Rash

The mindless media has decreed that healthcare reform was the reason that Democrats won the House of Representatives in 2018. Balderdash! It was the Mueller investigation into Republican collusion with Russia in order to get Trump elected in 2016. This sham probe sullied the GOP enough to flip 31 House seats in districts that Trump had previously carried ... 41 in total.

Now the voters in these districts have learned that Mueller was merely a dotty figurehead in a huge Democrat hoax ... and many will also understand that Trump’s laughable impeachment is nothing more than Mueller warmed over — just another attempt to smear Republicans enough that Trump will not win against Biden. This is all a donkey wet dream.

Voters are often politically naive but not that naive. The Republicans will not only win back the vast majority of the House seats that they lost in 2018, but they will carry many more ... to easily take back the House ... expand their lead in the Senate ... and the Orangeman may even win the popular vote.

I realize that these are rather rash predictions a year out from the actual election ... but this rash is itchy and I am compelled to scratch it.

Save Us!

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio

Politicians’ ability to talk a good game is too often inversely proportional to their performance in office. A case in point:

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City went on Tucker Carlson’s show last night to try to resurrect his presidential campaign by warning of how so many people will be thrown out of work by the growth of automation. Like a typical politician, de Blasio had only tepid suggestions on how to counteract this trope. And he had no real answer when Tucker asked, if so many jobs are soon going to disappear, why we are letting so many low-skilled workers enter our country illegally every year?

Now, calling de Blasio an idiot is easy, but somehow experience tells us that this constructed panic over robots taking our jobs is not the lesson we should be taking from history. Robots have been around for 65 years, yet despite this, we have foolishly exported millions of jobs to Mexico and China. Still, the United States unemployment is near the lowest in history ... 3.7%. And this low rate would be even lower if Trump could persuade US manufacturers to return home.

Precisely what will occur to take up the possible employment slack due to automation I can’t exactly predict. But I am fairly certain that accommodations will occur — work week changes, work day duration reductions, more people working from home, service expectation changes. e.g.s, package delivery services, Uber, better healthcare services, leisure-time services, Grubhub, etc,) ... all of which improve our quality of life ... while providing jobs.

So, Mayor de Blasio, I  doubt that your hail-Mary pass will save your campaign and your attempt to ruin the United States like you are ruining the Big Apple.

Makes Sense

From Powerline blog

Single-Payer

“If you think healthcare is expensive now, just wait until it’s free.” — P.J. O’Rourke

Most Democrat candidates for president have endorsed “Medicare for All” ... or a nice way of saying socialized medicine. Candidates like Bernie Sanders have had some success in selling this enticing concept to his adoring audiences because:

- In it’s extreme form, it will eliminate monthly premium payments, possibly co-pays, annual limits, and the need for supplemental private insurance. Obviously, this furthest left version may not be what is proposed by all the Democrat candidates ... for, as we know, we are the frogs in the pot of water as it is being slowly heated up on the Socialist gas burner.

- Or course, Obamacare will disappear like the Cheshire Cat, but it’s smile ... no preexisting conditions exclusions and children covered until age 26 ... may remain.

- Drugs will be free or priced low like they are in Europe and  Canada.

However, even in its less-than-extreme version, Medicare for All will mean that retirees will be faced with severely deteriorating medical treatments ... long wait times for appointments, more impersonal medical visits, triage based on age to determine whether treatments will be even offered for many serious illnesses (better known as death panels) ... and likely severe doctor shortages. In other words, our healthcare experience will be very much like what is received today by indigents in hospital emergency rooms.

Of course, the bad news is, in its extreme form, Medicare for All will eliminate the private healthcare insurance industry, worth close to half a trillion dollars ... and the concomitant hit to many citizens’ retirement accounts. This would be essentially an enormous capital confiscation on the part of the federal government. The worse news will be that this public program will cost taxpayers $30 trillion over 10 years. Will taxes then have to go up immensely to pay for this largess? You betcha Red Ryder!

When liberals push socialized medicine they often laud England’s National Health Service. What they neglect to say is that over 11% of Brits have private health insurance or medical concierge services ... so they can avoid  the horrors of socialized medicine. And, of course Mick Jagger chose to get his heart surgery in the United States rather than some moldy hospital in Londonstan.

But, most depressing of all, tens of millions of people, who never paid a nickle into Medicare, will be getting exactly the same diminished medical care as we saps who have been paying mucho dinero into this program ... and supplements ... for many decades. Seems fair to me ...

Headlines

McConnell to Trump: Healthcare’s all yours

Mnuchin says US-China trade talks were ‘constructive’

USA projected to add 1.5 million illegal aliens this year ...

Exclusive — Devin Nunez sending criminal referral to DOJ over Spygate

Trump tests post-Mueller vengeance campaign

Huawei: US has a ‘loser’s attitude’ and is trying to smear the company because it can’t compete

GDP revised down to 2.2% in fourth quarter ...

Comey: ‘Good’ that evidence doesn’t establish Americans conspiring

Watchdog report critiques DEA report Barr approved 27 years ago

London house prices see their biggest drop in 10 years as Brexit fears bite

Smollett nominated for NCAA Image lAwaed ...

S. Korean leader to meet with Trump in US on nuclear diplomacy

Modern Fables

Socialism works, it just hasn’t been done right yet

Trillion dollar federal deficits don’t matter

Human fetuses aren’t people

The planet has a fever

Women are not treated as equal with men

The Clinton Foundation does much important charitable work

All religions are moral and upright

Free healthcare and child care are human rights

NYT: ‘All the news that is fit to print’

Trump colluded with Russia to win in 2016

Food allergies are rampant

Everyone should go to college

Wisdom comes best from our youth

Solar and wind energy can replace fossil fuels within 12 years

Lilliput

"It's a small world after all."

The Graham-Cassidy healthcare bill met my requirement for passage -- the healthcare insurance companies didn't like it. This meant that they were hit in the pocketbook which then meant that, overall, healthcare costs might go down. So what happened in our country of small people, which I now call Lilliput? Why, a prominant Lilliputian, John McCain, said he was voting "no" (out of spite) which probably kills things.

The king of Lilliput, Donald Trump is calling that North Korean dough boy, Kim Jong Un, names. And this pastry midget is taunting Trump back.

It is difficult to find one world politician these days acting like a grownup ... including that woman who lost the last US presidential election. The entire Democrat party and most of the media are throwing spitballs at their president ... and staying awake nights inventing new insults for him. And he, of course, returns the favors on Twitter. Everything is petty and small. No one is acting the statesman. Even our next generation, the snowflakes, melt at the slightest dog-whistle insult.

We are a nation of little people ... a world of little people ... Lilliputians.

Man of Action

(Yes, a bit of hyperbole ...)

The contrast is striking. Donald Trump is still almost two months away from assuming the reins of government ... yet he is already turning things around for his country. His cabinet is taking shape with mostly high quality selections. His policies on taxes, healthcare, regulations, trade, terrorism, immigration, etc. are emerging out of the campaign fog ... and generally are solid. His potential conflicts of interest are being resolved and he seems to have had a beneficial persuasive effect on many foreign leaders. And he even has convinced some American companies to not move manufacturing out of this country. All good.

Trump's actions all seem to be directed by patriotism and for the benefit of America. The contrast is that our current president's actions ... when he got around to performing them ... seemed mostly directed by ideology and even personal benefit. Yes, he used the shibboleth "leading from behind" to justify most of his lassitude ... but the fear of the unknown kept him on vacation, on the golf course and away from real meaningful work about solving our problems that needed to be resolved.

Yes, early on Obummer frequently held show forums where photo ops seemed to be the primary objective. Remember almost a trillion dollars spent on "shovel-ready jobs" that turned out to be a sham ... which he later joked about? And he had willing allies in Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi who created a constipated legislative process and effectively blamed it on the Republicans. Their showpiece legislation, Obamacare, was passed without a trace of bipartisan support ... with predictable catastrophic results both policy-wise and operationally. The legacy of our current president is so fetid that recounting it is a dyspeptic experience. His eight years can be compared to a garbage scow constantly leaking its contents in its briny wake.

Yes, Trump will make errors during his term ... but it will be as a result of action not inaction ... and as a result of patriotism, not fuzzy-headed Alinsky dogma.

Inflation

The New York Times recently published an article which included a very interesting 9-year comparison of the rates of inflation in various sectors of the U.S economy. It is very revealing as seen below (click on image to enlarge it):

If you wish to read the source article , go to: New York Times Story.  Now, it doesn't take anyone too clever to notice something in this chart ... the primary inflation drivers in our economy are higher education, health care, and child day-care. All other items are nearly flat or declining. And, surprise ... surprise, these three items are all subsidized by the federal government ... either through entitlements, tax credits, or student loans.  These other better-behaving sectors are all under the control of the private sector.

So, dear reader, what does this tell us as the tentacle's of our ever expanding government as it is reaching further and further into our private lives? (And our fearless leader said that Obamacare was going to bend the health-care cost curve down.) You guessed it ... we will be hosed ... and good ... by more Democrat governance. Please remember this lesson when you vote this coming November.

Tip of the hat to Joe Asche from Dartblog.

The Liberal Vortex

You sense that something is seriously wrong … most things seem to be out of sorts. You are worried about having enough money to pay your bills, whether your job is secure, how to prepare this year’s tax returns, more global warming, the meagerness of your life savings, what happens if you get seriously sick, and for the safety of your neighborhood. The only thing that relieves this angst is when you watch the nightly news and see President Obama assuring you … against a backdrop of nodding and applauding Americans … that he has your back. He sounds so confident.  He will crush those rascally Republicans and make sure that all of your worries are dealt with by his folks.

Suddenly all your troubles seem far away as you tuck in for the night … until you see the news the next morning and things have gotten worse. The United States is losing on the world stage and many countries are laughing at us. The economy sucks and our national debt seems to be skyrocketing … people are dropping out of the workforce in droves … and no one is proposing a serious cure. Random violence seems to be spreading on our streets and many of our cities are facing bankruptcy. So you fret and sweat through another day … waiting for your President to reassure you on nightly TV that things are getting better. His dulcet tones do it once again as he proposes two new government programs to fix things ... for just a small increase in taxes.  And you feel better anew.

This scenario is repeated daily for five years and, by now, you have gotten use to these mood swings.  In fact you have learned to enjoy them … and love that man who brings up your disposition every day. Finally, in resignation, you turn to the government to solve all your problems … to provide your housing … to feed your children … to entertain you … to give you healthcare and birth control … to insure your retirement … and to satisfy all your other wants.  But be careful … for you have been sucked into the Liberal vortex … and there is no escape. You have sold your soul and you must worship those who now nurture you.

Small price to pay.

Predictions for 2014

Every year-end a group of friends make five predictions for the ensuing year.  Last year the only prediction of mine that came true was that China would annex territory ... which it has ... laying claim to many islands that were previously part of Japan. Needless to say, I didn't win. This year I will not preview my five primary predictions as this would spoil our New Year's Eve game. But here are my secondary predictions that don't count toward winning this contest:

-        U.S. stock market will NOT advance by year end

-        Massive student loan meltdown … taxpayer bailout

-        Massive healthcare meltdown … taxpayer bailout

-        More big government by Obama fiat

-        Russia effectively annexes Ukraine … goes for others

-        Impeachment process begins for Obama

-        Inflation up more than 4%