Caffeinated Thoughts |
- Ron Paul Strategy to Win the Presidency in 2012 (Spoof)
- Obama’s Picking and Choosing What Laws He’ll Defend and Ron Paul’s Defense of DOMA
- Taxpayers Last
- Mitt Romney’s Romneycare: Death Panels, and Less Freedom For All.
- Why Mitt Romney Might Win the GOP Nomination in 2012 and Why He May Not
- Pro-Life Billboard Removed, Exclusive Interview with Lamar Advertising Exec
| Ron Paul Strategy to Win the Presidency in 2012 (Spoof) Posted: 27 Feb 2011 02:11 AM PST  Ron Paul Followers Headed to Straw Poll Ron Paul, a libertarian who wants to be President, and his supporters, have discovered the pathway to the GOP nomination and the presidency. It is to overwhelm the system. If they remain faithful and read every blogpost and newstory about him, they will increase traffic to those websites. Those websites will in return do more articles about Ron Paul, eventually pushing out all news stories about any other Republican candidates. Even New York Times stories about Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin, Justin Bieber and Glenn Beck will become passé and nobody will publish them. The same thing will happen with online polls and straw polls. If they are flooded with Paul supporters people won’t even bother voting in them anymore. It reminds me of an old quip I used to hear: That restaurant is so crowded nobody goes there anymore. Soon all headlines in the blogosphere will read something like “Rep. Paul Gets 100% of the Vote in Online Poll, Election Assured”. No one will even show up this year at the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa because they know Paul has it wrapped up. Perhaps we should go the Dana Milbank route (who boycotted Palin in February) and boycott all stories about Ron Paul in March. Don’t Read Them, Don’t Write Them…. Nah! I’ve got traffic reports to read. Share and Enjoy:                 |
| Obama’s Picking and Choosing What Laws He’ll Defend and Ron Paul’s Defense of DOMA Posted: 26 Feb 2011 05:15 PM PST
The government through DOMA did not define marriage, it recognized what the definition of marriage already was. Did it endorse the proper definition? Sure, but let's not act as though marriage has not had a strict definition for thousands of years. Only recently have people decided that the definition should be broader. Presidents don't have the right to pick and choose what laws they will defend or enforce. Based on the rationale that Attorney General Eric Holder gave, I think Governor Mike Huckabee had it right in a recent interview with Laura Ingraham when he suggested that he also should then quit defending the health care reform law since it too has been deemed unconstitutional. Oh no that won't happen since President Obama doesn't believe it to be unconstitutional! People practically came unglued with Congressman Ron Paul's (R-TX) presser condemning President Obama's decision to abandon DOMA. They said, "why is he mentioning section 2 of DOMA? That isn't what has been declared unconstitutional!" States can still decide for themselves and not forced to apply the full faith & credit clause in this instance. Certainly in the decision this summer in Massachusetts it would have been problematic if Judge Joseph Tauro ruled the whole thing constitutional while in the same ruling uplifting the 10th Amendment (the only good thing about this ruling). It would have been contradictory. Here's the point I think everybody is missing. While there are currently no lawsuits challenging section 2 Congressman Paul, rightly, expresses concern because that may not always be the case (now I'll admit that he doesn't seem to recognize that same-sex marriages are already allowed in Iowa, but I think his larger point remains in tact). I am also unconvinced that the Department of Justice would make a spirited defense if section 2 is challenged. I also believe it is just a matter of time before it is challenged, and I don't believe most homosexual activists would have any problems having gay marriage imposed on other states. If it is found unconstitutional in a lower federal court will then President Obama change his mind on this as well? Again, the President can't just pick and choose which laws he will defend. Share and Enjoy: |
| Posted: 26 Feb 2011 02:52 PM PST By State Senator Kent Sorenson The "Taxpayers First Act" (HF45) that passed the House of Representatives would've saved taxpayers $500 million dollars over the next three years. Unfortunately, when the liberal Democrat Senate leadership got done with it, it was gutted almost beyond recognition. Instead of saving you and me the $500 million we so greatly need, it now only saves a whopping $10 million over the next three years. And instead of setting aside $327 million for tax relief, the liberal Democrat Senate version sets aside a whopping $0. All of that waiting, all of that Gron-stalling and delay, was for nothing. The clear message that taxpayers sent back on November 2 was that Iowans wanted real representation, lower taxes, lower spending and less government. So you and I, the Iowa economy and Iowa workers continue to foot the bill. Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for saving money. But the $10 million dollar token the liberal leader of the senate forced down our throats is more of an insult than substantive savings. Senate conservatives offered amendment after amendment to the liberal chokehold on taxpayers but to no avail. It was a party line vote every time at 26-24. But have no fear! The liberal Democrats did let us debate a bill about raccoon hunting! (For those of you needing a refresher, the reason I say that they "let us debate" is because liberal Majority Leader, Mike Gronstal from Council Bluffs controls the Senate Calendar, the passage of legislation through committees, and decides if we should be allowed to vote on any particular legislation and ultimately determines the outcome of any potential legislation IF he decides to let it come to the floor.) So for those of you who cast your vote on November 2, 2010, because you were mad that you couldn't take your minor child raccoon hunting with you without them having a license, I'd like you to know that I voted FOR repealing that requirement. You can now take your minor child raccoon hunting with you and they don't need a license. But they are not allowed to carry a firearm if they're not licensed. I'm glad we got that passed. Truly. We should've let parents take their children hunting without a license anyway, but I still believe that we have more important legislation to work on. Excessive taxes come to mind. Combining our state corporate tax rate of 12% with the federal rate of 35% and the Tax Foundation says that the Hawkeye State may have the highest levy in the developed world. And according to the Wall Street Journal, workers "bear the cost of excessive corporate taxes. A 2009 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City examined three decades of data on business taxes and worker paychecks. The study found that "corporate taxes reduce wages and that the magnitude of the negative relationship between the taxes and the wages has increased over the past 30 years." Businesses in high tax states invest less, the study found, and this leads to lower productivity (think fewer jobs) and eventually lower average pay for workers. This isn't just hypothetical theory. This is state government stifling businesses that could and would be creating jobs if the tax and business climate were less oppressive. It's plain and simple math folks. It's not sustainable unless we change the path we're on. This is why I expect we'll start to see half-truths and attempts to claim public credit for easing restrictions and burdens on Iowa taxpayers to start coming out of the liberal leadership in the next few weeks. They know, as well as you and I do, that they have to start gaining the appearance of being business and taxpayer friendly if they want to hold on to the majority in the Iowa Senate in 2012. But you and I know such efforts will be seen for what it really is: political grandstanding. If they cared about taxpayers, and if they cared about Iowa workers and the middle class, they wouldn't have been so deceptive with their legislation and rhetoric for the last several years. And if they had truly realized the "error of their ways," they would've immediately reached across the aisle and united with conservatives to ease restrictions, ease the burdens and get us back on track sooner rather than later. Taxpayers remain last on their agenda. State Senator Kent Sorenson (R-Indianola) represents Iowa Senate District 37 which includes Madison, Warren and Southern Dallas Counties Share and Enjoy: |
| Mitt Romney’s Romneycare: Death Panels, and Less Freedom For All. Posted: 26 Feb 2011 07:34 AM PST
Mitt Romney once claimed that he had never suggested that MASSCare would reduce the cost of health care, but his own Boston Globe article showed that wasn't so. It certainly didn't lower costs as Romney promised. Bay-Staters and employers there still pay the highest premiums costs in the country. But is this just a free-market response to the bad economy of the last few years? No, and Romney can't blame subsequent Democrats for the changes in the system since he left office, for all of the regulations and mandates below were in the original Romney plan or left unchanged by Romney. But Massachusetts Health care hadn't been about freedom for a long time:
Which one of these parts of Romneycare encourages a free market?
The people who manage Romneycare like mandates and regulation, just like Romney does.
In other words, the group that receives the greatest benefits, must pay lower premiums, which is the opposite of the law of supply and demand known as the free market. For those who recognize the terms used to ration care (with death panels to follow?), Romneycare created a new bureaucratic state agency called innocuously, "a Quality and Cost Council. The council must set benchmarks for quality improvement and cost containment, collect data on health outcomes and health system spending from providers throughout the state's health care system, and publish its findings on its Web site." Among the goals are "population health management" which include taxing high-sugar foods and coercing restaurants into changing their menus. In spite of claims to the contrary, the program intends to impose on all doctors and hospitals such mandates/controls as this one: "reduced payments for avoidable hospitalizations and preventable readmissions." Another socialist idea in Romneycare is the global payment model, where instead of paying for individual treatments, doctors get paid according to how their patients improve. Of course, this will be an incentive to drop patients who don't show improvement. The plan is full of bureaucrats who nothing about medicine but will be making medical decisions for the population of Massachusetts: "available comparative effectiveness information and analysis should be utilized to develop consensus recommendations for coverage and medical necessity policies". To respond to the 100-page PDF document linked to above would take a couple of hundred pages of commentary. Reading it is like reading something out of Animal Farm or 1984. It calls for every single detail of health care to be decided by "scientists" and cost-containment experts. Another point for those who weren't paying attention, and only paying more for insurance in Massachusetts, Romneycare even created a form of racial quotas: "The reform also established a statewide Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities Council to track disparities data and create Pay for Performance benchmarks." Apparently, the goal of REHDC is not to reduce actual incidents of diseases, but to narrow the disparities between Italians and Swedes, and even pay people to help the stats to match up. There is another mandate mentioned by those who support Romneycare: The Reagan era requirement that emergency rooms treat any person who comes in. While this is a legitimate complaint about the current set-up, one cannot take two wrongs and make a right out of it. That law should not have been passed, but it could be removed or changed so that only true emergencies must be treated. Hospitals would have to weigh the risk of not treating someone who might sue, but otherwise could turn away people who refused to pay, when they are able. Finally, there are those who claim that the previous system rewarded "freeloaders", who could pay for their care, but didn't. Because they weren't insured, tax payers got stuck with the bill. But those freeloaders just got signed up for free or subsidized health treatment, and guess who still pays for their care? The taxpayers, of course. Massachusetts just added more freeloaders, on purpose. The Romney experiment in health care reform was a failure. But free market economists did know or should have known it from the beginning. Because it was anything but a free-market system. Share and Enjoy: |
| Why Mitt Romney Might Win the GOP Nomination in 2012 and Why He May Not Posted: 26 Feb 2011 05:39 AM PST (First in a series of articles on potential candidates for president in 2012)
Romney and the Other Candidates In summer 2007, an unlikely contender for president, the former Governor from Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, began a meteoric rise to eventually overtake Mitt Romney in Iowa. Romney had spent at least 50% more time than Huckabee in Iowa and five times as much money. Huckabee had gained momentum and national headlines after placing a surprising second in the all-important Ames, Iowa straw poll in August of 2007. A poor showing in Ames has caused well-known candidates in the past to drop out immediately including Tommy Thompson[1], Lamar Alexander, and Dan Quayle. Elizabeth Dole dropped out within a month of a third-place showing. The point is that it is too early to count anyone out. Maybe someone who hasn't even been considered by pundits yet will emerge as late as summer, 2011, and try to compete; let alone the 6-10 others who have already hinted they are "in". Had Fred Thompson's campaign not appeared so lackluster, for example, he may have also overtaken Romney in Iowa or McCain in New Hampshire. We cannot know for sure whether Huckabee or Sarah Palin will run in 2012. And, of course, we cannot be sure Romney will run. Perhaps, he will take a nosedive in the polls and decide not to spend vast amounts of his own money, again. Like every other candidate, there could be personal issues, a gaffe, or a family scandal or health problems that could cause him to drop out. On the other hand, if Huckabee and Palin both decide not to run, this will leave Romney the only candidate left over from 2008 and easily the hands-on favorite. If only one drops out, it appears that it could be quite a horse race. Health Care The revelation Massachusetts had to use price controls with insurance premiums shows that it is probably not Obama's plan that will make the difference, but rather how the voters in early primary and caucus states view what is going on in Massachusetts (and how Romney and the other candidates address the issue). A year is a long time. Perhaps things will go well in Massachusetts and Romney will get some bragging rights. If they go badly, either the voting public will blame Romney or they will blame the Democrat who followed him. It is unclear also whether specific points of MassCare will be play well to Republicans or not: purchase mandates, coverage mandates, etc. Romney stated once in a debate that he likes mandates. There are many variables here and placing all of your eggs in any one basket is risky. I suspect that polling as 2012 grows closer will determine how Romney and his opponents will address (or ignore) this issue. Romney Strength and Weaknesses on the Other Issues Romney has many strong resources to draw upon if he decides to run. First, he has the experience and reputation of being knowledgeable on economic issues. He, like Ronald Reagan, frames the issue well in terms of freedom. He must persuade many Republicans that supporting TARP was a good idea. I don't think the argument Huckabee made that he was a tax-raiser (or fee-raiser) worked well in 2007-2008 and it will probably be a loser in 2012 as well. Romney is also a good debater and speaker. He is not as stilted as some would claim, and he is likely to get better, not worse. It is doubtful that he will give many stem-winders like Palin does, nor come up with the zingers like Huckabee, but his consistency in this area is a real plus to him over the long haul. His restrained style might also keep him from gaffes. He generally handles interviews well, though like most candidates, he can get a little testy if a reporter knows the right questions to ask. On foreign policy, it is really a total unknown how the Republicans will gauge he and his opponents in 2012. It wasn't much of an issue in 2008 and unless we have another terrorist attack, it may not be one in 2012, either. Though he and Mike Huckabee are both strong supporters of Israel and have visited there lately, it is possible that the current flare-ups in that part of the world could highlight differences they have. It is unlikely the flip-flop charge will be as effective against Romney this time around. After four years, voters are likely to forgive any inconsistencies and consider it unfair to bring up changes he made prior to 2008. Only if he appears to change again on a major issue could the label stick. Guarding against this will be a priority for Romney. Abortion, especially, would appear to be a non-issue for anybody except for those who already have their minds made up, either way. People who care little about this issue will not be bothered by his endorsement of pro-abortion candidates. The same is true for gun control. Unless the issue comes to the forefront, it is unlikely that Romney's support of certain gun bans will sway many Republicans. His gaffes in this area are old news. However, the issue of homosexual "marriage" may still show some differences between candidates, and I question whether Romney has been fully vetted by voters on this issue. Unless he passes up the Iowa caucuses, that issue is still big for many voters who supported Bob Vander Plaats' efforts to remove judges that support "gay rights". Finally, there are many issues that we cannot yet know that will definitely come up. What is Romney's position on those? We don't know (and maybe he doesn't know). One of the reasons Republican candidates seem to do well the 2nd or 3rd time around is because, unlike the Democrats, our candidates are well vetted if they become a contender. I doubt if there are any skeletons in Romney's closet that will hurt him. Discussing a new issue could bring new wrinkles into play. Every candidate can speak a word unwittingly that could bring down his or her campaign almost in an instant. These gaffes or other errors in a campaign are always potential pitfalls. If Romney avoids them he might well end up the 2012 GOP nominee for President (or then again, he might not). Previously posted on Rightosphere (now Race42012). Updated with new information. [1] As a participant in the Straw Poll, I have to admit I enjoyed watching scores of Harley Davidson riders show up in Ames to vote for their hero, Governor Tommy Thompson (I still have a video clip of that from my camera phone). |
| Pro-Life Billboard Removed, Exclusive Interview with Lamar Advertising Exec Posted: 26 Feb 2011 05:19 AM PST
The billboard shows a young black girl, Anissa Fraser, and the copy reads: "The Most Dangerous Place for an African American is in the Womb." It is believed to have been placed, in part, because of Black History Month, and in part because recently statistics were released that showed that 60% of pregnancies among blacks end in abortion. It is located near a Banned Parenthood. Anissa's mother was also angry that the stock photo image of her daughter was used by the anti-abortion group. It is not clear whether the ad agency or the pro-life group picked the photograph. New York resident and professor Darcy Merritt thinks the whole idea of the ad is an atrocity. Press coverage did not report what Merritt thought about the high rate of black children being murdered in their wombs in New York. Caffeinated Thoughts interviewed spokesman Hal Kilshaw, from Lamar Advertising in Baton Rouge, Louisiana about the billboard controversy. Mr. Kilshaw admits that this was the first time a billboard had been removed once the copy had been accepted and the billboard placed. The policy makers at the company planning on meeting next week to determine direction for the future, but Kilshaw is confident that the company will continue to allow controversial billboards, as long as they are factually correct and not offensive. In the past, Lamar has accepted ads from Playboy, but denied some ad content from an Atheist group. Here are highlights of the 12-minute interview*: HK: “We have a policy about accepting copy from our clients that may be considered controversial. We think it’s important to realize our clients have an important first amendment right to express their point of view unless we think it is factually inaccurate or offensive we try to run it. And if they present some copy that we think may be problematic we work with them to change it, so we think it’s important to put up copy. We looked at this copy in advance, it fully complied with our policy and we decided to post it. CT: We’re referring now to the anti-abortion billboard that’s in a black neighborhood in New York, correct? HK: I don’t know that it’s a black neighborhood, I understand it’s in SoHo. I am not aware if that’s a black neighborhood or not to be honest with you. CT: Tell me a little bit about that particular controversy and how that’s working out. HK: Sure. We posted that copy I guess about a week ago, roughly. It was from a client that’s a pro-life organization. They presented the copy to us and we looked at their website. Apparently the abortion rate is higher among African Americans than it is in other ethnic populations, so we decided to go ahead and run the copy. We’ve gotten push-back from folks who are pro-choice. They don’t think its apparently okay for pro-life people to express their opinion. And we’ve got some push-back from folks who thought it was racist, but we didn’t think it was racist to present, you know, statistically verifiable information CT: I understand the billboard has been taken down though, right? HK: It came down last night, that’s correct. CT: Why was it taken down? HK: Our general manager got a call from not the person that issues us the space but has the billboard and said that some employees, the wait staff actuallyof a restaurant in the building where the billboard is, had been harassed, that concerned him. Then he understood there would be a protest today and he was concerned about, you know, further harassment of the folks in the area. It’s a public safety issue. In the interest of being careful and being considerate of the community in that area we decided to take it down yesterday. CT: When there are billboards that are close to businesses do those businesses have a veto power… HK: Of course, not CT: It wasn’t the content, but the harassment and the protests? HK: Not the protest itself, we are not concerned about protest, people certainly have the right to protest. That wasn’t the issue. We had harassment issues yesterday…In the abundance of caution our New York manager decided to take it down….A few years ago we were a little more sensitive to what we take and decline copy that was thought to be controversial….but our CEO says we’re not going to decline copy just because it’s controversial as long as it’s factually accurate and not in poor taste to take it. CT: What about a heckle veto? What’s to stop someone from raising a little raucus…threatening to harass…. HK: Let me tell you, we are concerned about that because of this instance. We’ve never had an instance of that before that I’m aware of…. We’re gonna meet on it next week. We’ve got to develop a new policy….The situation in New York’s a little different than most places. This billboard was attached to the side of a building that had tenants….most places they are on a steel pole, forty or fifty feet above the ground. CT: Did somebody make threats? HK: No. The harassment made our manager nervous…We’ve never had anybody harass before… CT: Knowing human nature, now you’ll have lots of people harass people about billboards….because it was successful. HK: Absolutely, we are certainly concerned about that, that’s why we will address it in the near future…. If you want to call me back in a week, I’ll be glad to tell you what we decided. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ *Complete audio is available upon request.Share and Enjoy: |
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