any class of people to suffer injustice or to relinquish their liberty without due process is just wrong.  “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” (believed to be Edmond Burke, 18th century), is a mantra for understanding both the easy growth of evil and the key to resisting its continued advance, that is, we must stand in its way.  One white man (a Lutheran pastor named Robert Graetz) in Montgomery helped the black leaders in their efforts.  He didn’t need to, but he knew it was right.

Rosa and Robert both set an amazing standard for us in the midst of a dangerous time and set an unprecedented set of events in motion that dramatically changed our country for the better.  We should not have had to learn this lesson.  We should already have known that we cannot stand idly by and allow injustice to foment… we must be vigilant, and we must act to protect our rights and the rights of everyone in our great country.  Anything less is cowardly.  Anything less is dishonorable.  Anything less will end the American experiment.

George Monbiot, who is likely the biggest global warming propagandist in the press today, looks at the Global Warming emails that have been the topic of so much discussion lately and admits:

It’s no use pretending this isn’t a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them.

The trouble is, he’s still playing the party line:

Yes, the messages were obtained illegally.

As I told you yesterday and Friday, as well, I suspect this was an inside job, and there is no credible evidence that suggests that the messages were illegally obtained.  Rather, they were distributed by someone who had legal access to them.  If you’re going to claim then that illegality was involved say they were illegally distributed rather than illegally obtained.  Unless, of course, that is , you’re trying to project yourself in the public eye as the victim.

The fact of the matter is that this is damaging to the global warming religion, because of the pattern which has already been laid down over a period of decades.  The misbehavior of the scientists being quoted in those emails, is quite consistent with what global warming skeptics have always charged, myself included.

Monbiot goes into “Damage Control Mode”:

But do these revelations justify the sceptics’ claims that this is “the final nail in the coffin” of global warming theory? Not at all. They damage the credibility of three or four scientists. They raise questions about the integrity of one or perhaps two out of several hundred lines of evidence. To bury man-made climate change, a far wider conspiracy would have to be revealed.

Now, recall, please, what I said in Friday afternoon’s Ramble:

In reality, the contents of these emails should put the stake through the heart of the global warming nonsense. Thing is, it won’t. The same leftists, remember, who are pushing the global warming mantra, are still convinced that Communism will work, if given a chance. Ignoring, of course, that it never has.

You go ahead.  I mean it; Tell me about how I didn’t call this one.

The bottom line is that the facts simply do not support the myth that Monbiot would have us all believe. There are no amount of facts, however derived, that will change the man’s mind into something less bizarre, and more obvious.  His efforts in the convoluted defense of the religion of AGW are certainly understandable.  He has an awful lot invested personally in terms of effort and credibility into the maintenance of that religion / myth.   It’s understandable.  The man will have no credibility whatsoever if he now accepts the fact that what he’s been feeding us for the last decade or so can be found on any stable floor in smaller amounts.  He would have us believe, in spite of all the evidence in front of us, that global warming is occurring in its all man’s fault.

The thing is, he would also have us believe that to be a hoax, there has to be an organized conspiracy.  Monbiot , I think, knows little of his history if he really considers that a damaging movement must be organized as such.  (Godwin be damned, I’m going to say this…)   Even a casual observation pre-world war two  Germany and its decline into Nazism shows us that all that’s really necessary to carry a myth into horrible reality, is momentum.  Certainly, with the benefit of hindsight, we can see that there was some organization involved with the spread of the NAZI myths.  The we also see with that beneficial hindsight that all the myths who really needed to get going was governmental power.  And who can deny that the religion of global warming has obtained that, particularly these last few years?

The fact is that increasing numbers the peoples of the world understand that they have been had on the subject of global warming.  They have been lied to, manipulated, and endangered for the progress of a political goal masquerading as an environmental problem.

The backlash against the global warming preachers has begun.  Do not mistake me, here; I do not suggest that we have killed this beast.  I say again, there will always be the true believers, such as Monbiot. there will always be a minority, of whatever size, who like Chicken Little believe the sky is falling… And that there is some action that we can take to rectify that problem.  The trouble is, for them at least, the pattern has been identified by the vast majority of the world.  The solutions offered for the imagined problems always seem to end up being an abandonment of the western lifestyle. A loss of jobs, a crippling of economies, and so on.  Notice that the countries and philosophies involved in the spreading of the global warming myth, don’t stand a chance in a free market society.  The goals of those philosophies have always been to weaken the strong.  AGW Gives such countries, cultures, and philosophies the leverage to legislate their way to this goal.  all that has been identified as such, Monbiot’s protests not withstanding.

I suspect that the end effect  of this is going to be that in majority the global warming religion will be buried in somebody’s compost heap.  Except for some few “true believers” such as Monbiot.

It generally takes about six months for changes in fiscal or monetary policy to be felt throughout the broader economy, so after nine months we should be seeing some signs of economic improvement.  That is, the weekly economic statistics should be trending upward.  Granted, corporate earnings have been stable in the third quarter.  But other than those areas specifically stimulated by the targeted efforts of Congress and the Administration (auto sales via “cash for clunkers” and the $8,000 first-time home buyers tax rebate), the broader economy continues to struggle.

Economic statistics released last week, the week of October 19, indicated the following:

• a 1.2% decline in building permits, the pre-curser to home construction
• a 0.5% increase in housing starts, which is favorable, except that we’re talking about historically low levels to begin with
• a decline in the producer price index, suggesting that there is insufficient demand for raw materials to drive prices up
• an increase in crude oil inventories, again suggesting slack demand
• initial jobless claims up 1.7%, remaining stubbornly high at 531,000.  This means that employers continue to lay people off at a rapid clip.
• leading economic indicators were up 1.0%, mainly due to an increase in stock prices (this is a good thing)
• existing home sales were up 9.4%, but keep in mind this is due to the afore-mentioned $8,000 tax credit.

In short, economic growth continues to lag, and without something more substantial, such as reductions in personal income tax rates, will remain weak until we create systemic aggregate demand.  And given where our national budget deficit is, tax cuts are not likely to happen under this administration.  Instead, President Obama is considering how to raise taxes, which will have the effect of discouraging growth further.

Stay tuned, as we continue to monitor our progress.

I’m hoping to have a local heart surgeon join us to discuss some of the costs embedded in the current system, and talk about ways we can address those costs.

Join us today… click this link!

This week, once again, I will be hosting the internet rafio show The Bean Walker Live at Des Moines Local Live!  The show airs Tuesday from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM.  During the first hour we will be talking about the Iowa Gubernatorial Candidate Forum this past weekend, the situation with the Iowa state budget, and Friday’s CBO report on the benefits of Tort Reform.  During the second hour, we will have Pastors Quintin Stieff and Dan Wentworth from Valley Church in West Des Moines to talk about a new program at Valley Church called “Love You Des Moines!”.

Join us!

Last Tuesday (September 29), I hosted the second half of Tim Albrecht’s program “The Bean Walker Live!” on Des Moines Local Live, and today begins 3 weeks of hosting the program in full while Tim concentrates on getting married!

On today’s show, during the first hour I will have Shane Vander Hart from Serve Our Youth Network to share about the volunteer opportunities they have and how they cooperate with local government to impact the lives of high-risk kids in the Des Moines Metro area.

During the second hour, Connie Schmett from Polk County (Iowa) Republicans will join us to talk about the upcoming Fall Dinner at Living History Farms this Sunday featuring the Iowa Republican Gubernatorial Candidates. We will also talk about some of the big issues in state and federal government this week.

Here’s a link to the podcast of last week’s show.