November 26-28, 2016
Nov 26 03:08 Fidel Castro, dead at 90 Nov 26 07:44 Mrs. DeVos's mission Nov 26 08:21 Environmental activists' tactics Nov 28 06:33 Exposing the DFL's playbook Nov 28 07:36 20,000,000 Americans, Part I Nov 28 08:56 Bipartisanship litmus test Nov 28 11:58 20,000,000 Americans, Part II
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Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Fidel Castro, dead at 90
Late Friday night, Raul Castro announced that his brother Fidel Castro had died at age 90. He didn't disclose the cause of death. Reuters' article reporting Castro's death read like a press release from the Cuban government. The opening paragraphs were particularly disgusting, saying "Fidel Castro, the Cuban revolutionary leader who built a communist state on the doorstep of the United States and for five decades defied U.S. efforts to topple him, died on Friday, his younger brother announced to the nation. He was 90. A towering figure of the second half of the 20th Century, Castro had been in poor health since an intestinal ailment nearly killed him in 2006. He formally ceded power to his younger brother two years later."
Let's let the history be clear. Fidel Castro was a nasty murderous thug who ruled Cuba with an iron fist. The world is a much better place without him. This article gives us a clear-eyed description of Fidel Castro's willingness to do whatever it took to maintain his iron-fisted grip on the nation:
The Cuban government maintains nationwide authority by controlling the national media coverage, by banning all forms of public dissidence, and (should all else fail) via aggressive imprisonment strategies to eliminate all persons who represent a threat to the communist state.
Cuba has utilized a systematic program of arbitrary detention and indefinite trials to maintain the second largest prison program in the modern world. The prisons are overcrowded and not meant to support the number of prisoners that they contain. Many of these prisons do not contain the amenities needed for basic human living, and these conditions are used as a form of punishment on the prisoners. Prisoners report being beaten by prison guards, deprived of light and heat, and starved during their prison sentence. Many of these prisoners are being held without a definite release date, and some prisoners do not have a set trial date to receive a proper sentencing.
What type of thug would do that? Rather than finish by saying RIP, I'll finish by saying 'Good riddance.'
Posted Saturday, November 26, 2016 3:08 AM
Comment 1 by Terry Stone at 26-Nov-16 10:37 AM
Fidel Castro is nothing more than an artifact of the Cold War. In any other era, he would have been squashed like the Marxist bug he was. By the time the Berlin Wall fell, Castro became the beneficiary of a post Viet Nam pacifist America. When the First Gulf War snapped the U.S. out of its funk of insecurity, Castro had become a mere environmental irritant protected by the trendy wave of political correctness. It was simply no longer fashionable to overthrow tin-horn communist dictators.
I managed a refugee camp during the Cuban Refugee Harvest of 1980 (formally known as the Mariel Boatlift). Each of the 125,000 refugees had an informative story to tell about the Castro Regime and communism. Oppression had taken its toll on the human spirit. But, yes, they all read well.
Castro is no hero; he is an anomaly fostered by circumstance without which the world is much improved.
Mrs. DeVos's mission
Betsy DeVos has the chance of being one of the best secretaries of Education ever. According to this WSJ article , Mrs. DeVos has gone toe-to-toe with the 'education establishment' and lived to tell about it. In fact, she didn't just live to tell about it, she defeated them. In fact, she didn't just defeat them, she kicked some serious ass.
According to the WSJ article, "Mrs. DeVos is a philanthropist who has devoted years and much of her fortune to promoting school reform, especially charter schools and vouchers. She chairs the American Federation for Children (AFC)."
This year, "AFC was especially successful ... as 108 of the 121 candidates it supported won their elections. AFC candidates in Florida won 20 of 21 targeted races. The group's biggest coup was ousting a scourge of school choice in a Miami-Dade Senate district where Democrats are a majority. The teachers' union dumped $1 million into the race but still lost." [Editor's note: winning 108 of 121 elections is a winning percentage of 89.25%, which certainly qualifies as kicking ass.
It's especially heartening to see this many school choice advocates getting elected. They're the future civil rights leaders of the next 15 years. Even more importantly, being seen as school choice advocates will help Republicans in minority communities irrespective of what Randi Weingarten said in this interview:
In Ms. Weingarten's over-the-top statement , she said "In nominating DeVos, Trump makes it loud and clear that his education policy will focus on privatizing, defunding and destroying public education in America. DeVos has no meaningful experience in the classroom or in our schools. The sum total of her involvement has been spending her family's wealth in an effort to dismantle public education in Michigan. Every American should be concerned that she would impose her reckless and extreme ideology on the nation."
This is a perfect illustration of the left's wanting money out of politics ... if the money is spent opposing the left's monopolies. Mrs. DeVos has spent a portion of her wealth trying to increase educational competition in the hopes of forcing the forces of the status quo into providing a better product. The reason why the minority community likes school choice is because public schools have failed their children too often.
Here's hoping that Mrs. DeVos carries out President-Elect Trump's school choice agenda when she's confirmed.
Posted Saturday, November 26, 2016 7:44 AM
Comment 1 by JerryE9 at 27-Nov-16 11:09 AM
Weingarten talks about "destruction of the public schools" as if it were a bad thing. Education of the public is a GOOD thing, but there is nothing there that requires it to be done in government buildings, by government employees, to a government-mandated curriculum or even "standards." Give every parent a voucher good at ANY school, and the good public schools will survive and improve, while the poor ones perish, replaced by private or charter alternatives.
Comment 2 by Dave steckling at 27-Nov-16 09:50 PM
Great choice for a department head---another great ARTICLE.
Response 2.1 by Gary Gross at 27-Nov-16 10:23 PM
Thanks Dave.
Environmental activists' tactics
This article should get everyone's blood boiling. In it, Mother Jones activists highlight how the Sierra Club is sabotaging families and businesses.
Specifically, Debbie Sease, the senior lobbying and advocacy director at the Sierra Club, told Mother Jones that "her organization's strategy lies in playing defense by filing legal challenges, galvanizing the public, and using the marketplace. If a coal field is going to be developed, for example, activists can make it as expensive as possible to comply with existing regulations and force the developer to deal with a public backlash, she says. Additional tools environmentalists can use include citizen lawsuits, grassroots organizing, and ballot measures at the state and local level focusing on everything from renewable energy standards to green transportation initiatives."
First, it's worth questioning the Sierra Club's belief that there will be a backlash after President-Elect Trump's decisive victories in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. While there's no doubt that the rent-a-protesters will protest coal mining projects, that doesn't qualify as a grassroots anti-coal movement. That's just the left's predictable astroturf paid protest agenda.
Next, notice that the Sierra Club's tactics include destroying good-paying middle class jobs. The Sierra Club was once thought of as a mainstream environmental organization. They clearly aren't mainstream anymore. They've become radicalized.
Then there's this:
Still, there are some things Trump can do to help kick-start coal production. Earlier this year, Obama put a moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands. Trump could easily reverse this rule through executive action, said Goldston at the NRDC press conference.
Even if environmentalists are ultimately able to block some of Trump's plans, they will still be faced with a larger problem. Obama's climate policies were only a good start - they didn't get us anywhere close to averting catastrophic warming. As Sease pointed out, the accelerating pace of climate change means that the planet can't afford four years of inaction. "Time is not our friend here," she said.
I'm perfectly willing to let free markets determine whether coal makes a comeback, though I'm hoping it does. It's worth highlighting the fact that the Sierra Club opposes natural gas because of fracking.
The point is that environmental activists have an anti-middle class agenda. The Sierra Club and other radical environmental organizations won't hesitate to use litigation to kill the mining industry. It's time conservatives wake up to the fact that these environmental activists are waging war against the middle class.
Posted Saturday, November 26, 2016 8:21 AM
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Exposing the DFL's playbook
On Saturday, I wrote this post about this Mother Jones article . The MJ article quotes Debbie Sease, the senior lobbying and advocacy director at the Sierra Club. Ms. Sease was polite enough to explain how Democrats kill mining and construction jobs. She said that "her organization's strategy lies in playing defense by filing legal challenges, galvanizing the public, and using the marketplace. If a coal field is going to be developed, for example, activists can make it as expensive as possible to comply with existing regulations and force the developer to deal with a public backlash."
Ms. Sease apparently didn't pay attention to the election. In battleground state after battleground state, voters rejected environmental activists. They turned the formerly blue states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania into purple states. The only backlash in sight is against the Sierra Club and other like-minded organizations. Thoughts that there will be a pro-Sierra Club backlash is wishful thinking.
Ms. Pease then noted that there were other weapons available to environmental activists:
Additional tools environmentalists can use include citizen lawsuits, grassroots organizing, and ballot measures at the state and local level focusing on everything from renewable energy standards to green transportation initiatives.
If you're thinking that this sound like the DFL's script for killing PolyMet and the Sandpiper Pipeline project, that's because it's the script that the DFL followed in attempting to kill PolyMet and the Sandpiper Pipeline project. That's why the DFL constantly fights for additional layers of bureaucracy. They use those additional layers to petition government to kill projects with 1,000 paper cuts.
If
you think I'm exaggerating, I'm not. Paul Aasen admitted it in an op-ed published 8 years ago. I wrote this post to highlight the quotes from Paul Aasen:
Along with our allies at the Izaak Walton League of America, the Union of Concerned Scientists and Wind on the Wires, the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy and Fresh Energy argued, first in South Dakota, then before the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC), that the new plant was a bad idea. Our message was simple: The utilities had not proven the need for the energy, and what energy they did need could be acquired less expensively through energy efficiency and wind.
We kept losing, but a funny thing happened. With each passing year, it became clearer that we were right. In 2007, two of the Minnesota utilities dropped out, citing some of the same points we had been making. The remaining utilities had to go through the process again with a scaled-down 580-megawatt plant.
This time around, the administrative law judge ruled in our favor, saying the utilities had proven the need for, at most, 160 megawatts and had failed to prove that coal would be the least expensive way of providing the electricity. The Minnesota PUC approved the transmission lines into Minnesota, and we filed an appeal that is pending with the Minnesota Court of Appeals.
That's what attrition looks like. That's why I titled the post "Attrition, not litigation." At the time that this op-ed was written, Aasen was the executive director of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy. MCEA's goal was to force investors to spend millions of dollars in court. That's how they make cheap energy sources expensive. That's why everyone's electric bills keep getting bigger.
Posted Monday, November 28, 2016 6:33 AM
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20,000,000 Americans, Part I
The minute that Donald Trump and the Republicans set their sights on repealing the ACA, the Democratic fearmongering machine jumped into operation. This morning, the NY Daily News published this op-ed written by ACA architect Jonathan Gruber.
The opening paragraph of Dr. Gruber's op-ed says "The Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, has provided security for millions of Americans who used to live in fear of being unable to cover their medical expenses. Twenty million Americans have gained insurance coverage, and millions more would be covered if recalcitrant states had fully embraced the law rather than resisting out of pure partisan politics."
It's time to explode that myth.
Here in Minnesota, families are considering the option of not buying health insurance because their premiums plus deductibles would exceed $50,000 this year. They're considering this option because their premiums alone will be $40,000 in 2017 . The myth that Dr. Gruber is propagating is that the Affordable Care Act is affordable. It isn't affordable. It's anything but affordable. It's a rip-off.
Betsy McCaughey's article explains why the 20,000,000 figure is the crown jewel of the left's fearmongering. In her op-ed, she wrote "Will 20 million lose coverage? Not even close. Sixteen million of those who gained coverage are enrolled in Medicaid, the public program for low-income residents. Obamacare allowed states to expand who could sign up for Medicaid, with the federal government covering the tab. Repeal could result in less federal funding. But no one is pushing to abolish the nation's health safety net. And states that just expanded Medicaid are unlikely to do a 180 and shrink it. The 16 million are likely safe."
Now that that myth has been exploded, it's time to understand that replacing the ACA gives people the opportunity to replace it with something better. Minnesota's high risk pool helped people with pre-existing conditions get affordable health care. There's no reason for states not to implement high risk pools.
Then Dr. Gruber's demagoguery shined through:
To do so, the ACA set up a "three legged stool": banning discrimination by insurance companies; creating an individual mandate to bring the healthy into the insurance pool; and providing subsidies to make health insurance affordable.
The problem Republicans face is that the first leg is highly popular, the second leg is unpopular, and the third leg involves federal spending which the Republicans would rather direct to tax cuts for the wealthy.
High risk pools essentially end insurance companies denying people with pre-existing conditions coverage, thus eliminating that part of Dr. Gruber's argument. The individual mandate hasn't worked. Young people are paying the penalty rather than buying insurance policies they can't afford. As for the part about "Republicans would rather direct to tax cuts for the wealthy", that isn't worth responding to other than saying that it's a contemptible statement that isn't based in anything other than fearmongering.
There's more myth-busting to come in Part II. Check back for that later today. Think of it as McCaughey vs. Gruber, Round 2:
Posted Monday, November 28, 2016 7:36 AM
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Bipartisanship litmus test
After Donald Trump's victory, there's been a noticeable outbreak of bipartisanship from red-state Democratic senators .
For instance, "North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) is ready to work with Republicans on legislation to invest in 'clean coal' technologies. More broadly, she says she's willing to work across the aisle on regulatory reform. 'My priority is standing up for North Dakota, not party politics. The reason I'm in the U.S. Senate is to work with Republicans and Democrats to get things done,' she told The Hill in a statement."
Meanwhile, "Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) hopes to work with Republicans to reduce the deficit, clean up Washington by stopping former lawmakers from becoming lobbyists and passing legislation to improve service at the Department of Veterans Affairs, a major Trump talking point during the campaign."
Before you think the Democratic Party has changed into a principled political party, don't. There's an explanation for their sudden 'appreciation' for bipartisanship:
While outgoing Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) didn't want Democrats to work with vulnerable Republicans ahead of the 2016 elections, his heir apparent Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is signaling a willingness to let his members do what they need to do to survive in the next Congress.
TRANSLATION: Sen. Schumer has seen the 2018 electoral map. It frightens him. He's willing to momentarily retreat if it'll prevent a bloodbath for Senate Democrats.
The thing for Republicans to highlight is whether this cooperation leads to bills getting to President Trump's desk for his signature. If Sen. Tester works with President Trump on the deficit but doesn't work with Sen. Heitkamp on regulatory reform and on repealing Obamacare, then we know that Democrats are playing procedural games.
The litmus test for Republicans should be whether Democrats will work with President Trump on Obamacare's replacement. If there aren't blocks of Democrats willing to repeal and replace the ACA, then it'll be clear that Democrats aren't really interested in productive bipartisanship.
Posted Monday, November 28, 2016 8:56 AM
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20,000,000 Americans, Part II
In Part I , I wrote that Jonathan Gruber was fearmongering by insisting that 20,000,000 Americans would lose their health insurance if the ACA was repealed. Specifically, Dr. Gruber said "Twenty million Americans have gained insurance coverage, and millions more would be covered if recalcitrant states had fully embraced the law rather than resisting out of pure partisan politics."
Betsy McCaughey disputes the notion that 20,000,000 people would lose their health insurance if the ACA was repealed in this op-ed . She explained " Sixteen million of those who gained coverage are enrolled in Medicaid , the public program for low-income residents. Obamacare allowed states to expand who could sign up for Medicaid, with the federal government covering the tab. Repeal could result in less federal funding. But no one is pushing to abolish the nation's health safety net. And states that just expanded Medicaid are unlikely to do a 180 and shrink it. The 16 million are likely safe."
Now that that myth is debunked, it's time to disprove other claims Dr. Gruber made. For instance, he said this:
Republicans would like to pretend that they can therefore preserve the first leg while getting rid of the other two, as witnessed by Trump's recent statements praising the insurance protections in the law. But this cannot be done. If you tell insurance companies that they can't discriminate and allow individuals to wait until they are sick to buy insurance, then insurance companies will lose money. Insurers will rightly be afraid that individuals will wait until they are sick to show up to buy insurance, and as a result insurers will either exit the market or charge very high prices to protect themselves.
Actually, Republicans don't have to go that direction. Minnesota's high risk pool prevented Dr. Gruber's scenario. Rather than implementing a mandate, Minnesota simply subsidized people with pre-existing conditions when they bought health insurance. The insurance companies got paid and they didn't have to worry about Dr. Gruber's scenario.
McCaughey asks and answers another important question:
Will people with pre-existing conditions lose out?
No. All the GOP replacement plans protect them but not through the cynical, coercive scheme that Obamacare used.
Obama forced two groups of people into the same insurance pool: the healthy and the chronically ill. Healthy people would pay premiums but never meet their sky high deductibles. Instead, their premiums would foot huge medical bills for the chronically ill, who consume 10 times as much medical care. Healthy people saw it was a scam. They refused to sign up, despite the penalty.
Obamacare architect Ezekiel Emanuel says forcing the healthy to enroll is essential.
Sorry. There's a fairer way. Trump would allow insurers to charge ill people more then subsidize these 'high risk' customers with taxpayer dollars. That spreads the cost fairly over the whole population, instead of burdening people in the individual market.
Voila, premiums and deductibles will drop fast for people in the individual market.
This is the key:
Healthy people would pay premiums but never meet their sky high deductibles. Instead, their premiums would foot huge medical bills for the chronically ill, who consume 10 times as much medical care. Healthy people saw it was a scam. They refused to sign up, despite the penalty.
The architects of the ACA are scrambling to protect their 'accomplishment' rather than considering doing what's right. The important point in this is asking a simple question: why should we trust the people who told us that we could keep our plans and our doctors if we liked them? They've lied before. It's foolish to think that they suddenly became honest now that they're leaving office.
Posted Monday, November 28, 2016 11:58 AM
Comment 1 by MtkaMoose at 28-Nov-16 11:35 PM
Hey Gary - why do keep calling him Dr. Gruber. If the AP style guide doesn't call anyone not in the medical profession "doctor", I don't think you should either. This is nearly as gratuitous as calling every school superintendent "doctor."
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 28-Nov-16 11:50 PM
I don't put much credence in the AP style guide. Anyone who's earned a PH.D has earned the title of Doctor.
