Minnesota Republicans Plan To Clean Up Health Care

Republican plan upends Minnesota health care

programs

Senator goes beyond proposal in House and rejects federal law

By Dave Orrick
dorrick@pioneerpress.com

 

Disparate philosophies on how to spend taxpayer money on health care collided at the Minnesota Capitol on Wednesday, as a key Senate Republican unveiled a proposal that challenges the status quo more aggressively than his House counterparts, including refusing to comply with federal health care law.

Meanwhile, DFL Gov. Mark Dayton’s health and finance commissioners criticized the House plan as “untenable,” and Dayton signed an executive order targeting HMOs — a move that Republicans have made rumblings about but so far have avoided.

That all this came on the one-year anniversary of President Barack Obama signing into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was mostly a coincidence of Minnesota Republicans’ legislative timetable.

But it highlighted starkly contrasting views of how Minnesota should care for its poorest and most vulnerable residents while trying to plug a $5 billion hole in its two-year budget.

“It’s our money. I don’t know why the people in Washington think they know how we need to spend our taxpayers’ money,” said Sen. David Hann, R-Eden Prairie, who on Wednesday introduced his plan that serves as the basis for the Senate’s omnibus health and human services spending bill.

It includes a provision for the state to cease spending on implementing the federal health care law until and unless it is declared constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Hann chairs the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.

Hann’sbill, which is premised on a waiver from the federal government because it would violate current Medicaid coverage, would cut $1.6 billion over the next two years from the state’s general fund for state-funded programs used by some 800,000 Minnesotans.

That’s twice the level of cuts proposed by Dayton but to some appears to go more than twice as deep.

“Shocked. That’s my reaction,” said Lawrence Massa, president of the Minnesota Hospital Association. “Really, it rolls back coverage for so many Minnesotans and undoes health care policy of the last 50 years that I think has been helpful.”

Hann’s proposal expands on several health care changes and cuts proposed by him and other Republicans.

“It’s an effort to bring some substantial reform to health care in Minnesota,” he said as he prepared to walk committee members through his plan. “And we believe there is a need to question the federal role in health care.”

Hann’s proposal seeks sweeping changes to Medical Assistance, the state’s version of Medicaid, as well as MinnesotaCare, a program that provides medical coverage for residents above the federal poverty line. More than 100,000 residents would be affected.

In a move that Hann said “presumes individual responsibility,” adults without children would be dropped from Medical Assistance in lieu of a new approach. The change, which Hann said would save $934 million over two years, would affect individuals earning $14,484 a year or less. Legal non-U.S. citizens would also be cut off from Medical Assistance, saving some $20.6 million.

Hann’s bill proposes a new program, “Healthy Minnesota,” which forces families earning more than 75 percent of the federal poverty level to be dropped from state-run health care. For a family of four, 75 percent of the federal poverty level is currently $16,763.

For adults without children and families dropped from state-run health care, they would be given a voucher toward the purchase of insurance on the private market, which Hann has said costs less and is more efficient than government-run programs. The amount of the voucher would depend on age and income.

But critics say such people are unlikely to find insurance on the private market without a high deductible, and the end result will be emergency room visits that will never be paid for, resulting in the rest of society paying for their care in the end.

Hann’s restrictions would also eliminate Minnesota’s early participation in a massive Medicaid expansion under the federal health care overhaul. Dayton signed Minnesota onto the expansion with much fanfare on his first day in office, and he has said he would veto any plan that undoes it.

State Reps. Jim Abeler and Steve Gottwalt, who chair the House’s two health and human services committees, had also proposed reducing spending by $1.6 billion from projected levels — the target set by Republican leaders. (Both the House and Senate plans increase spending from current levels but “cut” significantly from what the state has forecast it will need to spend to keep up with inflation and an aging population.)

But Abeler, who introduced the House bill last week, stopped short of attempting to undo the early Medicaid expansion or wade into the tumultuous waters of the federal health care law.

When asked about it last week, both men described such measures as “distractions” to the primary task of providing reliable care amid the state’s budget pressures.

Abeler’s bill took a different tack at trying to cut spending, relying on a number of reforms that don’t trim the numbers of people on public programs but rather freeze or reduce spending on them.

But that hasn’t spared Abeler’s bill from criticism.

On Wednesday, for example, a parade of stakeholders testified on the bill, ranging from the Minneapolis-based Welfare Rights Committee to the Minnesota Medical Association. While some praised portions of the plan, many had strong criticisms.

Like Hann’s plan in the Senate, huge portions of Abeler’s plan presume the federal government would grant a waiver because it seeks to cut funding in ways that aren’t consistent with current Medicaid policy.

Republicans have pointed to a waiver granted to Rhode Island as a model for finding savings with the blessings of the federal government, but a study from a Washington think tank says the claim is “off the mark.”

“Those who tout the Rhode Island waiver as a model for other states have also exaggerated the state savings that Rhode Island secured under the waiver,” according to an article co-authored by Judith Solomon, vice president for health policy at the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Extra cash from the federal stimulus plan buoyed Rhode Island’s program, allowing the state to spend less, but not actually reducing taxpayer costs.

On Wednesday, two of Dayton’s commissioners let it be known the administration isn’t on board with seeking a federal waiver and has serious questions about Abeler’s financial assumptions.

“Passing legislation without a real understanding of the fiscal details related to such an enormous portion of spending puts the fiscal stability of our state in serious jeopardy,” wrote Health and Human Services Commissioner Lucinda Jesson and Management and Budget Commissioner James Schowalter in a letter to Abeler.

Abeler defended his proposal’s figures, saying they were based on sound estimates under tight time constraints.

Neither Abeler’s nor Hann’s bill targets something that some Republicans and Democrats have urged going after: health maintenance organizations.

On Wednesday, Dayton went after them on his own.

The nonprofit health plans are paid by the state in no-bid contracts to manage benefits for more than 500,000 Minnesotans in public health insurance programs. While HMOs have reported losses in some years, in 2009 they saw $108.1 million in profits and are currently sitting on $1.36 billion in surplus cash.

Dayton put an end to the no-bid contracts, announcing he would establish proposals in a competitive process. Additionally, he signed an executive order requiring that HMOs provide data to the state for regular financial audits to increase transparency on the roughly $3 billion a year the state spends.

Well aware of the target that’s been hovering around them for months at the Capitol, the HMOs responded with a diplomatic statement that praised Dayton before quietly raising concerns.

“We hope that his order today doesn’t just add another report, but streamlines the process so that the information policy makers and the public should have is in a single place and is understandable,” said Julie Brunner, executive director of the Minnesota Council of Health Plans.

Some Good Words for David Horowitz

The following article was written by Scott W. Johnson at PowerLine.   Strangely the title is “David Horowitz Presents”, but the article centers mostly on Stanley Kurtz.

Scott writes:  “I’ve known David Horowitz for more than 20 years, from the time he came through town with Peter Collier talking about their invaluable book Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties. As Jay Nordlinger has written, David was a leader of the New Left who became a leader of the fighting Reaganite Right: “He is a thinker and a doer, an intellectual and an activist. His mind ranges widely, and so do his books. He has written about politics and policy, of course. But he has also written about matters literary, cultural, and spiritual.” He remains a prolific writer and voluble observer.

Jay Nordlinger has dubbed David an MVP of American conservatism. Because he comes from the Left, according to Jay, he is exceptionally tough, and cannot be intimidated by his erstwhile brothers-in-arms — particularly on race (about which most intimidation is done). He is battle-hardened, he knows the relevant language, and he is not afraid. Hence he is an MVP.

Yesterday David was in town on his way to give a talk at the College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University in St. Cloud, Minnesota. We had lunch and spoke at length. As David discussed Stanley Kurtz’s recent presentation to David’s Wednesday Morning Club in Los Angeles, it occurred to me that a series of posts featuring matters of interest to David — either from his own work or the work of others — might be of interest to Power Line readers.

As it happens, Kurtz’s presentation is available online, along with David’s introduction, the questions and answers following Kurtz’s presentation, and David’s parting comments. Each is posted here as a separate video.

In his remarks Kurtz gives an overview of the results of his research for Radical-in-Chief: The Untold Story of American Socialism. This is the most effective presentation of Kurtz’s views that I have seen. It is both timely (listen to Kurtz’s remarks on foreign policy toward the end of his presentation and compare them with Steve Hayward’s post above) and well worth your time.

At his blog, David wrote about Kurtz’s book: “This indispensable work contains a wealth of previously unpublished research and tells the hitherto missing story of the activists who supported America’s Communist enemies in the Sixties and attempted to ‘bring the war home’ through violence in the streets, and who learned through their defeats to pursue the same destructive agendas through stealth and infiltration, and have emerged behind Obama as the dominant force in the Democratic Party.” They are Obama’s mentors.

Kurtz is a scholar who holds a Ph.D. in social anthropology and a fellowship at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC. He is a serious man. If a comparable man of the left had spent a couple of years in the archives to produce a substantial book disclosing the fascist roots and beliefs of George W. Bush, the New York Times would have run a page-one story publicizing the author’s findings. The New York Times Book Review would have run a page-one review promoting the book. The New York Times Style section would have profiled the doings of the author. The man would be a celebrity.

The Times being what it is, of course, it hasn’t even bothered to take issue with Kurtz’s book. Kurtz remains a conservative pundit probably best known to faithful readers of NRO. The Times and other prominent organs of the left have simply ignored Kurtz and his book, but, as David Horowitz suggests, conservatives should attend to him.”

Comments:   I don’t want to contradict Ronald Reagan, but  David Horowitz  must have been  born a Communist.   It must have been passed into him via the umbilical cord.

 Without certain events in his life he would have remained one and would be listed as one of the Great Jewish Leftwing Satans  of our day adding much fuel to the aboriginal fires Marxists set whereever Marxists roam.   During my own studies 40 and 50 years ago I’d pick up his wordy diatribes against the good old USA.  Although I was somewhat Lefty in those days,  after all, what else could one be while  majoring  in Soviet Studies, but I was never, never persuaded by anything remotely close to “Soviet”.    

Horowitz was a popular writer among the college extreme left of the day, so his articles made the college press quite often.   I went into public education and lost contact with his writings for a year, two or three.    Then I picked up an article with his bi-line advertised and expected the same hard line language Soviet-like attacks on Americans in the public arena.   I wish I could remember the topic, but it doesn’t really matter.   Marxists use the same language, make the same assumptions, cite the same heroes and goats, mostly lies, whereever and whenever they write. 

I was stunned.   These were late Vietnam War days.  I’m reading his article, and shock of shocks,  he was ‘soft’ on Uncle Sam.   I was more than stunned.  I was certain this David Horowitz could not be that Horowitz from Moscow-West, I had read for so many years.   I had to move on, but I now thought there must be two David Horowitzes.  How odd!   

A couple months later I picked up a sheet, some kind of socialist this or that, to snoop through and I came across a hate piece against David Horowitz…….The man, the one David Horowitz  had truly become a Patriot and was taking his lumps from these truly intellectually ugly people.     I  admired the courage it must have taken to abandon such a powerful world of hate and intolerance, having been a contributor  for so many years…..the extremism from these devotees is profound and complete no matter in what generation it is expressed.

I am a devoted Dennis Prager fan.   Dennis can lay claim to the conversions of countless tens of thousands of unthinking Americans to think about  or begin to think about the wonderful cultural values we Americans are losing.

But,  I can’t think of any American who has been so vital in today’s  free speech movement’s battles   to restore the conversations of conservative thoughtfulness banned for years on  the American university campus  than David Horowitz.    It has been a rough  fight and has not yet been won.   Marxists are meaner these days and there are more of them.   Some believe a Marxist, a gentle appearing one, is in the White House.

 Everyone at college  today,   as in my days long ago, is expected to become a socialist.   In our days of Barack Hussein Obama, there are other great expectations held by  the other major enemy  of  modern democracy, Militant Islam and its primitive Sharia Law shackles it carries for you and me.    David has had to fight both of these tyrannies on university campuses.

Scott writes well of Stanley  Kurtz and cites him as a conservative.   I confess I do not read him much because the few time I have, some time ago, I couldn’t find any reason to consider him as an exceptional  representative of something….something good or foul…..my usual suspects.   I will seek him out to read more, for if the fellows at PowerLine like Stanley  Kurtz, there must be something about him to appreciate.   ghr

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Syria Faces Rebellion…..Could We Be So Lucky To See It Succeed?

Protests against the Assad government have erupted across Syria, with the southern city of Dara’a apparently the main center. Pro-government demonstrations have taken place as well, especially in Damascus. Security forces have shot a number of demonstrators in Dara’a, as this dramatic video shows:

There are more videos here and here.

The Assad regime is a client of Iran, and Michael Ledeen passes on a report from the Reform Party of Syria that suggests Iranian security personnel may have entered the fray:

An eyewitness on BBC Arabic said that armed units speaking only Farsi descended upon Dara’a. They have smothered the walls of the al-Omari Mosque with their graffiti but several of them were captured. Another witness, Omar al-Masri, said that snipers took positions on rooftops and started shooting. He said Syrians converged in large numbers upon the rooftops and five snipers were captured. Al-Masri, confirmed the other eyewitness, and said that non-Syrians wearing all black were captured in al-Omari Mosque. They spoke only Farsi. The same eyewitness said that 25 Syrians are known to have died today in Dara’a and that many security people have resigned their positions in As-Sanamyn and Inkhil.

The current unrest across the Arab world has much potential for both good and ill. The administration’s principal response so far, the bombing campaign in Libya, appears random and half-hearted and is unlikely to have any effect on the more significant events occurring elsewhere.

Article was written by John Hinderaker  from PowerLine.

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Obamagraft in Action……Specials for GE

Obama’s favorite CEO gets GE out from paying

any US  taxes

 

by Ed Morrissey at Hot Air

   

“What a coincidence!  I’m sure that GE’s ability to generate $14.2 billion in profits, $5.1 billion in the US, and end up getting back $3.2 billion from taxpayers has nothing at all to do with its political connections and favorable tax breaks and loopholes it has pushed through Congress.  Oh, wait:

A review of company filings and Congressional records shows that one of the most striking advantages of General Electric is its ability to lobby for, win and take advantage of tax breaks.

Over the last decade, G.E. has spent tens of millions of dollars to push for changes in tax law, from more generous depreciation schedules on jet engines to “green energy” credits for its wind turbines. But the most lucrative of these measures allows G.E. to operate a vast leasing and lending business abroad with profits that face little foreign taxes and no American taxes as long as the money remains overseas.

Company officials say that these measures are necessary for G.E. to compete against global rivals and that they are acting as responsible citizens. “G.E. is committed to acting with integrity in relation to our tax obligations,” said Anne Eisele, a spokeswoman. “We are committed to complying with tax rules and paying all legally obliged taxes. At the same time, we have a responsibility to our shareholders to legally minimize our costs.”

The assortment of tax breaks G.E. has won in Washington has provided a significant short-term gain for the company’s executives and shareholders. While the financial crisis led G.E. to post a loss in the United States in 2009, regulatory filings show that in the last five years, G.E. has accumulated $26 billion in American profits, and received a net tax benefit from the I.R.S. of $4.1 billion.

But critics say the use of so many shelters amounts to corporate welfare, allowing G.E. not just to avoid taxes on profitable overseas lending but also to amass tax credits and write-offs that can be used to reduce taxes on billions of dollars of profit from domestic manufacturing. They say that the assertive tax avoidance of multinationals like G.E. not only shortchanges the Treasury, but also harms the economy by discouraging investment and hiring in the United States.

Obama certainly knows how to find talent:

He has designated G.E.’s chief executive, Jeffrey R. Immelt, as his liaison to the business community and as the chairman of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, and it is expected to discuss corporate taxes.

Hey, no one is better prepared to discuss business taxes than the man who has gamed the system so well that his company doesn’t pay any at all.  What’s that old saying — it takes a thief to catch a thief?

This problem started long before Barack Obama came to Washington, or even the Illinois state legislature.  The culprit here is not any one person but both parties, who have created a tax code that I’d call Byzantine, except I don’t want to offend the Byzantines with the comparison.  When we see one company avoid paying any taxes thanks to tax breaks it helped engineer, that means other companies end up losing in the process.  The government doesn’t just structure the code to protect its allies and favored players in markets, it also has to prioritize enforcement, thanks to the impossible task of applying the volumes of tax code to every single entity.

The New York Times’ report treats as ironic the Obama administration’s solution to this issue — lowering the corporate tax rate — but it’s actually the right start.  Not only do we need to lower the corporate rate to make it more competitive in the global market, but we need to rid ourselves of the massive, incomprehensible tax code that allows politicians to curry favor and pick winners and losers in the market.  We need a flat-rate corporate tax that treats GE the same as it does its competitors, and that doesn’t allow Congress to create back-door subsidies and penalties for innovation and market success.  Those reforms should come concurrently with a change to a rational corporate tax rate, not before, after, or in place of.

Does anyone think that Jeffrey Immelt, with his obviously heavy interest in maintaining the status quo, will lead Obama to the kind of reform necessary to make that happen?  Unfortunately in real life, thieves are rarely interested in catching other thieves, let alone themselves.

Note: Because I’m sure I’ll get complaints about it, the use of the term “thief” is rhetorical/symbolic only.  I have absolutely no doubt that Immelt and GE acted completely within the law to avoid paying any taxes.  That’s actually my point.

Marxist Thugs Organize to Threaten Democracy in Canada

If you believe that Wisconsin is the only place in North America where Union thugs are active spreading their attacks on democratic processes, take a look at Canada.   Bureaucrats have long sided to protect antidemocrat Islamists in this north country.   Those   who remember the tribulations of Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn with the attacks on free speech by the Canadian Human Rights Commissions.    Far Leftists, thugs and unions have joined the government to abbreviate further free speech as in this example at Caledonia in Ontario.  Be sure to view the video below:

Far leftists, unions and Islamic terror group supporters work with organized crime in Caledonia.By Eeyore | Published: March 23, 2011

Last night I had the opportunity to interview one of the principle people, as well as attend a lecture and set of videos by many of the residents of the besieged town of Caledonia where I learned a great many disturbing things, just two of which are,

1. The government seems to treat what should be a law enforcement issue, as a “peacekeeping” one. This has disturbing implications.

2. Out of over 3000 bands of aboriginal people, all of whom live in peace with the general population of Canada and with varying degrees of success ,only the ‘Six Nations people’ or Mohawk have allied themselves with international terrorists and use their special status to run organized crime with impunity from the police and state, even, on occasion, with their assistance.

Over the course of the coming week, I will publish as much as I can of the video I shot along with their various materials. For the moment, here is a short segment of last night’s ‘Free Thinking Film Society’ presentation with, among many other people, Gary McHale.

For people interested in more information on the Canadian-Aboriginal connection with international organized crime and Islamic terror, please have a look at the following links:

Please click here to view a very important video showing  a chapter of Union-Marxist action in Canada:

http://vladtepesblog.com/?p=31782

The Totally Coreless Chameleon Called President: Obama

 

Peggy Noonan, however, looks at Obama with this title:  “The Libya Speech Obama Hasn’t Given,” at the Wall Street Journal:

“It all seems rather mad, doesn’t it? The decision to become involved militarily in the Libyan civil war couldn’t take place within a less hospitable context. The U.S. is reeling from spending and deficits, we’re already in two wars, our military has been stretched to the limit, we’re restive at home, and no one, really, sees President Obama as the kind of leader you’d follow over the top. “This way, men!” “No, I think I’ll stay in my trench.” People didn’t hire him to start battles but to end them. They didn’t expect him to open new fronts. Did he not know this?

He has no happy experience as a rallier of public opinion and a leader of great endeavors; the central initiative of his presidency, the one that gave shape to his leadership, health care, is still unpopular and the cause of continued agitation. When he devoted his entire first year to it, he seemed off point and out of touch. This was followed by the BP oil spill, which made him look snakebit. Now he seems incompetent and out of his depth in foreign and military affairs. He is more observed than followed, or perhaps I should say you follow him with your eyes and not your heart. So it’s funny he’d feel free to launch and lead a war, which is what this confused and uncertain military action may become.

What was he thinking? What is he thinking?

Which gets me to Mr. Obama’s speech, the one he hasn’t given. I cannot for the life of me see how an American president can launch a serious military action without a full and formal national address in which he explains to the American people why he is doing what he is doing, why it is right, and why it is very much in the national interest. He referred to his aims in parts of speeches and appearances when he was in South America, but now he’s home. More is needed, more is warranted, and more is deserved. He has to sit at that big desk and explain his thinking, put forward the facts as he sees them, and try to garner public support. He has to make a case for his own actions. It’s what presidents do! And this is particularly important now, because there are reasons to fear the current involvement will either escalate and produce a lengthy conflict or collapse and produce humiliation.

Without a formal and extended statement, the air of weirdness, uncertainty and confusion that surrounds this endeavor will only deepen.

The questions that must be answered actually start with the essentials. What, exactly, are we doing? Why are we doing it? At what point, or after what arguments, did the president decide U.S. military involvement was warranted? Is our objective practical and doable? What is America’s overriding strategic interest? In what way are the actions taken, and to be taken, seeing to those interests?

Matthew Kaminski of the editorial board explains America’s role in the Libyan campaign.

From those questions flow many others. We know who we’re against—Moammar Gadhafi, a bad man who’s done very wicked things. But do we know who we’re for? That is, what does the U.S. government know or think it knows about the composition and motives of the rebel forces we’re attempting to assist? For 42 years, Gadhafi controlled his nation’s tribes, sects and groups through brute force, bribes and blandishments. What will happen when they are no longer kept down? What will happen when they are no longer oppressed? What will they become, and what role will they play in the coming drama? Will their rebellion against Gadhafi degenerate into a dozen separate battles over oil, power and local dominance?

What happens if Gadhafi hangs on? The president has said he wants U.S. involvement to be brief. But what if Gadhafi is fighting on three months from now?

On the other hand, what happens if Gadhafi falls, if he’s deposed in a palace coup or military coup, or is killed, or flees? What exactly do we imagine will take his place?

Supporters of U.S. intervention have argued that if we mean to protect Libya’s civilians, as we have declared, then we must force regime change. But in order to remove Gadhafi, they add, we will need to do many other things. We will need to provide close-in air power. We will probably have to put in special forces teams to work with the rebels, who are largely untrained and ragtag. The Libyan army has tanks and brigades and heavy weapons. The U.S. and the allies will have to provide the rebels training and give them support. They will need antitank missiles and help in coordinating air strikes.

Once Gadhafi is gone, will there be a need for an international peacekeeping force to stabilize the country, to provide a peaceful transition, and to help the post-Gadhafi government restore its infrastructure? Will there be a partition? Will Libyan territory be altered?

None of this sounds like limited and discrete action.

In fact, this may turn out to be true: If Gadhafi survives, the crisis will go on and on. If Gadhafi falls, the crisis will go on and on.

Everyone who supports the Libyan endeavor says they don’t want an occupation. One said the other day, “We’re not looking for a protracted occupation.”

Protracted?

Mr. Obama has apparently set great store in the fact that he was not acting alone, that Britain, France and Italy were eager to move. That’s good—better to work with friends and act in concert. But it doesn’t guarantee anything. A multilateral mistake is still a mistake. So far the allied effort has not been marked by good coordination and communication. If the conflict in Libya drags on, won’t there tend to be more fissures, more tension, less commitment and more confusion as to objectives and command structures? Could the unanticipated results of the Libya action include new strains, even a new estrangement, among the allies?

How might Gadhafi hit out, in revenge, in his presumed last days, against America and the West?

And what, finally, about Congress? Putting aside the past half-century’s argument about declarations of war, doesn’t Congress, as representative of the people, have the obvious authority and responsibility to support the Libyan endeavor, or not, and to authorize funds, or not?

These are all big questions, and there are many other obvious ones. If the Libya endeavor is motivated solely by humanitarian concerns, then why haven’t we acted on those concerns recently in other suffering nations? It’s a rough old world out there, and there’s a lot of suffering. What is our thinking going forward? What are the new rules of the road, if there are new rules? Were we, in Libya, making a preemptive strike against extraordinary suffering—suffering beyond what is inevitable in a civil war?

America has been through a difficult 10 years, and the burden of proof on the need for U.S. action would be with those who supported intervention. Chief among them, of course, is the president, who made the decision as commander in chief. He needs to sit down and tell the American people how this thing can possibly turn out well. He needs to tell them why it isn’t mad.”

LOONY LEFTY, PETER BEINART: “America Doesn’t Matter Anymore!”

Lefty Peter Beinart is perfectly correct  at this moment, March 25, 2011.   Obama’s America doesn’t matter anymore.  Hasn’t the deconstruction of America been  precisely the intended goal of his leftist gangs now led by  President Obama?    Peter Beinart is a poster boy  of those who have  created this Marxist gang in Washington.

 I don’t believe there is a better representative of the Loony Left than  college graduate, college professor, Daily Beast Marxist propagandist, Peter Beinart,  forever young, forever foolish, filled with self esteem…..a clone  adoring of the Peter Beinart clones before him, but empty of a critical thought of the real.

Glib, glibber, and glibbest, Jewish, isolated  Leftwinger since birth, immature  narcissist and errorless in life.  His name could be Gerry Nadler, Charlie Schumer, Paul Krugman,  Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn,  Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug,  Anthony Werner, Bernie Sanders, Al Franken, Abbie Hoffman, George Soros… ad infinitum.   No group in American culture has been more damaging to the nation’s democratic identity than these bigots and their profiles,  Marxist, Jewish, Urban, Atheist…..The cooks mouthing the poisonous recipes for America’s Marxist future.   Being a Lawyer helps flavor the food.

Alan Dershowitz belongs on this list, except  he suffers  a split personality.   He is still American enough to worry  about Israel’s survival.  

Hate for America was assured by birth.  There was no one around to challenge the new religion.

Dear Prager Reader, please do not think ‘small’.   Think of my above statement as an argument on the table for free discussion, rather than my firm understanding as a product of my observations and learnings in my lifetime.

If we didn’t have these Leftwing bigots running much in American politics these days, our democratic training  and resulting practice would have permitted my stated assumption to be examined fairly for its truth or lack of it.  But we are shorn of this freedom due to the product of the Beinart world’s law of the censor, Political Correctness.

One might note an irony here.   With the rotting of America these Beinarts have achieved, they have introduced to our New World another infestation of bloodsuckers to aid in the obliteration of  America’s search for human dignity, the  VILE FANATICS OF MILITANT ISLAM.       Islam and Karl Marx working together with a common goal.  That has to be impressive.   As Lenin explained about a time when he advocated free enterprise, occasionally a ‘step backward is necessary to take two steps forward.”    Islamist and Marxists think much alike and have similar gods.

Dennis Prager has interviewed Peter Beinart on his radio show.   I read Mr. Beinart regularly to learn the Leftwing mouth at Daily Beast.

I happen to agree with Mr. Beinart…..”America Doesn’t Matter Anymore”.   That is what happens when a population has been programmed  by the Peter Beinarts of a culture  that “evil is only a matter of opinion.”

Mr. Beinart writes the following at the Daily Beast, “America doesn’t matter anymore”:

“As Europe takes the lead on the Libyan intervention, it’s a powerful signal of America’s weakening global influence. Peter Beinart on Obama’s Jeffersonian turn—and the end of an empire.

Some commentators love the Libya war; others hate it. But most agree that it’s profoundly unnatural that we were pushed into it by… France. Welcome to the post-American world. In the age we’re entering, most of the time, the choice will no longer be between humanitarian interventions controlled by the United States and humanitarian interventions where other nations take the lead. The choice will be between humanitarian interventions where other nations take the lead and no humanitarian interventions at all.

Noel Celis / Getty Images

A comparison with the 1990s illustrates the point. In the early 1990s, when the former Yugoslavia began breaking up, and Slobodan Milosevic decided to try to put it back together via genocide, the governments of Western Europe insisted that they would handle things. But they couldn’t handle things, partly because of their disunity and military weakness, and partly because they refused—in a clash of civilizations sort of way—to make clear moral distinctions between the murderers and the murdered. In the summer of 1995, when the Clinton administration—after more than two years of deference—forced the Europeans into a humanitarian war against the Serbs, then-Lieutenant General Wesley Clark exulted “The big dog barked today.”

Back then, the big dog was not fighting any other wars. It was unchallenged in East Asia; its economy was beginning to boom and its fiscal problems were melting away. And even then, Americans only supported the Bosnia war, and its kid brother Kosovo, on the condition that no Americans died.

Today, by contrast, America’s fiscal condition is terrifying and the Pentagon is fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, trying to stay out of one with Iran, and keeping one eye on a rising China. I don’t know what it took to convince an obviously reluctant Robert Gates to permit American involvement in the Libyan no-fly zone, but it’s a reasonable bet that had Barack Obama not been able to promise that it would be a mostly European affair, Gates would now be a military analyst on Fox News. It’s not the 1990s anymore. The American public’s appetite for humanitarian war has always been meager. And now the American government’s capacity for waging it is meager, too.

But in a strange twist, Europe’s appetite has grown. The continent’s military capacity is still tiny compared to America’s, and it still lacks unity, but the shame of European inaction in Bosnia lingers in British, French, Italian, and German minds. Overall, Western Europeans remain more dovish than Americans, but when it comes to genocide, the gap narrows. In the U.S., for instance, anti-terrorism is the only rationale that sustains public support for the Afghan War. In Europe, by contrast, the humanitarian argument sells best.

 

Libya is also a Mediterranean country. For France and Italy, it’s the equivalent of Mexico, or at least Guatemala. Economically, geopolitically, and culturally, Europe is also the dominant outside force. European countries, especially Southern European ones, have a lot more to gain, and lose, in Libya than we do, so it’s normal—indeed, healthy—that they’re trying to take the military lead.

Whether they’ll be able to—whether they have the capacity and stomach for what it would take to push Gaddafi from power—is another question. But it’s not surprising that Barack Obama is giving them a chance to try. Obama is what you might call a roundabout Jeffersonian. Jeffersonians, to borrow Walter Russell Mead’s phrase, believe that preserving America’s economic and political solvency requires reining in American empire. Presidents usually become Jeffersonian in times of economic crisis, public exhaustion, and unpopular war. The problem is that Jeffersonianism—which in different ways both Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter embraced as a result of Vietnam—is perilous politics. Retrenchment can look a lot like cynicism, if not defeatism.

The White House’s humanitarian hawks don’t want a Srebrenica on their watch, but they know they need other countries to bear more of the load. Enter Nicolas Sarkozy.

So Obama is trying to do it on the sly, to reduce the costs of American foreign policy without reining in our ambition. In Afghanistan, he’s moving inexorably toward greater reliance on drones—just as Nixon turned to air power in the latter stages of Vietnam—because it’s cheaper in blood and treasure. And he’s trying to burden-share, just as Nixon tried to get regional allies like South Vietnam and the shah’s Iran to do more of the work of containing the USSR. The Libya operation is a good example of this. The White House’s humanitarian hawks don’t want a Srebrenica on their watch, but they know they need other countries to bear more of the load. Enter Nicolas Sarkozy.

Will it work? Beats me. But it’s an illusion to believe we could have done this the old way. One of the crucial questions of our age is whether America’s liberal ideals can flourish despite the decline of American power. Libya will be one of the places we find out.”

Peter Beinart, senior political writer for The Daily Beast, is associate professor of journalism and political science at City University of New York and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation.

“Great civilizations are not murdered.   They commit suicide.”      Arnold Toynbee

Democrat, Union and Marxist Corruption Moves on to the Wisconsin Supreme Court

Wisconsin appellate court punts, says state supreme

court must rule on collective bargaining bill

 by Allahpundit       at HotAir

“Remember, the law’s momentarily in limbo after a trial court judge issued a TRO blocking it on procedural grounds. Today was supposed to be the day the appellate court decided whether to uphold the order or lift it. Which hand would be left holding the hot potato?

Answer: Neither. They’re passing it up the chain.

A state appeals panel said Thursday a case over a new collective bargaining law should go directly to the state Supreme Court.

The move puts the issue squarely before the Supreme Court less than two weeks before Justice David Prosser faces re-election.

It is at the high court’s discretion on whether it takes the case. It is not clear how quickly the court will decide whether to take it and, if it does, how soon it would issue a ruling…

There are two significant issues for the court to address, the decision said. First, the Supreme Court must rule on whether courts can void a law if a committee of the Legislature violates the open meetings law. Second, the high court needs to say whether courts can prevent the secretary of state from publishing a law, thus preventing it from taking effect.

The key issue isn’t whether the legislature can take away collective bargaining from PEUs but rather whether the Republican senate didn’t provide enough advance notice to Democrats before calling the conference committee meeting that led to passage of the CB bill. Normally they’re supposed to announce a meeting 24 hours in advance; they can do it in less time if there’s “good cause” — a standard which, one might argue, would be met in this case given that Democrats had fled the state to avoid voting — but even under that more relaxed standard, they may still have moved too quickly. In theory, the whole problem could be solved by following William Jacobson’s advice and simply re-passing the bill with sufficient notice. Politically, though, it’s problematic: It’ll bring protesters back to the capitol right when things were starting to cool down; it’ll give the fleebaggers a chance to grandstand about the law on the senate floor to energize the left; and it’ll focus the spotlight even more intensely on that supreme court election two weeks from now, which liberals are eyeing as an opportunity to defeat the Republican Prosser and send a message about their strength. If the legislature re-passes the bill with proper procedure, it would render the current court challenge moot and spare Prosser from having to make a tough decision in the heat of a campaign. But by re-passing it, they’ll bring new heat on themselves by tacitly admitting that their first attempt at passing the bill was flawed. And given the political circumstances, they might not be in the mood for new heat.

Take it for what it’s worth, but grassroots Democrats in Wisconsin now say that they’re more than halfway towards getting the signatures they need for recall elections and are openly predicting that they’ll take back the senate. Exit question: Doesn’t that all but force Republicans in the legislature to take Jacobson’s advice and re-pass it? The nightmare scenario here is that they do nothing, the bill remains tied up in court for months, the Democrats win the recall elections, and then the bill is ultimately found unconstitutional on procedural grounds. In which case, with a newly Democratic senate, the GOP wouldn’t be able to re-pass it. Act while you still can.”

Comment:   Keep in mind that the son of the Leftwing bigotted Appelate Judge who halted the legislation is a LEFT WING UNION ORANGIZER in Wisconsin…… 

From an earlier blog, I wrote:   ” Judge Maryann Sumi should have recused herself entirely from the Wisconsin battle due to her inability to be neutral in this case. You see, Maryann Sumi has a clear conflict of interest. Her son is a political operative who also happens to be a former lead field manager with the AFL-CIO and data manager for the SEIU State Council. Both the SEIU and the AFL-CIO have members who are public-sector employees in Wisconsin. In fact, as a federation, the AFL-CIO can boast of several member-unions that represent public-sector employees. Maryann Sumi is hardly an unbiased judge in the matter.

Jacob “Jake” Sinderbrand, Sumi’s son [see page nine here], runs a company called called Left Field Strategies, a firm that works onpolitical campaign”

  Keep in mind that in California a well known GAY judge made the decision to declare the State’s vote against Gay Marriage illegal.

Leftwing corruption occurs whereever there is a Judge’s bench in modern America.   Marxist are incapable of detaching themselves from corruption when corruption aids the Marxist reach for power.   Obama pays no attention to Congress.   The Marxist-Democrat Party has blurred and even corrupted the Separation of Powers of the Law of the Land, the United States Constitution.

And where are the Republicans on these grave matters?   Why are they such wusses?