Interesting Links

On top of the pork filled monstrosity of a spending bill is very scary healthcare legislation. A few quotes from an article about it:

“Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.

Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).

The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.

In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_mccaughey&sid=aLzfDxfbwhzs

OBAMA BURNED: GREGG WITHDRAWS AFTER POLICIES TOO MUCH TO STOMACH
Thu Feb 12 2009 16:18:14 ET

For Immediate Release:
Thursday, February 12, 2009

Senator Gregg Statement on His Withdrawal for Consideration of U.S. Commerce Secretary

Sen. Gregg stated, “I want to thank the President for nominating me to serve in his Cabinet as Secretary of Commerce. This was a great honor, and I had felt that I could bring some views and ideas that would assist him in governing during this difficult time. I especially admire his willingness to reach across the aisle.

“However, it has become apparent during this process that this will not work for me as I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the Census there are irresolvable conflicts for me. Prior to accepting this post, we had discussed these and other potential differences, but unfortunately we did not adequately focus on these concerns. We are functioning from a different set of views on many critical items of policy.

“Obviously the President requires a team that is fully supportive of all his initiatives.

“I greatly admire President Obama and know our country will benefit from his leadership, but at this time I must withdraw my name from consideration for this position.

“As we move forward, I expect there will be many issues and initiatives where I can and will work to assure the success of the President’s proposals. This will certainly be a goal of mine.

“Kathy and I also want to specifically thank Governor Lynch and Bonnie Newman for their friendship and assistance during this period. In addition we wish to thank all the people, especially in New Hampshire, who have been so kind and generous in their supportive comments.

“As a further matter of clarification, nothing about the vetting process played any role in this decision. I will continue to represent the people of New Hampshire in the United States Senate.”

Product Description
If you are fed up with Washington boondoggles, and you like the small-government, politically-incorrect thinking of Ron Paul, then you’ll love Tom Woods’s Meltdown. In clear, no-nonsense terms, Woods explains what led up to this economic crisis, who’s really to blame, and why government bailouts won’t work. Woods will reveal:

* Which brave few economists predicted the economic fallout–and why nobody listened
* What really caused the collapse
* Why the Fed–not taxpayers–should have to answer for the current economic crisis
* Why bailouts are band-aids that will only provide temporary relief and ultimately make things worse
* What we should do instead, to put our economy on a healthy path to recovery
With a foreword from Ron Paul, Meltdown is the free-market answer to the Fed-created economic crisis. As the new Obama administration inevitably calls for more regulations, Woods argues that the only way to rebuild our economy is by returning to the fundamentals of capitalism and letting the free market work.

From the Inside Flap
Is Capitalism the Culprit?

The media tells us that “deregulation” and “unfettered free markets” have wrecked our economy and will continue to make things worse without a heavy dose of federal regulation. But the real blame lies elsewhere. In Meltdown, bestselling author Thomas E. Woods Jr. unearths the real causes behind the collapse of housing values and the stock market–and it turns out the culprits reside more in Washington than on Wall Street.
And the trillions of dollars in federal bailouts? Our politicians’ ham-handed attempts to fix the problems they themselves created will only make things much worse.

Woods, a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute and winner of the 2006 Templeton Enterprise Award, busts the media myths and government spin. He explains how government intervention in the economy–from the Democratic hobby horse called Fannie Mae to affirmative action programs like the Community Redevelopment Act–actually caused the housing bubble.

Most important, Woods, author of the New York Times bestseller The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, traces this most recent boom-and-bust–and all such booms and busts of the past century–back to one of the most revered government institutions of all: the Federal Reserve System, which allows busy-body bureaucrats and ambitious politicians to pull the strings of our financial sector and manipulate the value of the very money we use.
Meltdown also provides a timely history lesson to counter the current clamor for a new New Deal. The Great Depression, Woods demonstrates, was only as deep and as long as it was because of the government interventions by Herbert Hoover (no free-market capitalist, despite what your high school history teacher may have taught you) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (no savior of the American economy, in spite of what the mainstream media says). If you want to understand what caused the financial meltdown–and why none of the big-government solutions being tried today will work–Meltdown explains it all.

http://blog.aclu.org/2009/01/14/obamas-child-soldiers/

Obama’s Child Soldiers

Six days after the inauguration of President Obama, the U.S. is scheduled to begin the first trial of a child soldier accused of war crimes since World War II. This video shows why President Obama must take swift action to end the unconstitutional military commissions, and why he must bring the United States back in line with the rule of law and treaties it has signed regarding the treatment of juveniles who have been recruited or used in armed conflict.

Here is some background to the trial set for January 26: Canadian citizen Omar Khadr was 15 years old when he was captured in Afghanistan in the midst of a firefight that seriously injured Khadr and resulted in the death of a U.S. solider. Khadr was sent to Guantánamo where he was been held for 7 years — one-third of his life. He was beaten, subject to painful stress position and even used as a “human mop” after he urinated on the floor during one interrogation. Under these conditions, the prosecution of Khadr raises grave concerns about the rule of law and underscores how unconstitutional the military commissions are. President Obama must end them as he has promised.

Doing so will spare ACLU client Mohammed Jawad from trial in an illegal system. Jawad was sent to Guantánamo after he was captured at about age 16 at the scene of a grenade attack in Afghanistan that injured two U.S. soldiers. Afghan authorities threatened Jawad with his death, and that of his family, if he didn’t confess to the attack. Based on the resulting false “confession” Jawad was transferred to U.S. custody, where he was further abused, and then to Guantánamo. Among other forms of cruel treatment he suffered at Guantánamo, Jawad was subjected to the so-called “frequent flyer” program, where he was moved every few hours — 112 times over two weeks — to deny him sleep. His trial date under the military commissions has not been set because the Bush administration has appealed the military judge’s decision to suppress torture-derived “confessions”. The appeals court decision is pending.

Join the ACLU in calling on President-elect Obama to immediately shut down the military commissions operating at Guantánamo.