What we can learn from the VA scandal

For anybody who has had to rely on the VA or military healthcare, the VA scandal comes as no surprise.  The military and our veterans have been given the awful privilege of being the first victims of single-payer healthcare in the country.  For decades the military has been subjected to government run hospitals and healthcare.  Run by the government and accountable only to the government, these healthcare systems produce results that are typical of any government program.  Veterans dying while on fake waiting lists even as government bureaucrats give themselves bonuses for reducing wait times.

Would you want the DMV to provide your healthcare?  That's not really a rhetorical question.  Functionally, that is what military members and veterans have had to put up with.  And now, thanks to the inherent (you might say intentional) flaws of Obamacare, within a few years of steadily poorer performance, all Americans will probably be subjected to it as well.  The PPACA is not designed to provide cheaper healthcare, increase wellness, reduce the deficit or do any of the other happy horse crap that Obama promised.  The PPACA was intended to be the government camel's nose in the healthcare tent; a precursor to government-run single payer healthcare.   

Why would the Democrats want the government involved in healthcare?  Well, I guess because it would make Americans dependent on the government for their healthcare.  The Democrats have seen how that worked in Europe and they want to replicate it here.  It doesn’t necessarily improve healthcare, but it does significantly increase the size, scope and power of the government.  When people are dependent on government for their healthcare they are much more likely to continue voting for the party that promises the ‘free’ healthcare.  When government pays for everybody’s healthcare it can also exercise an enormous degree of control over them.  You think bans on transfats and 16 ounce sodas are intrusive, wait until politicians and bureaucrats can use your healthcare costs as justification to control your behavior.

There are many examples both here and abroad of what happens when governments take control of healthcare; loss of economic vigor and personal freedom are the norm.  We have the benefit of learning from those examples before were irrevocably commit ourselves to that fate.  We can choose to avoid going done that destructive path.  If we do not, your quality of life and the very nature of America as we know it will both change for the worse.

CDR Salamander has a great piece on the VA scandal

 

Mainstream Media: Deaths of White Sorority Girls More Important Than Poor Blacks

Media ignore the growing death toll in Chicago-focuses on Isla Vista killer

I guess we're not supposed to think about the death toll in Chicago.  The media likes simplistic stories that create emotional reactions in their target demographics.  I guess that's why the media is obsessing over a maniac who targeted white sorority girls and is ignoring the ongoing slaughter in Chicago's poor black neighborhoods.

Fighting crime is hard.  There are no neat, easy answers.  The media likes to advance the idea that gun control will prevent these crimes.  That is a simplistic and unworkable answer to very difficult and multifaceted problems.  Illinois/Chicago and California already have some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the country.  So does Connecticut.  That didn't stop deranged killers from carrying out their evil plans and it doesn't stop gangbangers and drug dealers from killing hundreds every year in Chicago. 

Hard problems require hard solutions.  Exercises in political theater, such as gun registration, bans and magazine capacity restrictions, have been proven to be totally ineffective in reducing crime.  Real solutions are difficult and take time and money.  More police, more prisons, longer prison sentences, three strikes laws and allowing concealed carry will help fight street crime. 

It is not enough to just fight crime.  The underlying causes of crime must be addressed.  Repairing the family structure in low income neighborhoods, reduction of government dependence, providing economic opportunities and improving educational institutions is also necessary if we are to reduce crime.  They are all very difficult issues that require the long-term commitment to proven solutions, not political grandstanding or the reliance on liberal ideology that caused many of these problems.

We also need to seriously reevaluate how we deal with mental illness and childhood development.  All too often children, especially boys, are given drugs to deal with behavioral issues, whether they are actual problems or just young boys acting like young boys.  There are many reasons behind this growing trend; lazy parents and school staff, over-eager doctors and cultural expectations of quick, easy answers to difficult problems.  Whatever the reason, the child that is being medicated is the one that will ultimately suffer.  They aren't learning the important socialization skills necessary for development into happy, productive adults.  They are dependent on drugs.  By the time they are adolescents or young adults they have not learned how to deal with the problems of everyday life. 

It is not surprising that most of the mass shootings that have taken place in the last quarter century have been committed by young men who have been on psychotropic drugs.  In many of those mass killings there have been people, often certified mental healthcare professionals, who have known of the danger posed by the shooter.  Laws and regulations often prevent those mental healthcare providers from notifying appropriate law enforcement agencies.  Verbal and written statements clearly indicating a threat to others often are not sufficient to have the mentally ill person committed for treatment or even have them identified as not being allowed to purchase firearms.

We will never be able to prevent all crimes by the mentally ill or evil, but we must do more than we are currently.  Our efforts must be focused on the criminal and the factors that create the criminal behavior.

"Hypocrisy we much!"

Hypocrisy comes standard.  The irony is just a bonus.

It's OK when democrats steal real elections (that have real consequences) via voter fraud, but Rev. Al reserves his outrage for a meaningless web vote about children's books. Just another example of the immorality and hypocrisy of the left. 
Win power by any means necessary! Silence the opposition by any means necessary! This is how nations descend into tyranny.

Liberal Priorities

Constitutional rights mean nothing to a politician chasing votes

Connecticut's Democrat Governor, Dannel Malloy, is more than happy to restrict the natural right of self-defense, infringe 2nd Amendment rights and make criminals of law-abiding citizens, but he has to draw the line at banning chocolate milk. Liberal priorities? Political expediency? Whatever; same thing.

Russia regains #1 ranking in agitprop tourney

Pro-Kremlin video portrays Ukraine invading Russia

Russia has once again taken the #1 ranking in the international agitation and propaganda tournament.  After years of mediocre performance in the field, Russia has regained the glory of the Soviet years.  The temporary fall of the Soviet Union was a serious blow to the Russian agitprop program.  The inventor of the modern form of agitprop was hit hard by democratic reforms in the Yeltsin era.  Tass, Pravda and Izvestia, once world leaders in the field, lost focus; distracted by their new-found freedoms. 

With the fall of the Russian agitprop dynasty, the playing field was leveled.  New faces seemed to come to the fore every year.  Baghdad Bob and his team of young Iraqi talent and CNN veterans made good showings in the 1990 and '91 tourneys.  And who can forget their Cinderella win in the 2003 season?  So many highlights from that year. 

"They're not even [within] 100 miles [of Baghdad]. They are not in any place. They hold no place in Iraq. This is an illusion ... they are trying to sell to the others an illusion."

"God will roast their stomachs in hell at the hands of Iraqis."

This is the stuff of which champions are made.

With no historically strong programs competing in the late 90's, every year seemed to produce a new contender.  The Hamas-Pallywood team performed well; especially among Western audiences.  Hugo Chavez had his moments of fame as did the Kim Dynasty in the DPRK.  

Coming into the new century brought new players into the spotlight.   Capitalizing on the momentum of the Democratic National Committee's 2000 vote fraud triumph, Al Gore went on to his own victory with his global warming squad.  A well-balanced team of climate hucksters, Hollywood liberals and the Nobel Prize committee brought Algore the accomplishment that no amount of dimpled chads ever could.  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his swarthy band of Photoshopping imams were surprise winners following Algore. 

Then, out of the chaos, came a new agitprop powerhouse; the American Mainstream Media.  The MSM established itself with brash campaigns such as "No Blood For Oil", "Bush Lied, People Died" and Bush Caused Global Warming to Kill All the Blacks In New Orleans."  The American MSM quickly racked up nine straight wins.  Talk around the water cooler was that the American Mainstream Media was the next great agitprop dynasty.  While they looked strong, Russia was quietly developing plans to knock them off.

Under GM/CEO/Godfather/President-For-Life Vladimir Putin and Coach Viktor Bolshytskaya, the Russian team has been training hard.  They knew it wouldn't be easy, but they saw that victory was in their grasp.  In a recent interview, Bolshytskaya discussed how Russia returned to power.

"Amerikansky Mainstream Media was once strong, but now allied with weak, lame duck leader.  This where Russia win.  Russian leader strong-like bear.  Fight tiger and kill moose-bare hands only.  President for life with bare chest virility and loins filled machismo.  Not crippled duck in mom jeans."

Bolshytskaya added this about Russia's stunning return to the top of the rankings

"Winning no problem.  Like stealing vodka from slow children.  Mom Jeans say red line.  Putin make number 2 on red line.....and on Mom Jeans shoes." 

Will the Russians stay on top?  Is this the start of the new dynasty?  Only time will tell, but with their current performance you have to think that they are back to stay. 

We are waiting for your apology

Lois Lerner sent privileged tax info to Cummings

I guess Elijah Cummings, the Democrat party and all the race baiting parrots in the mainstream media owe Derrell Issa a f*cking apology right now. Cummings lied, Lerner lied and if they weren't so busy obstructing justice we would have evidence that Obama lied about this just as he lied about Obamacare, Benghazi, Fast and Furious, Solyndra, GM, the Stimulus, and every other damn thing that has come out of his pie hole over the last five years. It is time for impeachment proceedings.

Update: Elijah faces up to 5 years in federal pound me in the ass prison

Safegaurding our borders

 Nigella Lawson denied entry to the United States

God forbid we allow a television personality who occasionally snorts a little coke to enter the country.  We don't need people like that coming to our country.  After all, we already have Tony Bourdain.

I wouldn't be outraged by this if the CBP/Border Patrol had stopped the massive flow of illegal immigrants into this country.  If we had solved THAT problem maybe we could, with good conscience, focus on the lawful traveler with some moral blemishes in their past.  But we don't.  We give lip service to protecting our borders while harassing the friggin' British equivalent of Martha Stewart.

This is what a bloated bureaucracy does.  It is completely incapable of confronting real problems but is perfectly suited to harassing the law abiding citizens just trying to go about their lives without having the hand of government around their neck.  The 'shoe bomber', the 'panty bomber', the Boston marathon bombers all got on planes to the United States with no problem.  Hell, the government even got advanced warning for the panty bomber and the Tsarnaev brothers, but did nothing to keep them from coming to America.  Tons of drugs and hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants-many of them dangerous criminals-stream across our border every year and the head of DHS tells us that the the border has never been more secure.  And even after capturing dangerous criminal aliens the DHS just releases them back into the population rather than deporting them.

Bureaucratic inertia, political correctness and the wrong-headed policies of an incompetent, liberal administration all create an environment where the DHS is unable to identify and act on on real threats; however, like all giant bureaucracies, it is more than capable of inflicting an insufferable regulatory stranglehold on the average citizen.  Bureaucracies are great at regulating the life and vitality out of any population.  They work great at making the law-abiding, compliant citizenship follow the rules.  They are highly effective at surviving and expanding.  Got a real problem?  Look elsewhere for your answer.

Popular stereotypes of right-wing groups are badly flawed.......shocker!

 German academics and Leftist Israeli newspaper shocked to find that Right-wing extremists not responsible for most anti-Semitic hate mail 

Photo credit: Zombie @ http://zombietime.com/

That right-wing extremists are not the source of the vast majority of anti-Semitic hate male is not the story.  What should be noted is the shock of the academics that it is other academics, lawyers, university students and those in the social mainstream who are the most common spewers of anti-Semitic hatred.  The Left has created a stereotype that couples conservative, right-wing ideology and organizations with Naziism.

The Left never wants to engage in logical debate.  They cannot win in any contest of fact and logic.  So instead of honestly arguing their position they attack the character of their opponent.  The Left has resorted to this tactic so many times, their description of the Right has become nothing but a hollow stereotype.  These stereotypes have become so pervasive they are now accepted as simple, undeniable truth by the Left.

We see with this story the shock and dismay of these researchers when they discover that it is their own community that is behind the anti-Semitic hatred.  Any conservative could have told you this long ago.  We have seen the disturbing rise of antisemitism in the Left going back to the 80's.  Universities are awash in antisemitic vitriol.    But these academics were blind to it.  They have been surrounded by anti-Semites for decades but could not lift their ideological blinders and see what is going on around them.  That is not surprising.  The Left is remarkable in its willingness to submit to groupthink.  The Left never lets little things like fact and common sense distract it from its ultimate objective.

Another little peak into dark soul of the Left.  Oh, don't expect to see this reported in the mainstream media.  It doesn't fit their narrative.  Republicans are racists!  War on women!   Bush = Hitler!!!!

Ya' think?

A little slow at drawing this painfully obvious conclusion.

Increased domestic spending behind massive proposed defense cuts