Blog

Welcome to my blog, which is intended as an informal forum for my thoughts, subject to corrections and updates, on a variety of topics and with links to other points of interest.

18 March 2010

Walgreens Anticipates ObamaCare

Health care businesses are already responding to the Obama administration’s ominous plan for government control of health insurance and medicine. Drugstore company Walgreens announced that its pharmacies in the state of Washington will refuse to accept new customers using the government’s state and federally funded Medicaid program. Last year, Walgreens nearly dumped new Medicaid recipients in Delaware. Walgreens withdrawal underscores that the poor and the weakest in society are the first to suffer under government control of the economy.

The drugstore chain’s Washington decision relates to ObamaCare, which would expand Medicaid by at least 15 million people, posing a problem for Walgreens in Washington, where Medicaid drug reimbursement forces drugstores to sell drugs at a loss. In a statement, Walgreens refers to the state’s “continued reduction in reimbursement.” Businesses in Washington are not alone; CNN reports that Georgia companies that cooperate with Medicaid are going out of business. In fact, Medscape reports that, nationwide, doctors are bailing on Medicaid just as the recessed economy is making more Americans dependent on the government program. ObamaCare, if passed by Congress, will increase the burden on businesses and Walgreens knows it. Effective in mid-April, new Medicaid recipients will be rejected at Walgreens (two other pharmacy chains have already stopped) in Washington.

The backlash to ObamaCare has begun.

Last summer, I compared the arguments about health care reform to the battle over slavery. By fall, I observed that “President Obama will do anything to force this morally bankrupt idea into law.” In November, I urged every American to “speak out immediately, repeatedly, and often, and seek to stop this monstrous legislation. If it passes, it will become necessary to coordinate intellectual, economic, and political counterstrikes, such as organized boycotts (of any business or group that supports it), strikes, legal challenges, efforts to repeal, state-by-state opt-out legislation, marches, protests, and other measures, including a demand that any local, state, or federal political candidate take an oath to work to repeal the law as the highest priority. Silence implies consent and now is the time to speak up.”

Four months later, with the federal executive and legislative branches ignoring the nation’s founding principle, individual rights, and threatening the entire country with a fascist medical system, a Constitutional crisis, and events which could lead to outright revolt and secession by individual states of the union, it is not too late to speak up.

Permalink  |  Posted in Health Care, Politics

16 March 2010

On the Brink of Socialized Medicine

As Barack Obama and his thoroughly corrupt Congressional comrades conspire to pass an historic bill to enact socialized medicine, despite the risk of total economic catastrophe given the nation’s precarious financial condition, FoxNews reports that the President’s latest sob story, an emotionally-driven appeal about a woman in Ohio, is a fraud.

The Leukemia patient, who chose to drop her health insurance after premiums were raised, is apparently eligible for existing government programs. Read about it here. The story reminds me of Winifred Skinner, an old woman in Iowa who was the impetus for then presidential candidates Bush and Gore to propose the largest expansion of socialized medicine for seniors (Medicare) since the program was enacted in 1965 (later, Bush shoved Medicare drug subsidies down our throats by one vote). Click here to read an article I wrote about Skinner and the push to expand Medicare, which was fully supported by conservatives. The fact is that medicine is becoming increasingly costly, as the President argues. As many have pointed out, the cause of the higher costs is government intervention. What we need is more capitalism, not more government control, in medicine and insurance. According to this Democratic Congressional leader, what we’re going to get is a government takeover of both health insurance and medicine (some forecast a vote for Saturday, March 20).

Permalink  |  Posted in Health Care, Politics

12 March 2010

Screen Shot: ‘Green Zone’

Opening this weekend, director Paul Greengrass (United 93) gives us Green Zone starring Matt Damon. In what plays like a dramatization of an extended edition of NBC Universal’s Hardball on MSNBC, with host Chris Matthews harping about the U.S. military intervention in Iraq, NBC Universal’s Green Zone takes the same non-controversial position, namely, that the initial motive for taking down Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, to eliminate so-called weapons of mass destruction (WMD), was a bust. By now, everyone knows that. It’s a narrow perspective, too narrow for what the subject deserves (Greengrass had the same problem in his morally agnostic United 93), but this picture works as a straightforward fable about the Bush administration’s incompetence in waging war against America’s religious fascist enemies. Opening and closing with the chaos that was (and continues to be) Iraq, in an aimless, selfless military incursion which has killed thousands of Americans and accomplished nothing in our self-interest, the film features Damon as a lone soldier who eventually refuses to just follow orders. Steadying his trademark jerky camera only slightly, Greengrass depicts Baghdad’s green zone as a hedonistic haven for beer-guzzling slobs sending men off to die for no legitimate reason, stocked with ladies in bikinis and a press corps willing to go along with the government’s line of the day, usually spun by Greg Kinnear’s sniveling Bushie who could easily be one of today’s sniveling Obamatrons spewing about Iraq, Afghanistan, or, for that matter, Obama’s scheme to seize control of the medical profession and health insurance industry. Sneering Kinnear even looks and sounds like White House propaganda meister Robert Gibbs. With Amy Ryan as a Wall Street Journal toady for the U.S. government, who begins to question what she’s done (better late than never), and Kinnear dispatching teams to throw rogue Damon off the trail proving that the emperor has no WMDs (and worse than that no purpose), the character to watch is a courageous individualist named Freddy (Khalid Abdalla in an excellent performance). In two words, “for me,” Freddy declares the proper moral imperative for an act of military self-defense, yet, as Green Zone capably illustrates, nobody’s listening to Freddy until it’s too late. “We won,” someone asserts as a fact, after George W. Bush’s infamous Mission: Accomplished banner is seen flapping in the wind. No, we did not, we have not, and we will not, because winning by the anti-American standards set by Bush/Obama is impossible. Worse, as Green Zone amply shows with looters, snipers, and deposed generals, we have abandoned the idea that, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack and the rising religious fascism of nuclearized Iran, it is urgently necessary to achieve total victory over our enemies, not coddle civilians, appease Islamism, and cater to those who seek to destroy us. If nothing else, Green Zone gives us a man who rejects the status quo and acts to slow, if not stop, the self-sacrifice in Iraq.

Permalink  |  Posted in Movies, War

2 March 2010

Screen Shots: Up in the Air, Valentine’s Day, Alice in Wonderland

I can’t bring myself to see the usual glut of Oscar’s lousy, gloomy Best Picture contenders. One unfortunate exception is Up in the Air, another boring movie about traditionalism by way of monotonous speeches about nothing urging us to be mediocre and conservative. Consciously or not, that is the common theme of today’s most sought-after young filmmakers, such as Judd Apatow (Knocked Up, Superbad), Todd Phillips (Old School, The Hangover), and Up in the Air’s director Jason Reitman (Juno, Thank You for Smoking), who generally make bland or putrid movies that exist to preach tradition for the sake of tradition. Toss Up in the Air into that category; it is as bereft of meaning as its title and that is exactly its point.

Garry Marshall’s formulaic love letter to Los Angeles, Valentine’s Day, is silly, predictable mush. In other words, it is a welcome escape from the trash. With an all-star cast, fun, catchy songs, and stories that relate to everyone in vignettes strung together by dual romances (Ashton Kutcher/Jessica Alba and Jennifer Garner/Patrick Dempsey), Valentine’s Day happily celebrates being in love with life; work, husbands, wives, lovers, children, pets, sunny days, bright flowers, and the movies. Kutcher steals every scene in this extended version of ABC’s TV series Love American Style, which Mr. Marshall occasionally wrote. Go see it, cringe at the bad jokes and casting (Julia Roberts as a soldier is ridiculous), and have a good time. Bring a loved one.

Opening this weekend: Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, which I was not looking forward to seeing (I’m not an admirer of director Tim Burton’s movies). I was pleasantly surprised. Read my review here.

Permalink  |  Posted in Movies

21 February 2010

Update on Obama’s Marjah

The Associated Press reports an update from the front:

“The Marjah operation is a major test of a new NATO strategy that stresses protecting civilians over [defeating enemy combatants]…Troops cannot call in airstrikes to clear snipers from buildings if they believe civilians are inside. Troops cannot fire on suspected insurgents unless they are seen carrying a weapon or discarding one.”

And now, with 12 troops reportedly killed in action since the heavily advertised “offensive” began, the Obama administration is refusing to identify casualties by nationality. The degree of self-sacrifice is not nearly enough for the thoroughly corrupt Afghan ruler, who insists on zero civilian deaths. Since Islamic terrorists attacked America on September 11, 2001, it has been our nation’s military policy to put the lives of Others (civilians and enemy combatants, who are often the same) above the lives of Americans; now self-sacrifice is explicit and official policy. This idea, imposed by Barack Obama in Marjah, the first major ground operation since he ordered 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, is an evil policy of national suicide; it dishonors every American, soldier and civilian, and it must not be tolerated by the American public.

While the press fawns over the latest scandal, Democrats scheme to resurrect socialized medicine and sneak to enslave the medical profession, and conservatives whoop themselves into a frenzy over a Christian libertarian who would not lift a weapon against an enemy until after the United States is attacked, the men and women in our Armed Forces at Marjah are being slowly blown to bits, one by one, solider by soldier. Our soliders are dying in Afghanistan so that Others including our enemies may live. With Iran on the verge of being able to wage atomic warfare, we have every reason to believe that we, the people, are next.

Permalink  |  Posted in News, War

13 February 2010

Massacre Looms at Marjah

President Obama is taking the Bush administration’s foreign policy to the logical next step in Afghanistan. America has issued an explicit announcement of an impending strike, including the exact location of where our troops will be deployed, in an outrageous yet unsurprising act of self-sacrifice. According to Voice of America, and this is being widely reported, the U.S. will attack the Taliban at Marjah in the southern region of Afghanistan, following a public campaign to notify the enemy and civilians of our planned troop positions. The purpose of the announcement, according to commanding General Stanley McChrystal, (acting under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Afghanistan), is to prevent the loss of civilian life. The general apparently thinks the advance notification will lead to the Taliban abandoning Marjah without resistance. Unless there has been a secret war and the general knows more than he’s saying, this policy is an explicit statement that the lives of our soldiers are of lesser value than the lives of others. Whatever happens at Marjah, the largest combat operation since President Obama ordered 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan in December, the offensive is based on pure altruism, the idea that everyone else whether civilians or enemy combatants, matters but you don’t, and Marjah is pre-set as an elaborate deathtrap for American soldiers. Those of us (including me), who considered supporting candidate Obama because he promised to pull troops out of Iraq and act in America’s self-interest, take note: he is advancing the Bush policy of sacrifice as our national military defense purpose, only without the pretense of actually fighting the enemy.

Not everyone in the military accepts self-sacrifice as his moral purpose. One young soldier, Carl Bjork, who is being persecuted by the Obama administration (he is facing a court-martial for doing his job), is fighting back: visit his family’s Web site, Support Captain Carl Bjork, to learn more about his cause and how to help (hat tip: Dr. John David Lewis). In the meantime, his fellow soldiers are marching into a deathtrap at Marjah…

Permalink  |  Posted in News, War

10 February 2010

New Photographs of 9/11

The government has released a series of aerial photographs of the September 11, 2001, Islamic terrorist attack on America. The photo set, appropriately presented and captioned by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) here, taken from a helicopter by Greg Semendinger of the New York City Police Department (NYPD), was made available to the public following an ABC News Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) filing. The record of this atrocity, currently the worst attack in U.S. history, speaks for itself. Nine years, two counterproductive military incursions, and over 6,000 dead Americans later, America is still at war with states that sponsor Islamic fascism. But we continue to evade that fact and, with religious dictatorship Iran vowing to destroy the West and a national foreign and domestic policy of self-sacrifice, I think we are ominously, rapidly heading toward our nation’s destruction. For more audio-visual records of this historic assault, read my 2006 roundup of recommended DVDs on the subject, or my 2005 article on DVDs with CNN’s coverage, other footage, and the Discovery Channel’s 90-minute chronological recreation of United Air Lines Flight 93, The Flight That Fought Back. Leonard Peikoff named 9/11 Black Tuesday. These photographs, which do not begin to capture the horror of that day, remind us why he is right.

Permalink  |  Posted in War

9 February 2010

Screen Shot: ‘The Wolfman’

Making a nicely produced piece of classic horror, if there is such a thing, director Joe Johnston (October Sky, Jumanji, The Rocketeer) depicts the son (Benicio Del Toro) of an eccentric gentleman (Anthony Hopkins) in the 1891 British countryside as they are ensnared in an Oedipal psychodrama that leads to romantic love, confrontations with religious fundamentalists, and the breathless sight of a rampaging werewolf in London.

Universal’s The Wolfman is not my cup of tea, typically, and viewers should be forewarned that the frights are deployed without warning and the blood and guts are on ample display, but for what it is, Mr. Johnston, one of Tinseltown’s top creators of exciting adventure, delivers a true thriller. Shot in black and gray, and shrouded in fog, its point that man and monster are sometimes indistinguishable comes early and often in the form of a mythical beast that is one of the screen’s best werewolves. The detail in this creature is amazing; he’s a ferocious beast with vaguely human characteristics, not an overdone computer image on steroids. Resembling Michael Landon’s classic werewolf, this wolf is cunning, nimble, and powerful, swiping with his deadly claws, tearing limbs like tissue paper, and sprinting while upright or chasing on all four legs.

With various literary and visual references to William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, silver bullets, gargoyles, and the “power of Satan”, The Wolfman grabs a hold and doesn’t let go, with Mr. Hopkins simply devouring every scene as the morally monstrous father, Del Toro as Lawrence, an heroic American trying to set things right after a terrible childhood trauma, Emily Blunt (Dan in Real Life) as the young, nubile beauty whose husband was killed by the werewolf, Hugo Weaving (V for Vendetta) as a policeman and Geraldine Chaplin (Tonia in Doctor Zhivago) as a gypsy.

While a religious zealot warns that the wolf represents man’s pride and alternately urges the besieged villagers to loathe themselves, an intellectual who’s more monstrous than the werewolf (and whose demise is too good for him) enters the picture as the policeman persistently observes, tracks, and hunts the creature. Characters and plot are fully engaging and seeing Anthony Hopkins in this voracious role is worth the admission price alone (don’t bring the kids) for those who can stand the horror. The only downside other than the gore is a throwaway servant character, a Sikh “warrior of God”. Blunt is good, Del Toro is excellent as usual, and Weaving’s earnestly intelligent detective puts last year’s manic Sherlock Holmes to shame. The Wolfman’s theme that man is essentially self-made, even when faced by monsters that are not, is expressed in an exchange between Del Toro’s thespian character and Blunt’s grieving widow, when he comes upon a waterfall and recalls it as a place of refuge and she asks, “from what?” He answers, “you mean from whom.” This Wolfman has a mind of his own. But be prepared to close your eyes.

Permalink  |  Posted in Movies

6 February 2010

Sade’s ‘Soldier of Love’

Soldier of Love, the new album from pop singer Sade, is perfect. Soft, soothing melodies fill this 10-song collection, available from Sony Music, with strings, horns, piano, and, of course, Sade’s clear vocals, which sound slightly more weathered than when she began her impeccable career during the 1980s. With the driving, irresistible title track, which grows on you, as the sole departure from her signature style, and a minor divergence at that, everything here is in order. Less sultry than her smash, Love Deluxe, but with more nuances, too, Soldier of Love is another meticulous, accessible recording from artist Sade Adu (who co-wrote the album). Sade’s unhurried delivery and gentle rhythm wraps around a tune every time. Dim the lights, loosen up, and enjoy.

Permalink  |  Posted in Music

6 February 2010

Books: ‘Valley of Death’ and Tragedy at Dien Bien Phu

Look for a former French lieutenant’s tale of pre-Vietnam War, Valley of Death: The Tragedy at Dien Bien Phu That Led America into the Vietnam War (Random House hardcover, 752 pages, available February 23 for $ 35) by Ted Morgan. The New York City-based writer and journalist, who fought in the French Army in Algeria, has produced an epic account of the contest that ended French colonial rule in Indochina, the 1954 battle between France and a Communist-backed “people’s army” in Vietnam.

Using French military archives and exclusive firsthand reports, and tracking countless errors by the American government, Morgan reframes the six-week battle for Dien Bien Phu, a remote valley on the border of Laos along a rural trade route, which was fueled by Communism’s rise following World War 2, particularly by Chinese dictator Mao Tse-tung and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, who were already waging a proxy war with the West in the Korean peninsula. Morgan, a Vietnam reporter who knew the late David Halberstam, provides facts according to his research, which point to the West’s chronic ignorance and appeasement of Communism, though he is more focused on what happened than how and why it happened.

Morgan, a Pulitzer Prize winner, has written biographies of Franklin Roosevelt (FDR), Winston Churchill, and Somerset Maugham (The Painted Veil). In the fully annotated and indexed Valley of Death, he provides an important perspective on the West’s foreign policy in mid-20th century. That America’s ineffectual war in Vietnam began with this climactic battle, and has continued with decades of lost battles and wars, culminating in our current debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan, is unmistakable.

As Morgan writes on page 172, some opposed American involvement in Vietnam, including Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, a Republican who, Morgan writes, “called for an amendment that no funds should be given to the French until they ’set a target date for … complete independence … the people of Indochina … have been fighting for the same thing for which 177 years ago the people of the American colonies fought.” Morgan notes that “this was the man whom [President] Lyndon Johnson called ‘trigger-happy’ when he ran against him in 1964.” Sen. Goldwater went on, observing that, by aiding France, “we are saying to the great men who penned the document and whose ghosts must haunt these walls, that we do not believe entirely in the Declaration of Independence.” Despite Sen. Goldwater’s warning that “as surely as day follows night our boys will follow this $400 million [aid to France]“, Congress defeated his amendment, approved President Eisenhower’s 1953 aid package, and soon entered the Vietnam War, one of several wars in Korea, Iran, and Iraq, that the United States neither declared nor won.

Permalink  |  Posted in Books, War

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