Open Letter to the President Follow-up

So, I sent the letter to "president@whitehouse.gov" and I got the following response:

Dear Friend,

Thank you for your message.  On behalf of President
Obama, we appreciate hearing from you.  The President
has promised the most transparent administration in
history, and we're committed to listening to and
responding to you.

In order to better handle the millions of electronic
messages we're receiving and respond more quickly,
we've implemented a new contact form on our website:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Please note that this web form has replaced
comments@whitehouse.gov. That email address is
no longer monitored, so we encourage you to resubmit
your message through the link above.  Thank you for
using the web form and helping us improve
communications with you.

Sincerely,
The Presidential Correspondence Team

Hmm...I wonder why the president would no longer accept an anonymous email but now requires you to go to a website and enter your name, address, and zip code to send a message to "the most transparent administration in history." I bet anyone who uses statcounter or a similar service could probably answer that question.

Needless to say, I went to the website and submitted the comments. I have nothing to hide.

Politics as Usual 100, Post-Partisanship 0

President Obama claims that Republicans are blocking health insurance reform to gain a political victory, not because they are opposed to government run health care on principal.

I know I must sound like a broken record here, but does this at all sound like the kind of President that Obama promised he would be during the campaign?

Instead of recognizing that Republicans (and most Americans) might have a legitimate problem with his proposal, he plays the old game of denouncing our motives (since he obviously cannot win the fight on the issues). And let me tell you, there is not a single Republican proposal in the house version of the health insurance reform bill. Why would Republicans support something they had no hand in creating and is completely opposite to everything they stand for?

Four years ago, the Los Angeles Times ran an article in which Democrats in the California legislature admitted to blocking all of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's legislative proposals (including programs they claimed to be in favor of) just to keep him from getting any positive press - they didn't want him to win reelection. I wonder what Obama would have thought of that, since he is so opposed to it now.

On the other hand, there is nothing to indicate that this is what Republicans have in mind. They have very serious problems with Obama-Pelosi-Waxman-ReidCare that do not stem from political expediency.

And of course, these types of attacks are laughable since Democrats have a supermajority in both houses of Congress and a President eager to sign whatever bill they come up with.

So yeah, blaming Republicans just seems so lame, but Obama can't help himself. What a great leader we have!

An Open Letter to President Obama

Dear Mr. President,

I am very disappointed in you. You claimed during the campaign that you would be a post-partisan President and you would end the partisan bickering in Washington. You also claim lately that your most important concern in the health insurance reform process is increased competition and lowered costs in addition to covering the "47 million" uninsured Americans (it is a misleading number of course because you include people who could afford insurance but do not want it, as well as undocumented immigrants).

However, your actions lately show that both of these assertions are untrue. Republicans and conservatives have offered many reforms that would increase coverage, increase competition and reduce costs. If these are truly your goals, and you really are post-partisan, you would embrace some of these changes.

For example, Republicans want to allow people to buy insurance across state lines. This would increase competition and probably allow more people to be covered. There is no downside. But you will not even consider such a proposal.

Further, Republicans have suggested tax subsidies for individuals and small businesses that equal what corporations get to provide health insurance to their employees. This will also lead to more coverage. Again, there is no downside.

For some reason, you will not consider these options.

Instead, you seek something that requires much more government interference and may even lead to a complete government take over of the health insurance system.

You claim not to be in favor of such a thing, though you previously stated that you were. So which is? Are you concerned with costs and coverage, or are you far more interested in a single-payer system? I have a feeling it is the latter. The scary thing is that you are trying to enact reform that will lead to a single-payer system while claiming you are not doing that.

So why not just be honest about it?

I cannot think of a single campaign promise that you have actually kept - tax cuts for 95% of Americans? Nope. End the war in Iraq? Nope. Transparency in the White House? Nope. Lobbyists not finding a job in your administration? Nope. Post-racial Presidency? Nope. Post-partisan Presidency? Nope.

Since you have failed to do all of these things that you promised, can you please just do something right and be honest about your intentions? I think you owe this country at least that much.

I still have hope that you will change the tenure of your presidency, but that hope is very quickly fading.

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul

The Cash for Clunkers program is such a huge success that GM is increasing production for the rest of the year. Yippee!

Oh wait - the government owns GM. So, the government used the cash for clunkers to incentivize people to buy cars from the government and now the government has decided to increase production. Capitalism at its best!

Don't get me wrong - it is a good thing that car companies are selling more cars. But it is a short-lived improvement. Once the clunkers money dries up (or car dealers stop accepting trade-ins because the government is not reimbursing them), the car sales will dry up too.

Or worse - people are smart. They will think: why buy something now when I can stop buying and force the government to give me a cash incentive to buy? Maybe car sales next year will be worse than they would have been without the Clunkers program this year.

Buy hey, at least some of the government money is coming back to the taxpayers - government money goes to GM, GM improves, America wins - right?

"Better Off Taking the Pain Killer"

I've been looking for this clip for a while so I'm glad I finally found it. Thanks to "A Red Voice in a Blue State" for posting this.



Now, anyone who claims that death panels are a ridiculous notion is either fooling himself or is a liar. Government bodies deciding who is better off not getting the surgery and taking the pain killer? Sounds like a death panel to me.

In Defense of Pre-Existing Condition Exclusions

There is a huge problem with President Obama's healthcare plan that no one is talking about. In an Obama world, there would be no exclusions for pre-existing conditions.

I understand the motivation behind this ideal. It has got to be a crushing thing when your insurance carrier denies your claim because your medical condition supposedly existed prior to the insurance company covering you. It is unfortunate that such a thing happens.

But it is also a financial necessity.

Getting rid of pre-existing condition exclusions would be disastrous for the health insurance industry (hmm - isn't that really the plan of liberals after all?)

Getting rid of this exemption would be a negative incentive - it would give people an incentive not to have insurance until they are sick. Why have insurance before you get sick? There is no need.

Here's the thing - insurance companies make money by collecting premiums from people who don't use their services. This is true of health insurance, car insurance, home owners' insurance, life insurance, and any other kind of insurance you can think of. But how can an insurance company make money if the only people covered are sick? Imagine a system of car insurance where they could not deny coverage for a pre-existing automobile accident. You get in a crash, call an insurance company and get coverage to pay for the damages. Does that make sense to anyone?

But that is what we are looking at here! A system where healthy people see no need to get insurance so they wait til they are sick. How can an insurance company possibly hope to stay in business under such a system?

They couldn't of course. It's a no brainer.

So when Obama tells you that can keep your insurance if you like it, you really have to ask whether that is naivete or a flat-out lie. Insurance companies will be forced out of business because they will only be covering sick people.

I think part of the problem is that people forget exactly what "insurance" is for. It's for unexpected medical bills that you can't afford to pay. Car insurance doesn't cover a new transmission, it covers accidents and theft; home owners' insurance doesn't cover a new coat of paint, it covers fires and floods; health insurance shouldn't cover checkups and routine medical procedures, it should cover severe injuries and catastrophic illness.

But in an Obama world, none of this would be true. Insurance companies need to be destroyed because they are evil money grubbers (I can't believe they have the audacity to actually make a profit!). And getting rid of pre-existing condition exclusions in a sneaky way to do it.

Obama's Miscalculation

President Obama pushed the health care reform debate because he miscalculated the importance of his popularity and misinterpreted his own political capital.

He was elected with good numbers and had a high approval rating right out of the gate. And he believed he was elected to do all of the crazy liberal things he wants to do. In truth, he was elected because he was supposed to be post-partisan and a new kind of politician. But he obviously was not who he said he was. He has constantly picked on Republicans, conservatives, Fox News, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. But I digress.

Obama was NOT elected to govern as a tax and spend liberal or to greatly increase the size of the federal government as well as the deficit and the debt.

But Obama (or should I say Rahm Emmanuel, the one really running the country?) completely miscalculated.

He pushed through a "stimulus" bill that no one read, claiming that it would create 4 million jobs. Of course that hasn't happened.

He then moved on to tax and cap (getting it through the House) and health care. And of course, we all know how the health care debate has gone.

Obama has used all of his political capital on this one issue. And it was totally unnecessary.

Obama could have waited. The economy is going to recover eventually. Not because of the stimulus bill ($700 billion of which has not been spent), but just by not doing anything. But when that day comes, he could have taken credit (whether deserved or not) and made America confident in his ability to run the country. At that point, he could have attempted to gain passage of his signature item at a point when America trusts him.

But at this point, the stimulus has failed to work so people are already hesitant. And then he tried to push through the health care within a ridiculous time schedule - the failure of which has made him look bad. And now that people are starting to find out what is in it, they are really speaking out against it.

Obama brought all of his troubles on himself. He misunderstood what he was really elected to do and he also has a tremendous ego. He thought he could do what he wanted with impunity. Now he knows otherwise. The question is what he does with this lesson if and when he learns it. I think he has too much ego to change he tack, but maybe he is a smart enough politician to shift with the winds and try to actually give the American people what they want.

Rational Thought 1, Big Brother 0?

The White House has killed flag@whitehouse.gov

It's amazing it took so long. The President asked people to report anything "fishy" related to health care. It seemed like a terrible idea and another example of Obama's resemblance to the government in the book Nineteen Eighty-Four.

At least it gave us something else to talk about for the next two weeks.

But now the email address is dead. R.I.P.

Whole Foods Should be Praised, Not Boycotted

I have to admit - I don't regularly shop at Whole Foods Market...I never got into the whole "organic" or "health food" crazes - it seems like a little to hippie for me.

But Whole Foods market has a great health insurance system that could be a model for all other companies and the federal government.

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey recently wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal explaining changes he would make in the health care system and used his company as an example. His ideals don't include a public option or anything else to get liberals excited, but they are pretty common sense ideas - and ones every rational person should be able to agree with.

But liberals don't like people who say things they disagree with. So some liberal geniuses have decided to boycott Whole Foods Markets.

The Daily Kos writer says only one intelligent thing (about consumer power - a wildly underused power BTW) but the rest of the post and the comments are sadly ill-informed. Perhaps they do not realize that Whole Foods health care costs are very low and that a huge majority of employees are happy with the plan.

For a great article about the plan and its benefits, see John Stossel's piece written almost two years ago. If we had gone with a plan like this two years ago, the country would be in a lot better shape.

But all liberals see is a program without a public option and a CEO who doesn't support a government takeover of health care and so they boycott. And they are supposed to be the open-minded party. Can't they see something successful and take a lesson from it? I guess not.

P.S. As Glenn Beck says in his book Common Sense - if you know you are right, you welcome debate, because you know you will win it. Why are liberals so afraid of this debate?

Obama Backs Away from Backing Away

So, perhaps Obama is still pushing for the public option after all. Or he is OK without it. Or he doesn't know what he wants. Or he knows what he wants but doesn't know how to explain it. Or all of the above.

He claims that he is still very much in favor of the public option, but then says that Kathleen Sebelius did not misspeak when saying that it is not an essential element of the health care bill. How do we reconcile the two?

And does it even matter what Obama wants? If Senator Conrad is correct, there will never be enough votes for the public option in the Senate. Why spend so much political capital on something that won't happen?

That's probably why he is publicly downplaying it. If he doesn't get it, he can say that it was never that important anyway, and so it's not that much of a setback.

But anyone who is paying attention knows how much the public option means to liberals, so it will be interesting to see how Obama fares within his own party if he doesn't make it happen.

Obama Abandoning the Public Option?

Senator Kent Conrad stated on Fox News Sunday that the public option is all but dead in the Senate. At the same time, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius stated that the public option was not "the essential element" of President Obama's health care plan. Obama even seemed to downplay the hotly contested issue during a town hall meeting in Colorado, suggesting it was only a sliver of the overall package.

Perhaps all this downplay is in anticipation of removing the public option from the table. Obama in essence says, "hey, its not the big a deal - we're still doing a lot of reform even without the public option." He claims that cost reduction and public choice are more important to him than anything.

But this argument isn't going to fly with liberals, who have been planning on the public option as a gateway to universal, government-run health care. Some have said that they won't support a bill that doesn't have the public option.

And so Obama attempts to appease them too with a statement from Linda Douglass, communications director for the White House Office of Health Reform, who states that Obama still considers the public option as the best way to achieve cost reduction and consumer choice.

The question is whether Obama will allow public outcry over the specter of government run health care to change his direction. Without a public option, it will be much more likely to bring Blue Dog Democrats and Republicans on board. But abandoning it will mean turning his back on the liberal whom he has done nothing but placate during his tenure. Is Obama really able to do something that is really better for America even if it alienates liberals? If so, he might show that he has the political ability to let go of ideology and work to get something done. He might also save Democrats from significant losses in the midterm elections.

On the other hand, he might do what a lot of us expect him to do, keep pushing the public option, keep denigrating those who disagree with him, and risk losses in 2010 to get something that he totally believes in.

The next few weeks mark a very significant crossroads in Obama's presidency. The funny thing is that he placed himself here - he pushed the health care reform debate and has spent the past month defending his plan. If it sinks him and the Democratic party, he has only himself to blame.

Sarah Barracuda Resigns

One of the last things I would have expected when I woke up this morning was an announcement that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was stepping aside by the end of the month.

Of course, my immediate thought was that something terrible had happened an she was leaving office to avoid the political fallout. At least that would have been better than what Mark Sanford is doing! But I absolutely believed that her political career was over, and the once presumed Republican frontrunner for 2012 would fade away into ignominy.

But after watching the video, her crazy decision actually makes a little bit of sense.

In the past year, she has been subjected to 15 ethics complaints, every single one of them dismissed with no finding that she has done anything wrong. But in the process, the state of Alaska has spent millions of dollars investigating the complaints and the Palins have spent $500,000 of their own money in legal fees. And so, in order for Alaska to weather the recession as a state, Palin must step aside and end the madness. If Alaska is better off without her as the governor, you have to really applaud her personal courage to risk her entire political career to benefit her state.

Moreover, I now think not only that she is not ending her political career, but also, if she is going to have any chance at winning the nomination, this is the way she has to do it.

In the short time America has known her, Sarah Palin has been pigeon-holed as an out of touch, inexperienced governor of the second least populous state, with no knowledge of national or international issues.

But now, Palin can spend the next three years touring America and the world, learning about issues, meeting with leaders and making herself more known to the public at large.

She can spend time campaigning in local, statewide, and national elections for good strong conservatives. If she can spend time getting even a handful more conservatives elected to office, she will have done a huge service to this country.

On the other hand, this gives a lot of ammunition to political opponents. "She's a quitter!" they will argue. And they're not wrong. But, she's not walking away in shame, or because she can't handle the pressure. She is walking away to benefit Alaska, her party, and just maybe her country.

The real question will be - how will this move play with the public. It seems that her detractors will hate it, her supporters will understand it and then rest won't know what to think. But three years is a long time and people have short memories. Hell, Hillary Clinton promised during her Senate re-election campaign that she would not run for President. A year later, she announced her candidacy. And people forgave her.

I think people will forgive Palin too - especially if she is able to shape the public image of this move. The mainstream media will attempt to slant it in the worst way possible, and they could very well win that fight. But again, they may just be preaching to the choir - a lot of people will never like Palin, no matter what she does. If this move enables Sarah to pick up support among people undecided about her, it will have been a great move. On the other hand, its hard to imagine what else she could do to expand her base of support. We'll just have to see where all this goes in the next few months/years.

The Prisoner's Dilemma

There is a very famous game theory problem, called the Prisoner's Dilemma, that has specific application to international negotiations. Here are the basics:

Two suspects are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated both prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal. If one testifies (defects from the other) for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent (cooperates with the other), the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If both remain silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only six months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a five-year sentence. Each prisoner must choose to betray the other or to remain silent. Each one is assured that the other would not know about the betrayal before the end of the investigation. How should the prisoners act?

Obama's recent foreign policy decisions remind me of the Dilemma. There is one chilling difference though. Obama has chosen to cooperate with the other side (youtube video to Iran, reduced missile defense in Alaska and Europe, pathetic response to North Korea) and has actually made his choice known to the other side before they have to make their own decisions.

The potential benefit is that any country who might want to cooperate can do so without fear of being exploited.

However, does anyone think Iran, North Korea, China or Russia has much interest in acting cooperatively? Of course not. And so the problem is that these countries, and others, know they can exploit Obama's cooperative actions without danger to themselves. In fact, they have no incentive not to exploit Obama. As Charles Krauthammer notes, Obama is attempting to the world lead by example. But is anyone else really going to follow? Maybe Biden meant he was talking about Obama with his "no one's following" bit.

Catholic Support Slipping?

Amy Sullivan of Time Magazine reports that Obama is already losing support from Catholic voters.

I said during the campaign that Catholics were fooling themselves if they believed Obama was the "real" pro-life candidate. And now they are realizing the truth.

It's a bit of buyers' remorse now. The question, of course, is the impact. Will Obama lose a huge voting bloc when it comes time for reelection (assuming the country survives that long)? Or will this all be forgotten by then? My guess is that if he continues along these lines, more Catholics will feel the same way as those at Notre Dame, who protested the President's visit.

New Global Warming Study

Hot Air reports on a new study from NASA that suggests global warming is indeed man-made, though not in the way liberals claim.

Apparently, reduction of aerosol and sulphur emissions starting in the 70's led to a reduction of particulate matter in the atmosphere that actually caused a cooling effect. Reducing emissions led to a reduction in cooling materials and a rise in the temperature, which caused higher-than-usual melting of the arctic shelf.

Talk about the law of unintended consequences.

Or, were they actually intended? Remember, back in the 70's, liberals were warning us about going into another ice age. Looks like they managed to prevent that from happening (ha ha) and got us warmed up pretty well.