Category Archives: Health

Business, Economics, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

The Real Anti-Science Party

96 Comments

No, @ChrisMooney, it’s not the Republicans.

[Update a few minutes later]

Whoops. Just read more of it. This is a little out to lunch:

Take the NASA portfolio, for example, where the president unceremoniously cancelled the Constellation plan over the objections of both parties and both chambers of Congress. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan, hardly partisan bomb throwers, highlighted this in testimony before the House Science Committee on multiple occasions, pleading, “now is the time to overrule this Administration’s pledge to mediocrity.”

Constellation had absolutely nothing to do with science, and both Armstrong and Cernan were notoriously uninformed about it, relying on nonsense fed them by friends in Houston and Huntsville. Things like this damage the credibility of the rest of the piece in the minds of people who understand space policy.

Business, Economics, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society

By Any Other Name

17 Comments

OK, so what’s to keep someone, or multiple someones (competition!) from setting up off-shore gambling sites where, based on their age, gender, medical and family history, people can make bets on whether or not their annual medical expenses will exceed some selected amount? Currency controls?

The fact that the federal government would fight this is a stark testament to what a huge encroachment on liberty this monstrosity is.

Business, Economics, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

President Scam Artist

15 Comments

If Barack Obama were in the private sector, he’d be prosecuted for fraud:

Justice Department guidelines, set forth in the U.S. Attorneys Manual, recommend prosecution for fraud in situations involving “any scheme which in its nature is directed to defrauding a class of persons, or the general public, with a substantial pattern of conduct.” So, for example, if a schemer were intentionally to deceive all Americans, or a class of Americans (e.g., people who had health insurance purchased on the individual market), by repeating numerous times — over the airwaves, in mailings, and in electronic announcements — an assertion the schemer knew to be false and misleading, that would constitute an actionable fraud — particularly if the statements induced the victims to take action to their detriment, or lulled the victims into a false sense of security.

For a fraud prosecution to be valid, the fraudulent scheme need not have been successful. Nor is there any requirement that the schemer enrich himself personally. The prosecution must simply prove that some harm to the victim was contemplated by the schemer. If the victim actually was harmed, that is usually the best evidence that harm was what the schemer intended.

Of course, there’s nothing new about that. Social Security has been a Ponzi scheme since its inception.

[Update a couple minutes later]

I would note that there is only one constitutional remedy to a president who engages in criminal activity. The Republicans should at least contemplate it as a potential campaign issue next fall, as the president’s poll numbers continue to tank.

Business, Economics, Health, Political Commentary

A Legal Death-Blow To Obamacare?

33 Comments

So, looks like the Seventh Circuit is racist:

We hold that the plaintiffs — the business owners and their companies — may challenge the mandate. We further hold that compelling them to cover those services substantially burdens their religious-exercise rights. Under RFRA the government must justify the burden under the standard of strict scrutiny. So far it has not done so, and we doubt that it can.

We know that the administration will appeal this, and it seems pretty likely that SCOTUS will take it up. It also seems pretty likely that they’ll uphold the Seventh Circuit. So the real question is, given the lack of a severability clause, in doing so, will Roberts take the opportunity to rectify his screw up last year, and void the entire law?

Business, Economics, Education, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

A Message To Millennials

9 Comments

Kurt Schlichter expresses his gratitude:

I have been told that being hard on you Millennials will turn you against conservatism, that I should offer you a positive, hopeful message that avoids the touchy problem of your manifest stupidity.

No. There’s no sugar-coating it – your votes for Democrats have ensured that you are the first generation in American history that will fail to exceed what their parents attained. Embracing liberalism was a stupid thing to do, done for the stupidest of reasons, and I will now let you subsidize my affluent lifestyle without a shred of guilt.

I’m a 48 year old trial lawyer living on the coast in California – I should have “Hope and Change” tattooed on my glutes. I’d have an excuse to be lib-curious, but you Millennials? Why do you support an ideology that pillages you to pay-off Democrat constituencies? Your time in the indoctrination factories of academia trained you in a form of “critical thinking” that is neither. Somehow, you came to embrace the bizarre notion that conservatives are psychotic Jesus freaks who want to Footloosisze America into a land of mandatory Sunday school and no dancing.

But liberals, in contrast, are nice. Obama is cool. You chose petty fascism with a smile. Not a lot of thought went into it. Facts, evidence – these were mere distractions from the feelings-based validation that came from rejecting us wicked conservatives.

What did you get? The chance to be forced to buy health insurance you don’t want at inflated rates so my rates can be lower. You get to pay more out of your monthly barista take – liberalism ensured that the tanked job market foreclosed a real career – so that I get to pay less out of my lawyer checks. Thanks, suckers.

RTWT.

[Update a few minutes later]

Hey, remember back in 2008, when Barack was going to make government cool again?

Idiots.