Yet Another Ticking Time Bomb Scenario For Obama

A Federal judge has ordered the release of a detainee considered by some to be the most dangerous terrorist at Guantanamo.

Right now the DoJ is appealing and playing for time; perhaps they will get lucky and win on appeal.

But if not, what then?  Will they defy a judge's order and hold Mohamedou Slahi anyway?  Or will they defy the military and intelligence analysts, not to mention common sense and Obama's past rhetoric, and release him?  The Allahpundit dredged up this blast from the past from The One:

“I am not going to release individuals who endanger the American people,”

That was when Obama was playing at tough on national security and contemplating preventive detention.  It was almost a year ago, and who knows how the winds have shifted since then?

I predict a Bold Third Way!  Since it is all about energizing the base, I think Obama will not only cut the guy loose, he will guarantee him free health care for life.  That is living up to our values!

Comments

[Thomas Collins]

The terrorist probably has a better health plan at Gitmo than we'll have under ObamaCare.

[daddy]

TM,

Why would you want to sentence this guy to our crumbling American Health Care for Life system, when every terrorist murderer worth his 72 Virgins knows that ">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/7279123/Lockerbie-bomber-Megrahi-living-in-luxury-villa-six-months-after-being-at-deaths-door.html"> Libya is the place to go for quality Jihadist life extension Health Care .

[pagar]

Thomas, I would be really surprised if you needed to use the word probably in that sentence. Apparently there are no death panels there either.

[Dave (in MA)]

Apropos of nothing, the better half DVRed The Today Show the other day for some reason and was watching it, and I wondered why Randi Rhodes was co-hosting. Then I realized it wasn't Randi Rhodes.

[daddy]

Enough about releasing dangerous murdering terrorists.

Let's talk about something of real concern to the health of citizens around this planet: ">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1260058/Super-sized-Last-Supper-Food-portions-increased-69-Christ-paintings.html"> The dramatic increase in the size of food portions on plates depicted in paintings of "The Last Supper!"

"The (supersized) Last Supper: How food portions have increased by 69% in paintings of Christ's final meal" blares the Daily Mail.

In this time of increasing childhood obesity I don't think we've a moment to lose in banning Rubens and El Greco, not to mention that old chow-hound Leonardo Da Vinci. C'mon, do it for the children.

Or better yet, now with all those artists sitting around without day-jobs needed to pay for Health Care, perhaps one of them could whip up a "Last Supper" with granola bars and bran muffins. And who among us hasn't always secretly yearned for a Judas with a handful of healthy arugula? I know I have.

So quit your scoffing and get off the sidelines and lets get the movement started. Or, as I think I just heard our Vice President mumble over the microphone, "This is a Big [email protected]#*ing Deal!"

[mefolkes]

Daddy, thanks for a hearty laugh. If you don't mind getting together with a teetotaler, I think we'd have a blast. I've still got to pass through Anchorage on my way to Homer to pick up a boat in a couple of months.

[Jane says obamasucks]

I talked about Slahi today on my radio show. Apparently he is the worst guy in Gitmo who recruited Atta and 2 others, and planned the millennium attack. Under Bush we got a Ct order to use enhanced interrogation and he sung like a bird. Another judge determined that because of the Ct ordered interrogation we have to let him go.

Morons to the left of me...

[daddy]

Would love to Mefolkes:

Just keep posting when it gets near so I'll have time to brush up on Old Wormius. Matt yesterday was big fun.

Jane,

Will try to listen tonight, (or when it's podcasted) but please tell me Dick didn't make you cry.

[Jane says obamasucks]

Daddy,

Dick said: "The ins protect the ins" and "let me tell you something you don't know. Deals are always made in congress."

Same old same old. I got to go on and on and on and I like that.

I don't have today's podcast yet, but last week's is up.

[Rob Crawford]

Obama will be happier throwing Americans in prison for resisting him than he will ever be with holding jihadis.

[daddy]

"Deals are always made in congress."

Yeah, right. And deals are also made between Benedict Arnold and Major Andre; and between Adolf and Neville Chamberlain; and between Dr Faustus and Mephistopheles, etc.

No Shit Sherlock Dick, Deals are made in Congress---and by crooks and traitors and imbeciles everywhere else around the planet.

So I take it if you cried Jane, it was only from boredom.

[Rob Crawford]

daddy -- you left out the deals between Alcee Hastings and the criminal defendants who appeared before him in court.

[Jane says obamasucks]

I did hear some feedback that they like Joe better.

I've been talking on the other thread about how good this senate debate on C-span is, if anyone is interested.

[anduril]

Interesting map: map.

For the whole article: The Beer Belly of America.

btw, ueber zionist bret stephens said today in the wsj what i've been maintaining all along (watch for the bold type coming up):

Let's make a deal, Mr. President: Our settlements for your bombers. We can't fully destroy Iran's nuclear sites—but you can. You can't dismantle our settlements—but we can. We'll all come out the better for it, including the Palestinians. Think about it, Barack.

[anduril]

Walter Russell Mead (Liberal struggling to come to grips with reality) has an interesting blog today: The Shadows Grow.

Excerpts:

The blue social model posted a big win today as President Obama signed the Senate’s health care bill into law . I think it’s a bad bill that locks the United States more tightly into a medical system that is unsustainable in the medium term, and it is grossly unfair to the young. But extending health insurance to tens of millions of Americans is not the worst thing in the world, and while doing the right thing in the wrong way isn’t always helpful (look at George W. Bush’s efforts to promote democracy in the Middle East, for example), the bill could have been a lot worse than it is.

However, extending the old blue social model further into health care is not going to help matters. On the contrary, it advances the very painful day of reckoning this country faces when the bill for the unsustainable promises we’ve made comes due. Even as the House-passed health bill was making its way to the Senate, the financial system was flashing warning signs.

and

This is not, I fear, the beginning of a new era of expansive government programs and extended benefits. It’s the start of something darker as our dysfunctional political system grapples with unsustainable deficits. Reading those dark financial stories made me think of something out of Charles Baudelaire: the first stanza to Les Hiboux ( The Owls), one of the haunting sonnets in Les Fleurs du Mal.

Sous les ifs noirs qui les abritent,
Les hiboux se tiennent rangés,
Ainsi que des dieux étrangers,
Dardant leur œil rouge. Ils méditent.

It’s hard to capture the sense of massed, impending menace in translation:

Sheltered beneath the black yews,
The owls sit in rows,
Like strange gods,
Red eyes darting, they meditate.

This, I fear, is what our financial markets are up to these days. We spend and make happy plans; they wait ranged in rows in the black yews, red eyes alert, watching, thinking.

[matt]

daddy;

that was very enjoyable, and I agree, we should do it more often. Next time down my way and we try to grab a few more of the JOM crowd. DoT, Dr J, central, Dave in OC? Interested? Newport is nice in the spring.

It's going to take a massive systemic failure on the dem's watch to deal them a death blow. With all the crazy sh*t happening right now, it could happen.

The Greeks are retreating into fantasyland which bodes very ill for Europe. California is another fantasyland, as are New York, NJ, OH, and MI. It is a matter of when it hits the fan, not if. Medicare, SS, the list goes on.

What happens next is the $64 Trillion question. Obamacare is one of @ 10 major programs that will catastrophically fail, not because of willpower, but a simple lack of money.

NYC is now preparing to lay off 19,000 workers. LA, Chicago, Detroit, etc. will all be in the same boat as tax revenue falls. These are to an extent lagging indicators, but the bleeding went on far too long before NYC woke up to the catastrophe. The others are still in la la land.

what happens when the primary tool of the Democrats fails? They need money for their bread & circuses and do nothing jobs.

We have to make sure there is no more wiggle room for the dems. This has to be pinned squarely on them in the clear black & white of the facts. They have spent the country into the ground.They own this one.

Tea Party? April 15?

[DrJ]

DoT, Dr J, central, Dave in OC? Interested? Newport is nice in the spring.

Sure, as long as you include Ignatz, Extraneous, Frau and Sara. Newport is a pretty good haul from here, though.

[anduril]

This is a telling bit that I left out:

"One was this story by Daniel and Brian Keogh on Bloomberg; Berkshire Hathaway two year debt is now paying a lower interest rate than Treasury securities of a similar maturity. In other words, investors think that Warren Buffet is a better credit risk than Barack Obama."

[DrJ]

Oh, and I forgot Elliott! Shame on me!

[Janet]

Who is Elliott?...Do you mean ThunderBear?

[Frau Haselnuss]

You are swell to remember the rest of the CA souls, DrJ. It is, indeed, a "fur piece" to Newport for Ccal and you. When my German m-i-l visited and we dragged her all the way up the CA coast to OR, we would joke that from Germany, on such a trip, we could have been in Moscow. btw I must be the only person on the planet who had a fabulous mother-in-law. I often remarked that if I had trouble with my husband, I would go back home to her.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Frau-

I have a wonderful m-i-l, it's my own mother that's the problem, and she lives less than four miles from me.

The cell phone was my death knell.

[Melinda Romanoff]

daddy-

Here we go!

The last time we were in such Deep Solar Minimums was back in 1913. The actual series of lows (lulls) ran from 1911 to 1913 and we got cooler right through to the fifties. The point I was trying to make was that some unusual things happened as a precursor to Shackleford getting iced in early in the Southern Hemisphere.

One was the White Hurricane of the Great Lakes. A massive storm that struck the first week of November in 1913 and dumped over three feet of snow in the Midwest.

The icing in Antarctica took place in April of 1914.

There, of course, was no corelation to the lack of sunspots at that time either.

Just something to stew about...

[DrJ]

Who is Elliott?...Do you mean ThunderBear?

Elliott is a regular who posts good things every now and again. He and I met with daddy in Berkeley. No lithe athletic types there, sadly. I'd bet that the tatoos and piercings like we saw there were hard to duplicate in Alaska. Or China. Or the UAE. Or hell, anywhere.

[DrJ]

You are swell to remember the rest of the CA souls, DrJ. It is, indeed, a "fur piece" to Newport for Ccal and you.

I do try to keep track of people. And if we have a get together, all of us CA kooks should all be there!

The drive would be as far for Ignatz and Ext as for me -- about 8 hours. How about Santa Barbara?

[daddy]

Matt,

Knowing you were busy all day, don't know if you caught my version of our Humpy's rendezvous from a few posts back. Its on the "Enslaved" post, 3 pages of comments in, at 7:06 AM. And I think an ancestor of yours may have made an appearance. Hope you guys are enjoying the town today.

[JeanD]

Frau,

I have an awesome MIL, too. (The fact that I can call her Seabiscuit, to her face, is the proof of that.) But we will have to part ways on the going home to her part...

If my husband gives me any trouble, I'm going to give him all my money and start my REFORM Amish compound/abused taxpayer community organizing studies group. Enrollment is limited to 60% of the population, so sign up now!

[daddy]

Melinda,

Very interesting. I had no knowledge of that at all and appreciate you're posting it. Gives me some more fun stuff to pore thru tonight. In researching Shackleton last night it seems he was hit with Ice just 3 days out of The Falklands on the way down, which apparently was unusual and unexpected, and Matt mentioned something about wave size yesterday during his rescue voyage, which struck me as astounding. It's fascinating to get steers in new directions that help try to unravel this whole mystery, and illumine how much we don't know.

I also recall your linking long ago to the fact of the Great Chicago Fire starting as a result of Meteor showers near Chicago as opposed to Mrs O'Leary's cow. That too was totally unexpected, so thanks again for that and I'll re-look at that tonight as well.

I am relieved however to learn from you though that Shackleton wasn't responsible for Global Warming. Whew. That's a relief. What with yesterday being asked to believe that AGW is making flowers lose their scents, and today being asked to believe AGW is making Coffee-Beans in Guatemala hypochondriacs, plus being told that Leonardo Da Vinci is making America's School kids fat, the amount of unbelievable things I'm being asked to swallow might even have made the Duke LaCrosse LapDance Advocate scream Enuff already:)

[JM Hanes]

Slahi -- yet another reason Eric Holder must be thanking his lucky stars that his appearance at the Senate's Judiciary Committee hearing has been postponed till mid-April!

[JM Hanes]

daddy:

The list of your JOM meet-ups is growing so fast, you'll soon be giving Clarice a run for the money. Alaska vs DC -- it's everywhere!

[daddy]

Yeah JMH,

But Clarice cooks. I just say 'another round for my friends', so basically I'm useless. Speaking of which though, I may still be able to wrangle a spot on our RollerDerby Team if Drury starts beefing up quick. How goes the Honeymooners, or am I jumping the gun?

[Frau Atomkraft]

Wasn't ThunderBear a name for Elliott to use on the yuku site? There were proposals made. I never got to give mine "L.Lee Ott." Well, TM returned in time.
Niters!

[JM Hanes]

She's more the ice hockey type, daddy. Back when she was in prep school, she decided that making the girls' team was a lot less appealing than scrimming with the boys 2nd string. I've got a great picture of her all geared up in which she surely rivals your Roller Babes for bulk.

The intendeds will be embarking on their cross country trek in May, and then heading home for an August wedding.

[Neo]

This bomb stopped ticking ... "A big [expletive] deal"

[matt]

yes, I agree, Santa Barbara would be magnificent. I do apologize for all of the left coasters I may have missed. It would be a hoot to do it.

Yes, daddy, I did see it. Tough to keep up with the moveable feast sometimes.If we could promote ourselves one of those bottles based upon flimsy family ties I would do so, but I would expect they'll be sold at Christies for Goldmandollars.

Spent the most amazing day with America's finest young men just back from A-stan. More tomorrow. We need more of these kids out in our own country to balance out the pseuds and phonies. They are the real deal.

[Stephanie]

FOR SYLVIA:
I have a daughter who was born with what in the UK would be abortable birth defects said abortion happily PAID FOR by Natl Health. A cleft palate. Some of these are severe and some are not. Google it to see how they vary. Hers was moderate. She also was diagnosed with Pierre Robin Syndrome. This syndrome has as some of its possibilities that might develop later in life a "hole in the heart" where the heart valves are thin and tear apart. This condition may or may not show up by the age of 21.
NOW READ CLOSELY
I had this child in April of 1993. My insurance paid for the delivery and all of the usual pregnancy related expenses. It also began paying all of the health expenses for that child and has continued to do so ever since. It covered her in hospital until I was discharged, it covered the pediatrician to do the baby check up and mandatory blood testing required of all newborns within 72 hrs of birth.
She and I were discharged and were sent home. I scheduled an appointment with a craniofacial specialist to determine when the palate should be closed and to monitor her for other issues. The insurance company also provided for HER to have an occupational therapist to monitor her primary job of eating and drinking (I thought that was a hoot - babies have occupations???). Nine months later, the insurance company paid to have her palate closed and for five successive surgeries for ear tubes and some fine tuning of her palate so that her speech would be normal. They also paid for her to have speech therapy as these "tunings" occurred.
That child is now almost 17 years of age and WHILE SHE STILL HAS THE PROBABILITY OF A PREEXISTING UNREPAIRED CONDITION (the eventual opening of a hole in the heart) at no time did they deny coverage or refuse to pay for any of her $150,000+ in claims.
Neither has the dental or orthodontic insurance refused to pay for the preexisting problems from birth BTW.
If you will examine 90% of insurance policies, you will find that all children born of women who have insurance are covered at birth...for all conditions they are born with or developed during birth. 90%!
We have changed companies several times and at no time were these ongoing medical problems issues. I have also at times had double coverage when both my husband and I had insurance provided by our employers. No insurance even asked more for more than her name and DOB (which was used to check her in the insurance clearing house which all claims are entered into for all companies). Yet they still saw fit to cover her. Strange huh? NOPE NORMAL...
Should my child ever develop the hole in her heart (she is checked annually for this), the insurance company will cover her for the repair of that, too. BTW they pay for the annual MRIs and PET scans and such to check.

Sorry this is long, but let me advise you AS ONE WHO KNOWS, any child that is born to a mother with insurance is automatically covered as part of the policy regardless of the infirmity or deformity or defect that the child is born with as long as the child lives longer than 15 days (in my state, varies by state). Oh and those kids that don't live past 15 days, the hospital claims are paid, but the kids no longer have a preexisting condition, do they? They are dead.
So before you get all concerned about that which you are woefully uninformed about, I'm glad I am able to educate you about one of the most glaringly funny myths about insurance...
the myth of the pitiable child with preexisting conditions that the evil insurance companies don't cover...
It is bullshit. And I know my story is not unique. I council parents that have children born with craniofacial deformities and I can tell you, that all insurance issues are minor. They might have differences in whether the insurance will pay for a manual or automated breast pumping system because the child can't suck on a bottle or whether the exams are weekly or monthly. But the insurance companies are there with the parents every step of the way PAYING THE F*CKING CLAIMS...every time.
I also council parents who are indigent, and the hospital's endowments step up and cover them, too. Plus the doctors travel to Appalachia and Costa Rica and dozens of countries performing FOR FREE the surgeries to repair these children and make them whole again. Many of the children attended in the craniofacial clinic are referred by urban hospitals and indigent care facilities. All are seen and treated.
So stick a sock in your babblings about the "unfortunate." You have been sold a pack of lies and you believed them. Get your ass out of your chair and work with these families, and you will have the scales fall from your eyes and will see what is going on in the real world and not in your mind...
Neurotics build castles in the air, and psychotics live in them. Sylvia, I'm not gonna clean yours up again.*

* h/t Rita Rudner

[Stephanie]

Sorry for the above, but I couldn't handle Sylvia's droppings on the prior threads posted today.

I had to post it "block" or it wouldn't load and I'm just damned tired of the ignorance of the witless.

[Elliott]

Frau Guteidee, I believe that was one of MikeS' suggestions. Since TM seems back to his old self, I have followed the D.C. vacillator's lead and given Gen. McChrystal another three months to submit his yuku recommendations.

[MaryW]

Stephanie,

Thank you. Sylvia has no idea about how insurance work. Her ignorance is appalling. Obviously, her parents did not teach her the facts of life.

It sounds like your daughter has pretty wonderful parents.

[rse]

How many of you have local papers upset about cuts to education caused by decreased tax revenue?

The transfer to Medicaid rolls of so many more people under Obamacare will hit states finances hard.

Under Obamacare the cuts to local education are just beginning because education and Medicaid are the 2 largest components of most state budgets.

Please do not let any opportunity go by to get that message out there.

Anytime you hear or see anyone bemoaning what's happening to education funding, tell them why it will get worse.

Let's turn this into a mainstream talking point along with reminding everyone you know who talks about Obamacare why their insurance rate increases are just beginning.

[daddy]

Stephanie, Ya done great.

We likewise have had birth defects in our family, thankfully fixable, but our Insurance covered it beautifully.

And on a related topic, some of our retired folks now (for gratis) fly the Orbis jet in their off time which lands in different countries around the world and provides free eye-surgery and glasses and all the rest for free around the planet.

Plus I see the folks desperate to adopt in China etc, and who spend thousands of dollars and years waiting simply for the chance to raise kids, so my hackles come up when I am constantly told how uncaring and selfish etc we are, and that all the true compassion is from those A-holes in Congress who masquerade as public servants doing us all a favor with their enlightened caring.

Thanks for telling us your story. I am so sick of ignorant, self-rightious pontificators who haven't a clue how little they know.

[rse]

Here is a link to the Fordham story on how health care will decimate ed further.

LUN

I compare economics to gravity when explaining consequences to colleagues and friends.

It doesn't matter if you do not understand it or no one ever taught it to you. It still governs the outcomes of certain inputs.

That's the lesson Reps should focused on.

We are about to have a national lesson on economics.

[peter]

Stephanie, no need to apologize. Very informative post.

[peter]

Dad, the unfinished business is done. LUN

[barb in ATL]

rse is absolutely correct regarding ed. funding. Here in the north Atlanta area, the teachers and pta types are sending constant e-mails begging us to contact our state representatives to "demand" that they spend more on education funding so they don't lose their jobs. I pointed out at a recent meeting that it will only get worse with the health care bill but they didn't believe me. I told my husband that after all these people did to get these people in D.C. I wasn't going to lift a finger to help them. They think it is bad this year, but it will get much worse.

[Jim Ryan]

Jenkin's opinion article in WSJ (dead tree) nails it.

A certain kind of person - we get emails from them all the time - understands exactly nothing about the health-care debate, but thinks they know who the villain is: the insurance industry.

Barack Obama is not one of them. In the desperate hours he played to public ignorance. But from the beginning, the industry was his ally....

[SNIP]Almost any bill would have been worth having that fundamentally fixed this tax distortion....

Read the whole thing.

It's too bad the insurance industry became Obama's ally. Now it can no longer be said that it isn't the villain.

[Jim Ryan]

Barb, here in Charlottesville area they're screaming against budget cuts for the school system, saying, in effect, "Give us the money or the kids get it!" Disgusting. Most of the money goes to wast. In a class of 25 kids, the teacher gets maybe $60K. Where does the other $200K go?

It's kleptocracy, just like the Obama-insurance boondoggle.

[Porchlight]

Now it can no longer be said that it isn't the villain.

The slobbering fools who support this don't understand the distinction. The insurance companies will always be the villain to them, at least until we get single-payer, and then it will be like public education - any problems will be the Republicans' fault for not providing enough funding.

[Captain Hate]

Jenkin's opinion article in WSJ (dead tree)

LUN for the online version.

[Janet]

LUN whoring for the Kennedys -

"Sawyer couldn't resist reminding viewers of the “Kennedy Legacy” (the on-screen tag) as she highlighted a photo of his son's grave side note: “You heard the President pay tribute to Senator Ted Kennedy, who devoted his career to health care reform. But there was another quiet tribute at the Senator's grave. A note left by his son, Congressman Patrick Kennedy. It said simply: 'Dad -- the unfinished business is done."

the unfinished business is done...we got their money. Now our media friends can tell America how our family is compassionate while we save our money offshore for future drug rehab visits.

[Porchlight]

In a class of 25 kids, the teacher gets maybe $60K. Where does the other $200K go?

Isn't it funny how liberals never ask this question? Every year the school complains about not having enough money, and the parents just accept it without question as the fault of the big bad meanies in the legislature not upping the budget enough. No one ever asks to see a spreadsheet of the school's spending.

Do you think they'd accept the same line of reasoning from their private sector employer when threatened with being laid off? Of course not.

[Captain Hate]

Btw, if Odummy signs the Stuck on Stupak executive order, how does that differ from a line-item veto? And weren't those declared unconstitutional by the Supremes?

[narciso]

The 'wise Latina' good god, will find a way to uphold it, that the Supreme Court Justice
who is still upset, his cryptanalysis was used
to target Yamamoto

[JM Hanes]

Thanks, Stephanie! That was an education for me too.

[Janet]

LUN a good video of Rep. Thaddeus McCotter

given to an empty chamber...most Americans won't hear it either. I don't know what we do about it.

[Janet]

...and another good short video of Rep Mike Rogers. LUN glasater pointed this one out.

“You can’t make a weak man strong, by making a strong man weak.” –A. Lincoln

[ROA]

One time I did ask the local school superintendent for a detailed budget showing where the money went. He told me I wouldn’t be able to understand it. He also had four family members working for the school district.

[bgates]

Janet, that quote isn't from Lincoln.

Which is not to say it isn't true.

[Janet]

Oh thanks bgates. It is in tons of places attributed to Lincoln. Sorry.

[Rob Crawford]

You heard the President pay tribute to Senator Ted Kennedy, who devoted his career to health care reform.

Swimmer Ted's idea of "reform" was to mangle the system, wait for people to complain about the results, then mangle it some more. He created the much-maligned HMOs, fer crissake!

I long for the day when the name "Kennedy" is universally followed by expectoration. It's what they deserve for the damage they've done to this country.

[hit and run]

Daddy:
so my hackles come up when I am constantly told how uncaring and selfish etc we are, and that all the true compassion is from those A-holes in Congress who masquerade as public servants doing us all a favor with their enlightened caring.

CPAADP has released it's second ad.

(recall the http://thevimh.blogspot.com/2010/03/citizens-for-protection-against-abusive.html>first ad had to do with protecting the wives of Democratic politicians who will be out of a job come November, because "men who are unemployed tend to become abusive" --Harry Reid)

This ad deals with the "enlightened caring" of Democratic politicians who trot out poor, helpless people who are ostensibly in need of whatever legislation the Dems are pushing that day. The problem is, these people actually do need help in most cases -- and the Democratic politician is simply using them as a prop, while not lifting one finger to actually, you know, help that person.

CPAADP proposes to step in and stop this cycle by actually helping these people in ways government and legislation never could through private charitable donations.

It's a radio spot, http://thevimh.blogspot.com/2010/03/citizens-for-protection-against-abusive_23.html>you can listen to it and read the transcript here.

[Sue]

Stephanie,

Thanks for sharing that. You said your daughter is 17 so I'll tell everyone that that is still how insurance companies work. My great-niece is 2-1/2. She was born with a heart defect. Within a week, she was in a specialist's office, within 2 weeks she was home from the hospital, defect repaired. The insurance paid all but the deductible. They even paid for her mother to stay in the hospital with her 2 extra nights. In a private room.

[Sue]

The fact that democrats exempted themselves and others from their healthcare plan is picking up steam. What a great thing to highlight come late summer.

[Jane]

Florida congressman is on teh floor right now, proposing amendment that 535 members of congress have same options as everyone else. All of congress has to go into medicaid.

Tee Hee

[Rick Ballard]

New Home Sales Set Record!!!

Unexpectedly to boot. All because it snowed in February - who knew that February snow could be so unusual.

[Neo]

I suggest that state seize federal lands and sell them to raise money to cover the unfunded mandate.

[narciso]

It's like a Python sketch, Rick, they are so obviously transparently wrong.

[Janet]

Great video at Founding Bloggers LUN
(I'm a video posting so-and-so today!)

Interviewing people on the streets of Chicago. I could cry.

[Jane]

I suggest that state seize federal lands and sell them to raise money to cover the unfunded mandate.

I like this!

[Janet]

LUN an article but thankfully not another video link (count your blessings)

"Mother furious after in-school clinic sets up teen's abortion"

Hopefully this young girl didn't get any aspirin.
...and I hope she got her free pamphlet (with kudos to Kevin Jennings) on fisting, public bathroom sex, and how to cruise gay bars.

[Old Lurker]

Jim, Barb, Porch.

The same school math logic applies to fancy private schools as well.

On the public schools, classes of 25 and total spending of $15,000 per student amounts to $375,000 per classroom in spending. If an average public school teacher makes $60,000, that leaves $315,000 per classroom sloshing around to be wasted. OK, give each teacher and intern as an assistant teacher and you still have $275,000 slush.

Now look at the best of the best private schools. Student:Teacher Ratio 8:1, Tuitions $30,000 (DC area), Ave teacher pay $75,000 = 8X30-75=165,000 per class, grossing up to $515,000 slush per group of 25 students to compare apples to apples with the public funding. Plus in very round numbers, said private school might be drawing 10% of its spending from its endowments, and another 10% from annual giving and similar giving opportunities. Less in most cases 10-15% turned back to parents as financial aid.

In both cases the math is enlightening.

Swap out your own local numbers for the above, and the conclusion holds.

[Porchlight]

OL,

I think it's the other staff that sucks up most of the rest of the money, in both public and private schools. In the public schools you also have huge overhead for local school district offices and staff, plus special education is insanely expensive. And legal expenses. And heaven knows what they spend on building maintenance, consultants, "continuing education," PR budgets, and the like. All union staff.

And we can't forget that we are not exactly dealing with the cream of the crop in terms of intelligence and capability among public school employees in any position. So you're paying three people to do the work that one competent person could do in the real world.

Quite depressing.

[DebinNC]

Thanks, Stephanie! That was an education for me too.

Ditto. Kudos, Stephanie!

[Porchlight]

p.s. It's nice as a conservative not to have to carry water for any of the public education woes when I hear liberal friends complaining. Liberals own education and thus have only themselves to blame. And now they're going to own health care.

[Old Lurker]

Correct, Porch. And in the private schools, we have counselors, shrinks, coaches for everything, VERY highly paid administrators, bond payments, and a number of classes with very few students but high cost teachers (advanced Chinese, or very advanced math or science, etc.), significant college placement staffs, very high levels of IT and so on. It all gets spent.

[Porchlight]

Goodness, I'd forgotten about all that, OL. Counselors on top of counselors. And athletics and all the other special programs. Public education is one giant jobs program for the NEA (in the public schools at least), logrolled in turn by the ed schools.

[centralcal will not comply]

Hey, matt - Santa Barbara sounds doable - depending of course on the when, plus it is a really pretty place.

[Pofarmer]

There's one place I'd definitely like to put a ticking time bomb.

[JM Hanes]

Old Lurker:

Don't tell the Dems, or they'll start using those stats to defend throwing more money at the problem in the name public/private parity -- with zero commensurate regard to curricula and outcomes, of course.

[peter]

Narciso,
I read that Jeffrey Toobin puff piece on Justice Stevens in the New Yorker. He's worried that his cryptography may have helped kill the architect of Pearl Harbor.
In April, 1943, a coded message came across Stevens’s desk—“one eagle and two sparrows, or something like that,” he said. Stevens knew the transmission meant that an operation based on intelligence from his station had been a success. American aviators had tracked and shot down the airplane of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who was the architect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the leader of Axis forces in Midway. Stevens was a twenty-three-year-old lieutenant, and the mission, essentially a targeted assassination, troubled him. “Even at the time, it seemed to me kind of strange that you had a mission that was intended to kill a particular individual,” he told me. “And it was an individual who was a friend of some of the Navy officers.” (Before the war, Yamamoto had trained with the U.S. Navy and studied at Harvard.) Ultimately, Stevens concluded that the operation, which was approved by President Roosevelt, was justified, but the moral complexity of such a killing, even in wartime, stayed with him. “It is a little different than your statistics about so many thousands of highway deaths—that doesn’t mean all that much,” he said. “But if somebody you know is killed, you have an entirely different reaction.” The morality of military action became a lifelong preoccupation.

[fdcol63]

Obama is a successful "community organizer" and President only because the people following him are gullible "sheeple" that can be easily led and controlled.

[Thomas Collins]

I wonder whether Stevens ever considered the morality of military inaction. Yamamoto was targeted because the US knew Yamamoto was several cuts above an average military strategist. It was reasonably foreseeable that his death would harm the Japanese military machine to an extent that the war could be concluded earlier than otherwise thus saving lives.

Similarly, targeted killings from the air may in many circumstances avoid an on the ground mission that may put more civilians at risk than from targeted air killings.

I'd be a little more impressed with the moral concerns of the lib folks if they showed a little more rigor in their analysis of the morality of action and inaction in various circumstances.

[Porchlight]

Good thoughts, TC.

Is anyone watching The Pacific? Jules Crittenden has a review of sorts plus a reading roundup. Good Bang-Bang

I am hesitant to check it out because of Hanks' obvious moral equivalence agenda.

[Mike Huggins]

No doubt, Yamamoto himself would have found Stevens' concerns odd and probably illogical. Of course, he was going "for the win."

[Ranger]

Regarding the collapse of education spending, here in Illinois they are passing a law to let schools reduce the school week to 4 days. Some districts are firing up to 160 teachers to ballance budgets. Now, Obamacare is going to jack up the cost of Medicaid significantly, but the Dems in control of the state won't join the legal action to try and prevent the coming damage.

[Stephanie]

Anyone think the housing market is recovering? BoA seems to think the problem will be ongoing for a while to come otherwise, why would they be pushing LUN?

[hit and run]

For kim...

http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODQwNzczZmFhOTA4ZjNlZjIwMjViZjU5ZWE4NTg3N2M=>NASA Admits It Doesn't Understand How Clouds Affect Temperature

"I think I've never heard so loud. The quiet message in a cloud"

[daddy]

Hit,

Had no idea Joni Mitchell worked for NASA:

"I've looked at clouds from both sides now,
From up and down, and still somehow,
It's cloud illusions I recall,
I really don't know clouds, at all."

[peter]

Daddy, your post almost caused a Danny Thomas like coffee spit-take all over my keyboard. We also now know that global warming is the answer to the Judy Collins musical question, "Where have all the flowers gone?"

[JM Hanes]

Tunku Varadarajan is a terrific observer of conservative politics, and I'm glad to see him writing at The Beast. Yesterday, he deconstructed David Frum in admirable fashion.

[Jim Ryan]

OL, I know, but the payment of private school tuition is a voluntary contract. The school may be wasteful with the money if they want, it's a free country. The parents can take their business elsewhere if they don't like it.

The tax money sent to be wasted at public schools, on the other hand, is taken from the taxpayer whether he wants to give it or not. It ought not be wasted.

[Stephanie]

Sue, my story may be about 17 years ago, but I am well aware of the current state of "preexisting" conditions coverages through my continued work with parents at the craniofacial center.

I'm just flabbergasted that people who have insurance aren't aware of what their policies say insurance companies can and can't do and would know these sob stories are so much bullshit.

Who am I kidding? These same people have adjustable rate mortgages and balloon payments and are screaming about the need for modifications cause they are getting screwed by the mortgage companies...

[Janet]

Anyone listening to Rush? I just got home. He played audio of some guy talking about the decline of western civilization....I only caught the end. Really good. Does anyone know who that was?

[fdcol63]

Interesting factoid:

How many Tea Partiers does it take to pay off an Obama voter's $1 Million health care claim if their policies cost $1,500 per year?

Answer: 666

The "Number of the Beast" solved. LOL

[Porchlight]

This is hilarious, from Pew of all places. They did a survey on the 21st just before the House vote to get people's one-word descriptions of Congress, and then did a Wordle word cloud (hope it comes through but I have a feeling it might cut off):

[Porchlight]

yeah, it did cut off. Sorry. But here's the link again for the whole thing: Congress Wordle

[Sue]

Stephanie,

I think it is because they can't quit their jobs because of the health insurance they are provided. They need the freedom to pursue their passion. I'm trying to decide what my passion is going to be so everyone else can pay for my health insurance. If they would also pay for my real property taxes, utilities, gasoline and groceries, me and my passion would have it made.

[Old Lurker]

Fully understand, Jim. Was just making the point that even free of government administrators and of unions, private schools are wasteful too. It is all part of "it's for the children" blindness, even by those who mean well and should know better.

[Ignatz]

--The school may be wasteful with the money if they want, it's a free country. The parents can take their business elsewhere if they don't like it.--

Precisely. Out here in the hinterlands most private schools do a measurably superior job for a small fraction of the price of the public schools.

[pagar]

"who devoted his career to health care reform"

Who devoted a part of his career at least to helping the Soviets trying to defeat America

"Kennedy offered to "undertake some additional steps to counter the militaristic, policy of Reagan and his campaign of psychological pressure on the American population." Kennedy asked for a meeting with Andropov for the purpose of "arming himself with the Soviet leader's explanations of arms control policy so he can use them later for more convincing speeches in the U.S." He also offered to help get Soviet views on the major U.S. networks and suggested inviting "Elton Rule, ABC chairman of the board, or observers Walter Cronkite or Barbara Walters to Moscow."

There is no way of knowing how much damage Sen Kennedy did to America.