The local and national media are full of stories about the massive H1N1 vaccine shortage and canceled vaccination clinics. But I haven't seen any finger-pointing or even serious inquiries into why this has been such a cluster-f**k. Well, Be John Galt gathered a sampling of exactly such stories, pointing the finger at the President, and even one about a congressional investigation, led by Rep. Henry Waxman, which determined that the administration should have prevented the vaccine crisis.
Oh, wait — they're not about this year's 100-million-dose shortage of H1N1 vaccine. They're about the far more modest — and far less serious — shortage of regular flu vaccine in 2004. They're about blaming Bush!
Almost nobody is interested in doing that sort of pointed inquiry and allocation of blame this year. Even though this time (unlike in 2004 and other years) it's a 100% federal government operation. Every single dose of H1N1 vaccine produced is turned over to and distributed by the federal government. The Obama administration insisted on that. Can't leave such things to the market, can we? It might not restrict the vaccine to "high-priority people with no medical coverage," i.e., the down-trodden and disadvantaged.
And almost nobody in the media is interested in asking why there are so few vaccine producers (only about half a dozen, as I recall, mostly foreign). That might bring up the fact that scores of pharmaceutical manufacturers have stopped all vaccine production in the last few years due to the tremendous liability risks. And that might lead to questions about why tort reform is completely off the table in the Democrat's various plans for "reforming" health care.
The Institute for Justice is one of my favorite non-profits. This "merry band of libertarian litigators" just keeps finding wonderful ways of using the courts and the court of public opinion to fight for individual liberty, especially economic liberty. And they keep winning. IJ has been the leader in the fight against eminent domain abuse and for school choice, and it's helped countless minority entrepreneurs overcome arbitrary and discriminatory licensing laws, regulations, and other barriers to entry erected by governments.
On Wednesday, IJ and a diverse group of plaintiffs took on another stupid and unconstitutional law against capitalist acts between consenting adults — and this time there are many lives at stake. Flynn v. Holder seeks to overturn the ban on compensating marrow cell donors:
Every year, 1,000 Americans die because they cannot find a matching bone marrow donor. Minorities are hit especially hard. Common sense suggests that offering modest incentives to attract more bone marrow donors would be worth pursuing, but federal law makes that a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
That is why on October 28, 2009, adults with deadly blood diseases, the parents of sick children, a California nonprofit and a world-renowned medical doctor who specializes in bone marrow research joined with the Institute for Justice to sue the U.S. Attorney General to put an end to a ban on offering compensation to bone marrow donors.
The National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) of 1984 treats compensating marrow donors as though it were black-market organ sales. Under NOTA, giving a college student a scholarship or a new homeowner a mortgage payment for donating marrow could land everyone—doctors, nurses, donors and patients—in federal prison for up to five years.
NOTA’s criminal ban violates equal protection because it arbitrarily treats renewable bone marrow like nonrenewable solid organs instead of like other renewable or inexhaustible cells—such as blood—for which compensated donation is legal. That makes no sense because bone marrow, unlike organs such as kidneys, replenishes itself in just a few weeks after it is donated, leaving the donor whole once again. The ban also violates substantive due process because it irrationally interferes with the right to participate in safe, accepted, lifesaving, and otherwise legal medical treatment.
Jeff Rowes, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, said, “The only thing the bone marrow provision of the National Organ Transplant Act appears to accomplish is unnecessary deaths. A victory in this case will not only give hope to thousands facing deadly diseases, but also reaffirm bedrock principles about constitutional protection for individual liberty.”
Read the rest to learn about the people involved and their compelling stories.
It's the time of year when I make the bulk of my charitable contributions, and IJ is always near the top of my list. This suit strikes me as a terrific cause, so I'm going to donate online right now. Won't you help, too?
HT: Megan McArdle, whose column about this in the Atlantic I strongly recommend.
The Wall Street Journal has a wonderful opinion piece by Daniel Henninger that I think really explains why the polling numbers have gone so south on all the variations of ObamaCare (and on Obama and Congress, too):
In a world defined by nearly 100,000 iPhone apps, a world of seemingly limitless, self-defined choice, the Democrats are pushing the biggest, fattest, one-size-fits all legislation since 1965. And they brag this will complete the dream Franklin D. Roosevelt had in 1939.
…
Everything about the health-care exercise is looking very old hat, starting with the old guys working on it. Max Baucus, Patrick Leahy, Pete Stark—all were elected to Congress in the 1970s, and live on as the immortals in Washington's Forever Land. But it's more than the fact that Congress looks old. The health-care bill is big, complex, incomprehensible and coercive—all the things people hate nowadays.
…
The larger point here isn't necessarily partisan. It's a description of the way people live their lives in a 21st century world, and how disconnected politics has become from that world.
If we were really living in the world of leading-edge politics that many people thought they were getting with Barack Obama, he would have proposed an iPhone for health care—a flexible system for which all sorts of users could create or choose health-care apps that suited their needs. Over time, with trial and error, a better system would emerge.
No chance of that. Our outdated political software can't recognize trial and error. What ObamaCare is doing with health care—the "public option"—may be fine with the activist left, but I suspect it's starting to strike many younger Americans as at odds with their lives, as not somewhere they want to go. Wait until EPA's ghost busters start enforcing cap-and-trade.
I think he's spot-on, but the House Democrats certainly don't get it. They're doubling down — almost literally. After declaring the other day that they want a do-over (I think they called it a "reset"), they've now revealed that they have a new, improved health care bill. The old one was 1012 pages. The new one is just shy of 2000.
Yesterday was the 45th anniversary of the TV broadcast "Rendezvous with Destiny," a 30-minute campaign commercial for Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, delivered by Ronald Reagan. It was a variation of a speech called "A Time for Choosing," padded with some "vote for Goldwater because…" stuff.
Reagan delivered this speech many times in 1964, including when he nominated Sen. Goldwater at the Republican National Convention. Reagan fans of a sufficient age have always just called it "The Speech." It is as meaningful today as it was in 1964. These excerpts are (despite what the intro at this site says) from his nominating speech at the convention:
It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, "We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government."
This idea — that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power — is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream–the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order — or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits."
The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.
Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, "What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power." But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.
…
They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. …
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.
Hat tip to Rush Limbaugh for reminding me (albeit a day late) and for these quotes:
"In holding up Reagan, we're not holding up a man, a cult of personality figure. We're holding up principles. We're reminding people of how the country was founded." — Rush
"If you think that the era of Reagan is over simply because the external threat of the Soviet Union was beaten down, you have missed the whole point. Reagan was talking about tyranny, liberty, and freedom, and freedom is always threatened, always has to be fought for." — Rush
Just one year ago, would you have believed that an unelected government official, not even a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate but simply one of the many "czars" appointed by the President, could arbitrarily cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50 percent or 90 percent?
Did you think that another "czar" would be talking about restricting talk radio? That there would be plans afloat to subsidize newspapers — that is, to create a situation where some newspapers' survival would depend on the government liking what they publish?
Did you imagine that anyone would even be talking about having a panel of so-called "experts" deciding who could and could not get life-saving medical treatments?
Scary as that is from a medical standpoint, it is also chilling from the standpoint of freedom. If you have a mother who needs a heart operation or a child with some dire medical condition, how free would you feel to speak out against an administration that has the power to make life and death decisions about your loved ones?
Does any of this sound like America?
How about a federal agency giving school children material to enlist them on the side of the president? Merely being assigned to sing his praises in class is apparently not enough.
How much of America would be left if the federal government continued on this path? …
It's definitely a "man bites dog" event when a CBS-affiliated local TV news department headlines a story "Global Cooling Causes Fish Kill In Cherry Creek":
DENVER (CBS4) – A major fish kill was reported Tuesday afternoon in Cherry Creek in downtown Denver.
Dead fish were spotted from Confluence Park upstream to Speer Boulevard. The fish were small, between two to four inches long. They were floating in the swift current and sloughing off on the banks of the creek.
…
The Division Of Wildlife said the kill came as a result of global cooling.
I'm sure the DOW really said something about "recent cooling" or the like, referring to the weather, not climate. And I'm certain that legions of climate change watchdogs are contacting CBS4Denver at this moment, and the offending phrase will soon be scrubbed from the story. But it gave me a laugh. Here's the original preserved for posterity:
First they went after executives at bailed-out companies, and I did not speak out because I was not an executive at one of those companies.
President Barack Obama has welcomed plans to force some companies which accepted government aid during the financial crisis to cut executive pay.
Firms paying bosses vast bonuses while getting state assistance offended peoples' values, the president said.
Under Treasury plans, seven companies must slash the basic salaries of their 25 best-paid employees by up to 90%.
…
As well as its top-earners facing a 90% pay cut, the total paid to each firm's 125 top earners would be halved under the proposals.
Then they went after bankers in general, and I did not speak out because I was not a banker.
The Federal Reserve’s new push to regulate pay levels of bankers probably won’t include a review of your friendly neighborhood branch manager’s salary.
But the Fed made clear Thursday that it will be looking at compensation arrangements beyond the executive suites of the 6,000-some banks it regulates.
…
Bottom line: The obsession with financial companies' pay levels, far from reaching a peak, is just ramping up.
Then they hinted at going after all private sector employees, and I did not speak out because I was too stunned.
Discussing Obama administration efforts to limit executive pay in companies that took TARP funds, on Thursday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith asked Congressional Oversight Panel Chair Elizabeth Warren: “Chuck Schumer, some others, have said…why wouldn’t we…make this law across the board and put a governor on compensation for everybody in private enterprise?’”
Warren seemed very open to the idea: “Well you know, it reminds us that there is a compensation problem in American industry….executive compensation right now is – has got the wrong set of incentives in it….what we really need to do are change the basic laws to align the incentives of the executives with the long-term health of the company and ultimately the long-term health of the economy.”
Game Three of the 2009 National League Division Series between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field in Colorado has been postponed due to inclement weather, and has been rescheduled for Sunday at 8:07 p.m. mountain time.
Game Four has been moved to Monday. Those fans with tickets for Game Three will now be able to use them only for Sunday's game at 8:07 p.m. mountain time.
Those fans with tickets for Game Four will be able to use them for Monday's game.
The problem isn't precip — we have light snow falling right now, but it should end by early afternoon. The problem is the cold. The low this morning was 17° F., shattering the old record low of 25° set in 1905. At 10 AM, it's all the way up to 19°, and windy enough to make it feel considerably colder.
I doubt we'll even come close to the record low high for the date of 34°, and we'll have record cold again tonight. When the gloves feel like cinder blocks, it's not exactly baseball weather.
Global warming is like the police — it's never around when you really need it.
Having served ten eleven days in office when nominations closed, President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I think he was nominated by Joe Biden. For being so clean and articulate.
The Nobel committee lost all credibility when they awarded the Peace Prize to the murdering terrorist Arafat. But that was disgusting. This is just so utterly absurd that you have to laugh.
UPDATE: I'd love to have been a fly on the wall when Bill Clinton got the news.
Remember when they promised us the $780 billion in "stimulus" spending would produce jobs, funding shovel-ready projects that would get the economy moving? Not in Detroit. There, they just created a lottery for free money. Instead of creating jobs, they stimulated a chaotic mob scene, with fights and injuries and a near-riot. Welcome to Obama's redistributionist America.
Via The Virginian, here are a couple of transcripts of WJR's Ken Rogulski interviewing some free money lottery participants (emphasis added):
ROGULSKI: Why are you here? WOMAN #1: To get some money. ROGULSKI: What kind of money? WOMAN #1: Obama money. ROGULSKI: Where's it coming from? WOMAN #1: Obama. ROGULSKI: And where did Obama get it? WOMAN #1: I don't know, his stash. I don't know. (laughter) I don't know where he got it from, but he givin' it to us, to help us. WOMAN #2: And we love him. WOMAN #1: We love him. That's why we voted for him! WOMEN: (chanting) Obama! Obama! Obama! (laughing)
And the other one:
ROGULSKI: Did you get an application to fill out yet? WOMAN: I sure did. And I filled it out, and I am waiting to see what the results are going to be. ROGULSKI: Will you know today how much money you're getting? WOMAN: No, I won't, but I'm waiting for a phone call. ROGULSKI: Where's the money coming from? WOMAN: I believe it's coming from the City of Detroit or the state. ROGULSKI: Where did they get it from? WOMAN: Some funds that was forgiven (sic) by Obama. ROGULSKI: And where did Obama get the funds? WOMAN: Obama getting the funds from… Ummm, I have no idea, to tell you the truth. He's the president. ROGULSKI: In downtown Detroit, Ken Rogulski, WJR News.
You can't imagine how much that depresses me.
Gregory of Yardale at Moonbattery thinks this is the model Obama citizen:
There you have the core of the Democrat base, someone lining up for money the government has taken away from someone else (future generations, in this case), who has done nothing to earn it, who doesn't give a damb where it came from, and is happy that Obama is looking out for her.
And Tim Geithner's bailout buddies at Goldman Sachs are no better.
I'd amend Gregory's assessment slightly. These aren't model citizens, they're model subjects.
On the last day of summer, amidst unusually cold weather and an early natural snowfall, Loveland Ski Area fired up its snowmaking machinery. Tomorrow morning, it opens for the season:
"We took advantage of the cold temperatures and got an early start making snow this year. Those extra days paid off and we are opening a week earlier than last season," Snowmaking and Trail Maintenance Manager Eric Johnstone said in a prepared statement. "Now we can move some equipment to other trails and try to open more terrain as quickly as possible."
Loveland will open with an 18-inch base on the opening day run, which includes three trails totaling over a mile in length.
Arapahoe Basin, which usually competes with Loveland to open first, said snowmaking is going well there and will open on Friday at 9 a.m.
It's the earliest opening in 40 years, and it follows one of the coolest summers on record (both in Colorado and nationally), with numerous low temperature records and mountain snows in late July. But that won't stop the global warming zealots from continuing to predict that Colorado's ski industry is doomed.
The President had quite a photo op in the Rose Garden yesterday. He was surrounded by 150 physicians in white lab coats as he made yet another pitch for a government-controlled health care system. At least we're told they were physicians, and if one of them whispered "I am not a doctor, but I play one at the White House," no one heard it.
But the White House staff handed out the doctor costumes, so they could have handed them to anyone, and we'd be none the wiser:
A sea of 150 white-coated doctors, all enthusiastically supportive of the president and representing all 50 states, looked as if they were at a costume party as they posed in the Rose Garden before hearing Obama's pitch for the Democratic overhaul bills moving through Congress.
The physicians, all invited guests, were told to bring their white lab coats to make sure that TV cameras captured the image.
But some docs apparently forgot, failing to meet the White House dress code by showing up in business suits or dresses.
So the White House rustled up white coats for them and handed them to the suited physicians who had taken seats in the sun-splashed lawn area.
…
The president was flanked by four white-coated doctors at a podium as he delivered his pep talk.
"When you cut through all the noise and all the distractions that are out there, I think what's most telling is that some of the people who are most supportive of reform are the very medical professionals who know the health-care system best," the president said.
Ha! I think what's really most telling is that in a September IBD/TIPP poll, two-thirds of doctors oppose the Democrats' health care proposals and a stunning 45% would consider closing their practices or retiring early if they're enacted.
The suggestion that most physicians support Obamacare is, like so much else coming out of this administration, pure make-believe. So it wouldn't surprise me if they used some make-believe doctors.
This past weekend, eight American soldiers were killed and 24 wounded at Camp Keating, a remote outpost in Afghanistan. The Taliban forces used a mosque and a village as cover, and set a wildfire to force U.S. forces to retreat from their perimeter.
Karen Russo of ABC News, on a MEDEVAC helicopter flying into the camp, was the only journalist on the scene. She reported (emphasis added):
Flying into the besieged Afghan base during a nighttime firefight this weekend was a harrowing mix of overwhelming noise, stomach dropping maneuvers and shadows hurrying through the gloom.
When the chopper lifted off moments later with three wounded soldiers, it left behind others who were wounded but refused to be MEDEVACED out of the combat zone so they could return to fight with their buddies.
That moved me. And it reminded me of a Ronald Reagan quote. This is from 1974, when he was governor of California:
Where did we find such men? They are typical of this land as the Founding Fathers were typical. We found them in our streets, in the offices, the shops and the working places of our country and on the farms.
Indeed we did. And, I sincerely hope, we always will. RTWT.
I only wish we had a commander in chief with the same courage, fortitude, and commitment to victory as those brave soldiers at Camp Keating.
Today is the birthday of both Mohandas Gandhi and Julius “Groucho” Marx. In their honor, here is my favorite quote from each (but I’m not going to tell you which is which).
Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.
Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.
