Reasonable Discussion?

Is a reasonable discussion even possible with people who cannot see what is wrong with Planned Parenthood as an organization, or more broadly, how PP is a concrete example of how dealing in the deaths of innocents coarsens moral sensibilities. How can you explain how wrong all of this is when they have lost any concept of what the word actually means?

It may be piling on references to cite 2 articles about the same event, but the more I see about the trafficking in human body parts, the less I can stomach the arguments thrown up by its abettors.

Organ Buyer: Happiness is ‘Another 

50 Livers a Week’

Stem Express founder keeps autographed Hillary photo on her desk

PlannedParenthood Baby Parts Buyer Laughs About Shipping Severed Heads

Ross Douthat has a regular blog article in the New York Times. Affirmative Action hire, maybe. In any case, he posted an outstanding response to the typical Pro-Abortion questions. The comments to the article were saddening. Few, if any of them,  addressed his arguments directly. Most are tired cliches.

But, again, how can they defend ghouls who find 'happiness is "another 50 livers a week"'? Or who laughs about shipping severed heads? Where is their humanity?

 

Where the wacko birds roost

I've grown tired of Leftists (and some Republicans) complaining about "right-wing extremists" and warning about some supposed takeover of the Republican Party by purists who refuse to accept compromise on issues.

Of course, it isn't just the Left who seems convinced that anyone who pushes back against the "Progressive" march of our country to bigger, more intrusive government is a "wacko bird."

All the while, the real monomaniacal, uncompromising purists of extreme positions are pretty solidly from the Left.

The NYT reports that Leftist lobbyists and senators are chaffed at a deal Obama made to get a political crony through the judicial nomination process.

"When Democrats changed Senate rules last year to limit the filibuster against White House nominees, it raised hopes among some liberals that President Obama would use his new power to reshape the federal judiciary. Now, just over three months later, some Democrats and progressive groups are instead trying to stop two of the president’s latest nominees to the federal bench on the grounds that they are too conservative.

Black lawmakers, civil rights advocates and abortion rights groups are challenging two Georgia nominees put forward by the White House under an agreement with the state’s two Republican senators. The two Republicans were given a say in picking candidates for district court in exchange for allowing a stalled nominee to a federal appeals court to advance."

This sort of deal making with senators is as old as the Republic. But, of course, there is no honor among the Progressive thieves infesting Washington today, so the prospect of Democrats reneging on the president's deal is very real; even probable. And the president will object to that even less than he did to the Russian re-conquest of the Ukraine or al Qaeda re-conquest of Fallujah.

The Democratic Party is run part and parcel by true believers who will accept no deviation from the "Progressive" vision they have set before themselves for the country. Look at the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Nearly a majority of Democrats in Congress are members and almost all of the leadership. Then look at their platform. Look at what the caucus leadership has said and the sorts of things they want to inflict on this country. Then tell me that Ted Cruz is an extremist wacko bird.

Who to believe?

I love Real Clear Politics. The site allows me to very quickly get a sense of all sides of an issue as the news and commentary unfold. And, more often than not, their headlines almost alternate. And so you are likely to see:

Drafting Docs - Look for doctors to be conscripted to treat Medicare and Medicaid patients by Kevin D. Williamson writing in the National Review Online

juxtaposed with:

No, There Won’t Be a Doctor Shortage by Drs. of administration of medicine Scott Gottlieb and Ezekiel Emanuel writing in the New York Times

Who ya gonna believe most likely depends on where you stand on the political spectrum. The other guys are ideological jerks pushing an agenda. - either way.

In my case, I naturally think Williamson is one of the most insightful commentators on economic issues and Emanuel is a dyed in the wool Leftie who was involved in Obamacare from the beginning and has been a cheer leader for socialized medicine forever.

Actually, they are both right, sort of.

Williamson points to the laws of supply and demand. They're straightforward and pretty much undeniable.

"The economics is pretty straightforward. Higher prices for medical services are built into the Obamacare model: If you inject a ton of money ... into the demand side of the equation but do little or nothing on the supply side, then you expect higher prices as an expanding river of money chases an amount of goods that is not expanding at the same rate, or that is in some cases fixed or even declining.higher demand + limited supply = higher prices."

"The Obamacare price-fixing authority, the Independent Payment Advisory Board, is explicitly charged with reducing Medicare spending, but it is also legally forbidden to do so by reducing benefits, which leaves physicians’ compensation as pretty much the only meaningful source of cuts. So while higher demand + limited supply = higher prices, higher demand + limited supply + price controls = shortages."

And Emanuel really doesn't deny that there will be a shortage of doctors. What he actually says is that it doesn't matter:

"IN just over a decade the United States will need 130,000 more doctors than medical schools are producing. So says the Association of American Medical Colleges, which warns of a doctor shortage that will drive up wait times, shorten office visits and make it harder for Americans to access the care they need.

"he road to Obamacare has seen its share of speed bumps, as well as big potholes. But a physician shortage is unlikely to be one of its roadblocks."

So, there will be a shortage of doctors, as Williamson points out and Emanuel - - quibbles and obfuscates and changes the subject.

So, when is a shortage not a shortage?

Well, says Emanuel, look at Massachusetts, " Appointment wait times for family physicians, internists, pediatricians, obstetricians and gynecologists, and even specialists like cardiologists, have bounced around since but have not APPRECIABLY INCREASED overall" (emphasis mine)

Williamson made a similar observation: "Massachusetts discovered as much when, after it enacted its state-level version of the ACA, waiting times to see doctors increased dramatically and many physicians simply refused to participate in the program."

A shortage isn't a shortage when it isn't an appreciable shortage. Thanks Zeke!

"Research" also "suggests" that you can get by just fine with less actual treatment: "Research on radiation treatments for breast cancer suggests that 15 treatments can be just as effective as the traditional 30 treatments. Likewise, one larger dose of radiation can be as good at relieving pain from bone metastases as five to 10 separate, smaller treatments."

So, if you aren't given as many appointments, you won't have to wait for as many appointments. Less care means less waiting! Thanks again  Zeke!

Dr. Emanuel doesn't see a doctor shortage, but an opportunity! "The opportunity exists to deliver more services and care with fewer physicians" ... because there are fewer physicians available? Isn't that sort of the actual definition of a 'doctor shortage? Yeah, but its not a bug, its a feature of the New Health Care Paradise! Thanks once again Zeke!

But how can we grasp this golden opportunity to deliver more services with fewer physicians?

"Other medical personnel can also expand the reach of physicians to care for a larger population. Nurse practitioners, health aides, pharmacists, dietitians, psychologists and others already care for patients in numerous ways, and their roles should expand in the future."

Williamson agrees, sort of, with this too: "Allowing a larger role for nurse practitioners and other non-physician specialists is a good idea in and of itself, and would have been worthwhile in the absence of Obamacare — if you want prices to go down, expand the supply."

Unfortunately, he isn't following unicorns to Candy Mountain, so he is a little less sanguine about how far this can go.


"But short of a radical deregulation of medical practice (which would have to happen state by state), it is not going to be sufficient to reverse the trends set into motion by the ACA, especially given that so much Medicare compensation is tied to physician-delivered services."

California just changed the law to make abortions by unlicensed non-physicians perfectly legal. Can open heart surgery be far behind? Physicians, we don't need no stinkin' physicians!

But, some things really do have to be done by actual doctors, and as Williamson pointed out, there won't be enough of them who are able to afford to accept government mandated Dollar Store reimbursements. 

"So we can either let spending skyrocket and have patients see their doctors, or we can control spending and endure the wrath of Medicare and Medicaid patients who have health-care coverage in theory but limited access to medical care in reality."

"The main obstacle to reducing Medicare and Medicaid spending is the fact that physicians have a choice about whether to participate in the programs. In the long run, the fact that physicians have a choice about whom they see and where they practice is the most significant challenge to the full implementation of Obamacare. The logical thing — politically and economically — is to eliminate that choice. You don’t have to formally nationalize the health-care industry; you just nationalize 40 percent of each physician’s practice and call it his “fair share.”"

But, it won't be all bad news, "Obamacare will almost certainly intensify that trend, producing a surplus of specialists such as cosmetic surgeons even as the nation experiences a shortage of primary-care physicians. The legacy of Democratic health-care reform very well may turn out to be cheaper boob jobs, a fitting comeuppance for the boobs who put this program in place and the boobs who elected them."

Thanks Zeke! You boob.

Five [mythical] myths about taxes

Steven R. Weisman writes in the NYT, "Let’s topple some tall tales about taxes before writing checks to — or getting refunds from — the dreaded Internal Revenue Service."

#1: The income tax is a big-government Democratic scheme.
Weisman thoughtfully rebuts himself: "Democrat Woodrow Wilson signed the tax into law that year — and Democrats have been more inclined than Republicans to raise rates since." It may be historical fact that Lincoln instituted a temporary income tax to fund the Civil War, that was actually repealed after the war, or that Progressive, big-government Republicans Teddy Roosevelt and Wm. Taft supported the federal income tax over 100 years ago. But none of that dispells the FACT that the income tax IS a big-government Democratic scheme. If you and Mr. Weisman are still confused on this point, I refer you to the behavior of the Democrats currently pushing bigger government and higher taxes in Congress and the White House.

#2: The income tax dampens work and entrepreneurship.
Weisman presents 2 arguments to support his myth:
a. "The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service reported in December that, for upper-income taxpayers, at least — “job creators” — cutting taxes has “little association with saving, investment, or productivity growth.” "

Non sequitur alert. Weisman separates this non sequitur from the purported myth so that casual readers don't notice that 1- the report is about taxes in general, not income taxes specifically, 2- the 'myth' is about imposing, not cutting taxes and 3- the report doesn't address entrepreneurship, which may or may not  be reflected in savings, investment and productivity growth.

b. His second argument is that: "Whether tax cuts generally spur economic growth and tax increases generally dampen it is debatable, however. Economic expansion was significant in the 1950s, when tax rates were at historic highs. Tax cuts signed by John F. Kennedy and Reagan were followed by sustained growth. But growth that followed tax increases under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton was greater than after George W. Bush’s tax cuts."

A term popular in discussing the effects of a particular factor on the economy is "all else being equal." Of course in the real world, all things are never equal. On their face, Kennedy's and Reagan's tax cuts were considerably different from the modest increases perpetrated by Bush and Clinton.

#3: Taxes became less progressive because of the Bush and Reagan tax cuts.
Less progressive than what? Than before the Reagan tax cuts, I presume. No other reading would make much sense. Then why does Weisman write that the tax code has maintained "roughly the same progressivity in the federal tax system throughout most of the post-1980 period.” What does he prove by saying that the tax code since 1980 is no less progressive than- the tax code since 1980?

#4: The U.S. corporate tax — the highest in the world — makes the United States less competitive.
I'm beginning to wonder if this isn't satirical.

I think my teen-aged daughters could see the logic in the proposition that a corporation considers the amount of its earnings that the government takes away from it to be a decisive factor when deciding where to do business.

Weisman concedes, "The Simpson-Bowles deficit commission said last year that the tax “hurts America’s ability to compete.” (A study by my colleagues at the Peterson Institute for International Economics uses a different calculation to make the same point.)"

Not decisive, but certainly facts worth considering before calling the idea a 'myth.'

And then wrap things up with another non sequitur. No, it isn't a non sequitur. I don't know what it is, it's such a muddle:

"the taxes paid by U.S. corporations are tiny compared with their peers around the world — only 1.9 percent of the national economy, compared with an average of 2.8 percent for other advanced countries."

Our economy is considerably larger than other advanced countries, so the amount of taxes paid by US corporations is certainly not 'tiny' in comparison. But even when compared as a percentage of GDP, 1.9% is hardly "tiny" compared with 2.8%. 1.9% of the US economy makes 2.8% of Sweden's economy look "tiny."

"partly because of the proliferation of limited partnerships and other businesses not subject to the tax. "

Ah, the taxes paid by US businesses isn't really that high because so many US businesses are limited partnerships that pay potentially HIGHER personal income tax rates. Yeah, that makes sense...

"In fact, less than half of U.S. business income is generated by corporations subject to the tax, down from 80 percent in 1980."

So, let's run this out to its logical conclusion. A 100% corporate income tax would result in 0 economic activity by corporations in the US. 0 US business income would be generated by corporations subject to the tax. Would that mean, then, the tax had no effect on US competitiveness? Weisman seems to say so, and to use that as support for his argument.

#5: Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no taxes.
Mercifully, we are reaching the end. But this is a doozy.

I suppose we can forgive him from rounding up from 46.4%. And when convenient, 0.6% is negligible while 0.9% is the difference between 'tiny' US corporate taxes and the rest of the developed world.

And I do have to thank Weisman for making it easier to critique him by providing links.

Weisman writes: "The Tax Policy Center’s estimate that 46.4 percent of households pay no federal income tax blew up in the face of 2012 GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney after he cited it in a talk to donors. 

Except the TPC report clearly states, "

46.4% of Households Paid No Federal Income Tax for 2011

And the NYT carried the transcript of the tape of Romney that was clandestinely recorded by a relative of the 2nd worst president in history:

"These are people who pay no income tax; 47 percent of Americans pay no income tax."

So, this one really IS a myth. But it is a myth created by Obama sycophants at the NYT and elsewhere by intentionally misrepresenting what the report cited and what Romney actually said in order to create a controversy during a presidential election. Not like the NYT has ever done that before.

The Deadly Fantasy of Sports Cars

With no apologies to the New York Times

Someone killed 1 person and critically injured 2 more in Conemaugh, PA using a high-performance, racing-style Corvette made by Chevrolet. Ramon Echevarria used the same type of Chevrolet car to crash into an office building in Arlington Heights, IL. The Rancho Cucamonga hit and run driver also used a Corvette in a spree that killed a bicyclist in July.

Corvettes are by no means the only sports cars of choice among mass killers (the Naperville driver used a Porche), but the brand’s repeated presence in murderous incidents reflects Corvette's enormous popularity in the sports car world, the result of a successful marketing campaign aimed at putting NASCAR horsepower and machismo in the hands of civilians. Car owners once talked about the need for personal transportation and sport driving, but out-of-control ad campaigns like Corvette's have replaced minivans and MGs with highly lethal high performance fantasies.

Motor Trend reveals that, "[the ZR1] is so powerful, so capable, so massively endowed that [it's] beyond the realm of what constitutes a usable, reasonable street car."

The cars, some of which come in red and racing yellow, bristle with features useful only to a Gran Prix driver or NHRA competitor. A six-speed manual transmission featuring launch control makes it possible to shoot the quarter-mile in 11.4 seconds. Weapons-grade supercharged V-8, lets drivers exceed 200 MPH easily. Brembo^® Carbon Ceramic Brake rotors allow precise control without fear of warping from brake pads that grow hot after multiple braking maneouvers are applied. But now anyone can own these cars, and thousands are in civilian hands.


“This supercar can hang with the best the world has to offer. It’s a thrill to drive and offers the performance of far more expensive cars. ,” Car and Driver said, speaking of the Corvette ZR1. “Explosive power and massive grip. This Vette has the performance to battle any supercar.”


The company’s webpage and ads show a Corvette speeding along winding roads at break-neck speeds, engine revving. “Corvette can be found in some of the most legendary races around the world ranging from American Le Mans Series based in the United States and Canada, to the Sebring International Raceway and the 24 Heures du Mans in France,” says the advertising copy, over the through-the-windshild view of a Corvette negotiating the ring at Nurburg. “ZR1 is the fastest, most powerful car Chevrolet has ever produced, and rivals the world’s best luxury sports vehicles both on and off the track,” said the Corvette webpage, peddling a high-performance sports car billed as “the only truly American sports car in the competitive class.” (Available to anyone for $125,920.)


In case that message was too subtle, the company appealed directly to the male egos of its most likely customers. “Driving is collaboration between man and vehicle, and now with more extensive performance options available, you can construct the perfect ZR1 to complement your driving style,” said one Corvette campaign (left on the Web after the Conemaugh collision), next to a photo of a Corvette. “there is no better example than the C6.R race car and its streetcar counterpart, the ZR1.”

The effect of these marketing campaigns on fragile minds is all too obvious, allowing deadly power in the wrong hands. But given their financial success, sports car makers have apparently decided that the risk of an occasional massacre is part of the cost of doing business.

(BTW, in the original editorial, one of the unacceptable aspects of the Bushmaster rifle was, "Barrel shrouds allow precise control without fear of burns from a muzzle that grows hot after multiple rounds are fired." I've never seen a rifle that required the firer to hold the naked barrel in his bare hand. I've also never seen a firer put his hands in proximity of the muzzle while firing, either. I suspect the editor responsible for this mess has never seen an actual rifle at all.)

Maureen Dowd: Co-Dependent

Maureen Dowd writhes[sic] in the NYT: "Obama smashed through all the barriers and dysfunction in his life to become a self-made, self-narrating president."

Well, I'll grant the 'dysfunction in his life.' 'Self-made'? not likely. 'self-narrating'? How is that a positive attribute?

Dowd notes, "Stories abound of big donors who stopped giving as much or working as hard because Obama never reached out, either with a Clinton-esque warm bath of attention or Romney-esque weekend love fests and Israeli-style jaunts; of celebrities who gave concerts for his campaigns and never received thank-you notes or even his full attention during the performance; of public servants upset because they knocked themselves out at the president’s request and never got a pat on the back; of V.I.P.’s disappointed to get pictures of themselves with the president with the customary signature withheld; of politicians disaffected by the president’s penchant for not letting members of Congress or local pols stand on stage with him when he’s speaking in their state (they often watch from the audience and sometimes have to lobby just to get a shout-out); of power brokers, local and national, who felt that the president insulted them by never seeking their advice or asking them to come to the White House or ride along in the limo for a schmooze."

Dowd surmises, "Obama wants to be a policy maker, not a glad-handing pol."

Or it could be that he's just a stuck-up A-hole.

bumper sticker philosophy

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/30/opinion/falser-words-were-never-spoken.html?src=me&ref=general

The New York Times must realize they are merely an echo chamber. Otherwise, they wouldn't allow this sort of truthfulness in their navel-gazing editorialists.

"When you start to become aware of these bogus quotations, you can’t stop finding them. Henry James, George Eliot, Picasso — all of them are being kept alive in popular culture through pithy, cheery sayings they never actually said.

Thoreau, Gandhi, Mandela — it’s easy to see why their words and ideas have been massaged into gauzy slogans. They were inspirational figures, dreamers of beautiful dreams. But what goes missing in the slogans is that they were also sober, steely men. Each of them knew that thoroughgoing change, whether personal or social, involves humility and sacrifice, and that the effort to change oneself or the world always exacts a price.

But ours is an era in which it’s believed that we can reinvent ourselves whenever we choose. So we recast the wisdom of the great thinkers in the shape of our illusions. Shorn of their complexities, their politics, their grasp of the sheer arduousness of change, they stand before us now. They are shiny from their makeovers, they are fabulous and gorgeous, and they want us to know that we can have it all."

Brian Morton, the director of the graduate program in fiction at Sarah Lawrence College, is the author of the novels “Starting Out in the Evening” and “Breakable You.”

I love that closing paragraph. Dr. Morton calls out the falseness, shallowness and cheapness of the narcissistic post-modern mush taken for wisdom on the Left today. Maybe there are misattributed or malformed quotations wafting through the conservative blogosphere and email distro lists. But probably not. And certainly not that are so thoroughly drained of meaning. And DEFINITELY not affixed to a Prius.

Today's Leftist Lie: "No one is 'pro-abortion'"

The New Abortion Providers


The MiniTru at the NYT never fails to disappoint with the blatantness of its Progressive cant. In this case, an article in the NYT Magazine by Emily Bazelon celebrating the "heroic" efforts of people committed to making abortions 'mainstream' parts of medical practice. It is difficult to square Dear Leader's statement that 'no one is pro-abortion' with this paean to abortionists and their enablers. Clearly the Left understands that the NYT is an internal organ that no right thinking person wastes time reading, so they can openly discuss things they must obfuscate with euphemism and sophistry otherwise.

"This abortion-rights campaign, ...is trying to recast doctors, changing them from a weak link of abortion to a strong one. Its leaders ...hope that, eventually, more and more doctors will use their training to bring abortion into their practices. The bold idea at the heart of this effort is to integrate abortion so that it’s ...embraced rather than shunned."

The NYT celebrates efforts to have abortion 'integrated' and 'embraced.' Hmmm.

"“Some people like to live on the edge — I don’t,” said Emily Godfrey, a 40-year-old doctor who practices at a primary-care clinic at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she also does abortions. “I’m a Catholic girl from the suburbs."

She doesn't recognize the razor's edge she is treading... God help her.

"IN 1999, UTA LANDY, a former director of the National Abortion Federation, and Philip Darney, her husband and an OB-GYN professor at U.C.S.F., created the Kenneth J. Ryan Residency Training Program. The program gives medical schools two or three years of seed money for abortion training for OB-GYN residents. Through it, 58 campuses in the U.S. and Canada have received financing."

I think it is accurate to say that the Landys, who made their fortune from the abortion industry, led its lobbying association and have donated their wealth to facilitate the training of more abortionists are 'pro-abortion.'

"The money for the Ryan and the Family Planning Fellowship comes from one foundation and from one family. The donor has chosen to remain anonymous, which helps to explain why there’s been so little publicity about the pro-choice strategy of bringing abortion into academic medicine. It has been covered by a veil of semisecrecy."

John 3:20 For every one that does evil hates the light and comes not to the light, that his works may not be reproved. 21 But he that does truth comes to the light, that his works may be made manifest: because they are done in God.

"In the course of my reporting, two doctors who had not done the fellowship themselves, but who work in universities, volunteered to me that the money for the programs comes from the Buffett Foundation. They meant the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation.
Susan Thompson Buffett was married to Warren Buffett and served as president of the foundation that bears her name. She died in 2004. Two years later, Warren Buffett gave the foundation about $3 billion. He said that he expected the gift to increase the foundation’s annual expenditures by $150 million. And in fact, total giving by the foundation, where two of the Buffetts’ children sit on the board, increased from $202 million in 2007 to $347 million in 2008, according to tax returns.
The tax records also show that most of the foundation’s spending goes to abortion and contraception advocacy and research. According to Access Philanthropy, a research institute that focuses on the giving preferences of foundations and corporate donors, family planning is one of the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation’s main purposes. The foundation’s nonprofit 990 tax form shows that in 2008, Planned Parenthood and its affiliates in the U.S. received about $45 million; the international arm of the organization got about $8 million. There is no line item for the Ryan program or the Family Planning Fellowship. But the foundation paid out around $50 million to universities with one or both of the programs. "

and

"July 14 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama met today with Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s Warren Buffett "

Coincidence? Maybe...

"It has long been an abortion-rights selling point that almost 90 percent of the abortions in the U.S. are performed before 12 weeks"

The euphamistic sophistry of the abortion industry is galling. This statistic is an abortion selling point. Period. And who looks for selling points for what they don't promote?

"The abortion providers I talked to ... see the moral complexities up close. Two years ago, a young professor at the University of Michigan named Lisa Harris wrote an academic article about performing an 18-week abortion while she was 18 weeks pregnant. Harris described grasping the fetus’s leg with her forceps, feeling a kick in her own uterus and starting to cry. “It was an overwhelming feeling — a brutally visceral response — heartfelt and unmediated by my training or my feminist pro-choice politics,” she wrote. “It was one of the more raw moments in my life.”"

There are no moral complexities here. One life is instrumentalized and held without value relative to the convenience of another in a felicific calculus of subjective moral relativism in an attempt to justify an objectively evil act. The moral clarity cannot be starker than in Prof Harris' story. The amazing thing is that Prof Harris persists in aborting children even after the revelation afforded to her. (More commentary on her article at Abortion and the Malleable Conscience on the Stand to Reason blog.